Three years off, and the campaigning for Clinton is already getting intense

HILLARY: Will she run?

Hillary for president in 2016?

I don’t really want to think about that election cycle yet (we still have to get through statewide elections in 2014 and the mayoral battle in ’15), but the brawl as to whether or not we get the return of the Clintons to the White House is too intense already.

JUST ENVISION HOW absurd and obnoxious it will be by the time that election cycle is actually due to occur?

The latest “controversy” involves the Republican National Committee, which appears scared enough by the concept of Clinton redux that they’re issuing threats with NBC and CNN – both of which are producing projects about Clinton’s life.

The GOP think that such programs will amount to little more than favorable publicity for Hillary; which is why they’re threatening to cut the two networks out of any chance of broadcasting future presidential debates IF the networks dare to go ahead with such programs.

To their credit, the two networks are ignoring such threats. For the time being, they’re still moving forward.

AND RNC CHAIRMAN Reince Priebus admits to the Washington Post that he expects his threats will not deter the programs from airing. They’re fully expecting to have to carry through on that threat.

If they don’t get to air any of the Republican presidential debates, it would be something of a blow to those networks’ professional reputations. But I also suspect that this is the GOP paranoia being exposed.

In short, I believe it wouldn’t matter if the two networks were willing to scrap the projects. I suspect the political party would come up with some other snub that it would use to justify not including either NBC or CNN from being involved in the debate fracas.

BILL: Will he be back?

All this fuss over the broadcast of a debate that won’t actually air for another two-and-a-half years, and with the possibility that Clinton might not even be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president who would succeed Barack Obama.

BUT IT IS Hillary, spouse of Bill, the former president whom Republicans of a certain ideological bent are determined to demonize. Which is why the return of the Clintons to the White House would be harmful to their interests.

How dangerous and harmful could Bill (the impeached president, as they prefer to think of him) have been if we’re willing to return him to the White House. Even though we’re bound to get tons of tacky jokes along the line of, “Hide the girls, Bill’s back!” Although I have to confess that having the conservative ideologues so offended at the thought of Hillary might well be a reason to actually vote for her.

The thing about a Hillary presidential campaign is that we already have established our opinions – all of us. Both those of us inclined to view her favorably AND unfavorably.

In fact, there’s only one thing that has changed about her since her unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid – her age! If elected in November 2016, she’d be pushing close to 70 by the time she took the oath of office.

IT’S USUALLY THE Republican Party that nominates the old political geezers who cling to the past. Now, it would be the GOP that would claim to have the youthful, forward-looking candidates.

Although considering that the Republican idea of “youth” are a batch of ideologues whose rhetoric is firmly wedded in the past, the usual ideas about age go out the window.

BIDEN: The alternative?

What it comes down to is that I wouldn’t mind if there were a choice of candidates in the Democratic primary – and perhaps someone other than Vice President Joe Biden. A national mood of insomnia is about all his candidacy could bring about.

Which might be what we need after the political brawls we’re going to experience for Illinois governor, then in watching Rahm Emanuel fight off anyone who (in his opinion) has the “unmitigated gall” to think of challenging him.

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