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Same Old(er) Hillary
The six-year house party the activist left has been having with the country is coming to an end — and they know it. The death rattle for the antagonistic left began as soon as Wall Street grandmother Hillary Clinton announced her run for the presidency.
When a candidate is nominated for President, the party no longer drags them to their position; instead, it automatically becomes the party of that candidate. That’s why you see Bill de Blasio, Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren all curbing their enthusiasm. The moment Hillary accepts the nomination, their electoral talking points are for the most part rendered benign — the party becomes a Clinton party again. They also know the same dirty secret the rest of the country knows: Hillary can’t run on class warfare and pop-socialism. Democrats understand that any time Hillary plays class warrior, she falls over her gold-plated walker and hits her Life Alert for the media to bail her out.
With Goldman Sachs’ favorite candidate in the White House and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the Senate, Elizabeth Warren becomes marginalized. So does her gaggle of Occupy devotees, at least until she takes over a leadership position, which won’t be for another 10 years at least. Any national political future for New York Sandinista and groundhog killer de Blasio becomes blurry, as does the political clout a former President Obama can take on speaking and book tours.
This doesn’t mean Hillary won’t try to adopt some or even all of Obama’s desperate class warfare tactics. But her ability to successfully make people believe she is a populist champion of middle-class families is laughable at best. Hillary will never be a populist, even if she grinds down her dentures trying to prove it. As evidenced by her tepid campaign roll-out and hiring a flock of Obama alumni, Hillary is attempting to cash in on the pop-culture appeal the Obama brand was so successful in selling. But as we were reminded this week, Hillary will struggle with being herself while trying to be Obama. The search to create a symbiotic relationship between adopting his successes while distancing herself from his failures is already proving disastrous.
Her campaign consiglieri John Podesta was the first to announce she was running. Hillary refused to appear live, instead releasing a short video in which she barely appeared. She launched a website that looks like an ad for a retirement home, and redid her Twitter identity, removing her profile picture in favor of a now infamous, head-scratchingly bad logo. It most reminds people of a hospital sign — not a flattering image for a nearly 70-year-old woman with a history of strokes.
Hillary’s roll-out had everything except a real live candidate. The only proof it wasn’t some elaborate Weekend at Bernie’s prank came when a Chipotle in Ohio released grainy security footage of Hillary Clinton Hearst buying a burrito incognito and avoiding speaking to the everyday Americans whom she claims to champion. I’m not an image consultant, but something tells me you don’t want your candidate — who is already strapped with a 25-year reputation of being legally shady — to have their first campaign appearance looking like a fugitive on a Crime Stoppers advert.
The stop, we were told, was part of a spontaneous road trip to Iowa, an idea that Hillary herself spontaneously brainstormed, in a spontaneous van with the spontaneous name of Scooby that somehow managed to not be photographed by anyone in the media because, remember, it was spontaneous.
Except it wasn’t spontaneous. She did the same thing in 2000 for her New York Senate race. Hillary’s new campaign that isn’t about her and more about listening was caught in a lie within the first 24 hours of launch.
She finally turned up in Iowa at a university auto mechanic shop, an odd campaign choice considering Hillary admits she hasn’t driven a car since 1996. Shortly after, her communications director (Obama White House Alum Jen Palmieri) appeared on Jake Tapper’s CNN show where she struggled to string enough words together to form a coherent sentence on the issues Hillary is running on. It really was quite spectacular:
This was the same comms director, while Hillary was pushing her “middle class” message, is tweeting out photos of the New York skyline from the campaign headquarters in Brooklyn Heights where rents are in the five-to-six digits. I reside in Brooklyn 10 minutes from there; it’s not a middle-class neighborhood, it’s one of the wealthiest in the country. It’s also one of the culturally coolest, which is why they chose it for an aging oligarch of American politics who desperately needs a cool-kid makeover.
And therein lies Hillary’s struggle. She’s making all the same mistakes she’s notorious as a candidate for making, even as she tries to replicate the successes of the only person who’s ever beaten her. No matter how hard she tries to be all things to all people, we were reminded over the past three days that she’s the same Hillary, only older. She can attempt to siphon off Obama’s cool and steady pop-culture popularity by having her daughter appear in Elle magazine or ordering coffee with the hipsters, but Brooklyn Cool won’t relate to middle-class families who watched their median income shrink under the President she served.
The African-American turnout in 2016 won’t be what it was for Obama for obvious reasons along with the the disenchantment they feel with his policies. The youth vote won’t be there for Hillary like it was for Obama, no matter how hard they try to cool her out. Hillary has a choice to be an everyday, average grandmother or celebrity Obama-lite.
She can’t be both and will likely fail at either if she tries.
Published in General
Remember the name: Stephen Miller. A damn good piece of writing, Stephen.
