Some odds makers are betting Hillary Clinton will crush all Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination, then easily flick off the Republican nominee.
Long before that, however, a lot of voters will develop second thoughts about jumping on that bandwagon.
Remember Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign pitch that voting for him would mean a "twofer"—two savvy Clintons in the White House for the price of one? Sure enough, First Lady Hillary set up a White House office, creating a huge controversy with her loudly condemned closed-door committee studying health needs, a project that eventually self-destructed.
So, if Hillary were president, would Americans get another "twofer" with hubby Bill setting up an operation in the White House as Hillary did?
Quite aside from questions of whether Hillary is just another business-as-usual politician, whether she's divisive and petulant and thin-skinned, or whether husband Bill has forsaken his "reckless" yen for infidelity, the worry should be whether a Hillary-Bill machine would emerge just as the Bush-Cheney juggernaut turned Congress into a bowl of quivering jelly and unleashed havoc on the public trust.
Consider the new report that Bill Clinton collected $30.9 million for 192 speeches all over the world between 2001 and 2005—an average $161,331 per speech.
Picture Bill's going price if Hillary were president and groups able to shell out top dollars believed Bill would go home and conduct pillow talk lobbying in their behalf to President Hillary Clinton?
The nation has never had such an arrangement—a sitting president married to a former president—and never before opportunities for such personal enrichment and accumulation of power by politicians.
Bill Clinton could hardly be banned from speaking for fees. All ex-presidents with not much really useful to say get big fees. So who would police what ex-President Bill Clinton told President Hillary Clinton about a special interest group's need for presidential favors after it paid him, say, a million or two bucks to speak?
Corporate cronies of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have enjoyed a windfall of no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars. The possibilities for Hillary and Bill would be more lucrative without any corresponding benefits to the public, if Bill swept in millions of dollars as hired speaker at corporate meetings.
Were he a president's spouse, Bill Clinton most assuredly wouldn't give up lucrative speeches and become a dutiful, taciturn First Husband making selfless appearances for gratis.
If Hillary tolerated Bill's dalliances with women to preserve her political ambitions, her capacity for looking the other way as president while Bill made hay would be even more impassive.
