Monday, August 25, 2008

The Hillary 2012 Strategy

The Internet is buzzing with the news that Phillip Berg, a Hillary Clinton supporter, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Illinois Senator Barack Obama, the DNC and the FEC claiming that the presumptive democrat nominee is not constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States.

(Berg is a former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, ex-chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery County, PA, past member of the Democratic State Committee, and previous Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania).

We also know that Hillary has not released her delegates and rumors fly that her supporters lobbied the super delegates, which assisted in placing her name in nomination for a roll-call vote at the Democratic Convention.

Likewise known is the lack of support from Obama’s campaign to aid in retiring her campaign debt and her tepid stumping for Obama, while getting prime billing at the convention for herself, Bill and Chelsea.

What is one to make of this?

The most convenient and simplest answer is trying to figuratively secure the nomination for herself. I use the adjective “figuratively” because she is attempting to place her viability before the DNC and the average democrat voter.

The more her supporters are able to undermine Obama’s run for election, the more she looks to be the obvious choice in 2012. One might then contend that her inevitability didn’t bring her nomination to fruition in this go-around.

That is because it’s now painfully obvious that Nancy Pelosi, the DNC and beltway dems tried to jettison her (and Bill) from the party leadership. Clinton fatigue has assuredly set in, and the time was right to rid themselves of the couple from Hope.

However, if her supporters (who are not by-and-large backing Barack) are successful at putting the kibosh on Obama to the extent it costs him the election, she becomes the natural choice in 2012.

And with Obama doing so poorly in the polls (he should be well ahead of McCain by at least 15 points among likely voters), it makes evident the fact he is not connecting with the American public – no matter what the mainstream media has reported.

There are of course other factors that have kept him from running further ahead: his guilt by association scandals, his inability to speak off-the-cuff and his lack of experience make it all-the-more-difficult.

But with all of the ancillary help he’s received (e.g. favorable media coverage, endorsements, the shutting-out of Bill and Hillary, et cetera) he’s still not been able to capitalize on it.

Hillary knows these facts full-well and won’t hesitate to use them in her favor. As we’ve learned about the Clinton’s, that which doesn’t kill them only makes them stronger.

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