With McAuliffe’s defeat in Virginia, the Clinton brand means nothing
Washed-up.
Terry McAuliffe is a loyal Clinton man.
McAuliffe, the 2021 Democratic nominee for Virginia governor who served previously as a faithful foot soldier to the Clinton political dynasty, cut his teeth doing the former first family's bidding, asking always “How high?” when told to jump. His loyalty to the Clinton political machine won him increasingly lucrative positions of power and authority within the Democratic Party.
On Tuesday, with his stunning defeat at the hands of Republican Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, who has never held public office, McAuliffe revealed not only the limits of his political influence, but also that of the Clinton brand, which has suffered so badly since 2016 one can’t help but ask: Is it worth anything now?
It’s a big fall from the 1990s, when Bill Clinton held the White House. It's a big fall from 2008, when a significant portion of the Democratic Party and its base believed then-Sen. Hillary Clinton was the natural choice for the presidential nomination, and from 2016, when the Democratic Party tipped the scales decisively in Hillary Clinton’s favor.
But now? McAuliffe could not even get over the finish line in Virginia, where a Republican has not won a statewide race since 2009. His connections to the Clinton family meant nothing.
The Virginia gubernatorial race is reminiscent of what happened to Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, whom the Clintons rewarded in 2009 for her years of loyal service by practically bequeathing her the Senate seat previously held by Hillary Clinton. Gillibrand was supposed to a continuation of a political dynasty that brought the Democratic Party so much success and victory in the 1990s. Gillibrand even ran for president in 2020.
No one cared when the senator dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary long before even the Iowa caucuses.
Even the Democratic Party didn’t care. During the 2020 Democratic National Convention, a small-time TikTok celebrity best known for lip-syncing then-President Donald Trump got a total of 90 seconds of screen time. In comparison, Gillibrand got only 17 seconds. Remember, the senator, Hillary Clinton’s handpicked successor, had just come off a presidential campaign.
In fact, it’s something of a joke in newsrooms now that Gillibrand is even a senator — the joke being that we keep forgetting she exists.
Meanwhile, the once-powerful Clinton Foundation, a mega-money laundering operation, has seen its revenues drop since 2016, back when it raised roughly $63 million from donors jockeying for access to the Clinton family inner circle. Following the presidential election, when then-Republican nominee Donald Trump won a surprise victory, the Clinton Foundation saw its revenue plunge. By 2020, it was down 50% to $30 million.
Read the rest of the article at the Washington Examiner.