Hillary: She's Winning Already!

Brian Doherty | January 22, 2007

The presidential campaign season isn't only starting early this go-around--the mopping up and endgame are apparently upon us already as well, according to Hillary strategist and pollster Mark Penn. He's already declared that the Obama and Edwards campaigns are "stalled or falling."

Comments

|1.22.07 @ 10:40AM|#

Is this worthy of comment? Don't people always say such things in campaigns? I mean, what the fuck?

|1.22.07 @ 10:40AM|#

I know you are, but what are they?

|1.22.07 @ 10:42AM|#

It's noteworthy, Edward, because it's effing January 2007.

We need to put Mr. Penn in front of a firing squad, pour encourager les autres.

|1.22.07 @ 10:49AM|#

Okay, joe, having noted it, what more is there to say? On ne doit pas encourager babble for babble's sake.

|1.22.07 @ 10:51AM|#

I'm amazed at how many of my far left friends hate Hillary. She has no chance. Really. The shame of it is she will probably trash Obama beyond all recognition in her effort.

Every Politician Ever|1.22.07 @ 11:14AM|#

Lie Early, Lie Often.

That's how truth is made.

|1.22.07 @ 11:17AM|#

This buildup is unprecedented. I guess this means we'll have a long, nasty, campaign season. I predict that the democrats will tear each other to shreds and the republicans will ignore the only man running in their primary that could beat the democrats.
That man is Ron Paul. I think he could outpoll Hillary if he got the GOp nomination, but the MSM and the other candidates will probably just pretend he doesn't exist.

thoreau|1.22.07 @ 11:23AM|#

Given how early people are declaring, I expect that we'll soon hear somebody declare his or her candidacy for 2012.

stephen the goldberger|1.22.07 @ 11:27AM|#

the democrats will tear each other apart, and out of the ashes will rise...JOHN KERRY

|1.22.07 @ 11:36AM|#

Hillary's biggest challenge is that she is a Senator, and Senators don't can't the presidency because they have voting records that can be used against them.

Looking back over recent history we have:

Gov. J. Carter
Gov. R. Reagan
VP G. Bush
Gov. B. Clinton
Gov. G Bush

The presidential races won't get interesting until some big-state govenor announces (T. Vilsack doesn't cut it).

|1.22.07 @ 11:42AM|#

the democrats will tear each other apart, and out of the ashes will rise...JOHN KERRY

Nope, Al Gore. He's just setting up his run a little differently.

|1.22.07 @ 11:48AM|#

I guess this means we'll have a long, nasty, campaign season.

Getcher popcorn ready!

creech|1.22.07 @ 11:54AM|#

Gore/Obama alliance? Or Edwards/Obama?

|1.22.07 @ 12:02PM|#

Would Obama play second fiddle to anyone? It seems that he prefers attention over power.

|1.22.07 @ 12:03PM|#

Do we really need an almost-two-year campaign season?

People will start clamoring for a "None of the Above" option on ballots.

|1.22.07 @ 12:11PM|#

Wouldn't someone who "favors attention over power" consider Vice President of the United States to be the greatest job in the world?

I think Isaac's right. Did anyone else notice how Gore denied the story in a Japanese newspaper that said he'd ruled out running in 08?

|1.22.07 @ 12:16PM|#

Al Gore lost the presidency as a sitting VP with all the leverage that comes with being in that office.

He couldn't even carry his home state -- note that if he carried TN that Florida would have been totally irrelevant.

|1.22.07 @ 12:34PM|#

I question how much leverage a sitting VP enjoys from his status.

I suspect it is more like being a cabinet member or Senator from the President's party, than like being the President.

|1.22.07 @ 1:03PM|#

Eventually, Obama is going to hit the brick wall of reality. There is no way that any politician- Republican, Democrat or third party- could maintain the level of enthusiasm he has at the moment up through November 2008.

Or to the end of a primary, for that matter. With Hillary's massive war chest, she'll find a way of exploiting his inexperience without coming off as too aggressive. She just won't want to do it too soon- she'll need Obama to steal votes from Edwards first, so he can be knocked out of the way.

|1.22.07 @ 1:11PM|#

Richardson's a governor, and he has a moderate label attached to him, which is usually a good thing when vying for the White House. Since joe and I have been denied our all-Warner general election (with the Democratic version withdrawing and the old man version being, well, too old), he's my new dark horse favorite for the Democrats. I think Obama and Clinton will both bow out surprisingly early (in poor showings if not in actual fact--both might hang in to get a shot at VP). Edwards is a nonentity and will blow away with the first minor gust.

I figure Giuliani will flame out when his past comes back yet again to haunt him, so the most likely GOP nominee appears to still be McCain. Unless the Thomas Jefferson zombie rises and kills enough of us to get Ron Paul into office.

I think being a VP can be useful in aiming at the POTUS, but it depends greatly on the nature of your tenure in office. Gore was very involved in running the Clinton Administration. Ditto Old Man Bush with Reagan and Dick Cheney with Bush the Younger. I think it definitely beats being a senator or a cabinet member, not to mention that a number of VPs already have time in Congress on their résumés, anyhow. None of this applies if your name is Dan Quayle or even Walter Mondale (though Mondale was likely much more involved than Quayle).

|1.22.07 @ 1:42PM|#

I question how much leverage a sitting VP enjoys from his status.

I suspect it is more like being a cabinet member or Senator from the President's party, than like being the President.

