by Tan Copsey
It has begun...
Hillary is here. She’s got a souped-up video blog featuring such popular asides as finding the ‘right end to the war in Iraq’, gaining energy independence and freedom from foreign oil, mentioning that she’s from middle class middle America in the middle, that she supports womens basic rights, and likes good thing like healthcare and political ‘dialogue’. Yep, she seems to be pushing all the right buttons, without giving away much at all or really inspiring anyone.
I find a number of things interesting about what is, let’s face it, a predictable announcement, managed to be professional and politically inoffensive. First it is of note that with Hillary emphasising live-online video chats as an important part of this initial phase of her campaign, it is even more obvious that Dem candidates are trying to out-do each other in claiming the cyber vote and gaining mass mobilisation, enthusiasm, and money through the internets. The lessons of Liebermann-Lamont campaign – alluded to last week, seem to have been absorbed.
There’s an interesting comparison to be made with the Republicans who at this early stage seem significantly less tech-ed up than the Dems. That said I’m not sure how keen on reading any of their blogs I’ll be – ‘..today I raised an incredible amount of money at a lunch with lobbyists, the crab-cakes were nice and I agreed to water down energy independence to steps towards achieving an all-American energy….’. In this vein I wonder which candidates will work the hardest on winning over, or at least placating the netroots. Certainly it would seem Obama and Edwards would have an instant advantage. But if Clinton did win the nomination…
As to the issue of whether Hillary herself could win Earl Ofari Hutchinson surmises the nature of the problem she faces:
The brutal truth is that Hillary is a living, breathing wedge issue. With Hillary as the Democratic presidential standard bearer, the Democrats will almost certainly be 170 electoral votes in the hole before the first vote is cast. That's the number of votes that the Democrats can kiss good-bye in the South and several Border States.
I’ve always said that I thought Hillary had a chance of winning the Democratic nomination, but not the Presidency itself. And whilst consistency is not necessarily something I value in my blog, I think I’ll stick to that. But with the new disclaimer that the Democrats are actually assembling a rather interesting field of candidates this time, and I could easily see her losing out to Obama, Edwards, or a properly ‘centrist’ Democrat, after a rather poor showing in New Hampshire and Iowa.
Whether I would really want Hillary as President.. – well frankly I don’t know. But as Devilstower highlights on Kos, Hillary’s candidacy is arguably a positive step for America, and that there is at least ethnic and gender (if not political) diversity amongst a very credible field of candidates must be something to celebrate, right?
