posted 05-19-2015 11:33 AM                  

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The Democrats can run, to paraphrase Muhammad Ali’s rebuke of a timid opponent, but they can’t hide.

Hillary Clinton is turning her campaign into a game of hide-and-seek, and the party is terrified. Some leading Democrats are beginning to say out loud what they have said privately for weeks.

What she thought would be a cake walk to Philadelphia and the 2016 nomination is beginning to look like a cornbread walk, and cornbread has no icing.

She took a spanking on the Sunday talk shows, with her party critics focusing on her reluctance to speak up on several key issues, including one or two that have been close to the beating heart of her party.

The rebukes are still softly stated, but there’s power in understatement. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California says it would be “very helpful” if she took a stand on the trans-Pacific trade agreement, which President Obama is trying hard to push through Congress. If he makes it the credit will go to free-trade Republicans. Democrats beholden to the labor unions — which is most of them — threaten to deprive the president of a majority of his own Democrats.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who seems to be everybody’s favorite Socialist, says Hillary should “absolutely” take a position (against) in the debate. And not just in Congress. Some of Hillary’s friends in the punditry are telling her the same thing.

David Ignatius of The Washington Post says her silence on the trade debate in the Congress is “deeply troubling,” which is softspeak for “bad.” Jonathan Martin of The New York Times says her silence is “deafening,” and Robert Gates, the former secretary of defense and before that director of the CIA, says the silence is “a concern” and “a risky way to do business.” Those rebukes are about as soft as a rebuke can get, but they’re on the record with remarks that would have required smelling salts to revive them from such manly exertions only a month ago.

Some of Hillary’s friends are saying — out loud — that she’s making the same mistakes she made in 2008. Her sole strength has been the illusion that she was unstoppable, and it’s on this illusion that her campaign is based — just as it was four years ago. Illusions are the stuff of dreams, not hard reality. Better to avoid taking a stand on substance; the election is more than a year-and-a-half away, plenty of time to change unfashionable convictions, to trade in principles for the newer model.

She has time, in this calculation, to test new convictions and principles against what she finds in polling, focus groups and her gut instincts. “Her approach to this really is not trying to take a ruler out and measure where she wants to be on some ideological scale,” John Podesta, her campaign chairman, tells The Washington Post. “It’s to dive deeply into problems facing the American people and American families. She’s a proud wonk, and she looks at policy from that perspective.” And who knows how to dive deeply into the shallows, trolling for the latest conviction, more skillfully than a Clinton?

Critics on the left, prominently including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have been more a source of irritation than actual fear of a campaign challenger. But now there’s real fear of Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, who has been making more than ritual noise on the left. Flip-flopping on certain issues and hiding on others make it tempting for a candidate like Mr. O’Malley to take her on and see what happens.

Every successful politician knows when to let go of a cherished conviction, a long-held fundamental belief or non-negotiable principle when it suddenly becomes unpopular. Republicans are no less skilled at this than Democrats. But Hillary makes changing convictions look as easy as changing her socks.

She has already changed her words to match the music of the left on immigration, gay marriage, criminal-justice reform and her ties to Wall Street. Such changes, says Colin Reed, director of the America Rising Political Action Committee, “reinforced all her worst attributes as a candidate and hurt her image among voters of all stripes. [Liberal] voters know that she’s not truly one of them.” Independent voters, on the other hand, “see a desperate politician staking out far-left positions that are outside the mainstream of most Americans.”

Most politicians, left and right, are terrified of thinking for themselves, and that’s why they spend so many millions on polls. Hillary, who has had three positions (so far) on same-sex marriage (so called), now is said to be relying on her “gut.” She should rent one, because her own gut has never been very reliable.

• Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.

posted 05-19-2015 11:38 AM                  

Afternoon campaign event in Mason City, Iowa was closed to the press but published on media schedules
The very existence of a second private soiree on Monday, a dinnertime party 85 miles away in Waterloo, Iowa, was kept from reporters
Not even the press 'pool' assigned to share coverage on a rotating basis knew the 6:30 pm house party was going on
Daily Mail Online found the location after following Hillary's new maroon 'Scooby' van at a distance while it raced at speeds up to 95 mph
Asked for comment, Clinton campaign responded with automated form letter warning that it could take '3-5 business days for a response'

By David Martosko, Us Political Editor For Dailymail.com In Waterloo, Iowa

Published: 23:42 EST, 18 May 2015 | Updated: 03:16 EST, 19 May 2015

For reporters trying to cover the opening months of Hillary Rodham Clinton's second presidential campaign, Waterloo, Iowa might be her Waterloo.

