Down ticket, up ticket

By Richard Barry

One of the issues political outsiders don't typically concern themselves with is the thought process that goes into deciding to run for office from election cycle to election cycle, particularly in down ticket races.

In 2016, with Hillary Clinton the likely Democratic presidential nominee, and a strong one at that, the party should be able to attract significant numbers of A-list candidates encouraged to run based on a calculation of the value of Mrs. Clinton's coattails.

Democrats don’t expect to retake the House in 2016, but they understand the need to field competitive candidates to chip away at the Republicans’ historic majority. In part, that’s why the Clinton campaign and its allies have begun talking up her efforts to build an infrastructure in all 50 states, an organizational show of strength that could encourage wary prospects to run for Republican-held House seats — even in states that aren’t competitive in the Electoral College.

It's a somewhat underappreciated part of politics that candidates have to make calculations about their personal finances, career development, family obligations, health considerations, etc., before deciding to run or not. Add to that, of course, a sober consideration of the likelihood of winning.

If you are a Democrat considering a run for Congress, having Hillary Clinton at the top of the ballot has to make that decision a lot easier.

Strength attracts strength, or something like that.

You want debates? We'll have debates

By Richard Barry

Ooh, frosty.

The Democratic National Committee announced on Tuesday that there will be six officially-sanctioned debates as part of the party's presidential nomination process. It's not many, but considering how thin the field is and that the outcome is hardly in doubt, it will do. 

"We’ve always believed that we would have a competitive primary process, and that debates would be an important part of that process,” said DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. “Our debate schedule will not only give Democratic voters multiple opportunities to size up the candidates for the nomination side-by-side, but will give all Americans a chance to see a unified Democratic vision of economic opportunity and progress – no matter whom our nominee may be.”

In addition to Mrs. Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders is in and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb,  former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee, and former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley are thinking about it.

Six debates should be enough for the Democratic Party to show that there is to be no coronation, but not so many to cause real damage to the eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Chris Cillizza is exactly right when he notes that "Clinton and her team want to make sure you and everyone else knows that she is not taking this nomination for granted," even if she has every right to.

What better way to show that she is willing to fight for the every vote than to stand on a debate stage six times with the other candidates? That leveling process is a net good thing for Clinton in a way it wouldn't be for virtually any other candidate. While this would be seen as "punching down" for most well-known candidates, Clinton badly needs to avoid the appearance of a coronation, and a bunch of debates is a very good way to do that.

Then there is the fact that Clintonworld would like some positive media coverage during the primary and some credit for winning it.

Clinton is, if the 2008 campaign is any evidence, a skilled and poised debater who will likely perform well in the six showdowns to come. Her debate performances will then provide a storyline that isn't about her e-mail server, the Clinton Foundation or how much she or her husband were paid to give speeches. Clinton and her top aides abhor process stories, but a series of pieces about her ability and agility on the debate stage would be the sort of process-y story they would welcome with open arms.

Cillizza adds something I said a few weeks ago, which is that Clinton may be an experienced politician but she's likely rusty as hell and "needs practice before the three highly watched and highly meaningful general election debates against the GOP nominee."

It's all good, Clinton lovers. Relax. You should be happy with this, especially if you recall that Clinton and Obama met more than two dozen times in 2008.

And if you're planning your date book into 2016, take note that there will be debates in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. And by then it should be over. 

Does having a leftist challenge hurt or help Hillary?

By Richard Barry

Go get 'em, Bernie

It is being reported that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, will announce on Thursday his intention to run for president in 2016. Though an Independent, he plans to enter the primary and caucus contests as a Democrat, according to his advisors.

Sanders, who calls himself an independent socialist, will of course be running to the left of Hillary Clinton. The question is whether that helps her or hurts her.

I like Senator Sanders. I like Senator Warren. But if the left-wing of the Democratic Party thinks Hillary Clinton is incapable of successfully addressing a challenge from their quarter, they are mistaken.

Despite what we hear from the vocal left of the Democratic Party, the American electorate is quite conservative, as is the Democratic Party. Sanders will say important things about income inequality, the challenges facing the poor and the middle class, and the need to better regulate Wall Street, etc., etc., and Hillary will agree with him, but she will also position herself as a moderate when dealing with various scourges because that is where the votes are. Yes, she will care, and she will promise to do things, but not too much and not too fast, but thank you Senator Sanders for providing contrast.

