While many Democrats are gearing up for a Hillary Clinton run for the 2016 Democrat presidential nomination, others are questioning the sense of coronating her as their nominee. At least one prominent Democrat is scoffing that Hillary’s fans in the party are a “cult, not a political movement.”
Not everyone is fired up about Hillary Clinton running in 2016. Political analysts have been filling the media with speculation that she isn’t a lock. Some are pushing far left Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as a threat to Hillary, while others are citing Hillary’s age as a mark against her.
One Democrat is also noting that this flurry of support for a 2016 run is not based on any real political factors but is instead a “cult” of personality with Hillary at its center.
In a piece at CNN, former South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian disparaged Clinton’s enthusiastic supporters.
Harpootlian, who said he’d rather support Joe Biden for 2016, was quite dismissive of Clinton. “Is it a political organization or a fan club for a boy band?” he scoffed, adding:
I just don’t understand the idea that somehow you’ve got to encourage her to run. Either people want to run and have a coherent message about why they should be president, or not. She has been around the block. She knows that if she wants to run, she can get in and get the money.
“I think it’s a cult, not a political movement,” Harpootlian told the cable news network. “Ready for Hillary compared to who? The field still has to develop.”
It should be remembered that many “progressives” in 2008 stood against Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. The folks at the progressive website CommonDreams.org, for instance, maintained that Hillary’s Iraq vote made her the wrong candidate for the Democrat Party.
“Hillary Clinton’s decision to vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq in fact is of critical importance and should disqualify her from ever becoming president,” Stephen Zunes wrote in February of 2008 when she was running against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination.
But old news may be the least of Hillary’s problems, as she may have already developed a new obstacle. Some are questioning her relationship with Univision TV owner Haim Saban, calling it an obvious conflict of interest.
A recent USA Today article detailed some of the eyebrow-raising facts of Univision’s support for Clinton, support that makes the increasingly important news programs the network produces suspect.
In a piece entitled “Does Hillary-Univision Deal Cross a Line?” Raul Reyes wondered if the two are just a bit too cozy.
Consider that one of the owners of Univision, Haim Saban, is a major Clinton donor and backer who told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, “Seeing her in the White House is a big dream of mine.” Or that Clinton is featured in five out of six slides promoting Pequeños y Valiosos on the Univision website. Or that the recent “press event” kicking off this program did not allow questions from the press. In other words, it was largely a promotional event for Univision, Clinton and their new initiative.
Another problem for Hillary came with last year’s exposé of the fraud and waste of the Clintons’ charity, now renamed the Clinton Foundation.
The New York Times published a scathing piece saying the charity was rife with cronyism, waste, and fraud and that little of its millions in donations ever went to any actual charity work.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.