Obama is by no means a shoe-in for the 2012 election, and his ability to govern has been compromised by growing hostility toward him. Perhaps it is time for him to do what Truman and Johnson did, step aside in the interests of his (and our) party and country. The article "The Hillary Moment," excerpted below, deserves to be taken seriously on the merits of its content, even though it is from the Wall Street Journal. (It does not appear to be behind any firewall):
If President Obama were to withdraw, he would put great pressure on the Republicans to come to the table and negotiate—especially if the president singularly focused in the way we have suggested on the economy, job creation, and debt and deficit reduction. By taking himself out of the campaign, he would change the dynamic from who is more to blame—George W. Bush or Barack Obama?—to a more constructive dialogue about our nation's future.
Even though Mrs. Clinton has expressed no interest in running, and we have no information to suggest that she is running any sort of stealth campaign, it is clear that she commands majority support throughout the country. A CNN/ORC poll released in late September had Mrs. Clinton's approval rating at an all-time high of 69%—even better than when she was the nation's first lady. Meanwhile, a Time Magazine poll shows that Mrs. Clinton is favored over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by 17 points (55%-38%), and Texas Gov. Rick Perry by 26 points (58%-32%).
But this is about more than electoral politics. Not only is Mrs. Clinton better positioned to win in 2012 than Mr. Obama, but she is better positioned to govern if she does. Given her strong public support, she has the ability to step above partisan politics, reach out to Republicans, change the dialogue, and break the gridlock in Washington.
Perhaps we could go even farther and consider whether a Clinton-Warren ticket is what the Democratic Party needs to retake control of the Presidency and Congress. Btw, unless you can point to specific actions of Mrs. Clinton while in office in Congress or the Cabinet that demonstrate the negative influence of her husband, in my view is is just plain sexist to use Bill Clinton as a reason not to vote for her.
Update:
It seems as though there is some history here that I don't know about. Please put more content in your comments so I can figure out what it is.
Update 2:
OK, I guess I will call it a night. I will add the following:
My daughter, who was on the ground at Occupy Wall Street on Thursday and went to the Obama inauguration (we live on the west coast), wants Clinton to run for President. She thinks a woman should be president.
Thanks to those of you who answered my questions. It isn't easy to wade into something this full of noise and actually say something.
No thanks to those who HR'd my tip jar without even leaving a comment, or who called me a PUMA without telling me why. I would never dream of HRing someone because I disagreed with them, especially without an explanation, and I don't call names or bully.
I will keep away from the whole political Obama arena in future diaries. It is full of landmines. So many rule-breaking HRs plus I never dreamed that someone would even bother to follow me through the comments to my own diary telling me never to write again. Well, life is an adventure.
I am not a PUMA or an actor or a member of some strange group. Those of you who bothered to look know that. That is enough.
Update 3:
I am now pretty sure that Hilary is not right for 2012. To those who convinced me with wise words, thank you. To those who made this thing play out over a lot longer time than it should have by certain non-information-containing comments (though some were cute), name-calling, and other forms of bullying, no thanks but no hard feelings, or at least I hope no hard feelings. It was the sudden descent of dozens of commenters who wouldn't even tell me what they were talking about that made me suspicious and kept me from seeing the true lay of the land. But I guess that is the way it is sometimes. I hope not to be the focus of so much attention again.
Update 4:
I am now completely certain that there is no way Hillary Clinton would win in 2012, and I apologize for not having done the research before. On top of the likelihood that the polling numbers are deceptive, I have learned that Clinton has an enemy that will likely make it impossible for her to win. Obama has managed to stay clean on this issue.
Hector Salon is only one of many on Kos who have documented Hilary Clinton's problem with ALEC. This quote from his March diary, "Gov Rick Snyder Sellout? Prefabricated Corporate Michigan (Government) Courtesy of Koch & ALEC Excl.+," contains the key phrase that is haunting her now:
As this article will demonstrate, there really is what Hillary Clinton termed a "vast right-wing conspiracy". Except it's really not an issue just of left vs. right. It's a vast 30-year long corporate conspiracy funded by a wealthy oligarchy to transfer wealth and power from middle class Americans to the richest 1% or even the richest 0.1%. Wisconsin--along with Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan-- is the firewall which may well determine whether the oligarchy or the vast majority of the American middle class will prevail.
The prime organization writing this state-based anti-labor legislation and feeding it to Republican governors and legislators is the secretive American Legislative Exchange Council--known as ALEC--which is funded by such huge corporations as Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, R.J Reynolds, Coors and Verizon.
Please read his entire diary; it is well worth your while.
Less than four months ago, Bob Sloan of Alec Exposed invited us to watch this short video of ALEC and Heritage Foundation co-founder, Paul Weyrich speaking about why they opposed Hillary Clinton in 2008, and to see how Weyrich worries that ALEC's activities would be redefined as terrorism. Please read his entire diary, "Another ALEC trick at Federal Level EXPOSED+, a terrifying portrait of how ALEC has infiltrated dozens of organizations, foundations, and institutes, including universities as well as the perverted manner in which ALEC keeps an eye on what is going on at these organizations using, of all things, interns.
Another of Bob's diaries, "A Rant against ALEC and Koch everyone should read - before it's too late," demonstrates that Obama has avoided the ALEC problem. If you read it, keep in mind that appearances can be deceiving. I find it hard to believe that Obama is as out of the loop as the blog that Bob quotes implies (and if I do actually believe so, it is irrelevant and, moreover, saying so would just get me a bunch of HRs). The important thing is that, one way or another, Obama has managed to keep up the appearance of not knowing or caring about ALEC, and that will help him win in 2012.
I am not going to pretend that I don't find the fact that ALEC hates Clinton and Clinton hates ALEC to be a giant point in her favor, but not election-wise. It could dog her and keep her from winning the 2012 election, even if she were to do an about-face and choose to run.
