The Queen: The Epic Ambition of Hillary and the Coming of a Second "Clinton Era" (28 page)

HH: With Benghazi back there and her immigration position, do you think former Senator Webb is in a position to give her any real problems?

CK:
You know, I think that Democrats are in such a swoon over Hillary, it’s sort of all, it’s not at the level, the emotional level of the 2008 swoon for Obama, but they are committed. I mean, they’ve already, they are betrothed. You know, this marriage has already been set. I don’t think anybody’s going to give her serious trouble. I think Webb might actually just be an interesting
counterweight to her, but I don’t see it as a serious challenge to her getting the nomination.

HH: Then what do you guess she’s going to run on? Or are we in fact really just electing Bill for the fun of it for a third term? Or does she actually have a platform that we can expect to see?

CK:
Well, you know, I think she’s running on nostalgia for the 90s. I don’t think there’s a platform at work here at all. And it’s not as if she’s the only one. You know, George W. Bush sort of ran under the aura of people who thought you know, maybe we should have reelected his dad. People, Kennedys all run on the Kennedy name. With her, it’s not so much on her husband, but on the feeling the 90s was a time of peace and prosperity. It was that decade, that holiday from history, between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union, and of course, 9/11. It’s a time that people remember as a good time, and it was, in fact. So that’s what, you know, that’s the subtext of her entire campaign.

HH: All right, two last questions, then. Has she been around too long? I don’t mean in age, but she’s been around DC for a quarter century.

CK:
Yeah.

HH: She’s been in reruns a long time. Is it too long for the American people?

CK:
Well, except for the fact that she’s Clinton, and that she’s the wife of the president who people remember as being a really good decade. So I think that works somewhat against her. But it’s not as if she’s a hack politician like a Harry Reid who’s been around forever, and people say do we really want him in high office? You know, it’s a person associated with a certain time. I’m reading the biography of Napoleon by Andrew Roberts, and I’m thinking of, you know, his nephew, Napoleon III, who came around 50 years later. I don’t know what Louis Napoleon’s platform was, and I’m sure he was running on the Napoleon name, and a bit of gauzy nostalgia for his time.

CHAPTER 34

Conversation with President George W. Bush, November 25, 2014

HH: [T]his is very interesting, the relationship between the Bushes and the Clintons. And at every level, it’s very interesting. And your father and former President Clinton, and you and former President Clinton get along well, and they call them the black sheep of the Bush family. Is that going to mean hands behind your back if Hillary’s up against Jeb in two years?

GWB:
Well, if that happens, and I don’t know if it is, I of course will be all in for Jeb, and I’ll still maintain my friendship with Bill, as will Dad.

CHAPTER 35

An Interview with Josh Kraushaar, the Politics Editor of
The National Journal
, November 22, 2014

HH: Here is the most significant tweet of the night following President Obama’s speech. Less than 10 minutes after it concluded, Hillary Clinton tweeted out thanks to POTUS for taking action on immigration in the face of inaction. Now let’s turn to permanent bipartisan reform immigration action. Were you surprised, Josh Kraushaar, that she moved that quickly to endorse the President’s sweeping and unprecedented action?

JK:
Not entirely surprised. I was actually more surprised that it took this long for her to take a position, but you know, the President’s speech sort of forced her hand, to some extent. And to me, her positioning vis-à-vis the President in the next year is going to be one of the most fascinating political stories, because she sees the polling as closely as we all do, and she sees the disparity between most Americans, you know, if you ask them broadly do they support comprehensive immigration reform, you do see it. It depends on how you ask the question, but you see majorities of the public expressing sympathy towards that position. But then you see the two polls that came out in the last week when it comes to the executive order, and you have large pluralities, 48% opposing, and 38% approving in the NBC/
Wall Street Journal
poll that came out this week. She is trying to thread that needle. She wants to make it seem like she’s for that legislative process to take place, but she’s not against the actions that President Obama undertook. She needs that Obama base. She needs the Hispanic vote when she runs for president in 2016, and she needs to have the base enthused. But she also needs to broaden the coalition beyond just the base. So this is one of many, you know, tactical decisions she’ll be making to sort of try to stay with Obama, but also keep a little bit of space. She’s tied in more with Obama, though, than keeping the space on this one…

HH: What is going to be her claim to success at the Department of State? What’s her record at State that she can tout as an achievement?

