Bam’s blessing
Says Hillary would be ‘excellent President’ on eve of campaign launch
THIS TIME SHE really is the inevitable candidate.
In 2008, Hillary Clinton held big, carefully staged rallies designed to create the impression of a juggernaut to the nomination. It didn’t work out that way.
As she prepares to announce Sunday, Clinton is hitting the reset button on her image and gearing up for the onslaught of ferocious attacks from the GOP.
And on Saturday, she received a ringing endorsement from President Obama while he was in Panama for the Summit of the Americas conference.
“She was a formidable candidate in 2008. She was a great supporter of mine in the general election. She was an outstanding secretary of state,” Obama said Saturday.
“She is my friend. I think she would be an excellent President.”
After a rough month during which she faced bad headlines over her private emails and Clinton Foundation donations from foreign powers, Clinton is planning a carefully controlled rollout with small-scale events in early primary states.
She has assembled a fresh faces campaign team — mostly younger staffers without the baggage of her infighting ’08 team.
Democrats believe that bodes well.
“They are very focused on staying focused. She has a team who knows what it takes to win,” said Democratic strategist and Clinton ally Hilary Rosen. “She will make it clear that choosing her over any of the GOP challengers is the best way to keep the country moving forward. In other words, they are going to stay engaged on what matters.”
Clinton appears to have an easy stroll to the Democratic nomination, despite potential challenges from former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — none of them exactly household names.
But some on the left still grumble about her progressive credentials — and while a listening tour could help show her softer side and talk up kitchentable issues like income inequality and raising the minimum wage, her overall campaign narrative hasn’t been laid out yet.
Liberals are pushing her to show she’s one of them.
“Hillary Clinton’s campaign launch is an opportunity to make clear to Americans that she will campaign on big, bold, economic populist ideas like debt-free college, expanding Social Security, clean-energy jobs and reforming Wall Street,” Adam Green, the head of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said in an email. “We hope Hillary Clinton thinks big and takes on powerful interests on behalf of everyday working families.”
Meanwhile, Republicans are already on the attack.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush sent out a fund-raising appeal Saturday saying: “We saw how Hillary handled a crisis abroad during the tragedy in
Benghazi. If you thought President Obama made us weak abroad, Hillary WILL make it even worse.”
And that’s just the start. House Republicans are gearing up for an investigation into Clinton’s emails, which Democratic strategist Jim Manley admits “has got me a little worried.”
A number of GOP White House wannabes took shots at her during this weekend’s National Rifle Association convention.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, one of her loudest critics, will be on three of this week’s Sunday talk shows, and on the Democratic side, Mayor de Blasio, an old Clinton ally, will also hit the TV circuit — the begin- of a 20-month slugfest until the election.
Obama, for his part, said Clinton will be tough to beat.
“The one thing I can say is she’s going to be able to handle herself very well in any conversations or debates around foreign policy,” Obama added. “And her track record with respect to domestic policy is one that cares about working families.
“If she decides to run, if she’s going to make an announcement, she’s going to have some strong messages to deliver.”