....Iowa State Fair straw poll, that is. Which is neither scientific nor, historically, any kind of bellwether - but this time looks like it may be the exception to that rule:
Senator Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in a real-time Iowa State Fair straw poll Saturday, polling ahead of her by double digits, 52%-41%, according to the website of the Iowa secretary of state.
Though very unscientific, it did sustain the pace that Sanders is hitting in New Hampshire and other States, where he is gaining ground if not outright surpassing [Mrs.] Clinton.
Specifically, more than 52% of Democrats who have cast a vote in the straw poll say they support Sanders. Just over 41% said they support [Mrs.] Clinton. On Friday, the second day of the fair, Sanders and [Mrs.] Clinton were tied 46-46.
Not a healthy trend for Her Nib.
Former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley garnered just three percent while Lincoln Chafee got just 1%. Former U.S. Senator Jim Webb came in under 1%.
Evidently Joe Biden wasn't included in the straw poll. Which is interesting, because in a "more scientific" CNN/ORC poll earlier this week, Slow Joe - who, remember, hasn't officially declared his candidacy yet - drew 12% support, which has been consistently his level of backing, at least for the time being. Plug that into the straw poll (assuming, reasonably, that V.P. Hairplugs will suck votes overwhelmingly from Hillary) and the result becomes Sanders 52%, Rodham 29%, Biden 12%, etc.
Yes, the CNN/ORC poll has the Empress up 50%-31% over Sanders in Iowa. But as is always the case with polls other than on the eve of Election Day, the thing to watch is the trends. And the direction of the Democrat race in every State across the board is against Hillary Clinton.
And what supporters she has left are wetting their pants in fear:
Mired in a growing scandal over her private email server and questions about her handling of the Benghazi massacre, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now facing questions from her strongest backers about her viability as a presidential candidate.
"Once again, worried supporters see signs of a bunker mentality in response to bad news about her e-mail server and other controversies, and they see a candidate who can seem strangely blinkered to the threat posed by a lesser-known challenger," according to a new story in the Washington Post.
There's nothing strange about it, for anybody who's been paying attention to La Clinton Nostra since 1992. They've always had a "bunker mentality" - does nobody else remember the "Clinton war room" back in the '90s?
"A lot of the people who were hired by the campaign were new to the Clintons," a prominent Democrat who counts both Hillary Clinton and former president Bill Clinton as friends told the newspaper. "I kind of assumed it would be different. But it hasn’t changed."
That may have been a serious error. The Clintons are notoriously paranoid, only truly trusting a very small inner circle of long-time allies and confidantes. Hell, why else did the old puffgut use her own private email server for four years while at State and deploy her own extra-governmental intelligence apparatus through Sidney Blumenthal? For her to have hired a lot of newcomers was, with her "bunker mentality," to effectively hamstring and kneecap her campaign before it ever got out of the starting gate, trusting instead in her name recognition and illusionary "inevitability" to carry her to back to the White House instead.
Looks like that's working out for her about as well as it did the last time.
Though no one is yet ready to "pull the fire alarm," according to the article....
Not publicly, although this very article would seem to belie that.
....a number of key donors are starting to see some dangerous tendencies in both the campaign and its candidate. In disturbing order: "insularity, rigidity and a sense that the operation is tone-deaf to changes happening around it."
I can condense all three down to one word: arrogance. Okay, two: arrogance and entitlement. The same character defects and political liabilities that sank her back in 2008. Just as when she was gifted the late Danial Patrick Moynihan's New York senate seat back in 2000, she truly expected to be handed the presidency on the proverbial silver platter, a coronational processional with the crown placed upon her head on January 20th, 2009. That she had to compete for that honor, that power, and that she could be defeated and denied it simply never occurred to her. And now the exact same dynamic is reprising itself in the run up to 2016.
Hillary Clinton is flatly incapable of accepting that she will never become president of the United States, equally incapable of acknowledging all her crippling weaknesses and deficiencies as a national candidate, and therefore doing what would be necessary to have any chance of overcoming them. And so she will not.
It reminds me of Princess Azula's madness....
....only in Hillary's case, she'd probably have another stroke. So I hope she can at least learn some degree of emotional control, because she's going to need it in the not-too-distant future.
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