Last edited Tue Oct 7, 2014, 12:01 PM - Edit history (2)
slipped. The Clintons, in respect to Obama, have likely always been a mixed blessing. It is absolutely true that they can reach some people he can't and that Bill Clinton was positioned to be an unusually helpful surrogate.
It is clear that they both are NOW - at the last minute - going to have a highly publicized effort to "help" with the midterm. Just as in 2012, when parts of the media were completely gaga over Bill Clinton's speech and campaigning assigning him a huge amount of weight in the Obama win, the same will happen now. Clinton's speech - just as Biden's and Kerry's - was excellent and he was given the red meat speech that defended Obama and listed the real accomplishments. This was a speech that could say things in stronger ways than the candidate himself could -- and Clinton was exactly the right person to say it. However, it was not the speech, but the actual truths that could be claimed that swayed anyone I knew who was an independent.
I want the close races to go to the Democrats and want this even if many might be credited to the Clintons efforts. The alternative is too scary. This will, of course, likely cement the already inevitability that Clinton will be the nominee. It can be said at that point that given both her success and her popularity that she completely deserves to be the nominee.
The one thing I really am not happy with is the completely thoughtless way both Hillary and the Clinton ally, Panetta, have chosen to put out their views of the foreign policy on both Iraq and Syria. There was no excuse for the Hillary comment (to Golberg) that actually expressed that Obama not following her advise to give heavy armaments to the rebels in 2011/2012 led to ISIS. This has led to Obama being trashed by not just the Republicans, but at least half of the Democrats in the media! This when Obama has been seriously working on a broad based, international and regional effort to drain this swamp.
The timing of those books was completely unhelpful --- and unnecessary. Would it have hurt either person to at least wait until after the election? You could also ask if they could have waited until after Obama/Kerry/Biden et al had a chance to get the international effort going, but that - unlike the election - had no established time frame and might not work.
One of the strangest things is that the Obama administration might have to protect HRC from attacks that were actually strengthened by her and Panetta. (ie Jen Psaki, the State Department spokesperson, was badgered on Fox about why the Obama failed to get a SOFA in Iraq and then asked if it was because they learned their lesson that they did get one in Afghanistan. Psaki answered that they were different countries, different circumstances, that there was no way to get Maliki to agree etc and only after that credited the SOFA in Afghanistan to lot of hard work by Secretary Kerry. )
I assume that one reason that HRC was made SOS was that Obama wanted to align the interests of the Clintons to his interests - ensuring they were on his side completely. One question is whether the Clintonites having taken the positions they did might now have interests that no longer are those of Obama.
Assume that the incredible mess that is the middle east becomes less inflamed -- or even reaches a level where the countries, Sunni and Shia, see that the militants on both sides hurt their entire region and they all work to calm things down, this would make Obama look better. The question is whether Obama succeeding helps or hurts the Clintons. Had they stayed quiet, it certainly would as anything good done on fp by Obama would reflect well on HRC. I wonder if these leaks are really the Clintons gambling against Obama (and the world) succeeding here.
Seeing this, it would be fascinating to be enough of a real insider, to know if Obama regrets ever having made the bargain he did to get Clinton support 2008 - 2012. (Consider that had Obama lost in 2012, ACA might not have been actually implemented. He needed the entire party behind him in those elections and he could not have anyone big jumping onto the campaign wagon -- just to drag their feet on the ground, slowing it down while they still appeared to support it.)
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