Hillary's Hat in the Race?

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | Thursday, August 7, 2003 | Dick Morris

[JohnHuang2]

Hillary's Hat in the Race?
By Dick Morris
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 7, 2003

In 1968, a carpetbag senator from New York pondered a race to unseat an incumbent president. Determined to capitalize on his family name, raised to mythic proportions by his relative’s tenure in the White House, he judged, nevertheless, that his time had not yet come and that he should wait for four more years to venture out and run on his own.

But along came an unknown candidate who saw the vulnerability of the incumbent and mounted a campaign driven by the left-wing activists of the anti-war movement. With the president’s strength more apparent than real and Americans chafing under the daily dose of combat casualties, the unknown candidate gathered momentum and support. With each passing week, the incumbent president seemed more and more vulnerable.

Fearing that the train was leaving the station without him, the famous senator hastily revised his plans and jumped into the ’68 presidential contest and led a national crusade to oust the incumbent. The unknown but venturesome candidate was shunted aside, and the senator mounted what promised to be a formidable challenge before it was cut short by a bullet.

Will the role Robert F. Kennedy was preparing for be played by Hillary Rodham Clinton, Lyndon Johnson by George W. Bush and Eugene McCarthy by Howard Dean? As that famous philosopher Yogi Berra said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

Bill and Hillary Clinton have one central idea in their uncluttered, ambitious minds: Hillary in 2008. Let Bush get re-elected, use the ’04 primaries and general election to clean out the underbrush of competing Democratic candidates, and proceed unimpeded to the ’08 nomination. Use the book tours to build support and popularity, but let somebody else take the fall in 2004.

But those well-laid plans would go awry if somebody else beats Bush.

With a Democrat in the White House certain to seek a second term in 2008, Hillary would have to wait until 2012 to run. By then, she’ll be 65 and have been out of power for 12 years. The bloom will have faded and the honors gone elsewhere. So as Bush continues his descent in the polls, the chance that Hillary will run becomes ever greater.

The most recent polls put Bush’s job approval at 58 percent but, ominously, indicate that only 47 percent would vote for him against a hypothetical Democratic candidate. Forty-seven percent is just about what Bush won in 2000. And how committed could the top 11 percent of his backers be to say that they approve of the job he’s doing but won’t necessarily vote for him?

Although the economy will improve and one hopes Bush will find a way out to stop the killings in Iraq, the larger reason for the collapse of his ratings is the decline of terrorism as the major issue facing America. Once, more than 50 percent cited it in verbatim questions, but now less than 10 percent do. Like many presidents before him — and like Churchill in 1945 — Bush is the victim of his own success, eradicating the issue that propped him up in the polls by solving it.

The president has skillfully moved to preempt such Democratic issues as the Medicare prescription drug benefit, generic drugs and racial profiling and has made taxes a key issue for the ’04 contest by sunsetting his tax cuts, but he still lacks a key domestic issue to use in ginning up his support. I have always felt that immigration reform to keep out terrorists and drug testing to cut demand to dry up the funding for narco-terrorists would serve him well, but so far, he hasn’t moved to take up that or any other such issue.

If Bush continues to drop and one or more Democrats start to catch fire, Hillary Clinton will have some thinking to do. She won’t have to look far to absorb the consequences of sitting on the sidelines. If 1968 is a distant recollection, 1992 would be doubtless more vivid. Bill Clinton got the nomination because Mario Cuomo decided not to run. Cuomo, figuring Bush couldn’t be defeated, elected to wait, as Hillary is waiting in 2004, calculating that Bush can’t be taken. Will Hillary remember 1968 … and 1992?

[JohnHuang2]

Thursday, August 7, 2003

Quote of the Day by Arthur Wildfire! March

[firewalk]

.

[demkicker]

I hope the b*tch will run. I'm sick of the media hype about Hillary. Let her step in and get trounced so we can be done with the Clintons once and for all!

[Sacajaweau]

I think you're right. Run her...it's easier than us Upstate New Yorkers running her out of NY. Despite the polls, I think when it comes to nitty gritty, there are enough Smart women around who will vote for Bush. I not only believe she will lose but will lose "royally".

