Hillarys strongest message has always been that she is the only one tough and tested enough to make it through both the primaries and the general election. Her experience argument really meant that she has been battling the right-wing attack machine for years and so would know how to fight back. She hoped to combine a liberal platform, strident promises to end the war she voted for, and a reputation as a fierce competitor to win over a liberal base leery of her perceived centrism and opportunism.

The problem, however, isnt that voters dont believe Hillary has enough experience; it is that she fails to inspire or excite them. Hillary spent months convincing people that she knew her way around Washington and only to find they were fed up with Washington.

This is where her experience has undermined her campaign. Over the years, Hillarys private, almost secretive, nature and introverted personality has been magnified by the perceived slights and scars of her many battles. Her highly competitive nature has led to an instinctive reaction to fight hard and do whatever it takes to win.

But there is a reason campaign managers and staff doesnt run for office. You need an inspirational leader as candidate; someone to put meaning into the campaign. It is this meaning that Hillary lacks. She has no central reason for running or a clearly communicable theme to her campaign. Her campaign is nothing more than personal ambition writ large.

When you combine this with her off-putting personality, and related reputation as an overly ambitious and calculating politician, the result is an inability to win the hearts of primary voters. For the last six weeks, Hillary has flailed about trying to find a tactic that could make up for this underlying deficiency.

Her first reaction was to try and play the victim as she did in parlaying Monica into a Senate seat. This was mostly ineffective as no one really believed that the clear national front runner was being attacked for her gender.

Her next reaction was to go negative but she bumbled this by focusing on issues that highlighted her own weaknesses. Was Hillary going to win a debate about who was overly ambitious in plotting to become president?

She recently moved from silly to ugly, however, when her New Hampshire co-chair Bill Shaheen raised the issue of Obamas past drug use by claiming that Republicans would use it against him. Hillary was quick to deny knowledge or involvement - and went so far as to offer a personal apology - and soon dumped Shaheen. But it is hard to believe someone as controlling and knowledgeable as Hillary, and someone as experienced as Shaheen, acted without any communication.

Hillary quickly returned to asking for sympathy, running ads with her daughter and mother in a desperate attempt to soften her image with female voters turned off by her negative attacks. This week the attempts at image softening continue with ads, web pages, and staged events.

Voters, however, seem to be realizing that Hillary offers little more than empty promises and the ugly politics of the past. Despite her claims of strength, when pushed she turns negative, ugly, and increasingly brittle. Despite her claims of experience, she has traded on the political success of her husband to attain what power she has and lacks a signature accomplishment of any kind.

There was a time when, despite all their faults and baggage, it was foolish to bet against the Clintons.

Recent events offer hope that this time is coming to an end.

Richard H. Collins is the founder of StopHerNow.com, a website dedicated to educating the public about Hillary Clintons liberal record.

The super-sized ECB operation that completed yesterday had the effect of lending a bit more than 348 billion euros at an interest rate of 4.21%. The duration of the loans is 16 days, and they will expire in January 4. (In the banking world, the calendar has 360 days. Trust me, it makes all of the math easier.)

The 4.21% rate was a bid-size weighted average of bids from 390 institutions. The raw bids ranged from about 4% to 4.45%.

Why does that matter? Well, the ECB’s target rate for short-term interbank borrowings (the equivalent of our “fed funds target rate”) is now 4%. (The ECB wants it lower to spur economic growth, but has held off because of raging inflation, especially in Germany. And in fact, the ECB engaged in an open-market operation on Monday that drained cash.)

But rates for interbank borrowing (Euribor and LIBOR) have been running far above the target, ranging between 4.80% and 4.90% on recent days.

The fact that yesterday’s ECB auction was oversubscribed at 4.21% shows that demand for short-term money is perfectly healthy in Europe. But the fact that the prevailing market rate is so much higher, indicates that there is an extremely unhealthy reluctance to lend.

We may find out something similar in the US tomorrow. The Fed’s unusual auction yesterday sought to lend $20 billion for a period of 28 days, at a mininum interest rate of 4.17%. They’ll announce preliminary results from the auction tomorrow morning, so we’ll see what we get then. But market reaction during the hours of the auction yesterday was sour.

Now it’s one thing for central banks to intervene in money markets to keep them liquid and orderly around challenging events like the year-end closing. As the designated lenders of last resort, that’s the primary job that central banks are supposed to do.

But more to the point, why are the markets so tight, and what will it take to open them up? These questions bring us to explore the limits of central bank activity.

Banks are unusually reluctant to lend to other institutions because of uncertainty that their counterparties will be able to pay them back. (Uncertainty is not the same as risk. Risk can be quantified, managed, and hedged. Uncertainty can’t.)

And of course, the counterparty-uncertainty comes from questions about the quality of their asset portfolios, particularly of mortgage-backed securities and other structured-finance products. (Phew. You just knew the M-word had to make an appearance eventually.)

As I’ve stressed in innumerable RedState posts: when bankers and other investors feel uncertain, they reduce their exposure. They concentrate on more-liquid, shorter-term, safer assets (like US government debt), and they make fewer commercial loans.

And reducing the amount of credit available for business expansion is the one sure-fire way to cause economic slowdowns and recessions.

That’s the reason to worry about the banking situation. Impaired credit formation is the channel through which stress in the financial system gets transmitted from Wall Street to Main Street.

Signs of slowing output are strongly in evidence in many reports of business conditions, prices for commodities, etc. They have not yet made an appearance in official GDP measurements here or in Europe, or in job-creation here. We’re all waiting on pins and needles for this to happen (or not to happen), which is why the outlook is so uncertain.

Now what happens if uncertainty prevails among bankers and investors to the point that credit formation remains weak in the years ahead? (To say “years” is not far-fetched. During the Depression, business lending remained at extremely depressed levels well into the late Thirties, and is the real reason the Depression dragged on as long as it did.)

What can the Fed and ECB do about that? Not a heck of a lot. You can pump all the liquidity you want into the system, but if there is no real economic activity available to absorb it, it’s going to slosh onto the floor. In other words, we’ll only get a lot of inflation. And isn’t it curious that inflation is now high and rising everywhere but Japan?

You can lead an investor to risk but you can’t make him drink it. Until someone figures out how to get investors off the sidelines, economic growth in the West will face a headwind. We may have to wait until all the effects of the mortgage-financing debacle wash out.

And even then, someone will have to go first. And investors, as a rule, don’t like doing that. As an old Wall-Street adage has it, you can always spot a leader: he’s the guy with arrows in his back.

As you might have noticed, I love writing these kinds of posts, not least of which is because back in November 2006 I was glumly certain that the new Democratic Congress was going to go rampaging through our foreign policy. Fortunately, I had underestimated the willingness of GOP Congressmen to back the President’s play on the War: slightly underestimated the President’s stubbornness when it came to implementing policy on the War; and drastically underestimated the way that Democratic Congressmen would fold up like cheap seats at the first sign of opposition.

I claim the excuse of extreme worry clouding my judgment on the first and second items, but I still don’t quite comprehend the third - at least, I don’t see how it’s consistent with their rhetoric. Congressional Democrats could have pushed harder on Iraq. In fact, I’m flattering them by implying that they pushed at all; an outside observer might have a different opinion. They didn’t, which is… fascinating in its implications. They also could have placed themselves in a position where they could take credit for the change in tactics that we’ve dumbed down by calling “the Surge.” They still could do that, in fact. Given that the change in tactics is apparently working, they are probably quietly eager to do that.

Except, of course, that they can’t. The Establishment Democrats running the Party would find themselves instantly at war with the progressive faction of their base voters if they did. The Left ’sphere would be overjoyed to lead the charge; they may hate us as convenient devil figures, but they have plenty of fear and blind rage left over for the apostates and weak sisters that supposedly keep them from their due. So, the Democrats are in a bit of a pickle, there: they know that following the netroots’ lead will lead them further away from the mainstream, just in time for an election year; and they can’t reintegrate with the mainstream, because the netroots are standing athwart their way, blustering “Stop!”

I just can’t see how the Establishment Democrats are going to get out of that one.

Consider Rudy Giuliani. Taken at his word, by virtue of good timing the man would do more to fight abortion than any Republican President since Roe v. Wade by appointing a fifth and possibly a sixth justice to the Supreme Court who would stay true to the Constitution. He also claims he would continue various executive actions opposed to abortion. And yet, despite these promises that he would deal with abortion essentially as President Bush has done, he is despised by many anti-abortion activists.

Why? Many just don’t trust him. They look at his personal life, and they openly question whether he can be trusted in public life more than he’s shown he can be trusted in private life.

Look at Mitt Romney. On issue after issue, the former Governor has staked out positions that place him to the right of his competition. And yet, despite setting himself up as a frontrunning conservative, the man faces strong opposition from many conservative sources.

Why? Given the way he ran for the Senate in the past, his run now just leaves some Republicans with the feeling that he’s as trustworthy as a slimy car salesman. “What will it take to get you into this car today?” he might as well be asking them, when he asks for support.

Similiar stories can be told for other candidates. John McCain is branded unstable and pandering, Mike Huckabee soft and corrupt, and Fred Thompson lazy and superficial. And yet, on the issues, all of these candidates have strengths, especially where others have weaknesses. But because Republicans are looking at character first, they never get far enough to evaluate those policies.

Character counts, and I’m glad the party still works that way. The last thing we need to happen is to let our own Bill Clinton get into office, and let his personal faults distract his administration from the security of the nation.

JOHN EDWARDS ON TW. First up with host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week was 2008 Dem Presidential hopeful John Edwards, who ranted about “powerful interests,” against which he says he intends to fight. Edwards stated that he would be the Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman who took on the powerful interests. He has been fighting powerful interests all his life, he added: as a child, for himself; as an adult, for others.

Edwards promised that he was the candidate who could “close in Iowa” and win the General Election.

TW: ALAN GREENSPAN BOOK TOUR. Alan Greenspan was next on TW as part of his lengthy book tour backing his The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. He told host Stephanopoulos that Edwards was right about the stagnation affecting the middle class, but that his proposed solutions would make matters worse. Steph predicted 1970s style stagflation, and Greenspan pointed out that we’ve been through a post-Cold War period of disinflation, but that is “coming to an end.” He said that central banks had to fight inflation, as low inflation leads to economic growth.

GEORGE MITCHELL ON FNS. George Mitchell, who sits on the Board of Directors of the Boston Red Sox and is a part owner of that team, was the first guest of FOX News Sunday host Chris Wallace, who at the end of the interview admitted that he was a Red Sox fan. He began the interview by quizzing Mitchell about New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte, one of the players mentioned to Mitchell’s team by some unsavory characters who were threatened with longer jail sentences if they didn’t start talking. (Andy has come clean and admitted to his fans that he used HGH twice in 2002 to try to overcome an injury and get back to his job. He added that he had never taken steroids.)

Wallace asked Mitchell if Pettitte’s confession were proof that Roger Clemens was also guilty as charged by Mitchell. That slug Mitchell agreed and further proclaimed that Pettitte’s confession validated his entire report.

When asked by Wallace why he would print a list of names of ballplayers against whom he had no proof of steroid use, Mitchell replied that he did his best to intimidate and blackmail the few people to whom he talked using threats and intimidation into naming names and “telling the truth.”

Mitchell said that he invited every Major League ballplayer, without telling them if they had been named, to meet with and confess to him and clear their names a form of blackmail but no one paid any attention to him.

At this point, Mitchell and host Wallace celebrated their World Champion Boston Red Sox, and Mitchell said that he would attend more ballgames this season than last because he no longer had to work long hours on this report. Mitchell expressed fear: “If skepticism turns to cynicism, people might turn away.” Nice work with that, Mitchell.

HARMAN AND HOEKSTRA ON FNS. From the House Intelligence Committee, Democrat Jane Harman and Republican Pete Hoekstra were Wallace’s next guests. They were on to talk about the destroyed CIA vid.

Harman does not want a special prosecutor counsel involved just yet, as Congress was an independent branch of government and could handle the investigation itself. She pointed out that she had warned the CIA not to destroy that vid. She doesn’t buy the CIA’s proclaimed reason for destroying the vid protecting the interrogators and questioned why they made the vid in the first place.

Hoekstra was not satisfied that the CIA acted in good faith. Hoekstra has a problem with the “intelligence community,” he said, calling them “incompetent, arrogant, and political.” He complained that they think they are not accountable to anyone.

