The Coming Hillary Clinton Train Wreck
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023729278 cali (87,280 posts)
The Coming Hillary Clinton Train Wreck
Do people really think that a Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign is a good idea—for the Democratic Party, our collective sanity, even for her? Maybe it doesn’t matter; some political locomotives just move ahead, even if the wreck is predestined, and her campaign is now coming around the bend. There is talk of the real rollout beginning this week, which may make for slightly odd timing given that a better focus might be on introducing Obamacare, aspects of which go into effect October 1st. Bill Clinton is supposed to be helping with that. Then again, it’s also the week of the big Clinton party, the Clinton Global Initiative summit, with all sorts of worldly people in town for the General Assembly, too. That could help Hillary, who will introduce her husband and Obama at the summit tonight, and whose name, with her daughter’s, has been added to the name of the Foundation. But there are also two new magazine stories out, at least one of which won’t help her at all.
New York has a big profile, by Joe Hagan, all about Hillary Clinton as her own powerful person—after Bill, after the First Lady stint and all those Clinton scandals, the woman in the plane with the BlackBerry and her own relationships with world leaders. She visited a lot of them, as Secretary of State. And while many don’t think she had particular big ideas (“For foreign-policy critics, some of this could look like wheel spinningâ€), her allies tell the magazine that’s just because they haven’t properly theorized the making of connections itself:
Clinton’s State team argues that Clinton was a great stateswoman, her ambition to touch down in as many countries as possible a meter of how much repair work she did to the nation’s image abroad.
There could be something to that—but whose image, and, one might add, whose connections? What is striking is that the Hillary-at-State philosophy is awfully like the one practiced by Bill at his foundation, though money is more openly on the table there. During an official visit, when the plane lands and the dinner with local influential figures begins, the material aspect is merely implied. In both cases, good can come of it. And for an idea of the unpleasant places the solicitation of donors can lead, read Alec MacGillis’s New Republic piece on Doug Band, one of Bill Clinton’s key aides and the man whose job, in part, seems to have been translating dollar figures into Clinton access. There were a lot of rides on private and corporate planes, and other favors that Band helped broker, but the Clintons received. “By his tally, he has accompanied the former president to nearly 125 countries and 2,000 cities,†MacGillis writes. (Hillary visited a hundred and twelve countries during her Secretary of Stateship.) But, her aides tell New York, each of those miles marked distance from Bill—toward her own ends: he was“Not a presence,†says a close State aide. “And I don’t mean that just literally. But not someone who was built into the system in any way. He had a very minimal presence in her time at the State Department.
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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2013/09/the-coming-hillary-clinton-2016-campaign-train-wreck.html
Cali is no fan of Hillary Clinton. I suspect he played a role in purging Hillary Clinton supporters at DU.
joeybee12 (43,109 posts)
1. And the Clintons are the only politicians in the history of this country...
To use well-connected people and broker deals...yeesh. People really must be convinced Hilary is running since they're trashing her already.
Chan790 (14,991 posts)
10. To be fair, I've been trashing her since she was my Senator. n/t
Laurian (1,266 posts)
3. Do we really have to start this shit already?
Someone is not too happy with Cali.
bunnies (12,108 posts)
18. I was barely over Clinton fatigue from 2008.
Didnt they learn anything from last time? They do more harm than good with that crap. Policies? Meh. Its Hillary!
Notice a lot of user names with rabbit and bunnies at DU.
HappyMe (14,769 posts)
21. I kind of wonder if the people that say that
Obama is too centrist are already inaugurating Clinton.
lamp_shade (10,176 posts)
4. Aw jeeze
There is a faction of DU'ers who do not like Hillary Clinton.
