Resistance Is Futile

It's Hillary.  It's Hillary in 2006, it's Hillary in 2008, it's Hillary.

Relax.  Are you over it yet?  Get over it.

Rep. Peter King (R, NY) explains the problem:

Mr. King also said that Mrs. Clinton had been anything but the liberal extremist that her conservative critics accused her of being. "I'm not going to vote for her and probably disagree with her on 70 percent of the issues," he said. "But I think that too many Republicans who criticize Hillary Clinton sound like Michael Moore criticizing George Bush.

We do, we will, it won't help, we can't stop.

Maybe Brad DeLong can help.  Or Dan Drezner.

Nah.  Resistance is futile.

Comments

[Brad DeLong]

*Whimper*

[richard mcenroe]

It'll take more than a NY Congressman to talk me out of scourging the harlot. Hey! Remember when she had Marc Rich launder that Saudi money for her through the Carlyle group to send to Saddam?

[RedDan]

What happened to the post you had up about Casey, Pro-Life, and the 1992 convention?

[TM]

Red Dan, you are a hawk (well, in the sense of eagle-eyed, and circling).

That post escaped - I meant to save it as a draft, but it went over the wall and spent about an hour on the other side.

However, it will be back in the AM (well, talk is cheap - this comment is being made in the AM).

[Appalled Moderate]

I am not sure any President has ever received substantial votes either for or against on the grounds of simple administrative competence. Since Messrs. Drezner and DeLong base their anti-Hillary arguments on this (and in fact, based their anti-Bush arguments on this issue last year), one has to conclude that their viewpoints will have little weight in 2008.

If I were running against Hillary, I would concentrate on issues such as having Bill as "First Consort". Just as a practical, constitutional issue, this is just going to be awkward/wierd. Plus, our country begins to like like there's a hereditary aristocracy developing.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

I do find the prospect of Hillary living out her life as another Lurleen Wallace, standin' by her man, rather amusing.

[Bostonian]

She coined the phrase "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy."

What more would anyone need to know?

[Carol_Herman]

The timing's bad for Hillary. Her senate race appears in '06. Does she not do it? Saying she needs to devote her energies to running around the country? Or? Does she do it and not get re-elected? (Way back in 1968, Bobby Kennedy faced a NY challenge problem. He was a real Hamlet about getting into the presidential race. And, finally decided to do so; because it didn't look like he'd win his senate seat on re-election. There was a definitely fading of the JFK bloom by 1968.)

Anyway, if Hillary runs for her senate seat, the republicans need to put a candidate up there that gives her long-shot odds of winning. Like Guiliani!

So, sure. When you handicap races you need to know what the GOP does in '06. (The GOP can be very suicidal when it comes to putting candidates before electorates. One more Pretty Boy Lazio (who?) ... and Hillary has no trouble of winning re-election.

BUT I'M NOT SO SURE MAN PLANS AND GOD DOESN'T LAUGH. Hillary is totally managed by political theater. And, you can't count the votes on PR hype.

[TM]

The NY Post on Hillary's smooth flight path:

So there was Bill Clinton at Bush's side, volunteering that Iraq's elections "went better than anyone could have imagined" and warning against any demand that Bush set an exit timetable for Iraq — points sure to enrage liberal Dems.

Given Bill Clinton's political savvy, it's hard to imagine this was accidental.

Sure, he was going to be gracious as he showed up with Bush's dad to report on tsunami aid — but he didn't have to all but endorse Bush's Iraq strategy.

And it nicely meshes with Hillary Clinton's sashays toward the center on issues like abortion, Iraq and even teaming up with Republican conservative Sens. Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback to seek a study of how electronic media impacts kids.

The theory, some Dem strategists say, is that liberals are sure Hillary Clinton is one of their own so she can move to the center now without running much risk of challenge from the left in 2008 primaries. But that may be wrong.

Because word from the grass roots is that liberals — now in control of the Democratic National Committee machinery with Howard Dean as DNC chair — are getting pretty riled by Hillary Clinton's move to the center.

"I dread the prospect of a Clinton run," said New York Times columnist Paul Krugman — who speaks for the George Soros-Michael Moore wing of Democratic Bush-haters — on "Meet the Press" last Sunday.

Why? Because he fears a return to "the politics of the '90s" and Clinton-style triangulation. And other Democratic activists say he's not alone — a growing number of left-wingers are edging toward an "anybody but Hillary".

Imagine Hillary's difficulties if she has to battle in the primaries as a "voice of reason" centrist against whoever wins the nod of the Tinfoli Dems as "Loudest And Craziest Screamer".

Then it will be on the general election, where she can battle the loud and crazy Reps.

[Hmm, "battle" seems so... martial. Is that the hawk-like image she wants to project,or should she soften it? Decisions, decisons...]