Chaos in the Clinton campaign camp / Democrats, Election 2016, Hillary Clinton
Chaos in the Clinton campaign camp Before campaign season begins, infighting taints the potential Hillary Clinton presidential machine after David Brock resi...
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Chaos in the Clinton campaign camp / Democrats, Election 2016, Hillary Clinton - Video
Story highlights Hillary Clinton's strategy of lying low has some Clinton supporters thinking of Richard Nixon's 1968 election Nixon chose to take a six-month hiatus from presidential politics before 1968 in order to allow the press to "chew on" George Romney Clinton has been laying low for the better part of three months with only six events in January, February and March
As Clinton eyes another run at the presidency in 2016, some close to her -- especially those who are cheering reports she may wait until summer to officially announce a bid -- point to Nixon's successful 1968 presidential bid as a positive sign, particularly how Nixon's public operation went dark for about six months before entering the race.
Despite being the presumed Democratic front-runner since Obama was reelected in 2012, Clinton has been largely absent from the public spotlight since the midterms wrapped in November 2014. And with the exception of the occasional paid speech and non-profit event, she could lie-low through the spring, a months-long hiatus similar to one Nixon took more than fifty years ago before winning the presidency for the first time.
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In "The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose from Defeat to Create the New Majority," author and longtime Nixon aide Patrick Buchanan retells the debate and intrigue around Nixon deciding to take a six-month hiatus from presidential politics ahead of the 1968 election.
The comparisons to Clinton, while not perfect -- she is the same young lawyer who worked as an aide on the Nixon impeachment trial of the former president -- are obvious.
Clinton is the favorite to win the Democratic nomination in 2016 and has already had to deal with attacks about her not being a "fresh face." A CNN/ORC poll out Wednesday found that Clinton leads the field with a whopping 61%. Both candidates have unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination before and held high profile West Wing positions elevating their status and name recognition.
Nixon, who had then served a vice president for eight years but lost in the 1960 presidential election and the 1962 California gubernatorial race, was seen as the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination in 1968. There was strong competition -- notably from then Michigan Gov. George Romney -- but none had the support Nixon had.
That is why, according to Buchanan, it was shocking when Nixon told an interviewer that after the 1966 midterm elections he was "going to take a holiday from politics for at least six months."
"Is it really wise to cede the field to Romney and lock ourselves into a six-month moratorium with no flexibility," Buchanan recalls asking Nixon.
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Hillary Clinton's Nixonian strategy of lying low - CNN.com
Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush are dealing with the baggage of their political histories even before their 2016 campaigns officially begin.
For the former secretary of state, the new scrutiny of Clinton Foundation donors especially foreign governments and wealthy non-U.S. citizens is bringing back memories of Whitewater and the selling of the White House Lincoln Bedroom to political patrons.
Revelations about the Clinton Foundations donor list causedThe New York Times to editorialize that someone needed to reinstate the foundations ban against foreign contributors, who might have matters of concern to bring before a future Clinton administration.
Much attention was given to Jeb Bushs speech this week in Chicago in which he paid due deference to his father and older brothers achievements but added, I am my own man. In a question-and-answer session that immediately followed the speech, he also acknowledged that there were mistakes made in Iraq, for sure.
The focus on their histories, and that of their families, is enough to make the assumed frontrunners dwell on William Faulkners famous words, the past is never dead. Its not even past.
Still, some observers argue that, just as the duos decades in the public eye have given them records on which they can be attacked, it has also tempered them so they are better able to withstand the heat.
Tony Fratto, who served as deputy press secretary to President George W. Bush, said that while people will be interested in the pasts of Clinton and Jeb Bush, they're both skilled in getting people to see past that.
The difference with [Bush and Clinton] is that they've got a lot of experience in having to answer these types of questions, having to deal with unfortunate situations, Fratto added. They have what you might not expect from other candidates and campaigns who will overreact, try to hide it, not have a clear answer. With both of these candidates, they've been around it for so long and know how to deal with these situations.
