That’s not what happened here. The issue has never been whether she’s done anything truly illegal. It’s that she, nor her fans, think that she has any obligation other than to skate right at the edge of the law. And if she does break the law, we never know because she always makes sure documents aren’t available. I’ve never seen a candidate more careless with documents. Except it’s probably not carelessness. If that was just her habit, she’d have had IRS troubles.
One data point: if the election were between Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton, I’d vote for Hillary Clinton.
Me.
And her detractors are entitled to vote for someone else. But unless there is evidence she broke the law, a Congressional investigation is not warranted.
Damn straight. Pretty much anything they can throw at her may rouse their rabble, but most of America will just yawn and ask, “haven’t we heard this before?” Or in the case of the email stuff, “isn’t this really penny-ante bullshit?”
Hillary will win for three obvious reasons:
- The underlying demographics of Presidential election voters;
- by this time next year, unless the Fed screws things up, the economy will (finally!) be a very positive thing in most Americans’ lives; and
- by this time next year, the ultimate GOP nominee will have already signed on to more crazy shit than the White Queen was able to believe before breakfast. That nominee won’t be Ted Cruz, but there won’t be a whole lot of difference between what Ted Cruz stands for, and the positions taken by the nominee.
#3 is the wildcard, but historically it’s very hard to succeed a President of the same party. And Clinton has a big name, but has never had to win over independent voters. She wasn’t even all that good at winning over Democrats when faced with real competition.
About as much of a wild card as the sun rising in the east, or Thanksgiving falling on a Thursday.
When people talk about such historical patterns, I always want to know:
- How many data points?
- How comparable are they?
Our politics have been changing so rapidly that even relatively recent elections may not be a very reliable guide.
What, in a general election?
She doesn’t have to “win them over” in the general. She just has to appear less crazy than the GOP candidates. Hardly a high fence to climb.
I think you’re just not ready to accept that while HRC is hardly a Dream Candidate, she is by far the least worst choice.
No, but it also implies that all the GOP has to do to beat her is nominate someone just as safe and cautious.
And let’s not forget that predictions of GOP self-implosion were frequent leading up to 2014. The story of 2014 ended up being a relatively disciplined batch of Senate candidates. If a couple dozen relative political newcomers can avoid self-destruction, I’m sure one Presidential candidate can.
She lost an extremely close primary to the most successful presidential candidate of all time. Depending on what assumptions are made about certain states’ primary popular vote totals she may have even been better at winning over Democrats than Obama. Link.
Speaking of #3 as the alleged wild card, GOP candidates are already lining up to endorse Indiana’s new “right of businesses to discriminate against gays” law. This includes Jeb, Rubio, Cruz, Jindal, Santorum, and of course Ben Carson.
As an anecdotal point I find this poll from Gallup particularly interesting. If you scroll down you’ll note that “Most Admired Man” largely tracks against the sitting president but “Most Admired Woman” is more variable - and Hillary’s name appears on that list for 18 of the past 21 years.
I don’t think this is particularly significant in terms of predicting electability - if you scroll back up, the percentages are fairly low and the second place contender for the past six years has been Oprah, who I definitely wouldn’t vote for. But it does suggest that she’s got a little more going for her that just being “Democratic and female”.
Well sure, if it’s lied about that looks pretty bad. Too bad it’s actually just the Religious Freedom Restoration Act at the state level.
Tim Cook kinda helped us out by calling religious freedom “dangerous”.
This could be just the break the [del]McCain[/del] Huntsman campaign has been waiting for!
Hillary Clinton=Martha Coakley.
That *is *the central lie. You need to change the channel sometime.
Businesses have no interest in personal liberty, so that says nothing other than that they fear a backlash. Once the furor dies down and consumers figure out that the only people that really have a right to discriminate are those that have always had a right to discriminate, it’ll be a whole lot of nothing.
The furor will die down even sooner once the law is explained, and Mike Pence is giving it a go.
By what measure are you calling Obama the most successful presidential candidate of all time?
Hobby Lobby disagrees.
That is not the case in Indiana. Please inform yourself.
How’s that workin’ out for ya?
On an intangible, being able to inspire people, many of them new voters, I’d give him that title. In terms of electoral success, he’s just good. Reagan, FDR, and LBJ did better.