If you haven't noticed, Hillary is already doing a decent of job of holding Elizabeth Warren close.

I am trying to imagine an issue on which Sanders will seriously challenge Clinton that will have a significantly adverse impact on her vote share in the general election. Sanders will not be there for the general election, and not being far enough to the left will matter not at all when it comes time for Clinton to face off against the GOP nominee.

The greatest danger, and I truly hate to say this, is that Hillary will allow herself to be so spooked by her left flank that she gives away too much and alienates moderate voters who could vote for a Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio.

What a world.

Hillary's the one

By Infidel753 

Hillary Clinton is now officially in the 2016 Presidential race, and will almost certainly be the Democratic nominee. And we're lucky to have her. She can do the job, she can do the job right -- and, critically, she can get the job. She can beat the Republicans.

[I mean no disrespect by adopting the common habit of referring to Hillary Clinton by her first name. Given that Bill Clinton remains a prominent figure, just calling her "Clinton" would be ambiguous, and her own campaign is called "Hillary for America".]

Here's Charles Pierce (found via Progressive Eruptions) explaining what's at stake: 

If she is elected, she unequivocally will accept the science of anthropogenic climate change and treat it as a crisis. This cannot be said of any of the Republican candidates, real or potential. 

If she is elected, she unequivocally will support marriage equality, and oppose discrimination against our fellow citizens based on sexual orientation or gender identity. This cannot be said of any of the Republican candidates, real or potential. 

If she is elected, she will not destroy the Affordable Care Act, an article of faith among all the Republican candidates, real or potential. 

If she is elected, and despite her closeness to certain Wall Street interests, she will not destroy the Dodd-Frank reforms, another article of faith among all the Republican candidates, real or potential.

[...] 

To get elected, she does not have to wink at state's rights, up to and including incidents of armed resistance. 

To get elected, she does not have to equivocate on the science behind the theory of evolution as does any Republican candidate who seeks the votes of Republicans in Iowa. 

To get elected, she does not have to peddle the snake oil of supply-side economics, nor does she have to peddle scare stories about the oncoming caliphate, nor does she have to create bogeymen about jackboots coming to steal your guns.

That is to say, Hillary thinks and functions in the real world as opposed to being committed to dangerously-delusional policies. I'd add that she won't put any more theocratic nutcases like Scalia on the Supreme Court. And she will build on the progress Obama and Rouhani have made on bringing Iran out of isolation to the point where it has a stake in the international system, and will continue working with amenable Middle Eastern groups and governments to fight violent extremism, as opposed to the Republican strategy of "when in doubt, bomb and invade and hope for the best."

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Bill and Hill: The appearance of wrong-doing

By Richard Barry

Aren't we special?

Are all of those fat cats lining up to donate bigs bucks to politicians expecting nothing in return? Are we really supposed to believe their only interest is in supporting a candidate who happens to embrace a particular view of the world? Is that really what it's all about? Hardly.

Okay, if Sheldon Adelson or the Koch brothers or, yes, a very wealthy Democratic donor (say a Hollywood type) gives a lot of money to a presidential candidate, we may say he or she is doing what every donor does, which is supporting their preferred candidate, someone who shares their values. But if a particular project of interest to one of these donors lands before a president for a decision, and the donor just happens to be in the neighbourhood and drops in for a visit to remind the president of the previous large donation and the donors interest in said issue, what is that?

I would say, sadly, it's politics.

Are the allegations facing Hillary Clinton over her husband's foundation work any different or any worse? Maybe, maybe not. But the Clinton's certainly should have seen it coming. They should have known that as she was being considered for her post as Secretary of State, and as she considered a run for the presidency, this would be an issue.

I'm not sure that the appearance of wrong-doing in the eyes of people who will always want to take you down is a good enough reason to reconsider your actions, but it would be politically smart.

