Hillary Clinton gets piled on for a reason

There’s a reason why people are piling on with the anti-Hillary Clinton stories these past weeks. We’ve had at least three on the Baltimore Post-Examiner and are due for a few more. People on the left are worried because Secretary Clinton isn’t lefty enough for them, she is too establishment for their tastes. And in the interest of honesty: eight years ago she was far too conservative for my views, slightly more conservative than Barack Obama. Neither one of them were my cup of tea when the 2008 Democratic primaries started. My two favorites were Dennis Kucinich and Joe Biden. Neither one of them had a rat’s chance in a cosmetic lab of winning the nomination.

The people on the right, the GOP and the so-called “conservatives” don’t like her because she’s Hillary Clinton — don’tcha get it? But they are piling on the attack because … well, they don’t have any candidates that can beat her in any election, in any year.

Jeb Bush

Umm … no. “Dubya’s my big brother and I stand by HIS record!”

Bush actually says he’s his own man of course and won’t be influenced by the decisions of his father and older brother — I’m sure there is somebody voting in the GOP primaries who believes that — but then Jeb’s policy advisors all served under either George the Elder or George the Son, or both. And yet we are to believe his decisions will be independent of the two previous Bush’s to hold the office. Not likely. Sorry Jeb, you don’t get a pass on answering questions about American foreign policy in the past 15 years, just because you said you won’t be “… re-litigating anything in the past.” Plus, he’s already defended his brother’s foreign policy record.

The Republican base holds many of the same views as George W. Bush, in particular, foreign policy; the base believes the Iraq War was right and a success — until Barack Hussein Obama messed it up — and if Jeb wants to get the GOP nomination, he has to appease the hawkish wing of the GOP and go along, which isn’t too much of a stretch since Jeb has already stated he believes his older brother was a good president.

How we really know Jeb is no different than George W.: like all other GOP candidates Jeb thinks we should have kept troops in Iraq indefinitely and that now we should send in troops to conduct a ground war against ISIS.

Jeb Bush will be, in the eyes of most voters, George Light. They can name a craft beer after the two, but Jeb Bush won’t be president number 45, even though, by polling so far, Jeb Bush is the front-runner in the GOP field. Can he win the vote in the primary? Maybe if he flip-flops on many of his issues. He’s been in favor of federal control in education and worst of the worst: he supports immigration reform, i.e. amnesty — in the eyes of the GOP base.

Plus, and most people don’t like to talk about it, Jeb Bush married a Hispanic woman and switched his religion to hers — Catholicism. There might not be a lot of conservative voters outside of Florida who know that, in fact there might not be many conservative voters in Florida who know he changed religions, but the hatred aimed at brown-skinned people runs deep in the GOP base and they’ll view Bush’s betrayal on immigration as a result of his marital and religious status.

Ted Cruz

Then there is the first Republican to officially enter the race who, for all intents and purposes, is the driver of the clown car: Ted Cruz. Is he a U.S. citizen, or Canadian? He was born in the Great White North so all the birthers that went after President Obama have actual ammunition with which to go after Cruz. But, Cruz is a conservative and let’s face it: he kinda looks like a white guy, so, his birthplace isn’t really an issue.

Ted Cruz who recited Green Eggs and Ham during a debate his Republican colleagues didn’t support, Ted Cruz, the one Republican who blamed Democrats for the government shut down, even in the face of so many of his GOP colleagues expressing regret for having engineered the shut down. Ted Cruz, who Senator John McCain labeled, one of the “wacko birds.”

If there is one clown from the car the Democrats would like to see win the nomination, it’s the wacko bird from Texas. But, unfortunately for them, Cruz will not likely get the GOP nomination. Even though a segment of the GOP base loves this guy, just about every GOP senator and congressman either dislikes or hates Ted Cruz. He’s pilloried and embarrassed party leaders; even some of his Tea Party brethren, breaking the Reagan rule of “Do not criticize other Republicans.” Ted Cruz will not get the nomination because he’s a genuine buffoon. He acts like such an idiot it’s hard to believe he graduated from Harvard and Harvard Law School.

Chris Christie

From the Eastern Seaboard comes New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. He’s making noises as if he’s planning on running, but he’ll get nowhere in the GOP primaries. The George Washington Bridge closing, plus poor economic numbers and his inability to get New Jersey back on its feet after Hurricane Sandy — the Feds are investigating the governor’s use and possible mis-use of relief money after the superstorm — will most likely keep Christie from even declaring a presidential run. And lets not forget: HE HUGGED THE PRESIDENT! No self-respecting GOP primary voter will let that pass.

Rick Perry

Then there is the other wacko bird from Texas, former Governor Rick Perry, the most prolific killer in U.S. history. He has overseen the executions of 278 Texas inmates. He vetoed a ban on executing the mentally ill.

But there is so much more that makes Rick Perry appear more as a clown than a viable national candidate. He once suggested Texas should secede from the Union, backtracking almost immediately when he was informed there was no legal avenue for any state to secede. His unrelenting attacks on President Obama and his very public rejection of the Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care Act (which would have given his state billions of dollars) made him look too stupid for his state’s own good. His grandstanding in front of the national media — that cost his state billions of dollars — made Rick Perry the perfect target for anyone in need of a punchline. Well that, and his performance as a presidential candidate in 2012.

