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Is Hillary Clinton getting desperate?

Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner for the presidential nomination, appears to have momentarily shifted her campaign strategy from the high road to the low road — or at least an ill-advised path.

At a campaign rally in Bowling Green, Kentucky days before Tuesday’s primary, Clinton impersonated Donald Trump, mocking the presumptive Republican nominee during a speech where Clinton pretended to be in a face-to-face debate with Trump.

The problem with this tactic is that Clinton isn’t funny. And trying to out-Trump Trump could backfire. Trump is masterful at beating down his opponents with verbal jabs and exploiting their weaknesses. He’s a New York street fighter who doesn’t play by the conventional rules of presidential campaigning and Clinton seems to be struggling to figure out how to fight back.

I’m not sure Clinton can go toe-to-toe with Trump using sarcasm and deep-voiced impersonations. She should stick to what she does best: speeches on the economy and playing up her domestic and foreign policy experience. She’s not adept at stand-up and she’s suddenly trying to play Trump’s game — a game he invented in this bizarre political season.

Clinton looks to be the first woman competing for the White House and Trump has already indicated that he will not go easy on Clinton simply because she’s female.

So Clinton decided to try her hand at mocking Trump’s bombastic style. During her rally, Clinton augmented Trump’s infamous New York accent, and took him to task for his economic plan.

“Let’s just imagine I am on a debate stage with Donald Trump,” Clinton said. “Now personally, I am really looking forward to that.”

“So let’s suppose, here is the question, ‘so what is your plan to create jobs,’ His answer is, ‘I am going to create them, they are going to be great, I am going to do it. But I am not telling you what it is that I am going to do,'” Clinton said, impersonating Trump.

“I am going to say, ‘Here is what we are going to do, here is what we are going to do, here is how we are going to change the tax code, here is how we are going to incentivize people to do it.'”

“Now some people might say, well, all anybody wants to hear is just, ‘I am going to do it. I am not telling you how.’ I don’t believe that,” she added. “Maybe in the preliminaries like the Republican primary that is all they want to hear. But Americans take their vote for president seriously. They are going to be looking at that TV screen, saying, ‘He still doesn’t have anything to tell us? Wait a minute.'”

This new sarcastic approach seems beneath Clinton, the former first lady, U.S. senator, and Secretary of State who has met with foreign leaders all over the world. It feels awkward.

Maybe Clinton was spooked by a recent poll which shows the hypothetical matchup against Trump is tightening.

“In this week’s poll, Americans are nearly split between their choice of Trump or Clinton; her margin over Trump narrows from 5 points last week to 3 points this week to 48 percent to 45 percent,” according to NBC News.

“Clinton, who was able to maintain her front-runner status throughout the Democratic primary by winning over Black and Hispanic voters, continues to do extremely well among these voters over Trump. She wins black voters 84 percent to 9 percent — a 75 point gap — and wins Hispanics 65 percent to 28 percent,” NBC News reported.

“Trump is the preferred candidate among white voters by 14 points over Clinton — 53 percent to 39 percent. This is up slightly from last week’s 11-point margin among white voters,” according to the network.

The Clinton campaign should be a bit concerned about the new poll. The general election is no longer a slam dunk for Clinton as some suggested last year. And Trump impersonations will not propel her into the White House.

My advice for Hillary Clinton: Stay presidential and leave the slapstick act to skilled comedians.

What do you think?

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