Find your thrill on Bloombergery Hill.

The fine print says:

Sources close to Bloomberg campaign tell DRUDGE REPORT that candidate is considering Hillary Clinton as running mate, after their polling found the Bloomberg-Clinton combination would be formidable force... MORE

DRUDGE has learned that Bloomberg himself would go as far as to change his official residence from New York to homes he owns in Colorado or Florida, since the electoral college makes it hard for a POTUS and VPOTUS from the same state... Developing...

I think this is dull news. Of course, Bloomberg is "considering" all the possible running mates. He'd have to announce his choice during the primaries and have her out there running with him for it to mean anything. Does anyone picture that happening?

It would be wildly distracting, but I don't see it helping Bloomberg. He needs to establish himself as presidential. And she'd be taking a step down from where she was last time. Why would that work? Why would she do it? Why would he do it? Makes little sense except as a Saturday internet diversion.

"She's neither as good nor as bad as some people say about her."

Who does she think she is? March 6. #HillaryOnHulu pic.twitter.com/lrEkvhIB5Z

— hulu (@hulu) December 10, 2019

"Hillary Clinton emerged recently to claim, with no basis in fact, that I am being 'groomed' by the Russian government to undermine America...."

"I'm running for president to undo Mrs. Clinton's failed legacy. From Iraq to Libya to Syria, her record is replete with foreign-policy catastrophes. It's a primary reason why I resigned as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 to endorse Bernie Sanders. Mrs. Clinton and the powerful media and political network she built up over decades have never forgiven this slight.... Those who are indebted to the war machine and the overreaching intelligence agencies, as well as their cheerleaders in the media, are determined to take me down because they know they can't control me. I'm directly challenging their power.... Democratic candidates adhere to [Hillary Clinton's] doctrine of acting as the world's police, using the tools of war to overthrow governments we don't like, wasting taxpayer dollars, costing American lives, causing suffering and destruction abroad, and undermining America's security.... Only when we recognize the failings of the past -- embodied by Mrs. Clinton and her minions in the media -- can we move forward to a future of peace, dignity, transparency and aloha."

Writes Tulsi Gabbard in "I Can Defeat Trump and The Clinton Doctrine" (Wall Street Journal).

She's less of a contrast to Trump... but that could be a good thing. Why do the Democrats want a candidate who advocates our acting as the world's police and overthrowing governments we don't like?

"Ultimately, it's unlikely she would do it. But put it this way: It ain't zero. And does she think about it all the time? Absolutely.... Her view is: I ran against this guy, I know how to do this. She has battle scars to prove it."

From "Democrats see weak spots in their own 2020 prospects" (Stamford Advocate)(the top link at Drudge right now).

"She" = Hillary Clinton.

Allies have passed around an op-ed that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, written by former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, with the headline, "Who should run against Trump? How about Hillary Clinton?"

Supporters say she has been glued to the Democratic primary contest and has spoken with some frequency with Warren and Biden, among others. Now selling a book written with her daughter, Chelsea, she has been a constant public presence of late, engaging in a days-long spat with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and repeatedly trolling Trump on his favorite communications platform, Twitter.

A late entrance under any circumstances would be difficult, with Clinton's former aides and fundraising network dispersed among many current campaigns. But her supporters have discussed whether she could helm a slimmed-down campaign operation and whether she would be able to maintain the less cautious, more freewheeling persona she has adopted since her loss in 2016.

I think the problem is that there were some plausible but look-alike and unglitzy governors in the mix but they're already dropped out. The process is such that the better-known Senators blocked the view (along with a few flashy extras, Beto, Buttigieg, Williamson, Yang). There's only so much attention we can pay and only so much money.

Now — just as people with lives should be starting to care about an election that's over a year away — it still looks like a crowd, but there's no one in that crowd who seems able to beat Trump.

Trump! The guy who — if you watch the media — is about to be tossed out on his ass by Congress. Congress... which can't even deliver up one candidate good enough to beat the guy in the normal process. But it's too late now to get a governor. Those characters went down long ago. So the party hacks look around in desperation, and of course, she's there — Hillary Clinton.



Here's my post from May 12, 2019, "It's a joke until it happens. DJT was a joke until it happened. The funniest thing may be the most likely thing."

Yesterday, on Facebook, my son John declared an "Open thread for your predictions on who’ll win the 2020 presidential election. I know it’s too early, but it’s still fun to guess." There were lots of answers, mostly "Trump," but some said Biden or Harris or Buttigieg. After 4 hours of that, I said:

Hillary. It’s her turn.

ADDED: "She has battle scars to prove it" made me think of Lyndon Johnson:



He'd had his gallbladder removed. By the way, Hillary's new book is called "The Book of Gutsy Women."

Is Hillary running?!

From "New Hillary listening tour: ‘I’d like to hear what you're thinking'" (Washington Examiner).

In an email to supporters, the 2008 and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate said, “I’d like to hear what you’re thinking.”...

“I’ve been traveling and talking with folks around the world about their plans for the rest of the year. Some members of this team are doubling down on issues from voting rights to immigration reform, while others are focused on electing Democrats at all levels in 2019 and 2020. Like you, they’re all thinking about how we can best work toward making our country a place where the values we share are front and center — in our policy and in the way we treat each other,” she wrote for her group, “Onward Together.”

I said it last May:

Yesterday, on Facebook, my son John declared an "Open thread for your predictions on who’ll win the 2020 presidential election. I know it’s too early, but it’s still fun to guess." There were lots of answers, mostly "Trump," but some said Biden or Harris or Buttigieg. After 4 hours of that, I said:

Hillary. It’s her turn.

I laughed and I got laughs:

But is it a joke? Someone else commented...

