Thursday, January 16, 2014

The Inevitablily Tour and an Iowa Opportunity

The next stop on the Hillary Clinton Inevitability Tour, as I long ago predicted, is the book:

Hillary Clinton's new memoir doesn't have a title yet, but it does have a scheduled release date: June 1, 2014.

That's according to the new Amazon.com entry for the book, which features a plain book jacket with the former secretary of state's name and photo, but no title.



For now, the book is titled merely "New Memoir" and is available, naturally, for pre-order.

But the book isn't a straight memoir, as it is also set to include some forward-looking ideas for the country — something that suggests Clinton may well have designs on running for president again in 2016.

May well, indeed. And no, the little guy on the cover is not me.

And with any book, as Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin can tell you, comes the book tour. I think Live From Prairie Lights would be an excellent stop on the Hillary Book Tour, though any first stop in Iowa for whatever reason, if ever, would be in Des Moines. My bet is the tour conspicuously skips us.

Maybe that's OK. It is, as everyone keeps telling me, very early, though I searched the Deeth Blog Archives and saw John Edwards visiting Iowa City on February 25, 2006, just a month from now on a 2016 timeline, doing an event for a Some Dude congressional candidate, some college professor with a beard named Loebsack.

That's the kind of opportunity that presents itself. My prediction of Book Tour was followed by a prediction of Select Campaign Stops, and I've got just the person and place.

State Senator Matt McCoy, who had congressional ambitions in 2001 till Leonard Boswell carpetbagged into the Des Moines based district, announced that he is NOT going to run for Congress in 2014. McCoy was the big Democratic name hanging out there and this pretty much clears the field for Staci Appel, who gets the Chris Coons Prize for being in the right place at the right time.

Tangent: Coons was a county supervisor in Delaware who got into the 2010 Senate race when Attorney General Beau (Son Of) Biden opted out. Republicans had recruited a prohibitive favorite in moderate congressman and ex-governor Mike Castle... but Castle got teabagged to death in the GOP primary by Christine "I'm Not A Witch" O'Donnell. Coons walked from County Supervisor into the Senate without breaking a sweat. (In parts of California Congress to County Supervisor is considered a step UP.)

Like Coons, Appel got into the 3rd CR race when it looked like an uphill longshot against Tom Latham. But with his retirement it's a top tier open seat with a clown car Republican primary. The half million Appel has raised heled clear the field. And McCoy, despite the unique diversity he'd bring as Iowa's first out legislator, understands that moving Iowa out of the two state No Girlz Aloud club with Mississippi is important to our state's reputation (attn: Pat Murphy.)

So Appel it will be. Appel also has a critical extra qualification: she endorsed Hillary Clinton early in 2007, and as we saw in the `10 and `12 cycles, support and visits from Clintonworld (Bill only those years) goes to old friends. The only other female candidate in a `14 race who backed Hillary in `07-08 is Swati Dandekar, and I don't see a path for her to get through the primary after the bridges she burned with the party base.

Early state, swing state, top tier open seat race, chance to gain a seat from the Republicans AND to elect Iowa's first woman... everything says that Hillary Clinton should visit Des Moines this fall to campaign for Staci Appel.

My guess, though, is that Hillary avoids early contest states and instead visits early donor states on the coasts. Appel will get some Clinton love, sure, but I'm betting Bill gets the job.

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