'Now That She's Tanking'

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This one could leave a mark.

As MSMers go, A.B. Stoddard has been one of my favorites during this campaign season for her grown-up, no-nonsense style. The Associate Editor of The Hill is not someone given to flights of overblown rhetoric. That's why I was so struck by the brutal assessment of Hillary's predicament Stoddard just offered on MSNBC. The topic was Clinton's 11th-hour openness, reflected in her granting an interview to Access Hollywood to discuss her personal side, and epitomized during a campaign stop today when she got a bit misty while discussing the campaign and her hopes for America.

Norah O'Donnell invited Stoddard and WaPo's Chris Cillizza to psychoanalyze Clinton's latest move. At first it seemed Stoddard could be on her way to concluding that Hillary might have discovered a winning strategy. But suddenly, down came the axe . . .

View video here.

A. B. STODDARD: I applaud her for doing this. She's making an attempt to make herself, turn herself into -- show the voters she's a real human being [sounds like A.B.'s not so sure she is]. But it's something she should have done ten months ago. It's what people want to hear. They want to know that you do the same things that you do. That you go fishing, you go to church, you leave the laundry basket in the hall too long. They want to hear this stuff. She refused to talk about this kind of thing. And now that she's tanking, it's just too late for her.

Ouch.