[JohnHuang2]

I was of the 'Hillary-will-run-in-'04' school, but no more. She ain't stupid -- Bush is too strong, her negatives too high and the memory of the tawdry Clinton-scandalrama too fresh for Hillary! to roll the dice like that. She ain't taking any chances. But she is running in '08. But she'll still lose.

[Former Proud Canadian]

Morris keeps quoting polls which habitually have underestimated GOP strength since the Carter administration. He is full of balogna.

[demkicker]

Whenever she does decide to run, I'm counting on Rush to belly up and expose Hillary's thesis that disappeared. He's read it and it is supposed to be a doosie.

[JohnHuang2]

Bingo.

[ReaganRevolution]

I read that she told Dean that she was not running, he wanted to be sure she wasn't before he began. She's perfectly happy to let him or one of the other clowns get beaten in '04. She has some work to do with the general electorate before she can win nationwide. Morris would be well served to look at Slick's approval and re-elect numbers in '95 before he draws any conclusion about Bush. As a matter of fact Dole was ahead of Clinton at this time in '95. If any of the dems were ahead of Bush in any poll the media would be over the moon with joy, and we would never hear the end of it.

[LS]

It wouldn't surprise me if the Beast ran, but Moris, don't forget, just BLEW the call on Arnold (as did Rush).

[Sacajaweau]

By 08, the Dems will be in even deeper poo poo. The USA is seeing their inborn "moral conscience" being destroyed.

The judicial nominations is a good example along with the attacks on "Under God", historic monuments, Flags ordered down, GAY MARRIAGES AND ABORTION.

We're tugging on that rope attached to the far left and I know there are more moral, reasonable people rather than ignorant, unreasonable people.

[JohnHuang2]

Exactly.

Morris would be well served to look at Slick's approval and re-elect numbers in '95 before he draws any conclusion about Bush.

If memory serves, the Slickmeister's reelect was in the toilet, mid-to-upper 30s, actually, and was trailing Dole at or near double-digits in most polls.

[Sacajaweau]

I'm sure the paper IS a doozy, otherwise, it would have been let loose.

[yoe]

The reading list is long but you can start with the late Barbara Olsens "HELL TO PAY", Ann Coulter's two books, SCANDAL & TREASON" both excellent - on to Carl Limbacher's Hillary's Scheme.

Hillary is a Socialist therefore the media loves her, EU loves her and the United Nations love her they all know she will destroy America as a free nation and bring this great country in line with the rest of the socialist global members. It will also bring Bill the rapist etc. back to the people's house, The White House. Just the thought is terrifying!

[Sacajaweau]

Hillary will spend the next few years in rehab and reconstruction. She's been practicing new clothes other than the black pant suit bit.

Now if she would learn to not call everyone stupid (including her fans who probably "bought their first book"). God, that was funny. Tell Hillary that we have libraries all over the place and it's FREE!!

[ReaganRevolution]

I went back and looked at his approval in August 1995, check out this comment from CNN. Now imagine if they would ever react this way if it was Bush:

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, Political Analyst: Right now, advantage, President Clinton. Let's look at the current poll standings. President Clinton's job approval rating is 46 percent. Now that's just about where it's been all summer, not great, not terrible, but a whole lot better than the rating that the public gives to Congress. Just 30 percent now approve of the way Congress is doing its job. That's the lowest approval rating for Congress since the Republicans took over in January.

Please! Bush has evened out to the mid 50's and the media are gleeful about his so-called terrible ratings.

[Maria S]

I would add to your excellent list 'Dereliction of Duty' by Col. Patterson, the man who carried the nuclear "football" for Slick for several years. Patterson isn't (or wasn't, that is) a biased, prejudiced person...until he saw Slick and wife up close and personal. Why read this now since Clinton is gone? Because Col. Patterson has some quite informative info about Hillary, also.

Loaned this book to a doubting friend recently; he was so impressed (and astonished!) that he went out and bought several MORE copies so he could pass them out to his doubting friends.

[mewzilla]

Broom Hillary's hat. And ride.

[JohnHuang2]

ROFLOL!

[JohnHuang2]

Exactly -- if Bush's job approval was 46%, the media would be writing his political obit.