I'm inclined to agree with Chuck Todd, who said this:

Look, for the life of me, and this is just political judgment, the Obama administration when they offered her the job looked at the [Clinton] Foundation and said, boy, there will be the appearance of influence. We better be careful here. [Former Senator] Dick Lugar, at the time, ranking member of the [Senate] Foreign Relations [Committee], even said very publicly, you know, it's going to look like foreign governments can buy access to you because of the foundation. How many more warnings did the Clintons need to have and yet they ended up doing these things. Look, I hear what David [Axelrod] is saying, and clearly he is right. There is not proof, it's sort of circumstantial scandal.

The question I have is it's politically though just dumb and inept. And I guess -- somebody I read the other day, I can't remember who it was, said there is something about the way President Clinton has operated in his post-presidency that's simply been sloppy. What's he doing hanging out with the questionable president of Kazakhstan? You know, and taking money to do things like that?

I understand he may rationalize it and say, yeah, you know, what we'll use this money for good, they're not buying influence from me, I don't care. But, boy, the appearance of it is terrible.

Before I'm willing to say that the Clinton's did anything wrong in a moral or legal sense, I need some proof. That it was pretty dumb in a political sense seems obvious. 

Is Hillary Clinton pushing herself to the left? What?

Cue the all-out media assault on Hillary Clinton

By Michael J.W. Stickings

What else is new?

As of course you know, if you pay even the slightest attention to American politics, and probably even if you don't, Hillary Clinton is running for president. She just hasn't announced it yet.

But the announcement is coming soon. Perhaps very soon.

And so you know what's coming, right? Not just an escalation of the Republican assault on Hillary, Bill, and all things Clinton, but a media hit job as well.

And I'm not just talking about the usual suspects over on the right-wing noise machine. No, it's the "lamestream" media, so much itself the target of cynical right-wing attacks, that will be right in the middle of this all-out assault, aiding and abetting Republicans and their own media mouthpieces as they do everything they can to bring the Clintons down and derail Hillary's frontrunning campaign, much as they did back in the '90s when they did everything they could to derail Bill's presidency.

Not that this will be much of a change. The anti-Clinton campaign has been in swing for some time now, and one could argue that it's been going on for many years now. But the swing will turn full.

And, indeed, it has already begun. Cue Politico, of course:

The Secret Lives of Hillary and Bill in the White House

Broken lamps, shouting matches, sneaking away to the pool—and other scenes from the Clinton residence during the Lewinsky scandal.

Read it for yourself, if you must, but I assure you it's a shameless piece of sensationalistic gossip and hearsay, mostly quoting anonymous "domestics," household staffers, that seeks to tear down not just Bill and Hillary but Chelsea as well (who apparently called Secret Service agents "pigs," explaining that that's what her parents called them -- the article actually ends with that, as if there's nothing else to say, as if there's no other side to the story, as if there's no doubt that that happened and that the Clinton's are awful).

But I would recommend avoiding it, because it's nothing new, this hit job, and if you pay even the slightest attention to American politics leading up to the 2016 election you'll no doubt hear much more just like it, such is, and will be, the seeming ubiquity of the effort to destroy Hillary.

It may be the surest thing, even surer than Hillary winning the Democratic nomination, of the 2015-16 Crazy Season.

2016: Too early to say anything, but we'll say it anyway

By Richard K. Barry

Jeb Bush leads the Republican field for the 2016 presidential nomination, but Hillary Clinton has a significant advantage over Bush and all other potential GOP candidates in a hypothetical head-to head contest according to a new Washington Post-ABC poll:

At this early stage in the 2016 competition, the prospective candidates suffer from image weaknesses, but the Republicans have a more acute problem. Most Republicans are not well known, but at this point, not a single one of six Republicans included in the survey has a favourability rating that is net positive.

Bush — by far the best known among those running for the GOP nomination — is viewed favorably by just 33 percent of the public, while 53 percent say they view him unfavorably. Only Clinton among all those included in the poll has a net positive rating, but by the slender margin of three percentage points (49-46 percent). Her favourability rating has dropped nine points in the past year and 18 points since she left the State Department in 2013.

I suppose the conventional wisdom is that Hillary can't lose, but I'm not so sure. If the Republicans weren't so screwed up and could be certain of offering up a relatively undamaged moderate, she'd be toast, and of that I am sure.

(Cross-posted at Phantom Public.)

