How Long Will Democrats Stand By Hillary in Face of Financial Disclosures?
Posted: 04/24/2015 10:17 am EDT Updated: 24 minutes ago

Hillary Clinton is in, and with her announcement the rest of the Democrats considering running for president in 2016 are out. In a manner reminiscent of the Republican Party of old, Democrats have ceded the nomination to Hillary Clinton. It is not exactly clear why this is the case. She clearly has a large following in the party and has a huge fundraising base, but that was true eight years ago as well. Perhaps it is because she lost a close race for the nomination last time that she is being handed the baton this time. Or perhaps the theory is that as the scorned candidate and cuckolded spouse she has suffered enough, that it is her turn. Whatever the reason, Hillary is off to a rocky start, and it could be a long year.

It used to be that the Republican nomination outcome was pre-ordained. Sure, the GOP went through a primary process, and every so often--1964 comes to mind--the clash between the conservative and establishment wings of the party could be titanic. But the era of the GOP as a tightly controlled cabal where candidates waited their turn and tenure and experience were rewarded is over. This year, the imprint of Barack Obama is evident as well. Tenure and experience are passé. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio are first-term Senators, and each mock rather than defer to the establishment candidate, Jeb Bush. John McCain, Bob Dole and George H. W. Bush must look on and shake their heads.

Hillary Clinton, by contrast, will be the candidate of experience. She only announced her candidacy two weeks ago, but already Clinton fatigue has begun to settle in. Hillary has been in the public eye for a quarter of a century, yet she began her campaign with a strategy to remake her image. Her campaign--we knew this already--will be a meta-campaign. It will not be about what she believes in or promises to do, instead everything she says and everything she does will be scrutinized from the perspective of strategy. What she says will not be the focus, but rather why she is saying it. Little or nothing will be taken at face value.

This is because strategy rather than commitment and values are central to the Clinton brand. Bill Clinton emerged from the back woods of Arkansas and won the White House as a "New Democrat". A New Democrat was a phenomenon not of principle but of strategic positioning. In accordance with game theory, in a two-party race, a candidate should seek to position him or herself as close to the opposing candidate as possible in an effort to capture the "median voter" in the center, and then take by default everyone else on their side of the ideological spectrum. Bill Clinton embraced this strategy and moved as close as he could to the moderate Republican position with the expectation that he could then take all of the votes to the left of that position. Thus it was that voters on the left who voted for Bill Clinton for president in 1992 described the experience as being at a shotgun wedding. Bill Clinton said it best early on in his first term when he pronounced to his cabinet, "We're all Eisenhower Republicans now."

Hillary's coronation has not been eagerly embraced by the Democratic left. She has been unable to convince those who have urged Elizabeth Warren to run that she shares the Massachusetts Senator's outrage at the pandering to Wall Street, or those who admire Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders that she is animated by passion for traditional Democrat values, including support for labor and distrust of free trade, charter schools and other hallmarks of now-entrenched New Democrats. In Hillary's remarks declaring her candidacy, she took the obligatory swipes at Wall Street and growing income inequality. But her claims that she would work to repeal the carried interest exemption that blesses hedge fund and other investment managers with a lower tax rate than Warren Buffet's secretary, or perhaps champion campaign finance reform rang hollow, and were quickly dismissed even by Wall Street supporters as a necessary strategy would never be manifest in policy down the road. Hillary's claims that she would take on Wall Street and campaign finance--issues that animate both the right and the left against the entrenched center--only served as a reminder that the Clintons have been the recipients, through campaign contributions, speaking fees and donations to the Clinton Foundation, of literally billions of dollars in largesse from the richest people, corporations and countries in the world.

The issue of money is likely to haunt the Clinton campaign in the months to come. Any hope that Democrats might have had of making hay of the corrosive effects of money on our democracy--whether targeting Citizen's United, SuperPACs or the near-$900,000,000 David and Charles Koch have committed to raise for this campaign cycle--will be neutralized by the many manifestations of the ways that the Clintons have enriched themselves and their world.

This week, the New York Times published a story suggesting linkages between the activities of the Clinton Foundation, Hillary's actions as Secretary of State, and Bill Clinton's receipt of a $500,000 speaking fee from a Russian Bank, surrounding the sale of uranium assets by a Canadian company to a Russian company. The story is a product of an agreement reached by the Times, together with the Washington Post and Fox News, with Peter Schweizer, author of the forthcoming book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich to research the information he has compiled regarding connections between political contributions and speaking fees paid to the Clintons, contributions to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton's actions as a public official.

A decade ago, Philadelphians saw up close the mixing of philanthropy and politics erupt into a corruption scandal. Vince Fumo was a powerful Democratic State Senator in Pennsylvania who created a charitable organization called Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods. In 2004, Philadelphia Electric Company made a $17 million contribution to Fumo's charity. Federal prosecutors began an investigation into whether the PECO contribution had been given in exchange for Fumo agreeing to support utility deregulation in Pennsylvania. Ultimately, the corruption case could not be proven, but Fumo and two members of his Senate staff were indicted on charges of obstruction of justice for destroying electronic evidence, including e-mail related to the federal investigation.

The parallels with the Clinton foundation are ominous: A charitable organization created by powerful political figures, staffed by political associates, taking philanthropic contributions from people and organizations who can benefit from the actions of the sponsors of the charitable organization, and, of course, the destruction of electronic communications that in the worst light could be seen as bearing on those interrelationships.

