Michael Barone explains why Hillary doesn't look like a sure thing
Michael Barone discusses the polls, dissects the numbers and compares Hillary to winners and losers. The good news is she looks more like a loser. Excerpt:
But it's hard to avoid the conclusion of FiveThirtyEight analyst Harry Enten. Clinton, he wrote last Monday, "no longer looks like such a juggernaut. Not only are her numbers dropping, but she is running on par with a Democratic brand in its weakest shape in a decade."
That's not what optimistic Democrats were expecting earlier this year. They thought nostalgia for Bill Clinton's presidency would enable Hillary Clinton to run ahead of party lines. Voters not eager for a third Obama term might welcome a third Clinton term.
That last line certainly applies to low-information voters. The rest of us know that they would be more-or-less identical. Continuation of failed liberal domestic policies, far left appointments and "what does it matter anyway" foreign policy.
In 1991, candidate Bill Clinton gave three policy speeches to overflow crowds at Georgetown University's Gaston Hall. When Hillary Clinton spoke there last week, the balcony was almost empty and there were empty seats in the lower level, too.
Clinton futures were on the rise 23 years ago. They seem to be in decline 23 years later.
Wow, 23 years ago. I'm that old.
Partisan Democrats who fancy Mrs. Clinton a sure thing should ask themselves:
ReplyDelete1. How often a political party has captured the presidency for 3 successive terms
2. How often political parties nominate (much less succeed with) figures who've been kicking around in national politics for over 20 years and have a large and irreducible minority antagonistic to them.
The answer to the first would be: 1 set while the Federalist Party was imploding (and before there were popular presidential elections); 1 set during the peri-bellum period (when much of the Democratic electorate was disfranchised); 1 set in the 20 years prior to the 1st World War (when a Democratic Administration had presided over a brief but severe economic Depression), once during the Coolidge prosperity, one set during the Depression and the War (no explanation necessary), and once during the Reagan prosperity. None of these matices are similar to what Hildebeeste faces.
As for the sort of candidate she is, the closest analogues would be Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Nixon was cleans as a hound's tooth compared to Hiledebeeste and Johnson's transgressions were still offstage. Both were more than a dozen years younger than Hildebeeste will be in 2016 and Johnson in 1964 was an incumbent president with approval ratings north of 70%.
I think Hillary's foreign policy would be more pugnacious than Obama's, which would make it better in some ways and worse in others.
ReplyDeleteLenin:Stalin :: Obama:Hillary
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