Tons and tons of people are “close” to the Clintons. Same with the Bushes, or the Kennedys, or any other top-tier political family who has been in the public eye for decades.
This is a ridiculous insinuation, unless you have data (i.e. X% of Clinton advisors have gone to prison, while Y% of Bush advisors and Z% of Kennedy advisors have done so).
Jeff Greenfield argues that it will be no bed of roses for either Trump’s and Clinton’s VP: The Vice Presidency No One Should Want - POLITICO Magazine
At least for Clinton, I think it’s very unlikely that the candidates talked about so far (Castro, Perez, Franken, Booker, etc.) would say no – a veep for a successful Hillary presidency would be a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination in 2024.
Eh, the Clinton’s are pretty invested in the Dem party as an institution, and I’m sure they’re aware that this will be the last act of their political careers. I think they’ll make sure their VP gets enough of the spotlight to be assured a future nomination at the top of the ticket, as Bill did with Gore.
Guessing what a Trump Presidency would be like is pretty hard. But I actually think its plausible that when it comes to actual governing, he’ll more or less let his VP handle things while he goes off and picks fights on twitter. So a Trump VP pick seems like it comes with at least an outside chance of being the defacto President, even more so than Cheney was.
How about a list of people “close to the Clintons” who went to jail? For some other reason than refusing to take part in Starr’s Witch Hunt?
coulda been Castro, but the far-left wing could very well prevent that. Dems indeed have a problem here; the far-left needs to sit back, and let America’s great center rule.
Starr’s witch hunt was consistent with the law and you do not get to hide information to protect people from what you view as a witch hunt. If you are legally required to talk, you talk.
Just heard Julian Castro speak last night, and was unimpressed. Uncharismatic, long-winded, not terribly deep, but also not too many applause lines.
I agree that pretty much no one will say no unless for the usual reasons(don’t want to be vetted, don’t want to invest the time, etc.), unlike Trump, where a lot of people will say no because they want nothing to do with him.
As for a veep being a shoo-in, that’s usually true, but there’s a lot of “it depends” as well. Biden didn’t just jump in right away in part because he assumed he couldn’t beat Clinton. We’ve seen that both parties voter bases don’t care about experience anymore. Most of the Presidential prospects on the GOP side got elected statewide for the first time when Obama was President(Christie, Rubio, Cruz, Walker, Kasich, probably a couple I’m missing). Obama himself didn’t get elected statewide until four years before Bush left office. Given the reality of media coverage these days and what gets activists’ hearts palpitating, we probably don’t know who the “star” will be in the 2024 election. Chances are both the GOP and Democratic nominees in 2024 are state legislators or mayors. I hope I’m wrong, I’d love to see Cory Booker vs. Marco Rubio(fresh off a very successful tenure as governor of Florida).
I think he wants it too much too. Making a major change to HUD policy when he’s been content to pretty much do nothing interesting up till now, and doing it in response to activist pressure(yeah, I know he denies it) doesn’t sound like a very serious guy to me.
Wes Clark, Tom Vilsack, Terry McCauliffe. You heard it here first. And if she really wants to excite the base and take a little bit of a chance, Howard Dean is still around and he was an early endorser of her even though he’s not a longtime loyalist. Dean brings many of Sanders’ advantages without his drawbacks. Dean’s only issue is that he’s a loose cannon sometimes.
I’m a big fan of Tom Perez. He’s extremely funny, though I’ve never heard him give a speech. Lots of varied experience. Good age. Not terribly photogenic, but I think he looks fine. Lots of things to make my lefty heart go pit-a-pat, which might rule him out.
Jim Webb is an absolute nonstarter. He said he wouldn’t rule out supporting Trump, for god’s sake.
Sherrod Brown would be a great choice if not for the Senate.
I think Warren would be a good choice.
Sanders would be a terrible choice.
I think the Castro brothers feel too unseasoned. Smarter than Palin, sure, but who isn’t?
its hard to say that when nothing against the Clintons turned up, despite hundreds of millions in an attempt to do so. The Clintons coulda easily gotten him disbarred/punished afterwards, but instead, they decided to move forward in politics and life.
I have heard him speak; he’s smart and articulate. A Latino who can actually speak Spanish (unlike the Castro brothers), he also has Cabinet (Labor) and sub-Cabinet (DOJ) experience. More and more, I think he could be the guy.
One could say that nothing against the Clintons turned up on Whitewater, although refusal of key people to talk could have had something to do with that. Just as Scooter Libby took the fall for the Plame scandal even though he wasn’t the leaker. The real leaker(Armitage) got off scot-free.
Starr did eventually get Clinton for the Paula Jones case, which resulted in Bill Clinton himself being disbarred.
Perez is shady and hyperpartisan. Just a terrible choice. He could end up AG though, since Hillary is unlikely to repeat the mistake that BIll made of appointing an honest AG who investigated her own administration. Perez will squelch anything unfavorable to the Clintons.
Wherefore?
Why do I somehow have the feeling that Perez is an incredibly honest and straight forward politician who would be an amazing choice as VP? 
He lied about political interference in the Black Panther case and made a deal with Minnesota to have them drop a civil rights case in exchange for dropping a couple of federal cases. Perez feared the case he wanted dropped would go against the federal government and create precedents that could hamper his vision of civil rights enforcement.
Both were legal, but also blatantly partisan in a department that is supposed to be impartial.
I’m citing right wing sources, so you don’t have to take them seriously, but I did want to show that we have beef with Perez. And will use those cases to attack him. Neither of them are going to look good once we’ve spent several million on TV ads.
The most obvious problem with Perez is that he’ll motivate Republican turnout. At this point Clinton wants us discouraged and apathetic. Perez might even get me fired up to vote for Trump.
Republicans generally vote – what Clinton most needs is for Democrats to turn out… especially minority voters. Even if what you say is true, Perez sounds like the kind of VP that might strongly encourage Democratic turnout.
So the GOP’s gonna spend several millions of dollars on ads about a complex, judicial inside baseball situation with race at the center? Good luck with the messaging on that.
Plus it doesn’t even involve the “good” racial politics that motivates the frothy white. You know-- the kind with menacing black men killing noble white people for no reason whatsoever.