After the latest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation, perhaps it’s time for Hillary Clinton to borrow a page from Mitt Romney’s binder full of women.
When Romney found out the company he had hired to mow his lawn was employing illegal immigrants, he claims to have told them, “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake, I can’t have illegals.”
Whether those were really Romney’s exact words at the time or just how he remembered them for Republican primary voters later, “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake” is something the 2016 Democratic presidential frontrunner ought to keep in mind while running the family business. It’s an instinct for political self-preservation that has so far been lacking in foundation decision-making.
Hillary Clinton did have the presence of mind to skip the Clinton Global Initiative event in Morocco at which she was originally slated to appear. But her daughter was on hand and her husband — you might remember him as the 42nd president of the United States — was the headlining speaker.
Nearly three dozen American and foreign entities pledged “commitments to action” at the summit, itself substantially funded by a Moroccan government-owned company. The event launched the same day Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash — subtitled, “The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich” — hit bookstores.
You just know it will happen again.
All this raises the question of why the Clintons would continue to court these kinds of controversies while traveling on the road back to the White House. Why not rein it in for the duration of the presidential campaign?
This question has several possible answers. The Clintons’ favorite explanation is that the philanthropic work the foundation does is too valuable to cut off viable funding sources and critical alliances for mere political purposes.
“There has never been anything like the Clinton Global Initiative,” Bill Clinton said in defense of the foreign donations, “where you’ve raised over $100 billion worth of stuff that helped 43 million people in 180 countries.”
Elsewhere, the former president exhorted supporters, “You must not be discouraged by the fact that doing good is not often considered good news.” Yet the paid speeches don’t spring from the same altruistic motives. “I gotta pay our bills,” he told NBC News, also shrugging, “People like to hear me speak.”
Another possible explanation is that the Clintons don’t believe voters will really care that much. The renting of the Lincoln Bedroom to people who gave $5.4 million to the Democratic National Committee in 1995 and 1996 did no lasting damage to Bill’s approval ratings. Neither did the 1996 fundraising scandal involving illegal foreign donations, which the Los Angeles Times reported on just before the president easily won a second term.
This cynical view is buttressed by a more recent example: Terry McAuliffe, who made a cameo appearance in many of the most prominent cases of Clinton funny money business while starring in some of his own, was elected governor in Virginia.
Even the left-wing magazine Mother Jones ran a story about his fundraising and business dealings titled, “I can’t believe Terry McAuliffe is going to be governor of Virginia.” McAuliffe’s victory in a purple state may give the Clintons hope the complicated details of their foundation will have less impact on the campaign than painting the eventual Republican nominee as a right-wing troglodyte bent on banning birth control.
After a certain point, many Americans start to tune Clinton-related scandals out. Sometimes, they even turn against the Republicans who keep bringing them up.
Maybe the stubborn refusal to keep up appearances reflects the Clintons’ supreme confidence. Hillary is so likely to win the Democratic presidential nomination and then the presidency that she can afford the occasional private email server or questionable financial tie. Who’s going to stop her, Bernie Sanders?
But it doesn’t take much imagination to wonder if the opposite is the case. Hillary has been burned by Democratic electorate before, losing what was supposed to be a sure thing to a freshman senator despite winning important states like California, New York and Texas. She watched Al Gore fight a Republican governor to a draw in 2000, when the Democratic incumbent, her husband, was more popular than President Obama is now.
Continuing to build the Clinton family foundation while the patriarch pays the bills through lavish speaking fees may be like running for president while also filing for re-election to the Senate at the same time. Is Hillary hedging her bets?
