When will Hillary finally bust through Dem mass to make herself THE one?

Whenever I think about the possibility of Bill Clinton someday becoming the nation’s first First Gentleman, I can’t help but remember a supermarket tabloid from about two decades ago.

CLINTON: When will she become real front-runner?

Instead of the return of Elvis or a space alien impregnating some rural Idaho woman, their big story was a psychic telling us of what the future foretold for the then-first lady.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE. IT was blatantly obvious then that Hillary R. Clinton was an ambitious woman who had her own goals in life – and wanted an obituary that said she was more than just the one-time first lady of both Arkansas and the United States.

Her future presidential campaigns were foretold – but with a twist. Something would always come up that would thwart her political ambitions. With an ominous overtone, we were told that Hillary would NEVER become president.

I’m sure Clinton would like to be able to trash that psychic prediction as just pure nonsense – which it likely is.

But it does always put the thought in my own mind when it comes to Hillary about what could go wrong now?

BACK IN HER 2008 presidential campaign, she was set to be the “Borg-like” candidate on the Democratic primary side of the election cycle. Remember the Borg?

As in the Star Trek-universe entity that assimilates everything it comes into contact with into its collective. “Resistance is futile,” we are told. Hillary was meant to be president.

 

Even in Star Trek, the inevitable Borg were always thwarted

Except that we got the whole Barack Obama phenomenon that literally dragged the primary cycle all the way to its vicious end before she’d give up.

Now in 2016, it would seem that Hillary once again wants to have people think that her ascension to the White House is inevitable. As though the primary cycle we’re going through is really a waste of time.

IT’S GOING TO be Hillary, right? Who else is there to vote for!

SANDERS: Can he overcome Borg-like Hillary?

We certainly can’t vote for somebody who isn’t embarrassed by the fact he has identified himself as a socialist. Nor that Maryland nobody, or any of the other fringy candidates whom most people don’t know anything about.

Hillary is so overwhelming, supposedly, that the person who theoretically ought to be the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president next year isn’t even running.

Or do you believe that Joe Biden will wait ‘til the absolute last second before changing his mind? Personally, I think Biden is realistic enough to know he’s redeemed his political reputation as much as possible, and trying to run for president would be a serious case of tempting fate.

BUT WHY IS it that as Hillary goes into this second presidential debate Saturday night (on the Democratic side; it’s the Republicans who are making real people in the general public sick of all their candidates), she hasn’t really wrapped this up.

For a person who wants us to think that all her challengers are just self-righteous and clueless buffoons who can’t accept the reality that nobody wants them, it makes me wonder if she misses the reality that many in our society are ABH – as in they’ll vote for Anybody But Hillary. Her best chance to win may actually be to have so many challengers that they cancel each other out to the point that the devoted few who wet their pants with glee at the thought of a different “President Clinton” will be enough to win.

Maybe SHE knows who will win in '16?

Personally, I don’t get as offended at the thought of Hillary in charge, and get a little delight at the personal disgust many ideologues will feel if Bill really is let back into the White House (“Hide the girls! Bill’s back!” is what we’ll hear).

But maybe that’s because no one among the many presidential dreamers has caught our attention enough to ensure that psychic prediction of so long ago manages to come true.

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Must we relive Election Day ’92? It wasn’t that interesting 1st time around

PEROT: Looks good next to Trump

I must confess; I actually gained a bit of respect (sort of) for Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot – but only because Donald Trump comes across as a bigger buffoon than the big-eared would-be politico ever was.

For Trump made it seem like he expects to fill the same niche that Perot filled some 23 years ago when he made his initial presidential bid.

REMEMBER HOW THE 1992 presidential election cycle came down to George Bush (the elder) against Bill Clinton, with Perot deciding that the public needed to pick someone else – and that somebody was meant to be him?

TRUMP: No ears, but bigger ego

There are those people who, to this day, claim Perot was the deciding factor – stealing votes away from Bush and resulting in the two terms of Clinton as president.

Of course, I’d argue that a guy who only got 19 percent of the popular vote nationally and was unable to win the Electoral College in any state wasn’t that much of a factor.

Perot inspired a certain segment of the electorate that usually is politically apathetic to actually get off their duffs and cast votes for president. Without Perot on the ballot, Bill Clinton still would have won, but the voter turnout would have been a record low.

SO WHAT’S MY point in reciting this mini-history lesson? It’s just that it seems we’re going to get the same circumstances arising come the 2016 election cycle.

CLINTON: The better half?

A Clinton (as in former first lady Hillary) against a Bush (as in presidential son and brother Jeb). With a rich guy with an over-bloated ego deciding he’s running for president as well.

