Picture from The New York Times
Here’s an interesting speculation; reader comments welcome. What if the Democratic party comes to realize that Hillary Clinton is an albatross? Polls indicate that Bernie Sanders would do better against Donald Trump. If he is not the nominee, a few of his supporters will switch to Trump or Clinton, but many of them will stay home. Clinton, SLL recently argued, is a perfect set up for Trump’s unpredictability and personal attacks. She lacks natural political skills and is vulnerable on both issues and scandals. She is establishment and an ardent foreign interventionist. Trump made mince meat of a slew of establishment, ardent foreign interventionist Republicans. He’s narrowing the gap with her in national polls, and has caught up with her in key states Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida.
The email scandal hangs over Clinton’s head. The FBI has interviewed her close associates and will probably interview her. Bryan Pagliano, who designed her private email server, has received immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony. The cynical assumption, and still the betting favorite, is an FBI recommendation to seek an indictment against Clinton will be quashed by President Obama’s Justice Department. Even that outcome cannot be regarded as favorable for Clinton. Many will conclude that it’s the establishment taking care of its own, a key issue propelling both Trump’s and Sanders’ campaigns. There is also the strong possibility that someone in the FBI leaks damaging material that was the basis of the rejected recommendation, compounding the damage to Clinton.
For argument’s sake, assume Obama and the Democrat’s movers and shakers conclude that Hillary is a liability. Say they let the primaries play out and Clinton has a majority of delegates and committed super delegates. However, suppose a subtle message goes out to the FBI: the administration will follow whatever the FBI recommends and would not be overly upset if that was indictment. Were it to happen, Clinton would presumably have to abandon her candidacy.
Does that clear the way for Bernie Sanders? Not if the movers and shakers have their way. He is about as popular with them as Donald Trump is with his party’s establishment. Joseph Biden made a couple of interesting comments recently. He said he thought he would have been the best presidential candidate had he chosen to run, and he also said he and Elizabeth Warren discussed her as his running mate. Trial balloons? What if Clinton, upon announcing her withdrawal, released her delegates to vote for Joseph Biden and Elizabeth Warren, who had agreed, for the good of the party and the nation, to accept a last-minute draft?
The key is Obama. For him this would be the best possible outcome. His vice president is far more likely to preserve his tattered legacy than Clinton, who would want to carve out her own historical niche. Biden is not a polarizing figure, like Clinton, and does not have her scandalous baggage. His long string of goofy statements will be ignored by the press, as they always do for Democrats. He is a centrist Democrat and would champion mainstream Democratic policies. Having Warren on the ticket as his vice president would keep the gender-based vote on board. It would make her the automatic favorite for the Democratic nomination in 2020 (when Biden will be seventy-eight years old) or 2024. She’s very liberal and has been a strident critic of Wall Street and the banks, which will help with disgruntled Sanders supporters.
It might make the Democratic convention messier, it might take more than one ballot, and there would be those disgruntled Sanders supporters, but a Biden-Warren ticket stands a better chance against Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. Sanders supporters would have three months to get over it. They are more ideologically aligned with the Democrats than the Republicans. Not to say that Biden and Warren aren’t establishment tools, but they haven’t been as blatant about it as Clinton, making them more palatable to the Sanders crowd.
Biden and Warren are much less vulnerable to Trump’s attacks than Clinton. Biden has been the vice president for eight years and was a senator for thirty-six, with stints as chairman of the Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committees. On paper he’s qualified. He has a genial personality and is a known, safe, quantity. Warren has made a name for herself and attracts substantial support from the party’s far left wing. Biden and Warren give the Democrats a much better chance of winning the election—with a coat tail effect for Democratic Congressional candidates—than Clinton. Were this scenario to play out, the election would have to be rated a toss-up and not, as SLL said in the recent article, “Trump’s to lose.”
There is one final consideration. Obama loathes the Clintons and the feeling is mutual. If Clinton is indicted, he will showcase the indictment as proof that his Justice Department does not politicize investigations. Hillary will be in a heap of expensive, lengthy, and risky legal trouble. Wouldn’t Obama relish the prospect of the Clintons groveling for a prospective pardon like Gerald Ford granted Richard Nixon? He would extract from Hillary a promise to release her delegates (and campaign contributors) to the Biden-Warren ticket and from both of them a promise to give it their heartfelt support. Assuming Obama held up his end of the bargain (not a safe assumption), he would issue the pardon after the election to minimize the political fallout. Democrats would be happy to put the matter behind them. Only Republicans would complain and for Obama, that’s the cherry on the sundae.
Something to think about.
WHEN POLITICIAN WERE ALMOST IRRELEVANT
The way I understand the scenario playing out is to let Hillary win the nomination at the convention. Then she will be indicted and the party would be free to pick either Biden or Kerry. If they indict her prior to the convention, Bernie would win the nomination outright.
