Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy ranks way up there.
Jay Cost
TWS
Hillary Clinton is a scandalous candidate for president of the United States. Most people acknowledge this, at least judging by her plummeting poll numbers. A raft of stories gives the distinct impression that she and her husband have been running an elaborate pay-to-play operation. Donations to the Clinton Foundation may have produced favorable State Department policies dealing with Russia-owned U.S. uranium deposits, Haitian relief efforts, and foreign banking interests. Her use of a personal email server while at the State Department, moreover, strongly suggests she has something to hide.
Yet she is still on track to win the Democratic nomination next year. That would be a unique achievement, twice over. She would be the first woman to win a major party nomination—and no major party nominee has ever misused his public authority more egregiously than she seems to have.
Of course, there have been scandal-ridden nominees before. The most infamous is James G. Blaine. One of the more prominent Republican orators of the Gilded Age, he was the frontrunner for the nomination in 1876 until his dubious ties to the railroads came to light. Blaine had pushed through Congress a land grant for the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad, which in turn rewarded him with corporate bonds. When the company hit hard times, railroad tycoon Tom Scott bought the bonds back from him well above market value, prompting Blaine to push legislation that helped Scott’s Texas & Pacific Railroad. It didn’t keep Blaine from finally securing the nomination in 1884, however.
In 1952, vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon was embroiled in a scandal over a political fund established by wealthy supporters. The New York Post claimed it was a slush fund to subsidize Nixon’s lifestyle beyond his government salary. In response, Nixon gave his famed “Checkers speech,” denying any impropriety and claiming to live modestly. At the end, Nixon admitted receiving a dog as a gift. “And our little girl—Tricia, the 6-year-old—named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog, and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.” It was one of the most treacly moments in American politics, but it was a masterstroke.
The historical record is littered with dubious doings by eventual nominees. John Jacob Astor loaned James Monroe $5,000 during the War of 1812. As president, Monroe rescinded an order prohibiting foreigners from engaging in the fur trade, which helped Astor enormously. Andrew Jackson tipped off his friends to the invasion of Florida, signaling a potential investment opportunity. Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and a slew of other politicians received money from the Second Bank in the 1820s. James Garfield was implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. William McKinley and Benjamin Harrison were close to the Gilded Age’s worst political bosses. Alton B. Parker, Democratic nominee in 1904, was close to Tammany Hall. Woodrow Wilson allied with the New Jersey Democratic machine to win the governorship in 1910. Harry Truman was part of the Pendergast machine as a judge in Kansas City.
As in the Clinton scandals, it is tough to pin anything on any of these candidates definitively. That is typical of quid pro quo arrangements. The politician can always respond that the quo had nothing to do with the quid—that he acted as he did because of the merits of the case. Unless the FBI sets up an elaborate Abscam-style sting—in which the feds actually catch a politician on the record admitting he will change policies because of the payments being offered—it is tough to demonstrate guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even then, pols can slip loose. John Murtha was caught on tape in Abscam, and his seemingly ambiguous answers allowed him to get off scot-free.
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So back to Hillary Clinton. She may retain plausible deniability for each apparent ethical lapse, but the scope of the accusations suggests we should not leave it at that. It’s what really sets Clinton apart from the pack. Monroe had a suspicious relationship with Astor, and Garfield had a dubious dealing on Crédit Mobilier. But with Clinton, there is a wide array of questionable practices, dating back decades. There is Russia, Haiti, and UBS. There is the millions donated to the Clinton Foundation by a Ukrainian oligarch just before the Crimea crisis. There is the strange disappearance of the Rose Law Firm billing records. There is her huge windfall in the cattle futures market. There is the shady nature of her private email server. With each item, there could have been an unlikely accumulation of causes that made an innocent person look guilty. But it strains credulity to believe that such bizarre circumstances have conspired against her again and again and again. . . and again and again and again. Instead, one cannot help but return to William Safire’s judgment in 1996 that Clinton is just “a congenital liar.”
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The American people are quite forgiving, or at least pragmatic. They can accept a trainman who receives a bribe, so long as the trains run on time. Bill Clinton is proof enough of this. He was regularly accused of misusing his public authority during his tenure, all the way up to his final days in office, when he pardoned Marc Rich after the latter’s wife donated lavishly to the former’s presidential library. Yet Bill Clinton remains hugely popular, buoyed by warm memories of the 1990s.
So it is hard to argue that ethics alone will upend Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. But American pragmatism may sink her still. This is not a good time, after all, to be suspected of cronyism. There is widespread belief that the “game is rigged” against average Americans in favor of an elite caste, a sentiment that unites the otherwise disparate Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements. Clinton’s scandals give the unmistakable impression that she and her husband, with their vast fortune, sit at the apex of this American oligarchy.
Her scandals offer the perfect opportunity to counter the liberal claim that big government is good for the little guy. Clinton is a living, breathing testament to the tendency of government to favor the rich and well-connected, thereby worsening the economic, social, and political inequality that she complains so loudly about.
This argument will not make itself. It requires a Republican nominee who not only is unquestionably ethical, but who also wants to place Clinton-style cronyism at the center of his or her campaign. The GOP nominee cannot merely recite Clinton’s ethical lapses, but must connect them directly to middle-class stagnation and the growing apprehension that our government is no longer responsive to the needs of the people. If the GOP were to build such a broad narrative around Hillary Clinton’s cronyism and promise to end the corruption she embodies, the party might just win that four-year lease to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
More here:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/annals-corruption_1010508.html?page=2
