Former President Bill Clinton complained about the mainstream media, Republicans, and made a bold prediction in his latest interview: Democrats could win the 2022 midterms and hold both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
And he said he had a plan.
CNN host Fareed Zakaria started the interview by praising Democrats and President Joe Biden and asked whether that gave Clinton hope.
“When you look at the midterm, because of abortion and the passing of some very important bills” by President Joe Biden and Democrats, “could Biden break the historical pattern of midterms going badly” for the party in charge?
“Certainly. We could hold both these houses. But we have to say the right things,” Clinton said.
“And we have to know that the Republicans always close well,” he continued. “Why? Because they find some new way to scare the living daylights out of the swing voters about something.”
“That’s what they did in 2021 when they made Critical Race Theory sound worse than smallpox,” Clinton said. “And it wasn’t being taught in any public school in America,” he said without evidence.
“But [Republicans] don’t care. They just want to scare people.”
Clinton said the plan was winning these independent swing voters, the same as in the 1990s, except there are far fewer independents because of the extremes in the Democratic and Republican Party.
He acknowledged that winning moderates is “much harder now” for the Democrats than it was just 30 years ago – in part because politicians are more visible.
“Politics is about other people,” he said. “And the problem with the culture war is that it always tries to turn it back to the politicians. ‘What’s wrong with them?’ And this is what the press has to guard against.”
“Because, if you have to worry about daily ratings, the drama of two people duking it out is far more profoundly effective,” Clinton claimed, and complained that the modern media always helps conservatives.
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