When it comes to Hillary, Republicans just can't help themselves

By Michael J.W. Stickings

"Emailgate," or whatever the fuck it's being called, is a creation of Republicans desperate to bring Hillary Clinton down (a sub-group of Republicans who just make shit up, which is pretty much all Republicans), the right-wing noise machine (of which Fox News is the most prominent polluter of bullshit), and a Beltway media establishment that internalizes Republican propaganda and spews it out like a huge massive fart masquerading as "mainstream news."

Sorry, am I being too harsh?

You all know this is how it works. And if you don't, you're part of the problem.

And while I'm actually not a huge Hillary fan (I much preferred Edwards, and then Obama, in '08), and so no Hillary apologist, and while I've been somewhat critical of her slow and often unhelpful response to this e-mail nonsense, there's no doubt that, as Frank Rich put it the other day, "the right's response... shows that her antagonists haven't learned anything either since the first Clinton era" and "already Clinton's foes are overreaching just as they did in the frenzy that led to her husband's impeachment."

For example:

House Speaker John Boehner is expected to announce this week a new investigation into Hillary Clinton's email practices as Secretary of State, including her admission that more than 31,000 emails were destroyed because she determined them to be personal, top House Republicans told ABC News today. 

Yes, another Republican investigation, again from the mob in the House (but this time promoted by Boehner himself instead of a crackier crackpot like Darrell Issa).

I'm not saying there aren't legitimate questions here. It's problematic when any senior official in the government, Hillary or anyone, uses personal rather than official communications channels, and this is especially the case at a time when speculation of wrongdoing by officials runs rampant, justifiably or not. I suspect that Hillary did nothing wrong, and that those personal e-mails were really just that, personal, but perception is a different matter, and these days one must err on the side of caution. She may have been acting cautiously (as well as out of convenience) in using personal e-mail, but her use of personal e-mail has handed her opponents a scandal, however faux, whether she understood that as a risk or not.

But while it's fair to ask questions, launching a full-blown investigation of the kind Republicans have been using against Democrats throughout the Obama years is ridiculous. Republicans small blood, of course, but whether they see this purely as a PR campaign with which they can weaken Hillary (and score cheap political points) or whether they actually think there's a smoking gun hidden somewhere in her e-mails (as if she authorized some Benghazi conspiracy), they'll come up empty, and, just like the #47Traitors, they'll end up looking really bad.

Because look, Colin Powell did it too. And Jeb Bush has his e-mail problems as well, including using personal e-mail to discuss security matters and taking his own sweet time to release his e-mails.

So remind me again why Hillary should be subjected to the crazed ravings of Republicans?

Oh right, because she's Hillary, and because Republicans will stop at nothing, including making shit up, to bring her down.

Take a deep breath, Mark Halperin

By Richard K. Barry 

Big name political prognosticator Mark Halperin thinks Hillary Clinton has really done it now. Yes, he thinks this e-mail thing is going to make it impossible, sort of, for her to become president.

Speaking on This Week Sunday morning he said this:

What she’s doing here in terms of lack of response, lack of a sense of what people think of her, combined with what I thought was an extraordinarily weak performance at the Emily’s List speech the other day — her husband can get through this because he’s the politician of a lifetime. She cannot. If this is the way she’s going to run her operation, if this is her mindset, I don’t think she’s going to be president.

Of course Halperin didn't exactly say the e-mails would be her downfall, only that if her response to this is indicative of how she intends to run her campaign, she could be in trouble.

Not a particularly specific or interesting comment as far as I'm concerned, but pundits don't get paid for keeping their mouths shut.

Sure, if the e-mails yield new and damaging information, it'll be a problem. Otherwise, not so much. 

By the way, SNL pretty well nailed it.

Martin O'Malley gets his snark on

By Richard K. Barry

Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley made a somewhat nasty little comment about Hillary Clinton's approach to politics in a speech in South Carolina on Saturday, criticizing the idea of "triangulation" so much associated with the way the Clintons have historically done things. 

The New York Times helpfully describes the practice:

The politics of triangulation is a phrase often used to describe former President Bill Clinton’s brand of centrism. It has also been used to criticize Mrs. Clinton as overly poll driven, and liberals have long used it as a cudgel.

Mr. O'Malley's comment was that "[t]he most fundamental power of our party and our country is the power of our moral principles.” He added, "[t]riangulation is not a strategy that will move America forward. History celebrates profiles in courage, not profiles in convenience.”

