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Tag: personality
Hillary Trudging to Antarctica

Hillary Trudging to Antarctica

Hillary Clinton’s long hard slog to the White House shall soon rival Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition to Antarctica. But the lady has plenty of pluck and persistence. Isn’t that the way to get to the top — or the bottom — of the world?

Things will never be easy for Clinton’s quest. She barely won the Iowa caucuses, giving the media a chance to chop, chop at her honesty, likability, ambivalent support and love of money. Outlandish speaking fees on Wall Street make it hard for her to rail against the 1 percent, when she’s one of them.

As we speak, an avid storyline of an “enthusiasm gap” between Democratic front-runners is fast being told in print and spun on air. It’s probably a fair point.

But over and over, the gap takes on a life of its own, just as the claim that Senator Marco Rubio’s third place finish in the Republican primary is something special. Of all people, vacuous Rubio is getting generous spin, even from David Brooks, a New York Times columnist who ought to know better. Meanwhile, Clinton gets her usual meager ration of gruel.

The Washington Post ran a news story saying young voters find Senator Bernie Sanders, 74, her archrival with the Brooklyn cadences, “cooler” than Clinton. That may be the unkindest cut since Barack Obama said during a 2008 debate, “You’re likeable enough, Hillary.”

“She shouts,” Bob Woodward says on MSNBC after Iowa, scolding Clinton for her “unrelaxed” speaking style and delivery. The subtext: She’s unladylike.

Woodward has an easy straight-up Midwestern way, but he’s not running for president. Like Clinton, Woodward grew up in Illinois and went to Yale, just before Hillary Rodham went to Yale Law School. Yet there’s no love lost between the ace Washington Post associate editor and the Clintons.

Let me ‘fess up: I liked Clinton’s spirited speech in Iowa at the end of a long night. Yes, I did, finding it better than her usual best. She honestly dealt with losing Iowa before, in 2008, when Barack Obama swept farmers away across that small state. That’s where the young black senator started making history.

Somehow, Clinton’s historic first win as a woman in Iowa is not having that wind-at-her-back effect as she trudges to the South Pole by way of New Hampshire. Life on the hustings is so unfair.

The former secretary of state was thrilled, striking a defining line: “I’m a progressive who gets things done for people.” The red suit was pitch perfect. She looked years younger. And yes, she raised her throaty voice and may have even beamed and laughed. That’s what winners often do after the first close contest of the presidential season.

Fox News (an oxymoron) accused her of screaming. Who cares?

More seriously, it’s no secret the media has never been fond of Clinton. If the traveling media mindlessly sets up the 2016 campaign as a superficial race, as it did between Albert Gore and George W. Bush in 2000, then we can kiss the republic goodbye for good.

Look at the failed 21st century, largely because the media on the planes decided Bush was friendly and affable, and Gore was serious and stiff, not a good guy to share a beer with. A tragic chorus.

That begs the question: how likable is Ted Cruz or Donald Trump?

Since the first chapter of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the first lady was criticized in the press for running health care reform behind closed doors; for a Travel office kerfuffle; and for a Whitewater land deal, setting up a sordid investigation that turned up the president’s affair with young Monica Lewinsky.

At the midway, Woodward reported Hillary Clinton had an imagined conversation with Eleanor Roosevelt. When her husband’s philandering went public, it softened hearts all around.

The New York Times endorsed Clinton for the Democratic nomination, praising her policy depth on reproductive rights, the international front and more: “Mrs. Clinton has done her homework on pretty much any subject you’d care to name.”

On the same day, the Times ran an essay, “The Women Who Should Love Hillary,” by cultural muse Gail Sheehy. After encountering anger toward Clinton among her liberal shipmates, she wrote, “I would love to be a true believer. I’m feeling ambivalent.”

Then there’s the noble Sir Ernest. Shackleton never quite got to his grand goal. Will Clinton follow in his footsteps?

Photo: U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton smiles as she is introduced by her daughter Chelsea at a campaign event in Carroll, Iowa January 30, 2016.  REUTERS/Jim Bourg

Republican Elites Clamor For Stubbornly Uninterested Chris Christie

Republican elites — journalists, operatives, consultants, elected officials — love Chris Christie.

They liked his (somewhat) conservative and ultimately successful gubernatorial campaign, where he took down one of their greatest foes — Wall Streeter turned progressive champion Jon Corzine, in a state they rarely can be happy about, New Jersey.

And they really adored Christie’s tough talk on unions and budget deficits, especially since he took office in January of last year.

So it’s not a surprise, per se, that they have aggressively tried to woo for him to jump in the race for their party’s 2012 presidential nomination. What’s more shocking is that, months into the race, despite Sherman-esque denials of interest by the New Jersey governor and polls showing a primary electorate increasingly happy with its choices, every time an announced candidate flubs a line or misspeaks in a debate, the elites go ballistic and try to convince Christie, again, to run.

They’re likely wasting their time.

“He [Christie] was here at Ryder University last week with [Indiana Governor] Mitch Daniels,” said Ben Dworkin, director of The Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics. “There was nothing in that program that we had that gave any indication he would run. I think you had a confluence of two things happening: Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie were on the same stage in the morning. And that night, you had a Republican debate in which a lot of the leading candidates were roundly panned. And the media have gone on a frenzy since then.”

Dworkin was extremely skeptical of a Christie bid, though the governor running in 2016 was a noteworthy possibility, he said.

Christie is getting a lot of buzz despite unorthodox positions on some issues. In the era of the Tea Party, though, sometimes positions matter less than rhetoric and personality.

Republicans get “the sense that Christie is a scrapper,” said Rick Wilson, a veteran GOP strategist. “He’s a guy who’s willing to go out and mix it up and blow things up and get the job done. We’re electing a Republican nominee who’s going to be required to have the fortitude to go out and kick the holy hell out of Barack Obama every day for a year. Republican base voters saw John McCain pull his punches, but they want a smart, electable fighter [like Christie].”

Wilson said some of Christie’s moderate stances, like favoring some gun control and acknowledging climate change, would be challenged by conservatives were he to make a run. But a strong economic message would help him overcome that.

“There’s no such thing as a perfect candidate. The secret here for Republicans is don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.”

He remained dubious of the possibility that Christie would actually dive in, however.

“My criminology of Christie’s speech is this is a guy who’s not doing it,” said Wilson. “Christie is certainly a guy who has a degree of charisma and a degree of mojo, that in the party right now, people find very appealing. But I still think it’s a dead letter at this point. He’s saying what he’s said all along, which is he’s not in this thing.”

Christie’s political standing in his home state has wavered and then recovered over the last two years; recent polls show him back at about the 50 percent mark and observers of politics in the Garden State said he has played surprisingly well with the left-of-center electorate.

“It’s pretty impressive that he’s as popular as he is,” said John Weingart, associate director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.

He, too, was skeptical of a Christie bid, but said if the governor did get in, he’d likely excel.

“It’s easy to think of people like Fred Thompson last time around or Rick Perry this time around who seem great and then crumble. I think that would be much less likely to happen. I think he’s incredibly skilled at adapting to situations and learning quickly and hitting the ground running.”

To review, here’s a nifty video put together by the folks over at Politico that Christie referenced himself this week in an attempt to squash speculation about him running:

“People are never entirely satisfied with the field until there is a nominee,” added Mark McKinnon, George W. Bush’s top media strategist in 2000 and 2004. “But by the time the nominee takes the stage at the convention, everyone stands together and salutes. Nevertheless, in the current volatile environment, it’s not too late to get in and anything could still happen.”