Hillaryzilla

In a few days I turn 60 years old. I feel 40. I’m a believer that 60 is the new 40, or, at least, it can be.

Among the Republican presidential candidates, only Mitt Romney looks younger than his 60 years. Apparently he can afford to look younger. Everyone else in the Republican lineup looks like Dwight Eisenhower. Seriously. Giuliani, McCain, Thompson. For them, 70 must be the new 68.

The problem with being 60 and looking and feeling 40 is that only a few of us have that privilege. Most Americans are overweight, under nourished, under exercised, over stressed, over taxed, pre-diabetic, and read too much Reader’s Digest.

One look at the commercials on CBS Evening News will tell you something about the health of Americans these days. Pharmaceutical companies own the Nightly News. What money they have left goes into advertisements in Reader’s Digest.

One of the more recent RD issues is so loaded with ads for solutions to health problems that it was difficult to find any articles to read. The full page Cheerios ad highlighted the cereal’s ability to reduce cholesterol. Two pages over was another ad for knowmenopause.com, symptoms, treatments, and other goody-two-shoes medical advice. From whom? Drug company Wyeth.

I wouldn’t mention Wyeth but Terry (campaign manager Terry McAuliffe) tells me they haven’t been generous with campaign contributions.

A few pages over is a four page Reader’s Digest advertisement for people with COPD. COPD? I guess you know who you are. No one else in the world does. Are these real diseases? Not far from the ad about Spiriva, which allegedly helps sufferers of COPD, is an ad from drug giant Bayer hawking their blood glucose testing devices.

Let’s see if I understand this scenario. Big business stuffs sugar into everything and everybody for 50 years, and big business sells devices to test blood sugar and control diabetes to the over 50 crowd. That sounds like a conspiracy to me.

60 may be the new 40 for some of us who can afford decent health care, but from what I can tell diabetes is the new rhino virus.

Last week I was invited to speak at the National Women’s Financial Council Summit at the Hilton in Washington. Mostly it was a gabfest of women courting political influence in exchange for campaign contributions.

California Representative Loretta Sanchez gave the introductory remarks. She encouraged donations and said, “money is the mother’s milk of all politics.” I love that woman. All I could do was smile and nod and brush back a couple of tears.

A speech before an audience of women is like Bill instructing interns on their duties in the Oval Office. It’s an exciting time. Women respond to phrases differently than men. For example, when I said we’re all about “reclaiming the future for our children,” it brought the house down.

A speech before an audience of women does best when it doesn’t climax too soon. Using the word “children” a few times in a speech gets an emotional response from a mostly female audience, but women have another side that needs to be courted, too.

“I will end the Bush administration’s war on science!“

I love that sentence. It works really well when the crowd is made up of teachers.

Then I closed with “I cannot win without you.” They loved it. But it’s true.

Race is not a factor in the 2008 presidential campaign. My campaign takes money from anyone, including Chinese. As long as they’re US residents, or want to be. Or, as long as they have money. Whichever.

Last spring we held a few fundraisers in New York’s Chinese community that pulled in almost $400,000. Not bad for a bunch of dishwashers, waiters, cooks, and people who run laundries. Where do they stash all that money?

Well, now we find out, and it was certainly a surprise to me, that many of those poor Chinese souls were actually poor. How could they afford to donate $2,000 each? The L. A. Times newspaper tried to track down the donors for us. Almost one third of them didn’t have telephones or local addresses and were not registered to vote. It’s obviously a privacy issue. They don’t want to be bothered by reporters. I can’t blame them.

I asked Bill to call his Chinese pal Chung Seto to find out what really happened during the fundraisers. Seto headed up our fundraising efforts with dozens of Chinese neighborhood associations. He’s a resourceful man who helps immigrants get their green cards, and he sells insurance to Chinese business owners to protect them from crime. What a great guy. Obviously, he raised funds. Plenty of funds. But from whom?

More importantly, will we have to give some of the money back? If so, give it back to whom?

What is so hard about riding a pony? Not much. They’re gentle enough creatures that children can ride them so long as there’s an adult nearby. Nobody wants to see a spooked horse.

