Reddi for Hillary in 2016

My apologies to Reddi Wip and Herb Alpert.

Cross posted at Political Clown Parade

New Hillary Website for 2016?

According to Talking Point Memo, Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign website now redirects visitors to her new site: HillaryClintonOffice.com.

I figured, why wait 'til the last minute to Photoshop® her skeet shooting picture?

H/T Memeorandum

Time for Hillary in 2012?

A couple of Democratic pollsters, one for Jimmy Carter and one for Bill Clinton have an interesting editorial in the Wall St. Journal. Here's a taste:

When Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson accepted the reality that they could not effectively govern the nation if they sought re-election to the White House, both men took the moral high ground and decided against running for a new term as president. President Obama is facing a similar reality—and he must reach the same conclusion. He should abandon his candidacy for re-election in favor of a clear alternative, one capable not only of saving the Democratic Party, but more important, of governing effectively and in a way that preserves the most important of the president's accomplishments. He should step aside for the one candidate who would become, by acclamation, the nominee of the Democratic Party: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Frequent leaders of this blog will note that a Hillary candidacy has been expected, even if she has to be reluctantly dragged to the nomination. (Depends on what your definition of "reluctantly" is.) Caddell and Schoen provide the rationale for a Hillary draft.

Never before has there been such an obvious potential successor—one who has been a loyal and effective member of the president's administration, who has the stature to take on the office, and who is the only leader capable of uniting the country around a bipartisan economic and foreign policy.

It's the three AM phone call all over again!

Certainly, Mr. Obama could still win re-election in 2012. Even with his all-time low job approval ratings (and even worse ratings on handling the economy) the president could eke out a victory in November. But the kind of campaign required for the president's political survival would make it almost impossible for him to govern—not only during the campaign, but throughout a second term. Put simply, it seems that the White House has concluded that if the president cannot run on his record, he will need to wage the most negative campaign in history to stand any chance. With his job approval ratings below 45% overall and below 40% on the economy, the president cannot affirmatively make the case that voters are better off now than they were four years ago. He—like everyone else—knows that they are worse off.

In essence, they are saying that even if Obama manages to get himself re-elected, he will continue to damage the party beyond repair. And they're right. Whether Obama wins the nomination or goes on to win next November, it will be a Pyrrhic victory for Democrats. Hillary is by no means a lock on the White House, but either way, she damages Democrats (and the country) less. Read the rest here. H/T Memeorandum Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

The Hillary Watch

A few stories of note recently, of criticism of Obama from the Clinton camp or rumblings of a Hillary run (or both). As the economy continues to tank and scandals break out in the Obama administration like a Whack-a-mole game, Hillary is looking better and better to a lot of Democrats.

Hillary 2012? Obama campaign manager won’t rule it out

Will Hillary Clinton Challenge Obama Next Year?

Obama Is Careening Down the Wrong Path

Meanwhile, Waiting in the Wings, Here's........Hillary!

At a New York political event last week, Republican and Democratic office-holders were all bemoaning President Obama’s handling of the debt-ceiling crisis when someone said, “Hillary would have been a better president.”

“Every single person nodded, including the Republicans,” reported one observer.

Ah, Hillary is starting to look good once again to, well, everyone!

During the last few days, the whispers have swelled to an angry chorus of frustration about Obama’s perceived weaknesses. Many Democrats are furious and heartbroken at how ineffectual he seemed in dealing with Republican opponents over the debt ceiling, and liberals are particularly incensed by what they see as his capitulation to conservatives on fundamental liberal principles.

In Connecticut, a businessman who raised money for Obama in 2008 said, “I’m beyond disgusted.” In New Jersey, a teacher reported that even her friends in the Obama administration are grievously disillusioned with his lack of leadership—and many have begun to whisper about a Democratic challenge for the 2012 presidential nomination. “I think people are furtively hoping that Hillary runs,” she said.

And not only them, but can Obama win if he's lost Bill Maher?

On Real Time With Bill Maher, the host said that as far as he was concerned, Obama might as well be a Republican, and added that he thought last week represented the tipping point in Obama’s presidency. Wondering if liberals have “buyer’s remorse” about Obama, Maher asked his panel whether Clinton would have been a better president.