Harman said that the rank-and-file CIA op was a nice person but the leadership was arrogant. She proclaimed that the most recent NIE on Iran was “among their best work,” and the reason could only be that it vaguely and with caveats backed a conclusion which her Dem friends could use against the Bush Administration.

They talked a little about waterboarding. Harman believes John McCain that it is torture, and she referred to “this arrogant Administration.”

MITT ROMNEY ON MTP. Host Tim Russert’s sole guest on NBC’s Meet the Press was Mitt Romney. To start things off, Russert asked Romney about the “freedom requires religion” quip from that Texas speech. (”Can you have freedom without organized religion?”) Romney replied that he was paraphrasing John Adams, who had said that our system of government would require morality and freedom to survive. He said that we need morality and that religion is part of the foundation of that morality. He added that the Founders recognized that the Creator was an “instrumental part of the founding of this nation.” He wants this taught in school. Russert posited that atheists can also be moral and Romney agreed, prompting Russert to point out that “freedom doesn’t require religion.” Mitt said that he was speaking in the context of John Adams.

Romney said that he would appoint atheists and agnostics to the Supreme Court if they were the most qualified.

Russert brought up an old issue of Sunstone magazine, a Mormon publication, which said that Romney discussed his possible Presidential run with the “man he admires most in the world: Mormon president Gordon Bitner Hinckley.” Russert asked if voters should be concerned that he was seeking advice from the leader of the Mormon Church. Romney said he made the decision to run by himself and his family. He talked about our nation’s problems and how he had experience outside government, but that he’s happy to get as much advice as he can from anyone he can. He never mentioned the man he most admires.

Russert asked him about the support he received from Bob Jones, who says that Mormonism is not a form of Christianity but rather a cult. He asked Romney about the Mormon church’s reluctant acceptance of blacks into the full church in 1978, when Mitt was 31. He wondered why Romney didn’t question his membership in a discriminatory organization. Romney said that he is very proud of his faith. He loves it, and he’s not going to distance himself from it. But his dad marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. He said that when he learned of the change in church policy, he pulled off the road and wept.

Finally campaign stuff. Russert asked about Romney’s remaking of himself. Russert had moderated Romney’s 2002 gubernatorial debate and asked him about abortion. Today, he played a clip of Romney at that debate telling a little story about why women should have the right to choose abortion. He played another clip of Romney, in the 1994 debate with Ted Kennedy, in which Romney promised that we “would not see him wavering” on his support for abortion. Why the change? Romney told the story that he has always opposed abortion but wondered about the role of government. Then the theoretical, he said, became reality: and a cloning bill crossed his desk. He brought in people from around the country to talk to him, he said, and he realized that he could not be a part of an effort that “would destroy human life.”

Romney believes that “from a political perspective, life begins at conception.”

Romney pointed out that he kept his promise not to take away abortion rights in Massachusetts; rather, he refused to expand them.

Romney said he sometimes disagrees with the NRA, but he’s a member. He blamed opponents for trying to find any change in his position regarding guns. He signed the assault weapons ban, he reminded Russert, but it was one which he said really expanded gun rights. He asked for the NRA’s support. Asked about the Brady Bill, Romney ducked by saying that it had changed over time so he didn’t know if he supported it. (Romney has also, of course, changed over time.) He favors background checks, but he doesn’t want a waiting period of the background can be checked instantly. Romney wants to ban guns which he thinks are of “unusual lethality.” (He did not define the term.)

Russert quoted an article in the Baltimore Sun (March 30, 2006) in which he supported a path toward citizenship for illegal aliens, similar to the one recently pushed by the President and John McCain. Romney said that at the time of the article, he had not yet formulated his own plan for illegal aliens and that he did not support any of the others. He had merely called them “reasonable.”

Russert played a clip of Romney recently on the campaign trail praising Ronald Reagan, and then he played a clip of an angry Mitt Romney debating Ted Kennedy disavowing President Reagan. Romney said that it was a long shot against Ted Kennedy, but he ran as a conservative. Russert asked him if he could be elected governor of Massachusetts under the platform he currently espouses while running for President. Romney said that the only position which has changed since then is abortion. Romney, for a moment, looked to be as angry talking to Russert as he did in the old film clip. Then he resumed his smiling.