JK:
Well, I mean, she and her advisors have talked about how she’s visited a whole lot of countries, and actually being the first woman, or I guess the second female secretary of state…

HH: Third.

JK:
… and trying to promote issues that are of importance to women. I mean, that’s something that she’s talked about, that she’s traveled quite a bit to make that case. But you know, look, Benghazi’s going to become an issue. The Republicans are already bringing it up in the run up to 2016, and you know, she doesn’t, in terms of, I think a lot of what happens in the second term for President Obama, whether there’s an Iranian deal reached, and that was something that sort of began under her watch as Secretary of State, diplomacy with Iran. So I think she is going to have a lot to answer for. Foreign policy is, I think, going to be a significant issue in 2016, and isn’t always in a presidential election. But I think if she runs on her record as Secretary of State, and runs on foreign policy, she’s really
going to have to answer to a lot of the President’s foreign policy decisions.

HH: And is there, by third Secretary of State, I meant Madeleine Albright, obviously, Condoleezza Rice.

JK:
Oh, right, right.

HH: Yeah, but when you, if you’re the writer’s room, if you’re a fly on the wall in the writer’s room for Hillaryworld, what do they put on the white board as having been an actual honest to goodness achievement? Forget Benghazi, about which she has to answer the questions, but Libya’s a mess, Egypt she got wrong, the reset button with Russia was a disaster, Ukraine’s been carved up. How in the world does she run on competence?

JK:
I mean, it’s a challenge when it comes to foreign policy. I mean, it’s hard for any, someone in anyone’s administration to create that space when a president is facing vulnerabilities on that specific front. So the president, when you look at the specific issues and job approval, and President Obama and all the various areas, foreign policy is one of his lowest points at this moment. It was higher when she was Secretary of State, but I think she’s going to have to answer, and perhaps bear some responsibility for some of the decisions that the President has made. So it’s going to be a challenge. There’s no doubt about it. You know, I think they’re going to talk about the fact that she traveled, that diplomacy was emphasized, that she tried to work with a lot of other world leaders. She’s going to point to a lot of her travel. But I think she’s going to have a challenge to really defend the President’s foreign policy at a time when a large majority of Americans are very skeptical about it.

HH: With Webb in, O’Malley moving around, Joe Biden still there, Jerry Brown may be running as Yoda for president, does she have a glass jaw, Josh?

JK:
You know, the thing that she has going for her is that she does have a brand. I mean, generic Democrat running as a third term of the president might have a bigger challenge than someone like Hillary Clinton, who is well-identified, for better or for worse, with the American public. But you know, and I think that she’s been able, we’ve seen through polling throughout the last few years, her numbers have gone down somewhat, but she still has higher approval ratings than President Obama. She still has higher favorability numbers than, say, Joe Biden. So I mean, she, and she definitely has an experienced political team who’s been through the trenches, who went through a very tough 2008 presidential campaign. So I mean, I don’t think she has a glass jaw. I think she’s, you know, she’s prepared for 2016, and she’s very well-attuned to all of the vulnerabilities that she faces. But she also sees her campaign as a real opportunity to be the first female president, and to forge a new coalition for the Democrats.

HH: But with her tweet, you know, she’s sort of mini-me on immigration. And I’m just, I’m curious, because I’m not referring to the fact that she’ll be 69. I’m wondering if her brand is so old. She’s been around DC for a quarter century. Young people don’t get excited by Hillary Clinton. It’s like getting excited about your grandma running. And she’s the grandmother of Obamacare. How in the world does she refresh the brand? We’ve got about a minute.

