So Hillary Clinton is running for president again, along with every crack-pot tea-partier freshmen senator it seems and I’m reminded of 2008. (Below Hillary’s opening ad)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N708P-A45D0
At this point in the presidential season in 2008 Hillary seemed as inevitable a candidate as she does now. The Republican Party seemed as out of touch and as delusional then too. It will be interesting for me to see if Hillary gets a challenger to campaign against her. If so my favorites would be Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker. Booker I think is the black president in some respects that America expected to get rather than Obama. This is because Booker’s story is more straight forward – without all that pesky bi-racial Indonesian Kenyan stuff to muddy the waters. I think he – Booker – eventually will seek higher office either as governor or as a presidential candidate, along with Warren. In her case I think she’s vying for Veep, and is trying to do all she can not to alienate the Clinton machine so that her odds for this elevation – dim now because she’s another woman, from the Northeast, and is a populist leftist – will seem the only option as rhetoric on the right riles the democratic progressive base.
One thing that does worry me about this next election with Hillary as the inevitable candidate is that the electorate will get voter fatigue. Actually there are many things about Hillary that trouble me – her hawkish foreign policy, her friendly relationship with Wall Street, her lawyerly penchant for secrecy – but the fatigue thing is my biggest one for now. I think the poor girl is gong to have to go on something of a charm offensive to get folks to actually like her and not simply pen all the nations ills on her – as the Republicans will surely do. I think also the nation needs to stop looking to political leaders as the solvers of all our problems. That’s where we let ourselves down with Obama. Cults of personality rarely last long especially when faced with the scrutiny of the 24 hour news cycle.
Anyway I did this piece about hero-worship of Obama back in 2008 that addressed my sentiment that too much hope was being placed on him. I’m generally a supporter of the president’s but did not expect him to be a Lincoln, just a competent manager. At times he fails at even this low bar, however he is a better president than McCain or Romney would hae been. Ok so there’s my spiel for the day.
My Obama as Jesus smoking a cig. This is from my “Who is Prester John” set of paintings. Number 6 in that set.
Anthony Smith Jr. 