Bill tells me that riding the latest polls is like riding a pony as a little girl. Sit up straight. Keep your eyes ahead. Don’t look down. Don’t kick the pony to make it go faster.

We constantly poll what voters want and adjust positions accordingly; never quickly, always with a subtle modification in language, no jolts, just constant adjustments.

Here’s how it works. Take the war in Iraq. We want to see it end, right? We want US troops to come home, right? The only real issue is when and how fast.

Last year I said, “I don’t think it’s in the best interests of our troops or our country… to withdraw troops from Iraq.” A quick and sudden withdrawal isn’t a good idea, and most voters we polled agreed with me.

Sentiments change. People are so fed up with the war in Iraq that more of them want to see the president, or the next president, end it now. So, this year I said, “I have been saying for some time that we need to bring our combat troops home from Iraq starting right now.” The difference is subtle, but gives me room to deal with reality.

If I were president right now, I could start bringing the troops home right now. Of course, it would be a few hundred at a time, and the reduction and redeployment would be over several years, but it would begin “right now” just like I said.

President Bush did something similar and it didn’t hurt his credibility or lower his standing in the approval polls. Bush said we need to escalate the war but he called it a surge. That’s more palatable.  The surge added another 30,000 troops to the total in Iraq.

The response of public opinion was swift. Americans want troops to begin pulling out now. So Bush announced that some troops would begin coming home immediately. Voters seem to have forgotten that there are more troops in Iraq than ever before and the immediate pullout will last for years.

That’s how politicians ride the polls. Treat polls like a pony. Guide it, nurture it, don’t give it a heavy load, be prepared to move left, right, or even stop, but always with the intent to go forward.

It works.

In my whole life I have never, ever spent $400 on my hair, whether cut or styled or colored or whatever. We’ll be living in inflation hell before that happens.

So what does John Edwards do? The lawyer goes on the offensive and attacks me on character and truthfulness. Hello? John Edwards is a lawyer running for president. What does he know about character and truth?

I’m hurt. I’m deeply crushed. I’ll have the bastard audited so many times his wife will wish her husband was really John Kerry.

John Edwards can afford $400 haircuts. It is his right, but it isn’t prudent during a presidential campaign. Edwards won his money fair and square by conning juries into big awards against various business interests, earned his hefty commission, and has money to burn on a lackluster presidential campaign.

What he doesn’t have is much time. His 15 minutes of fame are just about over.

From what my aides tell me, Barack Obama has solicited campaign help from Jay Leno’s writers on The Tonight Show.

“Hillary is not the first politician in Washington to declare ‘mission accomplished’ a little too soon.”

That’s a veiled reference to President Bush declaring ‘mission accomplished’ in Iraq before anyone realized the mission was not as advertised.

That’s exactly the problem with the pretty boy candidates in this race. They are not as advertised. To show how tough they are each one takes a swing at the nearest candidate of substance. That would be me.

Bring it on pretty boys. But watch the signs because I’m at bat and ready to ‘swing away.’

I couldn’t let the day end without a quick note on the quote of the day. It’s so funny.

Barack Obama says he’s willing to meet with enemies of the Bush Administration. Good Lord, isn’t that about half the free world and most of everyone else? Anyway, Obama said he’d meet with Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the bearded guy running Iran. Obama justified such action and referenced President Ronald Reagan who negotiated with Soviet leaders during the cold war.

So, Giuliani goes on television at the Republican Jewish Coalition (all four of them were there but you didn’t see them on camera) and says to Obama, “I say this most respectfully… you’re not Ronald Reagan.”

Well, duh? What a cheap shot. It’s especially cheap considering that Rudy’s law firm received a gazillion dollars from Hugo Chavez’s oil company. Apparently it’s acceptable to take Chavez’s money but not talk to him. How gauche is that?

The problem here is that Obama is just sooooo goody-goody that he won’t say anything back to Giuliani and that’s why he’s groveling for money these days. Who wants to give money to a presidential candidate who won’t be tough?