JK:
Well, the big question, I mean, I think that’s the big question. A lot of Republicans, I mean, there’s a lot of debate within Republican circles over whether they want to nominate someone like a, say, Marco Rubio, who’s a younger, less, you know, a lot less experienced compared to Hillary Clinton, but someone who’s a fresh face who can almost, you know, argue the Bill
Clinton 1992 campaign theme about talking about the future, and really being a contrast. But other folks think that Jeb Bush or someone with more experience is a necessary type of challenger Republicans should nominate against Hillary Clinton, because that will, you know, people are worried about the state of the world–foreign policy, you know, it seems like the Middle East is falling apart, you know, we have the instance of Ebola just a month ago. So there’s another alternative Republican point of view that thinks that Hillary Clinton probably, her experience can be an asset in this type of volatile environment, and Republicans might actually need to match her experience with someone like a Jeb Bush…

HH: I didn’t want to let you go, Josh, because I wanted to get you live in the middle of sort of Grand Central Station of politics, and this goes to branding. Is Hillary stale?

JK:
I don’t think that she’s stale. I think that part of branding is coming up with strategic ways to, I mean, there are a lot of brands that have been around for a long time. And smart marketers have been able to refresh those brands and make them more relevant going forward. I think that’s the big challenge, though, for her campaign team. Do they have, I mean, you brought it up first, Hugh, like what is their message? What is going to be the argument for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign? I think it could be fresh. I think it could be, she could be coming up with something that talks about her experience, but also talking about how she differs from previous presidents, and how she, say, a third way, a different approach from President Obama and President Bush. But we haven’t heard that from, she hasn’t announced her campaign, we haven’t really heard that from any of her advisors at this point. So I mean, I think it remains an open question.

HH: Do you think we’re really going to end up being asked to put Bill Clinton back into the Oval Office a de facto third term for Bill, not really a first term for Hillary?

JK:
I think it’ll be fascinating to see how active a role Bill Clinton plays on the campaign trail. I mean, that was an issue in the 2008 primaries. And he was as smart and savvy of a politician as he is. He would get the Clinton folks, the Hillary Clinton folks, in trouble quite a bit for making off-message comments. And I think that will be the biggest question for her campaign going around. I thought it was also notable that you know, a lot of people have made the connection between Hillary’s campaign and Bill’s late in
the ’90s. But you know, if you look at the Senate races where both of them campaigned in, I think there was a lot of hope that the Clintons could sort of make some inroads in blue collar parts of the country, states that they won, or states that Bill Clinton, rather, won in ’92, ’96—Arkansas, Kentucky, in those two big Senate races in 2014. And they didn’t make inroads. And the working-class voters that supported Democrats back in the ’90s ended up voting Republican in this past election. So I think that’s a big warning sign for both Bill and Hillary, in terms of their ability to kind of recreate that magic from the early 1990s. It’s going to be a lot harder this time around.…

HH: You know, there was a very famous exchange in British politics in the 19th-century where Disraeli charged his great rival, Gladstone, with being an exhausted volcano. Do you think that’s what Hillary might be, exhausted?

JK:
I mean, she’s had time off from serving in the White House, so I don’t think she’s exhausted. I think she’s actually been preparing and thinking about how she’s going to run a campaign, and she hasn’t told us much. And her staff hasn’t been very open, either, even when she’s going to announce, if she does announce a 2016 campaign. But I do, I don’t think she’s exhausted. I actually think that she’s been very strategic, and has been resting and relaxed and ready to launch this.…

HH: Last question, then. She’s inextricably bound up with his foreign policy failures, probably with the Iranian deal. And I just want to know if you think she can unglue herself from this immigration executive order if it becomes operational, as I think it will, as bad a rollout as the Obamacare website. I think it’s going to be phenomenally difficult to administer this. It’s going to be a practical nightmare as well as a Constitutional fiasco. But can she get away from it now? Or did she flypaper herself to the President’s lawlessness, in my view? I know that’s not your view, but my view, lawlessness, is that stuck to her in such a way that it cannot be unstuck?