While the Times was quick to deny that they had documented any quid pro quo or illegal actions in their scrutiny of the uranium deal, the Clinton campaign asserted in the article that no one "has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation." That may well be true, but it is not necessarily is the point either. For Americans who are distressed by seeing Republican presidential candidates catering their stances on Israel and Iran to curry favor with casino magnate and mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, or who cannot imagine that the $5 billion of Wall Street money given to Congressional campaigns over the past decade is not linked to the increasing concentration of wealth and power in the finance industry, the magnitude of the Clinton empire is troubling in and of itself.

It is just two weeks into the 2016 Presidential campaign and Democrats have ceded their nomination to Hillary Clinton. They better hope that she and Bill have good answers to the questions that are going to be coming their way. We could be in for a long year.

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Dora Hates You

You mean democratic politicians and republican politicians are the same? Out for their own personal gain? Good thing we have a federal government that is growing to reign them in. Oh, wait a second.......

"personal gain"?
the Clinton Foundation?

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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

I'm sorry, WG, you're right, the Clintons are the exception. They are not corrupt, they don't lie, and they are generally out for the good of the country....

That piece is obviously penned by an "insider" that is cynical of anything but the paycheck Huffpo gives him to write baseless manure.

These financial dealings were no secret.  Heck they were so transparent that journalists "uncovered" them.  Repeat journalists.  

How about spending a paragraph on some two bit scandal in Philly which is in no way related to the Clinton's and then noting some illusory parallels.   

Let's try to give credilbilty to something by citing a holy trinity of journalistic excellence: "the Times, together with the Washington Post and Fox News". Shazbat!

Perfect example of people in the media writing stuff for other media members and not for the public.  They burn themsleves out as each tries to outscoop the other and keep a continual stream of news coming by rewriting the same things over and over.  This piece is evidence this guy already has nothing left in the tank.    

His summation:  "It is just two weeks into the 2016 Presidential campaign and Democrats have ceded their nomination to Hillary Clinton. (AND?) They better hope that she and Bill have good answers to the questions that are going to be coming their way. (THEY WILL, THEY ARE THE CLINTONS) We could be in for a long year. (ESPECIALLY IF THE "REPORTING" IS THIS LACKLUSTER)"

 

Hillary is a deeply flawed candidate, but so was the PiC and he won twice. So we know that progs will ignore any and every flaw by their candidate and happily vote for any variety of villain, incompetent or evil-doer. As I have said in connection with the PiC, Hillary could be video taped killing and eating a baby, and the progs would pooh pooh it. They'd say that the Republicans were responsible for her doing that. Vast right wing conspiracy, if you will. These people are zombies, who will do what they're told to do.

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I :heart; Q

What I'm saying is that money that goes to "the Clinton Foundation" is charity, not "personal gain". Unless someone is alleging that Hillary is dipping into that fund for her extravagant pant suits...

While she is not my preferred candidate for the Democratic nomination (I would prefer a real Liberal) I don't see any viable alternative popping up and she is certainly better than any Republican on the issues.

And yes, I do believe that they are generally out for the good of the country.



-------------------------
"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

https://www.clintonfoundation.org/

Big time!

 

Ummmmmm, , , , , I would consider the "Huff Post" to be the liberal's version of Fox News, , , ,.

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Dora Hates You

It's just a blog post though, not necessarily indicative of how Arianna is thinking.

-------------------------
"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

None of us like the idea of the private e-mail deletion, but since nothing has come of it (and if nothing surfaces), it's really politics as usual.

The Bush administration deleted upwards of five million e-mails and that didn't effect the republican belief in republicans. You guys sure as hell didn't stop voting republican, the re-election of Scot is a prime example.

Why are Democrats held to a different standard?

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I was right.

Why are Democrats held to a different standard?

 

 

 

Hope and CHANGE my friend Hope and CHANGE.

What??? No Change, Should the Democrats be held to what they promised or are they above that sort of thing?

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Um, that's Obama, not Clinton.

Are you really this dumb or do you just act it on this forum?



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I was right.

Correct, nothing will come of it. The press saw that this was a real issue that couldn't be swept under the rug. Thus, they reluctantly reported on it. By next year, all they will say about it is that it is yesterday's news. Instead, they will be trumping truly important news, such as carrying a dog on a roof. We know how this works.

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I :heart; Q

The really sad thing is that despite Hillary being blindly ambitious and not above using some questionable tactics or even downright dirty tricks, the Republicans can't seem to manage not to trip over their own dicks and bring forward a decent candidate to take her on.

Jeb is the closest thing to a rational coherent candidate and he's got Bush smeared all over him and the TP calls him a RINO.

So sad. Welcome Madame President. I hope she asks Warren to join the ticket so I can hold my nose and vote for her.






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“It is the heart of US policy to use fascism to preserve capitalism while claiming to be saving democracy from communism “ - Michael Parenti

when she is on the stand for whatever charges are levied, take your pick, and starts to plead the 5th amendment multiple times, I will put her on top of my list of republican candidates to vote for.  I don't want to see her outrank brother jeb though.

I am done with holding my nose. If the Republicans put up a Bush, Christie or someone of that ilk, I'll go third party.

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I :heart; Q

Preach it brother, I'm with you!

I pray each night for a Teddy Cruz/Louie Gohmert ticket.

If the government doesn't clean up it's act, shut the mofo down.

Teddy is the master shuterer.

Teddy is the master shuterer.

Keep up with the smooth talk - like the above - and I might take a ride on the Cruz ship!

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I was right.

Ted Cruz is the new Nixon. We need Ted Roosevelt.

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“It is the heart of US policy to use fascism to preserve capitalism while claiming to be saving democracy from communism “ - Michael Parenti