UNDERSTANDING HILLARY – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 11:38 A.M. ET:  Trump is the fascinating candidate, love him or despise him.  But what about Hillary?  She's been nationally famous for as long as FDR was on the day he died in 1945.  (He'd become a national figure when running for vice president on the Democratic ticket in 1920.) 

And yet, she seems directionless, lacking any real passion or policy, someone up there who wants to be president because she wants to be president.  What makes her tick?  Peggy Noonan has an insight, and our quote of the day.  From The Wall Street Journal:   

I was at one of her rallies in a high-school gym in a handsome suburb. It was well-organized—good lighting and security, a buzzy crowd. Mrs. Clinton was introduced and she bounded out—blue pantsuit, well made-up, high-energy, pointing out friends, real or imagined, in the crowd. I thought: Give it to her, she’s 60-something, she’s out in America working the room, making the speech, enacting the joy, when she could be home on a Saturday night watching TV.

Then it struck me. If she weren’t here, she’d be in an empty house in Chappaqua, N.Y., the focus of no eyes—not important, not glamorous, no aides or staffers. I thought: She needs to run, it’s this or reruns on Bravo. I thought: This is why you pick up that there is no overarching purpose, theme or mission to her candidacy—because there isn’t. There is only her need—not to be powerless, not to be away from the center. It’s not The America Project, it’s The Hillary Project.

You see that a lot in politicians, but not always those running for president. That night I think I saw it in her.

COMMENT:  And I think Peggy Noonan is right.  Hillary is the ultimate ticket puncher, going from job to job, accomplishing little, but aiming for the next promotion.  Few think she's a woman of high character, yet she wants to be the first female president of the United States.   I look around the Congress and the governors' offices, and see a number of outstanding women, of both parties, and wonder why "the first" couldn't have been one of them. 

We have a leadership deficit at the very top in America.  Barack Obama, a vastly underqualified candidate, is president.  He may well be succeeded by Hillary Clinton, a vastly dishonest one.  And most Americans have a dim view of Trump.

Maybe we should look hard at our presidential nominating process.

September 2, 2016