Will Hillary run?

Word has emerged that Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations, despite her oft repeated assurances to the contrary, may well be as ambitious as they were at any time in her career.
USNews.com reports that an email fundraising letter from the Hillary Clinton for President campaign has revived the speculation of her running to return the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. back to she and her family.

USNews.com’s Washington-Whispers blog wrote: “While her campaign has in the past dispatched fundraising emails in a bid to finish paying her 2008 campaign debt, the timing of the latest blast raised some eyebrows.” (http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/12/07/hillary-campaign-conspicuosly-emerges)

The letter said in part: “In her speech in Denver, Hillary told us, ‘You allowed me to become part of your lives. And you became part of mine.’ As we all know, campaigns are tough, but having loyal supporters like you helped make Hillary’s campaign one that will never be forgotten.”

Well this isn’t entirely a surprise. Contrary to what they like to claim over at FoxNews, Monica Crowley was not the first syndicated writer and political pundit, to say write that Hillary would make another bid for the White House – I was. But that’s not the point of my rant, my point is that the only reason a pack of wild dogs attacks their leader is if the leader is weak, injured, or ineffectual. The Clinton’s may despise Obama, but if he were effective they wouldn’t be circling him like the alluded to wild dogs, watching to see if he dies on his own or if they should take it upon themselves to put him out of his misery.

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Following are my thoughts on her potential run, as I put an addendum on Rush Limbaugh’s thoughts pursuant to the same subject April 27, 2010:

Is Hillary prepping a challenge to Obama?

I think Rush Limbaugh may have overlooked a key point in his assessment of Bill Clinton’s comments concerning tea partiers.

Clinton told those at the liberal Center for American Progress, “There was this rising movement in the early ’90s that was basically not just a carefully orchestrated plot by people of extreme right-wing views but one that fell into fertile soil, because there were so many people for whom the world no longer made sense. They wanted a simple, clear explanation of what was an inherently complex, mixed picture full of challenges that required not only changes in public policy, but personal conduct and imagination about the world we were living in. So demonizing the government and the people that work for it sort of fit that – and there were a lot of people who were in the business back then of saying that the biggest threat to our liberty and the cause of our economic problems was the federal government itself.” (April 16, 2010)

Rush contended that Clinton was making a “connection between conservatism and terrorism – and between conservative ideology and terrorism.” While I am inclined to agree with that assessment, I believe that it is the topical explanation and believe the sensus plenior to be far more sinister as it relates to Obama.

Bill and Hillary Clinton (especially Bill) harbor no fondness for Obama. Bill’s disdain for him played out publicly during the presidential campaign in 2008 and even since then. I submit that Clinton’s remarks may have been intended as primary reasons for Hillary to oppose Obama for the presidency, should she decide to run in 2012.

Blaming Obama for what Clinton referenced as “not just a carefully orchestrated plot by people of extreme right-wing views, but one that fell into fertile soil because there were so many people for whom the world no longer made sense,” can be used as a potent argument – saying Obama’s political ineptness and incompetence are the key factors for the people losing hope.

Clinton is right when he says the world no longer makes sense to a lot of people. He is also right when he says people are angry. But, what he stopped just short of saying is that it is Obama’s fault and that Hillary is the one to resolve said issues.

He’s right, in part, when he said, “[The people] wanted a simple, clear explanation [for] what was an inherently complex, mixed picture, full of challenges that required not only changes in public policy, but personal conduct and imagination about the world we were living in.” But here again, he stopped just short of accusing Obama of being the primary contributing factor, and, even worse, of not being able to provide reasonable solutions. Ergo, if I am correctly following his unspoken but intended meaning, Hillary is the one to clean up Obama’s mess.

I don’t think my sequitur is lost on Obama. I think his reasoning for appointing her secretary of state was in no small part to prevent her from raising money and potentially criticizing his agenda. It may also be the reason she is being mentioned as a possible replacement for Supreme Court Justice Stevens.

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There is no question that Obama has been a miserable failure from any reasonable perspective – just as there is no question that there is a growing cacophony of disappointment from disillusioned independents and moderate Democrats. It would be very easy for Hillary to position herself as a moderate – pointing out the failures of Obama’s administration and at the same time blaming him for their fictional pandemic of “extreme right-wing” threats across the nation.

She would be able to blame him for creating a zeitgeist of disillusionment that viewed the “biggest threat to our liberty and the cause of our economic problems [as] the federal government itself.” That would not be a hard sell. It would also allow them to attack the tea parties with a veneer of impunity. After all, Hillary wouldn’t be responsible for the socialist agenda Obama has pushed; she hasn’t voted on any piece of legislation; and Bill could always point to the success of his administration – which, such as it was, was due in large part to his taking credit for Republican initiatives.

Even more insidious, if elected, she would be able to retain most of Obama’s agenda because, to a marginally lesser extent, she and Obama represent the same thing. The difference would be that she would be afforded political cover, because she would neither be pushing his agenda nor implementing it. She would simply be working with the programs she inherited.

And if, as we believe, a substantial turnover occurs in the Congress, she would not be encumbered to the same extent with anti-incumbent sentiment. Obviously I’m only surmising here, but it is worth noting that if I’m thinking about it, someone in camp Clinton is certainly thinking about it. It is also worth noting that few are better at political back-stabbings than the Clintons. (http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=146017)