RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Hillary in 2008

She was in Canton last night and will be here in town today downtown. Bill is supposed to come (heh) in tomorrow into Tupelo and stay overnight to tour the southern part of the state. Obama is scheduled to be here next week as well. This close primary has made a lot of forgotten states suddenly blip up on candidates' radars.

According to the Globe and Mail, she did:

• The conversation turned to the pledges to renegotiate the North American free-trade agreement made by the two Democratic contenders, Mr. Obama and New York Senator Hillary Clinton.
  
  Mr. Brodie, apparently seeking to play down the potential impact on Canada, told the reporters the threat was not serious, and that someone from Ms. Clinton's campaign had even contacted Canadian diplomats to tell them not to worry because the NAFTA threats were mostly political posturing.
  
  The Canadian Press cited an unnamed source last night as saying that several people overheard the remark.
  
  The news agency quoted that source as saying that Mr. Brodie said that someone from Ms. Clinton's campaign called and was "telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt."

My point though was that he's nothing special. And Hillary does have more of a record to look at. For example Obama talks about working with Republicans but we don't know how well he will after he starts getting the Rush Limbaugh treatment. Hillary has earned a reputation for being able to put partisanship aside to work with Republicans.

I wouldn't say she's done that any more than any other Senator that wants some pork passed, speaking as one of her constituents.

And, MEM, if you're going to make experience the issue then you have to go with McCain over either of them.

I had brought this up last night but MEM seems to have glossed over it as well as most of the other points I've been bringing up, including the fact that Hillary and McCain share camapign managers from the same lobbying firm.

when Obama mentions "change you can believe in", I think it's real not just a slogan or how Bush described "change" when he was endorsing McCain the other day.

i think the change Obama was talking about was his cure for the gays he supports.

Here's a good breakdown of the delegate question. I'd like to know what tortured leaps of math and logic makes this analysis wrong.

that not from a real website, sorry whomod.

ok, I'll actually accept that although that sites facts are impeccable. The AP though has picked up this angle as well.



So much for Hillary's comeback. Of course, the media knew this Tuesday night, but it was more fun to pretend like Hillary's momentum (yes, winning a state that she was already expected to win for the past 14 months is now momentum and a comeback) was going to make this an all new race. Now, to be fair, Obama can't reach the magic number of 2,025 total delegates either - not without the help of the Superdelegates. But note that the AP article is now definitively saying that not only can't Hillary reach 2,025 delegates, she also can't even catch up to Obama in terms of pledged (elected) delegates even if she wins every race. That's what most analysts have been saying for the past few weeks. It's over, in terms of elections. Hillary can't catch up to Obama, period. Now all she can do is try to convince the Superdelegates to overturn the will of the people (this is probably the motivation behind her having gone postal the past week, embracing John McCain, telling everyone how qualified he is to be president, etc.) And if the Superdelegates listen to Hillary, and overrule the will of the people by denying the nomination to the first African-American nominee in American history, God help our party, cuz it ain't gonna be pretty.

i'm sure the democrats will fuck this up, hillary now has a track record of being able to win in the must have states, and theyll likely rally behind obama, who couldn't garner a majority in the primaries in big electoral states, this will allow mccain who is viewed as a moderate in most peoples eyes(by most i dont mean you crack left wingers, or neocons). if the democrats ever get their act together im sure it wont be in my lifetime....

Am I a neocon? Because I think McCain's a moderate.

most neocon blogs/pundits accuse him of being left wing

Actually, I think McCain could be considered a neocon, to the extent that one possible definition of neocon is Hawkish on defense while willing to expand government to address social issues.

The Chicago Tribune scrutinizes Clinton's claims to have serious foreign-policy experience:

• while Hillary Clinton represented the U.S. on the world stage at important moments while she was first lady, there is scant evidence that she played a pivotal role in major foreign policy decisions or in managing global crises.
  
