Conservative media push for Hillary challenger

Of course, the Massachusetts senator is a Democrat, and conservatives are hoping to put a Republican in the White House after what will be eight years of President Obama. But they apparently see no reason why former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shouldn’t face a primary challenger.

“What you’re feeling now is Early Onset Clinton Fatigue,” wrote Washington Post conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer in his latest op-ed Thursday. “The CDC is recommending elaborate precautions. Forget it. The only known cure is Elizabeth Warren. ”

In January, political pollster Doug Schoen, a former adviser to Bill Clinton who now works as a mostly conservative Fox News pundit, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Warren could slide right into the Democratic primary. “Tom Donahue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, last week attacked Ms. Warren’s ‘economic populism’ and charged that she stands for more regulation and government control of business,” Schoen wrote. “That’s music to the ears of many Democratic primary voters, who seem ready to embrace candidates who take on big business, the banks and Wall Street — some of Ms. Warren’s favorite targets. In other words, the Democratic presidential contest could go very quickly from a foregone conclusion to a fierce contest.”

Before Mike Huckabee left his show at Fox News, he also called for a Warren candidacy.

“Please give us Elizabeth Warren,” Huckabee said in November on Fox. “Please, God, let us have Elizabeth Warren. I think she’s a passionate person, and I respect her because she has the courage to speak her convictions.” He went on to say, however, she would be “a disaster for the Democratic Party.”

In an interview with The New York Times in January, Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host and editor of The Daily Caller, heaped praise on Warren.

“She has this spark of genuine ideological fervor, and I mean that as a compliment,” he said.

Clinton is currently facing controversy over her exclusive use of a personal email to conduct official government business during her tenure at the state department and also for admitting she deleted many of her “personal” messages from that account, perhaps breaking federal rules.

Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, pounced on the controversy.

“I think you could run such an effective populist campaign in a Democratic primary against Hillary Clinton,” Kristol said in a radio interview on Wednesday. “I think Elizabeth Warren could beat her. I honestly do.”

Kristol made similar pronouncements in previous Twitter messages:

In an interview in January, Warren plainly said she will not run for president in the 2016 election.

That claim has made at least one prominent conservative blogger look elsewhere for a potential challenger to Clinton.

Matt Drudge of the influential Drudge Report has spent the last two weeks promoting the potential candidacy of former Democratic Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley by linking to stories that frame him in a 2016 light.

The pattern was acknowledged by O’Malley on MSNBC Thursday.

“Where is Matt Drudge getting all these photographs of you in tight shirts playing the guitar?” said NBC’s Willie Geist to O’Malley. “Seems to post a new one everyday.”

“I’ve been playing in a band since I was in high school,” O’Malley replied. “Unfortunately, Matt is finding older pictures.”