Stalker Carly Fiorina captures media because she wants to upstage Hillary Clinton

Failed Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is obsessed with Hillary Clinton.  If the greatest sign of success is to see copycat wanna-bees swarming after the presidential candidate leader, then Fiorina is a harbinger of Hillary Clinton's success.  She follows Hillary Clinton like a circus clown who runs around with a fly swatter net to deflect danger from the trapeze star. In other words, Fiorina knows she can't swarm her own audience, so she;s stalking the star Hillary Clinton, just to get attention.  I believe the Secret Service should be alerted to Fiorina's weird  stalking behavior.  

In fact, if any other person were following Hillary Clinton, just to draw a crowd, there's no doubt the Secret Service would be involved in surveillance of the stalker.

It's difficult to understand how the news media can report on Fiorina's outrageous behavior, while snubbing Hillary Clinton's Democratic message to help the middle class to improve our human condition.

America doesn't need a stalker to be President. Rather, America needs a proven, and experienced political and humanitarian leader.

Here's what Washington Post article reports:

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina says it's a coincidence that she was in South Carolina on the same day as Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. (Julie's note: oh paaaaleeeze!)

Despite intermittent rain showers, a barbecue smoker was going full blast turning out what a local tout called "smack-your-granny good" brisket and pulled pork. Somebody else was selling hot dogs, a guy was walking around yelling about Benghazi and Fiorina was doing a live hit on CNN -- which was right before her live hit across the street with anchor Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC.

Clinton is Fiorina's foil and chief raison d'etre in the crowded Republican primary field. The only woman among the Republican candidates, she tells crowds that her business background makes her the more accomplished choice to become the first woman president. (She neglects to mention, her HP experience flopped.)

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton took numerous questions at campaign stops in Iowa and New Hampshire last week, including on her Iraq war stance and foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation. (This is truly old news)

Clinton had declined to do so for weeks before that, including at a campaign stop in Nevada and elsewhere.

Of course, Fiorina has taken advantage of Mrs. Clinton's reticence, but her message is boring.  She can't build a campaign on negativity. Although Fiorina is stalking for attention, her lack of vision, failed business experience and lack of name recognition are simply a toxic political cocktail.  At the GOP candidates debates, Fiorina will be nothing more than the token female candidate who will take time away from other, more seasoned candidates. She'll deprive others who might really have something to say, given the time to express themselves.  If Fiorina really dislikes Hillary Clinton, as much as she harps about it, then her role in the GOP school play should be to have one of the qualified Republican candidates win the primaries and compete in the 2016 election.

By the way, perhaps the Secret Service should be evaluating how Fiorina is scheduling her bogus campaign stops. There's a fine line between speaking where Hillary Clinton happens to be campaigning and stalking the candidate for the purpose of stirring up deliberate harassment.  Upstaging Hillary Clinton is not a noble presidential characteristic and it demonstrates lateral violence rather than leadership.

Hillary Clinton - progressive leadership experience and no new news

NewsMax is sending Hillary Clinton an overt warning about what to expect if she decides to run for President.  Of course, the hate and negativity from right wing media will begin the moment Mrs. Clinton announces (in fact, it's already positioned ready to go).  Nevertheless, Mrs. Clinton is the hope for progressives. Yet, there's no "new news" in Mrs. Clinton's biography; so whatever horribles right wing invents will be old news.  What Mrs. Clinton needs to do is to focus on the future.
Issues for the future:
1.  Liveable wages
2.  Affordable, quality and accessible health care
3.  Job security
4.  Economic growth through government investment in research and investment in advancing technologies.
5.  Protection of earned benefits like Social Security, Medicare, Veterans pensions, benefits and eduction.  
6.  Support for sciences over myths - impact of global warming!
7.  Energy policy
8.  Strong national defense
9.  Path to citizenship for all legal immigrants
10.  Bi-partisanship in Congress

Meanwhile, be prepared and batten down the hatches against right wing hate.  From NewsMax:

Albert R. Hunt: 
Clinton Should Be Ready for Predictable Attacks

Democrats' drubbing in the midterm elections simplified one of Hillary Clinton's challenges: Now she can strike some distance from President Barack Obama. Everybody else is doing it.

