Posted on 04/19/2010 5:06:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
As Barack Obama’s approval numbers trend ever lower – and a new Gallup poll reports that 50% of Americans believe the President doesn’t even deserve a second term – it’s going to be very interesting to watch Hillary Clinton. Well, not the Secretary of State herself, of course. She’s busy at Foggy Bottom, burnishing her foreign policy credentials. Instead, watch her husband.
Notwithstanding news accounts about the détente between the Clintons and Obama, surely the former president and his wife can’t help but feel that their predictions about the political disaster that would result from Obama’s inexperience and naivete, reportedly made during the 2008 campaign, amply borne out. With Hillary turning 65 in 2012, can anyone blame her (or her husband) for entertaining the idea of challenging Obama in two years if his popularity continues to plummet?
In fact, Democrats might be well-advised to take with a grain of salt any advice Bill Clinton offers in months to come. The greater the damage to the President (and his party) that accrues in the interim, the greater the justification for a new (yet experienced!) candidate to step in to “rescue” the tarnished Democrat brand in 2012.
Certainly, this rationale would explain the advice that President Clinton offered the Democrats in the midst of the health care debate. Push forward, he told them, predicting that “the minute health care reform passed, President Obama's approval ratings would go up 10 points." Of course, that simply didn’t happen, and every day, the ObamaCare vote looks like nothing so much as a Democrat political suicide pact. If Democrats are nervous now, consider that the ex-President insisted at the same time that Obama’s ratings would increase by 20 points by next year.
Most recently, President Clinton emerged to insult the members of the Tea Party. Invoking memories of the Oklahoma City bombing, he implicitly compared administration critics to domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh, insisting that “all you have to do is read the paper every day to see how many people there are who are deeply, deeply troubled.” If polls are to be believed, more Americans identify with Tea Partiers than with the President himself – and so Clinton’s remarks couldn’t be better designed to alienate voters from the Democrat establishment. At the very least, his comments will serve further to energize the administration’s most fervent opponents.
All of this could be attributed simply to political wrongheadedness and clumsy posturing – if it weren’t Bill Clinton. For years, Americans have been informed of his formidable political and strategic skills – and his political adversaries have learned, to their detriment, of his dexterity in assessing and responding to the public mood. If he is truly seeking to help the Obama administration, then it’s fair to say that the Comeback Kid has lost a lot of his kick.
On the other hand, if the former President dislikes being sidelined and upstaged by a younger, more powerful man – who is singlehandedly shredding the Democrat coalition that Clinton himself did so much to assemble – and misses the attention of being the undisputed leader of his party, then his actions aren’t so difficult to understand. If Clinton still resents the battering his image (especially in the black community) suffered at Obama’s hands in the 2008 campaign, then perhaps his words aren’t so inexplicable. Oh, yes, and if he wants to see himself and his legacy vindicated (and his wife’s years of hard work and forbearance repaid) by helping Hillary take her own shot at The White House – then maybe, just maybe, Bill Clinton’s behavior makes perfect sense.
Is he promoting Hillary for the Supreme Court? (God help us.)
Interesting take. Thanks for posting.
Don’t be fooled.
Both Clintons are as much communist as Obammie the Commie.
Fine, let her run. Not that it will fix the damage Hussein has done. Despite being shunned by the party in ‘08, she still went along with the game and aided in him being elected. That isn’t going to set well with many voters. No, the GOP played hot potato with this admin. and got their way making them just as guilty or more so. Still, the ball was in the rat’s court and even old wrinkled bulbous nosed and past his prime Bubba himself won’t be able to pull this one out of the fire.
Both of your posts are right on IMO.
I don’t think so, I think they are preparing to kneecap Obama - and I’m sure she’s gathered a great deal of damaging information on him since they became BFF. Hmmmm, that’s a cat fight I’m going to enjoy. I know Hillary remembers when Michelle made this comment:
Michelle Obama takes a shot at Hillary Clinton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN1qZMBE9Gc&feature=PlayList&p=6DD71E5CECC0E2AD&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=6
(That’s pretty funny since most of the country is aware that Michelle is a beard LOL)
or
Barack Obama: Hillary talking like she’s Annie Oakley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzQxFtM9cfk&feature=related
The Clintoon’s are best described as ‘Nazi’s’ - National Socialists’
‘Nazi’ is sometimes used by the extreme left to describe ‘Right Wingers’. That is because it is less left than Communism, but it is still far left.
Note that the Alinski’s are masters of recreating definitions to suit their leftist, Communist, Nazi, socialist cause.
Machiavelli has nothing on Slick Willy.
I bet that he is. He made a comment over the weekend that he "didn't think it's necessary for a SCOTUS pick to be a judge." Translated: "I can deliver a lot of votes for you in 2010 and 2012, 0bama. Pick Hillary."
I expect that Hillary will challenge Obama in the 2012 primaries, both because of her ambitions and pressure from Democrat insiders after a Republican sweep of the 2010 elections and Obama’s continued drop in the polls.
Then again, the Supreme Court might be the last place he wants Hillary should he be brought up on treason charges etc. lol
If hClinton tries to challenge sitting-President Obama, she will be viewed badly by her own party.
The only way she can come out ahead is if the party dumps Obama (that is, he feigns illness and declines a 2nd term, for example). IIRC, only one sitting Prez has ever lost a primary to a member of his own party who went on to win the WH.
Otherwise, those so disenchanted with him will not vote for another Dem. They will vote for the opposition. That is, unless the Grand OLD Party pulls defeat out of the jaws of victory and nominations another Dole or McCain type candidate [which they can, and probably will, do].
Team Obama took down Team Clinton once. They likely can do it again. Even embattled, Obama can win a 2nd term if he manages to make the economy appear to be improving some. bClinton won a 2nd term, when many of us figured he couldn’t. Obama will likely do the same, with a few strategic moves in the next 2 years.
Incumbency is difficult to beat — in the primaries and in the general.
You will know when this is a reality when the seeded Clintonistas of the press begin publically scrutinizing bammy. Until then you know the Clintons have not decided it in their best interest. I would imagine that Hillary may need to step down before September to spend time with her ailing husband. That way she is removed from the Nov 2010 electoral disaster and can comment and rally the troops.
“I don’t think so, I think they are preparing to kneecap Obama.”
Yeah four lying, cheating ,socialist libs going at each other, how low could they go?? Get lots of popcorn! lol
“Machiavelli has nothing on Slick Willy.”
It makes you wonder about reincarnation.
Democrats are pushing for a gay into the Supreme Court it’s all about special treatment for votes.
I agree, but see that as being her approach to obtaining power.
NAZI-ism/Fascism is one of the incremental steps to absolute power over business and civil liberties, which I believe to be her ultimate goal.
The problem that every statist finds is that once they decide the government should be the dominate power in a society, there is no half-way point. What they find is that they must increase the scope of their power and the intensity of their power (at the expense of civil liberties) in order to try to control that which inevitably falls apart.
I see all these left-leaning -isms as nothing more than incremental steps toward absolute Statism, even if their adherents believe each to be an end in itself.
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