Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
HILLARY CLINTON EMBARKS this week on her most high-profile tour since leaving the State Department, a cross-country bonanza where the American public and media will focus as much on her political future as her past.
Of course, she is hawking her new memoir too. “Hard Choices,” which details her four-year tenure as President Barack Obama’s first secretary of state, hits bookshelves on Tuesday and is the rationale for the publicity blitz.
But the optics of Clinton’s weeks-long book tour, when she comes face to face with voters and refreshes some of the skills she has not used as much since leaving public office last year, unavoidably suggest the opening salvo of a 2016 presidential run.
Team Hillary has spent months carefully crafting a systematic rollout of the most anticipated book of the year, teasing the Beltway press corps with excerpts about her response to the deadly attacks in Benghazi and how America remains the “indispensable nation.”
Along the way, the former first lady has kept up a frenetic pace of speeches and television interviews, a whirlwind that will only intensify beginning on Monday with a one-hour interview with ABC News, followed by a swarm of book-related events in places like New York, Chicago and even Canada.
Ahead of the broadcast of the interview an ABC News/ Washington Post poll has showed how Clinton has a strong lead over other theoretical rivals for the Democratic 2016 presidential nomination.
The former Secretary of State, Senator, and First Lady is also holds leads over potential Republican nominees. Thanks in large part to a 53 per cent lead among non-white voters who made up 28 per cent of the US electorate in 2012.
Amid the battle by US networks for on-air interviews, Clinton has scheduled speeches in Philadelphia and Kansas City, a townhall in Washington, a book-signing event at a Virginia Costco and a “conversation” in Austin, Texas, among several other appearances in June.
The woman who narrowly lost the 2008 Democratic nomination to Obama has even agreed to a sit-down interview with Fox News, hardly the friendliest of media outlets for Clinton.
Would someone not interested in the world’s top job really be putting herself through such paces?
“Obviously, she’s getting ready to run for president, (and) she well knows that everything she does is a step in the direction of that goal,” says University of Michigan assistant professor Michael Heaney.
‘Safe Choices’
One of those steps is publishing a memoir that is less a tell-all and more a series of cautious revelations about her time as chief US diplomat.
It is also a reactive and pre-emptive strike against her Republican critics.
The memoir touches on the Iraq War – she called her 2002 Senate vote authorising it a “mistake” – the deadly attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Washington’s shaky Kremlin ties and Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
She also tactfully put some distance between herself and Obama, writing that she favored arming rebels early in Syria’s civil war. Obama resisted.
“No one likes to lose a debate, including me. But this was the president’s call,” she wrote, according to CBS News, which obtained an early copy of the book.
She peppered her memoir with personal tales, including husband Bill Clinton’s emotional first dance with their daughter Chelsea at her wedding.
With Clinton only handing in her manuscript on 23 April, the memoir includes passages that seem pulled from recent headlines, including criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine.
She also addresses her mulling the 2011 negotiations with the Taliban over a US soldier who coincidentally was released last weekend as part of a controversial exchange for five Taliban officials held at Guantanamo.
But “Hard Choices” shares little gossip, and does not shed much light on the inner workings of an administration contending with a dangerous world. “Safe Choices” is how Slate magazine described it.
“No politician is going to write a tell-all book if they think they’re going to have to face the voters again,” said Jennifer Lawless, a professor of government at American University.
Its publication provides “a venue for her to now start travelling across the country and dipping her toe back in the water, and meeting voters and talking to people.”
As for whether Clinton will seek the White House, the former first lady has said she will make her decision this year.
“Will I run for president in 2016?” she writes in her memoir. “The answer is, I haven’t decided yet.”
- Additional reporting by Rónán Duffy
Much and all as the euro is suspect …. when Conservative peers are trumpeting its demise, it makes me wonder whether it’s all bad.
good bit of publicty for his company….
RUN!
(wheres my prize?)
All Noonan has to say is “Thanks very much, we had a good run, I’ll get me coat”
“Dear Mr. Europe,
We have had a good run. We have laughed, cried and worked together for many years but we have grown apart in recent times. The Lisbon Treaty is when the gaps in our relationships became obvious and with the auld downturn things have just gotten worse. The greatest gift of etiquette is knowing the right time to leave a party; not too early for fear of being rude and not too late for fear of being asked to leave. Like Goldilocks now is just right. T’ra. Hope everything works out.
Love
Enda”
It’s nice to read the armchair economist’s comments on the Journal. They weren’t complaining during the good time & now they want to walk away when things get a little tough.
