It's Tax Day. As Larry the Cable Guy would say, "Git 'er done." Hillary: I Plan to Raise $2.5 Billion, Then Get Money Out of Politics Shot: This campaign will begin on a small scale and build up to an effort likely to cost more than any presidential bid waged before, with Mrs. Clinton's supporters and outside "super PACs" looking to raise as much as $2.5 billion in a blitz of donations from Democrats who overwhelmingly support her candidacy. Chaser: Hillary Clinton called for a constitutional amendment to address the influx of "unaccountable money" in politics during her first official day of campaigning in Iowa. "We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if it takes a constitutional amendment," she said during an event at Kirkwood Community College in Monticello. She added that campaign finance reform is one of the "four big fights" that her campaign is focused on. Lord, make me pure, but not yet. Hillary's Campaign Strategy of Avoidance So what's the strategy behind Hillary's van speeding away from reporters? Why is she attempting the world's first covert campaign by an overwhelming favorite? Talk about "runaway frontrunner." 
Run, reporters, run! As the Des Moines Register puts it, "Hillary Clinton's van has rolled up to a few Iowa destinations on the down low." After about an hour at the Jones St. Java House, Clinton exited the building and went toward a black vehicle, brushing off shouted questions about her candidacy. "We'll have lots of time to talk later," she said. Clinton then went to LeClaire's downtown, where she took a walk with Mayor Bob Scannell, greeting onlookers and stopping into one shop. In her first remarks of the campaign, she addressed the pressing issues of hedge-fund managers paying insufficient tax rates and the salaries of CEOS. Clearly, those CEOs don't earn their pay the way she does with her $300,000-per-speech speaking fees or her $14 million book advance. (According to salary.com, the median expected annual pay for a typical chief executive officer in the United States is $681,798, so 50 percent of the people who perform the job of chief executive officer in the United Sates are expected to make less than $681,798. For perspective, Bill Clinton made $17 million in public-speaking fees in one year and $106 million from 2001 to 2013. The CEO making that median salary would have to work about 25 years to make what Bill Clinton made in speaking fees in that year; a CEO making that median salary would have to work 155 years to equal Bill Clinton's speaking-fee total over that twelve-year period.) We established in a previous Jolt that what worries us conservatives doesn't worry progressives, and vice versa: "By and large, the Republicans are worried about the right problems -- the big problems: crazy people who want to kill us, a skyrocketing debt, a growing culture of dependency, an avalanche of red tape strangling the entrepreneurial lifeblood of the economy, and an unsecure border." Both conservatives and progressives look at America and see problems, but they see completely different problems. They dismiss with a shrug the problems that worry us most. What's the Democratic solution to the national debt? It's not really a problem. What's the Democratic solution to Putin's aggression? It's not really a problem. What's the Democratic solution to the Islamic State? It's not really a problem, we're handling it fine through airstrikes. What's the Democratic solution to illegal immigration and an insecure border? It's not really a problem, let's pass an amnesty. What's the Democratic solution to children being raised without fathers? To the extent they address this, they insist it reflects low wages and economic factors. Meanwhile, they turn to us and ask, "What's your plan for dealing with the temperature rising a century from now? Why aren't you concerned about micro-aggressions? What's your plan to ensure every woman in America has access to affordable birth control? What are you going to do to stop people from being able to buy guns?" Sometimes Democrats get really creative in finding new problems. Not so long ago, Hillary Clinton lamented the "fun deficit" in America and suggested the solution was sending adults to camps. If Hillary sits down and does tough interviews -- well, you'll probably see something like the press conference about he private e-mail server. So the Hillary camp is going to keep her in front of small groups, handing softball questions. We can expect Team Hillary to make a huge deal out of any perceived insult, something that they can claim represents sexism, woman-hating, or that tired perennial, the "war on women." Vast swaths of our public debate revolve around metronomic "Can you believe what this person said?" outrages. Any ill-tempered comment from any little-known "GOP lawmaker" anywhere in the country can set off a couple news cycles of ritualistic denunciation. Driving the guy at Mozilla out of his job is relatively easy. Making a figure so controversial that they're metaphorically radioactive is easy. Considering what liberals claim to care about, they have every reason to focus their fury upon militant Islam . . . but they don't. Liberals claim to care about underprivileged children and the importance of education, so they have every reason to lash out at status-quo-defending teachers' unions and demand public-school choice for every parent everywhere in the country . . . but most of them don't. Liberals claim to care about low-income Americans, so they have every reason to oppose allowing more unskilled or low-skilled workers to enter the country illegally . . . but they don't. Liberals claim they want to help the little guy, so they have every reason to want to reduce the amount of red tape and paperwork that a new small business faces . . . but they don't. All of those tasks would require them doing something difficult -- oftentimes, confronting a part of their own coalition for the status quo. Two Oddities from the New USA Today Poll Hey, USA Today . . . You didn't even put Rick Perry or Bobby Jindal on your candidate list? You list Donald Trump, John Kasich, and Mike Huckabee, but not Perry or Jindal?
Also note this from the USA Today poll, next time you hear about how Obama's got his mojo back: Meanwhile, assessing the president who is already in the Oval Office, 48% of all those surveyed disapprove of the job Obama is doing; 42% approve. Those may be mediocre ratings, but they're better than those for Congress: 77% disapprove, 11% approve. Just 25% say the country is headed in the right direction, a significant drop from the 36% who felt that way in January. ADDENDA: DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, suddenly telling Wolf Blitzer that abortion isn't really going to be the decisive issue in this election: "Ultimately, at the end of the day, its unlikely that voters are going to be deciding who they're going to vote for, for president [based on their position on abortion], and whether a candidate has their back on this issue, it's more going to be on jobs and the economy." | 
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