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

ABC News:

• It’s not over.
  
  That’s the message out of the Clinton campaign today. On a conference call with reporters Saturday, campaign aides responded to an article posted on politico.com that states that “Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning” the nomination. The article also quotes an anonymous “important Clinton adviser” as saying privately that Clinton has no more than a ten percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama.
  
  “Sen. Clinton has been counted out many times in this campaign,” said communications director Howard Wolfson.
  
  Wolfson said he had no idea who the unnamed “important Clinton advisor” was, but said that the ten percent comment did not reflect sentiment within the campaign.
  
  “There are ten states yet to come. We have millions more Americans who are going to weigh in and express their preferences,” he said.

superdelegates will know that Obama has virtually no chance of winning the general. They might still give it to him anyway & to be honest at this point the nomination is so tainted Hillary might be better off waiting for the next one.

This actually ties in with a theory I'd had for a while, namely, that: if Hillary isn't able to steal the nomination from Obama she might work against him (secretly if nothing else) in the hopes of running in 2012.

Says MEM a month later.

I guess no matter what happens the party really needs to relook at its rules.

These would be rules that Hillary was involved in writing as far back as 1972.

Without a rule-change to include votes from Michigan and Florida, Obama will inevitably have more votes than Hillary. Even though his is the more wounded candidacy at this point (Rev. Wright, close association with the indicted Tony Rezko, Obama's insincerity regarding NAFTA in communication with the Canadian government, and lying to American voters, his evasive voting record, etc.)

But none of the Dems will be man enough to deny the nomination to the first viable african-American candidate, who has the highest share of delegates. And risk being labelled a racist.


Although Hillary's wagon isn't far behind.

I wouldn't be [too] sure on that. Hillary still has more superdelegates in her corner that don't seem to be afraid of being labelled racist. However, I do get the feeling that the leaders in my party will try to pressure the superdelegates to give it to Obama. These are the same old windbags that when Obama talks about needing change comes to my mind.

Yeah, I agree it's very close. But that the party insiders are pushing it toward Obama over Hillary.

But if Hillary wins the popular vote, I don't see how they can deny her the nomination.

Regardless, I'll give Hillary this: She's tenacious as hell, and won't go down easy. She really wants the job, and she's fighting very hard for it.

“An act of betrayal,” said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.

“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.

I'll give Hillary this: She's tenacious as hell, and won't go down easy.

It will be tough for her to do it but I think it can be done because of the Wright thing.

American Spectator:

• The 1998 White House photo of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and President Bill Clinton at a prayer service (one where Vice President Al Gore was in attendance, as was Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to her schedule), isn't the only foray the Clintons had with Wright.
  
  According to former Clinton White House aides, Wright had been identified as a potential "influencer" for the African-American community by the Administration back in 1993.
  
  "Reverend Wright was someone we very much wanted to cultivate and develop," says one aide familiar with the outreach attempts. "We had him on short lists for various commissions and working groups. He and his church were recommended as potential sponsors of White House events in Chicago for our advance office. He was on our radar screen very early on."
  
  The 1998 White House photo of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., and President Bill Clinton at a prayer service (one where Vice President Al Gore was in attendance, as was Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to her schedule), isn't the only foray the Clintons had with Wright.
  
  According to former Clinton White House aides, Wright had been identified as a potential "influencer" for the African-American community by the Administration back in 1993.
  
  "Reverend Wright was someone we very much wanted to cultivate and develop," says one aide familiar with the outreach attempts. "We had him on short lists for various commissions and working groups. He and his church were recommended as potential sponsors of White House events in Chicago for our advance office. He was on our radar screen very early on."

You must concede, however, that it makes it much more difficult for Clinton to exploit the situation if she has ties to him too, however minimal compared to Obama's.

Obviously, the level of involvement with Wright is much more minimal with Clinton than Obama.

However, it's still with Wright (as opposed to another controversial minister).

Therefore, it becomes much more difficult for Hillary to criticize Obama for his actions towards Wright, insofar as the Clintons also reached out to Wright.

