A Snapshot of the Clinton Psychosis

This morning I had to stop my audit of the newspaper abruptly. Once I had completed Amy Chozick's "Midterms, for Clinton Team, Aren’t All Gloom" I had to comment.

It was entirely predictable that the big-money players who control the Democratic Party were going to respond to the midterm debacle by banging the drum for Hillary's presidential candidacy rather than address obvious voter concerns, foremost of which is an economy that is as unequal as any going back to the 19th-century era of the Robber Barons.

"Psychosis" is a general psychiatric term signifying "a loss of contact with reality," and this is what is on full display in Amy Chozick's frontpage story.

Chozick provides an insider account of  the "Hillary for President" campaign readying to launch from the smoking rubble of the Democratic Party's collapse. The Hillary exploratory committee will wait until after Mary Landrieu's political corpse is ushered to the charnel house on December 6, the date of the runoff election in Louisiana against Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy.

The first passage from the Chozick piece that has to be mentioned regards the staging of a "listening tour" as a way for Hillary to reintroduce herself to a miserable, sullen electorate that now consistently polls at super-majority levels of disapproval for government and concern over the economy:

But before any campaigning begins, Mrs. Clinton will first embark on a listening tour that echoes what she did first as a candidate for the Senate in New York and then as a freshman senator, gathering ideas and advice from a cross-section of influential people about their concerns.

“She’ll slow down a bit, get off the radar, get ready for this, and ready includes being a good freshman senator, with a legal pad and lots of conversations,” said one person with direct knowledge of her plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans have not been made public. 

Meanwhile, the people around Mrs. Clinton will speed up their efforts to vet potential campaign aides, casually connect with donors and begin to help Mrs. Clinton craft a clearer message, especially on the economy. Although Mrs. Clinton’s midterm campaigning schedule took her to Iowa, Pennsylvania, Colorado, North Carolina and other important 2016 states, she did not spend much time getting to know the specific concerns of voters, something she would need to do ahead of a presidential campaign.

So what we are to understand is that Hillary, who has been barnstorming across the country for candidates during the midterms, is unaware what "specific concerns of voters" are. It is hard to take seriously. In fact, it can't be taken seriously. It is all just part of the dramaturgy of repackaging a bloated, tired, wealthy, famous defender of the Deep State as somehow concerned with what voters think. Hillary knows what voters want. They want jobs, and they want an end to interminable foreign wars. But Hillary has no intention of giving the people what they want; hence, the necessity of the listening tour to create the impression, the optics of a leader solicitous of the governed.

The next absurdity immediately follows from where the last quote leaves off:

Exit polls from Tuesday are being pored over for signs about what voters’ opinions could mean for Mrs. Clinton’s message and approach. Midterm voters expressed frustration with government, but also economic unease. 

“One of the questions for 2016 is: Which of those will 2016 be about? Will it be about the size and cost of government, or will it be about who the economy works for?” Mr. Garin asked. “If it’s an election about who the economy works for, then the Democratic nominee will be in a much better position to win,” he added.

Really? I thought that's what Obama's low approval rating was all about. People have given up believing he is going to do anything about economic inequality. "Obama bamboozled us for two elections. He ain't gonna bamboozle us anymore," the thinking goes. How is Hillary going to make people believe that she -- a rich old mean white lady -- is going to be any better?

Then, to return to the underlying theme of pychosis, what was Clinton's track record during the midterms? As highlighted in the first quote block, Hillary actively campaigned in bellwether states of Iowa, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Colorado, not to mention Arkansas and Kentucky. In Kentucky she worked for Clinton family friend Alison Lundergran Grimes in her attempt to unseat the ghoulish Mitch McConnell; in Arkansas, for Clinton family friend Senator Mark Pryor. All Hillary had to show for her effort was failure, not a clarion call for 2016:

During the midterm campaign, Mrs. Clinton raised more than $10 million for Democrats, and she and former President Bill Clinton attended at least 75 events on behalf of more than 30 candidates, building and rebuilding the relationships she and her husband are known for. 

The Clintons worked hard on behalf of Alison Lundergan Grimes, a candidate for Senate in Kentucky, and Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and were somewhat startled by their double-digit losses. But it was former Gov. Charlie Crist’s loss to Gov. Rick Scott of Florida that carried the biggest implications for a 2016 presidential campaign, as the Clintons had hoped for Democratic leadership in a critical battleground state.

Chozick, a smart cookie who used to cover the media industry for the Gray Lady prior to receiving the assignment of exclusively reporting on Hillary, no doubt relished writing this story; intended by Hillary backers as a whetting of the public appetite, it comes off, thanks to Chozick's skillful construction, as a study in perverse delusion.

Take Chozick's last paragraph. (A few paragraphs prior she had described Sean Wilentz's assistance to Hillary. The odious faux-left academic historian was deployed during Hillary's 2008 presidential run to accuse Obama of race-baiting, and he is now helping her to craft her stump speech.)

As the outline for a campaign is drawn, Mrs. Clinton’s supporters describe what they envision as a “New Clinton Map” that they believe could create a winning coalition for 2016, drawing on the white working-class women who have long supported Mrs. Clinton and the young voters and African-Americans who helped elect Mr. Obama.

Yes, that's right. The Clintons, as guilty of playing the "negrophobia" card as any other politician (think Sister Soulja), are relying on black people and students to turnout in 2016. (Remember, it was Hillary who shepherded through the favorable EIS on Keystone XL when she was head of the State Dept.) That's chutzpah.

If Democrats buy this load of malarkey there might be some substance to the thought that the party of Jackson will crater sooner rather than later, an outcome favorable to the future of the planet.