What Difference Does It Make?

The 2014 midterm elections are still over a year away, yet there are an increasing number of stories popping up about hillary running for president in 2016. Interestingly, several of them present reasons why the rush to coronate  her may be premature.

Feminist icon Camille Paglia (I know, I know ... I've never heard of her either) had this to say about hillary running for prez in 2016.

It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton ... is our party’s best chance. She has more sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train. And what exactly has she ever accomplished — beyond bullishly covering for her philandering husband? She’s certainly busy, busy and ever on the move — with the tunnel-vision workaholism of someone trying to blot out uncomfortable private thoughts.

Others echo that theme.

What has the woman done? As a lawyer, what important cases did she win? As a first lady, her only major “accomplishment” was a failed health-care-reform scheme that didn’t even get a vote in the Senate. As a carpetbagging senator from New York, what historic legislation did she shepherd? ... Pretty much the only thing her biggest supporters can tout about her tenure as secretary of state is that she “travelled a million miles,” which strikes me as the ultimate triumph of quantity over quality (particularly given the hot mess that is American foreign policy).

Granted, hillary is an adept politician. But there's a big difference between wheeling and dealing behind the scenes, and wowing people on the campaign trail with soaring rhetoric and inspirational speeches. Can you recall one memorable thing she's said - besides, of course, "What difference does it make"?

Personally, I'm rooting for a hillary-biden shootout for the 2016 nomination. Two reasons: one, the survivor will be severely wounded, and two, it'll be a blast to watch.

Severely wounded:

...if Biden runs and if it looks for even a moment that he might steal the prize from Hillary, the Clinton machine will go bat guano crazy and attack Biden either directly or via legions of sock-puppet proxies.

If he starts racking up wins in the early primaries ... Bill Clinton (will become) even more enraged than he was when he missed his chance to be a judge at the Hawaiian Tropic beauty contest. Once both sides start hurling mud, both Biden and Hillary are likely to look like stale defenders of the status quo – a status quo that stinks by the way. That’s important to keep in mind as well. Defending the Obama record works in Democratic primaries, and having Hillary and Joe fight over who deserves more credit for it will create enormous opportunities ... for Republicans promising a fresh start.

Fun to watch:

The smarter spinners will try to bait Biden into saying something stupid, which should be about as hard as baiting a bear with a huge bowl of ice cream, smoked trout and Captain Crunch. Seriously, does anyone think that he won’t say something stupid or crazy when Hillary gets under his skin?

We might even see liberals suddenly become very troubled by Biden’s past statements on race or whatnot...

That last line may be a bit too much to hope for. But in any event, it will be an entertaining primary.  Sadly, however, the republicans will probably find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 2016, just like they did in 2012.