The time has come for Hillary to announce. Notwithstanding her understandable ambivalence everyone knows at the end of the day she is going to run. The longer she waits to let the world know the more the opportunity is for others to believe that there are alternatives to her in the Democratic Party. Conventional wisdom says Hillary should stick around before announcing the inevitable. Heavens knows that she is the favorite and the usual agenda dictates that she should act the reluctant debutante till the “time is ripe”. That is what she did last time and look what happened. Obama captured the imagination of the hopeful and was elected the Democratic candidate. Now Obama has broken many barriers but at the end of the day he never had the experience, the political skills, the connections to get across his populist agenda.
DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE WILL BE PRESIDENT
Now the reality is that the Democratic nominee for President is going to be the President. The demographics have shown so. In addition the issues that the Republicans are going to run on are lost causes in a national election. They have stopped talking about their number one issue Obamacare. They have already begun attacking Hillary and Benghazi. They have not alternative policies to anything, whether it be healthcare, job creation, climate, minimum wage, women’s rights, immigration, voter suppression to just to quote a few of the issues. On several of these issues over 70% of the electorate are in favor of reform.
So regardless of all the money that the Kochs of this world are pouring into the political system there is no way a Republican nominee can win the Presidency. Cruz at the moment is winning straw polls but he hasn’t a snowball’s hope in the sunshine of winning a Presidential election. He would make Goldwater’s effort against Lyndon Johnson look epic. The sorry lot of Republican candidates is so mediocre that even Rance Priebus, the Republican Party Chairman, does not want them to debate against each other. They are so far apart that there is no way that any of these hacks can bring together the rag bag of Republican political fragments.
ELIZABETH WARREN’S CLAIMS
So enter Elizabeth Warren. She is a dynamo, highly intelligent, articulate and charismatic. She is a woman and with the Republican record of ignoring women’s rights, a capable woman is an overwhelming favorite to become the next President. She represents the fresh approach that grabs the headlines. She has just written a best selling book, “A Fighting Chance”, which accentuates the inequalities in income and the unfairness of the current system that is loaded in favor of the 0.1%. Appearing with the current world financial philosophical and scientific phenomenon,Thomas Picketty, on a Huffington Post internet show, that became quoted by the world, she outshone the latter. (Not that Picketty cared he just watched bewildered apparently not accustomed to American political campaigning. If he wanted he could have dominated as he showed a short while later on the Colbert Rapport giving as good as he got).
Much emphasis is being made of Warren leaving the door open, for the first time, to a Presidential bid, during the Huffington discussion. Her equivocal answer to her possible throwing her hat into the ring was the subject of segments on several political programs that very night. Enough to turn anyone’s head that you are the new messiah.
The fact is that she is just the type of candidate that raises the hopes of the despondent that she could actually do something. Well she can’t. We cannot afford the luxury of another Obama who also was not ready for Prime Time. Politics is the art of the possible. Your position of power is built up painstakingly over years in addition to inherent skills of politics per se, not just campaigning.
Obama is a great activist and populist but not a natural politician. He shuns the smoozing that is necessary to oil the machine. He wasn’t around long enough to make the Congress connections. Please don’t think Jay H Ell is knocking him as a person his heart is in the right place and he introduced Healthcare for all, fights for gun control, climate change, inequality and the like and the Republicans behavior towards him is a disgrace. But his lack of experience and skills - managerial and political weakened his populist agenda generally.
THE CLINTONS COULD ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING
Again politics is the art of the possible. You need someone who knows how it works and how it works in Washington. The Clintons were quick learners and Bill had a natural political flair to go with it. Hillary could get things done in Washington. She has served her time. She followed the right protocol in the Senate, laid back and hardworking in the beginning. Not throwing her weight around as the former First Lady, Robert Byrd, the longest serving Senator ever and the repository of protocol of the institution had nothing but praise for Hillary’s deportment in the Senate.She bided her time and she was highly respected by members on both sides of the aisle. She already knows the international scene both from her White House tenure and her Secretary of State days. She can run on Bill’s record not Obamas…… Bill is the most popular politician in America and is associated with economic prosperity in the 1990’s. With Hillary everyone knows they are getting a twofer.
