Here Come the Libs -- Drinking Hillary Kool-Aid

One thing that amazes me about Liberals is their infinite capacity for self-delusion. We'll see this behavior in spades as we get closer to '08 and the next presidential election. Here's a little preview by Elenor Clift, a die-hard lib who seems to liken Hillary's situation to that of -- get ready for this -- Ronald Reagan. I am not making this up. Read on and see for yourself.

Fear of Hillary

Democrats are full of angst about whether to bet on the former First Lady for 2008. Perhaps they could learn some lessons from the history of Ronald Reagan.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 5:28 p.m. ET May 5, 2006

May 5, 2006 - The late great Jerry Garcia used to say the Grateful Dead [well she's half right, Jerry Garcia is dead. But the only people who consider him a "great" musician are burned out, drug-addled 60's radicals (like Eleanor Clift) who used to (and probably still do) sit around, stoned out of their minds listening to that rambling nonsense, and convincing themselves it was great music.] were like black licorice. People who loved them loved them a lot. People who hated them really hated them. “Hillary Clinton is black licorice,” says a Democratic strategist. “There’s a huge upside, and there’s a huge downside. And we don’t know how it will balance out.” [That's the whole problem with Democratic strategists -- they're consist losers at the ballot box because they produce candidates that they like (the huge upside) and that the voters reject (the huge downside). ]

When was the last time we had such a dominant front runner this early who raises such anxiety about electability? The answer is Ronald Reagan. It took a leap of imagination to believe an aging grade-B movie actor with orange hair [Orange hair? Typical Liberal -- can't even mention Ronald Reagan without taking a cheap shot. That's ok though. Conservatives have Reagan, Cold War Hero; Liberals have Jimmy Carter, Shameful Appeaser and Bill Clinton, Serial Philanderer; and nothing they say about Reagan can change that!] could win the presidency. Hillary’s supporters are counting on the same act of faith in the political marketplace, but they are far from making the sale. The angst among Democrats borders on insurrection over whether to place their bets for ‘08 on Hillary. [This is priceless. "Let's compare Hillary to Reagan!" What Clift totally ignores is that Reagan was a relative unknown. He was govenor of California, but did not generate much traction in '76 against Ford in the primary. To address this, Reagan spent a couple years on the road making appearances and speeches; consequently, by the time the '80 campaign came around he had a large grass-roots conservative following and was able to build that support into the nomination. On the other hand, Hillary is very well known. Any Democratic strategist worth more than a warm bucket of spit realizes Hillary's problem is not that she's an unknown, it's that she's too well known. And the more people know her, the less people like her!]

Democrats want to win the so badly that they are leery of experimenting with the first woman, let alone the first man as First Lady. “You can’t put him on the stage with her; he blows her away. You can’t do nice little spouse events with him; they’d be the biggest events of the campaign,” says the strategist, noting that this would add to the unpredictable nature of a Hillary candidacy. On the other hand, if not Hillary, who? Those who worry a Clinton presidential campaign would be a running soap opera see former Virginia governor Mark Warner as a futuristic alternative, so nonideological and neutral that he seems bionic.

But how does anybody get around Hillary? And why would anyone want to even try? Clinonista Paul Begala was in town this week promoting the book he coauthored with sidekick James Carville. “Take it Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future” is a call to arms for Democrats to quit cowering and give voice to their beliefs. It doesn’t advocate for any particular candidate, but Begala’s long association with the Clintons and his admission early in his talk that he is encouraging Hillary to run invited the questions on everybody’s mind. The first came from a woman who said she hears from her friends that Hillary is too polarizing and ultimately can’t win a general election. “What’s a good answer to that?” [Uh, how about -- "Find another candidate?"]

“I do get this question a lot,” Begala said. “It says to me we don’t believe in ourselves anymore. Anybody who runs from either party will have negatives of 40 to 45 percent before it’s over. She may have them the week she files,” he conceded, “but what more can the Republicans do to her? They’ve exhausted their supply of scandalous revelations. “It reminds me of a scene in ‘The World According to Garp’ where Garp and Jenny are going to buy their first home and a plane flies into it. Garp tells the Realtor, ‘We’ll take it. It’s disasterproof—what’s the chance of that happening again?’ So Hillary made some money on cattle futures,” Begala concludes with a theatrical yawn, suggesting old news is no news. [This is the classic "let's move-on" strategy that Bubba employed so successfully. Thinking that what worked for the charismatic good 'ol boy will work for the not-so-charismatic Hillary requires a lot of wishful thinking. But, please Liberals, go ahead and indulge yourselves. Maybe by 2112 when Hillary decides to try again, it will be really old news!]

The second zinger came from a woman who said she went to an all-girls school, and when she hears women talk about Hillary, it reminds her of how the girls in school used to undercut each other. “Now it’s women undercutting a woman in a vicious way,” she concluded.

“This is something every group that seeks to advance has had to overcome,” Begala replied. “More Jews were worried about Joe Lieberman [as a vice presidential candidate] than Catholics. They were worried he’d stumble and embarrass them.” Besides, he went on, if the Republicans attack her in a way that women perceive as sexist, they could trigger a backlash that would favor Hillary. His model here, he explained, is the Bush-Rove strategy in ‘04 to bring in 4 million new white evangelicals with a campaign based on “anger points.” These voters, who were overwhelmingly male, didn’t much like the Iraq war and were lukewarm about the president, but they were red hot about abortion and gays.

Begala sees a parallel for Hillary with women between 18 and 35 who tend to vote Democratic, but don’t vote very often. “I wouldn’t scream at them about abortion and gay rights,” says Begala. “I would say, ‘Look at what these fellas are saying about Hillary.’ The more they hear the other side saying she’s a witch, she’s angry, they’ll be galvanized to vote. These are anger points for women. If Republicans attack her the way I think they will, that could gain her traction among women.”

Hillary is on her way to winning big in New York in November. Begala cites the guy in a bait shop in upstate New York who hated Hillary and now says, “How’s my gal Hillary doin’?” She’s won him over, he says, but a marketing executive who identified himself as a strong Democrat wasn’t convinced by Begala’s spiel. Hillary is a “death wish” for the Democrats, he said. That kind of talk reflects a nervousness that can only be dispelled at the ballot box. [No, that kind of talk reflects at least one Democrat who has a firm grip on reality. Let's hope the Democrats don't hire him away from his marketing position and make him a strategist. :-) ]