I don't think it has that much sway with the public per se. But Gore had 8 years of access to the people who were seeking white house support for various political undertakings.

Gore also was VP during 8 solid years of prosperity and peace. He was very active in the whole "re-inventing" goverment effort and should have been able to take some credit from the generally good conditions that the US was experiencing in the run up to the election.

As a southerner, he should have had much better showings in Arkansas (Clinton's home state) and Tennesee (his own home). Either of those states would have put him over the top.

It is quite stunning that Gore managed to wind up in a virtual tie with that mumble-mouthed slacker from Texas.

|1.22.07 @ 1:49PM|#

Wait a minute!

Gore wasn't really helped by being in office. If you cast your mind back to 2000, the Washington DC politicians had reputations in the toilet. The stock market was collapsing, the economy seemed wobbly and the inside the beltway types had come up incredibly muddy from the impeachment fight.

George Bush ran as an "outsider" who was going to end the partisan squabling, bring outside the beltway values back to Washington and be a uniter not divider.

That theme was the one Bush was pitching to attract electoral support, and Gore's office in the Federal Government eroded his support.

Being VP was a hindrance, not an aid to Gore's run for the presidency.

Now he has recast himself: he has built credibility as a visionary statesman in that he was one fo the first to publicly savage Bush's war plans, he has heavily propagandizing Global Warming before it was cool, etc.

Frankly, he has a chance to come in both as the maverick outsider and the seasoned veteran. I think if he played his cards competently, he could win the election.*

*Disclaimer, I consider Al Gore to be a socialist of the worst sort, hate his wife's ultra-right wing social values which she seeks to ram down our throats with the power of the state, and shudder to think of him as president.

|1.22.07 @ 2:05PM|#

Now he has recast himself: he has built credibility as a visionary statesman . . .

So the rule of thumb is that terrible presidents make great ex-presidents.

So Gore is being highly efficient in becoming a great ex-president without actually having to waste 4 or 8 years in office ;-)

|1.22.07 @ 2:19PM|#

Gore wasn't really helped by being in office. If you cast your mind back to 2000, the Washington DC politicians had reputations in the toilet. The stock market was collapsing, the economy seemed wobbly and the inside the beltway types had come up incredibly muddy from the impeachment fight.

The NASDAQ peaked in spring 2000 and began to slide. The real collapse was in 2001. Enron was also in 2001.

The impeachment inflamed both sides. It could have been used to rally the democratic side, but Gore ran from the issue.

The dynamics of 2000 clearly kept the election from being a run-away for the sitting VP. But I strongly believe that if Gore had run a good campaign, he would have overcome those problems and would have been elected.

|1.22.07 @ 3:28PM|#

[Gore] has built credibility as a visionary statesman . . .

That's just hilarious. Really, it is.

|1.22.07 @ 3:48PM|#

So, RC, how has your side of the aisle done at looking forward on global warming and the Iraq War?

|1.22.07 @ 4:33PM|#

Visionary statesman isn't how I describe someone who refuses to debate people who dare doubt that the world will end, and soon, because of AGW. I'd like to see him run again, because he's really fallen off the deep end on global warming being our biggest problem.

|1.22.07 @ 4:42PM|#

God, I'm in hell aleady. Now I have a reason to shoot my TV and burn my newspapers.

|1.22.07 @ 6:14PM|#

So, RC, how has your side of the aisle done at looking forward on global warming and the Iraq War?

What, the libertarian side?

Well, we correctly noted that statist "solutions" (such as Kyoto) to changing weather patterns and increasing human energy consumption/prosperity were bound to fail. And so they have, as the Euros have already started cheating on "cap and trade."

On the Iraq war, well, libertarians are pretty well all over the map. You gots your isolationist libertarians, who never wanted a war in the first place (see, e.g., Reason). You got your national security libertarians, who thought the war was the least bad alternative, in the long run (see, e.g., Samizdata). I'd say its still too early to tell whether the national security libertarian support for the war was right or not. We really won't know until Iraq has settled into whatever it will be next.

|1.22.07 @ 6:45PM|#

R C,

I think it is true that "[Gore] has built credibility as a visionary statesman" among the voting public.

Mind you that fact simply attests to me the fact that credulity is widespread in the American populace. I am not entirely sure I find that quite so hilarious.

joe,

As VP of an extremely popular President Gore had a definite advantage in double-zero. But instead of playing to the fact that Clinton made Americans feel like winners he instead listened to the advice of a leftist victimologist who said he needed to tell Americans what losers they were.

Just as in '92 when Americans wanted another Ronald Reagan and found Bush 41 wanting and chose Clinton as the next best thing, in 00 they wanted another Bill Clinton but all Al offered them was a warmed over Jimmy Carter (with none of his good points).

In spite of the fact that Gore ran on a platform which basically said that I'd get to spend what was left of my money after I had bought Tipper's Mom's heart medicine and Tom Daschle's Mom's eye medicine, I thought that with an aggressive Republican Congress to keep him in check he would probably not have done much harm.

If Al had not been so boneheaded he wouldn't have had to try to steal the Florida election. He'd have won it all fair and square.

|1.23.07 @ 10:09AM|#

Your side, RC, said that global warming wasn't happening, and that Iraq would be a model democracy by now. That's 0 for 2.

Isaac,

I agree that Gore didn't run a very good campaign, but on the question of the advantages of being a sitting VP, I don't agree that the benefits of incumbancy trickle down beyond the president.