Hillary Clinton for president. It's official!

[Borgholio]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/10/politics/ ... nt-sunday/

Hillary Clinton will launch her presidential campaign Sunday with a video on social media announcing her candidacy, followed immediately by travel to build on the announcement, according to a source close to Clinton's campaign in waiting.

Her first stop will likely be to the early caucus state of Iowa, according to the source.

Observers see the likely visit to Iowa as a show of humility by Clinton, who came in third in the 2008 caucuses and who, so far, has dominated the likely Democratic field for 2016.

Central to Clinton's second presidential run will be reintroducing the former first lady -- on her own terms -- to the American people. Democrats close to Clinton have started to call her the most unknown famous person in the world. Their argument is that people know of Clinton -- she has near 100% name recognition in most polls -- but they don't know her story.

Clinton's presidential campaign has long been a foregone conclusion, and speculation that she would take another shot at the White House has followed the former first lady since she left the State Department in early 2013.

For much of the last two years, Clinton has crisscrossed the country delivering paid speeches, selling her new memoir and stumping for Democrats during the 2014 midterm elections.

In the coming weeks and months, the Clinton campaign will look to hone in on that story, using themes such as Clinton's Midwestern upbringing, her mother's perseverance in the face of neglectful parents and Clinton's own time raising a daughter to cast the presidential hopeful in a more favorable, softer light than she was seen during her 2008 presidential run.

Game on!

[Zaune]

Well, that's settled that then. Did the Republicans settle on a candidate, or are they still playing Fanaticism Top Trumps?

[Borgholio]

Nope, so far it's Cruz and Paul in the running. Probably going to have more entries, then a lot of infighting, then someone who melts in the debate vs Clinton.

[Rogue 9]

Clinton's not a done deal yet either; there likely will still be entrants in the Democratic primary.

[Crossroads Inc.]

The howls from the Right have been swift and deafining.

I always find it fun how most on the left react to candidates on the right by pointing and laughing with amusement.
Whereas the reaction of the right to candidates usually is along the lines of if we're to run Adolf Hitler for president.

I am dead serious, I've already heard (from mindless commenters) Hillary described as:
A war criminal
A freedom hating communist
The "bitch of Benghazi"
and my favorite... "Hillbama"

It never ceases to amaze me just how much ANGER the right reacts to things with...

[Borgholio]

It never ceases to amaze me just how much ANGER the right reacts to things with...

Would it be too much to hope that they get so enraged by her winning the election that they all spontaneously have brain aneurysms?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

What, none of the old 1990s "Hitlery"? I thought these people were conservatives.

[Simon_Jester]

Perhaps this particular group of Clinton-ridiculing modern American conservatives are that rarest of creatures, conservatives with a short attention span? Valuing the past while unable to actually remember it?

That would... explain quite a bit, now that I think about it.

[Irbis]

Out of curiosity, people who have been defeated in Presidential election in USA rarely start again. Why? Is that some custom? Party dislike of losers? Just courtesy? Now that I look, Hillary seems to be a rare repeat candidate, Gore, Kerry and a few recent others gave up just after one bad showing, including actually getting majority of US votes in election...

[Serafina]

What, none of the old 1990s "Hitlery"? I thought these people were conservatives.

Show me one conservative who does not have faulty memory? Nostalgia is pretty much a requirement for conservatives after all, and that is pretty much based off faulty memory.

[General Zod]

Out of curiosity, people who have been defeated in Presidential election in USA rarely start again. Why? Is that some custom? Party dislike of losers? Just courtesy? Now that I look, Hillary seems to be a rare repeat candidate, Gore, Kerry and a few recent others gave up just after one bad showing, including actually getting majority of US votes in election...

They're expensive and take away from anything else you could be doing with your time.

[madd0ct0r]

while she is chasing the prize of
1) being first female president. That's a legacy built into the first day.
2) rubbing bill's nose in it for all those years.

[Borgholio]

Now we just have to figure out which would be hated more by the GOP as president...a white woman or a black male?

[Grumman]

She voted for the Iraq war, voted against giving the weapons inspectors more time, and then tried to pretend she only voted for the Iraq war because she thought Bush would give the weapons inspectors more time. She can go to hell.

[General Zod]

Now we just have to figure out which would be hated more by the GOP as president...a white woman or a black male?

Maybe the GOP will prop up a black female candidate in response?

[Thanas]

Now we just have to figure out which would be hated more by the GOP as president...a white woman or a black male?

A woman. The GOP currently has a real hard-on for bashing women and anything related to sex.

[Simon_Jester]

She voted for the Iraq war, voted against giving the weapons inspectors more time, and then tried to pretend she only voted for the Iraq war because she thought Bush would give the weapons inspectors more time. She can go to hell.

