Clinton thread
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- TheBlueOne0
Dear CNN, AP, NYT,
Clinton did not "win Texas" as all of you declared earlier in the week in bold typeface everywhere you could plaster it, in a rush to print all those "Clinton momentum!" stories you were itching to get out. In fact looks like Obama is well on his way to secure the delegate count in that state.
Funny all you press types didn't say Al Gore "won Florida" when he won the popular vote but lost the electoral count. Huh. Go figure. It's like you have your own agenda of some kind. How about those apples?
- ********0
thanks to the Blue One for this one:
"Go Already!
by Jonathan Chait
Hillary Clinton, fratricidal maniacThe morning after Tuesday's primaries, Hillary Clinton's campaign released a memo titled "The Path to the Presidency." I eagerly dug into the paper, figuring it would explain how Clinton would obtain the Democratic nomination despite an enormous deficit in delegates. Instead, the memo offered a series of arguments as to why Clinton should run against John McCain--i.e., "Hillary is seen as the one who can get the job done"--but nothing about how she actually could. Is she planning a third-party run? Does she think Obama is going to die? The memo does not say.
The reason it doesn't say is that Clinton's path to the nomination is pretty repulsive. She isn't going to win at the polls. Barack Obama has a lead of 144 pledged delegates. That may not sound like a lot in a 4,000-delegate race, but it is. Clinton's Ohio win reduced that total by only nine. She would need 15 more Ohios to pull even with Obama. She isn't going to do much to dent, let alone eliminate, his lead.
That means, as we all have grown tired of hearing, that she would need to win with superdelegates. But, with most superdelegates already committed, Clinton would need to capture the remaining ones by a margin of better than two to one. And superdelegates are going to be extremely reluctant to overturn an elected delegate lead the size of Obama's. The only way to lessen that reluctance would be to destroy Obama's general election viability, so that superdelegates had no choice but to hand the nomination to her. Hence her flurry of attacks, her oddly qualified response as to whether Obama is a Muslim ("not as far as I know"), her repeated suggestions that John McCain is more qualified.
Clinton's justification for this strategy is that she needs to toughen up Obama for the general election-if he can't handle her attacks, he'll never stand up to the vast right-wing conspiracy. Without her hazing, warns the Clinton memo, "Democrats may have a nominee who will be a lightening rod of controversy." So Clinton's offensive against the likely nominee is really an act of selflessness. And here I was thinking she was maniacally pursuing her slim thread of a chance, not caring--or possibly even hoping, with an eye toward 2012-that she would destroy Obama's chances of defeating McCain in the process. I feel ashamed for having suspected her motives.
Still, there are a few flaws in Clinton's trial-by-smear method. The first is that her attacks on Obama are not a fair proxy for what he'd endure in the general election, because attacks are harder to refute when they come from within one's own party. Indeed, Clinton is saying almost exactly the same things about Obama that McCain is: He's inexperienced, lacking in substance, unequipped to handle foreign policy. As The Washington Monthly's Christina Larson has pointed out, in recent weeks the nightly newscasts have consisted of Clinton attacking Obama, McCain attacking Obama, and then Obama trying to defend himself and still get out his own message. If Obama's the nominee, he won't have a high-profile Democrat validating McCain's message every day.
Second, Obama can't "test" Clinton the way she can test him. While she likes to claim that she beat the Republican attack machine, it's more accurate to say that she survived with heavy damage. Clinton is a wildly polarizing figure, with disapproval ratings at or near 50 percent. But, because she earned the intense loyalty of core Democratic partisans, Obama has to tread gingerly around her vulnerabilities. There is a big bundle of ethical issues from the 1990s that Obama has not raised because he can't associate himself with what partisan Democrats (but not Republicans or swing voters) regard as a pure GOP witch hunt.
