Posted on 10/30/2004 4:57:46 PM PDT by conservative in nyc
The crowd stomped and cheered as Hillary Clinton arrived on stage. “Go Hillary 2008,” a woman yelled. There were a few startled giggles at this off-message cry, for this was a John Kerry for President rally. For Hillary to stand next time, the Massachusetts senator would have to lose now; it was officially unthinkable for Democrats.
In the audience at a community college in the battleground state of Pennsylvania last week were hundreds of Hillary fans who were making do with Kerry.
“Early on I wanted her to run but I’ve really grown to like this guy,” said Phyllis Shaken, 61, a psychologist. “I can’t say I like him the way I like Hillary and Bill, but I admire the way he has withstood the pressure.”
Hillary Clinton has been watching this election intently. Should Kerry win on Tuesday, her own presidential aspirations are toast. Barring some catastrophe, Kerry will go on to seek re-election in four years’ time.
By 2012 Hillary, who was 57 last week, will be 65. Theoretically there would be time for her to stand, but America would have moved on.
Bill Clinton has made no secret of his desire to be the first “first gentleman” in American history. He longs to be back in the White House, with memories of the Monica Lewinsky hanky-panky in the Oval Office erased by his wife’s victory.
It would be the ultimate vindication of their highly political marriage, a mixture of true love and a confluence of interest.
However, right-wing pundits such as Sean Hannity, a Fox News talk-show host, are already preparing a Hillary Watch, should George W Bush win on Tuesday. His campaign to stop her reaching the White House will begin the very next day.
Arch-conservative Ann Coulter is sharpening her pen. “What actually happened during the Clinton presidency? No one can remember anything about it except the bimbos, the lies and the felonies,” she says.
One Pennsylvanian admirer said of Hillary last week: “The problem is she doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning, and I like winning. She would get creamed in the mid-west. Too many people really hate her guts.”
It was this calculation that led her to suspend her presidential ambitions in 2004. She remained coolly on the sidelines, aware that this election was Bush’s to lose. After two seemingly successful military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, a Democrat president in 2004 was a long shot.
Besides, Hillary had her work cut out as senator for New York. Her new job was an opportunity to persuade a sceptical public that she was more than just a political spouse.
Time was supposed to be on her side, until Kerry suddenly looked like the “good closer” his supporters have always boasted he was.
The Clintons were thus caught in a dilemma. Spending too much time boosting Kerry was clearly going to be counter-productive to their own interests. Cold-shouldering him would alienate the loyal Democrat party grassroots.
The emergence of a heart problem and dramatic quadruple heart bypass removed Bill Clinton from the race at a very convenient moment. His former polling adviser, Dick Morris, noted that his “surgery gave him all the excuse he needed to stay in bed”. The former president emerged to campaign only in the final week, giving himself maximum exposure and boosting Kerry — without overdoing it.
It was a newly gaunt Bill Clinton, wearing a loose-fitting suit, who drew an 80,000 crowd to Philadelphia last week, far more than Kerry had yet managed to turn out on his own. “If this isn’t good for my heart, I don’t know what is,” the two-time election winner said with feeling.
“Chilly” Hilly does not have Bill’s people skills. One woman who was thrilled to have the chance to meet her at a Kerry rally last week came away disappointed. “I shook her hand, but she wasn’t looking at me; she was looking at the next hand.”
In contrast, her husband never meets anybody without giving the impression they could be best friends.
Hillary Clinton also has to contend with a mountain of hostility towards what is perceived to be her ultra-feminist yet calculating political persona. At a rally in 2001 for the victims of the September 11 attacks, she was booed on stage by firefighters and policemen, a salt-of-the-earth but largely sexist slice of middle America.
Her staunchest admirers are made up of women who are well to the left of Hillary’s own public pronouncements. One enthusiastic supporter cheering her in Pennsylvania last week confessed to being a member of the Green party who was only supporting Kerry as a tactical, get-rid-of-Bush move.
Yet the former first lady, who has proved herself adept at baking cookies and standing by her man, has adopted centrist policies in the past four years. Both she and Bill have been far more supportive of Bush’s war on terror and the war in Iraq than Kerry.
Hillary not only authorised the president to go to war but, unlike Kerry, also voted for the contentious $87 billion in financial aid to support the troops in battle.