Given the huge number of people who were for the Iraq War before they were against it, and how generally unacceptable having been for it is for mainstream Democrats today... honestly I'm going to give her a pass on this one.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Meh. It's just gonna be more of the same thing again.

[Channel72]

She voted for the Iraq war, voted against giving the weapons inspectors more time, and then tried to pretend she only voted for the Iraq war because she thought Bush would give the weapons inspectors more time. She can go to hell.

OMG you and your HREF attribute are SO right!!!! Which is exactly why I'm voting Republican in 2016. Because Hillary is just sooo horrible that I'd rather have a bunch of anti-science, anti-civil-rights, Jesus-fellating Neanderthals* running the country. I can hardly wait to vote for Rand Paul because clearly the solution to all of our problems is less government and more Jesus. Also, something something Benghazi something...

* Just kidding, obviously Neanderthals never actually existed because the Earth is only 6,000 years old - fossils are a LIE! A LIE from Sodom (or possibly San Francisco) I tell you!!!

[Block]

You realize you don't have to vote for her in the primary right?

[Channel72]

I realize nothing.

But seriously... it's not like Debbie Schultz and the Democrat establishment is going to allow anyone other than our glorious ex-First Lady to be nominated at this point. Regardless, I'm barely even being sarcastic here... Hillary Clinton is probably more qualified than anyone else they've got, and I'd gladly vote for her.

[Omega18]

Out of curiosity, people who have been defeated in Presidential election in USA rarely start again. Why? Is that some custom? Party dislike of losers? Just courtesy? Now that I look, Hillary seems to be a rare repeat candidate, Gore, Kerry and a few recent others gave up just after one bad showing, including actually getting majority of US votes in election...

Actually this is basically wrong with regards to primary Presidential elections as opposed to general ones.

If anything there is a tendency for runner ups in Republican primaries to get nominated next time around (at least the next time there is an effectively open primary) with Mit Romney being runner up in 2008 and nominated in 2012, John McCain losing to George W. Bush in 2000 but being nominated in 2008, and Ronald Reagan losing to Gerald Ford in 1976, but being nominated in 1980. (There are also other cases where a Republican candidate lost in a Presidential primary but later ran again and won the nomination.)

Now its true this has not been the same degree of this trend on the Democratic side, but this should still not be viewed as that much of a rarity.

It should be noted that historically candidates losing a general Presidential election but running again were not that uncommon with William Jennings Bryan being the party nominee and running in 1896, 1900, and 1908 while Adlai Stevenson was the nominee against Eisenhower both in 1952 and 1956. You also had the remarkable case of Grover Cleveland who actually lost his re-election campaign after his first term as President in 1888 (although he won the popular vote) but was renominated in 1892 and won a second term as President.

The different in modern times appears to be related to the shift to true popular Presidential Primaries as opposed to more of a backroom deal phenomenon by party elites as in the past. In modern time the difference appears to be less tolerance by the general party electorate in terms of blaming a candidate they nominate if he loses the general election once. (You also have both the primary and the general Presidential elections feeling like their own separate election cycles while people tended to historically generally care less about primaries prior to the modern popular primary system.)

[Terralthra]

Irbis said people defeated in Presidential elections, not Presidential primaries. Gore never ran for his party's nomination again, nor did Kerry, Dole, McCain, or Romney.

[The Romulan Republic]

But that doesn't apply to Hillary because she never lost a Presidential election, just the primary.

[Crossroads Inc.]

What, none of the old 1990s "Hitlery"? I thought these people were conservatives.

Found this today after Obama endorsed Hillary, thought you might get a laugh from it

Right, like I am going to take advice from this guy. Hitlery has been a con job on the American people just like the Odumba. Her career is full of lies and deceit starting when she was in college, Watergate, Benghazi, "at this point what difference does it make", 4 dead Americans. She will target low income, uneducated, illegal, welfare recipients for her majority of votes because she will promise no change in their status, funding will continue. IF the people of America look at what 'Killary' is and has done, she will never get the vote, the Dems expect the vote from those they are trying to keep oppressed. Wake up people, the Dems are not what we need, look at the big picture to acknowledge we are being held back by our federal government, it is time to change!

As far as the "American Candidates that Run again" Omega18 said it in more detail, but there HAS been a trend of Candidates who loose the Primary running again.

McCain lost nominee in 2000, ran again in 2008.
Romney lost nominee in 2008, ran again 2012
and Now Hillary, after loosing the nominee in 2008, is running again now.

Meanwhile... The media, and political pundits are terrified at the idea that Hillary might run (mostly) unopposed..
"DON'T BET ON IT" they cry..

Where’s Hillary?” the Republican National Committee started asking last week. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose 2016 presidential campaign has reportedly gone from likelihood to certainty, hasn’t had a press conference in over 200 days and hasn’t given an interview in more than 180, according to the RNC, which says she’s hiding.

