I am not intending to beat up on Hillary for the next 17 months, but sometimes clarity appears and you have to run with it. In contrast to the current occupant of the White House who has self-esteem far in excess of what is warranted by his thoughts and deeds, Hillary suffers from an insecurity that has existed for a prolonged period, but has recently manifested itself and hampers her ability to occupy the office she is seeking. The insecurity is regarding her financial well-being.
One could question whether this insecurity exists and, if so, what does that have to do with her ability to function as president of our country. Let me assure you the insecurity absolutely exists and has for a long time. Also, it follows that anyone who has an insecurity financially which still exists after she and her spouse have brought in about $150 million of personal revenue since leaving the White House are insecure in other areas of their existence. That is my belief after handling the personal finances of many people for close to 40 years.
(Note: The insecurity has nothing to do with Hillary being a woman. It could manifest just as much in a male as a female.)
This thought hit me while on my vacation. As indicated in my previous columns, while on vacation one is able to gain clarity on issues as your mind does not have to dither on the minutiae of day-to-day activities like whether you have an adequate supply of Kleenex in the house.
I read a blurb in one of my daily summaries that stated Hillary’s 2008 campaign was confronted with a cash need that warranted a loan from the Clintons of $5 million. Mrs. Clinton objected to putting the money in the campaign. This is despite having accumulated an estimated $40 million estate at the time and a steady stream of revenue. Mr. Clinton stepped in and advised her not to worry; he would just give some more speeches. That placated her and they put the money into the campaign.
All of her occasions of financial insecurity immediately came to me and these are the biggest challenges she has had in her public life. It goes back to her questionable financial transactions while with the Rose Law Firm while her husband was earning a relatively small salary as Governor of Arkansas. Despite the fact that Hillary was earning a nice living as an attorney at the firm, she was willing to take risks financially and politically to personally enrich her own economic fortunes. Even back in the 1980s, Hillary was willing to sacrifice the appearance of propriety because of her own financial insecurity.
This has carried forward into her current efforts to become president of our country. The most noted comment of her campaign to date (and maybe for the rest of her campaign) was when see stated that she came out of eight years in the White House flat broke. It stunned America, but now makes perfect sense. Despite signing outsized book deals by both Clintons, where the proceeds would hit the day they moved from Pennsylvania Avenue, she felt totally financially insecure. That is not including the fact that they had probably signed huge speaking fee contracts where they were being told they would make a minor fortune (I am sure nowhere near what they have achieved.) She wanted to be wealthy and felt she should be. Yet the Clintons had not achieved that yet and that made Hillary feel she was as financially insecure as many other struggling Americans. For her it was real even if for the rest of us it was inexplicable.
Let us bring this to current day. It has now been publicized that the Clinton’s brought in $25 million just in speaking fees since the beginning of 2014. Yet with all this money coming in and the significant resources that had been accumulated over the prior 14 years, Hillary was giving high-priced speeches until near the time of her formal announcement that she was seeking the presidency. To many it appeared she was delaying the announcement to rack up some more fees. The questionable decision to deliver these last-minute speeches is now clear to me. Mrs. Clinton cannot get enough money to mollify her insecurity and she wanted to get every last drop.
The point of all this is that someone this clearly insecure financially cannot be a settled person in other aspects of life. Political leaders have to come to office with either a substantial personal fortune or accept that they may never have anything other than the security of an average American. To go in between those two positions puts you either in a position of accepting graft or certainly providing an appearance of impropriety. To Mrs. Clinton the risks are worth the benefits to placate her financial self-doubt.
To my mind, anyway, this insecurity in one aspect of her life portends insecurity in other aspects. Do you want someone in the Oval Office who is that uncomfortable with their own being? I certainly don’t.
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