  Pressed in a CNN interview this week for specific examples of foreign policy experience that has prepared her for an international crisis, Clinton claimed that she "helped to bring peace" to Northern Ireland and negotiated with Macedonia to open up its border to refugees from Kosovo. She also cited "standing up" to the Chinese government on women's rights and a one-day visit she made to Bosnia following the Dayton peace accords.
  
  Earlier in the campaign, she and her husband claimed that she had advocated on behalf of a U.S. military intervention in Rwanda to stop the genocide there.
  
  But her involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process was primarily to encourage activism among women's groups there, a contribution that the lead U.S. negotiator described as "helpful" but that an Irish historian who has written extensively about the conflict dismissed as "ancillary" to the peace process.
  
  The Macedonian government opened its border to refugees the day before Clinton arrived to meet with government leaders. And her mission to Bosnia was a one-day visit in which she was accompanied by performers Sheryl Crow and Sinbad, as well as her daughter, Chelsea, according to the commanding general who hosted her.

If that's the case, maybe the Democrats should be running Sinbad for President. Or, better yet, a Sheryl Crow/Sinbad fusion ticket.

And, as far as Rwanda goes:

• Whatever her private conversations with the president may have been, key foreign policy officials say that a U.S. military intervention in Rwanda was never considered in the Clinton administration's policy deliberations. Despite lengthy memoirs by both Clintons and former Secretary of State and UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, any advice she gave on Rwanda had not been mentioned until her presidential campaign.
  
  Prudence Bushnell, a retired State Department official who handled the Rwanda portfolio at the time and has not allied with a presidential candidate, confirmed that a U.S. military intervention was not considered in policy deliberations, as did several senior Clinton administration officials with first-hand knowledge who declined to be identified.

Olbermann beat you to the Sinbad joke by a day or so.

Heh. Probably the first time Olbermann and I have agreed on anything.

Hillary savages Obama.

Obama savages Hillary.

The New York Times savages McCain on unproven allegations about his relations with a female lobbyist, without a shred of evidence.

They, and the Whomods of the world, constantly rail on alleged "right wing tactics".

But it seems plain to anyone who is looking objectively at these incidents, that the only ones not using "right-wing tactics" are the actual right-wingers !

Ironic that "right-wing tactics" are a form of smear used exclusively by the left.

It seems whether Hillary or Obama wins, it will divide the Democrats and alienate a large portion of their base.


As an alternative that amalgamates both camps, I hear increasing talk of a Hillary/Obama ticket (in that order) that would allow the Democrats to salvage both energized groups.
Hillary's comments just today seem to hint that a Hillary/Obama ticket may be possible (at least on her end).

It's reminiscent of the 1960 race, where despite JFK despising Johnson, he took on Johnson as his Vice President, to rally the necessary southern votes to win (which JFK still could have lost, if Nixon had demanded a re-count. But Nixon, not being Al Gore, didn't want to tear apart the nation with a prolonged dispute).

In fairness, Reagan and Bush Sr. had a very hostile exchange in the primaries, and Reagan similarly kept Bush on board as his V.P. But they seemed to have mended things from that point forward. Whereas Kennedy and LBJ truly hated each other.

In any case, it looks like an elites' decision within the DNC at this point, rather than a decision by Democrat primary voters.

Globe & Mail

We're entering into dangerous territory with one of our presidential candidates. And I don't mean dangerous in the sense Hillary claims - that she "risked her life" during multiple secret agent missions while she was juggling planning the White House Christmas party and solving world peace (if she'd only been First Lady during the Cold War think of the billions we could have saved by her single-handedly bringing down the Soviet Union). We're entering the "just because she says it doesn't make it true" territory. It's a category we traditionally reserve for George Bush and Republicans.

As we are all very well aware, Hillary Clinton is touting her foreign policy credentials. When asked to name them, she provides some examples:



Noticeably, no mention of her votes on Iraq and Iran. But, let's look at what she said. Let's see if it's true.



