Clinton unleashes Democratic dream team
A handful of high-wattage surrogates are being dispatched as part of the anti-Trump effort.
The vice president’s presence on the trail is the one that’s most telling to Democrats close to the Clinton campaign, who have been waiting for months for the triumvirate of Obama, Biden, and Warren to take to the battleground states and amplify the former secretary of state’s anti-Trump barrage. To them, it signals the arrival of a new phase of the campaign in which the highest-profile Democrats imaginable, likely including former President Bill Clinton and possibly Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders, join Hillary Clinton in making the case against the presumptive GOP nominee — and for her.
.. “The Republicans also have a lot of talent, but they don’t want to be associated with Donald Trump.”
.. Sending him into Scranton, his hometown (and the city where Clinton’s father grew up), gives Biden the chance to help defend Pennsylvania for Democrats after Trump has promised to put it into play with his appeal to blue collar and middle-class white men whose industries have been hit hard by multinational trade deals.
.. Painting Trump as a threat to laborers’ way of life, the materials directly echo the message that party officials expect to hear from Biden.
“That’s what he did in ’08 and ’12. He’s reprising that role,” said former Pennsylvania Gov. and Democratic National Committee Chairman Ed Rendell. “Where surrogates have an effect is not necessarily in persuasion. It’s about turnout. Joe can remind the blue collar, white working class guys of all the things that the Republican Party has done to deny them help.”