Mailgate Setback For Clinton

Mailgate or emailgate ... call it what you want, but once again a Clinton has failed to follow the rules, and the hunters are now out. Let's be honest, Hilary Clinton was until now a virtual shoe-in for the Democratic nomination (it is 'her' turn), and the turn of a woman ... but has she once again let the 'wimmin of the left' down?

 

One Of These Is Rated Higher For The US Presidency ......

 

Last time, her apparently passive and silent acceptance of Bill's trouser snake issues, without her walking out was a big disappointment to many, who would have preferred her to do a Valerie Trierweiler, and print all in a block buster book  ....

 

.....  but she kept quiet, because although she might have won the plaudits of the left, and of women spurned everywhere, she would never have won what she most desires, the US Presidency (or at the very least a realistic shot at it).

That shot of history (whether she wins or loses), will guarantee her a sort of political immortality that being the former spouse of a President, with odd exceptions such as Eleanor Roosevelt, or Jackie Kennedy, US politics rarely gives. So she was never going to rattle any cages over Bill's extra-maritals, not while the main prize was still in her sights.

Now of course, her campaign could be taken down, or at least severely damaged, if her strange behaviour of using her own mail server and email address, to conduct official business while she was the United States Secretary of State, prove to be both true, and potentially a possible breach of federal law. With 32,000 of her 'official' emails submitted to the State Office as a part of the Congress's Benghazi investigation, and the declaration that she had destroyed some 30,000 'personal' emails from that time, she is skating on thin ice.

 

The hubris that led her to make such a call, may also damage her cause, because lets be honest, the Republican party is likely to field a real numpty this time around (while the far right have such a stranglehold on the process), and this was a golden chance for a woman to win the Presidency .... however it turns out that Jeb Bush, a possible Republican candidate (who has just about survived his first encounter with the far right), also used a private email address (jeb@jeb.org) while in office, and was forced to hand over many thousands of his emails, including the 'personal ones', so maybe the damage will not be so great.

 

This is especially so when you realise that 'Darth Vader' currently has a higher net favourability rating amongst the US electorate than every prospective 2016 Presidential candidate, including Hillary Clinton.

We are of course a long ways out (600 plus days), and many things could go wrong for all the prospective candidates, but are we already possibly seeing the start of a process that will leave Ms Clinton limping into the Democratic nomination, but being so badly wounded that she's picked off by an unheralded Republican, and beaten for the ultimate prize.

If that's the case, then the cause of a woman US President could be set back for a few more decades, or certainly a political generation.