This past weekend a boxer named Roy Jones Jr. won a match with an impressive knock out. Mr. Jones was once one of the sport’s greats. He has held world titles in multiple weight classes and 20 years ago played a professional basketball game one Saturday before entering the ring and knocking out his opponent.
So what’s the issue? Roy Jones Jr. is now 46 years old. The “impressive” knock out was over a club level fighter. Roy Jones Jr. is just a shadow of the pugilist he once was, but like so many athletes, he can’t seem to walk away.
Is it the money? The fame? The rush of competition? Only Mr. Jones knows. What is obvious to everyone else however is that he is past his expiration date. Everyone except Roy Jones Jr. seems to know it is time for him to retire.
We’ve seen it with other high profile athletes as well. They don’t know when to walk away. The result is often sad. Now we’re seeing the same phenomena in politics.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has long been perceived by the mainstream media as the inevitable nominee of the Democratic Party. Since 2007 in fact. Yet in 2008 she was not the party’s nominee and what is becoming clear to many is that she is unlikely to be the party’s nominee in 2016 either. Like Roy Jones Jr., Hillary should walk away from her chosen sport. Sure, she can raise money and the media knows her name, but a look at some simple facts demonstrates her candidacy is anything but strong.
Hillary can’t draw a crowd. While relative unknown self-proclaimed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders is drawing tens of thousands to hear him speak, Hillary is meeting with hand-picked groups of 6 and 8 people.
Hillary has been reinvented by more PR firms than General Motors. If you’re nearly 68 years old and have spent more than 30 years in the public eye, do you really need a pollster and a public relations staff to help determine who you are?
America pines for authenticity; meanwhile Hillary focus-groups her jokes.
Hillary’s email brouhaha is looking increasingly Nixonian. First, she set up her own server as Secretary of State so as to control all communication. Then, she neglected to turn over her emails when she stepped down in 2013. When she was eventually forced to comply with the law, Hillary determined herself which emails to turn over and deleted more than 30,000. At the time the issue became public, she assured America that no classified information had made it’s way onto her server. As it turns out, hundreds of emails appear to have had secret information. Hillary said she only used one email address. That turned out not to be true. Hillary said she only used one device to send and retrieve emails. That’s not true. Hillary said the emails she deleted were things like personal correspondence with her husband, Bill. But the former president says he’s only used email twice in his life and neither was with Hillary. The old saying is that where there is smoke there is fire. In this case, it’s a five-alarm blaze.
Nearly no one sees Hillary as honest or trustworthy. One recent poll showed that among white women, a group one would logically think Hillary would dominate at the ballot box, only 30 percent found Hillary to be honest and trustworthy. If she can’t sell that group, where exactly is her support?
The fact is that Hillary Clinton, like Roy Jones Jr., would be best served by walking away from the cameras and the attention. The end to an old boxer’s career is seldom pretty. It doesn’t bode much better for Hillary.
If you tell people Hillary is not inevitable, one question continually comes up. “Who is going to beat her?” Doubters scoff at the notion that Mr. Sanders or Vice President Joe Biden can beat her for the nomination. The answer is actually much simpler.
Hillary Rodham Clinton will beat herself.
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