Eight years ago at this time there were 7 major candidates for president from the Democratic side. Frontrunner Hillary Clinton was ubiquitous and confident. A young senator from Illinois was already commanding crowds in the thousands. John Edwards radiated and Bill Richardson looked poised to make loud inroads. I remember sloshing thru the snows of Dartmouth conversing with the head of the student Dems when I turned to him and said “this is crazy, we’re gonna be here a year from now doing the same thing” remarking on the fact that it was over 13 more months til the 2008 New Hampshire primary voter would go to the polls and we were already in full blown primary mode.
This year we have an all but announced frontrunner candidate and 4 or 5 maybe’s.
Conventional thought says the maybe’s are waiting to see if former everything Hillary Clinton is in fact going to actually jump in (come on she’s taking advantage of the vacuum to tie up every reputable staffer, fundraiser, donor, field person, virtual media person, media person, advance person and have I left anyone out?) or if she stumbles (a Clinton stumble? They stumble constantly and are the most proficient stumble- outers on the planet).
No, what’s going on here is the maybe’s are pulling the nominee apparent toward their own philosophy.
Let me explain, the Clinton’s are well known as prolific political animals, in order to get elected they will do whatever it takes, mostly drafting the Republican agenda so they can offer themselves up to the independent voters that determine elections as Republican lite. Given no primary opposition it is a given that that is exactly what Hillary will do.
Let’s start with Elizabeth Warren, she has consistently stated she is not a candidate for president, but…. The cacophony of calls from the left urging her to run continues. In order for her to silence those voices definitively Senator Warren would need a very loud, very public Shermanesque presser. But she’s avoided that. Why?
Because the issues the Massachusetts Senator has espoused tirelessly for and has staked her star power on, income inequality, Wall Street judicial action, attention to education will cease to be formative in Hillary’s agenda the second that event occurs.
The situation with Vice President Biden is even more interesting. Joe has never proven to be an efficient vote getter, he would be over 4 years older than Ronald Reagan upon inauguration and is carrying around a narrative on his public speaking gaffes that gets deeper by the day (latest was an overlong speech to the St. Patricks Day annual breakfast in Boston that members of his own party publicly described as “painful”) which is unfortunate because the vice president is a very serious, thoughtful man (rare for presidential candidates) who would make a great president. Alas his only rationale for running is to continue a third Obama term. As the economy improves and with an Iranian nuclear agreement and inroads against ISIS, a bumbling Republican congress spinning wheels to nowhere, this strategy could be sound but even Obama’s people are bailing for the Clinton juggernaut.
Biden said he will not decide if he is running until the end of the summer. Why? Because the second the vice president pulls out Clinton will divorce herself from the Obama administration, denouncing unpopular decisions and alienating Democrats as well as independents from the incumbent’s policies. Obama will not be a lame duck he would be a dead one politically. So the longer Biden hides his hand the longer Obama stays viable.
If only Hillary would stand up on her own and not play politics like she’s up 5-2 in a tennis set she might have won in 2008 and the 2016 Democratic nomination process would be a hell of a lot more interesting.
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Here we go again, the GOP wants to spend taxpayer money on investigating Hillary Clinton’s e-mails when she was secretary of state. The Republicans have no problem railing against the Democrats spending money on people who need a leg up or need a safety net from falling off the earth but has no problem with profligate spending when it comes to political investigations. Whether it’s the IRS scandal, Fast and Furious, Travelgate, Whitewater, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Benghazi or Clinton’s e-mails the taxpayer, whether right, left or center is mandated to pony up. Did the Democrats investigate the last administration on torture, causing the collapse of the economy with loose Wall Street and banking supervision, Cheney’s secret energy deals or the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?
The GOP used to do this just to get over Watergate but now it’s just standard political operating procedure. And you pay.