“My campaign will raise one million dollars!”
(AP photo)
John Fund reports from the White House Correspondents Association dinner:
Cecily Strong, the Saturday Night Live comic who followed President Obama on the podium, was so blatantly in Hillary’s corner that it was jarring. But what was striking about last night’s dinner was that many people have come to the conclusion that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is in deep trouble and she is no longer as inevitable as people once thought. Working reporters who cover her and other Democratic politicians wouldn’t go on the record, but you heard the same thing from several of them:
“It’s not that she’s too old — she just can’t relate to younger generations.”
“A couple more scandals, and you’ll wonder if they will start to define her campaign.”
“Younger women know a female will become president in their lifetime; many of them don’t think it has to be or even should be Hillary.”
“How can she possibly distance herself from the Obama administration she served for four years, but whose policies increasingly alienate independent voters she needs?”
The fact remains that Clinton’s popularity is mostly theoretical in nature — people like her more the less they see her. The other fact remains that campaigning involves being seen a lot.
Clinton launched her “campaign” by attending a series of small, private functions and smaller, private fundraisers. This is a smart move, in that in allows her to campaign without being seen, in the hopes that her climbing Emailgate negatives will dissipate. Maybe they will, but now we have the Clinton Foundation scandal on top of that, and who knows what else is coming — and there’s always something else coming with the Clintons.
The hiding in plain sight this can only do so much for so long; a Presidential contender can’t campaign from a hole in the ground. But will voters see her or her shadows?
UPDATE: I just now noticed the name of the event in the photo, “Women in the World.”
As opposed to where?
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