“There is no question but that she is going back to the Hillary Clinton of old,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a New York-based Democratic strategist who has worked with Clinton in the past but is not doing so in this campaign.
“The politics are less complicated. In order to win back the center she has to be seen as significantly more hawkish. Look at the data every day — it is no longer only Republicans who hold him [Obama] in less than high esteem on national security.”
Sheinkopf suggested that the advantages to Clinton of adopting a more aggressive posture on national security and ISIS more than outweighed any drawbacks when it came alienating progressives.
Back in 2008, liberals held Clinton’s Senate vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq against her during her epic primary struggle against Obama, then an Illinois senator.
“The skepticism from 2008 doesn’t matter anymore because there are daily murders in Israel, and murders in Mali and murders in Nigeria and murders in Paris,” he said. “That all changes the equation.”
