Wednesday, May 10, 2006
What is Hillary Clinton up to?
Presumptive 08 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is taking some very predictable heat on her decision to forge a fundraising alliance with Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch, despised by many on the left for his News Corp empire's media voices, is sponsoring a fundraiser for Clinton later in the summer. Murdoch says the fundraiser is small scale, and it does seem to be on the low end of Clinton's money events.
So Clinton can't be doing it for money. She seems to already be paying a price with her base far beyond the value of the event itself. Clinton herself has offered the weakest possible excuse- "He's my constituent and I'm very gratified that he thinks I'm doing a good job.".
So what is she really up to?
On the surface, the alliance appears to be a miscalculation by her campaign. The left-wing of the Democratic party has built a small empire on vilifying selected targets, and Murdoch and his Fox News Channel are certainly among them. Disdain for these entities is part of the identity of the hard-core left, and Clinton making nice with them is going to alienate a significant portion of her base.
It's not likely to gain her much ground with the moderate right, either.
The core problem is that Murdoch is Fox (thus Vast-Right-Wing-Conspiracy) personified to the left, but he is meaningless as a personality to the right. The right cares about Bill O'Reilly and the various anchors of the network, but they don't care at all about Murdoch himself. So Hillary has aligned herself with a symbol of what her base despises, but at no gain with the rest of the electorate.
So, again, what is Clinton up to?
It could be that she's serious about disarming a key player in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. As ridiculed as the term has become, the idea behind it is not without validity. The concept is that anti-Clinton stories would percolate in the right-wing underground for some time, then slowly work their way into the mainstream-right press (Of which Fox News would now be a member, as would the Murdoch-owned New York Post), then into the mainstream press itself. So perhaps this is an attempt to take out a key player in that chain. It could work, though there's no guarantees Murdoch will stay friendly. Still, maybe this is just an opening step in the co-option of Rupert.
This could possibly be a smart move, dealing a strong blow to the VRWC chain that could circulate scandals during the upcoming Hillary for President campaign. If Clinton can successfully undermine the scandal machine, she could avoid electibility worries not only in the general election, but in the primaries as well.
But this points up Clinton's fundamental problem- her way to the White House is very, very narrow. She has to prove her electibility while not completely losing the support of her base, and she has to start now. Her campaign must of necessity be sophisticated and subtle in ways that the campaigns of the other candidates don't have to be. She can't make many missteps, and her opponents will see a lot of opportunities to force her into a corner, so the odds are heavily against her.
Moves like aligning with Murdoch are clever stratagems, but they're also quite risky. Whatever her motivations, Clinton will be gambling with many steps like this along the road to '08, and it's virtually certain she's going to lose at least one bet big.
It's going to be a very interesting two years following the Clinton campaign, and Election Junction is looking forward to every week of it.
Murdoch, despised by many on the left for his News Corp empire's media voices, is sponsoring a fundraiser for Clinton later in the summer. Murdoch says the fundraiser is small scale, and it does seem to be on the low end of Clinton's money events.
So Clinton can't be doing it for money. She seems to already be paying a price with her base far beyond the value of the event itself. Clinton herself has offered the weakest possible excuse- "He's my constituent and I'm very gratified that he thinks I'm doing a good job.".
So what is she really up to?
On the surface, the alliance appears to be a miscalculation by her campaign. The left-wing of the Democratic party has built a small empire on vilifying selected targets, and Murdoch and his Fox News Channel are certainly among them. Disdain for these entities is part of the identity of the hard-core left, and Clinton making nice with them is going to alienate a significant portion of her base.
It's not likely to gain her much ground with the moderate right, either.
The core problem is that Murdoch is Fox (thus Vast-Right-Wing-Conspiracy) personified to the left, but he is meaningless as a personality to the right. The right cares about Bill O'Reilly and the various anchors of the network, but they don't care at all about Murdoch himself. So Hillary has aligned herself with a symbol of what her base despises, but at no gain with the rest of the electorate.
So, again, what is Clinton up to?
It could be that she's serious about disarming a key player in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. As ridiculed as the term has become, the idea behind it is not without validity. The concept is that anti-Clinton stories would percolate in the right-wing underground for some time, then slowly work their way into the mainstream-right press (Of which Fox News would now be a member, as would the Murdoch-owned New York Post), then into the mainstream press itself. So perhaps this is an attempt to take out a key player in that chain. It could work, though there's no guarantees Murdoch will stay friendly. Still, maybe this is just an opening step in the co-option of Rupert.
This could possibly be a smart move, dealing a strong blow to the VRWC chain that could circulate scandals during the upcoming Hillary for President campaign. If Clinton can successfully undermine the scandal machine, she could avoid electibility worries not only in the general election, but in the primaries as well.
But this points up Clinton's fundamental problem- her way to the White House is very, very narrow. She has to prove her electibility while not completely losing the support of her base, and she has to start now. Her campaign must of necessity be sophisticated and subtle in ways that the campaigns of the other candidates don't have to be. She can't make many missteps, and her opponents will see a lot of opportunities to force her into a corner, so the odds are heavily against her.
Moves like aligning with Murdoch are clever stratagems, but they're also quite risky. Whatever her motivations, Clinton will be gambling with many steps like this along the road to '08, and it's virtually certain she's going to lose at least one bet big.
It's going to be a very interesting two years following the Clinton campaign, and Election Junction is looking forward to every week of it.
Hillary Clinton | Campaign News | 2008 Election | Rupert Murdoch
# posted @ 8:36 PM 
