Hillary Clinton's 2016 Presidential Bid may already be over.
Poor Hillary. She really wanted it, big time. And now, the Presidency looks out of reach for her. Is this too soon to call? Maybe. Maybe not.
Hillary just blew it the last time around. She started out her campaign, trumpeting herself as the "presumptive nominee" which just smacked of arrogance (and turned out to be wrong). She then surrounded herself with only women and gay men in something called "Hillaryland" and refused to listen to any outside voices. Without any kind of critical feedback (other than flattery from her flacks) she drove her campaign bus off a cliff. When asked why, she claimed it was a "shortcut" to the bottom of the cliff.
They made a big deal about her being a Methodist - even arranging "accidental" meetings with her Sunday School teacher while campaigning in Iowa. The message was clear - Obama is a Muslim. I am sure that sounded like a swell move to the folks in Hillaryland - as did ideas like the "Hillycopter." But they backfired in terms of public opinion.
Her toadies also censored any dissenting opinions on the Hillary discussion group. If you called into question such boners as "baby bonds" or "The Woodstock Museum" you not only got shouted down, you were erased.
Well, so, maybe this time around, she will learn from his mistakes. I doubt it. That kind of hubris and chutzpah is hard to overcome. It's freaking genetic.
But the big problem is the last eight years. It is not that the economy is doing bad - far from it - only that the perception of the economy is bad. And who is to blame for this? Fox News? Hardly. The liberal media (NBC, CNN, et al.) constantly harp about how bad things are. This ain't helping Hillary one bit.
They are also harping on these stupid "class warfare" issues. This week, CNN spend countless articles providing a polarizing view of America. One article listed "the richest people in America of all time" or some such nonsense. Another touted what the "1%'ers" do, with the tagline than "No 99'ers need apply!" Photo essays about the most expensive cars, expensive houses, expensive vacation resorts for the "elite" - that kind of crap. And on the flip side, they publish weepy sob stories about how so many Americans are "left behind" in Obama's recovery - or that the "American Dream" is now dead.
Geez, you'd think the liberal Media would be trying to help Obama and Hillary, instead of shooting them down. But there you have it. Americans are sick and tired of hearing about how we are all put-upon victims, or how some college student who majored in bong-hits can't find a job and now wants his loans "forgiven". Everyone wants a free lunch, it seems, and free lunches have to be paid for, by the rest of us.
The GOP is not sleeping, though. The "Benghazi! Benghazi! Benghazi!" strategy seems to have elicited a big yawn from the American people. They had a Swiftboat attack planned, apparently, but shot their wad too early, with attacks in Hillary in 2014, not 2016. People just don't give a shit about Benghazi, as there is no there, there. And no, made-up shit from forwarded e-mails doesn't cut it, except with moron teabaggers who are going to vote GOP anyway.
But President Obama has just handed them a no-brainer. This hostage-trade for terrorists is prime Grade-A meat for Republicans, who are salivating at the thought of all the attack ads they can generate from the excellent visuals this is generating. "We don't negotiate with terrorists!" will be the tag line of the 2016 election.
Of course, Ronald Reagan did just that - negotiated with the Iranians, who were holding Americans hostages, trading arms for hostages in the Iran-Contra debacle. Reagan survived that scandal, mostly by coming clean about it and letting it blow over. But the GOP will conveniently "forget" about this episode in American history, while they try to bootstrap Hillary with this hostage-trade.
But that's just on the International front. What about domestic issues? Many Americans are concerned that maybe America is losing its way - that taxes, particularly property taxes, are skyrocketing, and that the welfare state is taking over. A majority of Americans still favor Obamacare, and most want to see it repaired, not just repealed. The perception is, Obama is taking America too far to the Left. Or that is the perception the GOP will sell, with minimum-wage hikes and carbon emissions regulations.
And with the recent passing of a staggering $15-an-hour minimum wage in Seattle (hint to Seattle residents: You no longer need to tip your Barista!) the looney portion of the Left wing appears to have taken over and is gaining traction. You can now apparently just vote yourself a raise if you want to.
The GOP will bootstrap this onto Hillary, and paint her as a continuation of the Obama legacy.
But of course, that's not all. The Clintons have a long legacy of "controversies" both real and imagined. You can bet that every conservative talk show host will dredge up Whitewater and the "Clinton Death List" and a whole host of other nonsense.
Most of it is bullshit. And that is sad, too, as it tends to obscure some real scandals which were never really properly addressed - such as Hillary's commodities trading scandal. From the Wikipedia Entry, which pretty accurately sums it up:
Rodham had no experience in such financial instruments. Bill Clinton's salary as Arkansas Attorney General and then Governor of Arkansas was modest and Rodham was interested in building a financial cushion for the future (the ill-fated Whitewater Development Corporation would be another such effort from this time.) Starting in October 1978, when Bill Clinton was Attorney General and on the verge of being elected Governor, she was guided by James Blair, a friend, lawyer, outside counsel to Tyson Foods, Arkansas' largest employer, and, since 1977, a futures trader who was doing so well he encouraged friends and family to enter the commodity markets as well.
Rodham later wrote that she educated herself about the market and followed it closely, winning and losing money. By January 1979, she was up $26,000; but later, she would lose $16,000 in a single trade. At one point she owed in excess of $100,000 to Refco as part of covering losses, but no margin calls were made by Refco against her. Near the end of the trading, Blair correctly sold short and gave her a $40,000 gain in one afternoon.In July 1979, once she became pregnant with Chelsea Clinton, "I lost my nerve for gambling [and] walked away from the table $100,000 ahead."
In other words, she never traded in commodities before. She teams up with a guy from Tyson's foods, the State's largest employer, who at the time had a number of regulatory issues pending with her husband. She makes a quick $100,000 in trades and then just as quickly, gets out of the business. To me, this is clearly just Tyson's paying a back-door bribe to then-Governor Clinton.
Screw Whitewater. Screw Monica Lewinsky (not literally). This is the real shit. Sadly, it was overshadowed by a lot of nonsense about poking hairdressers and "troopergate" and never really given its proper due. I mean, for chrissakes, she took a bribe here, folks!
But perhaps there is hope for Hillary. The GOP is so stupid that they will dredge up things like Monica and Bimbos, and think that salacious nonsense like that (Hillary throwing lamps) will interest the American voters (sadly, it does.) Because, let's face it, complex financial scandals are hard to follow. The "Clinton Death List" isn't.
And the popularity of Obamacare may sink the GOP as well. If they run on a platform of just repealing Obamacare and not offering a concrete replacement (which is how Romney failed), they will likely lose. A better strategy would be to "fix" Obamacare, by making changes around the margins. They might win on that, but are too stupid to do so.
The GOP is trying to reclaim the middle-of-the road mantle, as evidenced by recent primary results. The problem is, the tea party is not going quietly into the night. As a result, the biggest problem for the GOP would be the nomination of some whackjob like Ted Cruz.
And by the way, Senator Cruz, I'm still waiting to see your Birth Certificate. He was born in Canada, you know - and this is not disputed, even by him. Funny thing, a fictitious foreign birth is an issue for Obama. Actual foreign birth is not, for Cruz.
