Hillary Clinton will be in Iowa on Sunday, and the national press is dispensing with the formalities: She is running for president. No if’s, and’s or deeply personal decisions about it.
“Let’s just get this out of the way now: She’s running,” BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith wrote Friday in a preview of sorts for Clinton’s appearance Sunday at Sen. Tom Harkin’s 37th steak fry in Indianola, Iowa.
Amy Chozick of the New York Times wrote a detailed piece on Friday, a thorough reading of the proverbial tea leaves. Some were superficial — Hillary is taking yoga (to prepare for the physical rigors of a campaign) — while others were substantive. She has been asking Wall Street types what they think of President Obama’s fiscal policies and inquiring about the best people to know in Iowa.
“It’s very obvious what’s she going to do,” Sue Dvorsky, a former chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party, told Chozick. “Clearly she’s going to run.”
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell was on the same page.
.@mitchellreports on @HillaryClinton: “You don’t go to Iowa if you’re not running.”
— Jonathan Allen (@jonallendc) September 13, 2014
That, of course, has been everyone’s operating assumption for the last year or more. And with good reason: TPM has yet to find one person within the Clinton sphere who doesn’t think that Clinton will ultimately decide to run for president.
But, as Republican operatives like America Rising’s Tim Miller have been pleading for them to do for quite a while, the media look like they’re finally done with caveating and couching Clinton’s not-yet-confirmed candidacy. It is simply a fact of the political landscape.
Much like the kickoff of her book tour earlier this summer, this trip to Iowa, the state where her 2008 presidential bid stumbled so badly, is being framed as the official unofficial start to the Hillary 2016 campaign. And now those euphemisms that have littered Clinton coverage so far — the potential’s and presumed’s — are starting to be discarded.
The proto-campaign infrastructure is in place. Ready for Hillary, the grassroots organizers, will be out in full force in Iowa this weekend. Correct The Record is a constant presence in reporter inboxes whenever there is a headline about Hillary. Priorities USA is quietly courting donors, ready to spring into action once the fall midterms come and go, according to the Times’s Chozick.
Now the (expected?) candidate herself — who has set a post-Jan. 1 deadline for making the official announcement that nobody else is waiting for — is visiting the first caucus state. Everything is in its proper place.
And Clinton’s people are, at the least, taking it all with a sense of humor.
“You caught us,” Nick Merrill, her personal spokesman, told Chozick.
The biggest shock to national politics in the USA would be if Hillary decided NOT to run for President, for one reason or another, (personal health, age, whatever). Hillary will decide to run, about 99% sure here, because she is virtually guaranteed election, given the demographics of a national presidential election, there are simply not enough electoral votes available to Republicans to win an election after 2000, (when George W. Bush lost the popular vote, even in Florida, but the Supreme Court stopped the vote before it was done.) The problem will be getting a Democratic Party controlled Senate, the outlook for that would be poor in 2016, and perhaps in 2018. So what Hillary might do as President may be severely limited by Congress.
These reporters have mastered the art of stating the obvious.
No one capable of rational thought doubts that she’s running.
But it’s smart to remember that Harkin is an old friend, and that this is his last steak fry.
So it’s also possible that she’s going to Iowa to celebrate an old friend’s retirement and talk about his accomplishments, which are many.
As the old saying goes, “There’s many a slip 'twixt cup and lip.”
Well, I respect Harkin a lot, and wish he would stick around until he dies in office, but that’s just a selfish wish, and he deserves a few retirement years. I just hope that his seat remains in the hands of Democrats after November, with that total idiot crazy pig-farmer running as the Republican nominee.
As for Hillary visiting ONLY to go to his last steak fry event or whatever, come on, Hillary can see and celebrate his career anywhere, anytime, perhaps even with President Obama in Washington sometime in December, these people can see each other almost anytime they wish to, to congratulate a career. Going to Iowa is making a statement, she certainly did not need to go there just to salute his career, she could have called him on Skype or done a video.
Wait a moment, Chris Christie has been to Iowa several times. So it’s either the Jimmy Johns sandwiches or he’s running for President.
Wow! This knocks the 2014 important races off the radar. When do they start printing tickets for the coronation balls, and where do I send for one or two? Will President-elect Billary be available for “selfys” for non-major contributors?