Message to Hillary: Give your supporters hope.

The Obama message in 2008:   Hope and Change

Hope and Change are still good themes.   Americans elect presidents hoping that they will change things for the better.  That includes hoping the candidates will change enough to fix the things about themselves that the voter doesn't like.

Trump reset:  Maybe it will work.

Hillary needs to watch out.   Trump is attempting--and sort of accomplishing for 48 hours so far--a personality change.   He is trying to show he can be nicer, more presidential, less a bully, not a racist.   For the moment he is kinder, gentler.   He said he was sorry if he caused pain.

People won't believe it unless he can maintain the new character, but people who are half-tempted to vote for him, but are legitimately concerned that he is a bull in a china shop, are looking for some slender thread of evidence that gives them hope. They might take a chance that Trump will act grown up, more presidential, not say really stupid mean racist things and start a war.   Trump is trying to give people hope.   

It is hard to change a personality when one is 70 years old, or a well established brand like Trump's, but his effort to show he can change just might work, and Hillary needs to watch out because  then he would become a very plausible candidate.

Now it is Hillary Clinton's turn.  She needs to give her supporters--both committed and wary--some hope.  People need to hope Hillary will change.

Hillary needs to make a dramatic break with some big parts of the past.  She doesn't have to say she is "sorry" and certainly need not say she is "guilty" or "wrong."  But she cannot just tinker around the edges.   She needs to say and show that the "old Hillary" is past.   The Clinton Foundation is a perfect opportunity.

She needs to shut it down.   Being president and First Spouse is a big enough job and a sufficiently big portfolio that one does not need a side-job.  One does not need a billion dollar foundation to fill in the empty holes in a life otherwise unfulfilling if one is living in the White House.

Suggestion to Hillary Clinton:  Shut down the Clinton Foundation, period.  Give all the money to the Warren Buffet Foundation and tell him to do his best and not tell you what he is doing.

Complicated Arrangement.  

Another Suggestion to Hillary Clinton:   Give away all your money.   That's right.  All of it.  No need to save out for yourselves, for Chelsea, for the two grandkids.   You and they will be fine.   Chelsea can always write a book and give speeches on the legacy of the Clinton years.   She will have lots of money, and the grandkids will always be the grandchildren of presidents.  They will be fine.  Give away your house, all the money you have earned, every bit of it.    You don't need money.  You will live in the White House.   You will be taken care of.   After the White House--if you are still alive--you can write another book or give a few speeches and make more than enough money.   You don't need what money can buy.   You need what having money keeps you from buying: credibility in expressing that you have understanding and empathy for regular Americans, and documentation that you are in politics for the service not the money.

There are stories--apocryphal stories--that First Class passengers on the Titanic attempted to take their gold with them when they jumped into the water to the life rafts reserved for them.  They sank, weighted down by the gold in their pockets.  Don't be one of those people.

Show you can change.   If Trump can do it, you can do it.

The act of giving away your money and shutting down the Clinton Foundation would demonstrate to the public that your head is in the game of being president and representing the people of America, period.  No distractions and no conflicts.  It is not one of two jobs, the presidency and the Foundation, it is the job.  Nothing the Clinton Foundation could do would have a fraction of the influence of what a Hillary Clinton presidency might do, especially a presidency less hounded by investigations and hearings and charges and implications and op-ed pieces all claiming that you are conflicted between public and private, the presidency and the Foundation.

Voters don't like the notion of "pay-to-play".  So she should not do it.

Shut it down and walk away. 

Give your supporters hope.  They cringe at the thought of four or eight years of House hearings and investigations and sworn statements.   Of lawyerly resistance to Freedom of Information Act requests, and depositions, and allegations of conflicts, and denials of conflicts.    Of more examples of the Clintons skirting as close to the law as possible.   

Give people hope.  Give people change.  Walk away from it, Hillary.   Walk to the White House.