“Yes,” replied astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, adding that Clinton would have been “a more effective negotiator in the halls of Congress.” “She knows how to deal with difficult men,” Maher agreed.

Barack Obama is to politicians what closing time and coyote ugly is to women in bars. Democrats in every part of the political spectrum are waking up next to Barack Obama after a long night of "What was I thinking??" and wondering if they have to chew their arms off to extricate themselves gracefully.

In his New York Times Sunday Review essay “What Happened to Obama?” Emory University psychology professor Drew Westen summed up the president’s lack of experience with devastating succinctness. “Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he occasionally, as a state senator in Illinois, voted ‘present’ on difficult issues,”

How about those folk who supported Hillary in '08?

Among Clinton fans, particularly older women, the language was frequently far more caustic. “Obama has no spine and no balls,” said a 67-year-old New Yorker. Other observers contrasted the president’s declining popularity with Clinton’s widely acclaimed performance as secretary of State. “To be blunt, her resume outshines the incumbent’s,” wrote Dickinson, noting that Clinton’s approval rating is close to 70 percent while Obama’s is around 40 percent.

And there are those political pundits who have written off a Hillary run in '12 merely because Mrs. Clinton said she wouldn't run. This was in the aftermath of the Wikileaks revelations. This may have damaged her creds as a foreign policy expert or at least provided a source of embarrassment. However, if the Clinton's internal polling indicates more than the ghost of a chance, expect a "Draft Hillary" movement, where a reluctant Hillary has to be coaxed to take the nomination, for the "good of the country".



H/T Memeorandum

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Another Socialist for Hillary?

I have said on a number of occasions, that the bloom is off the hibiscus with this President. One more voice from the far Left who thinks it would be a good idea for Obama to face a primary opponent (or opponents). Bernie Sanders, Socialist Independent-VT:

I think there are millions of Americans who are deeply disappointed in the president, who believe that with regard to Social Security and other things, he said one thing as a candidate and is doing something very much else as a president. Who cannot believe how weak he has been for whatever reason in negotiating with Republicans, and there’s deep disappointment. So my suggestion is, I think one of the reasons the president has made the move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him and I think it would do this country a good deal of service if people started thinking about candidates out there to begin contrasting a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama believes he’s doing. [...] So I would say to Ryan, discouragement is not an option. I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition.

So, the far Left thinks Obama is too conservative. The conservatives know him to be too far Left and the Moderates are deserting him in droves.

Might this be the time for a Democrat woman for President???

H/T Memeorandum

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

More at Hot Air

Glenn Greenwald: US More Unpopular in the Arab World Than Under Bush

Obama Didn't Make Us Loved Around the World? I'm shocked. Shocked! Remember when the fake Hope and Change candidate stood before the fake Greek columns muttering fake promises about transparency and making the oceans recede and how once we got rid of the dreaded George W. Bush, people around the world would love us? They were going to throw down their bombs and their guns and all sit around the campfire with us eating s'mores!

Well, Glenn Greenwald, of Salon, not exactly "Mr. Republican", notes, it ain't necessarily so!

I've written numerous times over the last year about rapidly worsening perceptions of the U.S. in the Muslim world, including a Pew poll from April finding that Egyptians view the U.S. more unfavorably now than they did during the Bush presidency. A new poll released today of six Arab nations -- Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco -- contains even worse news on this front:

The hope that the Arab world had not long ago put in the United States and President Obama has all but evaporated.

Two and a half years after Obama came to office, raising expectations for change among many in the Arab world, favorable ratings of the United States have plummeted in the Middle East, according to a new poll conducted by Zogby International for the Arab American Institute Foundation.

In most countries surveyed, favorable attitudes toward the United States dropped to levels lower than they were during the last year of the Bush administration . . . Pollsters began their work shortly after a major speech Obama gave on the Middle East . . . Fewer than 10 percent of respondents described themselves as having a favorable view of Obama.

So, Obama's Cairo speech and a few predator drones across a half a dozen borders wasn't enough to convince the world that the US was their "buddy"? Imagine that!

