Blonde Ambition: Will Pardon Scandal Block Hillary’s White House Hopes?
Source: MSNBC.com
Published: February 25, 2001 Author: Jay Severin
Feb. 25 — We’re awaiting the official results, but it would appear
that after just one month in office, Senator Hillary Clinton’s connection
to a national scandal being investigated by two branches of government is
a new world record.
SUNDAY’S NEW YORK POST front page said, “We Don’t Believe You,” a sentiment based on a new Zogby poll showing nearly 60 percent of Hillary’s constituents think she was lying when she claimed to have know nothing about her brother’s or her husband’s pardon misdeeds. In politics, it is a given that your “favorable/unfavorable” public opinion rating must be at least 2-1 favorable. As of this weekend, Mrs. Clinton’s unfavorables are virtually even with her favorables.
Equally interesting — for a news media that has never yet admitted or even seriously pondered her one true burning desire, the presidency — all the Hillary stories are framed in the “how badly has this hurt her chances for 2004?” context.
NAME THAT TUNE
As someone who speaks with a certain smugness of vindication (having been the first to predict, to universal skepticism, HRC’s Senate and presidential ambitions two years ago in this space), you can imagine how interesting I find the mainstream’s media’s late arrival at the Hillary-for-President ball.
Say, fellas, didn’t you miss a step back there someplace? I’ve heard this tune somewhere before. So now it’s not “she’d never run.” It it’s “can she run?” I see the media recognizes the (unpublished) speculations as to Mrs. Clinton’s political demise are grossly premature.
Feeling, as I do, both proprietary and expert about Hillary’s life plan, it would seem appropriate at this time to render an update, to wit: She was always running, she is still running, she is going to run for president.
I am frankly astounded not just by the political ignorance, but the short-term memory loss of those who insist Mrs. Clinton has no such plans and, if she did, could never pursue them now.
ASK BILL
But, is there anything of which Hillary Clinton now stands suspected or accused that, even if proven, is worse than the known crimes of her husband — who, if he could have run for president again would be president again? Answer: No.
The nation that elected and re-elected Bill Clinton, two-thirds of which opposed his impeachment, is not so changed as to reject Mrs. Clinton for these trifles. She’d never run? Why — shame? Are you kidding?
HRC is already in the process of cutting herself loose of responsibility for these dirty deeds in general, and of her husband in particular. Did you hear her press conference? Want to know what happened with pardons? “Ask Bill, not me.”
As a matter of fact, Mrs. Clinton’s political stock is always highest when she can claim victimhood. This is merely the latest edition: poor Hillary duped by the men in her life, all while she’s “getting up every day end working hard to be the best senator she can be.” Boo hoo.
For grown-ups who wish to consider seriously the matter of Mrs. Clinton’s presidential candidate status, the only relevant questions and answers are these:
Q. Does she want to?
A. Duh.
Q. Will this scandal stop her?
A. Not unless there is video tape, indictment, conviction, and imprisonment.
THEY ADORE HER
The single most important and compelling political fact of life is this: the public with which Hillary is and will always remain a demigod, are the left-wing nuts who control the Democrat Party nomination process. They adore her, and nothing will make them stop. In fact, every attack by her (sexist, racist, homophobic, extreme right wing) critics endears her to them exponentially.
Hillary Clinton will beat this. And she will soon again be viewed by the people who really count (core Democrats) as their best next chance to rebuild the party and recapture the White House. Who will argue persuasively to be the better candidate, Al Gore?! Joe Lieberman? Maybe John Kerry? Maybe — maybe not.
But ignore at your own risk the hard facts that Hillary Clinton still wants it, the people with the power to give it (the nomination) still want her to have it and, once you are the nominee of a major party, no mater what your past, you’ve got a real shot at being president.
You may not think this way. But Hillary does.
Hench adds: Sorry, I forgot the barf alert. Let's just hope she's running in '04, from a PRISON CELL!
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