Hillary Must Not Run

By Stephen Pizzo
Created Dec 15 2006 - 9:26am

A recent poll of registered Democrats showed that 37%% say they would vote
for Hillary Clinton should she run for President.

What are those people thinking? More to the point, are they thinking at all?
Is that number an indication of genuine support or simply celebrity reflex?

I believe it's the latter. Because there's no there, there, with Hillary
Clinton. Hillary wants to be President for the simple and singular reason
that Hillary wants to be President. That's it -- the whole enchilada.

Should Hillary succeed in sleepwalking her party to the nomination,
Democrats will almost certainly lose the White House in 2008. Because
Republicans are not stupid. They learn. (They even evolve, though they would
not want their base to know that.) Come next election I guarantee you
Republicans will run a candidate for President selected so as not to scare
the bejeebers out of sane voters. They will run a moderate, even a centrist.
They will run someone people trust, even if they may not agree entirely with
every one of his positions.

For example, imagine how far Hillary/Anybody ticket would get against, say,
a McCain/Giuliani ticket? Not far. Hillary's 37%% would not be nearly enough
to make up for the millions of centrist voters, including conservative
Reagan Democrats, who would be attracted to a McCain/Giuliani ticket,
especially if Hillary was the alternative choice.

So, I am begging Hillary not to throw her hat into the ring. Just say no,
Hillary. Instead let your party leaders know that, in return for not
running, you want be the next Senate Majority Leader. Bowing out of the
presidential race would allow much needed oxygen into the campaigns of Dems
with a real chance to win.

Imagine instead an Edwards/Obama vs. McCain/Giuliani race in 2008! Now that
would be a real horse race! And one Dems could win, because both Edwards and
Obama speak in ways that resonate with the aching hearts of both America's
liberal and centrist voters.

So Hillary, please listen. Here are just a few reasons:

a.. The more people see you and hear you, the less they like you. I don't
say that to be cruel. It's just true. Some people, through no fault of their
own, get on other people's nerves. And you're one of them. You not only wear
thin, but you wear thin fast. That's a killer of a handicap for any
politician, but for someone running for president --- forgetaboutit!
b.. You stand for nothing most folks can articulate if asked. You have
been so careful not to offend any particular constituency that you have
failed to endear yourself to any either. What do I get if I vote for you? If
you water-boarded me, I couldn't tell.
c.. While out promoting your book, "It Takes a Village," you seem
oblivious of an obvious - even glaring contradiction ... to wit, that your
vote giving Bush the authority to wage war in Iraq has created villages
chuck full of Iraqi orphans.
d.. Your position on that vote, and the war, is transparently dishonest.
You say you voted to give the president the authority to wage war, not to
wage it poorly. No you didn't. Your vote was part of your plan to run for
president. Your advisers told you that you needed to look tough so you would
not be painted as a limp-wristed liberal. That's why you voted the way you
did, and everyone out here knows it.
e.. We also know you are lying when you claim you have not decided yet
whether you will run for president. Of course you have. That decision was in
the bag years ago. It's why you ran for the Senate, because you knew that
running as a former First Lady was non-starter. You needed a better
launching pad, you pursued it and you got it. Every time you tell a reporter
you have not decided yet, you are lying, and we know it.
f.. You voted for the war for the same reasons you haven't embraced those
in your own party, particularly Rep. John Murtha, advocating a rapid
unwinding of Bush's military miscarriage in Iraq. You have calculated that
it's better that more US troops get killed and maimed than run the risk of
being tagged as a "cut and runner." (Clue for Hillary: We already have a
president who thinks like that, and his approval rating is now in the 20s.)
g.. Remember what the Swift-boater thugs [1] did to John Kerry? Well they
can't wait to get their grubby hands on you. They had to work at smearing
Kerry. Kerry had a real record of service you'd kill for. He had seen
combat, been wounded and been awarded medals for it. Still they were able to
smear him. You, on the other hand, provide a virtually unobstructed,
target-rich environment for that pack of reputation snipers. By the time the
November 2008 election rolls around those guys would have morphed you into
Lizzy Borden. (I see ads featuring Kenneth Starr, in which he muses out loud
about the charges "I could have brought against Hillary, had she not
hidden/destroyed evidence...etc etc etc...blah blah, bladdy, blah. And how
about that Vince Foster? What was going on there? They will ask... implying
much.) Are you really ready to put us, and your party, through all that
again? Please don't.
h.. And then there's Bill. His cheatin' ways aside, Bill was our last good
president. No argument there. But we know Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was our
friend. And, Hillary, you're no Bill Clinton. So, that's problem One with
Bill. The second problem is that, we can't have him back as president but we
sure as hell don't want him as the nation's first First Husband. Jeezus
woman, imagine that! We have. Bill roaming the White House, unattended, the
toast of the town, with folks - female folks - not only hanging on his every
word - but his arm. By the time you two left the White House in 2001 you had
us totally burned out on the Clinton family soap opera. Reality TV, Oprah
and Jerry Springer now provide us with all the dysfunctional domestic life
voyeurism we can stomach. We sure as hell don't want to have to sit through
4 years of "Switching Places - The Clinton Show II."
I could go on. And you can bet your sweet bippy those GOP hit squads will do
just that -- go on, and on and on. Why would you want to go through that?
Why would you make us go through that, especially at a time like this?

Hillary, just don't go there. Personal ambition is a good thing, until it
becomes a selfish quest. And that's what you're on right now - a selfish,
it's-my-turn, quest. How much do you want it? Already there are rumors of
your opposition researchers digging for slanderous rumors to undercut an
Obama candidacy. This is too dangerous a moment in our history for that kind
of intramural, sophomoric nonsense.

If you were doing this in a different context, Hillary, a time of peace and
prosperity, a time when the Supreme Court were not literally up for grabs, a
time when America's standing in the world hadn't hit a rock bottom -- - we
probably wouldn't care. The majority opinion might be -- "You want the job,
it's yours. You get to be the country's first woman president. You go girl!
Have a ball."

Trouble is, Hill, this is not such a time. Not even close. Instead we live
at a perilous moment for America, for our check and balances democracy, for
the human rights upon which America was founded, for our workers, for our
schools, for our health care system and for our foreign policy. Not since
the early days of the Great Depression has America held such a critical
election.

Which means that this is the worst possible time for the likes of you, (and
I won't mince words) -- a conniving, plotting, polling, shape shifting,
vanity candidate.

But Hillary, this may still be your moment, just not in the way you would
like. This could be your moment to display a genuine profile in courage --
by bowing out.
_______
newsforreal.com

About author Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including
"Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was
nominated for a Pulitzer. His web site is News For Real [2].

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson