
 |
|
March 19, 2010
JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel
March 18, 2010
JWisdom.com Love me not?
with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle
with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children
with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself
with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life
with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
March 9, 2010
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me!
with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How!
with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
March 4, 2010
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People
with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game
with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
March 2, 2010
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One
with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Feb. 25, 2010
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life
with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Feb. 23, 2010
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment
with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Feb. 22, 2010
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Feb. 19, 2010
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember
with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up?
with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality
with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours?
with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience
|
| |
Jewish World Review
July 27, 2007
/ 12 Menachem-Av, 5767
Hillary the Underestimated
By
Rich Lowry
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Hillary Clinton has led in almost every national poll among the Democratic presidential candidates, usually by double digits. She has turned in a solid, self-assured performance in all the debates, has revved up an impressive organization and hasn't made a major mistake under the glare of a media that magnify everything she does.
Clinton is the underestimated front-runner. How much will-he-or-won't-he commentary has been devoted to almost-certainly-won't Al Gore, and how many glossy pages and adoring column inches to Barack Obama, as she continues her steady march toward the nomination?
Conservative commentators like me have especially tended to discount her. We have argued that she'd never dare to run for Senate in New York; that if she ran, she'd be a terrible candidate; and that if she really ran for president, she would collapse under the weight of her own dullness and high negatives. Alas and alack, it is instead incontrovertible that in her own way she's a talented politician who has a clear path to the Democratic presidential nomination and to the presidency.
She's not a natural, a fact highlighted all the more by her association by marriage to the great natural politician of his generation. If the test of a candidate is whether you would like to sit down and have a beer with her, she will never pass it.
She excels on other tests. Iraq seemed her greatest liability at the beginning of the campaign: She would either have to repudiate her vote to authorize the war, or be repudiated herself by anti-war Democratic voters. But she found her way out of the trap.
1.) She didn't apologize for her authorization vote, thus avoiding a blow to her credibility; 2.) She moved left in supporting a timetable for withdrawal, thus placating her party's base; 3.) She avoided the excesses of other Democrats panting for a pell-mell retreat, thus keeping intact her credentials as a potential commander in chief. This was brilliant politics. She leads in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll both among Democrats who support a deadline for withdrawing troops and those who don't.
Obama's theme of change in the sense of something entirely new is clearly more powerful than Hillary's theme of change in the sense of another round in a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton cycle of the American presidency. She overcomes this thematic weakness with her strength as a candidate, the foremost of which is her as she has put it "responsibility gene."
In those moments in the Democratic debates that have offered a choice between saying what the pacifist left wants to hear or saying what someone who might someday be president should say, she has done the latter. Her default mode is seriousness, and all her preparation shows. When she was asked in the most recent debate about the possibility of nearly three decades of a Bush or Clinton in the While House, I found myself commenting to a friend, "Watch she'll hit this out of the park." Which she did with a joke about regretting that Bush won in 2000.
She was ready for the question, unsurprisingly. Her campaign operation is like something out of "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines." It knows how to attack and parry and do it efficiently. It is inconceivable that she would ever be embarrassed by her campaign the way Obama has been by his a few times this year and if she were, someone would probably get fired.
Obama has generated a lot of excitement. Maybe he will end up swamping Clinton, or she'll be done in by some unforeseeable issue or gaffe, or her high negatives will convince Democrats that someone else is a safer bet to get elected next year. But it doesn't look likely when Clinton has run a nearly flawless campaign and has done more than any other Democrat to show she's ready to be president.
I will never support her, but nor will I ever again underestimate her.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Rich Lowry Archives
© 2007 King Features Syndicate
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Michael Barone
Dave Barry
Tony Blankley
Andy Borowitz
David Broder
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
John Fund
Frank J. Gaffney
Lloyd Garver
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Lewis Grossberger
Victor Davis Hanson
Froma Harrop
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Laura Ingraham
Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ed Koch
Ch. Krauthammer
Michael Ledeen
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Dick Morris
Bill O'Reilly
Jim Mullen
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Jonathan Rauch
Celia Rivenbark
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Pat Sajak
Debra J. Saunders
Culture Shlock
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Lisa Benson
John Branch
Gary Brookins
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holber
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Ranan R. Lurie
Jimmy Margulies
Rick McKee
Michael Ramirez
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Ed Stein
Danna Summers
John Trever
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters

How 2
Lori Borgman
Elder matters
Fixit
Dr. Peter Gott
GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
Richard Lederer
Tech Maven
Every Monday Matters
Nutrition Myths
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
How Stuff Works
|