Now Jay H. Ell knows the moment she announces that all hell will break loose. But it has already. The Republicans are already running against her. They have replaced their main negative plank “Obamacare” by “Benghazigate”. Karl Rove implies that she is brain damaged. But at the end of the day the Republicans have run out of smears on the Clintons. They could resuscitate Monica but look what happened when they did. Rand Paul shut up so fast that he would probably deny that he said it. The Clintons are tough. They withstood all that Ken Starr could throw at them in his de facto coup d’ etat attempt. (Blog: Monica; The Victim Caught In A Coup d’ etat Attempt).
Already the Political Action Committees are out there collecting money for Hillary there is a grand swell of support in all sections of the community.
THE REPUBLICANS HAVEN’T A CANDIDATE
The Republicans in their excitement to kill Hillary still have to find a candidate to run against her. Their situation looks as if it is going to be a bigger mess than it was last time as they have some screwballs that are being taken as serious candidates, anyone of whom will get about 35% of the national vote. The establishment hopefuls have boiled down to one, Jedd Bush, who even his mother says shouldn’t run. Remember it was his brother, George Dubaya, that spurned the formation of the Tea Party. The other hopeful Chris Christie is still stuck on the bridge. There are a collection of little known Governors, such as Walker of Wisconsin, who barely gets double digits in polls against Hillary. So the more they attack Hillary and the less they find and build up a candidate to run against her the more counterproductive the exercise is. One of the reasons the Roves of this world are knocking her to the exclusion of everything else is that they haven’t a candidate to back.
Jay H. Ell supposes they could bring Mitt back as he is running around making speeches and endorsing candidates and looks poised for a third run. Other leaders such as Boehner are simply not interested as well as being unelectable. There is of course the “likeable” Mitch McConnell who will have nothing to do if he loses his Senate seat in Louisiana. It really does look a bit thin.
THE MEDIA TURN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION INTO 24/7 REALITY SHOW
One of the major problems in these Presidential elections is that the media including the three “political” channels turn them into 24/7 reality shows. They spin everything into a close horse race playing up one side or candidate or another to maintain interest. Obama was the golden boy as he took on Hillary. He like Elizabeth had just written an optimistic book entitled, “The Audacity of Hope.” An odds on favorite suddenly had a challenger. Obama was ill advised to run when he did. Just think of how he would have been positioned with 8 years behind him in the Senate to run now.
Obama felt what it was like to be on the wrong side when the media built up his race against Romney as a toss up. It was patent nonsense as anyone who understood anything knew that the demographics were screaming against Romney.
The media are ready to anoint a new runner in the Democratic stakes - Elizabeth Warren. Following her “performance” with Picketty the media consensus is that she could be poised for her run. Those are the exact words of Aaron Blake of the Washington Post. Elizabeth represents the opinion of all those who oppose the fat cats in DC, (including Jay H. Ell’s by the way) but she has not the clout or experience to follow it through. She would be much better candidate in 8 years time.
Whoever the presidential nominees are in both parties there will be the media blowing up the chances of one candidate then another to maintain interest. It would be nice if Hillary got a bye in the Democratic Primary. She deserves it and anyone entering will be a distraction even though will have their day in the sun as the media build them up to try and turn an obvious one horse race into a real horse race.
So announce Hillary before the media helps persuade some one or another to believe they have a chance against you. If you do declare that you are going to be a Presidential candidate all the Democratic constituencies will, domino like, rush to endorse you rather than entertain a run against you. As for Elizabeth Warren, who believes the country is at a turning point and she will do all she can to even the playing field for all Americans, she should take a deep breath. If she really wants to make a contribution she needs to put herself in a position to do so. Change takes time and no way will it all happen with the election of a savior who can't count votes. Compulsory reading for all these one day wonders is Mandela’s biography, “Long Walk To Freedom”.
Rhetoric, good ideas, charisma, conviction and talent are simply not enough. Ms. Warren should also not forget that the media are very fickle and if they see her jumping ahead they will be quick to emphasize her shortfalls. If she doesn’t believe Jay H. Ell maybe she should just ask Barak Obama.
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