Cross Northern Ireland off.



More on her dare-devil mission to Kosovo:





So, if a place was "too dangerous," Hillary took her 15 year old kid, Sinbad and Sheryl Crow with? Oops. Cross that one off, too.

So, based on the examples Clinton provided, it looks like her foreign policy experience actually is based on one speech she made in 1995. How ironic.

I don't mean to belittle Hillary here, but she has developed a recent history of inflating her resume in a way that will lead to some pretty laughable and damaging GOP ads come the fall general election. It's "Al Gore created the Internet" all over again. That was never what actually Gore claimed, but the right wing pushed it so hard that the media adopted it. Hillary does have some strong experience. But, most Americans aren't going to believe that the First Lady, when not reading to children, was actually knee-capping terrorists a la Jack Bauer.

I'm not sure what to make of this. Sounds like a bit of gay-bashing, a bit of yuppie-bashing, and a bit of overall liberal bashing to boot. And of course, it continues Hillary's theme of bashing any state and any constituency that favors Obama (like she did when said that Mississippians have a problem with women):



Actually, the Clinton folks are dissing all of Obama's states. Not only are the caucus states "boutique" (wonder what that means), but none of his victories were in the "hardscrabble terrain." I guess that means that Obama never won any manly-man states. So which sissy Obama states are we talking about? His primary victories in: Missouri? Illinois? Maryland? Georgia? Alabama? Wisconsin? Virginia? Louisiana? Utah? South Carolina? Or the caucus states of: Nebraska? Alaska? Idaho? Kansas? North Dakota? Iowa? And soon-to-be Texas? (There are more primary and caucus victories, but these were the "manliest" ones I could think of, off the top of my head.) Obama has won far more than just caucus states, and the caucus states he won are far from latte-drinking San Franciscans (let's face it, that's what Hillary's campaign meant).

Seriously, which of those states does Hillary think are just a bunch of latte-drinking airheads? Wow, that is amazingly dumb, and amazingly Republican. Not to mention, now we can expect an ad from John McCain in the fall telling those states' voters that this is what Democrats think of them. Way to go, Hillary. Now whose staffer needs to be fired?

Also in the article, an interesting quote from an unnamed "senior Democrat":



Others point to the title of her book, It Takes A Village To Raise A Child, suggesting Mrs Clinton may now be more intent on “razing the village – to the ground”.

Former Democratic Senator, and presidential candidate, Gary Hart on HuffPost:



It's time the media asked Hillary one simple question: Who is more qualified to be president, John McCain or Barack Obama. Ask her. Then let's see if she weasels out of it or defends the Democrat.

It's incredible that her campaign took such umbrage at an Obama staffer calling her a "monster". it's apt in my opinion. A power hungry monster that only cares about her own ambition above her own party. It's time for her to step aside and hope Obama chooses her as VP.

so they can get unelected together?

Which is part of the reason the GOP wants Hillary to win.

if he cant win the primares in ohio, florida, california, and texas you really think he is electable as president?

obviously you never saw the episode of Highlander where some guy videotapes Duncan killing a bad guy and then Duncan has to get the tape back.

i did see that episode, and i must say Joyce DeWitt's performance was a tour de force!

Yes.

Even in the states Obama lost, he still got more votes than McCain, except for Arizona, McCain's home state.

See for yourself

Obama supporters should find this statement encouraging.

that goes against perkins thinking, he says the gop wants hillary to win so that a dem doesnt get elected. she got more votes in those big electorate states then obama.

Heh...I thought of the song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" when I read this (especially the line "And I knew she was a master of deception.")

(I expect Frank Burns to come rolling along any minute now.)

that post didnt make any sense matt

But fewer delegates overall.

the general election is won by electoral votes, pay attention.

It's also all primaries, not caucuses.

i hope we havent ruined whomod and Wednesdays weekend....

