Most definitely NOT breaking news, yet relevant: Echoes of 2006 - 2008

[merrily]

The entire article is not long and is very worth a read, esp. at this juncture. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31302.html

2004-Hillary considered jumping into the primary (as Biden is rumored to be doing now)

– Before the 2004 Democratic presidential primary, party strategists Mark Penn and Mandy Grunwald, both then working for Sen. Joe Lieberman’s presidential candidacy, met secretly with then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and a group of her closest confidantes to consider a last-minute entry into the race – and even polled New Hampshire voters about the idea. Ultimately, though, Chelsea Clinton persuaded her mother to opt out of a run, arguing that voters wouldn’t forgive her for breaking a pledge to serve a full Senate term.

(Reportedly, Gore also considered jumping in.)


2006-Hillary instructed aides to prepare to counter rumors that Bill was having another affair

– Members of what the authors call Clinton’s “war room within a war room” became convinced in 2006 that Bill Clinton was having a serious extramarital affair, prompting Hillary Clinton to instruct her aides to be prepared to combat the story.

2006: Democratic Party Leaders want Obama, not Hillary

– Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and a group of other senators who would back Hillary Clinton’s candidacy encouraged Obama to run for the White House as early as 2006. The concern over Clinton was that she would be a weak Democratic standard-bearer while Obama could energize the party. In late summer 2007, Schumer – using an Obama ally, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), as a back channel – pushed the candidate to “take a two-by-four to Hillary,” as the authors put it.

2008: Trouble in Paradise: Obama and Biden

The relationship between Barack Obama and Joe Biden grew so strained during the 2008 campaign, according to a new book, that the two rarely spoke and aides not only kept Biden off internal conference calls but refused to even tell him they existed.

The above and more is from Game Change. I've had the book for a while. Guess I should really try to read it.

[Eleanors38]

1. The over all impressions I get of Hillary are:

1). As a presidential candidate, she is about as ponderous and subject to easy attack as the Spanish Armada in 1588.

2). She lives entirely in the Beltway Culture of the DNC where there is no commitment on serious issues.

3). Her chief concern politically is Not to seem threatening to corporate power.

4). She is quite secretive and calculating, and rather oblivious as to how that looks outside her circle. (See 2)

5). She is not a very good public speaker; what passes for passion and commitment is just getting louder and more ponderous.

6). She prizes staying above the fray, which is why she and so many other DNC Democrats are so easy to define and to slap around.

7). She isn't trustworthy. (See all the above)