Okay. Ho-hum. Congratulations to Chelsea, and all the other young women who have discovered they will be expecting a package from the stork. Chelsea Clinton is married to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky. To me, this is a non-story.
But then I went over to Talking Points Memo, and found two interesting stories. The first is this story, where New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin speculates that Chelsea Clinton's pregnancy will become a "game changer" for the 2016 presidential election, and Hillary Clinton's presidential ambitions on MSNBC's Morning Joe program. Sorkin believes that Hillary Clinton's grandmother status will result in a "softening effect" on Hillary's political image for the 2016 presidential election--even though MSNBC reported a Fox News poll showing Hillary's approval ratings remained unchanged after the pregnancy was announced:
Following a discussion about Hillary Clinton's poll numbers, the New York Times financial columnist eagerly turned the panel's attention to the real story.
"Can we talk about the human drama that is Grandma Clinton?" Sorkin asked, referring to Chelsea Clinton's announcement that she's pregnant.
"I don't want to be cynical and I'm not suggesting anyone's having a baby for election purposes, but —" Sorkin added before being drowned out by the panel's collective groans.
And with that, Sorkin had lost the room, despite his best efforts to salvage his argument. He insisted that the pregnancy was a game changer for Hillary Clinton.
"It's gonna change the dynamic of the campaign," he said.
How exactly?
"It's a softening, there's a compassion thing," Sorkin explained. "You don't think that over the next two years on the campaign trail this is gonna be part of the narrative? Come on. That's interesting."
The other panelists did not find his observation interesting.
Here is the video via Morning Joe:
I then saw a second story on Talking Points Memo, reporting Newsmax conservative host Steve Malzberg speculating that Chelsea Clinton's pregnancy was designed as a "prop" for Hillary Clinton's upcoming 2016 presidential run:
Hillary Clinton shoe-throwing truthers, meet Hillary Clinton baby-truthers.
Newsmax host Steve Malzberg on Thursday speculated that Chelsea Clinton's pregnancy was no accident, and that Hillary Clinton's grandchild would arrive just in time to serve as a "prop" for a widely expected 2016 presidential run.
"Now pardon the skeptic in me," Malzberg said. "Oh I can see Media Matters, I can see everybody going crazy on me now. Malzberg thinks this was a staged, planned pregnancy?"
"Well, now I'm not saying, when I say staged I have to believe she's pregnant, if she says she's pregnant," he continued. "I don't mean that they're making up she's pregnant. But what great timing! I mean purely accidental, purely an act of nature, purely just left up to God."
"And God answered Hillary Clinton's prayers and she's going to have the prop of being a new grandma while she runs for president," he added. "It just warms the heart, it brings a tear to my eye. It really does."And here is the video:
Looks like the crazies are really coming out to speculate on how a young woman's pregnancy will affect the outcome of a presidential election, that is still two years away! It is complete madness here! I could care less if a presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican, became an expecting grandparent before or during a presidential campaign. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin became a grandmother a year before being picked as the GOP vice presidential candidate for 2012. Did Sarah Palin's grandmother status affect my opinion of her as a political candidate? Not really. Although the story of Palin's grandmother status did raise a social issue of unwed teen pregnancy.
Personally, I'm going for CNN's take on the political impact of Chelsea's pregnancy for 2016--Chill Out and Shut Up!
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