With years to go before election year 2008 even dawns, the New York Post reports that Evilmeister, Karl Rove is now directly involved in the angry white male party's massive effort to stop Hillary Rodham Clinton.
I did think there was a certain rovianesque quality about RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman's recent charge that Senator Clinton is too angry to be president.
Senator Clinton continues to have enormous popular support, but not much among the more progressive faction of the left. Rodham Clinton's centrist stance may well be one reason she inspires so much fear among rightwingers. Another reason is gender, of course. After all, this is the party that defines a family as 'broken' whenever a woman is at the helm.
Undoubtedly, the party of angry white male cut-throats will have some seriously gendered problems when it comes to cutting Hillary's throat. If Rodham Clinton does indeed run in 2008, she will be the first serious female contender for the highest office in the land. Centrist subterfuge aside, there is the distinct possibility that the long cherished dream of a woman president could bring out the inner feminist in all kinds of women, even in the massive numbers of apolitical women, and especially young women.
The New Republic reports that "Hillaryland is "a vast political empire based in Washington and New York that, in its scale and ambition, is unrivaled in Democratic politics."
Author Ryan Lizza describes the culture of Hillaryland as an intensely loyal and a centrist operation that compares itself to the Bush operation rather than that of Bill Clinton.
When Hillary advisers point out that, unlike the last three Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary is surrounded by longtime loyalists, they're talking about people like Doyle, one of the crawl-across-broken-glass-for-Hillary friends, mostly women, who have been around a long time. Others in this camp are Maggie Williams, Hillary's former East Wing chief of staff, who helps Doyle manage Hillaryland, and Tanden, a daughter of divorced Indian immigrants who credits government programs with saving her life and who has worshipped Hillary ever since she served as a nobody campaign staffer in 1992. Unlike Bill Clinton's people, every Hillary lieutenant has a story of a personal favor or act of kindness their boss performed--a birthday party thrown at Whitehaven, a personal phone call during a rough time. . .
While the Senate office may not be Hillaryland's nerve center, it is the public platform used to define the post-White House Hillary brand. And this ideological brand--and the people shaping it--are decidedly centrist. Consider, for example, Hillary's new legislative director, Laurie Rubiner. The newest senior staffer in Hillaryland, Rubiner came to Hillary by way of former Republican Senators John Chafee and Bob Dole and, most recently, the aggressively centrist New America Foundation, where she ran a program on universal health insurance. Her hiring says a lot about where Hillary is headed on the issues that may define a presidential campaign. Rubiner favors a universal plan, whereby the government mandates the purchase of health insurance, just as it does car insurance, from competing private providers, while subsidizing the neediest. Back in the '90s, this was the centrist alternative to Hillarycare, and it was sponsored by Rubiner's ex-bosses, Chafee and Dole. . .
While there are plenty of lefties populating Hillaryland, especially in her circle of female confidantes, the spirit of the place is far from the communist salon imagined by the right. Read, for example, an excerpt of the mission statement of HillPAC, which is the closest thing in Hillaryland to her national platform:
We believe America must return to the path of fiscal responsibility that led to unprecedented prosperity during the 1990's, helping to create more than 22 million new jobs and leading to historic, low levels of unemployment, inflation, crime, and interest rates and high levels of home ownership, access to education and productivity.
HILLPAC supports candidates who are working to restore investor confidence, ensure corporate accountability and protect workers' pensions.
There are very few Democrats whose central message is about interest rates, crime, productivity, and investor confidence. And the ones who exist have been hounded into silence in recent years by the Internet left. Hang out in Hillaryland long enough and you realize it has embraced almost none of the hyperpartisan culture of the so-called netroots that many Democrats are chasing. And the makeup of Hillary's core political consulting team suggests that's not going to change.
Hillary Clinton Rove Election 2008 Hillaryland Bush Presidential Campaign Bush Administration Clinton
