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Political Columnist: Brady Comments A Sign of How Nervous Democrats Are

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Political columnist for The Hill, A.B. Stoddard analyzed the news that Philadelphia Congressman Bob Brady is ready to support a run for the White House by Vice President Joe Biden and the resignation of Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

Stoddard, speaking with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, said that Brady endorsing Biden so strongly is an indication that Democrats are losing faith in the presumptive front runner for their nomination, Hillary Clinton.

"That's very surprising. It's a real sign of how nervous Democrats are about Hillary's standing. They believe that, even if she were to win the primary, many of them are beginning to believe that she's beatable in the general election, that she has real, real ethical clouds over her in terms of her email and her private server, whether or not the FBI, which is investigating her, is going to unearth evidence that she co-mingled her work with the foundation, with her State Department work, [and] recklessly endangered people in the field by mishandling classified information. There's a real sense of doom setting in."

In addressing Boehner's decision to step down as Speaker of the House, she stated that most of his problems are being funded from outside organizations seeking to exert a larger influence over the government.

"Who he's the most frustrated with is actually interest groups that raise money of off goosing members of Congress and their constituents over these 'cliff moments,' if you don't vote this way, we're going to primary challenge this guy and groups like Heritage Action, etc. The leadership has been very frustrated for a long time with these groups. They literally can't get through the day without putting out fires every other hour that have to do with these kinds of fights."

Stoddard also disagreed with conservatives who support shutting down the government in an attempt to defund Planned Parenthood.

"Make the Democrats filibuster it in the Senate, try to get it to [The President's] desk, but don't do it on September 30 at midnight because that's just stupid. You do it in advance and you get it done, and then it doesn't work out, and then you say we tried. Doing it to shut down the government is just a mistake. I have to say, I know that there are talk show hosts out there telling the Republican base that they grew their majority in 2014 because they shut the government down in '13. That's just patently false. It was all because of the implosion of the Obamacare website."

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