NY Times Sends Warning Shot to GOP Over Hillary's Classified Emails: Ease Off

By Clay Waters | July 27, 2015 | 9:23 PM EDT

On Monday morning, New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan, facing an outcry from her paper's liberal readership, fretted over its coverage of the investigation into Hillary Clinton sending private emails containing classified material. The print edition sent a similar message to Republicans who might dare to use the issue against Clinton on the road to the White House: Ease off. Willie Horton and the "war on women" trope also make appearances as further warning of the alleged perils of Republican overreach.

Reporters Maggie Haberman (pictured) and Ashley Parker suggested GOP presidential candidates tread lightly: "Focus on Clinton's Emails Forces Republicans to Weigh Risks of Criticism." The very lede of Haberman and Parker's story has a tired, "here we go again" quality in its lament over the "latest chapter in the continuing story."

The latest chapter in the continuing story of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department emails has presented Republican presidential candidates with a new opportunity to attack Mrs. Clinton, traditionally something popular with their party’s voters, and some of them lost no time doing it.

First out on Friday were Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, who both called for Justice Department investigations. Others followed over the weekend -- Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky; Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard; and the businessman Donald J. Trump, who, not surprisingly, had the sharpest words on the subject.

“The fact is that what she has done is criminal,” Mr. Trump said Sunday on “State of the Union” on CNN, alluding to what he called a potential cover-up involving the Department of Justice. “I don’t see how she can run.”

Many other prominent Republicans, however, were more restrained. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, for example, spoke Friday in the broader context of Clinton-related “drama,” and Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, said nothing. In part, their reluctance was a reaction to the complexity of the email controversy.

But it also appeared to reflect the thinking of campaign operatives and outside groups that are looking past the Republican primaries and toward a general election race against a woman who has often benefited from rivals who swung too hard.

Haberman and Parker -- just as Times reporters before them -- denigrate the congressional truth-finding efforts on Benghazi as mere partisan attacks by vengeful Republicans.

....The work of trying to damage Mrs. Clinton has been essentially outsourced to the congressional committees that have investigated the events leading up to and after the 2012 attacks on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya.

The Times dredged up the Democratic "war on women" card that worked for them in 2012.

Yet the challenge for Republicans is not just how to deal with Mrs. Clinton but how to do better in attracting the support of her most loyal constituency -- women.

In 2012, President Obama won the votes of women by a margin of 11 points over Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee. Now Republicans face the prospect of running against a candidate campaigning to be the first female president and speaking about gender largely through the lens of women’s economic issues.

Then they went to a well-known objective source for confirmation:

The greatest risk for Republicans, according to David Axelrod, a longtime adviser to Mr. Obama, would be if some of the lower-tier presidential candidates lashed out at Mrs. Clinton to gain traction and a spot in debates, which could hurt the eventual nominee among swing voters.

“There are short-term rewards for behavior and tactics that have great long-term consequences,” Mr. Axelrod said. “And approaching attacks in the wrong way are red meat for the base and a turnoff to some of the marginal voters that you’ll need to win a general election.”

Mr. Huckabee, who has struggled to gain a foothold in the 2016 race, may fit Mr. Axelrod’s profile. His condemnation of Mrs. Clinton on Friday was among the harshest: “Whether ignoring the warning calls from dying Americans in Benghazi or conveniently ignoring basic State Department security policies,” he declared, “Hillary Clinton puts selfish, political self-preservation above anything else.”

And the Times is still whining about the Willie Horton ad:

“If Republicans attack her too stridently, it will make her into a victim because it will be seen as old white guys attacking a woman, not necessarily Secretary Clinton,” said Mr. McCarthy, who in 1988 helped create the infamous “Willie Horton” ad that helped defeat Michael Dukakis. He is an adviser to Mr. Bush’s super PAC and to the outside group American Crossroads.

(Of course, during the 1988 presidential primaries, it was Democratic candidate Al Gore who brought up Massachusetts' wacky furlough program up in a debate with Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. After Dukakis won the primary, the Bush campaign focused on the case of Horton, a convicted murderer who raped and killed while out on a weekend furlough. The official Bush ad didn't even show a picture of Horton (an ad by an independent group did).

Co-author Haberman also appeared on ABC's Sunday program This Week to do a little damage control on HRC's behalf. Jeffrey Meyer of Newsbusters found Haberman emphasizing "that Hillary was correct in her assessment of the investigation" and "minimized the impact of the criminal inquiry as not an 'ideal situation' before she appeared relieved that her eventual testimony before the Benghazi committee will “go a long way to ending some of this.'"