The truth is that Hillary's biggest enemies are the very same crew who took her out in her 2008 race for the White House. The Democrats' most liberal wing used what they thought would be a little known "blocking back" on the Democratic political playing field -- Barack Obama-- to rip away her African-American support in various Democratic primaries, particularly in South Carolina. The goal was to deliver their party's nomination to other candidates, namely then-Sens. Joseph Biden or Christopher Dodd.
They never counted on Obama winning Iowa and becoming a national phenomenon. That said, the end result for the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party has been quite satisfying.
Now they want a repeat performance.
When word leaked of a recent meeting between increasingly likely presidential candidate Vice President Joe Biden and the darling of leftist "progressives," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the final piece of a more-than-expected puzzle began to fall into place.
Of course former Secretary of State Clinton blames Republicans and conservatives for her woes. For those who have just casually followed the increasingly disastrous tale of her emails and private server, it might seem only natural to believe this somehow is the sole work of Republicans who have vigilantly pursued the real story behind the tragedy that took place in Benghazi. Certainly, the hard work of the House of Representatives committee investigating the events related to the Benghazi debacle led Clinton down a path that included emails.
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But make no mistake. There have been few in the Obama White House rooting for a Clinton presidency. The bad blood between the Obama and Clinton camps, particularly in the bitter battles of the South Carolina primary of 2008, has never gone away. In some ways Clinton as a secretary of state met the admonition from the first "Godfather" film: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." It was a piece of advice that likely both Obama and Clinton intimates equally adhered to.
Now we have leak after leak, story after story, seemingly pitting the Obama State Department against Hillary Clinton. What at first seemed to most political pros to be a decently coordinated downplay of discrepancies in describing the nature of "confidential emails," as well as the importance of the entire "private server" matter, now seems a cut-and-dried march toward truth and justice.
That's a march that will leave Hillary Clinton in the same political ditch she found herself in back in 2008. So it looks increasingly like Biden, a guaranteed lock to pursue the philosophy and policies of the Obama administration, will be the "2016 blocking back" who will emerge carrying the ball to a Democratic nomination.
Sure, the polls still show a potential Biden candidacy trailing Clinton's. But the "leader" in some polls, socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, will see his support evaporate, a la candidate Eugene McCarthy in 1968, once the vice president takes the field. And his support would go to Biden.
Again, make no mistake. The more liberal wing of the Democratic Party would be overjoyed if Warren were to shove former "differences" aside and become a would-be early putative vice presidential running mate with Biden. It would deprive Clinton of another critical element of her electoral magic -- female voters.
However, for the moment, Clinton still has powerful supporters in all the right places. Yet her soft role on the TV show "Saturday Night Live" with an equally benign, and not very funny, skit suggests that Clinton might be approaching the sort of tanking favorable ratings and desperate countermoves that could leave her flat as a New Hampshire pancake. And that's a state whose primary her team is already reportedly writing off.
Furthermore, the upcoming congressional hearing where Clinton will testify about the American lives lost at Benghazi will certainly be more "evidence" for her team to offer regarding Republican-inspired attacks. But it's a claim that, in reality, is specifically aimed to keep Democrat and Democrat-leaning independent voters from recognizing her more formidable enemies.
If there are conspirators to be found, they are from Clinton's own party. They are the ones who kept their friends close and their enemies closer.
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