World News Korner

Perhaps the biggest winner in the Tea Party's failed attempt to get the government to default is NOT President Obama or even the American people. Perhaps it is a certain ex-Secretary of State.

Courtesy of the National Journal:

In the innermost sanctum of Clintonland, it is difficult to imagine that Hillary and Bill, two of the savviest politicians in the country, are not pinching themselves to make sure that it's all real. Perhaps they're dancing a jig together, or knocking back shots and howling at the moon out of sheer, giddy joy at their good luck. (OK, Hillary's not howling, but Bill might be.) Or maybe they are just quietly kvelling over the latest turn of events.

Because the trend lines are unmistakable, and they're looking better all the time: If she wants to run in 2016, Hillary Rodham Clinton could have the easiest walk into the White House of any candidate in either party since, well, one has to go back a very long way. Maybe to Reagan in '84. LBJ in '64, or Eisenhower in '52, or even FDR in 1932, 1936 and 1940. The presidency is looking like it's hers to lose, more than ever.

The reasons are becoming more obvious with each passing crisis of Republicanism, but are even starker now in the wake of the GOP's embarrassing implosion over the shutdown and debt-ceiling fight. This is an opposition party in such a state of extreme dysfunction that talk of a third-party split in 2016 is almost irrelevant. Why would you need a third-party split to win—as Bill did, recall, cheating George H.W. Bush out of a second term in 1992 thanks to the Ross Perot candidacy—when the base and establishment of the GOP are no longer on speaking terms?

The demographic numbers tell a grim tale for any potential GOP candidate at the same time as they look like manna from electoral heaven for Hillary. The Republican Party, still in the grip of tea-party extremism, is more and more becoming the party of disaffected and aging white voters. Even many Republican strategists are conceding that no GOP presidential nominee can win that way. But the party is not building itself a bigger tent fast enough: Strapped down by House extremists who can't think beyond the demands of their scarlet-red districts, or beyond the next two years, the GOP is not likely to embrace immigration reform despite Marco Rubio's efforts, thus continuing to alienate the burgeoning Hispanic vote that so doomed Romney. As my colleague Ron Brownstein wrote recently: "Absent big GOP gains with minorities, [Clinton] could win, even comfortably, just by maintaining Obama's showing with whites … [But] the first 2016 polling instead has generally shown her trimming Obama's deficit among whites both nationally and in key states."

GOP strategists will say they're changing the rules, cutting the number of primary debates so the next Republican nominee is not subjected to the same "traveling circus" (as national chairman Reince Priebus called it) that Romney was. But that's not going to change the tenor of those debates, in which the candidates will have to outflank each other on the right. They also say, well, you'll see, the tea party movement is fading, or at least becoming more manageable. But it's not, as we saw when 144 Republicans in the House voted against the reopening of the government and extension of the debt ceiling Wednesday night, costing John Boehner the support of most of what used to be known as "his" caucus. More to the point, several of those who might be considered serious GOP 2016 contenders for the presidency also voted in favor of the first default in American history in order to stay in the tea party's good graces, including Paul Ryan, Cruz, Rubio and Rand Paul (supplying the first fodder for those Hillary 2016 attack ads). We'll no doubt see a resumption of GOP extremism in coming months when the two parties battle over spending cuts leading up to the next debt-ceiling deadline on Feb. 7. The tea party is still dictating terms to the GOP establishment, and those terms are just too conservative for the general electorate. And who is now the point man for the GOP in budget negotiations? Ryan.

You know I had this very same thought earlier this morning.

We have already seen the Republicans losing support among virtually every group in America besides older white guys, and essentially every move they make only causes their poll numbers to fall off even further.

In fact I think that the one thing I kind of worried about concerning the Clinton campaign, the ability of the Republicans to dredge up tons of ugly oppositional research about Bill and his lady friends, the impeachment, and possibly some financial irregularities within the Clinton Foundation, are now, in my opinion, far less of a concern.

I mean let's face it, who would do that research? The Heritage Foundation? The Club for Growth? Freedom works? They have all seen their reputations damaged by this shutdown deal, and if they go on the attack it will be quite simple to connect the dots to demonstrate just how underhanded they are and to what lengths they will go to destroy a politician that they don't like.

So when the attacks come all we have to do is say "Consider the source," and move on to a real issue.

So yes I think that the White House is Hilary's for the taking, now more than ever.

Source