Until The Clinton Cash Allegations I Thought The Biggest Obstacle For The Clinton Presidential Campaign Was Satire

Early last week I was planning on emailing my son a Clinton cartoon when it struck me that he was a good example of how the millennials are getting their political news. So if Ms. Clinton keeps up her trend of being the butt of every joke and cartoon she is going to lose the millennial vote. I doubt millennials will give her any slack for deleting emails and you really cannot blame Republicans for this problem.

Millennials are not the only voter segment who have problems with Ms. Clinton. An Ohio congressman recently asserted that Ohio was Hillary territory because of her performance in the primary in 2008. As a person who seriously considered voting for Ms. Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary, I see the story differently. In 2008 I assumed that with Bill Clinton on her team, she would make better decisions than Mr. Obama. I continued to believe that she was the better presidential candidate up until the Benghazi disaster. When I tried to understand the logic behind Benghazi I came to the conclusion that she was the manager in charge of a broad policy failure and Benghazi was just the beginning. Shortly thereafter my analysis was confirmed when the Administration bungled the problems in Syria, Ukraine, and Iraq. I do not know how much blame to put on the Obama Administration versus Ms. Clinton but I can say with certainty that my hope that Bill Clinton would stop help her making dumb decisions was ill-founded.

Back in February I took a look at Form 990 for the Clinton Foundation when the allegations of corruption first started to swirl. As a former treasurer for a Habitat for Humanity affiliate I know my way around the Form 990. Since the Clinton Foundation is a 503c3 charity there are pretty strict rules against participating in politics and they seemed to be abiding by those rules. What annoyed me the most about the Foundation’s tax return was that it was pretty difficult to see who besides the employees benefited from the Foundation. Unlike notable charities like Samaritan’s Purse or the Salvation Army, there was very little direct aid and a large part of donations went into the bank account or for overhead. If I was a board member my first question would be what are they saving the cash for? If you are a serious charity then you should spend it like you are serious about making a difference in the world. Another thing that caught my attention is that unlike Habitat for Humanity who frequently does promotions as a way of both thanking their major contributors and highlighting their cause, the contributors to the Clinton Foundation were invisible. When you compare the Clinton Foundation to the standards set by Samaritan’s Purse, Salvation Army, or Habit for Humanity, the foundation looks more incompetent than corrupt but it could be both.

Then the Clinton Cash book story was released by the New York Times and the Democratic leadership has been playing defense all week. The problem reached a peak last Sunday on This Week With George Stephanopoulos. Newt Gingrich laid out the case for criminal charges and the normally cheerful Donna Brazile was visibly dismayed defending the Clinton’s actions. Both Donna and George know that when it comes to political corruption, many politicians have fallen from grace with less circumstantial evidence then is in this book. Much to the chagrin of the Democratic Party when the New York Times and the Washington Post are leading the investigation, it looks like a legitimate political corruption story that is not going away anytime soon. So far the Clinton campaign has acted more like a never ending reality show than a presidential campaign. I am curious how this ends.