Fort Lauderdale: A week before the election Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has revealed her closing argument is to be simple, ruthless and overwhelmingly negative - vote for me, because I am not him.
In a three-city swing through Florida on Monday, Clinton launched a series of savage attacks on Republic presidential candidate Donald Trump, describing him as a sexist serial harasser of women.
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Clinton and former Miss Universe take aim at Trump
Telling an audience how she was "scared" of Donald Trump, former Miss Universe Alicia Machado campaigns with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Her strategy to overcome damage to her campaign caused by the renewed FBI investigation into her emails now relies on a direct appeal to American women to install her in the White House, even as the majority of men back Donald Trump.
"He sure has spent a lot of time demeaning, degrading and assaulting women. ... I would rather be here talking about nearly anything else," Clinton said at a rally in Dade City, Florida. "A lot of his supporters don't like to hear this. I don't blame them. If I were supporting him, I wouldn't want to hear it either."
She went on to detail the crude terms Trump has used to describe women, went over the tape of him boasting about groping women and then raised allegations he had "inspected" women in dressing rooms during his beauty pageants.
"As bad as that is, he didn't just do it at the Miss USA pageant, the Miss Universe pageant. He's also been accused of doing this at the Miss Teen USA pageant. ... Some of them were just 15 years old. We cannot hide from this. We've got to face it. This man wants to be president of the United States."
Clinton was introduced at the rally by Alicia Machado, the pageant winner whose experiences of Trump's alleged harassment Mrs Clinton described to devastating effect during the first the presidential debate.
"Trump was overwhelming. I was scared of him," Machado said, introducing Clinton. "He told me that I looked ugly and I was massive. He even called me names. He said to me, Miss Piggy, Miss Housekeeping, Miss Eating Machine. ... It's really clear that he does not respect women. He just judges us on our looks. He thinks he can do whatever he wants and get away with it."
![Former Miss Universe Alicia Machado gestures before a speech by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in ...](/web/20161104125736im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/g/6/y/w/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsg2o5.png/1478075759854.jpg)
Polling shows that even before this attack in the last week of the election, America was more politically divided along gender lines than it had ever been in history.
Clinton's appeal to American women appears to have been sharpened by the damage caused by the FBI investigation.
![Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes the stage with former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, in Dade ...](/web/20161104125736im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/g/0/x/t/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsg2o5.png/1478082112405.jpg)
Leading political scientist Larry Sabato said what he called "the Comey effect" might yet become part of the history of this election.
It would not prove fatal to her campaign, he believed, but it could cost her the Senate: "If she does not win either one of the houses, I just don't see how she can govern."
![Hillary Clinton is fine-tuning her closing arguments.](/web/20161104125736im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/f/v/j/8/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsg2o5.png/1478075759854.jpg)
Given the stakes, Sabato said he believed Clinton was not only trying to draw out women voters, but to bait Trump into saying something controversial at one of his rallies.
"So far he hasn't, I think his staff must have drugged him," said Sabato, laughing.
![Alicia Machado says Donald Trump bullied her about her weight when she won the 1996 Miss Universe title.](/web/20161104125736im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/p/t/j/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsg2o5.png/1478075759854.jpg)
In the audience at the Fort Lauderdale rally was 48-year-old Kim Taylor, a university professor. She said she was excited to vote for Clinton but frustrated by the campaign.
"You've got the most qualified candidate in recent history going up against the least qualified, and still it is close, it just goes to show where we are. Women have to be so much better to get there," she said.
![Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump arrives to deliver an address in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.](/web/20161104125736im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/f/v/j/0/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsg2o5.png/1478075759854.jpg)
Taylor said throughout the campaign she had been a member of an underground network of female Clinton fans on Facebook called Bitches for Hillary who chatted on private pages to avoid torrents of abuse from Bernie Sanders supporters and Republican critics.
Also in the crowd was Ella Marcum, who attended the rally with her son Josh. Josh has already voted for Clinton, but Ella plans to vote for Trump.
![A woman holds out her "Nasty Woman" button as Hillary Clinton speaks in Sanford, Florida.](/web/20161104125736im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/g/0/x/r/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsg2o5.png/1478075759854.jpg)
She thinks it is suspicious that so many women came out to accuse Trump late in the campaign, and she likes Trump for "being brave enough to say the things a lot of us think".
Josh says he does not hate Trump, and he does not believe his accusers either, but he likes Clinton's message of "stronger together" and her inclusiveness.
![Jerry Wallace chips a golf ball towards targets with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's faces on them at a driving range ...](/web/20161104125736im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/g/0/x/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsg2o5.png/1478082113089.jpg)
At this Ella smiles, shakes her head in mock despair and says: "I tried to bring him up right."
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