By all appearances, Martin O’Malley is the only Dem preparing to jump in to challenge Hillary. Warren has said no at least 100 times. Sanders is busy laying the groundwork for his ultimate pass, speaking about making sure he’s viable financially. Am I the only one who finds that ironic? He’s not going to run as the champion of the masses to take on the privileged few unless he can find the money to do it? Wow. If you take that logic to its natural conclusion, the more lopsided things get the less likely he’d be to run.
But I digress. My point here is that if Martin O’Malley were a stock, it might be worth buying a few call options on him. And maybe buying a few put options on Hillary.
We’re still 18 months out from the election, and the NYTimes came out with this today: Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal. The known facts are straightforward: The principals of a Canadian mining company, which holds substantial American uranium deposits and wanted to sell a majority stake to a Russian outfit affiliated with the Russian government, had made large contributions to the Clinton Global Fund. The contributions largely were not disclosed. The sale was approved by the State Department, while Hillary was in charge. Oh, and Bill received a half-million dollar speaking fee from a Russian firm that may have had a connection.
Yes, there will be an explanation why nothing was wrong with this. The explanation will make perfect sense. And this will get swept under the rug, perhaps the same rug under which those questions about the private emails now reside.
But that nagging feeling voters have about her isn’t going away. It’s growing worse.
And Iowa still is 9 months away.
Steve hillary has the votes 5,000,000 more minority kids will have turned 18 by nov. 2016. And id democrats spend the time and money registering them instead of dark money dead end she will win easily. In 2012 romney got 59% of white vote and majority of independents that got him second place and 9,000,000 less democrats voted for Obama in 2012 over 2008. Also this is sad but true some democrats would not vote for a black president but will vote for hillary. And it is good this stuff is getting out early so it will be dead and buried by election time.
Captain, there is always the chance that you are correct, but my gut tells me otherwise.
Steve, just curious, where was your gut in 2012 and 2008?
Actually, I was correct in both elections.
In 2008, I knew McCain had no chance running against Obama for a couple of reasons. First, Obama was a historic candidate and the sweep of history virtually assured him the election. Second, McCain was a weak candidate that didn’t even have the full support of the GOP. I am still amazed that he keeps getting elected as Senator.
In 2012, the GOP had no good candidates running and we settled on Romney, a rather pasty, bland candidate that was hard to get excited about. I was surprised he did as well as he did, but I chalked that up to more of an anti-Obama vote more than anything else.
Hillary is something completely different. She is like fingernails on a chalkboard to a huge number of people. She has worked hard to tone down her image since Bill was in office and she alienated so many people, but she left an indelible impression that hasn’t gone away. Of course, the GOP could nominate a real dunce for President again, and then who knows how it will go? But assuming the GOP comes up with a halfway decent candidate, I don’t rate Hillary’s chances very good.
You know what is funny? I think if Bill were running again, he might have a chance of being re-elected. His likeability index is pretty high and even people that don’t like him will still grudgingly admit to a certain level of admiration for the guy.
In other words, your “gut” reacts to likability. Mine does as well. It doesn’t always work that way (Carter beat Ford, for example), but you can’t ignore likability.
Of course, we don’t know who the Rs will put up, so it’s too early to judge the likability contest in the general.
Hm-m-m, I hadn’t thought about it in those terms but I guess you could say likeability is a big factor. That is why I say the GOP could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by nominating a jerk extremist who turns people off worse than Hillary. The GOP does have a track record of shooting itself iin the foot. It will be an interesting election, no doubt.
I still think Hillary will be the Democrat nominee and that the Democrats will come to regret it. She is a polarizing figure and for every person she inspires to vote for her, another will get out there just to vote aganist her.