That is what Donald Trump has become – just a slightly more urban version of a rich buffoon who thinks he’s entitled to his wealth and anyone he can buy off into thinking he has a clue.

The Hill newspaper out of Capitol Hill in Washington reported that Trump says he’s inclined to back away from his talk of running for the GOP nomination for president because the Republican National Committee isn’t showing him the kind of respect he thinks he deserves.

BUSH: Erasing the taste of W?

IF HE RUNS as a political independent, he can go about saying or doing whatever he wants without anyone letting him know he’s become an embarrassment to the people whom he would theoretically be representing.

Then, Trump wouldn’t be stuck in a field of 16 (including himself, thus far) Republican candidates. He’d be the lone wolf.

Although I think it would expose Trump for the political weakling he truly is. His roughly one-quarter of the Republican vote that polls show he has would actually be ridiculous.

Since the rest of the party would wind up backing the resulting party winner – which could be former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

HILLARY VS. JEB, with Trump also taking some votes. I could envision exactly which kind of people would bother voting for the man who thinks the whole world needs to be branded with the “Trump” logo (Would the White House become the Trump Mansion?).

It may well be the nativist element with a particularly irrational hang-up concerning Mexico – the ones who think that Trump made some legitimate point with his trip to Laredo and who are delusional enough to think an impenetrable wall can be erected.

MEZVINSKY: The first grand-daughter?

And perhaps the ones who don’t trust Bush (the Third) because he married a Mexican woman; making the potential first children Mexican-American by ethnicity.

A truly xenophobic campaign that would wind up being more goofy and embarrassing to the nation than anything Perot ever said or did.

IT MIGHT ALSO be the element that ensures we get the concept of “President Hillary R. Clinton” and Charlotte Mezvinsky as the “first granddaughter.”

Unless the Democratic Party side of the electorate decides that Clinton has campaigned unofficially for so many years that they’re now tired of her before they ever get a chance to experience her.

A topic for another day’s commentary, to be sure!

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Willie Wilson for president? More likely for the Chicago Cubs outfield

Some people have an overly-bloated sense of their self-worth, particularly if they catch the political bug.

WILSON: Mr. President? Really?!?

Yet even for the overgrown egos I have encountered amongst political people, Willie Wilson is an outstanding persona.

WILSON IS THE guy who decided to give the people of Chicago the chance to vote for him to be mayor back in the February elections.

One look at the continued presence of Rahm Emanuel at City Hall tells us that Wilson was unsuccessful – he came in third in a five-candidate field, taking only 10 percent of the vote.

Yet because Emanuel fell short of a majority of votes himself in that election, he had to go to a run-off in April against the number two candidate – Jesus Garcia.

It really was an Emanuel/Garcia campaign, with the other candidates getting mere fringe vote totals. Yet Wilson wants to think he personally caused the run-off election, even though he barely did better than former Alderman Robert Fioretti in that February election.

IT STRIKES ME as being as ridiculous as those who think that Bruce Rauner won over the people of Illinois in the 2014 gubernatorial election – rather than accepting there was a significant number of people who voted against Pat Quinn and he was the one who was lucky enough to have his name on the ballot as the challenging candidate.

In the same way that Rauner thinks he has a mandate to tell a Democrat supermajority General Assembly what to do, Wilson now thinks that 10 percent of the vote in an election cycle that had a fairly poor turnout now makes him fit to run for the highest office in the land.

President of these United States!!!

Wilson on Monday let it be known he’s going to be a candidate in the 2016 Democratic primary election. He’s going to take on former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and anybody else who wants to succeed Barack Obama in office.

NOT THAT IT’S clear what his campaign would stand for. He tosses about the phrase “the people’s candidate” to describe himself. But insofar as details are concerned, he’s taken lessons from the Rauner campaign of last year – say as little as possible.

Willie Wilson is eyeballing this Pennsylvania Ave. home as his new humble abode

It helps to avoid saying something stupid by saying nothing at all.

The Wilson mayoral campaign was based on the notion that there would be a significant number of African-American voters who were so appalled at the thought of four more years of Rahm Emanuel that they’d vote for any black candidate – and Wilson was the most visual of the black candidates who ran in that election cycle.

In a federal election, that won’t matter as much. Somebody who can’t get votes outside of the African-American population isn’t about to win – particularly if there are no run-off elections to give him a second chance.

BESIDES, IT’S NOT like Wilson did all that well in that February election. He didn’t win a majority in a single ward – a majority of voters in those African-American leaning wards wound up preferring Emanuel, with Wilson finishing second.

Compared to Wilson being irrelevant elsewhere in Chicago. Which is what I suspect he will quickly become to the rest of the nation. He’s the equivalent of Lars “America First” Daly without the “Uncle Sam” suit.

