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Wednesday, May 12, 2004
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CLINTONS FOR BUSH
As I've noted here before,the Clinton family isn't really all that interested in John Kerry winning the White House. Such a victory is directly contrary to their interests. Should John Kerry win this year (and a surprising number of smart people seem to think that he can), it pretty much ends the hopes of Hillary Clinton to ever win the White House in her own right. Unless she decides to run an insurgency, protest campaign (a la Ted Kennedy in 1980 or Eugene McCarthy in 1968), the nomination is preordained right through 2016 (Kerry running for re-election in '08 and his vice president being the front runner in 2012.)
By that point, Hillary will be very old and none of the romanticism of the Clinton years will be remembered. Basically, it's 2008 or never. My theory is that Bill and Hillary were secretly delighted in how weak the feild was this year. Any feild with Howard Dean as the front-runner certainly bodes well for planning four years ahead. Under my theory, the Clinton's would have made half-hearted noises of support for Dean when he won the nomination, and then made popcorn as he got destroyed by President Bush. Then the only real competition for the '08 nomination would be former vice-president, Al Gore. And given Gore's talent for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, Hillary should easily beat him.
John Kerry complicates this strategey. When Dean imploded in a politically unprecedented way, Kerry stood as the "electable alternative" and swept the primaries. Electability is the raison d'etre of the Kerry campaign. No one, not even Democrats, particularly likes Kerry, but its thought that he can win in November. While I doubt that he can win, I can't rule out the possiblity. Neither can the Clintons.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how both foreign and domestic policy are likely to fall apart in the next four years. I doubt that I'm alone in that analysis, and I'm sure Hillary is aware of the possiblity as well. It is imperative to Hillary's political future that the Republicans control as much of the government as possible when that happens. Whichever party is in the White House when things fall apart will get blamed for the debacle, regardless of who is actully responsible for it. I'm sure everyone is familar with the recession that Bush has been getting beaten over the head with for the last three years. I'm sure it would surprise everyone to learn that it actually began in March of 2000, some 10 months before Bush took office. If a Democrat is in office when the catastrophe occurs, it will be a Democratic problem and will make the Democratic nomination in '08 essentially worthless.
Thankfully for Bill and Hillary, the Democratic party has nominated its worst candidate since Michael Dukakis. John Kerry seems to think two things, a) America is an extension of Massachussettes and b) voters are stupid. This is evidenced in the way that Kerry expects voters to reconcile his ultra-liberal Senate voting record with his "centrist" campaign. To look at Kerry's campaign literature and then to compare it his voting record, you would think there were two different campaigns underway. And one would have to be borderline retarded to buy explanations of voting for things before voting against them. It is very likely that Kerry's own record will destroy him.
Of course, the president could become so unpopular that Kerry's exercise in hari-kari won't matter, but no smart politician would bet on that. Bush is a suprisingly resilient politician. His re-elect number right now is 42%, surprisingly good for someone who's had such a disasterous couple of months. Then there's the Nader factor. Including Ralph Nader is national polling right now is meaningless. No one is currently sure which ballots Nader will be on. But if he gets on the ballot in close states like Pennsylvania, Oregon and Michigan, this election is already over.Bush will crush Kerry in the Electoral College regardless of his own popularity.
Here's where Bill Clinton comes in. He's timed the release of his memoirs exactly to destroy Kerry's summer campaign.Kerry's biggest problem is that no one really knows what, if anything he stands for. Given the financial realities of the primary system, Anything the public has thus far heard about Kerry has come from Bush/Cheney '04. Traditionally, the first chance most voters get to learn about a candidate is the weeks leading up to and following the national convention. Historically, if your numbers are down coming out of the convention, you're doomed in the fall. The conventions are when the national parties are finally allowed to play and that's where the serious money comes in. If Kerry is anything less than 15 points ahead coming out of the convention, he will lose. However, it should be remembered that Dukakis was 17 points ahead of George H. W Bush coming out of the convention and we all know how that ended.
Once Clinton's book comes out, he , not John Kerry will own the summer. He'll be on every talk show imaginable. Every newsmagazine in the world will running a smiling Bill on the cover. All to the exclusion of John Kerry. For the most important period of a presidential campaign, Kerry may as well go on vacation. CNN actually will become the Clinton News Network. And if there's one thing that energizes the Republican base, its the visceral hatred of Bill Clinton. Disenchanted Republicans who might otherwise stay home will see Clinton's smug smile on TV and be energized to vote Bush early and often.
John Kerry has thus far run a helpless campaign against against President Bush. I can't imagine that he'll do any better against Presidents Bush and Clinton. It will however be fun to watch Clinton smiling and patting Kerry on the back, while everybody can see the knife going into his back.
The only thing that would be better is if the Clintons successfully destroy Kerry and then Hillary loses her Senate seat to a certain former New York mayor who is making quiet noises about running for the seat in '06. That would be perfect.
Anyhow, former Clinton toady, Dick Morris wrote a thoughtful piece on the Clinton book's impact on the Kerry campaign which you can read here.
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