Take that, Hillary. That had to hurt. 

Of course, you may recall that candidate Obama said similar things in 2007, with some impact. 

Though it is unlikely Hillary Clinton will be seriously challenged for her party's nomination, it would be pleasant if she had to contend with a voice or two from the left. Not that I think it will have much of effect, as voices from the left in American electoral politics are typically barely left-of-centre. Still, it would be nice to hear the sounds. 

I'm already prepared to be very disappointed.

Rand Paul is wrong about himself, Democrats, the Republican Party, and 2016

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Rand Paul, riding a wave of egomaniacal hubris given his current position at or near the top of national Republican politics, thinks that Democrats are scared of him:

"I think the American public is coming more and more to where I am and that those people, like Hillary Clinton, who — she fought her own war, 'Hillary's war,' you know?" Paul said in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"And I think that's what scares the Democrats the most — is that in a general election, were I to run, there's going to be a lot of independents and even some Democrats who say, ‘You know what? We are tired of war. We're worried that Hillary Clinton will get us involved in another Middle Eastern war because she's so gung-ho.’"

Uh, no, not so much. There are some progressives to the left of the Clintonian Democratic center who don't much care for Hillary, and who certainly object to the warmongering aspects of the Democratic foreign policy elite, but in the end they wouldn't abandon her and the party (even if they voted for a progressive alternative in the primaries). Furthermore, while Americans are, by and large, tired of -- and generally opposed to -- the sorts of military misadventures that Bush and Cheney led the country into, isolationism (or at least non-interventionism) as represented by Paul just doesn't have the level of public support he apparently thinks it does. Besides, Hillary, like Obama, isn't "gung-ho." If you want "gung-ho," just look at Paul's own party, and therein lie the deeper problems for him.

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Elizabeth Warren's charm

By Richard K. Barry

I fully understand why Hillary Clinton is still playing hard to get. Though we all know she will be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, she has to roll out that fact on her own timetable in order to minimize her exposure as a target for her opponents. 

Elizabeth Warren will not run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, and though I think her "economic populist" message is one of the most important recent themes in American politics, Ms. Warren is not ready for prime time. 

Still, she is a hot ticket, especially on the fund-raising circuit. As per Huffington Post:  

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is quickly becoming a top Democratic fundraiser and campaign powerhouse, hitting the road on behalf of candidates in key races the party will need to win to retain control of the U.S. Senate in November.

Since March, the Massachusetts Democrat has stumped for candidates in Ohio, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington and Kentucky and has trips planned this week for West Virginia and Michigan. It's a hefty schedule for a freshman senator who not long ago was teaching law at Harvard.

Campaigning in Kentucky with Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes, Warren had this to say about Senate Republican efforts to scuttle a bill that would let college grads refinance their students loans at lower rates: 

When you've got a choice between billionaires and students, Mitch McConnell says it is more important to protect the billionaires.

Not that this is overly incendiary stuff, but it is the kind of stuff I'd like more of those in the Democratic leadership say. I'd really like Hillary Clinton to beat this particular drum, though I'm not holding my breath.  She and Bill are simply too close to the boys and girls on Wall Street and wouldn't want to suggest that the wealthier sort are a great part of the problem, not the solution.  In the words of Bush '41: 'Not gonna happen."

Yes, Hillary is the best way to ensure the GOP doesn't get its grubby little hands on the White House. For that reason alone I'm on board. Sad that American politics has come to this.

As for Elizabeth Warren, it's probably too late for her ever to run for the presidency, though she can do some fine work in the Senate. And if, in the longer run,  she encourages a few on the left to understand that you don't fundamentally change a corrupt system by begging the wealthiest in the land for table scraps, we could do worse.

Are you listening, Hill?

Big news: Hillary Clinton gets paid a lot of money to make speeches and Diane Sawyer needs a laxative

By Richard K. Barry

Yes, compensation is out of whack in America. Diane Sawyer wants to be what? outraged? that Bill Clinton has earned more than $100 million making speeches and Hillary more than $5 million so far?

SAWYER (to Hillary): But do you think Americans will understand five times the median income in this country for one speech?