From a GOP primary debate before the 2012 elections: “And I will tell you, it is three agencies of government when I get there that are gone. Commerce, Education, and the … what’s the third one there? Let’s see …”
Debate moderator John Harwood: “You can’t name the third one?”
Governor Perry: “I can’t. The third one, I can’t. Sorry.  … oops.”

Perry has been quiet for a while, trying to cultivate an image of a more serious politician. But once the primary campaigning gets underway in earnest, his past will be resurrected, like every other candidate. Oops.

Rand Paul

Here’s an interesting candidate. Even Bill Maher likes him a little. He’s for changing illegal drug policy for a variety of reasons, number one being that the current anti-drug laws disproportionately harm minority communities. He’s against the constant military intervention that has defined U.S. foreign policy for far too long and says we should just stay out of the quagmires of the Middle East and Africa. Except now he thinks we should commit troops to eradicate ISIS.

Who wouldn’t like this guy? He often wears sport coats with blue jeans and no tie — gosh darn it, he’s one of us.

Unfortunately for him, the GOP base won’t like him because he’s soft on them there terrorists and he wants to let convicted pot smokers vote. The rest of us won’t like him because he’s for massive deregulation and more tax cuts for the wealthy. Good thing he’s hedging his bets and running for re-election to the Senate.

Marco Rubio

Jeb Bush’s little shadow. You know, people are desperately trying to like Rubio. He goes on the Daily Show With Jon Stewart and gets the Rubio jokes, has fun with the Rubio jokes — and states his case to the younger generation, part of which is his generation.

He sorta likes immigration reform, except that part the GOP base calls amnesty … and then he backtracks. He’s against normalizing relations with Cuba, despite the polls that say even the a majority of Cuban-Americans support normal relations with Cuba. He wants to go back to the financial policies of the GOP past … yeah, he’s just another Republican who wants to aid the rich at the expense of the middle class and working poor.

Someone said Carly Fiorina will get into the race May 4 … You can’t fault her for trying. She so wants to win an election — somewhere. She has this going for her: Fiorina got Hewlett-Packard back on its feet in 2005 when she was forced out of her job as CEO of H-P. The company’s stock soared once it was announced she was gone.

Just realized I never mentioned Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. He’s mentioned.

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One thing the GOP can’t run on is the economy. It is doing far better now than when President Obama was first sworn into office in January 2008. All Democrats need to do is produce the numbers to refute any claims the Republicans make. And if the Democrat candidates don’t do it, their surrogates and supporters will.

Income Inequality

The biggest change we’ve seen from the GOP is that they are now using the term, “income Inequality,” hoping the voters connect the vast income inequality with President Obama. “It’s only gotten worse in the last eight years,” laments Ted Cruz and Rand Paul claims, the economy is getting better despite the president’s policies. And Jeb Bush — George Light — said, “while the last eight years have been pretty good ones for top earners, they’ve been a lost decade for the rest of America.”

Yeah, but let’s look at the eight years prior to the Obama Administration and see how that matches up with the growing income inequality. The eight years that produced the worst economic recession since the Great Depression — all at the hands of GOP policies that specifically screwed the middle class and working poor. Which class of wage earners was made whole again after the Bush bailout of 2008? It wasn’t the working poor, the non-working poor or what’s left of the middle class. The big banks got the bailouts and resumed their sky-high executive bonuses while the “47 percent” were given layoffs and home foreclosures.

A recent joint study by the Brookings Institute and the Tax Policy Center concludes that the growth of the income gap has slowed down under President Obama and would have grown faster if GOP policies had continued unabated for the past eight years.

The study specifically points to the GOP’s intransigence and do-nothing strategy during the Obama Administration for keeping the income gap growing.

So, what is the GOP going to run on in 2016? What is their battle cry so far? Pile on Hillary. If they can keep bringing up one faux scandal after another, they hope, they can get the White House in 2016. But the voters have watched one GOP-led Congressional hearing after another exonerate the former Secretary of State.

Why is the GOP field of candidates piling on Hillary and not each other? Because they can’t run on their records. Just over 51 percent of Americans believe the GOP is just out to save the rich and screw everyone else. What’s more, the policies of the GOP have proven the 51 percent are correct.

All the Republican candidates have this in common: They all tell us Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the two faces of evil. I can’t wait to hear their replies when asked this question during the primary debates: “Do you think President Obama should be impeached?” You know they will all have to answer the question with a resounding “yes,” if they want to appeal to their base

Which will put off the majority of the electorate. If they try to wiggle out of it, or equivocate at all (let alone say “no”) they can kiss off support from the lunatic fringe of the GOP, the wing of the party that votes in the primaries.

The GOP and the mainstream media are piling on Hillary Clinton because she is clearly the frontrunner, regardless of who is in the polls. In some deep red states of course Clinton gets no love, but nationally, Hillary Clinton is the favorite among the voters.

Her GOP opponents don’t really have a chance of winning so there’s no point in vetting them in the press, or elsewhere. Hillary Clinton is the only viable candidate in the race. That’s why everyone is piling on now.