As visitors to
my website know, I have been predicting since November 2002 that Hillary will run for president (and win) in 2004. Let's review some relevant factors:
1) the two DemocRATs seriously remaining in the race are carbon copies of Bush -- rich honkies beholden to special interests
2) all the polls of DemocRAT voters show that if Hillary is included, they prefer her as the candidate over the others
3) With Ralph running, neither Edwards nor Kerry can beat Bush
4) Hillary wants to be president -- not in 2008 (or worse, 2012), either. Remember Tim Russert's June 28th Meet the Press on NBC? He had tag team James Carville & Mary Matlin on and they were discussing the DemocRAT field. When the moderator asked about whether Hillary would run, he didn't say "in 2004" -- however, neither did he say "in 2012." He asked about 2008!
"So what," you ask? So this: If the DemocRATs thought their candidate had a snowball's chance in hell of beating George Bush, why isn't the question about Hillary running in 2012? After all, if a DemocRAT wins in 2004, and it isn't Hillary, are they expecting her to try to unseat a sitting DemocRAT president in 2008? I don't think so. Therefore, if they think Hillary should run in 2008, doesn't that mean they don't expect a DemocRAT to be in the White House by then?
Do DemocRATs really want to risk a Bush victory in order to have a woman president in 2008? Or that Hillary Clinton is willing to wait that long?
DemocRATs must face up to these realities, before the nominating convention:
1) they have just one candidate who can overcome the Nader handicap -- Hillary Clinton. She has the 22% DemocRAT consitutencey plus the independent women's vote, plus the greens plus the Alan Alda sensitive male independent vote. There's at least 10% right there. Bush has the 22% hard core Repooplican and Religious Reich vote, and that's all. No independents. 32% beats 22% even in the supreme court (the other 46% represents third-parties and nonvoters).
2) they don't want Bush to be prez for the next four years
3) pretending Hillary is going to run in 2008 is an admission of defeat in 2004
It is my conclusion that they must run Hillary in 2004, and that DemocRAT strategists know one other thing: Hillary's half-life of voter approval is less than a year. As she proved with her proposed health care scam, before a year is up, she will lose her independent supporters. So, she must be kept under wraps until the absolute last minute, lest the independents get to know her too well. The advantage of this approach is that she won't need a lot of things other candidates need -- she won't have to debate Bush, because her voters don't care whether she can out-gun him on the issues, and she won't need a lot of money to campaign, for the same reason, i.e. her constituency won't need to be reminded that she is running against the "eeville" Repooplican. (In fact, Hillary could probably win a write-in campaign at the last minute if the DemocRAT candidate suddenly pulled out of the race.)
Some rich media corporations might wave a bag of money in front of Kerry so he can "get cancer" or something, and Hillary can jump right in and take his place. Why not?
--Jackney Sneeb