Back in 2004, Rush Limbaugh argued that the Clintons were giving money to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, only that it had been laundered three or four ways so it was impossible for anyone to ever find the proof. There is nothing unusual about a claim such as this, since the Clintons have been accused of some of the weirdest conspiracy shit you will ever see. In fact, these accusations have been going on so long, that assigning strategic motives that are beyond even Gary Kasparov's grasp to even the simplest statement made by either a Clinton or one of her advisors, has become utterly mainstream.
I bring this up because some people have pointed out that I may have misread
the Hotline piece cited in my article on
the strategic flaws of the "anti-Hillary" earlier today. Fair enough. It is entirely possible that I did misread the article. However, I actually came up with the idea to write about how a two candidate race would greatly favor Hillary Clinton over the past few days when looking at polling data on second place choices, not because of the Hotline article. Had the Hotline piece never been published, or if I had never seen it, I would have written something extremely similar anyway. My basic point about what I see as a deeply flawed concept or strategy or the "anti-Hillary" stands. In every single state, both Edwards and Obama are closer to Clinton than either would be if only one of the two of them were in the race. Her worst case scenario is if both of them get stronger, or if third strong challenger emerges. She would be much better off in a two-person race.
But I want to address something else about the Hotline piece, specifically how it posits the Clintons as being about the most devious people who ever existed. Based on a single statement James Carville made on a radio program,
Marc Ambinder divines the following insane scenario:
[T]he more Dems pay attention to Al Gore, the less they'll pay attention to Sen. Barack Obama.
The more there's talk of a Gore run, the more impetus there is for a Draft Gore movement, the more pressure Gore feels compelled to run, the more excited some Democrats become, about a Gore run, etc, the more they compare Gore and his resume to the rest of the field...
Do Sen. Clinton's strategists believe that Gore will actually run? Probably not -- he'd be hard to beat, as they'll acknowledge. But the more the Democratic activist base thinks about Gore, the more they'll compare the ideal -- Mr. Gore -- with the hope -- Mr. Obama, and presumably, they'll find Obama lacking in substance.
What what what? This is batshit crazy. Why on earth is the amount of attention non-Clinton candidates receive a zero sum game? And how deep inside the heads of not only the Clinton camp, but also inside the heads of netroots activsts, does Ambinder think he is? Let's sum up what Ambinder it proposing here: he thinks that Clinton's camp thinks that they reduce activist support for Barack Obama by raising Gore's profile because activists will think that Obama looks unattractive compared to Gore if James Carville says on Don Imus that Gore is likely to run. Next, I suppose, we will be hearing from Hotline on Call that Hillary Clinton herself killed Vince Foster.
Perhaps, even though I can't think of one, there are ways in which the Clinton camp would benefit from circulating rumors about Gore running, even though they are convinced he won't run. The most common idea people have floated is that it could reduce activist support for the other candidates, especially Obama, as activists are tied down into drafting Gore. I really don't buy that one. If, ten and a half months out, a candidate is bringing in some of the largest crowds we have seen in a Democratic primary ever, then I think the Clinton camp needs to find a new way to reduce Obama's activist support.
So, I may have misread the Hotline piece, but I still think it is a bit of insane contortionism that tries to assign motives and strategies where none exist. It certainly wouldn't be the first time pundits have assigned bizarre, reality-bending motives to the Clintons. How about a more straightforward explanation? The fact is that there are droves of Democratic activists who still think Gore is going to run. Personally, I think they are deluding themselves, but I still know a bunch of them. Given that there are lots of people who still think that Gore is going to run, instead of accusing the Clinton camp of bizarre behind the scenes posturing, isn't it far--hell, galacticly--more likely that James Carville is one of those activists? Of course, if insiders were not assigning three extra layers of deviousness to the Clintons, then they wouldn't be doing their jobs.
