Hillary can be stopped

The inevitability of the Hillary campaign has been the theme for awhile now in the MSM, but a few people are willing to dispute this assertion. Adam Nagourney of the New York Times started the ball rolling:

Yet Mrs. Clinton may be a good example of why the front-runner designation is so ephemeral. Mr. Obama has arguably outpaced her in fund-raising and crowds. Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards have held their own in winning endorsements.

Mrs. Clinton may have the lead in national polls and polls in New Hampshire. But most polls show a tight three-way race in Iowa, where many Democrats consider Mr. Edwards the, um, front-runner. Anyway, polls in Iowa and New Hampshire in the fall do not tell you very much about what is going to happen in January.

The truth is, there is no evidence that the Democratic primary voters have fallen head-over-heels for Mrs. Clinton. And any event that reminds Democratic voters of the lingering concerns about her could topple her from her perch.

The Real Clear Politics Blogs took up the issue and kicked it around. Jay Cost says Nagourney fails to realize that the media creates the front runner not voters:

This points to the methodological flaw of using polling data to analyze the state of the race. Polls are valuable to a point – but they really cannot be taken as independent evidence of the state of the race. This is how the media’s echo chamber is created. The media talks up one candidate over another. The polls echo this talking up back to the media. The media believes the polls offer independent evidence that justifies its talking up, and proceeds to talk up the particular candidate all the more.

This is why I refuse to ask the question that Dan Balz asked this week. The manner in which voters make a selection will change – because of all the money that candidates have. That’s when the real campaign begins, you know. It begins when the candidates start their advertising blitzes. That has only begun – and so the campaign has only begun. The fact that the media has nothing better to talk about in August than the “campaign” does not mean that there is a campaign to talk about.

Tom Bevan agrees and adds that a loss in Iowa could derail the Hillary campaign:

So it’s nuts to sit here in September and say Hillary can’t be stopped. We don’t know whether she can be stopped, and we won’t know whether she can be stopped until we get within a couple weeks of the caucuses and watch as voters start getting serious about making their choice.

[. . .]

Now consider how all of this could work against Hillary. She has massive leads in the national polls and in New Hampshire and Florida. But the one place where she’s in a real dog fight is Iowa. A win there would probably clinch the nomination. But if she enters as the national front runner and the prohibitive favorite and suffers an upset in Iowa – especially a bad one – it could cause her entire campaign to unravel. Especially if, as it looks now, the caucuses are held in very close proximity to the New Hampshire primary and she has no time to stanch the bleeding. So for all the talk of other candidates seeing Iowa as a “must win,” it may turn out that Hillary needs a win there most of all.

The doubts about Hillary will come. The question is whether anyone will position themselves to take advantage of those doubts and second guesses when the voting starts.

Hsu Strings Tied to Hillary

Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters uses this Boston Globe report to lay out the corruption at the heart of the Hsu scandal:

This revelation shows that Hillary and her campaign didn’t just passively receive funds from Hsu. The campaign actively worked with Hsu to distribute the funds to other campaigns, and in return, Hillary bought endorsements with the stolen money. And since the Boston Globe did the reporting, this can’t be chalked up to some conservative hit piece, either.

For example, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack dropped out of the presidential race early, surprising some analysts who thought he might have a chance against Hillary. Vilsack had a $450,000 debt to retire, and Hillary lent her assistance — and her chief fundraiser. In Nevada, whose primary got pushed to the front end of the schedule, Clinton arranged for Hsu to raise funds for Dana Titus’ gubernatorial race. Both Titus and Vilsack endorsed Hillary.

Hsu made a lot of contributions to Hillary endorsers. He have almost $50,000 to Tom Harkin, whose wife Ruth is a major backer of Hillary. Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan got over $20,000. Dianne Feinstein got $17,000. Mark Pryor took $11,000 from Hsu. All of them support Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

State and local politicians didn’t get ignored by Hsu, either. Some people wondered why Hsu would donate eye-popping amounts to people like New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who got over $100,000 between them. Both endorse Hillary Clinton. Hsu even managed a $3500 donation to a Chicago alderman whose sister, Patty Solis Doyle, runs one of Hillary’s campaigns.

It’s quite the web the Hsu spun, or perhaps Hillary spun it herself with Hsu’s money. This story will cling to Hillary like a spider’s web, and if reporters and the FBI dig deeply enough, she may never extricate herself from it.