While she always sounds enthusiastically pro-Democrat, she is not quite so obviously gung-ho for Kerry, who snubbed her at the Democrat convention last summer by initially leaving her out of the speakers’ line-up. Only after a furore was she given the wifely consolation prize of warm-up artist for Bill.
In a peevish outburst, she criticised the campaign on both sides last week for “being a difficult and occasionally dispiriting exchange of ideas” influenced more often by “soundbites and advertising than the ideas we should be debating”.
Some cynics were not surprised when Bill Clinton sent in his former campaign advisers, such as Joe Lockhart, Mike McCurry and Howard Wolfson, to beef up Kerry’s campaign when it was in the dumps after the Republican convention.
Under their influence, the meandering, nuanced Kerry suddenly got on message with some telling soundbites, such as: “Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time.”
Should Kerry win, he will owe the Clintons, but it is not clear how he will reward them. There are reports that Bill would like to replace Kofi Annan as head of the United Nations, but that might give him too independent a platform.
As for Hillary, a lawyer by profession, conservatives are spreading the rumour that she will be elevated to the Supreme Court, where her pro-choice views on abortion would be appreciated by feminist Democrats. It seems, however, to be nothing more than an electoral scare tactic.
The truth is that the best personal political outcome for the Clintons remains a Bush victory on Tuesday.
At one stage the vice-presidential contender, John Edwards, seemed poised to eclipse Hillary in the future affections of Democrats, but he has failed to grow in stature during the campaign.
Should Democrats wake up to a further four years in opposition, the prospect of Hillary as president of America could be the only consolation. In the words of Ann McAllen, a health promotion worker from Philadelphia: “I expect great things of her — and it would ease the pain.”
I don't think so......Hillary will head to the Supreme Court, and Bill will head to the UN!!!! that is SCARY!!!
She must have been "shaken" to want to vote for either!
A health care practitioner who does the circuit of community events, trade shows, county fairs, etc. They pass out literature, take your blood pressure, check your blood sugar, etc. and try to get you to come to their institution for medical treatment.
Largely sexist?
The author of this is an ahole and I don't give a rats a$$ if he/she thinks I am "largely sexist" for saying so.
GOOD GOD, MAN!
“Early on I wanted her to run but I’ve really grown to like this guy,”
Isn't that like the mortician falling in love with the cadavier?
CREEPY...
What the hell is a "health promotion worker"? Probably someone that scours high schools, shopping malls, hospitals and colleges, looking for pregnant girls "needing" an abortion.
Bill has the excuse of being a true sociopath. Hill is just plain evil.
Hopefully, we won't have this false choice. Rudy should slay the Hildabeast
Great line. She is a cow !
They sure did peg Edwards, didn't they?
Many thanks for posting. Do you know if thbis is a column, or just an op-ed piece..I have the sense that the author, Sarah Baxter, has been luring here..I seem to recognize some of her best lines..Do you know anything about her? If we can get an e-addy for her, at the paper, I'm sure many Freepers would like to express their appreciation..
You watch: Hillary will NEVER get the Dem nomination. Ever ever.
Why?
In 2008 the Dems will have had 8 years of Bush and the GOP making their lives miserable. Since Cheney is not going to run for Prez in 2008, that means both sides have to pick new guys.
They will finally have a chance to get back into the Oval Office. They are NOT going to hang their hopes on that hairy legged liberal commie harpy. I could see her winning two states: New York and California. Nobody else is going to touch her, they would vote for friggin' Pat Buchanan before they'd vote in Hillary.
Whether Bush wins or not on Tuesday, Hillary is dreaming if she thinks the Dems are going to be stupid enough to let her run, because everyone knows she'd lose. It'd be another Dukakis-like slaughter. They might ... I repeat MIGHT let her go for VP so they can make themselves look like the "progressive" party, in putting a woman on the ticket -- but of course if they do this, she's just going to lose the election for whoever they nominate as VP.
Fifi won't win. Say an early hello to Prezdent Hitlery 2009! (Kinda makes for a dilemma, don't it, should one vote for Fifi after all?)
She will go down just like Kerry because of her communist beliefs.
Ft Marcy Park, here Kerry comes!
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