Hillary Clinton's Machine Sputters
Apr 24, 2015 10:13 AM EDT
By Margaret Carlson
You might as well make yourselves comfortable.
That’s advice Republican presidential candidates might want to follow, given how often they will be summoned to Iowa over the next nine months or so to explain themselves to the state's notoriously demanding voters.
This weekend, they'll be turning up to prove their evangelical fervor at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, part of the national organization created by Ralph Reed in 2009, after his fall from grace as head of the Christian Coalition.
Reed has sufficiently rehabilitated himself to have some status as a Republican power broker. So the party's candidates and would-be candidates have to make repeated appearances in Iowa and take positions on issues such as abortion, gays, guns, educational standards and climate change that they end up regretting in the general election.
This time, though, Republicans may not have to bow so low. They have an ace in the hole: Hillary Clinton. Her name can used as a magic incantation to change the subject at will, get out of any tricky situation and instantly make the toughest Republican crowd forget all that nitpicking about conservative bona fides or a lack of agenda.
Unfortunately for the former first lady and secretary of state, it doesn't work in reverse. There are just too many Republicans to pick one to go after and she has no primary opposition worth mentioning (apologies to Senator Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley).
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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-24/hillary-clinton-s-machine-sputters
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