While I agree with those who think that Hillary Clinton is overwhelmingly likely to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency handily, even the most tenacious of her supporters will ultimately be forced to acknowledge what a lousy candidate she is. Not only does she face the conundrum of her strongest prospective assets, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, also being among her greatest liabilities as I’ve mentioned before, she’s an awful campaigner.
Writing a Politico Annie Karni lists six “moments that could haunt” Secretary Clinton:
- “We now finally are where we need to be†on ISIL
- Republicans are my enemies
- “What, like with a cloth or something?â€
- Guns
- Charter schools
- Not My Abuela
Read the whole thing. And that’s just for 2015. There are dozens, possibly hundreds of others. Add to those that’s she’s made a hash of every major job she’s undertaken in her entire life, she’s under investigation by the FBI, and that everybody’s already made their minds up about her—she has near-100% name recognition—and begin to grasp the extent of her problems. Her greatest advantage is that she’s will be running against a Republican opponent with serious deficiencies of his own.
Given her gifts, maintaining a low profile might be her best campaign strategy. Can she drum up enthusiasm among prospective Hillary voters while doing that?
Hillary will have a difficult time keeping a low profile with The Donald nipping at her heels. She opened her own Pandora’s Box recently by snidely taking a swipe at the GOP leader (at this point), calling him out on his sexist remarks about women.
Considering her marriage to one of the biggest sexual leeches who has occupied the WH, she is walking on egg shells bringing the subject up. Even Ruth Marcus, of the Washington Post, seems to agree there is some “there” there in The Donald’s warnings to HRC, about what she wants to stir up regarding “War on Women” women’s issues, as Hillary’s proactive track record towards taking women’s complaints seriously has been either MIA or superficially thin at best.
I find it astonishing that so few seem to recognize how savvy a campaign Trump is running. He’s running for the presidency the way you’d market a brand of soap nowadays—leveraging press coverage and social media. At this point at any rate it doesn’t matter what sort of scrutiny he receives from the MSM as long as he gets a lot of it. I think he’s a schnook but he’s running a shrewd campaign.
I don’t think the situation is quite the same for Sec. Clinton. More attention only brings her positives down and the same is true manifold for Bill.
The only person who can beat Clinton is Trump, and he’s going to galvanize the average Dem in the same way that Obama did.
As far as the women angle goes, look at Judges and prosecutors in PA passing on jokes about women being sets of holes and blacks loving fried chicken. The GOP goes on about how bad PC is, and they have a point. The other side is that most of the people who hate PC are tedious thin-skinned idiots who enjoy being spiteful. I suspect a Trump candidacy in the general election will be quite easy to portray as basically the candidate for every unfunny jackass who can’t shut up or know that he’s scorned. Clinton is basically this person, but she will be running against Trump and the insane wing of the GOP.
I find it astonishing that so few seem to recognize how savvy a campaign Trump is running.
Everyone says the same thing about Trump’s campaigning and skills. It’s conventional wisdom now and he can use it. If he wins the nomination, he will swing to the center and probably disown the nonsense he’s been spewing now, and his fans will ‘love’ him for sticking it to the smarmy MSM even as he tries to out-Clinton Clinton, who will no doubt like poor old Al Gore have the policies people actually want, at least in the polls. And if he wins the general election, it’s going to be due to the fact that enough people will be willing to hope that in the American dystopia at least marketing has some logic to it. Trump’s real skills come from the fact that he’s a high-end slumlord and he knows how to sell shit to people who have no choice in the matter.
That is manifestly untrue, Dave. Her poll numbers rose or solidified after her marathon at the House committee and the first debate. I like her, and I like her more the more I see of her. Your antipathy genuinely baffles me. I don’t get it.
And she certainly did not make a mess of every job she’s held. She was a good First Lady during very trying times, she was a good campaigner for Senate and a decent if unremarkable senator. And aside from the GOP’s idiot obsession with Benghazi, I don’t see her SecState term as anything but unremarkable.
Look at the qualifier, Michael. First Lady and junior senator from New York are not major jobs. If anything her tenure as junior senator from New York tells us just what a sinecure it is.
