Depending on where one sits, a few items of Steve Forbesian "hope, growth and opportunity," celebration, reservation, distance, anxiety, or despair:
From Bloomberg, in respect to Selzer & Co.'s polling (graded A+ by Nate Silver): "One quarter of Americans who are registered Democrats or lean that way say Vice President Joe Biden is now their top choice for president. The findings … represent a notable achievement for an as-yet undeclared candidate."
From Politico: The Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees "have decided to delay endorsements in the presidential race…. The decisions are a setback for Hillary Clinton."
Also from Politico: "For the first time since he took office, President Barack Obama will skip an appearance at the Clinton Global Initiative during his annual trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly next week." A White House spokesman said the president was too busy to attend.
And from another Bloomberg piece: "The FBI has recovered personal and work-related e-mails from the private computer server used by Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state…. The bureau’s probe is expected to last at least several more months.... That timeline would push any final determination closer to the Democratic presidential primary calendar, which kicks off Feb. 1 with the Iowa caucuses."
The latter puts about 30,000 emails under scrutiny. The inevitable drips of such scrutiny — which have indeed taken a popular toll, notwithstanding insiders' insistence that voters don't care — will make the next few months seem like 30,000 years to Team Clinton. And God help Hillary if so much as one email — what are the odds, out of 30,000? — raises questions of obstruction of justice or merely deceitful behavior.
How did it come to this? Hillary Clinton's characteristically poor management skills. That's how. Her use of personal email as SecState was one thing; a thing of pure triviality and even bureaucratic custom. But her initial retention of the server after "the story" broke, then her inadequate scrubbing of the server, then her releasing of the server, then her denial that any of this was an issue, and then her scoffing at it as an issue and then her apologizing for it all — it's been like watching the glory of the Italian army in the European Theatre of Operations.
Sure, the media share the blame. But, as noted before, one could apply that condemnation to virtually any prominent pol's troubles. The managerially competent ones kill minor stories by dumping everything on the press early and often, assuming, of course, there is nothing to hide — and that, in Hillary's case, could prove to be the one-eyed joker in the deck. Correspondingly, it is rolling disclosure — when there is nothing to hide — that so often kills the pol's reputation for trustworthiness.
And Joe Biden is increasingly well positioned as the principal beneficiary.