Monday, February 15, 2016

She'll always be there: That's the problem.

Mark Steyn, resident of New Hampshire, writes about that state and its recent primary:
I live in northern New Hampshire, where every town that isn't a ski resort is dead. They were pleasant, sleepy places in genteel decline 20 years ago. Now they're hollowed out by heroin and meth, and offering no economic opportunity beyond casual shifts at the KwikkiKrap. And when you listen to the Dems they're worried about micro-aggressions and transphobia and when you listen to Congressional Republicans they're talking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The two-party one-party state has nothing to say to tens of millions of Americans.

...Carly Fiorina, the Great Emasculator, is out. She was impressive in debates, if somewhat severe in mien - which undoubtedly is part of why primary voters never warmed up to her. On the other hand, given the way the media treat more genial Republican women like Sarah Palin, you can see why Mrs Fiorina preferred to stick with deadly seriousness. Her brutal dissections of Hillary will be missed.

~On the leftie side the sewer that is the Democrat Party organizing apparatus may yet save Mrs Clinton. Bernie crushed her by 22 points, but the machine hacks nevertheless delivered up more delegates to Hillary because she's sewn up the "super-delegates". Facing a grassroots revolt, the party elders have declared they don't need no steenkin' grassroots. This is likely to get problematic if he keeps winning states but she keeps getting the delegates.

Hillary's real problem is that she's running on biography, and no one gives a crap. The consultants always say candidates need a "compelling personal story". Really? Trump doesn't have one, nor does Sanders, aside from occasional glimpses of his Soviet honeymoon, etc. No one cares about Kasich being the son of a mailman or Rubio being the son of a bartender. But whatever the opposite of a "compelling personal story" is, Hillary is it. Everything she has "accomplished" derives from the two central facts of her life:

1) She got married...

2) ...to a serial adulterer.

She was the first First Lady to be turned publicly into the First Doormat. And, because of that, Democrats felt sorry enough for her to give her a Senate seat in a state she'd never lived in. She accomplished nothing as senator but felt she was owed the presidency. This time Democrats felt that was a consolation prize too far and went for a more glamorous and seductive rival. This time the consolation prize was responsibility for America's foreign relations. Again she accomplished nothing: She traveled while the world burned. Everywhere is worse than it was in 2008: Iraq, Libya, Syria... Afterwards, she joined her husband in massively enriching herself by giving six- and seven-figure speeches to those who understand that, while you can never really own a Clinton, you can put down a deposit for services to be rendered. She became a senator, a presidential candidate, a secretary of state because she was Mrs William Jefferson Clinton - and her sense of entitlement was such that she never felt obligated to make anything of the job other than using it as a springboard for personal enrichment.

And even then it need not have mattered had her campaign had a rationale other than her curious belief that somehow she's entitled to be president.

By contrast, Bernie is all policy. Lunatic policy to be sure, but policy nevertheless. Hillary is nothing but "I'll never stop fighting for you". She has no platform. Nothing. Its vapidity is encapsulated by her pledge to the young voters who have abandoned her all but totally - that even though they aren't there for her she will always be there for them. You can almost hear the snorts of derision in response.

She'll always be there: That's the problem.

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