On Monday night the Clinton camp held a private campaign party at the home of a wealthy pharmacist in the central Iowa town – a longtime Democratic Party figure – and Daily Mail Online was the only media outlet to make it to the address.

Other press outlets can't be faulted, however: Clinton's aides kept the existence of the party a secret, leaving it off of the schedule circulated to reporters who cover her events in a rotating 'pool.'

Daily Mail Online only found the location after trailing the candidate's motorcade at a distance for an 85 miles trek, at speeds reaching 95 mph.

Clinton's motorcade arrived at the 5,000-square-foot Waterloo home of Bob and Cheryl Greenwood at 6:30 pm, with five escort vehicles accompanying her maroon minivan.

The ordinary Chrysler rental was a surprising stand-in for Scooby, the black custom conversion van that had previously ferried Hillary through Iowa and New Hampshire.

The Greenwoods' neighbors were expecting traffic in their upscale cul-de-sac subdivision.

'This has been in the works for weeks,' one elderly attendee said as she walked down Muirfield Street. 'We've been counting the days.'

She followed two middle school-age children at a distance up the tree-swept street. They carried copies of books for Clinton to autograph.

It's a scene that might have done Clinton a world of good to have preserved on video: cars lining up on a neighbor's lawn like a summer concert parking lot, kids in their Sunday Best on a Monday and locals arriving with 'Hillary 2016' buttons already pinned and stickers neatly pressed on.

A middle-aged woman said as she left and walked toward a nearby church parking lot that there were 'about 75 people' inside. 'We had a blast. A grand time,' she crowed. 'You should have seen it!'

Almost no one did. The press corps wasn't welcome.

An earlier afternoon event in Mason City, Iowa, managed to attract a swarm of photographers and cable news correspondents who grabbed images of the arriving motorcade even though the location was a tightly held secret.

'Hillary will attend a grassroots-organizing event at a Mason City home,' the campaign's press schedule read, noting its location only as 'Mason City, IA.'

It was the only item on Clinton's agenda – officially. Reporters shouted questions as Clinton left, but she acknowledged no one.

In Waterloo, they didn't have the chance to be actively ignored.

'It's maddening,' a print journalist who was in Mason City for Monday's earlier event said in the evening, asking to remain anonymous for the sake of her career.

BOB GREENWOOD, Hillary's host on Monday night, brought about 75 Clinton supporters to his 5,000 square foot mansion in Waterloo, Iowa

'We can't do our job if the Clinton campaign freezes us out and tells us there aren't any more events for the day – and then they race to Waterloo for an event. Don't they understand that they need us as much as we need them?'

There is no record of what she discussed Monday night. Bob Greenwood himself did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Neither did the Clinton campaign. Daily Mail Online received a form-letter reply instead.

'Due to the large volume of requests we receive please allow 3-5 businessdays for a response,' the message read.

Greenwood is a party loyalist – a former three-term Waterloo city councilman and a failed 2012 candidate for the state legislature who in 2013 received the American Pharmacists Association's highest award for 'government and legislative services.'

Greenwood is also the president-elect of the Iowa Pharmacy Association.

Clinton is acquiring a reputation for skirting reporters' questions. An online counter published by The Washington Post has counted the minutes – more than 39,300 of them – since she has fielded a question from a journalist.

As reporters get anxious, voters miss opportunities to hear her weigh in on Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade proposal, and her own scandals involving alleged conflict-of-interest problems at the state department and a private email server where she secretly conducted all her electronic communications while in the Obama administration.

On Tuesday she has a small-business roundtable event scheduled in Cedar Falls, Iowa – a manicured happening of the vintage she has served to journalists before. Pre-selected Iowans will ask her pre-cleared questions on pre-arranged topics.

The maroon Scooby van will deliver Clinton on Tuesday morning to Bike Tech – a Cedar Falls cycling shop – for the staged affair.

Pre-approved journalists, including Daily Mail Online, may attend. But if Clinton has another secret event up her sleeve Tuesday afternoon, the world may never know.

Few reporters will talk about their frustrations with covering Clinton. One other, a cable television news correspondent who, like the first, requested anonymity, mused on what may be in store for Team Hillary.

'Maybe by this point next year Hillary's people will be clamoring for us to interview her as Elizabeth Warren and Martin O'Malley make mincemeat out of her,' the same journalist observed. 'But for now dodging the press just comes off as arrogant and imperial. Which is not the model she ought to be trying to emulate.'

'I mean, really: If you hold a campaign party and there are 100 of us flying in to Iowa to cover you, the least you can do is tell us the event exists. We don't expect you to feed us or mix us martinis. Just don't make this presidential campaign marathon any harder or more idiotic than it needs to be.'