CLINTON: Well, let me put it this way, I thought making speeches for money was a much better thing than getting connected with any one group or company as so many people who leave public life do.

Other than the fact that Diane Sawyer appears as though she hasn't had a good shit in months, there is no news here. And I like Clinton's answer well enough. Celebrities make money, lots of money. She's not supposed to do that? By the way, let’s have a discussion about what the average anonymous 25-year old trader on Wall Street makes. (My apologies for the ad.)

(Cross-posted at Culturolio.)

Run Elizabeth run!

By Richard K. Barry

Sen. Elizabeth Warren got a standing ovation at a progressive conference on Wednesday in Washington. She was encouraged by some to run for the presidency as they chanted "run, Elizabeth, run!" She, however, made it clear for the umpteenth time that she would not be doing that.

 

As reported by The Hill:

Her well-received speech at the liberal Campaign For America’s Future (CAF) conference only underscores liberals’ growing frustration in finding an alternative to all but undeclared frontrunner and former secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Progressive groups such as CAF, which helped launch then-Sen. Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, have become increasingly more vocal about their concerns with Clintons' economic policies.

I understand the sentiment, but it's time to accept reality.  

(Cross-posted at Cultur-olio.)

Hillaryous

By Carl 

So Karl Rove got caught with his tongue firmly up his ass cheek by one of his own media outlets and now he's been forced to jog back some comments:

Last week, Karl Rove questioned her capacity for the White House and reportedly said she had brain damage.

The New York Post reported on Tuesday that Mr Rove, the strategist behind George W Bush's election to the White House, had told an audience in Los Angeles last week, "Thirty days in the hospital? And when she reappears, she's wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury? We need to know what's up with that."

In fact, Mrs Clinton was in hospital for three days after falling ill with a stomach bug in December 2012. After becoming severely dehydrated, Mrs Clinton fell at home and struck her head, suffering a concussion. While she was in hospital doctors diagnosed a blood clot.

Needless to say, when this became public, Rove was forced to eat his words:

"I didn't say she had brain damage. I said she had a serious health episode," he said on Fox News.

It's incumbent of me to point out that Fox News and the New York Post are both owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., so essentially Rove is denying that Murdoch's people can tell the truth.

And the delicious irony is that he used Murdoch's outlets as his own personal PR machine for decades. The cherry on top? He worked for a man in George W. Bush with enough emotional and mental instabilities to likely choke a horse. An unrecovering alcoholic, possible cocaine addict with delusions of godhood and perfection, yet Rove couldn't quite bring his armchair medical insight to a real problem of a real person with the very real ability to screw us all up, but good. Which Bush managed to do.

Somehow, Rove missed all that.

He seems nice.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Why now for Monica Lewinsky?

By Carl

Monica Lewinsky has an article in this month's Vanity Fair in which she opens up about The Affair.

I don't really have to tell you which one, do I? Unless you are younger than 20, maybe 21, it would have been really hard not to be at least dimly aware of the incident that may have brought down a president.

This is a woman whose name will be forever linked to scandal. I can imagine it's hard to live like that, particularly when your own involvement in the scandal was not illegal. I mean, she's not Charles Manson or Sirhan Sirhan. About the closest parallel in our lifetime is Yoko Ono, and she got a lot more support from the man involved than Lewinsky did.

Lewinsky's only "crime" was entrusting her secrets to a woman who thankfully slunk off into the hell of obscurity after betraying a naïf. I won't mention her name. Google is your friend if you don't recall.

Lewinsky turns 40 this year, and so I'm sure she saw an opportunity, indeed perhaps even a need, to get this off her chest. Kudos for her. And kudos more for finding a sweet spot in the political calendar to engage the country again.

In fact, it says a lot about Lewinsky that she doesn't hold a grudge – much. In fact, she sympathizes with the other "other woman" in this mess, Hillary Clinton, and points out that her anger was not misplaced but perhaps misdirected. (Clinton, it was recently revealed, blamed Lewinsky and herself for the mess, claiming she was emotionally unavailable to Bill at that time, thus neatly deflecting blame from Bill Clinton himself.)

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"Shoe trutherism" is a thing because conservatives are insane

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Conservatives have never met an element of reality that they couldn't twist into complete and utter unreality for the sake of advancing some bullshit partisan smear. Case in point:

Call them the shoe truthers.

