By John Fund
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Washington, D.C. — The annual White House Correspondent’s
Dinner is indeed — as President Obama put it last night — “where Washington
celebrates itself.” Little real news is ever made, but Beltway media,
politicians, and consultants attend in such large numbers that you can get a
sense of the current conventional wisdom.
Cecily Strong, the Saturday Night Live comic who followed
President Obama on the podium, was so blatantly in Hillary’s corner that it was
jarring. But what was striking about last night’s dinner was that many people
have come to the conclusion that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is in deep trouble
and she is no longer as inevitable as people once thought. Working reporters
who cover her and other Democratic politicians wouldn’t go on the record, but
you heard the same thing from several of them:
“It’s not that she’s too old — she just can’t relate to
younger generations.”
“A couple more scandals, and you’ll wonder if they will
start to define her campaign.”
“Younger women know a female will become president in
their lifetime; many of them don’t think it has to be or even should be
Hillary.”
“How can she possibly distance herself from the Obama
administration she served for four years, but whose policies increasingly
alienate independent voters she needs?”
That last comment goes to the heart of her problem with
Democratic insiders. Publicly, they praise Hillary as a candidate of
exceptional experience in government and one who is likely to harvest bushels
of votes from people eager to elect the first female president. Privately, they
fret about a recent Quinnipiac poll in which 54 percent of Americans say Clinton
is not honest or trustworthy. Among independents, that number hits 61 percent.
“Candidates distrusted by that many people can win the White House, but it
leaves no margin for error or another big scandal,” one Democratic former
officeholder admitted to me.
54 percent of Americans say Clinton is not honest or trustworthy.
That’s why so many Democrats hope Hillary Clinton will be
challenged by a more formidable rival than the former governors or senators who
are currently lining up to oppose her: Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and Jim
Webb. Senator Elizabeth Warren, an economic populist to the left of Hillary,
has steadfastly declined to run for president. But each new scandal or Hillary
campaign stumble could fuel the pressure for her to enter the race. Most
Democratic strategists believe that only a woman could seize the nomination
from Mrs. Clinton, given Hillary’s name ID and campaign war chest. In 2008,
Barack Obama would have had no hope against Hillary, despite his formidable
campaign skills, if he hadn’t also had a history-making card to play as the
first African-American man with a realistic chance of becoming president.
What Democrats really worry about is that no one will
beat the Clinton Machine for the Democratic nomination — it will survive and go
on to become an inviting target for Republicans in the general-election battle.
Focus groups and polls show that voters are most
interested in finding candidates they judge as authentic — leaders who don’t
play the normal political games. For Hillary Clinton, that represents a
challenge. Her campaign is emphasizing her desire to help “everyday” people,
while at the same time the press is starting to reveal the Clinton Foundation
as a lucrative slush fund for the Clintons and their friends. In some years,
the foundation spends $500 million, but overhead, salaries, travel, and
undisclosed “other” expenses eat up a huge chunk of that, leaving perhaps 15
percent for actual charitable work.
Investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, whose book
Clinton Cash is due for release on May 5, as well as Pulitzer Prize–winning Jo
Becker and and Mike McIntire of the New York Times, have raised new questions.
Their research points to a disturbing pattern of foreign contributions and
enormous speaking fees for Bill Clinton that appear to be timed to coincide
with preferential actions the State Department took while Mrs. Clinton was
secretary of state.
Hillary Clinton has dismissed the reporting as
“distractions and attacks.” But she did find time last week to suddenly call
for a truce in what she sees as an increasingly hostile political climate. “I
am tired of the mean-spiritedness in politics,” she told voters in Claremont,
N.H. “Enough with the attacks and the anger, let’s find answers together and
figure out what we’re going to do.”
Hillary Clinton could, of course, put all the concerns
about her family foundation and its seedy dealings to rest if she were to
release all the e-mails concerning the foundation that were in her private
e-mail account — the one she used, in violation of explicit government rules,
to conduct government business. But she has already announced that the e-mails
she viewed as “private” have been deleted and her server scrubbed. She has yet
to answer questions about whether e-mails that concerned the Clinton Foundation
during her tenure at the State Department were “private,” in her estimation.
Because they are now gone, we will probably never know.
Democrats privately believe that the Clintons can recover
from the e-mail and foundation scandals because it’s unlikely reporters will
ever find a “smoking gun” that explicitly links foreign donations with public
actions. But Democrats also know that other scandals may soon be unearthed. And
if they do, not only will Hillary Clinton prove unable to establish herself as
an “authentic” candidate, she also will establish herself as a pro at
conducting an “authentic” cover-up.
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