Collecting lightning bugs in a Mason jar is for kids, no way to run for president. So why is the former first lady chasing them?
Every wise owl in the tree insists there’s no way Hillary Clinton can capture enough delegate votes for the Democratic nomination. Then, what’s she up to?
Consider Hillary’s intriguing options, and their possible consequences:
She graciously concedes before the August convention.This obliterates her authenticity as a still-viable candidate and her big leverage at the convention. Her abandoned partisans are bitter and without a champion.
She keeps hanging in there, even after Barack Obama gets enough pledged delegates to be nominated.This infuriates him all the more, diluting any chance for her on the ticket. It also makes it tougher yet to unite the party. She diminishes any possibility of his paying her campaign debt. Chelsea isn’t going to the Court of St. James.
A career-ending Obama scandal erupts before he can be nominated.If it’s horrific enough, no convention can nominate him.
No pre-convention scandal erupts and she hangs on until the convention.She miraculously convinces enough delegates to compel the convention to forget Obama and nominate her. Uh-oh, there goes the black vote in November.
At the convention, Hillary strikes out swinging and Obama is nominated.She delivers a stem-winding oration to the cheering convention, pledges magnanimously to campaign for him, hurries off the podium to the ladies room and throws up.
Obama invites her onto the ticket.Can he and his missus possibly want William Jefferson Clinton and his missus hanging around the White House, hogging the limelight? As vice president, Hillary has little to gain, aside from a presidential funeral or impeachment conviction.
Obama does not offer her the vice-presidential spot on the ticket.She campaigns for him anyway with an unconvincing smile on her latest face, a constant reminder to voters of just how phony any Democratic Party unity is.
Obama is nominated, and a super-scandal pops before Election Day.The party has to accept his abdication and dredge up a fresh nominee. With Obama self-removed from the scene, her chances are better then than if such a scandal erupts before his nomination.
Obama wins — or loses — without her on the ticket.She is positioned perfectly to seek the presidential nomination in 2012 or 2016. No matter how Barack Obama screws up, in or out of office, she isn’t to blame. Much of the black vote becomes hers for the asking by then.
Those options are not stout pilings for Hillary Clinton to clutch onto in this perfect storm of an election season. They are more like slender reeds, upon which flickering fireflies perch precariously.
Then why is she still chasing fireflies? Because they’re still flickering.
John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for Newsmax.com.
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