Basically, she supports everything I oppose. She like big companies and big finance rather than small companies of which she is dismissive. There is a definite need for and role for government but not the need and role that there was in the 1960s and that’s her worldview. She is an interventionist, probably the most interventionist person in the Obama Administration.
She botched her job as Watergate attorney, she botched her job as head of the National Task Force on Healthcare Reform (we’re still feeling the results of that), and she botched her stint as Secretary of State. I think the Benghazi thing is way over-hyped but overthrowing the Libyan government and letting it be replaced with anarchy is not only a crime but a sin and a mistake.
Also, the polls do not support your claim (“Her poll numbers rose or solidified after her marathon at the House committee and the first debate”). Her polling numbers remained the same (within the margin of error) over the period in question and have, essentially, collapsed over the last year (beyond the margin of error).
Clinton, who will no doubt like poor old Al Gore have the policies people actually want, at least in the polls.
Huh? Where do you get that idea? The PPACA, an affinity for Wall Street, The Iranian Deal, flip-flopping on the TPP; the Keystone pipeline, immigration etc.. Many polices she supposedly backs the public doesn’t. And, many other ones she either exploits or is simply vague on, having taken multiple positions along her dubious path in public service.
And she certainly did not make a mess of every job she’s held. She was a good First Lady during very trying times, she was a good campaigner for Senate and a decent if unremarkable senator.
Decent! You mean to put that in the same sentence with Hillary Clinton? You must be kidding. Also, what other major achievements has HRC been able to pin on her resume? The biggest claim to fame she repeatedly utters is one solely based on genetics — being a woman. That’s it. Now she’s a convenient “grandmother,” for all those pre-election photo-opts. Oh yes, she is very “rich” too — something you and others discredited, making fun of Romney, during his run for POTUS, while not giving an iota of credit for his many business successes. Ironically, though, you are mum on the tons of money HRC makes co-mingling various government jobs with outrageous speaking fees given to her and Bill, many of which have drawn suspicious quid pro quo questions dealing with foreign entities, as well as cries of dismay from college students, after hearing about the over-the-top monies spent to hear her talk.
Hillary most definitely has many character and judgement call chinks in her past. But, still you like her more and more. That really says more about you, Michael than her.
Frankly, as much as I dislike Trump’s bombastic rhetoric, how he thoughtlessly attacks others, his past is far less sordid and even controversial than Hillary’s is.
I think Libya is on Obama and his French and British counterparts. Secretary of State doesn’t make that call, that’s POTUS territory.
I’m inclined to agree that Libya was a huge screw-up, but for the known unknown (if I may channel Rumsfeld) which was: what’ll Gaddafi do if we don’t intervene? I don’t know how to evaluate the intel that supposedly showed him brewing up some epic slaughter – given the quality we’ve come to expect from the CIA I’d say it’s likely to be bullshit – but our allies seemed equally convinced some sort of genocide was on the table. If the intel is true then intervention may have been better than remaining hands-off, I just don’t have the data to reach a conclusion.
I don’t think your problem (or mine for that matter) is really with the candidates. This is still a representative government and voters are getting what they want. Republicans want rage and Democrats have managed to convince themselves it’s time to spike the ball and do an end zone dance. One side is dumb as dirt and perpetually apoplectic, the other side is sophomoric and suffocatingly smug. Both parties are intellectually bankrupt, but how could they be otherwise given a voter base that thinks in bumper stickers and hashtags – when they bother to think at all.
This is the first time since 1968-ish that I’ve been really worried about this country. The only institutions/organizations with any credibility are Apple computers and the US military, and both of them are on thin ice. (Am I the only guy noticing that our vaunted military keeps losing?) Institutions – business, the church, academia, the media, the government – retain no credibility whatsoever. The institutions are bankrupt and the common man’s only two emotions are incoherent rage or sullen indifference.
