I’ve been meaning for awhile to post something about Clark entering the democratic race, but I’ve been kind of distracted by other things lately. Today, at my Dad’s doing the birthday thing, I have a little time.
I don’t really have a strong opinion about Clark (or any of the rest) yet. I’ll start paying more attention over the next few months. We are still a year away from the election people! But in any case, the biggest thing I have noticed since Clark announced is just the absolutely heavy volume of strong negative comments about him all over the place since the announcement.
I flipped the radio past Rush the other day… non-stop Clark bashing. Checking various blogs, all sorts of negative stuff on his flip flop on the war. There was one article full of quotes from co-workers in the military slamming him for various things, etc. I was seeing very little positive comments.
From the Republican leaning sources, the negativity might indicate they think he would be a real threat if nominated, thus he needed to be slapped down quickly. From the Democrat leaning places, it is people who already have their favorite horse trying to make sure his impact isn’t that high. I mean, if either of the two really thought he had no chance and was irrelevant, wouldn’t they just mostly ignore him?
Anyway I notice today some polls are showing him right near the top of the Democratic pack already. This could get interesting.
Oh, and I’ve seen a variety of places posting conspiracy theories about the role of Bill and Hillary in this, and how it might be related to Hillary’s own plans for the Presidency. Here is one of those…
More Stupid White Men (William Grider)
Clark’s much bigger problem is that he is the Clintons’ candidate — Bill and Hillary’s pick to stop Howard Dean and keep warm the leader’s chair until ’08 when the stars are supposed to align for Hillary’s candidacy. If Clark wins the nomination and loses the election, that’s fully compatible with the Clinton restoration plan (and maybe would increase Dems’ hunger for the re-ascendancy).
If it looked as though the General was actually going to beat Dubya, you will hear a mighty clamoring next spring that he must put her on the ticket for Veep. This “grassroots” yearning for Hillary will be orchestrated by the same Washington political whisperers who whipped up enthusiasm for Clark’s entry.
(via MaxSpeak)
Yeah. OK. Maybe. If Hillary really wants to be Prez, I’m not sure this would be the most sensible strategy. But I’ll withold judgement for now. I’m not saying this sort of thing isn’t possible, it very well could be.
I was not a Bill and Hillary fan when Bill was in office. The disaster of W has made me miss them though. They were horrible in many ways, but nowhere near as horrible as W and his entourage. And I’d take Bill back in a heartbeat over W. However, both Bill and Hillary *are* scheming slimeballs. So I could see them thinking like this.
But for now, lets go with Occam’s razor, and just assume Hillary means what she says about the presidency and Clark is in it for himself and is not just a puppet of the Clintons, OK?
Republicans are scared to death of Clark because he’d trounce Bush in an election. Bush wouldn’t be able to pull that “you can’t be a patriotic American if question me crap” with him. Without that, Bush has nothing. Certain democrats aren’t fond of him because he’s too centrist, not especially “democrat”-ish or they already have their hopes on Dean. That’s one of the reasons I like him — he’s not really either party.
As for the Clintons being schemers, well, sure, but their scheming was mostly personal stuff — not outright scheming to bold face lie to the public about a war. I always thought you spent too much time yapping about the Clinton’s sleaziness. Honestly, who the hell cares? Nobody is insisting you invite them to your house for dinner. The important thing is that they did their jobs competently (for the most part, at least). We had good relations with most countries and I didn’t have to dance on corners for chicklets for gas money!
As you can imagine, I’m thrilled about Clark jumping in. Now I’m just crossing my fingers that there isn’t some big Vietman scandal in his past.
I was listening to ABC radio last night on the way home from DC. It was non-stop speculation about the Clinton’s role pulling Clark’s strings and ways Hillary can jump in. This is getting to be fun!
Vast right-wing conspiracy, I tell you. Don’t believe the hype!