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Analysis: Hillary Clinton’s coy routine isn’t fooling anybody
Clinton’s latent tsunami of publicity makes no sense if she isn’t running for president
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
Among the least attractive characteristics of the Clintons (both she and he) is what may be charitably described as their chronic disingenuousness.
To wit, they resort to spin and subterfuge that’s too clever by half, even when the truth would do them no harm. The meaning of ‘is’ always seems to depend on what the meaning of ‘is’ is, at any given moment in time. Just like her Arkansas accent comes and goes.
Which brings us to Hillary’s recent magical mystery tour, replete with an orgy of copious, self-serving publicity that would make a Kardashian blush. The centerpiece of this effort has been her repeated insistence, that, by gosh, she just hasn’t decided yet if she’s going to run for president.
But of course she’s running for president. Would Bonnie and Clyde walk by a bank without at least attempting to rob it? Of course not.
If she’s not running for president, her recent behavior makes absolutely no sense.
She doesn’t need to make money by hawking a book. After all, she and Bill now have more dough than they or Chelsea could spend in five lifetimes, no matter how many houses (note the plural) they buy.
She certainly doesn’t need a book tour to bolster her celebrity. And it’s rather doubtful that she has any realistic ambition to win a Pulitzer prize with her weighty tome.
So that brings us to the inevitable conclusion that all of this is but a prelude to 2016.
The Ready for Hillary crowd might say, so what? Why should she telegraph her intentions now and become a target for the vast right-wing conspiracy? As Hillary might put it (with a hearty thump on the desk), at this point, what difference does it make?
Well, for one thing, her coy routine isn’t going to keep her from being fired upon by conservatives. They’ve never stopped. However, what it does do is remind many voters how allergic the Clintons are to candor.
So six months or a year from now, when Hillary finally admits that, well, by golly, she is going to run for president after all, many people will realize that, once again, they have been taken in by Clintonian double-speak.
Of course, that last statement presupposes that anyone in America actually believes that Hillary Clinton isn’t running for president. Perhaps that depends on what the meaning of ‘isn’t’ is.
Meanwhile, refusing to admit what voters already know just reminds them that, for the Clintons, the truth is always a movable feast.
Marco Rubio says he’ll leave Senate if he runs for president
Florida Republican, whose seat is up in 2016, says he won’t look for an “exit strategy”
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
WASHINGTON (CFP) — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio says that if he runs for president in 2016, he won’t try to simultaneously run for re-election to his Senate seat, which would put him on the political sidelines should his White House bid fall short.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio
“I think, by and large, when you choose to do something as big as that, you’ve really got to be focused on that and not have an exit strategy,” the Florida Republican told radio host Hugh Hewitt. He says he won’t make a final decision on which office to seek until next spring.
Florida law currently does not allow a candidate to pursue two offices at once. However, Republicans control the state legislature — where Rubio once served — and the governorship, opening the possibility of changing the law to accommodate the senator.
The most famous case of running for two offices at once came in 1960, when Lyndon Johnson ran for the vice presidency and his Senate seat in Texas. He resigned the seat after winning the vice presidency.
Most recently, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan ran for re-election to his House seat in 2012 while he was also the GOP’s vice presidential nominee. That kept him in Congress after the Romney-Ryan ticket lost.
Another possible 2016 White House hopeful, U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, is also up for re-election in 2016. Republicans in the Bluegrass State have been considering changing state law to allow Paul to pursue both offices.
Kentucky currently has a Democratic governor who could stand in the way, although the governorship will be up for election next year.
Paul’s father, former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, ran for re-election to his House seat in 2008 after ending his unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination. However, when he ran again in 2012, he opted not to run for his House seat.
Kentucky U.S. Senator Rand Paul organizes class-action suit over NSA surveillance
Paul is taking names of potential plaintiffs on his Web site — names that could be the foundation of a 2016 White House bid
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com
WASHINGTON (CFP) — Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is organizing a class-action lawsuit against the National Security Agency over its surveillance programs — a novel political gambit that could lay the groundwork for a 2016 White House bid.
Paul is soliciting potential plaintiffs for the suit on two political Web sites he operates — Rand Paul 2016 and RAND PAC. His stated goal is to get 10 million Americans to sign up for the class-action suit.
However, an unnamed senior Paul advisor told Politico that any names collected may also be added a database for Paul’s future political campaigns.
That would give him access to a ready pool of voters upset by NSA surveillance — voters who would be inclined to support Paul. He’s also asking them for donations.
Paul, 51, is in his first term in the Senate. He is up for re-election in Kentucky in 2016, but he is also being mentioned as a possible 2016 presidential candidate.
A champion of the GOP’s libertarian wing, Paul has been a harsh critic of NSA programs that sweep up phone records of millions of Americans for use in terrorism investigations.
Last week, President Barack Obama announced changes to the program to provide more judicial oversight — changes Paul insisted do not go far enough to protect Americans’ constitutional liberties.
In his solicitation for plaintiffs, Paul said he was “outraged” by the surveillance and “that’s why I’m going to do everything I can to stop this madness.”
“So please sign below and join my class-action lawsuit and help stop the government’s outrageous spying program on the American people,” Paul said.
“After you sign up, please make a generous donation to help rally up to ten million Americans to support my lawsuit to stop Big Brother from infringing on our Fourth Amendment freedoms.”
People who sign up will have their name, email address and ZIP code put in Paul’s political database. All of those fields are required.
A Paul adviser told Politico that more than 300,000 have signed on as possible plaintiffs.
If Paul does seek the White House in 2016, his presidential ambitions may be complicated by a Kentucky law that prohibits him from running simultaneously for Senate and president.
State Republicans currently aren’t in a position to change that law because Democrats control the state House.
The law would only apply if Paul was successful in getting the Republican nomination. If he ran in the presidential primaries and didn’t win, he would be free to run for re-election to the Senate, as his father, Ron Paul, did in his U.S. House seat in Texas after he sought the White House in 2008.
Paul’s camp maintains the Kentucky law is unconstitutional because of a 1995 Supreme Court ruling that a state can’t impose its own restrictions in races for federal offices.
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