What's more, Clinton has benefited from a favorable gender dynamic that won't exist in the fall. (In the Democratic primary, female voters have outnumbered males by nearly three to two.) Clinton's claim to being a tough, tested potential commander-in-chief has gone almost unchallenged. Obama could reply that being First Lady doesn't qualify you to serve as commander-in-chief, but he won't quite say that, because feminists are an important chunk of the Democratic electorate. John McCain wouldn't be so reluctant.
Third, negative campaigning is a negative-sum activity. Both the attacker and the attackee tend to see their popularity drop. Usually, the victim's popularity drops farther than the perpetrator's, which is why negative campaigning works. But it doesn't work so well in primaries, where the winner has to go on to another election.
Clinton's path to the nomination, then, involves the following steps: kneecap an eloquent, inspiring, reform-minded young leader who happens to be the first serious African American presidential candidate (meanwhile cementing her own reputation for Nixonian ruthlessness) and then win a contested convention by persuading party elites to override the results at the polls. The plan may also involve trying to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations, after having explicitly agreed that the results would not count toward delegate totals. Oh, and her campaign has periodically hinted that some of Obama's elected delegates might break off and support her. I don't think she'd be in a position to defeat Hitler's dog in November, let alone a popular war hero.
Some Clinton supporters, like my friend (and historian) David Greenberg, have been assuring us that lengthy primary fights go on all the time and that the winner doesn't necessarily suffer a mortal wound in the process. But Clinton's kamikaze mission is likely to be unusually damaging. Not only is the opportunity cost--to wrap up the nomination, and spend John McCain into the ground for four months--uniquely high, but the venue could not be less convenient. Pennsylvania is a swing state that Democrats will almost certainly need to win in November, and Clinton will spend seven weeks and millions of dollars there making the case that Obama is unfit to set foot in the White House. You couldn't create a more damaging scenario if you tried.
Imagine in 2000, or 2004, that George W. Bush faced a primary fight that came down to Florida (his November must-win state). Imagine his opponent decided to spend seven weeks pounding home the theme that Bush had a dangerous plan to privatize Social Security. Would this have improved Bush's chances of defeating the Democrats? Would his party have stood for it?"
- ********0
Obama Adviser Says Clinton "A Monster"
LONDON (AP) — An adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama apologized Friday for telling a Scottish newspaper that rival Hillary Rodham Clinton is "a monster."
Samantha Power, a foreign policy adviser to Obama's presidential campaign and Pulitzer Prize winner, was quoted in remarks she later attempted to retract as saying in The Scotsman newspaper that Clinton was stooping to low tactics to recover ground in the race to win the party's presidential nomination.
The Harvard professor is quoted as telling the newspaper Obama's team had been disappointed with Clinton's campaign win in Ohio on Tuesday.
"In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win," Power is quoted as saying. "She is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything."
Power issued a statement Friday in which she acknowledged the comments but said she "deeply regretted them."
"It is wrong for anyone to pursue this campaign in such negative and personal terms," she said in the statement. "I apologize to Senator Clinton and to Senator Obama, who has made very clear that these kinds of expressions should have no place in American politics."
Obama's spokesman Bill Burton said in an e-mail: "Senator Obama decries such characterizations which have no place in this campaign."
Though Power immediately attempted to withdraw the remark, the newspaper insisted she had agreed in advance that her interview — part of a book tour — would be conducted on the record.
"You just look at her and think, 'Ergh'," Power is quoted as telling the newspaper. "But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive."
In a separate interview for Britain's left-leaning New Statesman magazine, published Thursday, Power warned Clinton's campaign against reveling in the trial of an Obama donor Antonin "Tony" Rezko on corruption charges.
"I don't think it's a good idea for the Clintons to get into a competition over who's got the most unsavory donations, you know what I mean?" Power was quoted as telling the magazine.- Maybe because a Clinton aide called Samantha Powers a monster first?
http://weblogs.balti…TheBlueOne
- Maybe because a Clinton aide called Samantha Powers a monster first?
