Special to WorldTribune.com

Matthew Continetti, Washington Free Beacon

One year until Election Day. Where things stand: The Republican race is in turmoil while the Democratic nomination is all but assured. The FBI alone can stop Hillary Clinton from appearing on your ballot next November. But that is unlikely to happen. …

She wins the nomination. Then? To hear some tell it, Clinton’s election as president is a safe bet. … [But] Clinton is a vulnerable nominee. She can be beaten. …

Sure, Hillary did okay before the House Benghazi Committee. Trust me: Looking more sympathetic than members of Congress isn’t an achievement. It’s a freebie. All you have to do is show up and not take the Fifth. The media were always going to say Clinton left the hearing untouched. They’ve never thought Benghazi was a real story.

But look at what’s happened since Clinton’s “great 10 days.” The more one examines the statements she made before Congress, the more they are revealed to be not entirely true. The polling says the electorate has the same impression of her that it’s had for some time now: She can’t be trusted. … You’ll hear pundits say trustworthiness doesn’t matter because the public didn’t trust Bill Clinton in 1996 but reelected him anyway. Ignore them. In 1996 Clinton was the incumbent, the economy was growing, and he was in a three-way race with two unsympathetic opponents. It’s not just that the public distrusts Hillary Clinton. It’s that its distrust is related to its unflattering view of her as unlikable and out of touch. …

It was Clinton’s own pollster, Joel Benenson, who wrote in 2012 that Republicans lost because “voters simply didn’t believe that Mr. Romney was on their side.” Will they believe that of Hillary next November?

The job of the Republican nominee is to make sure they do not. You do it by reminding the public, day after day, that Clinton can’t be trusted. Trade, same-sex marriage, crime, foreign policy—she’ll betray you whenever it suits her political needs. She lied about the Benghazi video; she lied about her email; she lied about Sidney Blumenthal. That’s what she does. She lies.

The Republican nominee will have to say this repeatedly, just as Donald Trump brands his opposition as low energy. It will take discipline. But it will also reinforce voters’ suspicions—and damage Clinton.