Hillary Strategy: Call Trump Racist

Hillary Clinton has launched her first ad aimed at Republican front-runner Donald Trump, previewing the kind of attack Trump will be under if he wins the nomination and faces the leading Democrat.

And it comes on top of a deluge Trump has already incurred from his fellow Republicans, making him perhaps one of the most vilified presidential candidates in recent memory.

The ad will air in New York, where voters will cast ballots in the Democratic primary on April 19. But her race against Sen. Bernie Sanders increasingly is becoming an afterthought as the former secretary of state builds an insurmountable delegate lead. She barely mentions him on the campaign trail anymore, instead focusing on an expected campaign against Trump.

The ad, which features a montage of New Yorkers of different races, highlights the state’s diversity. It does not mention Trump by name; the only reference to the real estate mogul is a brief image of one of his campaign signs. But there is no mistaking that Trump is the target of her message.

It suggests, in essence, that Trump is racist.

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“So when some say we can solve America’s problems by building walls, banning people based on their religion and turning against each other, well, this is New York,” she intones. “And we know better.”

The Clinton ad comes on top of a deluge that Trump already has endured from his Republican opponents and super PACs arrayed against him.

An Associated Press examination of ads tracked by Kantar Media counted 68 different anti-Trump ads that have been aired 40,000 times on broadcast channels over the past year. That is about 10 percent of all political ads during that time frame. Some hit Trump for hypocrisy or flip-flops. A Cruz ad showed a montage of clips showing old Trump statements voicing liberal views. Another plays conflicting Trump statements on health care. A similar ad in February by Our Principles PAC, a group run by a former Mitt Romney aide, showed Trump praising Hillary, endorsing partial-birth abortion and disparaging guns.

“I really believe the Republicans [are] too crazy right,” he says in a 1990s interview with Tim Russert, then the host of “Meet the Press.”

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Our Principles PAC accused Trump of hiring illegal immigrants on construction projects. Another group, AmericanFuture Fund, aired ads with people claiming to have been defrauded by Trump University, a real estate seminar to which the real estate tycoon had lent his name.

Other ads seem like they could have come straight from Clinton’s campaign. An Our Principles PAC ad produced this month shows a series of women reading Trump quotes about women. Tag line: “If you believe America deserves better, vote against Donald Trump.”

Clinton boosters are taking notes. “It’s interesting to watch Republican super PACs as a kind of test run for the kinds of things we would do,” Clinton surrogate David Brock told the AP.

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Expect more Clinton attacks as the campaign moves forward. The tone is likely to grow more strident and urgent — and more explicitly anti-Trump — as Nov. 8 draws closer.

Clinton’s path to victory in the fall hinges on her ability to reassemble the coalition that delivered two victories to President Obama — young people, blacks and Hispanics. With historically high negatives, herself, that may be no small feat.

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Young voters have rejected her by epic proportions in primary voting. And while she almost certainly will win black and Hispanic voters, it is far from certain that those key demographic groups will turn out in the same numbers that Obama drew to the polls in 2008 and 2012. Ads like this are designed to rouse those voters by depicting Trump as a threat.

Fear can be a powerful political motivator, and Clinton needs minority voters to fear the likely Republican nominee. Those votes will be needed to counter Trump’s strength among white voters — particularly white, male voters.

And if Trump should falter and fail to win the GOP nomination? Sen. Ted Cruz — or virtually any other Republican — easily can be inserted in Trumps starring role in Clinton’s attack ads.