Just like in My Fair Lady’s Ascot Horse Racing scene, “Everyone who should be there was there” at the GOP Presidential Leadership Conference in New Hampshire last weekend. Not only were every one of the nineteen suitors for the GOP Presidential nomination there, so was “My Fair Hillary”. Without Hillary the entire two day bun fest would have been a total disaster as she was the central item on the agenda - just like Eliza Doolittle was at that Ascot Opening Day.
For practical purposes the only major difference between the Republican Presidential wannabes was how they characterized the Democratic heir apparent to the Presidency. They worked up a real head of steam one foretelling a bigger disaster than the other if Hillary occupied the West Wing of the White House. For variation there was a reciting of her life to date that was allegedly strewn with blunder, mishap, incompetence, catastrophe, lies, hypocrisy, naked ambition, fraud, graft, racketeering, cynicism, socialism, brutal capitalism and naked greed.
SMEAR SMEAR SMEAR AND REALITY IS LOST
The tactic of the GOP Presidential Hopefuls, the GOP in general, Fox News, Limbaugh, Koch Brothers, Rove, Heritage Foundation and the like cabal is simple - smear Hillary of the face of the earth and whatever emerges from the GOP Primary must win. As they are all intellectually bankrupt this is the most logical and only avenue available. The fact that it never worked with Obama is not a deterrent and they believe that Hillary and Bill’s personal financial success is a fertile field to explore and smear.
The tactic of the GOP Presidential Hopefuls, the GOP in general, Fox News, Limbaugh, Koch Brothers, Rove, Heritage Foundation and the like cabal is simple - smear Hillary of the face of the earth and whatever emerges from the GOP Primary must win. As they are all intellectually bankrupt this is the most logical and only avenue available. The fact that it never worked with Obama is not a deterrent and they believe that Hillary and Bill’s personal financial success is a fertile field to explore and smear.
This is all so rich from those who in effect support laundering money into tax free havens, pay 15% income tax, export jobs oversea, were the midwifes of allowing elections to be bought and whose Godfather Dick Cheney's company Halliburton has transferred its headquarters to Dubai. Halliburton, having been a major beneficiary of Cheney’s war in Iraq, garnered non bid contracts in Iraq for a billion smackers. Rand Paul a GOP contender went as far as to say the Halliburton contract was the reason Cheney went to war.
Smear is a two edged weapon as the GOP’s Romney found out in the last election. They are the party of non regulation where money is the morality so you would think they wouldn't want to go there, but necessity is the mother of invention.
Not only is the smear a two edged sword it becomes difficult to recognize valid criticism when it comes along so the Democratic base who have now been exposed to fifteen years of indiscriminate and often baseless attacks on the Clintons from Whitewater to murder will not even bother to weigh the evidence dispassionately. In addition the media can only focus on one issue at a time so Hillary sucks up all the oxygen not giving the GOP contenders any air. One last point the electorate are only really bothered about matters that directly effect them like taking away their Medicare and saying that half the American population are takers while everyone knows that the givers are really the biggest takers.
The advice of Larry Kudlow a doyen of Republican economists, to the GOP, is to lay off Hillary as all it does is anger women and minorities. He exhorts the GOP candidates, "To show us what youv'e got".
HILLARY WAS THE MAIN ITEM AT THE OPENING
But back to the main event - the opening day at the GOP’s Ascot. There was not too much attacking each another, merely general warnings like - beware of young Senators as they have had no experience and are not yet ready for prime time. That was accompanied by a not so subtle comparison of the fearless three, Rubio, Cruz and Paul with Obama who also after only two years in the Senate made his move for the Presidency. That is pretty heavy stuff because up until the very day before the conference Barak was the number one bogey man or should Jay H. Ell say bogey person. The Washington politicians of course claimed a worldly wisdom over the parochial Governors while the non politicians believed that no one from Washington should go back to Washington to run the country.
This gathering was to formerly anoint Hillary as public enemy number one. There was a bit of nostalgia for good old yesterday, (April 18, 2015), from two of the old school, Jeb and Chris Christie, who maintained that Obama was still the worst. However, this minor deviation from the central thrust of Republican Party Policy from its assembled creme da la creme was papered over as all agreed that electing Hillary would give Obama a third term.
Below are a few of the choicest sayings that the GOP standard bearers propounded in relation to Hillary. (To paraphrase Professor Higgins,”He would never let a woman into Washington”).
Scott Walker: Hillary Clinton was aloof and she had never shopped at Kohl’s, (A Mid West chain clothes store for the middle class). So its Scott who is the people’s candidate not Hillary.
Mike Huckabee: He claimed that as he was from Arkansas he had run against “The Clinton Machine” for every office he had ever run for.