We don’t have a national goal, we have lost our national faith, we don’t know our purpose, we have no theories, no ideas, no animating ideal. We’re 300 million people milling around like angry cattle, lost, clueless, aimless and pissed off. And this despite (or because of) the fact that we are in a long peace with no major wars, the economy is growing albeit sluggishly, crime is down (well, not in Chicago), people are not starving in the streets, nor are the streets running with blood (again, excepting Chicago.) But Jesus H. Christ, people are in a lousy state of mind.
I can’t believe that I of all people am saying this, but I’m starting to think humans can’t get by without faith. More people are capable of faith (in any institution) than are capable of embracing uncertainty and ambiguity. I think we may have taken the deconstruction thing a step or two too far. Too much, too fast, too little left standing. The center has already ceased to hold.
Jan:
Hillary is a mediocrity. Trump is a fascist. Trump is Silvio Berlusconi with dreams of being Mussolini.
I like Hillary because I like strong people, and even her haters admit she’s strong. I despise Trump because my little ethnic group has a very, very long history with thugs who look for scapegoats.
With that I agree. My desired end state is extremely different from that of most people. I also think of H. L. Mencken’s wisecrack that democracy is the theory that the people deserve to get what they want—good and hard.
Unlike France or Germany or Denmark we are a country built on a creed or, as you put it, a national faith. Without it, we’re nothing.
What Chesterton said about that is that when men no longer believe in God they will not believe in nothing but in anything. That’s why young Europeans (and Americans!) are converting to Islam and joining DAESH.
What polls are you reading? Her national low was in September, at the end of which RCP had her at 41%. The first debate was October 13. The last pre-debate average had her at 43%. Between then and October 23 when she did the House Witch Hunt Committee she rose to 48%. And she is currently at 55%. (Numbers rounded.)
As you know, I suck at math, but 55% is quite a bit more than 43%, and during the interval we had three debates and the committee. More exposure coincided with higher poll averages.
Hillary doesn’t have to be a good candidate, just better than the GOP offering. That, unfortunately, looks very doable. I think there will be hard core group who will actually be enthusiastic about Hillary, but that will be a minority. Most of the enthusiasm will be directed towards SCOTUS nominations and against the GOP nominee.
I have to agree that Trump is running a very shrew campaign. He really does understand TV and how to play to crowds. He is saying exactly what the red meat GOP wants to hear, and he has learned that truth is irrelevant to that message. Works very well. I have hard time seeing him scapegoating Jews Michael. He won’t want to alienate his evangelical support. He will stay with Muslims and Mexicans. Why change since it has been working.
Steve
Clinton doesn’t take a stand until she’s convinced which way the winds are blowing; if they shift she goes with them. That’s not strength but a sign of weak-minded dissembling.
Clinton is wrong on foreign policy. She’s wrong on taxes, on financial reform, on healthcare, on militarism and on women’s rights (which she only supports in a very narrow sense). There isn’t a single policy area on which another candidate isn’t advocating a superior choice.
And that doesn’t include her blatant corruption in taking millions from the very institutions she promises she’ll “tell to cut out” the chicanery. It takes an exceedingly focused mind to ignore all this and conclude she’d make a respectable president.
I can’t believe that I of all people am saying this, but I’m starting to think humans can’t get by without faith.
Michael,
Belief is a strong factor in humans being able to endure the vicissitudes of life. It can be a stabilizing anchor providing a temporarily mooring during times of grief and/or hardships. Other important mental/philosophical strongholds are purpose, meaning and passion. However, since we have entered a nihilistic, Godless, petulant phase of societal norms, it’s more cool to disbelieve with nothing bigger out there than gratifying our own transient needs and sense of self-importance. I think our current leading candidates reflect these attitudes and traits. So, in a way, our choices today are nothing more than a looking glass of who and what we have perpetuated and become.
Ben,
Well said….
I pretty much agree with Ben when it comes to Hillary. I don’t really understand why Democrats support her so vociferously – she’s emblematic of the “1%” as a rich woman who really knows nothing about middle-class America.
But I vote primarily on foreign policy. Hillary doesn’t have much in the way of guiding principles, but when it comes to foreign policy she’s been a consistent interventionist.