 

Of course, there always are fringe candidates who feel the need to put themselves on the ballot – or at least go out and campaign even if they can’t get their acts together enough to get a ballot spot. Which could wind up being Wilson’s fate.

Which means that after next year, it is most likely that the name “Willie Wilson” will revert back to the image it has created for many people – the one-time Kansas City Royals star outfielder who actually finished up his playing career as Sammy Sosa’s backup with the Chicago Cubs in 1993-94.

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Insults without details and pleas for our cash; Chelsea's mother begins campaign

Hillary R. Clinton let it be known Sunday she’s running for president. It’s no longer speculation. She is now actively campaigning for the highest electoral post possible.

Which means the attacks are already reigning down upon her!

I WAS PARTICULARLY amused by the statement issued by Illinois Republican Chairman Tim Schneider in the way it managed to attack the one-time first lady, senator from New York and secretary of state without saying anything specifically bad about her.

Republican political operatives intend to hold Clinton accountable. Although I expect the level of intensity of the attacks will reach record-high levels.

As Schneider put it, “We look forward to seeing how Clinton answers for all the controversy, scandal and hypocrisy.” That’s a pretty loaded statement to make, particularly since GOPers aren’t offering up specific instances of controversy, scandal and hypocrisy.

Although my guess is that we’ll get many specific details during the upcoming year-and-a-half of what these allegedly improper acts are.

BY THE TIME this campaign cycle is over, Hillary’s political reputation may delve back to the levels it was at when she was first lady (and certain people thought her too pushy and bossy to be so close to the White House).

It certainly will be a long way aways from her time as secretary of state when she largely handled her duties in a responsible way and people gained a new-found respect for her.

Except for those conservative ideologues who think that everyone who isn’t a member of their own personal church congregation is condemned to Hell anyways. Although my definition of eternal damnation is being stuck in a place with those people!

Of course, all this Republican rhetoric is canned. It was likely written years ago, just waiting for the day when Hillary kicked off her campaigning for real.

IN MY OWN case, I got the official Schneider statement on Sunday just over an hour prior to the Democratic National Committee e-mail statement saying that Hillary really is running for office.

It was followed up a few minutes later by an e-mail from the House Majority PAC pointing out that they have no record of me having made a financial donation to the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Which they hope means more people turning out to vote who are inclined to pick Democrats to serve in Congress AND reduce the influence of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

All of which is merely a sampling of the appeals we’re all going to get in coming months – nasty notes from the Republicans and pleas from Hillary for our money so she can repel all the GOP negativism, while daughter Chelsea tries to live as normal a life as is possible with such political parents.

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Hillary for President! – Hasn’t she been running for the White House all along?

Well, excuse me (think Steve Martin in his mid-1970s white suit-wearing, arrow-through-the-head persona) for not getting all excited that Hillary R. Clinton is finally going to declare herself a presidential candidate for the 2016 election cycle.

My honest reaction to learning that the former Arkansas and U.S. first lady/senator/Secretary of State is beginning her presidential campaign on Sunday was to have a thought along the lines of “It’s about (insert obscenity of your choice here) time!?!”

IT’S JUST THAT the talk of Hillary Clinton running for president once Barack Obama leaves office has been going on for so long that it really doesn’t seem like news.

The fact that she plans to use Facebook to issue a canned statement, along with releasing some sort of video of herself talking, just doesn’t seem like a big deal.

Particularly since making her campaign declaration in such a way may sound “cool” and “neato” (and whatever other choice phrases mean anything to the computer geek-oriented crowd) to some, it seems to me and I’m sure many other politically oriented people as a way of hiding from them. Or maybe I’m just trained to take Twitter comments and ignore them as the ramblings of the vapid?

It’s hard to interact with a video snippet on a computer screen featuring Hillary telling us how much she wants to be president – a fact we all came to the realization of some many decades ago.

THE WASHINGTON POST is reporting that Hillary plans to follow up this Sunday campaign statement (I can already hear the overly-religious amongst us complaining that she’s somehow defiling the “Lord’s special day”) by meeting with small groups across Iowa.

The newspaper also reported Friday that Hillary is hiring political operatives to be based in New Hampshire.

In short, she’s already focusing on the two states that historically kick off the whole campaign cycle. She wants that early jolt that, for all intents and purposes, kills off any other person who has the nerve to think they can take the Democratic Party presidential nomination away from her. Does anyone seriously get excited at the concept of, “President Joe Biden?”

Remember back late 2007 when Obama was a presidential hopeful whom nobody knew if he should be taken seriously at all? He won those caucuses in Iowa and didn’t embarrass himself in New Hampshire.

