Murfster35 on The Daily Kos doesn’t believe Hillary Clinton made a mistake – s/he believes she’s just employing a carefully calculated whistle of her own:
Hillary has been playing this game with the press for more than 25 years, she’s a pro. The Orange Julius steals an entire news cycle or more with each outrageous statement. She’s turning the tables on Trump, but with an almost surgical purpose. If she had said “a few” or “some” of Trumps supporters were “deplorable”, it would have caused a minor tremor, but not overtake the cycle. In saying “½ of his supporters” I have no doubt that she was referring to the 61% who think that Obama is a secret Muslim-Marxist-Kenyan here to destroy the country. The “50%” was the hook to grab the attention of the press. Look how quickly and professionally the campaign walked back only the “50%’ portion, I’m betting that they had that written by the time she made the original statement. …
This is clearly aimed at one particular demographic. And it’s a big one, one that no Republican has ever lost since polling started tracking it, college educated white voters. As we speak, Trump is tied with Clinton with white college educated males, and he’s getting his ass kicked by a whopping 23% with white college educated women. And guess what? In a recent WaPo poll, 60% of college educated whites think that Trump is biased against women and minorities. Kudos to the WaPo for not poisoning the well on this poll! They very carefully used the word “biased”, as opposed to the more inflammatory “racist” or “bigoted” that could have skewed the honest results.
The next week or two of polls will tell the tale.