Perhaps I wasn't clear, so I'll let Salon make my point for me:


Who would the GOP rather face?
John McCain's strategists look on with amazement, and a little glee, as Hillary Clinton tries to make a comeback against Barack Obama.

By Mike Madden

• Democratic presidential candidates US Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) (L) and US Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) take part in the MSNBC/Nevada Democratic Party presidential candidates' debate in Las Vegas January 15, 2008. Right: Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-AZ) speaks at a town hall meeting in San Antonio, Texas February 27, 2008.
  
  Mar 10, 2008 | Every time Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama met for a debate this year, the Republican National Committee got busy. RNC operatives blasted e-mail after e-mail to reporters, highlighting little details here and there about what the leading Democrats said and how (in Republican dreams) it would come back to bite them in the fall. The last few showdowns, though, saw the messages about Clinton slowly drop off, while the Obama e-mails came faster and faster. During their last debate in Cleveland, the RNC sent out eight memos on Obama, and only two on Clinton -- and one of those mentioned Obama, too.
  
  So it's with surprise and befuddlement -- and some relish -- that Republicans, especially John McCain's strategists, are now looking at the sudden revival of a race in the other party that they thought was more or less over. Plans that were already being drawn up to try to beat Obama are on hold. If you think you're confused watching Obama and Clinton battle, you're not alone. "I don't know who the hell the nominee's going to be," said Mark Salter, a senior advisor to McCain's campaign. But the McCain team does find itself facing two prospects that may benefit their candidate -- a costly, protracted fight for the nomination on the other side of the aisle, and the possibility that the last Democrat standing may be a woman whose very name spurs GOP voters and donors into action.
  
  For weeks, McCain has been running against Obama. He started dropping little rhetorical bombs on him when they both swept the "Potomac primaries" in mid-February, mocking Obama's favorite lines in his own victory speech. Then he picked a fight over Iraq, seizing on Obama's statement in a debate that he would order troops back into the country after the U.S. withdraws if al-Qaida started setting up bases. Obama, meanwhile, pushed back at McCain over campaign finance. The calendar may have read February, but it felt like October.
  
  But in a year when the pundits have gotten it wrong almost every week, why should the Republicans be any different? By Tuesday night, when McCain clinched his nomination, the speech Salter wrote for him suddenly abandoned most of the specific Obama references in favor of generic "my opponent" language that basically ran through the usual Republican sound bites against any Democrat -- "my opponent" will pull out of NAFTA, "my opponent" likes taxes, "my opponent" wants big government healthcare mandates. The fall campaign, already in progress, was put back on hold.
  
  All winter, Republicans have glanced across the aisle and wondered what, exactly, was going on in the Democratic race. Sometimes the lessons they've drawn have been a bit off. Mitt Romney was so impressed by Obama's win in Iowa that he started calling himself a change candidate, as if he'd forgotten that the change Obama was pushing started with putting a Democrat in the White House. The vast sums of money both Democrats are raising inspires some longing among McCain staffers, who sound amazed at reports that Obama has 700 paid staffers working for him.
  
  Of course, polling shows either Democrat would beat McCain in November, so for the GOP, the outcome of the Obama-Clinton race may not look great no matter how it shakes out. McCain's strategists say they've been too busy clinching their own nomination to worry about what the Democrats have been up to. But the longer Clinton and Obama slug away at each other, the happier McCain's aides are. "It looks like a protracted conflict, and I would guess they're going for at least another two months and maybe all the way to the convention, and spending their money on each other instead of us," said Charlie Black, another senior advisor.
  
  Still, Republicans already have a pretty clear road map for how to run against Hillary. (It's not as if it would be the first time she's been their nemesis.) Surveys and focus groups the RNC commissioned earlier in the year indicate voters think Clinton "will say or do anything to get elected" and that she'll raise their taxes. "Americans know Senator Clinton, and they know that they can't trust her," RNC spokesman Alex Conant said. Attacks might not even need to dredge up all the old battles of her husband's administration -- though, as the "socialized medicine" refrain that crept back into Republican talking points this year shows, the GOP does like to tie old lines into new ones. And a McCain-Clinton contest would pretty much end all the worries at McCain's Alexandria, Va., headquarters about how to unite Republicans behind him; just sending out an e-mail with "Hillary Clinton" in the subject line could probably raise him a few million bucks.
  
