Demagogue

Those two words sum up why Hillary Clinton was forced to announce her presidential candidacy earlier than she might have wanted to. As the N.Y. Times observed:

Her entrance into the race followed Mr. Obama’s by less than a week, and highlighted the urgency for her of not falling behind in the competition for money ...

George Soros, the billionaire New York philanthropist, has made maximum donations in the past to both candidates, for instance, and last week he faced a choice: support Mr. Obama, who created his committee on Tuesday, or stay neutral and see what Mrs. Clinton and others had to say. In this case, Mr. Obama won.

Mr. Soros sent the maximum contribution, $2,100, to Mr. Obama, the first-term senator from Illinois, just hours after he declared his plans to run.

In and of itself, $2,100 is no big deal, but Sen. Clinton had to know that the longer she waited to jump into the race, the tougher it would be for her to aggressively lock up thousands of big Democratic donors.