Romney called MittCare “a great plan,” but said that he is a federalist and would not apply it against every State. He said he would give States the flexibility they need to offer universal health care. Romney said that he would give the States “some carrots and sticks” to try to coerce them into adopting universal health care.

The interview went much like this, with Romney holding up well under some relatively discomforting questioning.

FRED THOMPSON ON FACE THE NATION. On CBS, host Bob Schieffer’s first guest was 2008 Republican Presidential hopeful Fred Thompson, just about to ramp it up in Iowa. Thompson said he is concentrating on Iowa because the State “is where it’s at right now.” He will make five scheduled stops a day in a bus, plus he promised some unscheduled stops.

Thompson will talk about why he’s running. The role of the federal government, he mentioned. (”At tax time, the burden of proof is on the federal government to prove that your money belongs in their coffers.”)

Defending his campaign, Thompson told Schieffer that he’s doing well in South Carolina.

Perhaps contrasting himself with Mitt Romney, Thompson said that he is not going to change his message or try to be something he’s not, and he promised that the pundits are wrong about as often as they are right.

Schieffer asked him about the rise of Mike Huckabee, and Fred did not know why he rose of if this rise will be “merely a blip.” Fred said that now Huckabee is being forced to come forward and talk about his record, and Huckabee’s record shows that he is liberal: on immigration, on taxes, on Castro, on the current Gitmo camp.

Schieffer asked Thompson what he would do about the 12-million illegal aliens who will be here after we’ve tightened the borders, etc. Thompson started with “what you don’t do,” and that’s grant them citizenship just because they are here. He thinks that if we enforce the borders, required employers “to employ modern technology to see who they’re hiring,” and cut off federal funding, they would leave. He did not suggest rounding them up and deporting or incarcerating them. Let them know that they won’t receive benefits and won’t be protected from the law.

Schieffer asked Thompson why people should select him over “Governor Romney.” Thompson said that there was no way you could determine how Mitt would govern in the future, but with him (FDT), he is who he is, a solid conservative.

Schieffer urged Thompson to attack both Huckabee and Romney. Thompson bit the bait more with Huck than with Romney.

JOHN EDWARDS ON FTN. Edwards was up next, and Schieffer pointed out that Edwards was on the cover of Newsweek but that the Des Moines Register had endorsed Hillary. Edwards said that the Register did not endorse him because he wants to fight big corporations while the paper wants to work with them. For their part, the newspaper says that Edwards is not as positive as he was in 2004 and he will not be able to work with the business community.

Edwards blamed pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, oil companies, gas companies, etc. He said you have to be willing to work with Congress and fight the “vested interests.”

Schieffer asked Edwards how he gets anything done if he won’t compromise. Edwards said he will compromise with Congress but have to be willing to fight large corporations and beat them. “They are in a position of power.” He blamed big corporations for killing HillaryCare in ‘92.

Edwards says he has “huge crowds at every single event.”

Edwards said that Barack Obama was not prepared to be President. He didn’t use those words, mind you; rather, when Schieffer asked him about Obama, Edwards said that people had to ask themselves if any candidate was prepared to take on the office, etc.

JOE BIDEN ON LE. Blitzer first talked to 2008 Dem Presidential hopeful Joe Biden about the destroyed vid. Joe Biden blamed the Bush Justice Department, accusing them of destroying the vid and promoting waterboarding. Joe Biden reiterated that “we need a special counsel.”

Joe Biden said that the Justice Department was “politicized” and should not be used as an “investigative tool.”

Joe Biden suggested that President Bush might have ordered that the tapes be destroyed. (”We don’t know how high this goes.”)

Blitzer pointed out that Jay Rockefeller said that they do not need a special counsel. Joe Biden said that Jay is a heck of a guy, but he proves his point. The Justice Department will give them nothing.

Joe Biden said he does not have confidence in the President, the Vice President, or the Justice Department.

Joe Biden does not have confidence in Pervez Musharraf, despite the Pakistani President having lifted the State of Emergency. He said that we should continue to pressure Musharraf to let everyone campaign for this election. He said that the election was not fair, as there had been no time to campaign.

