proof the British don't know American politics

The Telegraph in the UK has produced it's annual most influential liberal list. Of Course the President is #1. Hillary Clinton is at number 2, fair enough. But then they go on to write this:

In loyally backing Obama, she has begun to outshine him and her popularity ratings have soared. She has said she will never run for the White House again but it is our judgement that she will be a powerful presidential candidate in 2012 – and could well become the first female president.

This is one of the most dumb things written about our politics.
THERE IS NO WAY FOR HILLARY TO BE PRESIDENT IN 2012.


There's only three ways: Primary challenge, President doesn't run again, independent run:

If our President is so weakened that he could be Primaried or even chooses not to run, then there would be no appetite for Hillary Clinton in the country either. She will have to "own" the foreign policy decisions, and the right wing media would tie her to the domestic through osmosis.

Clinton couldn't get the black vote, and the President's loyalists to ever forgive her running against him in a primary. Therefore she wouldn't be able to unify the party for a General.

Hillary is a Democrat and could never run as an indepedent.
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Now it is possible for Hillary to replace Biden in 2012 and then if Obama-Clinton win, she could win in 2016.

By the way, Hillary has better approval numbers because she is not in the spotlight, and the right-wing has focused on Obama. That's ironic because the President was successful in 2008 in large part because of the "anybody but clinton" mindset.

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I say all of this as a person who supported Hillary Clinton until the very end. I knew that Republicans would attack whomever won and that it would be brutal and felt the Clinton camp was best prepared for this. I was never a fan of the "bipartisanship" angle. I understand the need to talk about it, but seriously George W. Bush had it about right.

The President will make a strong comeback in the polls. I think he will be the deciding factor in a Democratic win in the Massachusetts special Senate seat. There will be a new narrative developing that states when Obama gets political he wins. It didn't work in Virginia or New Jersey but they weren't run on national issues. Once Coakley wins big on Tuesday, and the President passes Health Care, momemtum will build. Then even the people at the Telegraph won't be writing such nonsense.