Early Handicapping
Here’s Cindy “Who?” Sheehan on Hillary Clinton:
I thought Mrs. Clinton listened, but apparently she didn’t because immediately afterwards she said the following to Sarah Ferguson of the Village Voice:
“My bottom line is that I don’t want their sons to die in vain… I don’t believe it’s smart to set a date for withdrawal… I don’t think it’s the right time to withdraw.”
That quote sounds exactly like what the few Republicans I talked to that week said. Making sure that our children did not die in “vain” sounds exactly like something George Bush says. A “date” for withdrawal? That sounds like Rush Limbaugh to me. That doesn’t sound like an opposition party leader speaking to me. What Sen. Clinton said after our meeting sounds exactly like the Republican Party talking points I heard from Senators Dole and McCain.
Sheehan’s rant gives us an early test for how the Democratic presidential nominee will do in 2008. If this rant gets media play outside the blogosphere, will rank & file Democrats coalesce around Clinton or around Sheehan? Will they move to protect one of their strongest potential candidates, or around the brainwashed hater of Western Civilization?
But that a pretty big “if.” Just like it did last summer, the MSM is likely to ignore Sheehan’s wilder takes on current events.
You said,
“Sheehan’s rant gives us an early test for how the Democratic presidential nominee will do in 2008. If this rant gets media play outside the blogosphere, will rank & file Democrats coalesce around Clinton or around Sheehan?”
I don’t really think that it matters because I doubt that Clinton means what she says. Hillary knows that any of her utterances could make it into the media stream and she is disciplined about staying ‘on message.’
She has been steadily trying to portray herself as a moderate and shed her extreme leftist label in an effort to be a viable candidate for the presidency.
Fortunately, there is enough history on her that it will be next to impossible, even with the MSM doing backflips to ignore her past. Besides, this moderate stance is all a front anyway. She hasn’t changed, she’s just trying to get elected.
As far as I’m concerned, she can position all she wants. I vividly remember the TV shots of her in the capital when President Bush gave his speech shortly after 9/11, smirking and rolling her eyes. That told me all I needed to know about where she stood on national defense and our security.
By the time the 2008 campaign really hits its stride, the issue of Iraq will be moot, one way or another. Hillary is playing a good bet: by that point the withdrawal will already have begun as the Iraqi government takes over more of the responsibility for fighting against al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents.
Thus it won’t actually be a campaign issue any longer.
Sheehan won’t be given the time of day by the MSM if she keeps attacking Clinton. She’ll just be a bad memory.
If this rant gets media play outside the blogosphere…
There is zero chance of that happening. None. Nicht. Nada. That would involve either criticizing Hillary or the sainted Mother Sheehan, and the newsrooms have no way to fit that into their smug little worldview.
Cindy who? Wasn’t she the Whoville kid in the Grinch story?
Sorry but I think her 15 minutes were up last month.