Greenwald goes on to say,

What's striking is that none of these is among the growing list of countries we're occupying and bombing. Indeed, several are considered among the more moderate and U.S.-friendly nations in that region, at least relatively speaking. Yet even in this group of nations, anti-U.S. sentiment is at dangerously (even unprecedentedly) high levels.

Read the whole thing. It's not just Republicans and conservatives who realize that the Charlatan-in-Chief falls far short in the leadership department. Greenwald is part of a growing dissatisfaction on the Left with the blank slate candidate they foisted upon us in 2008.

Hillary Clinton, anyone?

H/T Memeorandum
Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Hillary on Patriotic Dissent, In Her Own Words

Then and now:



Hillary:

But the bottom line is, whose side are you on? Are you on Qadhafi's side or are you on the side of the aspirations of the Libyan people and the international coalition that has been created to support them? For the Obama Administration, the answer to that question is very easy.

Clinton Voters Still Skeptical of Obama for 2012

Though many Hillary Clinton supporters clenched their teeth and supported Barack Obama in 2008, many remain frustrated with the president’s failure to champion women’s issues and believe he should expect a lower turnout among women for his 2012 reelection.

“After 2008 [Clinton voters] were basically told get over it, and they haven’t gotten over it,” Amy Siskind, president of the feminist advocacy group The New Agenda, told The Daily Caller.

Women, however, did vote for Obama in droves with the hope that he would tackle the issues important to them once in office. This has not been the case according to many Hillary Clinton supporters.

“Barack Obama wasn’t the women’s candidate in 2008 and he is not the women’s president midway through 2011,” Diane Mantouvalos, a 2008 Clinton supporter and co-founder of HireHeels.com (“a forum of power chics for Hillary”) noted.

Hillary for president is apparently still alive and well.

“I’d say few if any Hillary supporters have warmed up to the president…I certainly hope that changes by 2012, but it’s too late for women to feel like they’re doing better than they were 3 or 4 years ago,” Mantouvalos added.

It is not just the job situation either. Feminists have also taken issue with the fact that Obama’s cabinet only has a comparable number of females to the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

I think this is what psychologists call "approach/avoidance". Although Hillary would be a far better president than Obama, she may be harder for Republicans to beat in 2012.

Keeping the best interest of the country in mind, I'd rather see Hillary in the winner's circle in 2012, just to slow down the damage done by this president.

Quote du jour

“President Obama said Hillary Clinton is approaching one million frequent flier miles in her job as Secretary of State. Though even that can’t get her upgraded to the seat she really wants.”

–Jimmy Fallon

Hillary Watch: On the bin Laden Take Down

There's been a lot of speculation this last week about how the take down of bin Laden might affect Obama's re-election chances in 2012, with the usual emphasis on how it helps him with the right and hurts him with his base. But, what if there were a joker in the deck? There is a story out there, that it was, in fact, Leon Panetta, Obama's CIA head, who had to give the order to kill bin Laden while Obama dithered. Now if it could be credibly proven that this was true, without compromising national security, who might benefit from the damage it would do to Obama, especially if it were coupled with Panetta's endorsement of say...Hillary? After all, Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff for three years. But, to paraphrase the Bard, Hillary says she is not running, and Hillary is an honourable woman. Update: Scenario Number Two: Panetta establishes his bona fides as the decision maker on the bin Laden kill, and then, in 2012, joins Mrs. Clinton in a "resignation of conscience" prior to the election. If Hillary has to bail to run, Panetta bails, too. (If this is all too Machiavellian, remember, I'm just trying to think like a Clinton!) Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything. More "Hillary Watch" here.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Picked as Democratic National Committee Chair

Another story came out this week that fits the narrative:

Debbie Wasserman Schultz picked as Democratic National Committee chair

President Barack Obama has chosen Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz as the incoming chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, the party announced late Tuesday.

Wasserman Schultz, 44, was chosen for her strength as a fundraiser and as a television messenger and for her clout in the crucial swing state of Florida, the sources said. ...Wasserman Schultz becomes the first female DNC chief in 15 years and the third in history.

And, cynically, he adds, helps inoculate the Obama administration against challenges from females within the party and without.

