Hillary and her kid

Clintons: 2-1/2 for one Bill Clinton’s announced “two Presidents for the price of one” was the beginning of the end for poor old Hillary. Lately her sagging campaign has relegated hubby to the church basement circuit but also led her to promote their kid, Chelsea Clinton, a 27-year-old hedge fund understudy, to the level of spokesman and shill for mother. This is another desperate measure that is backfiring. Chelsea is presentable and smart but offers nothing. For weeks, she was mute, standing and smiling beside her mother on platforms. Then when she did speak, she refused to talk to the media about anything. Why would someone running for President in the world’s most transparent democracy, with the most extensive press freedoms, put a kid out there who snubs the media? Campaigns, last time I checked, were public domaine as was anyone involved in them. One U.S. commentator also criticized Hillary for “pimping out” her daughter, an unfortunate choice of words which got him suspended after Mommy called the network.

Give us a break But the Clintons have been around the block. You don’t deputize offspring, or anyone, hand them a travel budget, handlers and a microphone then only go halfway in terms of access. Besides that, nobody cares what Chelsea thinks, or McCain's or Obama's for that matter. So what's the strategy? It is an optics play. The Clintonites and their shrinking entourage wanted to improve Hillary’s image so they put Chelsea out there to say how much she loves her mother and father. Hardly stop-the-press stuff, it is aimed at broadcasting that Hillary has a “feminine” side which some say has been missing in her manner. Others say that Chelsea appeals to young voters that love Obama, thus helping her mother shore up more support. But Chelsea cannot “shore up” her mother against Obama because Hillary, not Chelsea, is running against him. Of course, it's not the first time the family got involved in electing a patriarch or matriarch. But at least George and Jeb Bush licked stamps and put the arm on donors for their father during his presidential bid. They did not make speeches about how much they loved their parents, duh, then refuse to talk to the press. But children, and their lives, can be insightful to the candidate. So let's look at what Chelsea is doing these days. She is a Wall Street understudy to hedge fund pirate Marc Lasry of Avenue Capital. Marc’s a big Clinton donor (no surprise there) who is also allowing Chelsea to book off time to stump for Momsie. Avenue Capital and Mr. Lasry are fans, and beneficiaries, of the sub-prime and mortgage mess which has plagued the world economy and ruined many American families and neighborhoods. And of the current mortgage market turmoil, Mr. Lasry was quoted recently as saying it was simply “great” for business. Nice.

....she's a full-fledged player in the campaign, something she had vowed to avoid.

"I live and work in New York and have had a private life _ at least, did until about five weeks ago," she lamented during a stop at Dayton's Sinclair Community College. She's tried to be a good sport about her new role. At Sinclair, she wore an oversized school sweat shirt that muted her clapping. As she took the microphone, she pushed up the sleeves and went to work trying to sell her mother's campaign.

Source

Despite growing up around politicians and campaigns, political life is clearly not her strength. "The full stretch of my political aspiration is to help her be my president," she said. And she doesn't plan to run for office herself or move back into the White House. "I'm 27. I'm not going to be moving back in with parents, as much as I love them," she says repeatedly on the trail. While pressing her mother's case, she still has refused to talk on-the-record to reporters. She politely smiles when reporters ask questions. In praising her mother's ability to forge bipartisan partnerships in the Senate, Chelsea even made a public reference to her father's impeachment and Senate trial for lying about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

TONY SNOW: Last stop of the night, a rally with her father in cold Las Vegas. Chelsea Clinton comes but she stands in the crowd. She doesn't want to be in the spotlight. But in this family, she doesn't always have a choice.

"She and Senator (Lindsay) Graham _ who is a conservative and Republican senator from South Carolina who is one of the people who prosecuted my father in the '90s, so maybe wouldn't be who you would think she would be in partnership with _ have found common ground on standing up for our veterans."

Chelsea Clinton is just a high profile family's daughter. Whether she had cosmetic surgery or not, who care's. She's supporting her mom, as a daughter would do knowning she will also be scrutinized. So she does her job, takes no questions-

My Note: The Kids of a politician can have it rough. I never felt I had to stoop to snide remarks. This being one, for example, she must have read: "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno. ..." and the kid learns to live with it best he or she can. But it makes some reporters feel good to write what they write, even those there be no value whatsoever. Older now, she's suppose to be fair game, to have become ammune; but still has to sting; yet, she still supports her mom.

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