Terry Shumaker, a former U.S. ambassador who co-chaired Bill Clinton's New Hampshire campaigns and is involved in Ready for Hillary in the Granite State, argued it was unrealistic to expect anyone who can entertain realistic hopes of entering the White House to have lived a blank, unblemished life.
When people get to the high level of running for president, they've lived interesting, complicated lives in the private and public sectors and have done a lot. But I think voters are going to look beyond that stuff. They're more interested in whos going to be the best president. Elections are about the future not the present or the past.
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Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush and the problem with baggage
Feb 21, 2015 3:08pm
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This week, we asked Amy Chozick, national political reporter for the The New York Times, whocovers Hillary Clinton, about when the former secretary of state might announce her 2016 intentions, her possible competition and one thing that surprised Chozick about Clinton.
Read our conversation below before Chozick appears on the This Week roundtable Sunday.
1]Hillary Clinton has not said she is running for president, although obviously many people assume she will. If she does, what do we know about when she might announce?
Amy Chozick:The conventional wisdom is that she would establish some sort of exploratory committee to begin raising money in April. She could then do a splashy public rollout of an official campaign later in the spring or early summer. But the exploratory committee would give Clinton the legal apparatus to begin to raise and spend money for a political campaign.
2]Clintons Twitter account has been closely watched since she started tweeting. Do we know who is in control of that account and the strategy behind it?
Amy Chozick:I think we might be overanalyzing. Clinton, apparently, handles her own Twitter account and enjoys the medium. Just look what it did for her with the Texts from Hillary meme.Tweeting allows her to comment (albeit in 140 characters) on events of the day in a very controlled, but heavily disseminatedway. That beats the unpredictability of a press conference, at least for now.
PHOTOS: Hillary Clinton Through the Years
3]The New York Times reportedClinton met with Sen. Elizabeth Warren in December. Do they [team Clinton] perceive her as a threat to a possible Clinton candidacy for president? And if so, how large? Also, is there a specific Republican that team Clinton perceives would pose the biggest challenge to Clinton should she decide to run and secure the nomination?
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One Thing That Might Surprise You About Hillary Clinton
Almost everyone who covers politics thinks Hillary Clinton is a cinch to win the Democratic nomination in 2016. Or if not a cinch, a heavy favorite.
Which leaves all of us to feverishly searchfor a vulnerability -- any vulnerability -- that could make this an actual contest. This most often leads to hypotheticals about someone (mostly Elizabeth Warren) running to Clinton'sleft and exposing lingering liberal unhappiness with the Wall Street-friendly former first family.
All except there has been almost no evidence of such unhappiness.In fact, poll after poll has shown Clinton does just fine-- if not better -- among liberals.
Until now (but only kind of).
A new Field Poll of the California electorate asked Democrats in that state whom they favor in the 2016 primary. And yet again, Clinton leads Warren by a huge margin -- 42 points. No surprise there.
But! For once, apoll actually shows something of a liberal defection to Warren. It shows Clinton leads the Massachusetts senatorby a much-smaller 11-point margin among those who identify as "strongly liberal" -- 46 percent to 35 percent.
At the same time, this is a pretty small piece of the Democratic pie -- less than one-third-- and the sample size is just 116, which means there's a huge margin of error. The rest of Democrats, by contrast, favor Clinton 64-10.
Field poll
There's also, of course, the matter of Warren not actually running for president, and the fact that she still trails Clinton. Oh, and this is California, which has a different brand of liberal than the rest of the country does. If there's one state besides Massachusetts whereWarren could catch on, California would probably be it.
Indeed,the fact that this small sub-sample is possibly the first real polling evidence of a liberal openness toa non-Clinton candidate shows precisely how dominant she is in the early part of the 2016 campaign.
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The Fix: Here is your sliver of evidence that Hillary Clinton could lose a primary