Hillary Clinton Is Biggest Loser of 2014 Midterms

From Matthew Continetti, at Free Beacon, "The Biggest Loser: It was Hillary Clinton":

The Clintons aren’t gods. They are human beings—extremely, terribly, irredeemably flawed human beings.

Their specialty: Mitigating Democratic losses among whites without college degrees. In 2014, the Clintons couldn’t stop the bleeding. Republicans won the white working class by 30 points. And it will be difficult for Hillary Clinton to reduce this deficit over the next two years.

That is because of her problematic position as heir apparent to an unpopular incumbent. Her recent talk of businesses and corporations not creating jobs illustrates the dilemma: She has to identify herself with her husband’s legacy in Elizabeth Warren’s left-wing Democratic Party, while dissociating herself with the repudiated policies of the president she served as secretary of State. Has Clinton ever demonstrated the political skill necessary to pull off such a trick?

A failed president weighs heavily on his party. He not only drags it down in midterm elections such as 2006, 2010, and 2014. He kills its chances in presidential years. Think Hubert Humphrey. Think John McCain.

The McCain-Clinton comparison is worth considering. Both would be among the oldest presidents in American history. Both are slightly at odds with their party: McCain on campaign finance and immigration, Clinton on corporatism and foreign policy. Both lost the nomination to the presidents they sought to replace. Both campaigned for rare third consecutive presidential terms for their parties in the cycle after those parties lost Congress.

The environment was so hostile to Republicans by the time Election Day 2008 arrived, and the Democrats had so successfully defined themselves in complete opposition to the incumbent, that McCain didn’t have a chance. But who in 2006 had predicted that a financial crisis would be the most important issue of 2008? Who in 2012 had the slightest idea that the Islamic State and Ebola and illegal migration would be factors in 2014? Who in 2014 knows with even the faintest degree of certainty what will loom over the electorate on Election Day 2016?

That's a brutal, and extremely perceptive analysis. More at the link.

I still think she's gonna run, though. She wants nothing more than being the first woman elected president of the United States --- and she'll sell her soul to do it.