Former Adviser to Bill Clinton Suggests Hillary Might Not Be Democratic Nominee

Never Hillary

Many people hope that Hillary Clinton will be prevented from receiving the Democratic nomination, but I would have taken this prediction much less seriously if it wasn’t from a former adviser to Bill Clinton. Douglas Schoen writes, Clinton Might Not Be the Nominee.

A Sanders win in California would powerfully underscore Mrs. Clinton’s weakness as a candidate in the general election. Democratic superdelegates—chosen by the party establishment and overwhelmingly backing Mrs. Clinton, 543-44—would seriously question whether they should continue to stand behind her candidacy…

Another problem: In recent weeks the perception that Mrs. Clinton would be the strongest candidate against Donald Trump has evaporated. The Real Clear Politics polling average has Mrs. Clinton in a statistical tie with Mr. Trump, and recent surveys from ABC News/Washington Post and Fox News show her two and three points behind him, respectively.

Then there is that other crack in the argument for Mrs. Clinton’s inevitability: Bernie Sanders consistently runs stronger than she does against Mr. Trump nationally, beating him by about 10 points in a number of recent surveys…

Mrs. Clinton also faces growing legal problems. The State Department inspector general’s recent report on Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state made it abundantly clear that she broke rules and has been far from forthright in her public statements. The damning findings buttressed concerns within the party that Mrs. Clinton and her aides may not get through the government’s investigation without a finding of culpability somewhere.

With Mrs. Clinton reportedly soon to be interviewed by the FBI, suggesting that the investigation is winding up, a definitive ruling by the attorney general could be issued before the July 25 Democratic convention in Philadelphia. Given the inspector general’s report, a clean bill of health from the Justice Department is unlikely.

Finally, with Mrs. Clinton’s negative rating nearly as high as Donald Trump’s, and with voters not trusting her by a ratio of 4 to 1, Democrats face an unnerving possibility. Only a month or two ago, they were relishing the prospect of a chaotic Republican convention, with a floor fight and antiestablishment rebellion in the air. Now the messy, disastrous convention could be their own.

There are increasing rumblings within the party about how a new candidate could emerge at the convention. John Kerry, the 2004 nominee, is one possibility. But the most likely scenario is that Vice President Joe Biden—who has said that he regrets “every day” his decision not to run—enters the race.

Mr. Biden would be cast as the white knight rescuing the party, and the nation, from a possible Trump presidency. To win over Sanders supporters, he would likely choose as his running mate someone like Sen. Elizabeth Warren who is respected by the party’s left wing.

It is unprecidented to have a party embrace a candidate such as Hillary Clinton who is involved in such major scandals. It is as if the Republicans had nominated Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal broke.

So far Democrats do not seem all that concerned about nominating Clinton. If there weren’t enough reasons for the party to keep Clinton from being the nominee, the State Department’s Inspector General report should have put an end to her campaign.

Yesterday I noted a poll showing that seventy-one percent of Democras think Clinton should remain in the race even if indicted. While exact numbers from Rasmussen have to  be taken with a grain of salt, I have found that many Democrats do continue to defend Clinton and have no doubt they would continue to do so if indicted, or even if she was videotaped kicking puppies and babies.

While the chances are low, the possibility of stopping Hillary is far greater than in 2008, when Clinton speculated that Obama might not receive the nomination due to assasination. Sanders should continue to fight for every possible delegate to maximizes the chances that if Clinton is stopped he can win the nomination. In making the argument to both voters and superdelegates as to why he should be the nominee instead of Clinton, he should also stop limiting his campaign by refraining from talknig about the scandals.

Chris Cillizza refers to Sanders’ decision to not talk about Clinton’s email as the biggest mistake of his campaign:

That’s not to say that if Sanders had aggressively raised questions about Clinton’s email practices, he would have beaten her for the nomination; he still might not have. But rather than trying to seize on a primary in Pennsylvania or New York — both of which he lost — as the game-changing moment in the race, Sanders might actually have been able to prosecute a longer-term case against Clinton in a spot where she was (and is) clearly vulnerable.

Large majorities of the public — including the oft-touted independent voter — believe that the words “honest” and “trustworthy” don’t describe Clinton. The email story — even with Sanders virtually ignoring it — has helped erode those numbers over the past 14 months. The email controversy plays directly into many of the things that people — including Democrats! — don’t like or are wary of when it comes to the Clintons. The sense that the rules don’t apply to them. That they believe the world is out to get them. That they only keep people close who slavishly repeat back to them what they want to hear.

7 Comments

  1. 1
    Bob Munck says:

    Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld … brought up the whole Hillary email hoo-ha, telling Chuck Todd it is going nowhere. When pressed by Todd on why he thought so, Weld replied, "I'm speaking as a former director of the criminal division of the Justice Department.There's no criminal intent, and with no criminal intent there's no indictment."

    So there you go, Republicans. Your Libertarian challengers are blowing up your smear campaigns right and left.

    Also, Bernie Sanders was right. No one cares about the damned emails.

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    The scandal is about her hostility towards transparency and how she has lied about it. Whether she is indicted is a aide issue. Plus it is not necessarily the case whether there was criminal intent. Lower level people have been prosecuted for mishandling of classified information, but someone like Clinton probably will get off.

    You cherry picked your statements from Sanders. He also has said all along that the investigations should continue. He now says thate the superdelegates should consider the State Department Inspector General Report. People do care. The polls make that clear.

  3. 3
    Ron Chusid says:

    This is also not a Republican issue or a smear campaign. The complaints were filed by two Insepctor Generals in the Obama administration. Other personel in the Obama administration have also condemned her actions. She is under investigation by the FBI in the Obama administration. Liberal and mainstram media have reported on this and criticized her actions, including The New York Time, AP, McClatchy, USA Today, ABC, NBC & CBS News, and The Guardian.

    It is purely a dishonest Clinton talking point that her attackers are from the right and that this is a smear campaign.

  4. 4
    Jersey McJones says:

    On the issues, Clinton is head and shoulders above the Republicans, which is why the Republicans have chosen someone who is not a Republican to run as their candidate.  Unless she is actually indicted, 24 years of rightwing silliness that has nothing whatsoever to do with the issues they are so completely wrong about is not going to matter.

    JMJ

  5. 5
    KP says:

    "Once In A Lifetime"

    … and you may ask yourself, how did we get here …

  6. 6
    Ron Chusid says:

    JMJ, Support for open government has nothing to do with “24 years of rightwing silliness.” Obama initiated stricter rules for government transprency when he took office. Clinton blatantly violated the rules, used this to evade Freedom of Infomration Act requests, tried to cover up her actions, and has spent the last year lying about this.

    Repubicans did not chose Trump out of any master plan. He won the nomination over the opposition of the Republican establishment.

    It is sort of fitting for this year. Democrats nominate an old DLC Democrat who is not a true Democrat. Republicans nominate Trump who is not a true Republican. Libertarians have now officially nominated Gary Johnson, who is not a true Libertarian.

  7. 7
    Ron Chusid says:

    Kevin, we got here (if by here you are referring to the possibility of the awful choice between Clinton and Trump) because of a lack of principles in each party.

    Most Republican voters don’t believe in conservative ideology. Far more are driven by racism and xenophobia, leaving open the door for someone like Trump.

    Too many Democratic voters care more about their team winning than holding principles. Thus not all that long after Democrats complained about what George Bush was doing, we have the Democrats on the verge of nominating a neocon of their own, who is also comparably right wing on civil liberties, and even worse on open-government issues.

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