Mark down this date: December 3, 2017. Why? Because of all the ridiculous stories ever published in Politico, the one written by Bill Scher on that date could well rate as the most absurd of all.
Scher, a liberal pundit and contributing editor to Politico's magazine, proposes that if the U.S. Senate seat from Arkansas is open in 2018 due to Tom Cotton leaving the Senate that either Hillary, Bill, or Chelsea Clinton should run for that seat. Adding to the absurdity of that proposal is the fact that Scher details why none of the Clintons would have much of a chance winning that seat so why bother writing the article in the first place?
And yet he did write it, possibly in order to purposely qualify for the award of Most Ridiculous Article Ever Published in Politico. His bid for such an award is presented in Clinton Should Run for Cotton’s Senate Seat:
If Arkansas Democrats want to field a serious Democrat, there’s only one name to consider. I’m talking, of course, about Clinton.
All of them. And yet for each and every Clinton Scher lists, he also demonstrates why they are also unelectable in that state so why even bother proposing this other than to prove his utter silliness to the entire world?
Of course, Hillary Clinton would have to overcome a lot of impediments to become only the third person in history to have represented more than one state in the Senate. She just lost Arkansas to Trump by 27 points, and didn’t even bother to campaign there. She’s not a native Arkansan and was always a polarizing figure during her stint as the state’s first lady. She didn’t come back there to live after serving in the White House, nor does she visit often. A sudden return to the state would likely dredge up bad memories of the Whitewater investigation, in which she was never charged with crime but many of her Arkansas associates were convicted. As Bloomberg columnist Leonid Bershidsky summed up after visiting the state during the 2016 campaign, “Arkansas is pleased to forget Hillary Clinton.”
Now that Scher just shot down his own proposal for a Hillary candidacy for senator from Arkansas, he leaps to the next Clinton on the Pixie Dust list:
But what about Bill? Might he follow John Quincy Adams’ footsteps and become the second ex-president to serve in Congress? He was born and raised in the state. He did win statewide time and time again, as state attorney general, governor (except for that one time) and president. And unlike Hillary, he does visit his home state regularly, staying at his 5,000-square-foot crash pad atop the Bill Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.
...But Bill is suffering a post-Weinstein Effect reassessment of his sexual misconduct, proven and alleged. Two of his accusers, Paula Jones and Juanita Broaddrick, still live in Arkansas and would likely hover over the race as they did when they crashed the 2016 town hall presidential debate. Plus, Broaddrick is publishing a book in January titled, “You'd Better Put Some Ice On That: How I Survived Being Raped by Bill Clinton.” Let’s just say, the timing isn’t right.
Perhaps Matt Lauer could serve as Bill Clinton's campaign manager. Anyway, with a Bill Clinton candidacy proposed and subsequently shot down by Scher, he reaches out for the last available Clinton:
That leaves us with one Clinton left: Chelsea.
She has the Clinton name but little of the Clinton baggage. She wouldn’t hurt for name recognition or campaign cash. She’s vice chair of the controversy magnet known as the Clinton Foundation, but emails released during the presidential campaign by WikiLeaks and the State Department show Chelsea getting caught doing good, seeking to root out corruption by foundation officials and warning of problems with Haiti earthquake relief.
And with every Bill Scher Clinton candidacy proposal comes the inevitable reasons why such a candidacy would not work well:
Vanity Fair’s T. A. Frank ripped her as an intellectual phony: “reading anything by Chelsea Clinton—tweets, interviews, books—is best compared to taking in spoonfuls of plain oatmeal that, periodically, conceal a toenail clipping.” The New York Post’s Michelle Malkin described Run Chelsea Run articles (like this one!) as “pathetic” attempts by the “the Hollywood-media complex [to] squeeze blood from a rotten turnip.”
Chelsea will get a similarly rude welcome into any race. But by entering the Arkansas contest, she would at least start her politician life with exceedingly low expectations. That would give her the opportunity to establish her own political persona, hone her stump skills and prove she can beat back the inevitable Clinton family conspiracy theories without the pressure of risking her entire political career on her first race. Even if she lost, by running respectably and helping get the state party off the mat, she’d get credit for beating the spread.
Somehow it is hard to picture Chelsea even bothering to stick around in Arkansas to run for office there again after her sure loss the first time. Her big Manhattan condo would be beckoning her to return.
Exit question: Will Bill Scher propose that John Edwards should run for president in 2020 and then list all the reasons why he would probably lose?
