Hillary Clinton officially announced her candidacy for the presidency yesterday by releasing a two-minute video. This marks the beginning of the third phase of media coverage. The first dealt with mindless speculations about whether she would run, the second dealt with mindless speculations about when she would announce, and now there will mindless speculation about how good her candidacy will be, focusing on her age, her clothes, her looks, her gender, her laugh, her husband, Benghazi, and all the other things that have absolutely no relevance as to how she will be as a president, not to mention polls about those same things.
There will be some pro forma discussions about what her policies are and how they compare to those of her primary rivals and her potential Republican opposition but we all know that those are boring because on the issues of the oligarchy-dominated US economy, wars, drones, Wall Street corruption, subservience to the one-percenters, and the national security state there is little daylight between her and Republicans, so we are not going to hear much about those topics.
I am not a fan of her candidacy but I have to say that her opening campaign video was well done. It hit all the correct notes on social issues and made it clear that she was going to draw a stark contract with Republicans and run on them. She also thankfully did not invoke god at all or suggest that he called her to be president. What the Democratic nominee for president has going for them is that the Republicans have shown themselves to be indisputably crazy and no sane person should trust them anywhere near any position of responsibility.
Here’s Clinton’s video.
Ah, no thank you. No offense to those that can willingly consume political campaign material, but I have a low tolerance (which, being a USAian, makes the prospect of the next 19 months grim indeed). I must say, having gone through the exercise of of 9 prior presidential campaigns, this feels like the bleakest. The Rs seem to be repeating their prior mudfight about who can say the most patently absurd things to win their primary, and the (establishment) Ds seem content with putting Secretary Clinton forward with no debate, no dissent and no alternative.
I feel reduced to the political equivalent of the Hippocratic “first, do no harm” (or at least as little as possible).
Are there any realistic challengers? Biden or Kerry might stand a chance, though both are over 70, but no one else has really made a name for themselves over the past 8 years. Partially because the Republicans say such crazy things that they get lots of attention, but there must be more to it than that
Oh, it’s that time again!
Mr Mano, you like it or not, here is the reality : A warmonger, Neocon, self righteous Wall Street Queen Hillary Clinton = USA Thatcher.
@2 gshelley
Personally, I’m in favor of Martin O’Malley, who is probably going to announce soon once the Hillary hype goes down.
I’d like to see Jim Webb, who morphed from being a Reagan Administration appointee to an Iraq War opponent, get the nomination, but it’s probably not going to happen.
I would prefer either Bernie Sanders or Martin O’Malley. Sanders has made noises about running but hasn’t set up any kind of organization so if he runs it will be a purely quixotic effort to push Clinton on where she stands on issues that would otherwise not be discussed.
O’Malley is going to run. He has quietly been creating an organization and so seems serious. Whether he can prevent the Clinton coronation is the question
@2. gshelley asked :
Any chance that Al Gore might run again?
I like Hilary Clinton and think she’ll probably win both nomination and presidency.