Daniel TilsonReady for a Hillary Clinton-Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign slugfest?
Looks to be about a 60-40 bet these days.
For quite a while now Jeb has played it close to the vest if not downright coy about his presidential prospects and plans.
But recent events are conspiring to flush him out of the weeds of high-priced speaking engagements and public school privatization plots, right into the thick of the 2016 race.
Not that he has to make an announcement anytime soon, nor do anything too much different than he has been.
Being a smart, smooth, savvy, mainstream and well-behaved conservative — not to mention former governor of The Ultimate Swing State — has earned him frontrunner status in a GOP pack of presidential hopefuls littered with scalawags, panderers and extremists.
What can you say about the once “hot ticket” hopeful anointed by so many pundits and politicos as The Big Threat to Hillary in 2016? Two words. Chris. Christie.
His and his fans’ biggest hope now should be that he not follow in the footsteps of another once-hot Republican hopeful, the recently indicted former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.
Another guy whose “buzz” factor has faded, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, has been so unsteady on his political feet he ought to forget the White House and worry about getting reelected.
Right-wing ideologues and Tea Party favorites like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee … yeah, right.
More mainstream but still hardcore conservatives like Paul Ryan … who knows?
What we do know is that Hillary Clinton is as presumptive a Democratic nominee as we’ve seen heading into a non-reelection presidential race for quite a while.
Thursday’s New York Times story revealing that the nation’s biggest “Liberal Super-PAC,” Priorities USA Action, has launched its fundraising push for her still unannounced candidacy only underlines the obvious.
As most will remember from 2008, Hillary wants very much to be president and has broad, dogged support in traditional Democratic Party circles.
From the “Ready For Hillary” website started over a year ago to the myriad “Hillary in 2016” Facebook groups with many thousands of members, there is eager anticipation of her run.
When asked about it in a December 2013 “Barbara Walters Presents” TV interview, Clinton said:
“I haven’t made up my mind … Obviously, I will look carefully at what I think I can do and make that decision sometime next year.”
Tick-tock, tick-tock, we’ll all have to wait and let Hillary use her own political alarm clock.
Meanwhile, plenty of progressives – including me — long for an Elizabeth Warren candidacy that takes on corporate hegemony and the American income inequality crisis in ways that Hillary Clinton cannot and will not.
But I believe the erstwhile U.S. senator from Massachusetts when she pledges to finish out her term and avoid a 2016 presidential challenge to the Clinton juggernaut.
And I will actively and avidly do everything in my power to help elect Hillary Clinton president if she wins the Democratic nomination.
One big wrench in the works for the Hillary 2016 machine is the desperate digging conservatives are doing to find dirt that sticks about her role in what is now officially known as the “Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation”.
A long and winding trail of mega-million-dollar fundraising and corporate quid-quo-pros is more likely to be her undoing than dog-with-a-bone right-wing rants of “Benghazi!” — “Benghazi!”– “Benghazi!”
There simply and plainly is very little “there” there to hold against Hillary with any seriousness.
I only hope the same holds true for her work with the family foundation.
Because I really, really don’t want another Bush in the White House.
