Thursday, January 14, 2016

2016: Deja Vu all over again for Hillary?

By Rob Janicki

2008 was a very bad year for Hillary with an upstart and unknown black man, the junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, coming out of nowhere to steal the Democratic presidential nomination right out from under the presumptive nomination of Hillary Clinton. 

Fast forward to 2016 and Hillary's mounting problems in achieving her life long dream of becoming the first woman President of the United States.  This isn't just another 2008 experience.  Hillary's problems today are a multiple of what she experienced back in 2008 and they could be just as catastrophic for her.

Hillary is facing two major problems that, taken individually, could seriously damage her campaign.  Collectively these two major problems substantially increase the odds that Hillary will be facing a significant challenge to a free run at the Democratic presidential nomination.

In recent weeks Hillary's dominating primary positions in Iowa and New Hampshire have not only seriously eroded, but have turned in favor to her arch opponent, self avowed socialist, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.  In the months preceding this turn around, no one could have imagined this happening.

Hillary's fall back from a twin failure in Iowa and New Hampshire would have to rest on the proposition that going into the southern primaries would be in her areas of strength with blacks and hispanics.  Whether that belief still has validity, remains to be seen in this turbulent Democratic primary.  The only thing that seems certain in 2016 is that nothing is what it appears to be based upon past primaries.

The truth of the Democratic primary process has seen Bernie Sanders drawing huge crowds compared to Hillary's modest events and small turnouts.  Then there has to be the enthusiasm factor that is seen in the Sanders campaign and which is plainly missing in Hillary's campaign.

All of that said, Hillary's campaign has seen an unenviable and irrefutable decline, while the Sanders campaign has seen a constant growth with the obvious and undeniable upward trend.

That is only half the equation that Hillary's campaign is running into.  The second and potentially more  disastrous problem for Hillary rests on the FBI investigation into her private email server and the potential for having violated numerous federal laws over her time as Secretary of State.  Now, there also exists a second FBI investigation into Hillary and Bill's supposed charitable foundation and the contributions from foreign donors at the same time Hillary was Secretary of State.

Hillary is denying that she and the Clinton Foundation are under investigation by the FBI.  The problem with this denial is that the FBI is under no legal constraint to inform anyone that they, or an entity that they control, are under an FBI investigation.  By all rumored reports, the FBI is, in fact, conducting a parallel investigation of Hillary for the two above mentioned areas of concern.

The FBI, under Director James Comey, is rumored to be preparing a substantial case against Hillary for her use of her private email server.  It is anticipated that the FBI investigation findings and all evidence will be turned over to the Department of Justice by the beginning of spring 2016.  Then the larger question arises.  Should the FBI recommend prosecution based upon its findings, what will the DoJ do?  An FBI recommendation to prosecute would be based upon probable cause as determined by the evidence amassed from the investigation.

What will happen if, in the face of probable cause, the DoJ refuses to bring charges against Hillary for the illegal personal email server?  It's rumored that there will be a massive uprising within the FBI over such a possibility.  This will not bode well for Hillary, regardless of the final determination of the DoJ, which, should the DoJ decline to prosecute Hillary, will undoubtedly be viewed as irreparably corrupt from political pressures coming from the Obama White House.  Hillary will suffer regardless which scenario plays out

In any event there are enough problems facing Hillary to even make her wonder if 2016 is 2008 all over again.

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