Blitzer played a clip of President Bush saying that Musharraf has been a reliable partner in the War on Terror. Joe Biden disagreed. He said that Musharraf had been no help in Waziristan. “They’ve done the bare minimum.”

Blitzer told Joe Biden that the House leadership (Nancy and Harry) showed a “lack of patriotism” by not wanting our military to succeed. Joe Biden frowned and said that Nancy and Harry were great patriots and that the surge has not “produced political stability” in Iraq. He once again, as he has for the past six years, announced that “there is some breathing room” if the President follows his instructions right now.

KIT BOND AND EVAN BAYH ON LE. Republican Senator Kit Bond of Missouri was in the studio, and Blitzer told him that Joe Biden didn’t trust Attorney General Mike Mukasey and thought there should be a special counsel to investigate the CIA vid destruction as the Senate wasn’t doing anything about it. Bond countered that they’ve been holding hearings, calling witnesses. He suggested that there might be criminal investigations of people in the CIA. He expressed confidence in Mukasey and blasted Biden for “taking a shot” against anyone in the Administration simply because that’s what Democrats do.

Democrat Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana said that the witnesses they’ve called have all claimed no knowledge of anything. He suggested that there might be nothing illegal on any of the tapes but the way the Justice Department is handling it makes it appear that there is.

Bond warned against calling witnesses who are under criminal investigation. “We don’t want to get in the middle of a criminal prosecution.” He said that they will call anyone else.

Bayh wants to see if the committees “can do their jobs,” because he’s “not a big fan of special counsels.”

Both Bond and Bayh agree that it was a mistake to destroy the tapes.

Bayh wants to know why Rodriguez destroyed the tapes when his superiors had ordered him not to do it. He wonders if the superiors’ orders were more a “wink and a nod.” (Indeed, a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat.)

Bayh explained what he read in the NIE. They’ve stopped warheads and such, but they are still creating fissile material at the same rate. He said that it has only “delayed the day of reckoning” when Iran has nukes.

Bond agreed with Bayh and pointed out that Iran is working on a missile which could deliver the bomb. “It’s unfortunate,” he said, “that the lead paragraph was that they’ve stopped.” He said that there “is no rush to take military action,” adding that this is a “figment of the imaginations of those [Dems] running for President.”

Blitzer asked if there were a hidden agenda in writing the report. Bayh doesn’t think so, but he added that it is unfortunate that it gave the impression that Iran had stopped its nuclear program. Bayh suggested that they were being overly cautious after their inaccurate intelligence on Iran.

Contrast Bayh’s suggestion that the latest NIE was sloppy with Jane Harman’s proclamation on FNS that it was their best.

HUCKABEE ON LE. Blitzer brought up that Huckabee has ventured into foreign affairs with his article in Foreign Policy mag, and that Huckabee slammed the President with the arrogant bunker-mentality, etc. Huckabee said that the only people who are complaining are those who have spent millions of dollars to become President and now find themselves behind. Huckabee stands by what he said, and he suggested that we can’t just tell people that they’re either before us or against us. We have to work with others.

Blitzer brought up Romney’s objections and claims that Huckabee owes Bush an apology. Huckabee reminded that he was with the President when we went into Iraq. He was for the President’s tax cuts when Romney opposed them. He was with the President, his father, with Ronald Reagan when Romney was not. OUCH!

Huckabee said that he believes in letting the commanders develop battlefield tactics, not trying to do it politically.

Huckabee congratulated John McCain for getting the Des Moines Register endorsement, but that the editors do not know him as well as they know McCain. Blitzer quoted National Review editor Rich Lowry blasting Huckabee for being as unprepared as was Howard Dean. Huckabee predicted that the “chattering class” will think he’s great when he’s the nominee, but he cares more about what the people think than what they do. He laughed off the “Wall Street and Washington chattering class.” He said that he has actually worked with people and gotten things done.

Blitzer asked Huckabee about Romney’s complaints about Huckabee’s pardon record. Huckabee replied that Romney did not want to tell us that Huckabee has done what Romney never did as governor. He’s actually used the death penalty. He lowered his State’s crime rate and though he has made mistakes, he has apologized for them and moved on.

A nice performance by Huckabee, as well.
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Have at it!