If Giuliani said that to me, which he wouldn’t dare, I would have fired back, “I guess it’s fine for you to take Chavez’s money but not talk to the guy. Not only do you look like Dwight Eisenhower, you act like him, too.”

New Yorkers love a good fist fight. Rudy can beat up on a rich skinny black kid, but lets see him take a shot at a woman.

Bill always said it’s best to play to your strength in politics, build a base, expand the base. That’s what I’m doing. The base is women. Which women are coming to dine at Hillary’s political dinner party?

All of them. Well, most of them. We’ll never get the Stepford Wives. They always vote Republican.

Who watches The View on ABC? Women.

The View attracts women viewers from left to right, dark to white, and everyone in between. It’s a good place to get some face time ,and face time in politics means money.

What I don’t really understand about The View is Whoopi Goldberg. Seriously. The women is wearing dreadlocks. That’s scary. Is Goldberg her real name or is she just playing the Jewish card to get attention? I know blacks love to create unique names for the children. It builds individuality and character, right?

But Whoopi? Who names a kid Whoopi?

Whatever. Money is green regardless of where it comes from. I had a good time on The View but they need to set a time limit on some of those bitchy mini-arguments. It’s distracting. Doesn’t anyone know how to speak in complete sentences?

I asked Terry McAuliffe to send them each an egg timer, courtesy of the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign. You’ll thank me for it.

We’ve received some criticism about all the money our campaign has collected so far. I don’t know how much but it’s a lot. Where does all the money go?

People. Television. Radio. Newspapers. Fundraisers.

Fundraisers? Yes. It costs money to raise money. It’s worse than United Way. I look at the budget from time to time. The numbers just get bigger. Coming in and going out.

She who manages campaign contributions the best wins the war. That’s what I always say. Right now the money is on Democratic candidates by about three-to-one, over Republicans. Those are good odds, except that we’re wasting so much hard-earned Democratic money on campaigns that won’t make it through to spring.

Keeping score is a fun political sport in and of itself. For example, Mitt Romney’s faltering campaign has spent more than twice what he brought in from contributions. That’s a bad sign for him and his supporters. Who wants to give money to a dead horse? Dark horse, yes. Dead horse, no.

One of our operatives inside Barack Obama’s campaign says they’ve prepared an email campaign to solicit money. The email subject is “Hillary’s Money.” I like it. Catchy. He’s begging for money now, and you know what that means, right?

Uh huh. Dead horse. Nobody beats on a dead horse.

I got a call tonight from Mark Penn with a heads up on a CNN poll about to be released. It will show more Republican stars fading fast. All of them but Giuliani. Rudy does a better job of kissing conservative buttocks than anyone else so he deserves the top spot.

What happened to Fred Thompson, anointed savior of the religious right? Shortly after he entered the campaign his numbers were neck and neck with Rudy. CNN’s latest poll will show Fred fading fast and barely a hair above John McCain, 19-percent to 17-percent.

Frankly, there’s not much hair between any of the top three Republican candidates– Giuliani, Thompson,or McCain. I’ve got more hair under my armpits than all three of them have on their heads.

If anyone wants to know, Thompson’s campaign is missing a script. Television actors turned politicians need a script and they need to act. Reagan knew it well and could read a script and he could act like a president.

Thompson just acts like Thompson.

If you ever wanted to see a shooting star, watch Thompson during the debates. All he shoots is his foot.

I’m not so sure about Bill’s participation in the campaign. The crowds just love the guy. For some reason they seem to love Bill even more than me, or so it seems, and my aides tell me that voters look forward to his presence on the political stage come 2008.

Why is that? What is it about that Clinton charm that makes otherwise reasonable voters swoon over his speeches and very presence? He’s a convicted liar and an adulterer, for Christ’s sake. Apparently that doesn’t mean much in politics these days. The public may not demand it but they don’t seem to care if their politicians come with flaws.

Bill loves the spotlight and relishes every moment on center stage. As first husband he’ll have plenty of opportunity. I plan to keep him busy. We’ll see how much he loves politics after eight years on the road. America’s first roving ambassador of good will won’t have time to track down an intern.

Flight attendant? Maybe. I’ll choose who goes on the plane.