Even after Barack Obama won the Democratic primaries, was elected president and appointed Hillary Clinton secretary of state, her friends kept thinking of ways to compete with him.
“In case your daily briefing doesn’t include it, Bill Schneider tells me that the CNN poll shows you at 71 percent favorability, seven points above Obama at 64 (higher than any recent president at this point),” Sidney Blumenthal advised Clinton over email. “You are credited by Americans as the one above all who represents the US in the world.”
That’s a big deal, Blumenthal added. “Obama is now seen as a more political, contentious, partisan figure. Your rating is much higher among Republicans than his,” he wrote. “You’ve achieved supra-political status, not anti-political or apolitical (they know who you are), but supra.”
Blumenthal’s political prognosticiation didn’t stop there. “Furthermore, recent polls show that the Democrats are likely to pick up three Senate seats in 2010,” he wrote. “Bunning, Burr and Spector.(sic).”
“Burr is losing to a Democrat with far lower name ID in a matchup now,” Blumenthal continued. “And Spector (sic) is toast, losing by 20 some points to right-wing Rep. Pat Toomey in a primary, who in turn is doomed in the general.”
Republicans kept all three seats in the 2010 elections.
“Spector” is Arlen Specter, a longtime senator from Pennsylvania. Trailing badly in primary polls, Specter left the Republican Party at the Obama administration’s urging but lost the Democratic primary. Toomey, the “right-wing” Republican Blumenthal mentioned, nevertheless won the general election.
Richard Burr, the incumbent GOP senator from North Carolina, won re-election. Rand Paul succeeded fellow Republican Sen. Jim Bunning.
“These two factors together — your new standing and the likely outcome in 2010 — present a unique opening in the short and medium term TBD,” Blumenthal advised.
Blumenthal was a longtime confidante of both Bill and Hillary Clinton, but the Obama administration declined to approve him for a formal role in the Clinton State Department.
Blumenthal’s 2009 message was part of the latest batch of Hillary Clinton emails released by the State Department.