Lindsey Graham: The biggest smear of them all - “Bill and Hillary did a better job of selling Obamacare then Obama did”.
Carla Fiona: Was first off to use the licentious Bill smear alluding to the fact his hormones had got out of control and had clouded his judgement.
Rand Paul: Also claiming that Hillary was a fat cat, “When Hillary Clinton travels they are going to need two planes - One for her and her entourage and one for her baggage.”
Other participants included Governor Jindall of Louisiana,and former Texas Governor Perry. An interesting participant was Ohio Governor John Kaisch who has been pretty effective at bipartisanship. He is one of the few Republican Governors who accepted Obamacare as he argued that it would be unethical to deny his citizens health care. His problem is getting to first base or to persist with the simile, getting out of the starting gate. Then there is Ben Carson who is full of sound and fury reminiscent of Herman Cain. Last and the least is the greatest, Donald Trump who keeps telling every one that he is serious about running for President. Nobody believes him as he always says that but ironically this time Jay H. Ell does.
So most of the themes devolved around Hillary. In addition to the personal stuff and that by definition she was as bad or worse than Obama she was also deemed useless as Secretary of State being responsible for all the world’s problems - Putin and the rest. Then there was the centerpiece of the attack - carry on Benghazi and off course the E Mails. (The Foundation had not yet surfaced).
FOX KNOWS THAT THE CURRENT GOP MANTRA WONT CUT IT
Fox News in their post Conference News release focused on Hillary’s possible Democratic challengers as well as the anti Hillary diatribe. The Dem contenders look like a Whose Who list of Democratic Party Office Bearer nonentities. Fox News had high hopes for them however maintaining that if the Democrats started taking them seriously then Hillary would be in serious trouble. The good news for the three is that Fox News is blowing their trumpets. The bad news is that their potential followers are not avid fans of Rupert Murdoch’s megaphone. The three are:
Governor O’Malley from Maine: He is positioning himself to Clinton’s left. More social security, higher minimum wage yada yada… However in an extensive interview with public radio he refused to criticize her. He thinks if he wins Iowa where he is over seventy points behind Hillary he will change the whole dynamic of the race. Indeed he will.
Former Senator Webb from Virginia: Main contribution to the debate is that he is against the Iran deal. Join the club.
Governor Chafee from Rhode Island: He is running on one of Obama’s Platforms against Hillary - that she voted for the Iraqi war.
Interesting that Fox news didn’t dredge up Elizabeth Warren who has broken the record for the number of times she made it clear that she wasn’t running for President,
THE GOP RACE A REAL HORSE RACE.
At this early stage the field is really bunched. Different polls have a few candidates heading them but no -one ever hits a twenty percent acceptance. Straw polls have favored Rand Paul with about fifteen percent. Jeb and Scott have headed several of he conventional polls and the most recent CNN poll has Jeb at 17%, Scott12%, Rand and Marc 11%, Huckabee 9% and Cruz 7%. The last CNN poll not so long ago had Ben Carson and Chris Christie leading and now they are at 4%. Of the polls conducted over the past six weeks two show Bush ahead and two show Walker ahead both tiny acceptance figures. The CNN poll surprisingly gives Rubio the best shot against Hillary trailing by 14% and Bush trailing by 17% whereas the rest are hitting a 20% deficit and above. All of these percentages translate into landslide victories for Hillary.
The biggest nightmare for the GOP would be a repeat of the Romney debacle with all these contestants tearing into each other pushing the party further and further to the right. In that cycle each of the contenders took a turn at leading the pack till Romney outstayed the lot and the GOP establishment nearly dropped dead from exhaustion. Reince Priebus, the GOP National Chairman hoped to counter this by axing the number of debates but what he couldn’t axe was how early this all started and the number of candidates cluttering up the field.
Just in case anyone thinks Hillary can be blown in the Dems Primary the CNN poll showed her at 70%, Biden the next closest, 11%, and the Fox News 3 challengers, O’Malley, Webb and Chafee at between 1% and 3%. Meanwhile she is playing it at as lower key as possible because she is a sitting duck for the media. With her numbers it is hard to keep up the exitement in this horse race. However, if the hottest news the Press can eke out on her is what she ordered at Chipotle she will be happy.
WHAT THE H.ELL IS WRONG WITH JAY H. ELL?
Reading through this blog Jay. H. Ell wonders what he is thinking and even worse writing. For example the whole Primary process is a madhouse and commenting on it rationally is irrational. Instead of having a Primary runoff in every state on the same day one is subjected to this ludicrous ongoing spun out staggered stuttering production. The first two races in Iowa and New Hampshire, two tiny little states, have an incredible influence on the whole outcome. Then in order to keep the tension going disproportionate coverage is given to nonentities and the top runners are mercilessly butchered - all in the interest of creating reader and viewership so as to be able to sell soap. (Blog: The 2016 POTUS Race - It's Hillarious).
