Posted on 08/26/2015 6:10:28 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Stop snickering. The prospects of an internecine fight between Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden should have progressives worried, especially with Bernie Sanders still rising in the polls. Michael Tomasky rightly frets that a Biden entry while Hillary still remains in the race will have both sides “going for the jugular” — and in both cases, the jugulars are particularly large targets. But it’s Tomasky’s perspective on their biggest selling points that really displays how ugly this will get:
He’s going to have to run a campaign that says, sub rosa: “I’m a stronger and safer nominee because she’s corrupt.” Because that’s the only argument, is it not? He can’t out-populist her, really, even with Warren promoting him—he’s been in politics for 40 years and he’s always been a pretty conventional establishment liberal on economics. He can maybe say he has more experience, but she’s got plenty of that, and it’s not a deficiency; it would be like Tim Duncan saying I have more experience than LeBron James. Yeah, you do. So what?
Biden would have no choice but to build a run around the idea that she’s too risky. He or his surrogates will need to press the idea that the party could nominate Clinton and then next fall, Trey Gowdy finds that Holy Grail email that brings the whole thing crashing down. In other words, his candidacy is going to have to be built around what is in essence a Republican Party talking point.
And if he goes for the jugular, the Clinton team will surely respond in kind. They’re not wallflowers, those folks. They know how to fight. And they’d be fighting on behalf of the millions of Democratic women out there for whom it’s Clinton’s time. That’s her emotional rationale. But Biden has an emotional rationale, too: Beau. Where women will be protective of Hillary, Biden’s backers will be protective of him, too, because of his war hero son’s death.
Let’s recap. Hillary’s best emotional argument is that it’s her turn, and that Democratic women will get angry if she gets pushed out of a second attempt at a coronation by some old white dude. Biden’s best emotional argument for leader of the free world will be that his son recently passed away. Even if both sides refrain from attacking each other, the best campaign we can hope to see will be I Paid My Dues versus In Memory Of.
Yes, that’s a pretty ugly prospect, all right. We can call it the Ruling Class Entitlement Contest.
What seems mystifying in this essay is that there is a built-in assumption that Hillary shouldn’t be challenged within the Democratic Party nomination race, especially on her performance as Secretary of State. Well … why shouldn’t a sitting two-term VP run for the next nomination? And why shouldn’t the machinations of the SecState to evade oversight and transparency be an issue in that nomination fight? After all, it was the Obama/Biden administration’s policies that got violated by Clinton, right? Obama and by inference Biden promised The Most Transparent Administration Evah, and Hillary’s secret server tarnishes their (admittedly mostly absent) efforts to deliver on that promise. Tomasky calls concern over the exposure of classified material on an unsecured communications channel — an abuse of power from top to bottom — a “Republican talking point,” an argument that damns Democrats far more than it does Republicans, unless we just take for granted now that Democrats don’t care about national security.
Tomasky seems mostly cheering for Biden’s continued sidelining in the 2016 race in favor of the Democrats sticking with the Next In Line. Ask Republicans how that’s worked out for them over the last couple of cycles. Most will probably respond by saying the results looked …. ugly.
Both sides “going for the jugular”
Wouldn’t surprise me, not at all! One thing for sure it won’t be a serene walk through the dark shadows in the park.
Two devils for many years fighting side by side over the soul of our nation, now they are set to battle each other for total control, yeah that will be ugly, ultimately it will be proven both are losers, in the end individual liberty, independence, and freedom will prevail.
They will have to expose each other and their satanic progressive liberal democrat/rino communist uni-party.
Fearlessly battling the enemy without and within... CRUZ 2016!
Also, if Biden does get into the race, Obama is obliged to at least publicly be all for Biden.
Forget about the fact that the Obamas and Clintons hate each other. Forget about Hillary’s dismal record as Sec. State. Forget about the email scandal. These are Democrats, they’d bury the hatchet if they had to in order to keep a grip on power for the party.
No, the issue is that Obama absolutely, positively ever refuses to admit he made a mistake. He picked Biden as his VP, which means if he fails to back him now, he’d be seen as admitting that Biden wasn’t the most qualified or capable to be his successor.
That makes the upcoming fight even more juicy, because it will get NASTY.
This email thing leads me to conclude HRC is a first order idiot, QED.
A harshly competitive Dem primary is great news for Republicans. One thing that happened in the last two Pres primaries, was Liberals jumping into the Republican primaries in "open primary" states, to vote for the weakest, most liberal candidate on the (R) side. They could do this because the Dem candidate was assured.
In a competitive Dem race, this will work in our favor and against the Dems, as they will tend to vote in the Dem primary, and leave the Repub primary to conservatives.
Obama couldn’t pick Hillary in 2008 for fear he would be Arkancided...probably on January 21, 2011 (the first day that would allow Hillary to serve two full terms after completing the rest of Obama’s term).
Obamacide or Arkancide? Luca Brazzi or Sollozzo? This is going to get interesting!
Remind me, which is the white guy?
I read an observation on Conservative Treehouse that I’ll paraphrase here:
The GOPe / Wall St. / CoC was counting on Jeb Bush to be the nominee. One of the tools they planned to use to get him the nomination was open primaries. In open primary states, democrats can vote in republican primaries. Since Hillary was the “inevitable” Dem nominiee, the GOPe/Wall St / CoC were counting on dems to cross over and vote for Bush in those open primaries (to oppose Walker or Cruz).
With Sanders gaining steam, and the idea of Biden running, many of those Dems will vote in the Dem primary. They won’t cross over. They won’t vote for Bush.
Therefore in addition to the joy we will get by seeing Biden and Sanders savage Clinton, we will also deprive Jeb Bush of primary votes.
It’s a win-win-win!
RUN JOE RUN!
JOE BIDEN WILL SAVE THE DAY.
He’s going to have to run a campaign that says, sub rosa: “I’m a stronger and safer nominee because she’s corrupt.”
Well, no. Biden's going to have to imply that.
He's going to have to make that point without emphasizing it -- to just barely make the point so that Democrats are attracted to him rather than put off.
Hillary won't have any trouble going for the jugular but that may end up hurting her.
Run Joe, run!
Biden is the old white idiot guy. Sanders is the old white socialist guy. Hillary is the old white rich woman.
Such a diverse field of Democrats.
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