I’m not up on convention rules, but do Hillary’s delegates have to vote for Sanders if she withdraws before the convention? Would they be free to vote for whomever Hillary tells them to vote for, or whomever they felt like voting for? I’m sure if a plan is underway to oust her, the Democratic PTB will consider all the angles, including whether Kerry, Biden, or perhaps Warren would make the best candidate. However, you raise the interesting possibility that Hillary gets the nomination then withdraws, which I had not considered.
Another possibility is for Obama to resign before the democratic convention
and Joe Biden becomes President……
I reject two of the claims that lead to Democrats needing an alternative to Clinton:
1: People would rather vole for Sanders: I think people sense the gov’t and exec branch have too much power. They don’t want someone with agendas aimed at particular interest groups. They want someone who will dole out a little gov’t interference and little gov’t largess to everyone fairly, and knows how to work the Washington system. Clinton is the “best” choice to play politics and keep all the little groups mollified.
2. Clinton is not good a politics: On the contrary, I see her as good at politics. Gov’t has its hands in everything, and she’s willing to dig down into the details of how gov’t is regulating XYZ to make sure people in XYZ are reasonably happy, so she can get a majority.
3. Emails and other scandals – I think they’re nothing-burgers. Maybe people like me are foolish for not realizing how bad they are, but I see them as almost nothing, as desperate attempts by her political opponents grasping for anything to criticize her for.
4. Interventionist foreign policy – Most people want to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. They probably wouldn’t if paycheck withholding changed the same week to pay for the costs. I certainly do not see Democratic political experts in a back room saying, “oh no, we must find a candidate with a less interventionist foreign policy!”
5. Trump may be able to beat her, so Democrats must pick a good choice. – I don’t think Trump can beat anyone. The same thing I said in point #1 about people sensing gov’t having too much power and wanting a moderate works against Trump.
I will also add that she has a secret weapon: She drives Republicans nuts. It’s like that Lazio/Clinton debate 15 years ago. Otherwise normal people start going bonkers around her, and she can look at them like “WTF’s wrong with you?”
Your analysis of who should Democrats pick if the one who’s winning (Clinton) were untenable makes sense. But the premise sounds like projecting a problems Republicans are having onto the Democrats.
“Maybe people like me are foolish for not realizing how bad they are, but I see them as almost nothing, as desperate attempts”
It’s so far from a ‘nothing’ I find it hard to even think of a way to try and explain it to you in terms of an analogy that would clearly explain it to someone like you who says they don’t understand it.
It’s like this; let’s say you go on vacation for a month and instead of using a lock to protect your home and all your valuables, you leave the doors not just unlocked, you remove them from the house entirely, leave all the lights and stereo on, and you put a large sign on your lawn that says ‘free stuff, no locks! No one is home! Valuable things inside, and free BEER! help yourself!’, and you leave for a 1 month vacation.
Forget the fact that it’s plainly illegal on many levels and if you or I did the same thing you would be facing multiple decades locked away in a secret cell underneath the Pentagon. But you and I are not part of the protected class of elite politicians. You or I would be convicted with barely a second thought.
It’s serious CircuitGuy, it’s information that is determined to be secret because the information relates to important things like protecting our country, don’t you care about that at all?
I think that would be too messy unless the Zionist puppet masters decree it from on high. Bill & Hill have too much dirt on too many players and too many chits to call in to let themselves be reduced to nobodies. If trump beats her that will probably happen anyway but not because of a Democrat power play. The evil empire already has Trump back peddling enough now that he is not the threat he was 2 weeks ago, which means Billary is not as valuable to the evil empire but they would not be reduced to total has been’s.
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Mr. Gore, I believe your forgot a interested party in this whole discussion — 50 Secretary of States. For most the time slot to be on the ballot is long past. About half for write-ins has passed. (TX was May 9th for example.) One might bring up Torreceli as how that is bypassed. But to be quite honest, that was a sleazy move in a sleazy state that won’t fly especially in the Western states. The problem with what you propose is that if but a few states baulk at the switch the whole ticket crumbles as they might be prevented from reaching the requisite EV count to win.
drdog09,
That’s why I invited reader comments. I knew I’d learn something new. Thanks!
All the dem backroom manipulators or rules or payoffs or whatever will get Hillary the nomination. Bernie will be hopping mad and then will create a stink in the dem party. Then O&Co quietly drop a bombshell a decent interval after the convention and Hillary’s position as nominee becomes untenable. O could get his placeholder Biden in. This could create a national crisis in the presidential election process, with respect to drdog09’s comments above. O could play fast and loose and move ahead unilaterally with his Biden Plan™, basically throwing down the gauntlet to the eunuch members of congress. Based on past history, the congress will not rise to challenge O’s excesses.
Another idea would be Putin. He has enough intelligence gathered to deal with Hillary, as well as O&Co. He could have enough dirt to create a national crisis that would through the US into great turmoil. We would be occupied with that while our enemies and national adversaries gain the upper hand as the US approaches paralysis. Just a thought.
Adam Curry & John C Dvorak of the No Agenda Podcast predicted this about a year ago.
I think it’s gonna be Biden but NOT Warren. VP will be … drum roll please … Michelle Obama. Hey, someone has to keep Joe from licking the Oval Office windows.
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