Mary Matalin predicted last month that Hillary Clinton will not run for president in 2016 — and the renowned GOP consultant says the former secretary of state's publicity blitz for a new memoir has not changed her mind.
"If I had just gone through a book tour like she went through a book tour, which all the media, all her liberal friends … were kicking her, batting her around like a piñata, why would she want to do that at her age as a new grandmother?'' Matalin told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"It's as evident from this book tour [that the Clintons are] worth bazillions of dollars, [so] why would you want to spend your final days doing that?''
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Clinton has been on a whirlwind book tour for "
Hard Choices," published by Simon & Schuster, and submitted to two question-and-answer sessions on CNN and Fox News this week.
Matalin — who was campaign director for President George H.W. Bush, assistant to President George W. Bush, and former counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney — believes Clinton's recent appearances indicate she's not as politically savvy as she once was.
"She's also proved she's either rusty or she never was a good pal in the first place,'' she said.
"The whole candidacy or success of the candidacy is predicated on Democratic identity politics, which is, we had the first African-American, now we want to have the first woman.
"Well, Americans — that's just not going to play. She might be the first woman, but she's not the first Clinton.''
Matalin said the mainstream media is unlikely to treat Clinton with the same kid gloves they did with President Barack Obama.
She also pointed to a Wall Street Journal poll that reveals 55 percent of respondents say Clinton is knowledgeable and experienced enough to handle the presidency, but only 38 percent find her honest and straightforward.
"There is a crying ache for competence, but 55 percent is not a good competence number and I would look at Obama's competence number, which is far below that, and she is following Obama,'' she said.
"Equally important [are] the attributes: trust, honesty, empathy … would you go have a beer with this guy or that guy ... People want to trust their president.''
If Clinton does run for president, Matalin believes that at some point she will likely "throw Obama under the bus on Benghazi or some other defense kind of issue'' to give her candidacy a fresh spin.
"But it's going to be hard … The reason or one of the many reasons Poppy Bush won in '88 was because people liked the Reagan policies and they wanted a continuation of them,'' Matalin said.
"Obama [has] … been governing against the people's will. There has never been support for any of his policies and [Clinton has] been a cheerleader for them."
"I don't know how she could — she spent all her time saying, 'I meant what I said then, but here's what I mean now.' It'll be like a Kerry Two: 'I voted for before I voted against it.'"
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