So where is Clinton? She’s on Twitter, Real Clear Politics noted. “Clinton has taken to Twitter to weigh in on major issues of the day,” RCP’s Caitlin Huey-Burns (a U.S. News alumna) wrote. “Twitter allows her to choose if she wants to insert herself into the conversation, and when. It provides a way for her to generate a healthy dose of publicity in a news cycle without the immediate imperative to elaborate or answer questions.”
(This isn’t the first time a female political heavyweight contemplating a presidential bid has pursued a social media strategy to issue pronouncements without the filter or give-and-take of the press, but Clinton is doing it more deftly than Sarah Palin did.)


Clinton has the luxury of running silent because, unlike the flash-mob GOP field, the Democrats do not run deep. The hot question regarding the Clinton 2016 effort at this point is not when, but whether she’ll face any competition. (When, according to Politico’s Mike Allen, is early April or even July, coinciding with the start of a fundraising quarter so as to produce a “blockbuster” initial cash haul.) “Hillary Clinton may run unopposed in Democrat primaries,” was the Fox News headline last month. “Will Hillary Clinton run for the Democratic nomination unopposed?” a Christian Science Monitor article asked.


The answer is that she won’t get the Democratic nomination by acclamation – and the party shouldn’t hope she does.

History is a compelling guide, as are current circumstances. Only incumbent presidents coast to nominations unimpeded (and not all of them, as Jimmy Carter or George H.W. Bush could tell you). Everyone else gets an opponent and that opponent has at least a moment of credibility. Think of the last three non-incumbent Democratic presidential races: In 2000 Vice President Al Gore was the prohibitive establishment favorite for the nomination but had to fend off a tougher-than-expected challenge by New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley; ditto Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in 2004, with Vermont Gov. Howard Dean emerging from nowhere to challenge him; and the pattern reached apotheosis in 2008 when Barack Obama played the David to Clinton’s Goliath, actually toppling the frontrunner. So yeah, there’s some history here.


And for all the talk of a Hillary Clinton sweep, it’s not like there isn’t an active opposition aching for an alternative. There are not one but two movements to draft Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for president. “Ready for Warren” has raised nearly $100,000, according to Federal Election Commission filings. And while “Run Warren Run,” hasn’t released its fundraising figures, it has reportedly gotten 250,000 people to sign its petition. This energy isn’t going to simply dissipate if Warren stands by her repeated refusals to run, and it’s not just going to flow to the hawkish, Wall Street-friendly Clinton. “Voters want a choice, not a coronation,” says one pro-Warren activist.


Politics abhors a vacuum. Someone will fill the not-Hillary space and tap that discontent. They’ll gain instant stature as would-be giant-slayer and that’s not even accounting for Citizens United, which allows a few wealthy patrons to keep a campaign afloat via super PAC. “A person becomes very famous in this country very quickly,” former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley told The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza last year. He should know – he’s one of the three candidates actively eyeing a bid against Clinton, along with independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, the only Democrat who’s actually formed an exploratory committee (and that's not even to mention sitting Vice President Joe Biden).


None of the trio seems an obvious 2016 version of Barack Obama: Lizza not inaccurately calls Sanders the Democratic Party’s Ron Paul – someone who can’t win but who has the following and political positioning to be a center of gravity, pulling the party in his direction; and neither O’Malley, who has a reputation as a technocrat, nor Webb, who suffers from both a charisma deficit and an occasional conservative streak, seems obvious progressive heroes.


But in Democratic primaries you don’t have to come from the left, you just need to attack from it. Bradley was seen as a bland centrist before his 2000 bid. And in 2003, Businessweek published an article asking, “Who’s the Real Howard Dean?” which questioned whether he was the lefty “insurgent” of his campaign or “the business-friendly fiscal conservative and pragmatic moderate who governed Vermont for 11 years?” (Spoiler alert: He was the latter.) Webb, for example, can emphasize his anti-Wall Street and anti-war cred (the latter burnished by his status as a Vietnam vet) – a neat fit for Clinton’s vulnerabilities with the activist left.

Finally, Democrats should not hope for her to have a clear path. Primaries are important warm-ups, testing both candidates and campaigns. Those who see a tough fight as a portent of weakness should recall that the 2008 nomination contests were more protracted and bitter for the Democrats than the Republicans. Does the party really want an untested Clinton campaign working out its kinks in the four-month general election sprint? That would be like a baseball team going from spring training to the World Series against a team that’s played a full season and postseason – who wants those odds?

Because a fracturus, drawn out fight among many candidates is SO what the Democrats need right?
I mean yes, you can seem them Salivating, just hungry for someone, ANYONE to get into the ring and start roughing up Hillary on the Democratic side! Having her run unopposed?? INCONCEIVABLE!!!!