NBC News called it a “double-whammy,” and the Washington Post saw it is nothing but “bad news” for Hillary Clinton as a convergence of events – the latest regarding her email scandal and her plunging support – made headlines Wednesday.
But talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said the news has significance far beyond one candidate.
It’s indicative of a political party in decline, he told his listeners Wednesday.
“You take a look now at the Democrat presidential primary and who are the two front-runners here? An aging, frumpy, Nurse Ratched kind of non-charismatic, stern-looking woman. And over here a guy that looks like he’s 85 years old bounding about, being thrown off the stage by #BlackLivesMatter protesters,” Limbaugh said.
“We’re told the Democratic Party’s the party of youth and hip and cool and all of this, and yet the best thing they can come up with is a couple of dinosaurs,” he said.
“Who both happen to be white.
“Who both happen to be Marxists to one degree or another.
“Where is the youth? Where is the hip? Where is the cool?”
The assessment of the Democrats’ chances in the 2016 presidential race came after a 24-hour period in which Hillary Clinton took a one-two punch.
First, the long-simmering controversy over her decision to set up a private email server in her home to handle her communications as secretary of state, rather than using a government program, erupted.
The FBI said it would take custody of the server after it was reported that multiple emails contained classified material in direct contradiction to assurances Clinton has made multiple times.
Then came Wednesday’s polling showing that self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders leads Clinton for the Democratic nomination in New Hampshire.
“I think this is big,” Limbaugh said. “I think this is problematic for her. I think she’s got two problems today.”
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He continued: “I mean, we now have the specter, the uniqueness of a candidate for the presidency under criminal investigation. We just haven’t been here before.”
It’s starting to look, he said, like an earlier election when a newcomer to the political scene, Barack Obama, swept Hillary Clinton’s campaign into the shadows.
“Have you seen this? Bernie Sanders is surging. He is up seven points over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, 44-37. This is starting to be a replay of 2008, folks,” Limbaugh said.
“I mean, here you had Obama came out of nowhere, and at least half the media just abandoned Hillary and went for the guy. Half the Democratic Party abandoned her, and we didn’t even have a scandal like this. Now we’ve got her under criminal investigation. All of this email stuff and whatever else drip, drip, drip. … And over here, Bernie Sanders burning and tearing the place up.
“It’s a combination of these two that are really making people think that she’s now toast, in terms of winning the Democratic Party nomination. … If you look at real life and practical history, and find out it did happen in 2008, and there are things beginning to repeat themselves here.”
The Washington Post said that “no matter what spin emerges from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign about her decision to turn over her private email server to the Justice Department, it’s impossible to see this as anything but a bad thing for her presidential prospects.”
First, the report cited Clinton’s own steadfast opposition to turning over the server. And then there are her previous statements that her emails contained no classified material, even though two inspectors general say now that some did.
“For someone who is already struggling to bridge a trust deficit with the public, the revelations about the classified emails on Clinton’s server hurt,” the report said.
At FirstLook, Glenn Greenwald wrote of the Obama administration’s “harsh” prosecutions of others who were accused of improperly handling classified information.
“NSA whistleblower Tom Drake, for instance, faced years in prison, and ultimately had his career destroyed, based on the Obama DOJ’s claims that he ‘mishandled’ classified information (it included information that was not formally classified at the time but was retroactively decreed to be such,)” he wrote.
“The very same people who spent years justifying this obsessive assault are now scampering for reasons why a huge exception should be made for the Democratic Party front-runner.”
He noted the U.S. does “overclassify” at times.
“But that’s an argument that Hillary Clinton never uttered in order to object as people’s lives and careers were destroyed and they were hauled off to prison.”
NBC reported the “issue isn’t going away for Clinton, but these fights over potentially classified materials guarantees a continued drip-drip-drip.”
Limbaugh said there’s no way to know yet. But he said the issue of the server could open up a lot of possibilities.
“This is what has been described as ‘the tinfoil hat theory,’ and it is this: Yes, there are top-secret documents on the server of Hillary Clinton among her emails. What if there is also something about Obama on this server in an email or something that he doesn’t want anybody to know? So you go get the server, you get it in your possession, and then nobody hears anything about it for quite a while.”
He cited the “appearance of impropriety.”
“Well, we’ve got even more than that with Mrs. Clinton. She’s in real trouble over this. She’s lied. She has lied, said there’s nothing on the server.”
Sanders
Limbaugh also had an explanation for Sanders’ surge in popularity.
“You know, I was being jocular yesterday and laughing and chuckling here saying that it’s not Bernie Sanders’ overwhelmingly popular personality and charisma that’s generating all the support. It’s that people hate Hillary,” he said.
NBC said, “In order to beat this Sanders surge back, Hillary Clinton has to figure out how to message that there are major consequences to her losing – and make voters believe it.”
The poll from Franklin Pierce University and the Boston Herald gave Sanders a swing of gigantic proportions from just a few weeks ago when he was in single digits against Hillary Clinton.
Is it a protest vote?
Possibly, the poll indicated. Voters by a 65-11 margin still said Clinton will be the eventual nominee.
Uncle Joe
Then there’s Joe Biden, the vice president.
“Clinton is in free fall, and leaders of the party agree that Sanders would lose at least 49 states in the general election,” Greg Valliere of the Potomac Research Group told Business Insider. “So the speculation will intensify – starting today – that Joe Biden may have to save the party from a debacle.”
The report said Biden soon will make that decision.
He took 9 percent of the Democratic Party vote in the New Hampshire poll without even being a candidate.
The poll showed 46 percent of New Hampshire Democrats want him to enter the race. About 42 percent said he should stay out.