The former secretary of state, who is almost certain to run for president, has the luxury of time to elaborate her strategy. 

Nevertheless, there will be matters beyond her control: relentless attacks, even including some from the left.

But it's mainly the political right and Republicans who will work tirelessly to dig up dirt on the expected 2016 Democratic nominee. For all the talk of empowered congressional Republicans investigating every facet of the Obama administration, they won't miss any opportunity to look into Clinton.

She's tough, resilient, and likely to be prepared for this predictable onslaught. More instructive is whether she's prepared for matters within her control. These include defining her candidacy and possible presidency. It won't be sufficient to run on competence, breadth of experience and reminders that, by the way, my husband's White House years were the salad days for the U.S. economy.  

Her foreign policy credentials are fodder for champions and critics alike. But there is no domestic centerpiece. She needs an innovative, even bold approach -- this is a cautious politician -- to dealing with middle-class economic stagnation and income inequality.

That requires choices and trade-offs. She has a good and lucrative association with Goldman Sachs. She also praises the liberal Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren: 

"I love watching Elizabeth give it to those who deserve to get it," she said last month at a campaign rally in Massachusetts. One of the institutions Warren likes to "give it to" is Goldman Sachs.

Can Clinton put together an efficient, functioning campaign? In the 2007-2008 cycle, the Clinton camp was rife with infighting, warring clans as the many elements of Clintonland weighed in, sometimes not helpfully. Especially controversial was top strategist Mark Penn, who had to step down late in the campaign when it was disclosed he was simultaneously working for the government of Colombia.

It's expected that former President Bill Clinton's chief of staff, John Podesta, will assume the role of chief executive in the 2016 campaign. It would be a widely praised selection. He is an adult who, as a strategist, understands the nexus of politics and policy as well as anyone since Jim Baker, the legendary Republican who served in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.

Other names being considered for top positions include Democratic operatives and Clinton campaign alumni such as Robby Mook, who won every primary he directed for her in 2008, and Guy Cecil, who has run the Democrats' national Senate campaign committee. 

There also are prominent women such as Stephanie Schriock, who has managed successful Senate candidates and now runs Emily's List, which tries to elect pro-choice Democratic women to political office. (And Penn, who was on the outs, is reportedly talking to the Clintons.)

Clinton also is reaching out for advice outside her political circle, most notably from David Plouffe, who ran Obama's presidential campaigns.

The big question is whether she will assemble a coherent team that holds at bay some of the more disruptive elements of the far-reaching Clinton constellation.
 

Will there be a Bill problem? The former president's indelicate comments caused her some anxiety in 2008. He was rusty then, having been out of the campaigning limelight for a while. In 2012 and during this year's midterm congressional elections, he's shown he's back: easily America's best stump campaigner as well as the most popular politician.

Like everyone else, she pales next to him on the campaign trail. He also possesses superb political instincts; she doesn't and is more methodical. Unfavorable comparisons will be made; she can't let that get to her.

The ex-secretary of state's book and promotional tour earlier this year fell flat. Yet she won raves for her campaign appearances this autumn.

In modern American politics, there has never been such a prohibitive front-runner who wasn't the incumbent president. No one, in either party, can boast of such odds of winning. Yet Clinton's path will be full of unforeseen changes, and more than a few ugly moments.

How she prepares in the next few months may well determine how she weathers the storms.

Looking to 2016- CNN Reports a Deadlocked Race

Although CNN reports a 2016 tight political Presidential race between Mrs. Clinton a Democrat and Governor Christie a Republican, the fact is, the election isn't happening for two more years. I'd rather be two points behind in a statistical tie two years out than ahead in such a hypothetical match up.

Here's why:

1. Christie will inevitably screw up in the next two years, he's an ego machine and it will trip him up. 

2. Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, is totally cool under pressure. She's a known entity, there's virtually nothing we don't know about her. 

