What’s Wrong With Hillary? [View all]

[Karmadillo]

Let's hope Tuesday's results will set us on a path where Hillary's many liabilities won't take the party down in November.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/hillary-clinton-2016-whats-wrong-with-hillary-213722

What’s Wrong With Hillary?
The GOP is fretting about Trump, but the Democrats’ likely standard-bearer could do just as much damage to her own party.
By Jeff Greenfield
March 14, 2016

When Hillary Clinton began her second run for the White House, it must have seemed that the road ahead would rise up to meet her. This time, there would be no political phenomenon in her way—no younger, more charismatic figure who would strip Clinton of the mantle of “change.” All that stood between her and the nomination were a 74-year old socialist from Vermont and the obscure former governor of a state whose previous best-known politician was Spiro Agnew. Back then, if you had told Clinton’s campaign that she would be outraised by that Vermont socialist, that she would be losing younger Democrats, including young women, by landslide proportions, and that she would be facing a months-long slog through every primary—you would have been accused of smoking some of that now-legal-in-Colorado product.

So what exactly is going on here? Why won’t Bernie Sanders go away? And why does Hillary Clinton’s Bernie problem pose a danger not only to her but to the Democratic Party—even if she does (as it seems highly likely) secure her party’s nomination? Three big reasons: First, Hillary Clinton commands little trust among an electorate that is driven today by mistrust. Second, her public life—the posts she has held, the positions she has adopted (and jettisoned)—define her as a creature of the “establishment” at a time when voters regard the very idea with deep antipathy. And finally, however she wishes it were not so, however much she argues that she represents the future as America’s first prospective female president, Clinton still embodies the past, just as she did in 2008 when she lost to Barack Obama. The combination of those three factors is already playing out in the Democratic primary, where younger voters are turning away from her and embracing a geriatric, white-haired alternative in droves.

The far more serious issue is whether all these factors will seriously threaten her prospects and those of the Democratic Party in November—even at the hands of Donald Trump.
True, the road ahead is still more or less rising in her direction. Clinton leads her likely opponent, Trump, by a significant margin. He—or indeed any GOP nominee—will come out of the convention with his party bitterly, perhaps hopelessly, divided. A Washington Post-ABC News poll reports that nearly two-thirds of Americans say she has the kind of experience necessary to be president. No wonder betting markets make her a nearly 2-to-1 favorite in November.

But there are other factors that make Hillary Clinton look more vulnerable than venerable, and that should give her party cause to pause. Consider the much-chewed-over finding that nearly six in 10 Americans do not consider Clinton honest and trustworthy. In last Wednesday’s debate, panelist Karen Tumulty cut through Clinton’s first explanation—it’s all that right-wing Fox News noise—to note that these doubts were held by the broader public, and by many in her own party.

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