Hillary Watch: "Why Hillary Clinton must run in 2012"

John Phillip, LA Times:

If Hillary Clinton's primary voters and President Obama had their relationship status listed on their Facebook pages, it would change from “Married” to “It's complicated.” To be fair, Hillary voters never fell in love with Obama, they just fell in line. Their relationship is less like a Julia Roberts chick flick and more like a Bengali arranged marriage. Because of their arrangement, Hillary-loving Obama voters are quick to jump ship whenever Mr. Hope-and-Change looks like he's getting played again by his political opponents, is in over his head or is dissing their girl. Despite Obama's anti-climactic campaign announcement just now, according to all the recent polls, Hillary voters aren't only jumping ship –- they're taking their fins, snorkels and pina coladas with them.

Colorful language to sugarcoat the awful truth for Democrats, that they backed the wrong horse in 2008. Variations of the "3 AM Phone Call" ad have saturated the culture, with most of them giving at least grudging praise to Hillary while casting Obama in a bad light. Agree or disagree with Obama's Libyan Adventure, but it seems that Hillary was more the brains and will behind the operation than the president was. President Linguine Spine didn't have the cojones to even announce what he was going to do, much less take any kind of principled stand against it. So much for the hero of the anti-war movement! Mr. Phillips concludes his argument by saying:

Despite her contemporary denials, Hillary would only throw her hat in the ring if she thought she had a better than even chance at moving back into the White House. Obama is looking weak, but not weak enough to justify a primary challenge...yet. If Libya turns into a full blown disaster...resulting in billions of dollars wasted, boots on the ground and abysmal public opinion numbers, my money is on Hillary resigning her post as secretary of State and jumping in the 2012 primary.

I agree that she won't make the move without a reasonable chance at success. However, I don't think it would take a full blown disaster in Libya to bring that about. But, of course, I've been saying that for months. H/T Memeorandum Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Our First Woman President?

There's some Michelle Bachmann for President buzz going around.

As if Rep. Michele Bachmann's foray into the early-voting state of Iowa didn't raise enough 2012 speculation already, now comes news the Minnesota Republican will meet behind closed doors with two of the most important GOP officials in the state.

Bachmann, who is heading to Des Moines Friday to deliver a keynote address at an event sponsored by the Iowans for Tax Relief, is also scheduled to meet with newly-minted Republican Gov. Terry Branstad and Iowa GOP head Matt Strawn, Bachmann spokesman Doug Sachtleben tells CNN.

Sachtleben would not say if Bachmann's potential presidential ambitions would be discussed in the meetings, though it's safe to say both Branstad and Strawn will be pivotal behind-the-scenes players in the lead up to the first-in-the-nation caucus.

Earlier this month, Sachtleben told CNN that Bachmann "hasn't ruled anything out" when it comes to a presidential bid.

A serious Bachmann presidential bid could help change the equation on the other side of the aisle, too. If having accomplished the goal of electing the first black president, could the siren song of electing the first woman president be too much for Democrats to pass up? That could bolster a Hillary 2012 effort.

H/T Memeorandum

Rove: Hillary to Run in 2016

I've said for months that it was going to be 2012. That was before wikileaks. I think she'll spend the next year keeping her head low and her powder dry and see just how badly those have hurt her. Unless this wikileaks thing keeps dribbling out bad news about her, a year is an awfully long time in politics.

I still look for Hillary in the primaries in 2012, unless there are more damaging leaks to come.

2016 could be the back up plan, I suppose.

H/T Memeorandu

Hillary Announces "Last Public Position"

Bill would probably say "missionary".

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has once more reiterated that she will not run for president in 2012, going so far as to refer to her current role in government as "my last public position."

Some of you might be tempted to smirk behind your hands and ask: "What does this do to your prognostication that Hillary will challenge Obama in 2012?" Allow me to channel my inner Machiavelli. Hillary was damaged by wikileaks. Foreign policy was supposed to be her strong suit. She could step into the breach and mend fences like the weakened Obama never could. Only now, leaked revelations about the inner workings of her state department have severely weakened Hillary instead and eroded much of her political capital abroad. So she makes the statement she's not interested in going any farther. In other words, I'm not overly ambitious. Which is a good trait for a presidential candidate to have. So, if she and her team cannot reconstruct her credibility in the next two years, then all she has to do is stand by her statement. She has nothing to lose. If, however, Obama continues his swirl around the porcelain political bowl, Hillary can cite the groundswell of dissatisfaction with Obama and "reluctantly" answer the call of duty to serve her country once again. Two years is a long time in politics. It may be that some new revelation gets leaked which puts the final nail in Team Hillary's political coffin. In the meantime, her unannouncement takes her out of the political limelight to a certain extent and lets her concentrate on damage control. I am still unmoved. Unless a few more skeletons fall out of Hillary's closet, I still believe her pillbox hat will be in the ring come 2012. You may quote me.