Thanks Gary
Stephen’s piece is a good read, and I suggest you add him on Twitter. I’ve been enjoying him for awhile.
I don’t want to get ‘cocky, kid’, but I am increasingly convinced that if the Republicans can’t kick this particular tomato can, it might as well shutter business.
My nightmare scenario, Stephen, isn’t Hillary’s health problems, but that Bill has something happen to him down the line. The man is apparently (from what I’ve read) not in good health, and looked reed-thin the last time I saw him.
As a Missouri voter, I once had the wife of a dead candidate, with a D in front of his name, elevated to office on a ‘final weeks’ sympathy vote.
Great analysis, with laughs to boot. Thanks.
Not familiar with anything surrounding Bill but never know. Thanks for reading Scott.
She needs to start playing saxophone.
BTW, Percival, happy birthday!
Nice outfit, too. Hope it doesn’t rust when it rains.
As the first on Ricochet to begin deflating Prof. Rahe’s “Romney Landslide” balloon, I’m afraid I have similar feelings here. The 2012 election was not about Obama’s accomplishments – it was just “Because Obama.” When asked about Obama’s recanted opposition to gay marriage, one activist indicated that he knew that Obama was lying all along, that he was always with them, and was just saying what he had to say to the Great Intellectually Unwashed.
I fear it is the same with Hillary. No matter how gobsmackingly incompetent her campaign will certainly be, she has all the correct positions on abortion, corporate fat cats, universal free [……], [……]phobia, et. al. Unless someone comes up with a video of her personally stomping a 2-year-old in the head for daring to touch the hem of her pantsuit, I have a strong feeling the election will come down to simply “Because Hillary.”
Update: Sorry, I meant “Because ♀ Hillary”
A day early, Gary, but thank you!
I’m telling you though. Hillary is going to unleash her inner Cannonball Adderley and this race is over, baby.
“Old(er)” Hillary or “Oldest”Hillary?
Given her skill set, Percy, this is the more likely result of her releasing her inner Cannonball.
Nice article. Bill’s facial redness is probably not a serious medical issue but a Cialis side effect.
I agree with almost everything in this sharply crafted article. But I am not optimistic. Not yet anyway.
Precisely because Hillary is a horrible candidate for many reasons and because the Blue State Model (Walter Mead’s useful term) is conspicuously failing at the federal, state and local level and because the entire business model of the MSM is collapsing along with their credibility and because tenured radicals have almost killed off the golden goose of middle class student borrowing, the desperation of the left will be palpable and their willingness to say or do anything may be unlike anything we have seen before. The demonization of the non-left will reach new lows because they no longer believe in their hearts that they are the darlings of inexorable forces of history and that their end may be near.
Hillary’s $2.5 billion will be matched by even more shadow spending by the wealthy ideologues who own the Democratic Party and it will be used to mobilize the vote –real and fictitious and to suppress election law enforcement. I think it will get weird and ugly. The margin of fraud will be larger than ever.
I don’t get the same vibe off her and her campaign. Let’s face it, Obama was new, and cool, and erotic…which pretty much is the opposite of sHrillary. I don’t think anyone really voted for Obama based on real or imagined issue positions; rather, they voted for him based on the same leg tingling that set off Chris Matthews’ gaydar. In short, sHrillary is loathsome, Obama was lovable–at least to a majority of voters.
OB, I couldn’t have said it more Eeyoreishly! It warms my heart…
KP, that was certainly true in ’08. But in ’12, he was no longer lovable, just King Progressive.
I’m afraid Hillary’s Progressiveness (voting, not personal) and her XX-ness may be all that’s necessary for a slim (but adequate) majority of voters.
Compared to the cold fish of Romney (a man described by his own side as looking like the picture that came with the frame!) Obama did still look at least charming, or at a bare minimum, real.
Too bad we later found out later that all that phony sincerity was… phony.
@Eeyore- “Unless someone comes up with a video of her personally stomping a 2-year-old in the head for daring to touch the hem of her pantsuit, I have a strong feeling the election will come down to simply “Because Hillary.””
@Old Bathos- “because the Blue State Model (Walter Mead’s useful term) is conspicuously failing at the federal, state and local level and because the entire business model of the MSM is collapsing along with their credibility and because tenured radicals have almost killed off the golden goose of middle class student borrowing, the desperation of the left will be palpable and their willingness to say or do anything may be unlike anything we have seen before. The demonization of the non-left will reach new lows because they no longer believe in their hearts that they are the darlings of inexorable forces of history and that their end may be near.
Hillary’s $2.5 billion will be matched by even more shadow spending by the wealthy ideologues who own the Democratic Party and it will be used to mobilize the vote –real and fictitious and to suppress election law enforcement. I think it will get weird and ugly. The margin of fraud will be larger than ever.”
I share your pessimism. When I told a female coworker about SNL’s cutting spoof of Hillary’s campaign announcement, she said “I’m a Republican, and I plan to vote for Hillary.” (Sighs) God help us.