3. Christie's supporters are the very people who score dismally against Mrs. Clinton in the CNN Poll.

Christie's fan club are like anchors dragging him down. Christie's surrogates have the potential to tank him.

4. Mrs. Clinton's surrogates are super stars. Enough said about them.

Of course, right wing nuts will carry on about the Benghazi tragedy, which unfortunately happened on Mrs. Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State. But, unless new information is forthcoming, the entire catastrophe could backfire on zealous Republicans. They need new information about Benghazi and I doubt anything else is forthcoming.

Christie supporters, on the other hand, continue to hail his overwhelming victory in his re-election for governor in distinctly Democratic New Jersey. This super victory doesn't endear Christie with the right wing of the very conservative Republican party.
Regardless of how wide a margin Christie gained in his re-election, his victory was an endorsement of his rapid response to the Sandy hurricane disaster, rather than a coronation for national political status.

I suspect the more we learn about Governor Christie the less likely he is to gain enough popular support to defeat Mrs. Clinton in a Presidential election.

All of the above is presuming, of course,that a 2016 election is a Clinton versus Christie debate.

Therefore, I suspect Mrs. Clinton is feeling good about her two point down challenge in a neck and neck election, if one were held today.Candidate want to avoid a toxic sense of inevitability. Rather, Mrs. Clinton will have the opportunity to define Governor Christie, because, after all, he's still a political unknown to many, especially to right wingers who, frankly, would rather vote for a resurrected Attila the Hun than a moderate Republican.

CNN's neck and neck poll is a teaser to keep the pressure on the Democratic and Republican front runners in a quest to create rather than report news.

As a blogging news reporter, my opinion is to advise CNN to spend their political polling money on reporting real news. Hypothetical deadlocked political races are totally useless prognosticators of election outcomes. Mrs. Clinton will not be enticed to announce any earlier just because CNN polls are giving a measly 2 point advantage to Governor Christie.

Hillary Clinton Testing 2016 Campaign Themes - Washington Post

“When you’ve got a complicated set of problems with a lot of moving parts — and even Albert Einstein couldn’t give you the right answer to every question — the only thing that works is cooperation,” Clinton said Sunday in Dale City.

Compromise will likely be the new "hope and change" theme for 2016, but Americans need to understand the risks and benefits of touting this politically opportune concept. 

Compromise should mean that Republicans want to strengthen Social Security and create a Medicare for all health insurance policy. Compromise shouldn't mean giving away the social contracts supported by Americans since the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935.  But, of course, Mrs. Clinton must get elected and voters are understandably weary of Washington DC's political acrimony.

The Washington Post reports that President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton were testing out potential a 2016 "compromise" campaign theme during a recent tour of Norfolk VA.

NORFOLK — In recent stump speeches and policy remarks, the Clintons have offered sharp criticisms of the partisan gridlock paralyzing Washington, signaling a potential 2016 campaign theme if Hillary Clinton chooses to run for president.

The Clintons’ critiques in recent days are explicitly aimed at congressional Republicans, who helped spur a 16-day government shutdown and potential debt default in October. But, their remarks also seem to contain an implicit rebuke of President Obama’s failure to change Washington, as he pledged when first running for the White House.

The arguments suggest a way that Hillary Clinton could attempt to run in 2016 as an agent of change — potentially putting her at odds with the two-term Democrat she would be seeking to replace.

At campaign rallies and other appearances, both Clintons have called for soothing partisan tensions and have espoused a vision of governing by compromise. Barnstorming Virginia this week with longtime friend and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, Bill Clinton repeatedly assailed ideological politics on both sides of the aisle.

“When people sneeringly say, ‘McAuliffe is a dealmaker,’ I say, ‘Oh, if we only had one in Washington during that shutdown,’ ” the former president said at a rally here in Norfolk on Monday. “It’s exhausting seeing politicians waste time with all these arguments. It is exhausting. People deserve somebody who will get this show on the road.”