Hi Patrick ,
As indeed my comment was more to have a laugh than thinking it would realistically solve the issues faced , I think as the world seems to be in per-ma crisis we cant forget to have a laugh. I would like to see how you can view the “Good times” If this was the case than there would not be huge credit issues as people would have paid for items with cold hard currency , in my humble opinion it seems more like a credit feast that went pair shape –
I agree it is easier to say ah well and walk away , however I think it is not a case of if the euro fails it is more likely when , and to have some contingency plans in place for ever eventuality is better that scratching heads when it happens.
back to the arm chair and gin hiccup :)
Maybe if we were asked about the euro currency before we were coerced into it, were you asked?….anyone asked?
NOPE.
To quote Blackadder 3…
“I always say, “If you can’t laugh, what *can* you do?” Ha-ha-ha-ha”
“…Take up politics, perhaps.”
Gallows humour. Usually great for a laugh.
@Dermot: The Maastricht Treaty (which we approved by referendum) laid out the target of monetary union, the criteria for joining and the commitment towards the project. It was highlighted in the Werner plan, the Delors report and was made very public during the Maastricht referendum. The UK negotiated an optout on EMU. We were, of course, apparently far more concerned with ensuring that abortion wasn’t introduced here. We had the option to say no as we were in fact asked. You mightn’t like the answer, or indeed the question, but the question was posed.
I don’t think I was old enough to vote on it Seamus…:P
Next Getting countries out of the Euro my Arse!!!
They can well afford to put up €300k!!
They’ve been charging us twice their U.K prices, in their Irish shops for long enough!!!
He’s actually copying someone else. This is not a totally original idea. There was an article in the FT 2 weeks ago about a wealthy Euro sceptic offering mad money for anyone who could solve the euro crisis.
Lisa – you might be thinking of the same guy. The prize was announced in October but only opened for entrants/registration this week. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/16d19598-fb2f-11e0-8756-00144feab49a.html#axzz1dsdtelDs
Yep, it is the same guy after all Gavan. Good work!
Title here was slightly misleading though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KerPlunk_(game) imagine there was 27 sticks and you had to pull them out without the other marbles falling out :) Solved ,well just have to figure out how to pull out the sticks :)
Nuke the site from orbit. it is the only way to be sure.
Just walk away….file for divorce,run anything but the euro….
‘Its nor you Euro, its me, i need to be on my own for a while to figure out what i want from this relationship. I feel a bit suffocated and cant think clearly. I dont know if i want the commitment. I think i might like to play the field for a while, sterling punt. I need space from you,
Has anyone thought about what may happen with all the MNCs we rely on for jobs here if we leave the Euro?
It varies case by case. Companies with a lot of investment here could lose out as their assets would be worth less. Companies exporting from Ireland would have a bonanza with lower costs to produce goods that yield the same prices overseas. However, day 1 losses would be a sunk cost so the ongoing improvement in competitiveness could actually bring more jobs to Ireland.
The only downside is that being in the euro reduces the volatility of earnings by taking away the fx risk. Most companies will be happy to live without the euro for lower costs, a few won’t.
A bigger issue is that it only makes sense to leave the euro if this is accompanied by a default on government debt. A government that breaks its promise to investors can scare away multinationals through uncertainty on the future. A default one day, a rise in corporation tax the next?
Grow a pair,and walk.
If he offered Sterling I’d tell him but what good is offering Euros if we leave the the Euro
The answer in a word, as far as the Conservatives go, is:
“Quickly”
It’s a bit rich coming from them anyway, as Britain isn’t a fully participating member of the EU and isn’t in the Euro. No wonder the Aussies call them “Whingeing Poms”.
Next never have my sizes, sort that out your Lordship!
Very simple; Offer your citizens the chance of a referendum; Germany will make you leave if you!!!! Just like Papandreou tried to do in Greece re: their bailout and Germany & France stipulated that it had to be “Do you want to leave the Eu?”
If there was a referendum on the Euro in countries over the last 5 years, at least half of them would have voted to leave. The EU doesn’t do democracy, so we’l just have to muddle along and see how Brussels can roll over nearly 3/4′s of a trillion euro’s in debt over the next 12 months. The people who lend money don’t believe it can be done, but then again they are just Euroskeptics.
I can guarantee that people who are so adamant about the survival of the Euro are the same people who were blathering about house prices.
Nope. I’ve been renting for 10 years whilst waiting for the housing bubble to burst, but I think the euro will survive.
Even now it was a dumb move, I missed so much of the genuine boom!
I think that was a great idea Sheila. Can’t beat a bit of democracy.
have your say