Did Obama Do All He Could To Prevent Wikileaks??

In WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton, and the Smoking Gun, in Slate, Jack Shafer explores some of the damage done to Obama's current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. As readers of this blog know and many others suspect, Hillary will probably be Obama's number one opponent in the 2012 primaries. So does this leak help or harm Hillary in 2012?

To be fair to Clinton, she isn't the first secretary of state to issue cables telling U.S. foreign service officers to spy on other diplomats...

...But what makes Clinton's sleuthing unique is the paper trail that documents her spying-on-their-diplomats-with-our-diplomat orders, a paper trail that is now being splashed around the world on the Web and printed in top newspapers. No matter what sort of noises Clinton makes about how the disclosures are "an attack on America" and "the international community," as she did today, she's become the issue. She'll never be an effective negotiator with diplomats who refuse to forgive her exuberances, and even foreign diplomats who do forgive her will still regard her as the symbol of an overreaching United States. Diplomacy is about face, and the only way for other nations to save face will be to give them Clinton's scalp.

My contention was that Hillary would stick with Obama, at lest nominally, until some "crisis of conscience" caused her to resign. (Failing a major conscience crisis, she could cite the cumulative effect of many smaller crises.) End game: Hillary takes a moral stand for the good of the party and is "forced" to run against Obama in 2012.
What if this wikileaks business is an attempt to force her out before she can bring her plans to fruition? By weakening her as Sec State, she is also weakened as a potential Commander-in-Chief. Damaging her with our allies, damages her as presidential material.

The damage these revelations have caused is summed up by Shafer thusly:

There is no way that the new WikiLeaks leaks don't leave Hillary Clinton holding the smoking gun. The time for her departure may come next week or next month, but sooner or later, the weakened and humiliated secretary of state will have to pay.

So, in light of the fact that the first round of wikileaks during the Obama administration cast Bush and the military in a bad light, and the second round seems to do the same for the State Department, whose titular head is a likely opponent in 2012, is it any surprise that an administration that without warning, shut down more than 70 websites for sharing music and movies cannot left a finger to stop the leaks of classified government documents by wikileaks?

Could it be that the administration had assurances if not advanced knowledge of what was going to be released, and if not complicit, was at least passive to their leaking?

H/T Memeorandum

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

"If Hillary gave up one of her balls and gave it to Obama..."

"... he’d have two."

-James Carville



The 2012 campaign continues apace.

H/T Memeorandum

AP Poll: Nearly as Many Dems as Reps Want Anybody Other Than Obama

An Associated Press-Knowledge Networks Poll, reported in the Huffington Post of all places, shows that nearly as many Democrats as Republicans would like to see someone other than Obama in the White House In January 2013.

The AP-KN poll has tracked a group of people and their views since the beginning of the 2008 presidential campaign. Among all 2008 voters, 51 percent say he deserves to be defeated in November 2012 while 47 percent support his re-election – essentially a tie.

Among Democrats, 47 percent say Obama should be challenged for the 2012 nomination and 51 percent say he should not be opposed. Those favoring a contest include most who backed Hillary Rodham Clinton's unsuccessful faceoff against Obama for the 2008 nomination.

And, as noted in the previous paragraph, that too, is virtually a tie. And for the former first lady, who was able to distance herself from the Armageddon-like debacle the Democrats will face tomorrow, those numbers will continue to tilt in her favor over the coming months.

More articles on Hillary Watch.

Gaga Over Hillary

Is that the former First Lady? Is that Bill Clinton clutching his chest??


No, It's Lady Gaga!

H/T Smitty at The Other McCain