- ********0
- BonSeff0
"The Clinton campaign held a conference call with several of the former first lady's congressional supporters calling for Power to be fired." - what a fucking HAG
- TheBlueOne0
Oh ok, so when does Hillary resign for saying that McCain would make a better president than Obama?
- ********0
If Hilary is running her campaign this bad, imagine how she would run the country?
Texas and Ohio Fd up!
- ukit0
Clinton-papers release blocked
LITTLE ROCK — Federal archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are blocking the release of hundreds of pages of White House papers on pardons that the former president approved, including clemency for fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich.
The archivists' decision, based on guidance provided by Bill Clinton that restricts the disclosure of advice he received from aides, prevents public scrutiny of documents that would shed light on how he decided which pardons to approve from among hundreds of requests.
Clinton's legal agent declined the option of reviewing and releasing the documents that were withheld, said the archivists, who work for the federal government, not the Clintons.
The decision to withhold the records could provide fodder for critics who say that the former president and his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, now seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, have been unwilling to fully release documents to public scrutiny.
Officials with the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., criticized Hillary Clinton this week for not doing more to see that records from her husband's administration are made public. "She's been reluctant to disclose information," Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, told reporters in a conference call in which he specifically cited the slow release records from the Clinton library. "If she's not willing to be open with (voters) on these issues now, why would she be open as president?"
- TheBlueOne0
So, um, if Hillary has all this experience form being First Lady, why don't we elect Laura Bush president? I mean, you know, she's been in there in the thick of it, getting "vetted", and she knows all these Iraqi/Afghani people.What? Next you're going to tell me that being First Lady isn't like real experience or some shit...
- Laura Bush isn't running.Jaline
- Well she certainly has the credentials. You know as a First Lady and stuff.TheBlueOne
- I doubt she did more than Hillary though. And she's still not running ;)Jaline
- ukit0
http://www.newsday.com/news/nati…
Hillary Rodham Clinton often invokes her "35 years of experience making change" on the campaign trail, recounting her work in the 1970s on behalf of battered and neglected children and impoverished legal-aid clients.
But there is a little-known episode Clinton doesn't mention in her standard campaign speech in which those two principles collided. In 1975, a 27-year-old Hillary Rodham, acting as a court-appointed attorney, attacked the credibility of a 12-year-old girl in mounting an aggressive defense for an indigent client accused of rape in Arkansas - using her child development background to help the defendant.
The case offers a glimpse into the way Clinton deals with crisis. Her approach, then and now, was to immerse herself in even unpleasant tasks with a will to win, an attitude captured in one of her favorite aphorisms: "Bloom where you're planted."
In her 2003 autobiography "Living History," Clinton writes that she initially balked at the assignment, but eventually secured a lenient plea deal for Taylor after a New York-based forensics expert she hired "cast doubt on the evidentiary value of semen and blood samples collected by the sheriff's office."
However, that account leaves out a significant aspect of her defense strategy - attempting to impugn the credibility of the victim, according to a Newsday examination of court and investigative files and interviews with witnesses, law enforcement officials and the victim.
Rodham, records show, questioned the sixth grader's honesty and claimed she had made false accusations in the past. She implied that the girl often fantasized and sought out "older men" like Taylor, according to a July 1975 affidavit signed "Hillary D. Rodham" in compact cursive.
"As she wrote in her book, 'Living History,' Senator Clinton was appointed by the Circuit Court of Washington County, Arkansas to represent Mr. Taylor in this matter," he said. "As an attorney and an officer of the court, she had an ethical and legal obligation to defend him to the fullest extent of the law. To act otherwise would have constituted a breach of her professional responsibilities."
Rodham, legal and child welfare experts say, did nothing unethical by attacking the child's credibility - although they consider her defense of Taylor to be aggressive.
"She was vigorously advocating for her client. What she did was appropriate," said Andrew Schepard, director of Hofstra Law School's Center for Children, Families and the Law. "He was lucky to have her as a lawyer ... In terms of what's good for the little girl? It would have been hell on the victim. But that wasn't Hillary's problem."
