The Clinton Campaign

~ Laura

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody knows that you’re running, Hillary. Stop pretending that you’re thinking about it.

The pundits are starting to talk about the challenges that Hillary will face on her campaign trail.

Challenge #1 – How to remain a team player, while distinguishing herself from Obama. From the New Republic,

What explains the apparent calm? The most obvious answer is the unspoken pact between Hillary’s world and Obama’s: For Clinton, the pact means she gets the Obama donors and operatives who helped derail her first presidential run (and, more importantly, she denies their services to any potential challenger). In return, Obama ends up with the Democratic nominee best able to make sure his accomplishments outlive his administration. As a senior White House aide from Obama’s first term told me, “I think it’s a good thing that she’s the odds on favorite to be president next. … If it weren’t for her, I’d be worried about Obama’s legacy, Obamacare, all those things.” Neither side has an interest in violating the terms of this win-win deal with more than two years left on the clock.

Challenge #2 – How to explain the major $$$ brought in with speeches, since the Clintons left office. Hillary made $5m just in the past 15 months. Watch Diane Sawyer ask her about the money. I don’t think that the speaking fees are a big deal, but she’s got to figure out a better way of talking about it.

And more challenges to come. Oh, this is going to be fun.

Published by Laura

8 thoughts on “The Clinton Campaign”

  1. So the Clintons…”struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea’s education, you know, it was not easy.”

    Puhleeze. I have a very bad taste in my mouth.

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    1. Someone does the research here on that claim:

      http://minx.cc:1080/?post=349694

      Summary: Nope. The Clintons had between them $18 million in book deals within a year of leaving the White House. She had an $8 million book deal by December 2000 (when they were still in the White House) and he had a $10 million book deal by August 2001.

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      1. I got a copy of that book signed for my life. He looked ill when I shook his hand, but I figured he must have just shaken too many hands that day. A couple of weeks later, he had bypass surgery.

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      2. But they had incurred millions ($100 million?) in debt to lawyers when they left office. Remember Ken Starr and the unending investigations?

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  2. Well, the cynical way to look at this (and I have a long history of looking at the Clintons cynically) is that whether or not she intends to run, she gets more by appearing to be intending to run. “More” is donations to the Clinton Foundation, where much of the family wealth is parked and which will be providing nice salary to Chelsea for sixty more years, and to the little Chels-ette to come. People who want to be well thought of by President Billary? Better throw fifty grand to the Foundation. “More” is people paying attention. Better interview her, her views will be important in two years.

    So, only if she was firmly intending not to run, AND cared about the long term interests of the Dem Party to have a measured and thoughtful process, AND thought Chelsea and the Chels-ette had plenty of money for the rest of their lives – would she not be doing what she is doing.

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  5. National Journal has a thumbsucker from Ron Fournier, includes:

    “Who is Hillary?

    Her book tour is not going great. Clinton seems to be repeating the central mistake of her 2008 presidential campaign, burying her personality and passion beneath redundant layers of caution, calculation and defensiveness.

    The campaign to sell “Hard Choices” – a test run for the 2016 presidential campaign – began with Clinton telling ABC’s Diane Sawyer that she and her husband were “dead broke” when they left the White House. While that’s perhaps true in a literal sense, the remark ignored dead-certain plans for the Clintons to make more money per speech than an average American earns in a year.

    Then, during an excruciating seven-minute span with NPR’s Terry Gross, Clinton fought a fair-minded attempt to clarify her evolution on gay marriage.”

    McCain’s great strength as a candidate was that he never seemed to be calculating. My guess is that that’s true: what you saw was what there was. Clinton ALWAYS seems to be calculating. My guess is that that’s true: what you see is what she thinks will do her the most good, and it can have only tangential relationship to what there is. She may well be right, that what there is underneath wouldn’t be a popular as what she puts out deliberately. But the perception of inauthenticity has been fed by the ‘dead broke’ business, as it is by the flibbertyflop about gay marriage. There was a perception of inauthenticity about Mitt Romney, fed by the 47 per cent remark, and it sunk him. Cantor? you betcha! It’s a big piece of people’s rising impatience with Obambi. I think it’s Hillary’s greatest vulnerability.

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