Fixed.
What kinna Republican?! Did she do any sorta explicatin’?
__________
Oh, crap. Did a little Googlin‘.
“PRINCETON, NJ — President Barack Obama won the two-party vote among female voters in the 2012 election by 12 points, 56% to 44%, over Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Meanwhile, Romney won among men by an eight-point margin, 54% to 46%. That total 20-point gender gap is the largest Gallup has measured in a presidential election since it began compiling the vote by major subgroups in 1952.”
It could easily be worse this time…
So I clicked on Jake Tapper to see what the flack had to say, and stopped as soon as said flack stumbled uncomfortably over her first line, which was “happy to be with you, jake”. She swallowed and looked like she was in a spelling bee and got asked a word she didn’t know.
This is the slick, professional, energized Clinton campaign? Someone’s dragging Gram-Grams across the country in a bus and that’s what constitutes credible American leadership?
I can only imagine that the campaign planning meetings are much like getting your teeth drilled with no novocaine. Oh, and the word “No” is probably not heard much, in response to Hillary’s ideas about what to do and what not to do.
While she furiously texts on one of her several phones that she’s frequently photographed with. A callow, shameless, old, and vapid shell of a human being. The face of the Democratic party, writ very large, and writ very pantsuit.
TeamAmerica: I’m running into this same phenomena in spades. There is a significant portion of the American electorate who will vote for HRC for no other reason than that she is a woman. Pointing out the illogical and inherent sexism of this reality is worse than worthless, as it tends only to further strengthen the individual’s resolve to cast their vote on the basis of, “it’s time for a woman.”
Therefore, my question is: Why isn’t the GOP actively recruiting a qualified candidate, with demonstrated conservative bona fides, to run against her? Accept the moment in history, seize the initiative and BEAT Hillary. Who? Well, Susana Martinez comes to mind…
(Of course, she’s not running…and I will now return to my wind-mill tilting.)
@Eeyore- ”
Eeyore
Fixed.
What kinna Republican?! Did she do any sorta explicatin’?”
We work at the NJ branch of a sports-oriented tv network. Her family structure bears a close resemblance to that of Michael J. Fox’s in ‘Family Ties.’ I.e., her husband works for PBS and they have a son and daughter (I don’t know if any of the kids are conservative) And no, she didn’t explain her voting intentions.
@Clark Summers- “TeamAmerica: I’m running into this same phenomena in spades. There is a significant portion of the American electorate who will vote for HRC for no other reason than that she is a woman. Pointing out the illogical and inherent sexism of this reality is worse than worthless, as it tends only to further strengthen the individual’s resolve to cast their vote on the basis of, “it’s time for a woman.”
Therefore, my question is: Why isn’t the GOP actively recruiting a qualified candidate, with demonstrated conservative bona fides, to run against her? Accept the moment in history, seize the initiative and BEAT Hillary. Who? Well, Susana Martinez comes to mind…
(Of course, she’s not running…and I will now return to my wind-mill tilting.)”
Actually, Carly Fiorina is running, but she was a ceo, lacks political experience, and ran for the Senate in Calif. on a pro-choice platform.
Great article. Hillary will win only if she is the default candidate. This was Obama’s strategy in 2012 and it worked as it just requires demonizing your opponent. Any Democrat is generally seen as the default candidate by the pillars of the Establishment (media, academy, big boardrooms). It will be a harder sell for Hillary, but she probably has a floor of about 45%. The key will be to depress her turnout, and make her a risky choice.
I think the electorate (i.e. those who really vote) is looking for a return to normalcy. They don’t have an appetite for risk, they don’t want “take back” rhetoric they want “restore” rhetoric, and there is a strong wrong-track sense of the country’s direction. Both of those characteristics can play to the GOP’s advantage, provided we have intelligent campaign management.
Last thought, if it’s a coronation for Hillary we would do well by having a coronation on our side. Specifically, if there is a clear winner emerging after the early states, then the candidates should all agree to train their fire on her, not each other as the primary process continues. Use that time to demonize her, especially the no/low chance candidates. She will not be able to return fire on specific candidates, because all will still be in the race. We can use the primary process to play as a team. Big donations can be made to the long shot candidates with the explicit expectation they use it to attack her. Since it’s a primary, these are all independent actors.
I suspect it will be surprising how quickly $2.5B can be spent by her team.
I know anecdotal info isn’t all that useful… but I’m gonna do it anyways. I know a good amount of young-ish people (35 and under) in my workplace and elsewhere; they’re largely enthusiastic about Hillary, and about the idea of a female president. The few people I know who don’t like Hillary are simply holding out hope that Elizabeth Warren will actually run.
Granted, I live in a very liberal city…but it still makes me think Hillary has a pretty good chance. Ugh.