"Elizabeth Warren's team doesn't want to talk about Hillary Clinton, but that doesn't mean the 2020 presidential candidate isn't talking with her party's 2016 nominee."

Writes NBC News, with a big glorious photograph of Elizabeth Warren alongside Hillary Clinton. The photo is riveting, with Hillary Clinton at her most garish — oversmiling, dressed in tent-shaped turquoise, and caught at the "Hitler salute" instant of an exaggerated wave at an unseen crowd. And there's Elizabeth Warren, seemingly Hillary's doppelganger. Warren's haircut is ever so slightly raffish around the ear and her hand is flung higher, into a more natural wave. She's in red, not blue.

Warren is differentiated from Hillary, but not enough for her to want you looking at this picture today. The photo is from October 2016. The article, relying on unnamed sources, is about how the women are hiding the connection they (supposedly) have:

It’s hard to know exactly how many times they’ve reached out to each other — or precisely what they’ve discussed — in part because neither camp wants to reveal much of anything about their interaction and in part because they have each other's phone numbers, and there are many ways for two high-powered politicians to communicate that don’t involve their staffs....

It's so secretive, the way these people who have each other's phone numbers can just talk to each other without anyone else knowing.

But a person who is close to Clinton said the contact has been substantial enough to merit attention, describing a conversation between the two as seemingly recent because it was "front of mind" for her.

A person who is close to Clinton. Why are Clinton people trying to plant stories about Clinton's ongoing connection to Warren? Are they trying to help somebody who is not Warren?! Or can I assume that the Clinton person simply got caught off guard by the NBC reporter who seems to have asked if the contact was "substantial" and "recent" and only got that weird, vague "front of mind" answer.

"That has clearly not gone unnoticed, and I think she really appreciates that," the person close to Clinton said....

It sounds as though a somewhat out-of-it Clinton associate was thinking entirely from the point of view of Clinton — whose feelings may be hurting — and not from the point of view of Warren — who must want tight control of any connection to Hillary. Hillary can help Warren eventually, but this isn't the time — as the article goes on to explain. Tying Warren to Clinton is something you'd do now to help Bernie.

"It's a joke until it happens. DJT was a joke until it happened. The funniest thing may be the most likely thing."

Yesterday, on Facebook, my son John declared an "Open thread for your predictions on who’ll win the 2020 presidential election. I know it’s too early, but it’s still fun to guess." There were lots of answers, mostly "Trump," but some said Biden or Harris or Buttigieg. After 4 hours of that, I said:

Hillary. It’s her turn.

I laughed and I got laughs:

But is it a joke? Someone else commented...

She's perhaps counting on a brokered convention that no one can win so they have to call her in to be their "savior". LOL.

... and I said:

She's there in reserve. It's a joke until it happens. DJT was a joke until it happened. The funniest thing may be the most likely thing. All the other candidates are bad. I'm not sure the extent to which I was joking. You can't tell the difference between jokes and what's real in America anymore.

I certainly think Donald Trump is by far the most likely to win the election. That's easy to say because his party is pretty much adapted to him. That fight is over. What Trump did to the GOP has played out and (mostly) resolved. The Democratic Party is currently going through some kind of crack-up or evolution. It's fractured and chaotic, and there are — what? — 20 candidates and not one of them is much good. None seems equipped to go head-to-head with Trump.

But John's question is not which party do you think will win the 2020 election. He asks you to pick out a person, and the Democratic Party side is this huge collection of candidates. How can you pick out one and think he/she is more likely than Trump?

So let's ask the question a little differently...

News from the future: The Democrats beat Donald Trump in the 2020 election. It was nothing in particular that he did. He stayed the same. And nothing changed in the economy or foreign affairs or domestic violence or anything like that. It's all about the performance of the Democratic candidate. Now: Who was Democratic candidate?

I'll stick with my Hillary answer!

"She’s a lion in winter. Not only is she running, she should run."

"In the Democratic Party, the question is can anybody throw a punch or take a punch, and one thing we know about Hillary Clinton is she can take a punch.... I think Trump considers her a real rival, whereas his view of the rest of the field is they’ve got to prove themselves."

Said Steve Bannon, quoted in "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Hillary?/She’s not going away—and Democrats aren’t sure what to do about it" (Politico).



Also quoted at Politico — Philippe Reines: It’s curious why Hillary Clinton’s name isn’t in the mix—either conversationally or in formal polling—as a 2020 candidate... She’s younger than Donald Trump by a year. She’s younger than Joe Biden by four years. Is it that she’s run before? This would be Bernie Sanders’ second time, and Biden’s third time. Is it lack of support? She had 65 million people vote for her.... Chalking the loss up to her being a failed candidate is an oversimplification. She is smarter than most, tougher than most, she could raise money easier than most, and it was an absolute fight to the death."

Nixon won the second time around. Why not Hillary?

For those of you who pay attention to the tags on this blog: "Hillary goes away" is my tag for whatever Hillary does on the way out after the 2016 election, so it includes things you might think should be tagged "Hillary won't go away."I didn't plan for the "Hillary goes away" tag to become sarcastic, but I'm not going to create another tag to avoid sarcasm. The thing I avoid is tag proliferation, so if she won't go away, sarcasm happens.

Transcript from "The Lion in Winter" (above): "How beautiful you make me. What might Solomon have sung had he seen this. [Almost looking in a mirror:] I can't. I'd turn to salt. I've lost again. I'm done for this time. Well, there'll be other Christmases. [Holding up jewelry:] I'd hang you from the nipples, but you'd shock the children. They kissed sweetly, didn't they? I'll have him next time. I can wait. Ah, there you are! My comfort and my company. We're locked in for another year. Four seasons more. What a desolation! What a life's work!"