Tuesday, March 08, 2016

Has Hillary Clinton Kissed Off Ohio & Pennsylvania?

by JASmius



Eh.  Maybe she has, maybe she hasn't.  It depends on how high a priority voters in those swing States (well, Pennsylvania really isn't one, but this might move it into that category) give to the energy issue.  If it's as big a deal for them as Grover Norquist thinks it is and will be, then Her Nib has made her already arduous journey back to 1600, um, Pennsylvania Avenue, assuming she can pull off the upset and take the Democrat nomination, that much more difficult:

Democrat [candidate] Hillary Clinton lost her chances of becoming president after alienating two key states, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist said Monday.

“Under her new rules, fracking would exist almost nowhere,” the president and founder of Americans for Tax Reform told CNBC’s Squawk On The Street.  “Democrats used to be able to insult the energy industry because they lived in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Alaska [and] they don’t vote Democrat. But she declared war on Pennsylvania and Ohio with that statement. That’s not the way to win the election.”

[Mrs.] Clinton said in a debate Sunday in Flint, Michigan, she does not support fracking.

Not to redundantly repeat myself, but the Empress is still not acting like the front-runner for her party's presidential nomination, even though she's won 61.1% of the primary/caucus popular vote so far and 187 more delegates to date than Weekend Bernie, not counting the "superdelegates" that is the only area in which she's dominating, by a ten to one margin.  If she truly thought she had put Sanders in her rearview mirror, she'd be in triangulation mode rather than still pandering and prostrating herself to the Nutroots whom one would think she'd haughtily figure will have no place else to go.  Yet she's still doing GOP oppo researchers' jobs for them, feeding them one attack ad soundbite after another, like "I do not support fracking," that will indeed swamp Pennsylvania and Ohio television screens this summer and fall.

As will this little nugget:

In the debate against Senator Bernie Sanders, she said: “I think we have to try everything that works to try to limit the numbers of people and the kinds of people who are given access to firearms.”

Said Norquist: “Hillary Clinton is old enough that she doesn’t know that, since she got involved in politics, thirteen million Americans have active concealed weapon permits, 5% of the adult population. She announced it was her policy to reduce the number of people who have guns, not bad people; she said ‘people’ who have guns.” [emphases added]

Indeed.  And note her choice of words in the latter half of that sentence: "people who are given access to firearms."  As though that, or any, of our rights come from government as opposed to God, and therefore, in her view, are entirely "alienable".

Again, what impact that has on the fall electorate is anybody's guess.  Pennsylvanians and Ohioans weren't any less pro-gun (or more anti-gun) four or eight years ago, and Red Barry still carried both States by substantial margins both times.  On the other hand, given the role that his (mixed) race played in his election and re-election, a factor that the old puffgut does not enjoy with her threadbare gender "card," nor the political skillset to try and put it over anyway with charismatic guile, issues such as these two and more could very well make her unelectable.

Assuming (1) that she puts away Sanders and (2) Trump doesn't put away Ted Cruz and (3) the GOP pulls a rabbit out of its hat and doesn't splinter and shatter regardless of who win our nomination.

See why I'm "eh"?


UPDATE: And why I still don't think she's a "front-runner"?



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