Themes about change are particularly ironic for the Clintons, considering that one or the other has held public office in Washington for the past two decades. But, Bill Clinton’s tenure in office was also marked by fierce partisan battles that roiled the nation, including an impeachment fight and two government shutdowns.

In the 2008, Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton dismissed Obama’s message of post-partisanship as woefully naive. But since stepping down as Obama’s secretary of state earlier this year, she has adopted a similar theme, repeatedly berating lawmakers for choosing “scorched earth over common ground.”

“We are careening from crisis to crisis instead of having a plan, bringing people to that plan, focusing on common-sense solutions and being relentless in driving toward them,” Clinton said last week during at a Center for American Progress gala.

Neither Clinton brought up Obama directly in their remarks or explicitly criticized his leadership. Still, the Clintons’ general critiques carry echoes of the charges Republicans have frequently leveled against the current president: that Obama doesn’t respect their ideas and resists compromise with them.Obama has been making his own pleas for bipartisanship, even if they fall on deaf ears on Capitol Hill. “Now more than ever, America needs public servants who are willing to place problem solving ahead of politics,” he said at Wednesday’s memorial service for former House speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.).

The Clintons have been careful to distinguish between promoting bipartisanship and ceding ground on core values. Hillary Clinton, for example, has been busy advocating for traditionally liberal issues such as minority voting rights, gay marriage equality and women’s rights. (But, what about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Benefits, unemployment income security, access to public educational opportunities, immigration reform and disability benefits?)

Is the Clintons’ talk of brokering compromise, an implicit rebuke of Obama years

This appears to be an effort by Clinton, following a four-year hiatus from domestic politics, to cement ties to the Democratic Party’s progressive wing. If she runs, Clinton would want to avoid a repeat of the 2008 campaign, when Obama built support among liberal activists by running to her left on the Iraq war.

The Clintons’ message is one that Democrats across the country could carry into the 2014 midterm elections, where the battle for control of the Senate could come down to a handful of hotly contested races in states that lean Republican.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D), who represents a Northern Virginia swing district, said after a recent McAuliffe rally that the message laid out by Bill Clinton would be “a really powerful theme into the next cycle.”

“We’re the party of governance,” Connolly added. “You want things to work? You have to eschew that hard-right, I-know-best ideology.”

In Kentucky, where Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes is challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), Clinton recorded a video endorsing Grimes in which he says the nation needs more political leaders “willing to work together across the lines of party, geography and philosophy.”

“We have simply got to have more people who are willing to reach across the aisle and say, ‘I’m ready to work with you to build a better future,’ ” said Clinton.

In his Virginia speeches, Clinton said that he learned through eight years as president and 12 years as Arkansas governor that it’s important to advocate for your own philosophy but a mistake to not consider your opponent’s.

“When you’ve got a complicated set of problems with a lot of moving parts — and even Albert Einstein couldn’t give you the right answer to every question — the only thing that works is cooperation,” Clinton said Sunday in Dale City.

Principled compromise, Clinton asserted later that evening in Hampton, Va., is “a moral position.”

“It simply recognizes that nobody’s right all the time, your life is as important as mine, your opinion is entitled to the same respect mine is, and we’re all in this together, so we might as well work together to row this boat and go somewhere,” Clinton said.

Clinton’s presidency, however, was marred by plenty of partisan battles. Republicans torpedoed his health-care reform proposal and won control of the House midway through his first term. In 1995, a budget stalemate with the GOP-controlled House led to two separate government shutdowns. Three years later, the House voted to impeach Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Nevertheless, Clinton credited his work across the aisle with balancing budgets and creating 22 million new jobs — and lamented the state of the country today.

“This economic thing, it’s terrible,” Clinton said in Hampton. “Median family income — after you adjust for inflation, is lower than it was the day I left office. That was a long time ago. And we need somebody who wants to do something about it.”

Many voters attending the rallies said they longed for a return to the Clinton era. “He’s the voice of reason,” said Sally Mullikin, 52, a self-described women’s rights advocate from Richmond.