A lot of black people do talk like that. Just like a lot of white people talk about neighborhoods not being nice anymore if a minority moves in.

And when a white man says it in public, he's demonized. The left attack and want him fired, humiliated, and ostracized. Don't be whiny when the other shoe finally drops.

So naturally that must mean you agree with Pariah saying Mexicans are worthless and blacks were too stupid and lazy to save themselves during Katrina.

Uh....Yeah, where did I say this exactly?

Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

BTW it's not like Hillary's campaign is exploiting Wright like Obama did with Ferraro. They've been very careful not to give Obama yet another race card to play on the Wright contoversy.

So instead of the race card which frankly they're crap at playing, they had Bill come out and question Obama's patriotism. Something that was then swatted down by Obama advisor Merrill McPeak, a retired air force general.

With Democrats like these trying to find and exploit the wedge issues that frankly, affect NO ONES lives, who needs Republicans? Oh wait.... they're DLC Democrats.

Whats a DLC Democrat?

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said she "misspoke" last week when saying she had landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia as first lady in March 1996. She later characterized the episode as a "misstatement" and a "minor blip."

The Obama campaign suggested the statement was a deliberate exaggeration by Clinton, who often cites the goodwill trip with her daughter and several celebrities as an example of her foreign policy experience.

During a speech last Monday on Iraq, she said of the Bosnia trip: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

According to an Associated Press story at the time, Clinton was placed under no extraordinary risks on the trip. And one of her companions, comedian Sinbad, told The Washington Post he has no recollection either of the threat or reality of gunfire.

When asked Monday about the New York senator's remarks about the trip, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson pointed to Clinton's written account of it in her book, "Living History," in which she described a shortened welcoming ceremony at Tuzla Air Base, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

"Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children, though we did have time to meet them and their teachers and to learn how hard they had worked during the war to continue classes in any safe spot they could find," Clinton wrote.

"That is what she wrote in her book," Wolfson said. "That is what she has said many, many times and on one occasion she misspoke."

Asked about the issue during a meeting with the Philadelphia Daily News' editorial board on Monday, Clinton said she "misspoke."

"I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things — millions of words a day — so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement," she said.

A spokesman for rival Barack Obama's campaign questioned whether Clinton misspoke, saying her comments came in what appeared to be prepared remarks for the Iraq speech. His campaign's statement included a link to the speech on Clinton's campaign Web site with her account of running to the cars. Clinton's campaign said what is on the Web site is not the prepared text, but a transcript of her remarks, including comments before the speech in which she talked about the trip to Bosnia.

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a written statement that Clinton's Bosnia story "joins a growing list of instances in which Senator Clinton has exaggerated her role in foreign and domestic policymaking."

The Obama campaign statement also links to a CBS News video of the Bosnia trip posted on YouTube, which shows Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, walking across the tarmac from a large cargo plane, smiling and waving, and stopping to shake hands with Bosnia's acting president and greet an 8-year-old girl.

"This is something that the Obama campaign wants to push 'cause they have nothing positive to say about their candidate," Wolfson said Monday.

Clinton's written account contradicts her comments last Monday about the welcoming ceremony.

Just after the speech, Clinton reaffirmed the account of running from the plane to the cars when she was asked about it during a news conference. She said was moved into the cockpit of the C-17 cargo plane as they were flying into Tuzla Air Base.

"Everyone else was told to sit on their bulletproof vests," Clinton said. "And we came in, in an evasive maneuver. ... There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened."

Former Army Secretary Togo West, who accompanied Clinton to Bosnia, said he was not surprised "that there could be confusion" when someone who has taken a number of trips tries to recall details of a particular trip 12 years earlier.

"The important thing is that she was there. Our soldiers saw she was there and heard her and knew that our country cared about them and what they were doing," West told the AP during a telephone interview.

For those of you not in the know, 'misspoke' is politico for 'lied'.

there really is a case to be made for Munchhausen syndrome here.