Here’s a question. I’m trying to restrain myself from writing any more posts hostile to Hillary Clinton. I’ve looked at the polls and the internals of the delegates in Ohio and Texas, and regardless of the popular vote, Hillary is definitely going to come out Tuesday even farther behind in the race than she is today. Her candidacy is what Monty Python called a dead parrot.
I don’t feel the need to beat a dead parrot. But I do want to speculate about where Clinton goes from here. Some have suggested that she might be a good Majority Leader in the Senate. She might well be good in that role and it is something she might aspire to, but Harry Reid is about to enjoy an election that will bring him 4-13 new Democratic senators. He’s not going to get replaced anytime soon. Clinton’s most prominent post in the Senate in on the Armed Services committee but, as you can see, she has little seniority.
Chairman- Carl Levin (Michigan)
Edward M. Kennedy (Massachusetts)
Robert C. Byrd (West Virginia)
Joseph I. Lieberman (Connecticut)
Jack Reed (Rhode Island)
Daniel K. Akaka (Hawaii)
Bill Nelson (Florida)
E. Benjamin Nelson (Nebraska)
Evan Bayh (Indiana)
Hillary Rodham Clinton (New York)
Mark L. Pryor (Arkansas)
Jim Webb (Virginia)
Claire McCaskill (Missouri)
She ranks no higher than third on any of the subcommittees. In other words, she isn’t going to chair anything related to our Armed Services any time soon. So, what other posts does she have? Well…she has a middling rank on the Select Committee on Aging, chaired by Wisconsin chair Herb Kohl, for what it’s worth. She also serves on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, chaired by Teddy Kennedy, and the Environment & Public Works Committee, chaired by Barbara Boxer. She has little seniority on either committee, but she is chairwoman on the E&PW Superfund and Environmental Health Subcommittee.
Unfortunately, she has no short-term prospects to exercise any significant power within the Senate caucus. She does have a minor position in the Senate leadership as Democratic Committee Outreach Vice-Chair. Sen. Jeff Bingaman serves as the Chair…and this is a very minor position.
Simply put, Clinton is a backbench senator who has few prospects of moving up in the short to medium term. She sure as hell isn’t going to run for Governor of New York anytime soon. Eliot Spitzer is just getting warmed up in his first term. There doesn’t seem anywhere for her to go. President Obama is not going to appoint her to anything, and she probably wouldn’t accept anything less than Secretary of State, if that.
It has to be excruciating for the Clintons to contemplate this level of irrelevancy. Believe me, John Kerry and Al Gore have and had far better prospects.
I don’t write this to be mean, but it is for informational purposes. It does, perhaps, explain the unusual (and slightly irrational) tenacity with which the Clinton campaign fights on…damn the torpedoes.
Also available in orange.
Wow – that’s a little scary, because it explains the strange desperation, if not really the unwarranted sense of entitlement.
I wonder if she’d leave government and try something from a non-profit angle?
Nah. That’s not like her.
I think of all the sacrifices – enduring the humiliation of her husband, all the time repeating some personal mantra that included, no doubt, “but when I am president…” All those sacrifices for…nothing?
It’s enough to almost make me feel sorry for her. Almost.
Well, all sentiment aside. Mrs. Clinton would not be the first person in the world who made sacrifices and ended up losing. Hold on a minute. Losing? Scrifices? She has lived all her life in comfortable means, which are only increasing still, went to the best schools, basked in the shadow of her husband’s politcal power for most of her adult life, was literally handed the Democratic nomination as sentor from New York State and the list can go on and on. So now let’s go and talk to all the people in Iraq who have lost everything because she decided a jolly bill to give George II authority to start a war was well worth her approval, after not even troubling her ‘beautiful mind’ with the details. Then feel sorry for her. No! May Tuesday bring clarity to this farce. Today in the NY Times Krugman has a mysterious, enigmatic column about how disappointing Omaba might/will turn out to be. He’s no FDR. No he’s not. But then neither is either of the Clintons, but he seems to lay the perceived shortcoming at Obama’s feet. The comparison is meaningless. Obviously the US is moving through the looking-glass into a new, unknown dimension which, incidentally, could turn out to be President McCain who will drive the final nail into the middle class and the Republic while Cindy stands smiling admonishingly at his side. P.S. She often looks at him as if she’s his mother and he’s about five years old.
I agree here, and will take this one step further: Why is she owed ANYTHING? This makes no sense to me. IMO, she did nothing to “earn” her Senate seat, and in fact, stole the opportunity from a woman who had, ahem…more experience. Of course, one could say that this Member of Congress should have fought for it, but it is daunting when the field is being cleared for someone else.
Anyway, why can’t she be happy being a Senator? Why does she have to be coddled, i.e., Well, maybe we can put her on the Supreme Court?
Maybe she, and that entire Clintonian drama and dysfunction magnet can take a hike.
Exactly. The comparison is not only meaningless, but ludicrous.
And this is not the height of the depression, either. I don’t know why people insist on comparisons to FDR when the situation is dramatically different.
Mayor of NYC?
Maybe that’s why she was emulating Guliani’s campaign strategy.
My biased suggestion…
I just saw on your Orange version that a couple of people suggested she be appointed to the Supreme Court – which was pooh-poohed by others.
I think she’d be an interesting choice for the court. This court needs some diversity of experience. It is an unusual court in that all the justices have been drawn from the federal bench.
The current court has no one that I recall who has any legislative experience (which Hillary has). She also brings a insider’s working knowledge of the Executive branch not just at the federal level but at the state level. And she has experience in private practice. And she has activist experience with her work for the Children’s Defense Fund.
It’s hard to say what her judicial philosophy would be and she may be a bit more pro-business than progressives would like. But she’d be fine on choice and on most issues that we care about.
I agree. She would be a natural Supreme Court Justice, we all know where she stands on most issues and her Senate colleagues would happily confirm her. It helps that she’s a lawyer, but, as my dad always reminds me, you don’t even have to be that to serve on the Supreme Court because you have so many clerks supporting you.
Yes. That would be a nice gift to Hillary and we could all sleep well with her decisions.
That’s an excellent idea.
I’m trying to restrain myself from writing any more posts hostile to Hillary Clinton.
Try harder.
I don’t think I can try any harder.
Imagine it’s Wednesday, or whenever Hillary drops out. And we’re making the case to the older, registered-Democrat women who voted for her that in fact, no, we didn’t mean they were stupid and/or evil for supporting her. And that they should be enthusiastic supporters of Senator Obama.
Not my bag.
They should vote for Obama on Tuesday for the reasons I have laid out over months. It’s not my job to tone down what I feel to make people feel better about voting for Obama. We have months to make distinctions between Obama and McCain. Right now, the issue is what I have laid out.
Aight. Hope it works.
In retrospect, it would seem 2004 was Clinton’s year. That was the year not only could she have taken on a sitting President but I believe defeated a sitting President. I believe people sometimes have a “magic moment” in life. Colin Powell magic moment was in 1996, although I question whether he could have defeated Clinton then. Hillary’s moment was 2004 and she didn’t do it because of an ill-advised promise. And then Obama’s moment. 2008. And he grabbed it and here we are. To answer the question, Hillary, I believe, will probably grow old and bitter. And that is a shame.
towards Ms. Clinton, Booman.
We wouldn’t want any badly beaten dead parrrots lying around, would we?
Your continuing, gleeful anti-Clinton brutality is totally unwarranted and totally out of place. She has led a life that you can only guess at.
But you ARE kneejerking along with the rest of the leftiness bloggers.
Gotta give you that.
You disappoint me, Booman. You really do.
Shame on you.
AG
I think it’s called karma.