Intoxicated by Hillary Kool Aid, Robert Shrum Hallucinates Clinton Supremacy

Posted: February 19, 2014 | Author: Pundit Planet | Filed under: Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Al Gore, Barack Obama, Bob Shrum, Democratic Party, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Matt Bai |1 Comment

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Violently ill, strapped to a hospital bed, under psychiatric observation, Robert Shrum writes:

Handicappers in the presidential race abhor the opposite of a vacuum—a campaign two years out where one candidate seems to blot out the entire field. Thus a mini-chorus now rises, and may swell, questioning Hillary Clinton’s apparent lock on the 2016 Democratic nomination. It’s a predictable reflex, but in cold, hard reality, logic suggests that the lock is authentic, not just apparent. And in modern history, or virtually all American history, Hillary’s inevitability is unprecedented for a non-incumbent.

First, the logic. Who can seriously challenge her march toward a closing night acceptance speech at the next Democratic convention?

hillarytrip With a deft touch of humor more enjoyable than enlightening, Matt Bai suggests that Hillary is “no more likely to clear the Democratic field and avoid a primary … than Dennis Rodman is to become her Secretary of State.” Her fundraising advantages and her strength among “party regulars” make “her vulnerable to another grassroots challenge.”

But history doesn’t metronomically repeat itself. There is no Barack Obama waiting in the wings this time—and the last time, he wasn’t exactly in the wings. He had captured the party’s attention and admiration from the moment he commanded the national spotlight with a stunning keynote speech at the 2004 convention. It’s utter mythology that he came out of nowhere in 2007; some of the smartest Democrats, including Clinton loyalists like Greg Craig, who had defended the president during impeachment proceedings, signed on with Obama early on.

MSNBC’s Krystal Ball has her version of the 2016 Obama, and argues that Hillary shouldn’t run because the “moment” calls for someone like Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, someone “clearly passionate, living and breathing and feeling … the plight of the worker, the middle class.” Hillary, Ball asserts, can’t do that because she was once on the board of Walmart and recently accepted speaking fees from Goldman Sachs. That attack, if an opponent advanced it, could and would be swiftly confounded by the Hillary who, in the penultimate primaries of 2008, in places like Pennsylvania and Ohio, emerged as a powerful, persuasive tribune of blue-collar and middle-class Americans.

Of course, there is another slight problem with the Warren option: She’s joined all the other Democratic women senators in signing a letter urging Hillary to run.Warren will probably be out there all right—stumping for Hillary, not against her.

But let’s not stop here. Where would a grassroots challenger find the resources to mount a credible campaign? Obama relied heavily on the Internet. And Hillary’s commanding position among big givers shouldn’t obscure a decisive truth: the fundraising prowess of her own yet-undeclared campaign, and of outside groups like Ready for Hillary, is not the driver of her dominance, but a reflection of it. Most small donors on the Internet and social media are likely to flock to her. In the latest Washington Post/ABC poll, she has a six-to-one lead among Democrats. That is replicated in survey after survey. Women voters overwhelmingly support her, with younger women adamantly for her. So are the young in general—and Democratic men as well….