Why HRC is MIA for DNC

Michael Barone explains the former SecState and presumed 2016 contender’s absence from the campaign trail:

As Patrick Buchanan shows in his recent and characteristically vividly written book, “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority,” Nixon campaigned tirelessly for Republican candidates in the 1966 midterm elections.

That election produced big Republican gains, including 47 House seats (contrary to the obituaries written for the party after Barry Goldwater’s 1964 defeat), and helped elect Nixon president in 1968.

So why isn’t Clinton following Nixon’s example? For reasons as clear-eyed as her takedowns of Obama. First, she is in a stronger position to win her party’s nomination today than Nixon was 48 years ago.

Second, she, unlike Nixon in 1966 and like most sober-minded observers this year, doesn’t see this as a good year for her party.

The explanation might be simpler still. She could either Gulfstream her way to pre-scouted Presidential Suites in five-star hotels to give a brief speech for a quarter of a million dollars, or show up for hours at a grubby fundraiser hosted by some second-string candidate in one of those third-tier flyover states where the hotel has “Holiday” or “Comfort” in the name.

For a woman of Clinton’s stature, it’s a no-brainer.