POLITICS IS SKILLED LABOR:

In a speech today on the subject of Donald Trump's ties to the "alt right," Hillary Clinton painted the GOP nominee as a dangerous racist with a history of discriminatory conduct and hateful rhetoric that dates back to before the beginning of his presidential campaign.

She also went out of her way to deny that this aspect of Trump and Trumpism has anything to do with the Republican Party mainstream.  [...]

Politically speaking, the key passage of Clinton's speech was one where she made an unusual move for a candidate and offered fulsome praise to the opposition political party. Rather than noting the ways in which Trumpism has ties to the GOP past, she highlighted elements of the Republican Party history that push in the opposite direction:

This is a moment of reckoning for every Republican dismayed that the party of Lincoln has become the party of Trump. It's a moment of reckoning for all of us who love our country and believe that America is better than this.

Twenty years ago, when Bob Dole accepted the Republican nomination, he pointed to the exits and told any racists in the party to get out.

The week after 9/11, George W. Bush went to a mosque and declared for everyone to hear that Muslims "love America just as much as I do."

In 2008, John McCain told his own supporters they were wrong about the man he was trying to defeat. Sen. McCain made sure they knew -- Barack Obama is an American citizen and "a decent person."

Clinton is flattering Republicans about their past to shame them about their present.

To reach the kind of electoral targets Clinton is currently aiming for in places like Arizona and Georgia -- or to help her party's House members who need to win in districts that are 4 or 5 points more Republican than the nation as a whole -- Clinton needs to win in places that are full of lifelong Republicans.

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