Reply #34: That is far more believable [View All]

[karynnj]

I think that he has for a long time known that he would run for President, but the decision he may well have made a year ago last December was to run now. It is also clear that he played with the idea before that. Durbin was quoted as encouraging him to do so earlier. I also assume that he did a lot of work testing the water and finding out what support he would have before that. It was known that he intended to make a decision when he and his family vacationed in Hawaii.

With HRC, there were stories in 1993 that Gore would pick her as VP, and it would be Clinton, Gore, Clinton. Whether she encouraged those stories or they encouraged her to think about it, they were there. There were also stories that in late 2002 or early 2003, she and her allies determined that she would run in 2008, after a then predictable loss by whichever Democrat ran against Bush who then has approval ratings in the 60%s and was a war time President. (This is NOT saying that when Kerry was viable, they worked against him.)

The expenditures of her Senate campaign in developing an elaborate national database that would rival what the DNC did and the fact that she raised far more money than would be needed by a Senate campaign where she barely had an opponent show that the 2008 groundwork was being laid. The other thing, noticed when she entered the race is that the website video she used to introduce herself proves the decision was earlier. It came out in January 2007. The video was filmed in a cozy room in the Clinton's house. Through the windows, you could see the pretty greens of spring. NY does not look like that in winter, it had to have been filmed about a half a year later. (caveat - I am a failure as a gardener - so I could be wrong. I also did not review the film but am going on memory - I had been impressed at how they made HRC look very warm and friendly then.)