WHICH HAD THE effect of ruining the sense of invincibility that Hillary had hoped to develop for herself. She wound up getting dragged into a lengthy primary battle that didn’t come to an end until the very end – and Obama wound up with the nomination and, ultimately, two terms of the presidency.

Clinton had to settle for the consolation prize of a cabinet post – albeit one of the most powerful cabinet posts in the federal government.

And one that literally did much to rehabilitate her public image that was way too influenced by the distaste some people felt (and likely still feel) by her husband, Bill.

Be honest. If Hillary were to become president and Bill winds up being the first male presidential spouse, you know it won’t be long before people make jokes along the lines of, “Hide the girls! Bill’s back in the White House.”

BUT THAT’S A gag for early 2017 – for now, we get to speculate about how Hillary’s unofficial campaigning has gone on for so long that the public at-large is already sick and tired of her.

Anything she has to say on Sunday is going to be glossed over – or overly-speculated upon by those people eager to distort it into a negative blow to her image!

In fact, the big reason I can’t get all worked up over the upcoming Democratic primary election cycle is that I can’t envision anybody else running a credible campaign. It all seems like a preordained cycle to see how well prepared Hillary is to run against the clowns like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul who want to drag the image of the “Party of Lincoln” further into the ground.

Perhaps we could get Martin himself to consider a presidential bid – not the Martin who sang to us “King Tut.” But perhaps the one-time “Wild and Crazy Guy” who turned a folded paper video into a Senate endorsement for Bob Kerrey of Nebraska.

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Will Preckwinkle put herself in harm’s way by daring to endorse Garcia?

Could it be that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is getting so much political pressure that she’s now feeling compelled to give an endorsement to her county board ally, Jesus Garcia, in his bid to become Chicago mayor?

It would seem so. Because although Preckwinkle remained neutral during the first part of the municipal election cycle and earlier this week told the Chicago Sun-Times “that’s where I still am,” it is now being reported that Preckwinkle could still wind up becoming a Chuy backer come the April 7 run-off election.

FROM A POLITICAL standpoint, it makes a certain amount of sense for Preckwinkle to stay out of this campaigning. She has to work with the current mayor, who could still wind up winning.

The last thing she wants is for Rahm Emanuel to win re-election to another four year term against her opposition. It would make her look weak AND probably result in Emanuel feeling the need to spite her politically every opportunity he got.

Governments work better when there’s a certain level of cooperation between them. Nobody wins if Emanuel and Preckwinkle become mortal enemies and the local political scene devolves into a city versus inner suburbs fight!

So while she might not be all that enthused about Emanuel, Preckwinkle still has to work with him – at least through early May and possibly for much longer.

IT’S THE REASON she wasn’t enthused about running herself for mayor in this election cycle – even though there were a number of Anybody But Rahm-ers out there who would eagerly have taken up the cause of the long-time Hyde Park resident as our city’s chief executive.

It actually wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for Preckwinkle to offer Garcia her support. Both are of the progressive ideological streak that political people like Emanuel view to be too impractical to actually get anything done.

There’s also the fact that during his four-plus years on the Cook County Board, Garcia has been a solid Preckwinkle backer. He has supported just about everything she has tried to accomplish.

I don’t doubt that on a personal level, she’d find it to be much easier to deal with a “Mayor Garcia” than she ever has to cope with Emanuel.

BUT IT’S GOING to come down to whether Preckwinkle ever gets the impression that Garcia could win this mayoral election on his own.

In which case, she’s going to want to become one of Chuy’s people so she can claim to be on the winning team. She’s like those people who back in 2006 started showing up at U.S. Cellular Field to bask in the glory of the Chicago White Sox winning the World Series the year before.

Once the team’s luster faded, they stopped showing.

If Garcia can get the luster of a winning candidate, she and many other political people will suddenly find their way to backing his campaign.

UNFORTUNATELY FOR GARCIA, he’s at a point where he probably needs the backing of people like Preckwinkle (and the money of the Service Employees International Union political action committees) to give him that luster.

Somebody’s going to have to be willing to take a risk and stick their neck out, or else Emanuel’s resources likely will give him a slim victory in the run-off election.

This may sound weak, but it’s actually appropriate. Because I still remember back in 2008 during the Democratic presidential primary when our then-Congressman from the northwest side waited until the day Hillary R. Clinton dropped out before he would formally endorse Barack Obama for president.

Emanuel himself wasn’t willing to stick his neck out to back the “favorite son” candidate for whom he later became chief of staff. I suppose it shouldn’t be any more surprising that Preckwinkle hesitates to become a Chuy person.

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