Hillary Clinton doesn’t need to waste time spreading her message to liberals, Democrats, or anyone else from the mindless left. Bill’s legacy and gift to the former First Lady is that conservatives and the GOP will back a new Clinton presidency without even knowing that they are Hillary’s biggest supporters.
GOP and conservatives help make Hillary the frontrunner.
There was hope that Barack Obama’s sheer awfulness might toss conservatives a bone and help us forget the last time a Clinton was in the White House. No such luck. Instead of reflecting back on the Lewinsky days as a pretty good ride compared to what we have been putting up with, the GOP and conservatives are busy scaring each other with the Hillary bogeyman. Maybe it’s a Republican thing. Maybe conservatives aren’t very good at forgiving and forgetting. Maybe conservatives should be less concerned with looking for boundless meaning and innuendo in Hillary’s every utterance and more concerned with why the GOP can’t come up with someone who can trounce her if she runs.
Anything the GOP fears about Ms. Clinton will be a selling point for Democrats. Everything conservatives criticize her for will put her front and center on the issues or draw sympathy with bad press. How is negative press a positive? It will bring accusations that she is being persecuted for everything from gender to her husband Bill, just like it threw the race card for Obama.
Why is Hillary such a conservative media darling?
There is no conceivable event that could keep Hillary Clinton from daily front page coverage on every conservative media outlet. If Putin invaded Poland, Hillary would still make the headlines if she so much as blinked during a sneeze. Why is the conservative media giving her so much space and dedicating so much airtime to an unannounced candidacy? Because she is much more interesting than anything going on with the Republican Party.
Expectations against Hillary Clinton have been raised so high by the right that she will prove herself before she even announces she is running. She did the Van Susteren-Baier interview on Fox News. Everyone seemed surprised she didn’t blow it, even though she is a White House veteran and politician in her own right who has the GOP quaking in its boots. Did we take Karl Rove’s remarks about brain damage too seriously? Should we have been surprised that she can answer questions anyone who can read a newspaper could see coming? We made the same mistake with Obama, assuming he was a liberal dimwit because we disagreed with him.
Conservative pundits are still hashing over the Fox interview, making sure that everyone knows Hillary is no dummy and someone the GOP needs to contend with. Not being dumb is not Clinton’s problem. It’s the Republican Party’s problem and one we don’t see being solved any time soon.
Hillary is how we got Obama. Almost.
Barack Obama rose to fame from the putrid muck of Illinois politics because he hit the right note with voters at a bad time. He was a celebrity politician without being a celebrity, more a statement about the state of American politics than anything.
Hillary is no Obama. She has real credentials. Admittedly, she has become quite a celebrity in her own right, owing in part to 24/7 coverage from unwitting conservative supporters busily getting the word out. Would it hurt to have an “ignore Hillary” day once or twice a week?
What can conservatives boast? The GOP has a losing presidential candidate calling for a minimum wage increase (see: Republican Hypocrites Include Conservative Voters?). The party’s old guard is battling the Tea Party. John McCain is calling for intervention in Iraq that no one will stand behind when things go bad. Republican Party leaders still can’t decide whether to deal with Democrats on immigration. There are no viable conservative candidates in sight who can take on Hillary Clinton. Who is being stupid here? Hillary’s biggest supporters, not Hillary.
Don’t despair. There is a silver lining. As long as the GOP keeps the House, they can start impeachment hearings on Benghazi as soon as our newest President Clinton takes office. This should keep everyone preoccupied enough that we won’t notice that just like the Obama presidency, nothing is going to be accomplished for eight long, painful years.
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