As our Hillary Watch 2016 series marches on, Hillary 2016 pop-up ads from what I am calling the “Queen’s Machine” are bombarding my computer screen. Ads like the one here shout: “Show Your Support. Take the Ready for Hillary pledge.” (One can only imagine what that pledge entails.)
The ads are proof that the Ready for Hillary PAC is becoming more ready every day and that the Queen’s Machine is in heavy production with a likely “product” launch in early 2015. Here is a quick tour of the assembly line stations at the Queen’s Machine factory.
The Message/Branding Station
Madam-President is a stand alone site within the powerful, influential and Hillary friendly, Emily’s List working 24/7 across the fruited plain touting their mission statement:
The 2012 election was a mandate for women’s leadership. The country is ready for a woman president. And Madam President is ready to harness that energy to put the first woman in the White House. It’s our time. And we’re ready.
(Notice how the action message of “And we’re ready” compliments Ready for Hillary?)
Here is research that Emily’s List uses to bolster their Madame President campaign:
Battleground voters are ready for a woman president, and the country is, too. Almost unanimously (90%), voters in the battleground states would consider voting for a qualified woman candidate from their party. Their readiness goes deeper than this though –86% believe that America is ready to elect a woman president, and 72% believe that it is likely that America will elect a woman president in the next presidential election, including 86% of Democratic primary voters.
Then Hollywood and the mainstream media will be revving up their turbo-charged engines, fuel injected with some variation of an “It’s Time” or “America is Ready” theme.
In tandem, they will work tirelessly to instill guilt in the mind of any Democrat or Independent voter who dares to even think of pulling the lever for someone other than the pre- anointed “Madame President.”
As I opined in January 2013 the movement to elect the first Madam President will be akin to electing the first African-American president in 2008. And, just as the word “racist” was casually tossed at anyone who could not vote for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, in 2016 the words “sexist pig” will be used to describe any man who will not bow to the Queen. (Perhaps “sexist piglet” for women who feel the same? Certainly the Message Station will invent an appropriate catchy phrase that the media will use.)
Included in the Message Station mission is the purging of references to any specific policies/opinions/stances that “Madame President” may hold because historic and first are the only messages that matter.
The Organization
The calendar on my desk reads July 2013, but in the “future is now” time warp of modern presidential campaigns it is prime time to lock up big money donors and key members of the leadership team. In what will eventually be Hillary’s unofficial house organ, the Washington Post reports:
The Ready for Hillary super PAC has drafted top political strategists and fundraisers to help lay the groundwork for former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Meanwhile, the Queen busies herself making over $200,000 a speech and “writing” her next book. The release date and subsequent national media tour is scheduled for June 2014. Notice the book’s perfect timing in sync with the November 2014 mid-term elections — giving way to the royal official proclamation announcement in early 2015 that the Queen is now really really ready to cruise the campaign trail leading to her throne.
However, it is this USA Today piece re-posted on Ready for Hillary that should send shivers down the spines of any Republicans who are contemplating a 2016 run for the White House:
Ready for Hillary, the super PAC pushing a presidential bid by Hillary Rodham Clinton, is joining forces with a firm whose leaders built President Obama’s wildly successful grassroots campaign operation.
The PAC announced it has hired 270 Strategies to build a field operation to marshal voter support for a potential 2016 Clinton campaign. The firm’s partners include Jeremy Bird, Obama’s 2012 national field director, and Mitch Stewart, who oversaw the campaign’s operations in battleground states.
Yikes…this is the gang that stomped on both the Republican Party and their presidential candidate’s field organizations in 2008 and 2012. So naturally they are taking their winning formulas and following the money into the welcoming arms of the Queen’s camp.
Remember how the moment after President Obama took office in January 2009, he started retooling his superb 2008 campaign organization into an even better one for 2012?
So now we are watching as Ready for Hillary builds a similar campaign organization that will be combat ready the moment it morphs into her official organization. Ready to squash/slander/libel/destroy/ the 2016 Republican nominee as he/she emerges from a tough primary battle. Life and campaigns can be unfair.
The Buzz Station
The final station has a mission to promote the Queen’s inevitability (which did not work out so well in 2008 but that was the political equivalent of centuries ago) while at the same time intimidate others who may dare to jump in the 2016 race for the Democrat nomination.
A good example of the Buzz Station in action is David Axelrod’s on-air statement predicting that Hillary will be the 2016 Democrat nominee.
Then, there is no one better than the Queen’s offspring chirping her own special brand of young activism.
Chelsea Clinton, back in June contributed to the productivity of both the Message and Buzz Stations while at the Clinton Global Initiative with this headline maker:
“We need women who are at the head of a boardroom, like at the head of the White House, at the head of kind of major scientific enterprises so that little girls everywhere can then think, you know what? I can do that, I want to do that, I will do that,” she explained.
But when there is need for high level buzz or major rumors need planting or stopping, “Bubba the Big Dog” will be unchained and his muzzle removed. One can only imagine how many staff will be dedicated to controlling/managing/watching William Jefferson Clinton leading up to and during the 2016 campaign. (Now that’s an idea for a TV reality show.)
There you have it, the Message Station, Organization, and Buzz Stations all working to manufacture a historic royal brand three years before the product can be “purchased” at the voting booth in November 2016.
For the sake of the Republican Party’s chances of winning the White House in 2016, one can only hope that the Queen’s Factory assembly line experiences either major work interruptions or the final product peaks too early and needs to be pulled from the shelf.