The Candidate Who Cannot Run.

This is the sort of article (subject: how Hillary Clinton refuses to actually run a campaign, even now that she’s declared her candidacy) that sounds best if you imagine that the author of it transcribed his drunken rant in a bar, then cleaned it up.  …That is not meant as an insult: cars may not run well on ethanol, but political commentary certainly does.  And there’s some prime stuff in there:

With nine months until the first presidential primary, Clinton can’t afford to actively run for president. Indeed, if she had her druthers, she probably wouldn’t even be unrunning now. She was pressured by the constant press attention about when she was going to announce and the email controversy. That sort of press attention was positive media attention she couldn’t control, and only by announcing could she dial it down. The email controversy was negative media attention she couldn’t control without the attention-deflecting machinery of a campaign. Indeed, she may be the first politician to announce for the presidency in order to decrease attention in her candidacy.

Jack Shafer, by the way, is kind of seething over this. Not because he hates Hillary Clinton; it’s because Hillary Clinton hates him and all of his colleagues, and this is her way of smacking them in the face for the next year or so. …And I already know that most of my readers will think that this doesn’t matter, in the long run: Shafer and the rest will dutifully line up behind her anyway and worship her they way that they do Barack Obama.  Well, maybe they will – and maybe they won’t.