Glenn Beck: Hillary “will win” in 2016

Prominent conservative talker Glenn Beck is making waves this week in like-minded & non-like-minded alike circles with his prediction that Hillary Clinton will win the presidency in 2016.  Via The Politico:

Hillary Clinton will be the next president, Glenn Beck said on his radio show Tuesday.

Beck said a friend of his spoke with “some Hillary people” about her 2016 campaign strategy and after he heard it, he realized the former first lady and secretary of state would become the next White House occupant.

“You guys are going to all be fighting on Benghazi and everything else,” Beck said his friend told him. “And here is what Hillary is going to do: ‘Do you remember when America was good? Do you remember when America, we had jobs and we were building towards a brighter future? And things were really happening? Clinton administration. We had it under control. Things were good, they weren’t great. We’re going to do better. But we’re going to replant our flag in the traditional things that you understand. But the traditional things in the Clinton administration. We could talk about Ronald Reagan all we want. … But the Clinton years were the golden years.’”

[…]

“While we’re talking about technicalities and the past, they’re going to be talking about a past that was brightly remembered, and they will talk about the America we will become,” he added. “She. Will. Win.”

As much respect as I have for Glenn Beck and his opinions on all things political, I’m not buying it. This is the exact campaign Hillary Clinton ran in 2007-08 against Barack Obama.  ‘Vote for me and we’ll return to the glory years you saw before President Bush was elected’, blah blah.  And she lost.  Granted, she wouldn’t be running against a slick talker like Barack Obama the second time around, but that doesn’t mean it’d be smooth sailing for her during the primaries, especially if Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has become a major darling in hard-line Democrat circles, throws her hat into the ring.  As much as the left would love to “coronate” Hillary as the first female president in US history, they want someone who embodies more of their core left wing values and Hillary is largely seen right now as conveniently “playing it safe” and “down the middle” rather than attempting to appeal to her party’s base – unlike Warren – also a woman, of course, and one who is unashamedly liberal.

There seems to be this growing sense of “inevitability” – even on our side – that Hillary will be elected the next president.  Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I don’t think her election is a done deal.  There’s still a lot of ground to cover – both for her potential Democrat and Republican challengers, and for Hillary as well – between now and the time everyone starts announcing their intentions, and in an era where the “fresh and new and different” kind of candidates seem to be more appealing to the masses, someone like La Clinton who has been a national political fixture since the early 1990s may end up struggling to make it into the top three in the primaries.

Of course, it’s early still – and anything is possible so, as they say, stay tuned …