This is my first dairy on dKos, so bear with me I'll do my very best. To get right to it, I've asked this question of the few Clinton supporters I know. I ask them outright: "Why do you think Hillary Clinton is running for President?" Typically I get the regurgitated lines right out of the Clinton's talking points. But to be fair, the people who I'm talking to genuinely believe Hillary Clinton is better prepared to be President of the United States. So, I've tried to understand their points of view.
But recently, and with the help of the Clinton campaign today, my suspicions of the Clinton campaign have really just been solidified.
Hillary Clinton is a life long politician. When she talks of the elusive 35 years of experience that no objective person can pin down exactly what she's talking about, she's referring to her 35 years in politics. Not necessarily elected office mind you. She's referring to many types of political contributions from her work during the Nixon impeachment to her promoting the corporate interests of Wal-Mart.
Clinton worked to get her husband elected Governor in Arkansas in 1978 and had several achievements in providing affordable health care coverage for Arkansas residents. With all that said, it was obvious that she took on an atypical role as first lady of Arkansas. That's because her true goal was to one day actually be elected to office.
But how could she do that while Bill Clinton was still governor? She couldn't really leave him and run for office somewhere else. It would be perceived as nepotism if she were given too much authority or given a meaningful cabinet position. So she remained on the sidelines and acted as a trusted adviser to her husband.
During the 1992 primary season, Bill Clinton had to contend with charges that he was too inexperienced to run for the Presidency (sound familiar) while also being labeled an adulterer. While only the latter charge was true, Hillary was the one person who stood up and defended (rather adamantly) her husband against these charges and when looking back we see the beginnings of the "Right-wing conspiracy" she would conjure up later during the Clinton impeachment. Through all this it was rather obvious, even with Bill Clinton saying as much, that voters would be getting a 2 for 1 package deal with Bill and Hillary Clinton as co-Presidents of the United States.
Without going into the impeachment debacle, it is also worthy of mention that during Clinton's final year in office he had a 29% approval rating. Many people forget that even though the majority of the nation did not favor removal from office, Clinton stood impeached and this gravely damaged the Democratic Party, and Al Gore's chances of becoming President. Bill Clinton contributed funds Al Gore needed for his campaign to his wife's campaign in New York (to hell with maintaining a democrat in the oval office). Why did he do this? A lot of people thought it was because Al Gore blamed Bill Clinton for the low approval ratings, and deliberately asked him not to help campaign. But are we really to believe that Al Gore would ask Bill Clinton not to help contribute money to the Presidential election? Bill's reasoning will become clear in a moment.
Hillary Clinton always wanted to be in office, so she carpet-bagged New York state under much criticism, and used every political trick in the book to get elected. Now, I'm no republican, and I'd rather Hillary Clinton be in office over ANY republican who has contended for the New York senate seat; however, I want to point out that this was in 2000 and she has criticized Obama for being unvetted and inexperienced to the political scene. How can she say this? How can she say these things when every political pundit from Chris Mathews to Tim Russert to Tom Brokaw asked Hillary during her campaign for the New York senate seat "Isn't this just a run for the White House? Aren't you really going to run in 2004 or 2008?" They asked her in the very few debates she agreed to participate in "Are you using New York as a platform for launching a Presidential election? Will you pledge NOT to run in your first and second terms in office?" To her credit, she did pledge not to run in her first term.
Now follow me down the rabbit hole:
Hillary's pledge was b.s. It came after Dick Cheney was informally "selected" at the exclusive Bohemian Grove meeting in 2000. Everyone at the time knew that Dick Cheney would not seek the Presidency after Bush's 2 terms in office. It was widely known that Bill Clinton had high negatives at the time. It was a perfect plan to give George Bush 8 years to flub up America and hand deliver the country back to the Democrats. Hillary Clinton knew she could run at age 60 against a failed republican president with no incumbent Vice President challenging her. The odds of her being elected were highly in her favor.
With this plan in mind, think back about Al Gore. The only way this works is if Al Gore is not elected! Why? Because. Quite simply, Al Gore would not select Hillary Clinton as his running mate. Therefore, here's the situation you're left with if Al Gore/Joe Lieberman are elected. Al Gore sits for 4 years and fails -- he hands over the country to the republicans and people regret voting for a democrat 12 years in a row. Situation #2: Al Gore succeeds as president, and Joe Lieberman runs for office. She can't really run successfully against the incumbent VP in a primary, no one would support her. Lieberman would probably lose, and she'd have to wait another 4-8 years (by this time she could be 68 years old.) And the worse case: Lieberman gets elected, and sits for 2 terms. Now its 2016 before Clinton can run, and she again would need to challenge Lieberman's VP, again not going to happen.
So.. Where does this leave us? Well, I believe that the Clinton's sabotaged the Gore campaign. I believe they passively worked against Gore getting elected - knowing that Cheney would not run. So whether Bush succeeded or failed, she had a GREAT shot at being elected.
What bearing does that have today? Plain and simple. Yesterday Tom Buffenbarger opened up for Hillary Clinton in Youngstown, Ohio. Right outside my hometown of Cleveland. Her opener delivered one hell of a speech. Only problem is that it was a speech to get John McCain elected. He went on and on about how Obama cannot get elected, and Obama is not fit to be President. ( I won't get into it here but heres the link )
http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/...
Now, why would a fellow Democrat do something like this? If you've followed along its pretty damned obvious. If Obama gets elected, say he picks a Clinton supporter like Clark to be his VP (to unite the party). Obama is considered a transformational figure, akin to JFK, and if we use Bush II as a benchmark -- Obama is likely to be reelected even if he doesn't keep most of his campaign promises. That means that in 8 years Wes Clark would be running for President. Clinton can't beat him if he's the incumbent VP, nor would anyone support her. So she has to roll the dice, and hope that Clark loses. If he doesn't, then he could be in office for 4-8 years, and he may or may not choose Clinton as his running mate. If he does, Clinton could run 16 years from now, or in 2024. She'd be 76, almost as old as McCain. If Clark doesn't pick her, then she could hope he loses and run when she's 72 (still pretty old).
Clinton wants this now. Right now. Because she knows, now is the time. If she doesn't get it now, she'll only have one more shot and its REALLY hard to tell someone to wait 8-16 YEARS to run for President. I heard on Morning Joe today that she could be priming for 2012. Are you kidding? Obama will clean the floor with McCain, and EVERYONE knows it. Clinton loosing the Democratic primary and being forced to support her party, and Obama's VP's run will stymie her Presidential aspirations. That is why Clinton is desperately trying to win now, at all costs. Because if it isn't now, it might not be ever.
Rather long diary, but I hope it isn't a rant. Looking for your opinions and just remember these are my humble opinions -- let's keep it civil.