The victim, now 46, told Newsday that she was raped by Taylor, denied that she wanted any relationship with him and blamed him for contributing to three decades of severe depression and other personal problems.
"It's not true, I never sought out older men - I was raped," the woman said in an interview in the fall. Newsday is withholding her name as the victim of a sex crime.
With all the anguish she'd felt over the case in the years since, there was one thing she never realized - that the lawyer for the man she reviles was none other than Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"I have to understand that she was representing Taylor," she said when interviewed in prison last fall. "I'm sure Hillary was just doing her job."
- marychain0
- The Funk killed this threadmarychain
- sorrymarychain
- Never apologize for pimping George. Ever. You understand me?TheBlueOne
- ********0
Change.
its really simple. But, the Clintons are talented and persistent politicians. They know what motivates people: greed, self-interest, fear. This is becoming obvious as Obama resists the imulse to strike back in kind. He would lose that way: he is not a streetfighter.
Its about change. Obama will remain a force no matter what what happens. We have already accepted one stolen election without qualm, the Clintons know people admire winners, they will take what they can, the fait accompli is the high ground in American politics.
Obama should ignore Hillary. Run independently of the media narrative. Tell us what he wants to do: make us americans with laws and hope again.
- TheBlueOne0
A good point. The sad thing is the media won't let him. They won't respect the narrative. They'll henpeck him to death and eventually call him a coward in other words...
- and yet, he is still here and strong.********
- *raises fistTheBlueOne
- and yet, he is still here and strong.
- ********0
Stay on the high road and be mighty, Obama. Fuck them if they need to eat dirt and like it. We drink air!
- TheBlueOne0
And what was this speech of Obama's that Hillary keeps belittling? Oh, this one:
"October 2, 2002
Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don't oppose all wars.
My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don't oppose all wars.
After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.
What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.
So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?
Let's fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?
Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.
The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not -- we will not -- travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain."
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Damn good speech. And I would ask Hillary if she think Abraham Lincoln was qualified to be President during the most trying period of the Nation. You know, he mostly gave speeches and had a few debates before he was elected, as opposed to all the Government experience of his opponent. And just like Lincoln, Obama actually said the right things based on the right principles in his speeches. He said what he meant and meant what he said.
- ********0
I find this clinton/obama ticket talk she keeps hinting at particularly offensive
- these days i am offended merely by looking at her photograph in the newspaperemukid
- its not offensive its meant to diminish Obama as what happens even the improbable needs her permission********
- that's why it's offensive********
- Jaline0
I can never take speeches seriously until a person writes one him/herself. I know they "don't have time", or whatever, but that's quite important to me.
- YUP!emukid
- My god..you're starting to sound like a cynical american Jaline! :)TheBlueOne
- Obama writes most of his speechesukit
- he could lay off the cliche;
cynical attempt, crucible of the sword (huh?) arsenal of democracy ( it s team, dude)******** - but still, I'd take that clumsiness over the David Frum pastiche and syrup.********
- jellyneck0
"I find this clinton/obama ticket talk she keeps hinting at particularly offensive"
Same here... I feel like it's an attempt to pursuade Obama supporters to accept that, if she's able to steal/strong arms the nomination from Obama, at least he'll still be on the ticked as VP so don't be sooo upset.
I definitely think she would NEED him as a running mate for his voters, but in converse... Obama as nominee, there would be no Hillary as running mate. But I don't think Clinton will be able to take the nomination from Obama at this point anyway.
I'd say Richardson as primary choice for Obama running mate, Edwards second.
- I think he needs some foreign policy expereince on the ticket - Webb maybe?TheBlueOne
- jellyneck0
Also, at this point with McCain solidified as the GOP nominee... there's nothing stopping the Republicans in the remaining Primaries from going out and voting for Hillary. They want her as the Democratic candidate since she's the one they will be able to rally against and will most likely be able to beat in the general election.
- ephix0
come on guys, she just needs a bit of action.