  Which is why some Republicans sounded almost wistful as Obama won state after state in February. Deprived of one of their favorite punching bags of all time, they had to move on to another target, one who wasn't already familiar to many voters. The easy shots at Clinton would have to be shelved. "The political reality was, why would Republicans bother attacking her?" one GOP strategist said.
  
  McCain's aides say now they don't know which one they'd rather face. "McCain and I have never been sure of that," Black said. "We've talked about it and looked at it, and we're not sure who's easier or that either of them is easier." So like most of the rest of the country (except, of course, Mississippians, Pennsylvanians and the residents of the other seven states and two U.S. possessions yet to vote), they're just watching. "There's nothing we can really do about it," Salter said. "To the extent we're paying attention to the dynamic, it's just giving us information that we need for our schedule -- how much time do we have to go out there and reintroduce McCain to the country and start doing policy speeches while those two are banging away at each other?"
  
  The RNC, meanwhile, will handle the nastier end of things -- making sure that voters have at least some negative associations in their minds with whoever emerges with the Democratic nomination, whenever the race ends. But there, too, strategists seem content for now to let Clinton do their dirty work on Obama, or vice versa; why get in the way when your opponents' aides are calling each other monsters or saying they aren't ready to handle an international crisis?
  
  From the GOP perspective, the race has taken an even weirder turn lately, with Obama lumping McCain and Clinton together in his speech Tuesday night after losing Texas and Ohio, calling them both opponents of his hope for change. Not to be outdone, Clinton implied Thursday that McCain was more qualified to be commander in chief than Obama.
  
  In fact, the Democratic campaign may be providing McCain with a plan for the fall no matter who wins. To the GOP, the lesson of Clinton's comeback is simple: attack, attack, attack. "She went on the attack on about three fronts and got him on the defensive," Black said. "What you're gonna find out now, we're gonna find out how tough Obama is. If he has a glass jaw, she just broke it." Winning in November on a platform built on cheering for an unpopular war will still be hard for John McCain. But it'll be a lot easier if his opponents help him out along the way.

im sorry i ruined your weekend.

Speaking as a proud member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, there really isn't any consensus in the GOP as to who we'd rather face in November.

Some Republicans point to Hillary's high negatives and think she'd be easier to beat. Others look at the Obama's radical left wing voting record and "alleged" Muslim background and think he would be easier to beat.

You also have the "Limbaugh wing," that thinks the longer the two duke it out for the nomination, the more fractured the party will be in the general election, while others think that this only increases the chances of a "unity ticket."

Personally, I think trying to read the tea leaves this early on is a dangerous game. Opinions can change and a candidate whose party thinks is unbeatable this early out (John Kerry and Al Gore being recent examples) can end up losing in November while a candidate that most people think of as a lightweight (Bush Jr and Bill Clinton) can come from behind to win.

With that being said, it seems to me that the GOP would be better off building up their own candidate, especially one with a strong resume like McCain's, instead of trying to set up the other party's candidate for failure.

i dont consider my self a democrat or a republican but i see obama as being easier to beat by mccain. mcain is a centrist and right or wrong obama is viewed as a left winger by most people.

if there had been a strong field of candidates on the republican side mccain wouldnt have stood a chance in the primaries.

hillary is seen as more of a centrist though not by much than obama.

plus everyone saw the cracks obama's campaign took in this pretty much light hitting primary season, can they weather a full blown general election? we know the clintons can take anything, and respond to anything.

The red phone ad seemed to hurt Obama alot. Hillary only raised the question of who would you rather have answer it. The GOP won't be asking, they'll be answering.