CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod critiqued Hillary Clinton’s speaking ability Tuesday, explaining “she hasn’t conveyed a compelling overall, overarching message” and that, “She’s not a great speech giver, she’s not a great reader of ads direct to camera.”
Axelrod, appearing on “The Situation Room,” attempted to defend Hillary’s dropping poll numbers saying that “her numbers were artificially high to start with.”
Wolf Blitzer: Let’s move on and talk about this new Monmouth University poll of Democratic voters nationwide. Hillary Clinton, take a look at this, she’s dropped from 52% to 42%. That’s her lowest number so far. Joe Biden, who is not even officially running went from 12% in August to 22%, and Bernie Sanders went from 16% to 20%. How much trouble is she in?
David Axelrod: I don’t think she’s in a crisis situation, I don’t think she is in a flee fall. I think her numbers were artificially high to start with. So they’re coming back to earth. And I would say this Wolf, I don’t think there’s a candidate on either side of the aisle who still wouldn’t trade places with her. She is the odds on favorite to win the Democratic nomination. She will be because of the demographic advantages that accrue to the Democratic candidate in a strong position if she is the Democratic nominee. But she clearly has problems. She has problems primarily because she hasn’t conveyed a compelling overall, overarching message, a lot of position papers, a lot of trees, she hasn’t yet described the forest in the way people have internalized, and I would — in sports — I know you’re a sports fan, in sports, you try to put your player into a position to maximize their talents and minimize their liabilities. She’s not a great speech giver, she’s not a great reader of ads direct to camera. What she is good is, in the represent arte with voters, with individual people. They need to put her in more of those kinds of situations, and put her in a position to succeed where she’s not speaking through a seven second sort of editorial political delay, which so often seems to be the case.