Hillary Clinton is still playing coy on the one question
that many incessantly ask, and that's will she run? Her response in a recent
interview to the politically tantalizing question was simply to say that she
will do what's best to advocate for the values and policies she thinks are
right for the country. Her cryptic
response certainly left the door wide open for a run. There's no doubt that in
the coming months the pressure will be intense for her to formally announce her
candidacy.
The reason is obvious. Her experience in international
relations and her hands on administrative experience in White House policy
affairs has already insured the allegiance of millions of voters to her. She is
the one sure Democrat who at this point beats any GOP contender. Millions of
women see Hillary as the gender Obama. Her presidency would mark a historic
presidential breakthrough for women. She would be a role model and inspiration
for millions of women young and old in the world's top political power spot.
There's the perception that she has the political savvy to wage the blood
battles with a GOP controlled Congress.
GOP leaders, fear that, and haven't waited for her to
affirm her presidential candidacy. They have long assumed she will be the
Democratic contender in 2016 and the various GOP attack teams have wasted no
time in shoveling up every scintilla of old and new dirt it can dredge up against
her to torpedo her candidacy even before it's an official candidacy.
The GOP isn't banking solely on shoveling dirt on Hillary
to render her candidacy stillborn. They also bank that the supposed baggage
that Hillary carries renders her an astonishingly divisive candidate. The
checklist of the trumped up scandals of the past from Whitewater to the
Lewinsky scandal, her tout of health care reform, which was the prelude to the
much harangued Affordable Care Act, and most importantly her alleged cover-up of Benghazi. There was
little doubt that the first chance the GOP got it would seize on a real or
manufactured Obama foreign policy flub and make her their hard target. Benghazi
proved to be the alleged flub and the GOP pounced. The Republican National Committee
rammed the attack home with a half minute clip of her Senate Foreign Relations
Committee testimony last January on the Benghazi attack. The aim as always was
to embarrass and discredit her not because of her alleged missteps as Secretary
of State, but as a 2016 presidential candidate.
In an earlier poll, there was some evidence that the
stealth campaign to impugn her had gotten some traction. A Quinnipiac
University poll last May found that Clinton's favorability rating had dropped
and that former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, both
rumored as possible GOP presidential contenders, were actually within striking
distance of Clinton in a head to head presidential match up.
Though the poll didn't single out any one factor to
explain the downtick in her favorability rating, the one intangible is the
doubt many voters have that her past, her views, and her political style, would
mark her as a relentless target for GOP attacks once in the White House, and
thus hamstring her effectiveness in getting things done. If she faced a House
still firmly controlled by the GOP, and even worse, a Senate with a GOP
majority, it would be nothing but a virtual rerun of the rancor, in-fighting,
and carping that has been the singular feature of the GOP's non-stop, unbroken
assault on Obama. In short, as President, Hillary, would not be able to get
much done no matter her agenda with Congress, and the big loser would again be
the country. The lines would be rigidly drawn. The brutal warfare between a
Clinton White House and a GOP dominated Congress would quickly spill over into
the public and the media.
They would spend endless hours debating and finger
pointing either Hillary or Congress or both for the sorry state of affairs that
again produced a politically fractured government. The GOP will also hammer
hard on the Obama years and connect her with his administration. The issues
such as the budget, spending, health care, regulatory reform, foreign policy issues
that the GOP waged war against Obama on almost certainly will be the same
issues that it will do battle with Clinton on. It will paint Hillary with its favorite
brush as yet another big government, tax and spend Democrat who will further
drive the country into debt.
Clinton, without doubt, is the one Democrat most feared
by the GOP in 2016. And with good reason -- if she runs, she can win. That's
why she is and will continue to be their perfect foil.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He
is a frequent MSNBC contributor. He is an associate editor of New America
Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio
Network. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio
Los Angeles and KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network. His latest ebook '47 Percent Negro': A Chronicle of the
Wackiest Racial Assaults on President Obama is now available (Amazon).
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter:
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