That's it in a nutshell, and one must always be cognizant of the old Zen saying "He (she?) who would lead must not make leading the centerpiece of one's desire". Sadly, this is the central problem of Hillary's campaign quest, and I'd add that of most politicians seeking power, especially of the most powerful office on Earth.
It is most critical in the case of HRC because when one takes a hard look one sees her spontaneity is all "pre-planned". Her verbal comebacks, whether directed at Bernie or Trump were also rehearsed and confected in assorted focus groups long before she officially announced for President. She's actually been carefully planning and preparing for this run for the past eight years, if not longer. The level of calculation shows with every move she makes, every fake smile she betrays. She will also say anything to get this power position and be "the first woman President in history" which is the very reason in any other year she wouldn't get it. Alert Dem voters would sniff out the overpowering neediness , but now most have lost their political sense of smell- among others..
Most voters would have sensed her desperation, apart from her negatives and off-note political persona - and run the other way. Lexington in his Feb. 6th Economist piece on her, indeed, fixed her problem succinctly and accurately (p. 30):
"The rules of presidential politics have never been applied to someone quite like Hillary Clinton. In the public eye for decades, as a First Lady, then Senator, unsuccessful presidential candidate and then Secretary of State, she is neither a serving world leader or a fresh face. Mrs. Clinton risks finding herself an unhappy hybrid: a candidate weighed down by all the disadvantages of incumbency while enjoying rather few of its benefits."
This take was reinforced on referencing one female Democratic primary voter from Iowa who opined that "Hillary has been around so long you sort of get fatigued."
Which elicits the question of exactly why so damned many primary voters - especially African -Americans - are in her corner, as well as so many super delegates and older women of the very middle class her programs (such as once proposed Social Security cuts) would have hurt most. Indeed, as Lexington points out, it is mainly the younger Millennial women who are averse to whatever cultish pull she seems to exert on others. They see her as "part of a sleazy and unequal status quo - especially as the recipient of donations and speaking fees from banks that bankrupted the middle class,"
Why are her other followers so blatantly blind to these flaws?/ Well, because for some odd reason they've been sold on the notion that only she has the heft and "experience" (forget judgment which went out the window with her pro-Iraq war vote) to be able to beat Trump despite the fact poll after poll shows Bernie doing it by much larger margins. She's since said the Iraq resolution vote was "a mistake" but no serious person really believes that if they examine her war hawk pedigree (see below).
One is forced to conclude that those in the Clinton Cult are so desperate to avoid a perceived Republican doomsday that they are prepared to blindly vote Hillary even though she may not be the one to deliver the goods at all, and the media's message (as well as polling) showing a landslide may well be a mirage e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/04/trump-has-zero-chance-vs-hillary-in.html
And for those sick of wars and leery of financially disastrous military interventions and occupations Hillary ought to be the last one to select.But don't take my word for it, read the recent NY Times article on her evolution as the primo war hawk in this campaign, e.g.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html?_r=1
By contrast, Bernie has made it abundantly clear he'd only resort to military intervention as a last resort. He doesn't subscribe to American exceptionalism like Hillary, or that we need to act as cop of the whole world. You'd never catch him saying - as HRC did at one cited security meeting with aircraft carriers at the ready - to "Run it up the gut!". (Obama having then to step in and assert "I am calling an audible. NO!" Someone had to be the adult in the room, but would anyone stand up to a President Hillary if she was determined to run an aircraft carrier in the Black Sea up the Russians' gut? )
Another wake-up quote for her male and female cult followers;
“Her so-called foreign policy ‘experience’ has been to support every war demanded by the US deep security state run by the military and the CIA.”— Jeffrey Sachs, referring to Hillary Clinton, Feb. 5, 2016
Or from Gary Leupp:
"Her very experience recommends her to another, far smaller, community: the warmongers, from the neoconservatives of the Cheney-Wolfowitz-McCain ilk to the “liberal interventionists” like pundits Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman, and Fareed Zakaria and Clinton advisors Sidney Blumenthal and Anne-Marie Slaughter. These are people who rarely encounter a war they don’t like."
Again, Hillary wants the office of Commander in Chief so bad that one can sense the desire oozing from her pores. But her dazed and dopey groupies just ignore it in their yen to jump on her bandwagon. Her unseemly desire also begs the question of whether she is really in it to prove just how powerful she is by launching another war, against Russia or Iran.
Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, did not want to join any presidential campaign for 2016. He only did so after much pressure from a groundswell of public reaction when Elizabeth Warren - the then darling of the Left - indicated no interest. SOMEONE then had to step in to take the place of the only true liberal candidate, and that was Bernie Sanders.
To this day, it is Sanders’s rallies that are lit up by people who say he is the candidate most focused on their struggle for jobs, better health care and debt relief, and most interested in taking action against those who profited while wages for the working class stagnated and their hopes diminished.
So why in hell with so much going South would otherwise sensible people select the canned, status quo, warmonger Hillary over Sanders? It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, but at least Bernie's victory last night in Indiana extends his momentum and sets him in position to make demands at the convention.
And Rachel Maddow can sneer and mock his chances all she wants but she knows and we know who the actual candidate is that's most needed. Let the corporate media continue to stoke the notion Bernie ought to quit, with so many millions of voters still left to choose that will not happen. So the corporatists and Neolibs could as well keep their panties on for the time being, Bernie ain't going anywhere.
See also:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/ted-rall/67129/hillary-to-bernie-supporters-don-t-vote-for-me
And:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/gaius-publius/67122/politico-less-than-1-of-the-hillary-victory-fund-benefited-state-parties
And:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/gary-leupp/67115/hillary-clinton-s-foreign-policy-resume-what-the-record-shows
And:
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