Jay H. Ell is feeding into the narrative by treating any nobody, who is totally unrealistic about his or her chances, as a celebrity and quoting them as if they were speaking words of wisdom and represent more than themselves and a small constituency. Also he is locked into basing his arguments on the current polls which will change as the media weighs in over the next two years, helped on by the blunders that the candidates feed them and the dirt that is dug up.
Jay H. Ell is as guilty as any of the pundits but he rationalizes that he has a responsibility to his readers to churn out the garbage with the rest of them. His is a more balanced garbage, he believes, and he would like to hope with a touch of humor. At least he knows he is blogging garbage and he is not selling soap.
Jon Stewart, as reported in Time, couldn’t go through another one of these elections again. Watching all those channels all day, was “ incredibly depressing”. Bearing in mind the drivel that Jay H. Ell has just chronicled one gets his drift.
WHAT IS PERTINENT.
By the way one pertinent comment - if the GOP Tea Party wannabes were really committed to their cause and not their own megalomania they could easily win the Republican Presidential nomination. If you add the support of Walker, Paul, Rubio, Cruz, Huckabee and Carson, (the hard core), you get almost Hillary like numbers. So maybe there is some “good” in encouraging them all to continue with their race and let Bush, Jeb, that is win like Romney, by default.
In addition to once again spell out the GOP modus operandi - reduce Hillary to rubble and then one of them can rise from the ashes.
To end where we begun at the Ascot Presidential opening day.
“What a smashing positively dashingly spectacle was the GOP Presidential Opening Day”.
PS: CARRY ON BENGHAZI PART 3
Incidentally, the House Select Committee on Benghazi has just asked Hillary Clinton to appear twice before it. This in spite of the fact of the fact that there were 19 full oversight meetings and 114 oversight activities, innumerable other activities relating to their investigation including the "full review" of thousands of documents. In addition there was a 2 year "comprehensive and exhaustive" investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Inter alia they found that there was sufficient security provided by the CIA and the latter bravely assisted the State Department and their personel and saved lives. The Committee found that the early Intelligence on the motivations of the attack were inaccurate and to cut a long story short "mistakes were made" in generating Ambassador Rice's talking points.
Clinton's own investigation into her own State Department resulted in a negative finding on four officials who had lapsed in relation to the incident. One resigned and three were placed on Administrative leave. She immediately implemented all the recommendations of the report.
So all that public money and time was wasted to try and prove a conspiracy between Hillary and Obama and the pilloried Ambassador Rice to cover up the Secretary of State's incompetence in the deaths of the Embassy personnel. The media covered the bohaai but have failed to educate the citizenry of the outcome. The smear is news the report is a bore. Benghazi is still THE plank in the GOP aramentarium against Clinton and that fact tells it all. (Blogs: Stopping Clinton in 2016 Starts at Benghazi, 1/17/13 and Carry on Benghazi: Stop Hillary, Part 2, 5/16/13).
By the way Hillary has appeared before the Committee previously where she was told she faked her brain hemorrhage to delay appearing before them....
PS: CARRY ON BENGHAZI PART 3
Incidentally, the House Select Committee on Benghazi has just asked Hillary Clinton to appear twice before it. This in spite of the fact of the fact that there were 19 full oversight meetings and 114 oversight activities, innumerable other activities relating to their investigation including the "full review" of thousands of documents. In addition there was a 2 year "comprehensive and exhaustive" investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Inter alia they found that there was sufficient security provided by the CIA and the latter bravely assisted the State Department and their personel and saved lives. The Committee found that the early Intelligence on the motivations of the attack were inaccurate and to cut a long story short "mistakes were made" in generating Ambassador Rice's talking points.
Clinton's own investigation into her own State Department resulted in a negative finding on four officials who had lapsed in relation to the incident. One resigned and three were placed on Administrative leave. She immediately implemented all the recommendations of the report.
So all that public money and time was wasted to try and prove a conspiracy between Hillary and Obama and the pilloried Ambassador Rice to cover up the Secretary of State's incompetence in the deaths of the Embassy personnel. The media covered the bohaai but have failed to educate the citizenry of the outcome. The smear is news the report is a bore. Benghazi is still THE plank in the GOP aramentarium against Clinton and that fact tells it all. (Blogs: Stopping Clinton in 2016 Starts at Benghazi, 1/17/13 and Carry on Benghazi: Stop Hillary, Part 2, 5/16/13).
By the way Hillary has appeared before the Committee previously where she was told she faked her brain hemorrhage to delay appearing before them....
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