“We’re tired of the fighting,” said Eileen Slade, 63, a Democrat from Midlothian, Va., who was wearing a “Ready for Hillary” button. “We want compromise — whatever it takes to get things done.”

This is the sentiment that both Clintons have been channeling. At his Virginia stops, Bill Clinton repeatedly said the Founding Fathers wanted elected officials to be practical above all else, designing a system of governing that would force them to negotiate with each other.

“Read the Constitution of the United States of America,” Clinton said Sunday in Richmond. “It might as well have been subtitled, ‘Let’s Make a Deal.’ ”

We Love You but "Wait Hillary Wait!"

Democrats and many in the news media are rolling out the Hillary Clinton coronation regalia, in anticipation of a 2016 Presidential run by our former First Lady and brilliant Secretary of State.  Although there are excellent reasons why those among us would love to bellow "Hail to Chief Hillary", we should be cautious. Instead of a coronation, our mantra, instead, should be "Wait Hillary Wait!"

Here are some reasons why:

1.  A Right Wing Cervantes Complex:  As soon as Mrs. Clinton announces her intention to run for President 2016, she'll polarize right wing extremists who are currently charging at proverbial political wind mills right now.  In the absence of another viable Democratic candidate, nobody is "official", right now, to attack, . Mrs. Clinton shouldn't become a modern age Pauline, waiting for dramatic rescues by heroic white hat Democrats.  Instead, Mrs. Clinton has time and the motivation to let the right wing extremists obsess over their Cervantes complex, attacking "wind mills", until they run out of political ammunition.

2. Money:  Mrs. Clinton has the capacity to raise lots of campaign money, but with a serious caveat.  Once she officially announces, her fiances will be put under a high intensity ethical microscope.  Among the first people waiting for quarterly campaign finance report disclosures will be the Cervantes obsessed right wing extremists, who will leap to make mountains out of ant holes with the filing information. They'll keep right wing media networks busy fabricating outrageous campaign finance stories, too many to keep track of, all of it negative.  It won't even matter if it's true.  On the other hand, the longer Mrs. Clinton waits to (hopefully) make her candidacy official, political action committees can continue raising money on her behalf, while the scrutiny is temporarily deferred, and the money accumulates.   

3.  Positive Public Opinion poll numbers::  Mrs. Clinton continues to build a reservoir of world good will resulting from her 8 years as First Lady of the United States and four years as Secretary of State. During those years,  she was an advocate for health care reform as well as women and children's human rights.  It makes no sense for her to use her public relations cash in this bank of positive public opinion until she needs to invest it for a formal political office run. Meanwhile, she continues to enjoy her well earned positive PR.

4.  Getting to know people- While Mrs. Clinton isn't an official presidential candidate, she is warmly welcomed as a keynote speaker by diverse groups, without having to bother with projecting a political motive.  After she announces, every speech or appearance will be scrutinized.  Right now, as President Obama said, Mrs. Clinton has a "post White House glow", meaning, she beams by knowing she's free to spread good will. Announcing her official political candidacy will certainly put frost on the moonbeam, so to speak.  An announcement will force her back into the spotlight of a media blitz, where her use of time will be judged and her motivations continuously analyzed.  Meanwhile, Mrs. Hillary Clinton is getting to know people without having the shackles of being a political candidate.  

News media are absolutely gleeful about an anticipated Hillary Clinton presidential announcement, because it will supply pundits with plenty of air time to fill, not to mention the launch of big paid political advertisements.  

I can't think of any reason why Mrs. Clinton should put herself into a political buzz saw of a media blitz, when no one in the political arena today is financially equipped to challenge her, if she wants to be our US president.  

Support for Mrs. Clinton builds and political action committees are raising money on her behalf. So, the mantra should be "Wait Hillary Wait".  After all, Democrats must face the challenge of building momentum in the 2014 mid term elections.  Americans certainly don't need a premature 2016 presidential campaign right now. Rather than prematurely announce her intentions to run, Mrs. Clinton can be most effective using her charisma to keep Democrats hopeful about the future, in spite of negative and regressive right wing opposition.