Queen Hillary

It seems that Andrew Sullivan is no fan of Hillary. Jumping off of a David Brooks column on the impact of the NetRoots Sullivan lets loose quite a rant. He starts with doubting Hillary’s true plan for Iraq:

If Clinton is that comfortable with a permanent occupation of Iraq at this point in the election cycle, how comfortable do you think she’s going to be next year? You think a politician so obsessed with gaining and wielding power is happy to relinquish any in the Middle East?

But he is just getting warmed up:

The conservative Washington Establishment is swooning for Hillary for a reason. The reason is an accommodation with what they see as the next source of power (surprise!); and the desire to see George W. Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq legitimated and extended by a Democratic president (genuine surprise). Hillary is Bush’s ticket to posterity. On Iraq, she will be his legacy. They are not that dissimilar after all: both come from royal families, who have divvied up the White House for the past couple of decades. They may oppose one another; but they respect each other as equals in the neo-monarchy that is the current presidency. And so elite conservatives are falling over themselves to embrace a new Queen Hillary, with an empire reaching across Mesopotamia, a recently deposed court just waiting to return to the salons of DC, a consort happy to be co-president for another four years, and a back-channel to the other royal family. She’ll even have more powers than Clinton I, because Cheney has given her back various royal prerogatives: arrests without charges, torture, wire-tapping, and spy-ware on your Expedia account. Only the coronation awaits.

Not surprisingly, I think AS is a little over the top here (Sullivan over the top? Shocking, I know.) but the point is well taken if with a grain of salt.

Hillary wants to win the favor of the liberal base and yet keep the reputation of a “Grown Up” to the Washington establishment. She wants to bash Bush whenever she can, but also keep her strategic options open. Conservative should not be fooled by her attempts to act the centrist or moderate or grown up or whatever. She will do and say what she thinks will help her win and accrue power. Principles are not involved here.

Liberals should likewise wake up to the bargain they are potentially making in nominating Hillary. She may be a liberal in her heart but she will drop those policies and ideas the moment they become unpopular or a barrier to her getting what she wants. That is the basic problem with Hillary, can you really trust her? I know you want someone tough after Kerry, but are you willing to trade your ideals for a ruthless campaigner that doesn’t really respect you?

Those who are really looking for change in 2008 would be foolish to vote for someone as entrenched and yet as slippery as Hillary Clinton.

Hillary and Daily Kos Straw poll

Looks like Hillary continues to struggle with the die hard leftist NetRoots folks. Daily Kos took a straw poll and here are the results:

Barack Obama 22% 3110 votes
John Edwards 39% 5340 votes
Hillary Clinton 11% 1524 votes
Chris Dodd 6% 935 votes
Bill Richardson 2% 275 votes
Dennis Kucinich 7% 982 votes
Mike Gravel 0% 116 votes
Joe Biden 1% 168 votes
No Freakin’ Clue 4% 587 votes
Other 4% 624 votes

Click the link for historical data.

Hillary and Social Security

Ramesh Ponnuru sheds some light on Hillary’s claims on Social Security and not surprisingly she is spinning:

Hillary Clinton has ruled out the same proposals that Obama has ruled out—private accounts, benefit cuts, or increases in the retirement age—but she has not floated the idea of a tax increase. In recent weeks, she has claimed that when her husband left office, Social Security was projected to be solvent until 2055. She has added that the projection has been cut to 2041 because of President Bush’s fiscal mismanagement.

That’s not right. In 2000, Social Security’s trustees estimated that its trust fund would remain solvent until 2037. (As it happens, I don’t think this trust-fund solvency question is terribly important but for the sake of argument I’ll go with Hillary’s view that it does.) Now it is indeed estimated to be 2041. Under Bush, we’ve gained 4 years rather than lost 14.

Where did Clinton get the year 2055? In the last years of the Clinton administration, Clinton proposed to count the budget surplus toward Social Security and to have the government invest the Social Security funds in the stock market. It claimed that these moves would get us to 2055. Critics said the plan was based on accounting gimmicks that wouldn’t really make Social Security more secure. Whoever was right, the administration’s plan didn’t make it through Congress.

The interesting question left open: Is Senator Clinton in favor of having the government invest Social Security funds in stocks?

Tuesday Morning Links

- ABC’s THE NOTE: Can She Win? Democrats unite to challenge Hillary on electability

- Politico: Clinton picks up backing of red-state Dem

- Marc Ambinder: Hillary Clinton’s First South Carolina Radio Ad Targets Black Women

- Roger Simon: A Clinton-Bayh ticket for 2008?

- Boston Globe: Clinton says she is wiser now about healthcare

- The Swamp: Dodd camp subtly slaps Clinton

- CQ Politics: Advantage Clinton in Florida Primary Flap

- First Read: BRICK LAYERS ENDORSE CLINTON

- The New York Times: Proudly Wearing the Front-Runner Label

- The Caucus: The Clinton Sunday Show Blitz

Trouble in Hillaryland?