Some conservative media figures are openly wondering if Hillary Clinton staged an incident during a speech in Las Vegas on Thursday in which a woman in the audience threw a shoe at her. The shoe appeared to miss the rumored 2016 presidential hopeful, who ducked and made light of it, while the reported thrower, Alison Michelle Ernst, was booked by the authorities.

A blog post published Monday at the website of Fox News commentator Bernard Goldberg speculated that Clinton probably "calculated it beforehand," as is "almost always true" with things that happen to her...

On Monday, Rush Limbaugh entertained the same idea, telling radio listeners he "can totally relate" to those who believe that "everything the Clintons do is staged or choreographed." Asked about it by a listener, he emphasized that he hadn't studied the incident and isn't too concerned about it, but said people have told him Clinton's reaction "wasn't natural."

Not to worry, though. They haven't exhausted Benghazi yet, so this is probably just the sideshow du jour. Just get ready for many, many more of them if Hillary decides to run for president.

Yes, dear reader, Hillary is running

By Richard K. Barry

Speaking at the close of the Clinton Global Initiative University conference at Arizona State University yesterday, Hillary Clinton said she is very much concerned about the direction of the country and is weighing another presidential campaign.

Last week Politico ran a story stating that it has now become a matter of accepted fact among Democratic operatives that "Hillary Clinton is freezing the Democratic 2016 field as she waits until possibly late this year to decide on another presidential run." In other words, they say that it is nearly "impossible for anyone other than Clinton to raise money or build a campaign infrastructure, the thinking goes, with Clinton hovering overhead."

Clinton's defenders, however, say that Hillary is doing them all a big favour because she is "shielding other prospective Democratic contenders from months of attacks and scrutiny they’d probably face without her in the picture."

Oh, bullshit all around. Ms. Clinton is doing what's best for Ms. Clinton, as you would expect.

The point is that Hillary is going to get in, and very likely going to be the next president unless the Republicans can figure out a way to nominate a candidate radical enough to placate the GOP base, but moderate enough to win a general election. Cold day in hell on that one. 

As for Hillary, it's way too early. Why would she declare her intentions when every story now is about how popular should would be as a candidate? The moment she says it's a go, that dynamic changes and she will have to start playing defence. Better to put that off for as long as possible. 

And other Democratic hopefuls should just put themselves back in their pockets for 2024.

Newt Gingrich: always good for a yuk

By Richard K. Barry

This is a lightbulb, signifying a good idea --
something I have never had.

When it came time for professional sleezebag Newt Gingrich to address the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), he used part of his time to paint Hillary Clinton, the presumptive 2016 Democratic presidential nominee,  as an "obstacle to economic progress," saying that to frame her in this way was a "key to winning the White House":

If this is a fight between the future and the past and we truly represent for the average American a better future and they truly represent for the average American those forces blocking that future, we will win decisively.

As proof, Gingrich went on about how Democrats want to slow down the number of smart-phone apps we will be able to get, pointing to the fact that the Food and Drug Administration has proposed regulating health-related smart-phone apps. Oh, horrors. 

If you are wondering what is this hideous debasement of our freedom of which he speaks, this is from a Sept. 2013 FDA press release:

Mobile medical apps currently on the market can, for example, diagnose abnormal heart rhythms, transform smart phones into a mobile ultrasound device, or function as the "central command" for a glucose meter used by a person with insulin-dependent diabetes.

"Some mobile apps carry minimal risks to consumer or patients, but others can carry significant risks if they do not operate correctly. The FDA's tailored policy protects patients while encouraging innovation," said Jeffrey Shuren, M.D., J.D., director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health.

This, he says, is "a fight where we can be on the side of younger Americans and the left is hopeless."

I can't say what particular bug is up Newt's ass on what seems a reasonable regulatory approach, but if he thinks the GOP is going to turn itself into the party of techno-cool by appealing to young people's concerns about mobile medical apps, good luck with that.

If Republicans really want to appeal to young people, perhaps they should get on the right side of marriage equality, legalized marijuana, an increased minimum wage, good paying jobs generally, or education affordability. 

That's a thought, although the medical app thing could work too.