No wonder Mrs. Clinton is beaming.  She's at the pinnacle of a magnificent career and her future is full of promise.  She's in a stunning position, especially for a seasoned politician who has given her life to public service.  Although Mrs. Clinton can wait to announce, our nation desperately needs for her to tell us she will lead us into a progressive era.  Yes, she can wait to announce, but let's be confident about her intentions. "Run Hillary Run".

Where's the Help? Americans Must Ask how Republican Scandal Obsessions Supports Middle Class and Poor

Americans are deluged by 24/7 news coverage whereby political scandals du jour captures headlines, while detracting from the debate needed to protect the economic needs of majority of middle Class and poor Americans.  

In other words, Congressional Republicans are deliberately ignoring the stupid sequestration, a series of fiscal cuts whereby working class people are subjected to the impact of cuts in government contracts. These cuts are forcing federal employee furloughs and reductions in funding programs for underprivileged children, like Head Start. Republicans can't even respond to the desire of 85 percent of Americans who want the Congress to do more to protect us against gun violence.

Instead, Republicans, who preach fiscal austerity, apparently have no problem wasting taxpayer money by building myths around real or perceived scandals. They demand ridiculous emails and documents to create doubt about administrative responses to the tragic outcomes in Benghazi. Their rhetorical questions that won't bring back four Americans killed in an attack on the US Consulate and where Ambassador Stevens died as a result of the violence.  

Included in wasteful Republican Congressional time are futile and repeated efforts to repeal health care reform, aka Obamacare.

For some unknown reason, Republican refuse to accept the results of the 2012 election and the victory of President Barack Obama.  Although Republicans are certainly capable of counting the number of voters who opposed their candidate - Romney, (many Democrats waited hours to cast their ballot for President Obama), they have, nevertheless, decided to follow a strategy to obstruct all of President Obama's progressive agenda.

Obstructionism and muckraking scandals does nothing to help ordinary Americans.  Of course, why would Republicans want to help ordinary Americans, who voted against them in 2012, in support of re-electing President Obama?   

In fact, all elected leaders take an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution, which means abiding by the will of the people.  Our US Constitution begins in the preamble with the phrase, "We the people....." .  This Democratic document does not begin with "We the Congress.....".  

Although the Congress recently began a practice of reading the US Constitution, a ritual at the opening of new sessions, the readers don't seem to understand the importance of the first sentence.

Average Americans need help protecting good paying jobs from being outsourced to cheaper labor markets.  Americans need help to protect our retirement income and Social Security safety net.  Americans need access to affordable, and quality health care to protect our well being against chronic diseases and debilitating infections.  Americans need safe infrastructure in our communities including good roads, reliable public transportation and a national policy to provide everyone with access to wireless technology.

Incredulously, Republicans simply can't find a way to rise above the 2012 election results  Instead of showing Americans how their leadership can improve our lives, they choose, instead, to create chaos. They're like the Cervantes character, Don Quixote, in Man of La Mancha, the man who fights windmills, thinking they're dragons.  Yet, instead of windmills, the Republicans are creating political dragons, by inventing myths and conspiracy theories, about real and imagined scandals. Moreover, Republicans soak up tax paid salaries, while doing nothing to lift the stifling, stupid and needless budget sequestration. 

Since Republicans don't get what happened in the 2012 election, it's time they receive an even more emphatic message in the 2016 elections. Americans must politically punish Republicans who won't (a) compromise on issues we care about, like improving gun safety, (b) don't seem interested in supporting the will of the people who elected President Obama, and (c) continue to be engaged in obstructionism by not lifting the sequestration (and blocking progressive programs that require raising taxes on the rich and super rich). 

It's time Americans demand accountability from Republicans. They must explain how they intend to help Americans, rather than create fear, obstruct progress and protect the rich from paying their fair share of taxes. Obviously, Republicans can't explain anything unless the facts are shrouded in lies and myths. 

Entrenched Republican politicians must go the way of Don Quixote, who died in a feverish sate of delusion.