DC Fishbowl find some indication the answer is yes and points us to this sneak peak at this weekend’s Chris Mathews Show:

ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS:
“Up until now, Bill Clinton has been a complete plus among Democratic primary voters for Hillary Clinton. But now, with the Norman Hsu money-raising controversy, for the first time there’s a real concern in the Clinton camp that this is real baggage from the Clinton White House years. There’s a lot of stress, a lot of damage control, a lot of finger-pointing — and in fact, stress is so high that there was a shouting match observed among Clinton staffers in public last week.”

Perhaps the campaign is not as discipled as we were led to believe.

Hillary and the Netroots

Interesting article by Jeff Cohen over at the Huffington Post on Hillary Clinton and the netroots – liberal online activists.

Here are a few choice quotes:
- On the Netroots inability to slow down Hillary

Despite being overwhelmingly opposed to the nomination of Hillary Clinton, the Netroots have so far done little to slow down her coronation. Boosted by celebrity-worshipping corporate media (and a maximum donation from Rupert Murdoch himself), Hillary Clinton keeps rolling on – allied with the corporate lobbyists and Democratic insiders loathed even by moderately liberal bloggers.

Meanwhile, Clinton has never been popular among the Netroots. She’s never moved out of single digits in the (unscientific) monthly straw poll of DailyKos readers, while John Edwards has averaged 38 percent in the last six months among Kossacks, with Barack Obama averaging 26 percent.

[. . .]

Netroots leaders seem almost mute today as Hillary Clinton makes full use of old media/old money advantages. Bloggers who loudly championed the Dean insurgency are oddly quiescent as the candidate of the party establishment gains ground. Have these young insurgents become Democratic Party elder statespersons – team players first and foremost? Has the courtship by Party insiders quieted them?

- On the potential hazards of another Clinton White House

While progressives desperately want a Democratic president, the last Clinton in the White House subverted the progressive agenda. Eight years of Clintonite triangulation caused the Democratic Party to decline at every level of government. Hillary today is surrounded by the same staff and would likely appoint the same corporate types to top jobs as Clinton I, where big decisions were often corrupt and calculated toward moneyed interests.

The toughest brawl Bill Clinton was willing to wage (besides saving his own hide from impeachment) was against the Democratic base: for the corporate-backed NAFTA. Through the 1996 Telecommunications Act, Bill brought us far more media conglomeration than George W. He pardoned well-connected fugitive financier Marc Rich, while leaving Native American activist Leonard Peltier to rot in prison despite pleas from Amnesty International and others.

One of the most interesting question of 2008 is: will Clinton use the electability issue just as John Kerry did and with the same result? That thought has to make the online left nervous.

Link Roundup

Here are some links that you might have missed over the weekend:

- Jonathan Darman has a largely positive Newsweek cover story on the former first lady.

- Ryan Lizza has an interesting article in the New Yorker about Hillary’s, and her rivals, efforts to deal with the legacy of her husband’s administration.

- Covering the Democrat’s Univision Spanish broadcast debate, the AP highlights Hillary’s sparring with Bill Richardson and Richardson’s complaint that he couldn’t speak Spanish directly to the audience.

- In case you haven’t read enough about top Hillary fundraiser Norman Hsu, the LA Times brings news that Hsu’s business history is being investigated by the FBI.

Kos on Hillary

UPDATE: Hillary issues a statement that makes Kos feel better.

Kos himself has a post over at Daily Kos on Hillary and Obama. It reveals the level of mistrust involved between Senator Clinton and the leftist base:

So where are the two “front runner” candidates on Iraq? Have they conquered their fear and actually said something of substance regarding the pre-emptive capitulation bill?

[. . .]

But what about Hillary, who could earn some brownie points for finally leading on a key issue shared by not just the Democratic Party primary electorate, but by ALL Americans?

Well, nothing on her blog about Iraq. We have video about what a wonderful time some Hillary supporter had with her after winning some “spend some time with Hillary” contest. But did they have dinner together like Obama and the winner of his campaign’s contest? We get a ton of posts about how Hillary’s two decades in Washington mean she’s the person to bring change to that misbegotten town, all the while pretending to ignore the irony.

On her press section, it’s mostly a bunch of people endorsing Hillary. Oh, and a statement about the latest toy recall. Because that’s apparently more important than anything having to do with Iraq.

So it’s Friday, and the two front-runners are still refusing to lead.