What If Hillary Clinton Doesn #39;t Run for President?
In Washington, in Iowa, in New Hampshire, really in any place that #39;s already talking about the 2016 campaign for president, just about everyone expects Hillary Rodham Clinton to run for president....
By: WochitGeneralNews
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What If Hillary Clinton Doesn't Run for President? - Video
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during a during a round table event to launch the "Talking is Teaching: Talk Read Sing" campaign at the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute on July 23, 2014 in Oakland, California. Justin Sullivan, Getty Images
WASHINGTON -- In Washington, in Iowa, in New Hampshire, really in any place that's already talking about the 2016 campaign for president, just about everyone expects Hillary Rodham Clinton to run for president.
But is it possible that Clinton might not give a White House campaign another try?
The former first lady, New York senator and U.S. secretary of state has paid speeches lined up into 2015, including one scheduled in the middle of March. She often speaks of her affinity for her work at the Clinton Foundation and joy over becoming a grandmother for the first time.
Clinton also recognizes - with plenty of personal experience - the downsides of a presidential campaign. "We say, `OK, get ready, put your armor on, run that gauntlet, see who survives at the end,'" Clinton said in a speech last year in San Francisco. "And whoever is standing up still, that's the winner."
To be sure, such musings are overshadowed by evidence that Clinton will run again. She has largely left the potential 2016 field frozen in place, locking down financial donors, endorsements and connections around the country and in the early states like Iowa and New Hampshire.
Early polling shows her in a dominant position, outside groups have been promoting her candidacy for more than a year, and the fundraising juggernaut, EMILY's List, is well into laying a foundation for the campaign to elect the nation's first female president.
"It would be shocking," said Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist who is advising Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a potential challenger.
But what if? Such a decision would set off a chaotic shuffle in the Democratic Party as candidates now considered long-shots become instant contenders and politicians now planning to skip the race give it a new look.
"It might be a good thing to open it up and have competition based on ideas, not that it's her turn," said Dick Harpootlian, the former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party who saw Vice President Joe Biden in October. He added: "I think we could do very well without Hillary."
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What if Hillary Clinton doesn't run for president?
Men who age are distinguished, the years deemed to confer wisdom. Signs of ageing in a woman are considered unsightly. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty
Hillary Clinton was on my mind even before word came of the death of Mario Cuomo. The former governor of New York will be remembered by those who have long forgotten, or never knew, his record running that state chiefly for his oratory and his knack for an enduring phrase. Eight minutes spent on YouTube watching his 1984 rebuttal of Ronald Reagans depiction of the US as a shining city on a hill will not be wasted. It was Cuomo who memorably told us: You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. Still, the Cuomo quotation that lodges in my mind is one that is barely known.
He didnt say it publicly. Indeed I heard it secondhand, from his former speechwriter Peter Quinn. He was recalling the 1988 presidential campaign, which Cuomo had famously decided to sit out. The governor was watching the television debate between George Bush the elder and the charisma-free Democrat Michael Dukakis. The turning point came when Dukakis, an opponent of the death penalty, was asked how he would feel if his wife were raped and murdered: would he oppose capital punishment even then? Dukakis gave a bloodless, policy wonks answer and Cuomo was incensed.
He turned to his aides and delivered the response Dukakis should have given. How dare you speak about my wife in that way? You should be ashamed of yourself for dishonouring her like that. But I tell you this. If I caught the man who did those things to my wife, Id grab him by the neck, rip out his throat and tear him limb from limb. Cuomos face twisted as he spoke, his hands acting out each stage of the punishment he would inflict. And then his voice fell. But this is not about me. This is about the state. And the state has to be better than me. Thats why we have laws.
The answer would have worked, Cuomo believed, because it would have reassured male voters in particular that their future president had what it took to defend himself, his family and, by implication, the country. The American tribe needs to see its chief as a potential warrior. As Cuomo put it that day, there is a subtext of male violence in American politics.
Which brings us to Clinton. In 2015 possibly even in the next couple of months the former secretary of state will have to put an end to the will she, wont she speculation that has rumbled on since she lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama in 2008, and decide whether she will seek the presidency in 2016.
Among the obstacles that stand in her way will be the traditional sexist question: can a woman be tough enough to serve as commander-in-chief of the mightiest military force on earth?
Perhaps to head that off, Clinton has tended to be on the hawkish side of questions of war and peace. If Democrats have long been seen as more likely to be bellicose in power than Republicans, for fear of being branded soft, then Clinton brings an extra dimension to that syndrome. Note that one of her key attack lines in 2008 against Obama was that only she was sufficiently tough and experienced to deal with the 3am crisis phone call. The irony was, it was her very hawkishness backing the 2003 invasion of Iraq that proved her undoing.
But if she had a predictable sexism to overcome in 2008, she will have to confront an additional prejudice in 2016. Let the Fox News contributor Erick Erickson spell it out for you. Shes going to be old, Erickson said in April. I dont know how far back they can pull her face. He made those remarks as the stand-in anchor of Rush Limbaughs radio show. Which was apt, considering it was Limbaugh who remarked during Clintons last presidential run: Will thiscountry want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?
Its true that, were Clinton to win, she would be 69 as she took the inaugural oath, making her the oldest president in history bar Ronald Reagan, who was 16 days off his 70th birthday when he was sworn in. While age surfaced briefly as an issue in Reagans re-election campaign, when he was nearly 74, few expressed revulsion at the notion of witnessing him ageing in the White House.
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If Hillary Clinton wins in 2016, who will dare use old woman as an insult?
A flavor from the beginning:
But what exactly? Despise her they do, yet theyre also strangely drawn to her, in some inexplicably intimate way. She occupies their attention. They spend a lot of time thinking about herenumerating her character flaws, dissecting her motives, analyzing her physical shortcomings with a penetrating, clinical eye: those thick ankles and dumpy hips, the ever-changing hairdos. Youd think they were talking about their first wives. Theres the same over-invested quality, an edge of spite, some ancient wound not yet repaired. And how they love conjecturing upon her sexuality! Or lack of, heh heh. Is she frigid, is she gay? Heh heh. Yes, they have many theories about her, complete with detailed forensic analyses of her marriage, probably more detailed than their thoughts about their own.
My point is that you can tell a lot about a man by what he thinks about Hillary, maybe even everything. Shes not just another presidential candidate, shes a sophisticated diagnostic instrument for calibrating male anxiety, which is running high. Understandably, given that the whole male-female, who-runs-the-world question is pretty much up for grabs.
Recommended. Kipnis boils down the crowd she's talking about: "...guys with a lot of psychological baggage, emotional intensity, and messy inner lives."
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Hillary Clinton and the men who hate her
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