So what kind of corner has John McCain’s new girlfriend painted herself into by making national security her big issue:
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.
Awesome. Republicans aren’t going to be having fun with that one. On the upside of this idiocy, maybe Angelina Jolie will be her Secretary of State.
And for you Hillbot’s out there who think this is the right thing to do, well played:
Rasmussen Reports says this morning that when it surveyed Americans about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 3 a.m. ad and asked which candidate voters would want to answer the telephone when the White House is alerted to a crisis the answer that came back from the greatest number of folks was Sen. John McCain.
Idiots. Total fucking idiots.
*** Update ***
Self-inflicted wounds sting, don’t they Hillary? If there has been a dumber, baser, more self-destructive campaign than the one waged by Hillary Clinton this year, I am not aware of it. She isn’t content to go down alone. She is taking the party with her.
The Other Steve
It must be very strange to be Hillary Clinton. A woman of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, she can’t get anyone to notice. She is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of her time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.
Buck
Yep, “total fucking idiots” pretty much sums it all up!
teninchman
At least I had enough common sense to vote for Gore, jackass.
Stephen
Whatever his weaknesses, Obama is bringing new voters into the Democratic Party. Reading the comments threads on blogs that have not yet taken identified themselves with either of the Democratic candidates, it seems more and more evident that Ms. Clinton is driving old voters out of the Democratic party. What is it going to take for the Democratic establishment to see that misplaced fealty to the Clintons might very well hand a November victory to the Publicans at a time when a solid majority the American people has finally become disgusted with them.
The Other Steve
Clinton is reminding me more and more of the brilliant campaign strategy of Walter Mondale in 1984.
teninchman
Obama is reminding me more and more of the brilliant campaign strategy of Do-cock-us.
Dug Jay
That ad may well end up helping John McCain more than her. This one will likely do the same.
John D.
Say what?
You are “reminded” of the campaign of possibly the most boring politician put forth by the Dems by one of the most energetic campaigns?
Gotta love concern trolls.
teninchman
That Walter Mondale sure was exciting, was he not?
slippy hussein toad
Hillary is reminding me more and more of why I voted for Nader in 2000.
teninchman
Nader is running again so you can waste another vote, genius.
Napoleon
Well I have made up my mind that if Clinton is the nominee that for the first time since I started voting in 80 I will not vote for the Dem for President and will either vote 3rd party (but not Nader) or not at all for President.
slippy hussein toad
Thanks, but if it’s Hillary vs. McCain, I’ll just stay home this time. Her embrace of McCain tells me there will be no fucking difference.
TheFountainHead
Here’s what I want to know: where the hell is Al Gore? Where the hell is Howard Dean? Where the hell is Joe Biden? And how the hell can none of them see that allowing her to continue to burn Obama while lifting up McCain is going to directly result in a loss for them in November?
teninchman
Wild horses won’t keep me from voting for Obama if he gets the nomination but I see your point. No difference between “W” and Gore.
Vishnu Schizt
Bravo to the other Steve, well played. I’m basically in total meltdown and find myself yelling FUCK YOU at the tv when ever I see Hillary, or any of the Hillary bullshit parade. Jesus H Chrysler, I really never thought I be at the point where I hate a dem candidate as much (more?) as I do the Bush crime syndicate. So thanks Hill, you and your asshole husband, who I liked at one time, can go fuck yourselves. The thought of having to listen to you or watch McOld drool his way through the next four years is too depressing to contemplate. I’m sending more money to Obama as soon as I get my fist out of the wall.
Dennis - SGMM
I heard Daniel Schorr on NPR this morning. He described the Democrats the same way that someone once described Yassur Arafat: They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
J. Michael Neal
I’m planning to vote for Obama in the general election. If I have to write in his name, I will.
Scrutinizer
Hillary Clinton: the George McClellan of Democratic politics.
bdr
What I especially like about Clinton INC’s Obama’s a child strategy is how they simultaneously float the idea of Obama as HRC’s vpotus.
Consistency!
demkat620
I am exhausted by Hillary and the asshats like Terry MacAuliffe that surround her. I know people love and support her, I just can’t. It turns my stomach to think she will be the nominee.
John Cole
Should Hillary win the nomination, which she won’t, she is not going to have Obama as her Vp.
She is just floating that BS for two reasons this week:
1.) To rattle and irritate the Obama campaign, and hope they strike back.
2.) To belittle him and be condescending, hoping to lessen his stature and by comparison, enhance hers.
It is pretty fucking transparent, but you should be used to it from her by now.
KC
Here’s the thing: Obama needs to start hitting back. Whatever anyone thinks about Hillary (and right now I’m not too happy with her), her strategy of bruising Obama so badly that he appears weak for the general election is working. The Clintons are betting that primary voters on the fence want someone who can stand up to the Republican assault machine, and they know that right now Obama is not looking like that person. At this point, it’s up to Obama to hit back and show some fortitude. If he doesn’t, or can’t–and what I heard from him on NPR yesterday was pretty meek tea–then he’s toast.
Dennis - SGMM
I know that it’s a waste of time to grieve over what might have been but, I can’t help feeling a little sad that it isn’t Edwards or Dodd going down the home stretch with Obama. We might have actually seen a contest of ideas. I doubt that either of them would have been praising McCain either.
NickM
Obama should run an ad wherein Hillary answers the 3am phone and it’s Monica Lewinski calling for Bill.
Dennis - SGMM
Or one where she calls McCain on another line to find out what she should do.
Napoleon
I actually think it is a third reason, to make everyone think they will get the chance to vote for MUP for president anyways if they vote for HRC
teninchman
If Obama gets the nomination the GOP will treat him like a prince and give him candy and flowers. Not like that mean nasty bitch monster.
John D.
That would be retarded.
When you give Hillary the slightest chance to play the victim, SHE TAKES IT. So don’t.
John D.
If Hillary gets the nomination, she has gift-wrapped an ad campaign to be USED AGAINST HER BY MCCAIN.
Are you really this moronic?
Kevin K.
If there has been a dumber, baser, more self-destructive campaign than the one waged by Hillary Clinton this year, I am not aware of it.
Hillary and her campaign’s bullshit this week drove me to float Obama’s campaign $100 Thursday night (I couldn’t have clicked “submit” quicker), but I’d still have to give Giuliani the nod for running the dumbest campaign of the year.
demkat620
No, this is the wife beaters defense, “I only hit you because I care too much.”
Sickening.
tBone
I think you’re too quick to dismiss this. I think they could complement each other very well if you look at their strengths & weaknesses objectively.
Postives:
Clinton – Smart, tough, Yale-educated lawyer. Excellent command of policy details.
Obama – Smart, tough, Harvard-educated lawyer. Excellent oratory and people skills.
Negatives:
Clinton – Ravening, power-mad stealth lesbian and liberal fascist. Will place all Christians, men and heterosexual women in concentration camps if elected. Killed Vince Foster. Lousy taste in real estate deals.
Obama – Madrassa-educated stealth Muslim and liberal fascist. Will impose Shia law on the U.S. after being sworn into office on a Koran. Addicted to cocaine and gay sex. Lousy taste in real estate deals.
Looks like a win-win to me.
Dennis - SGMM
No one here has even hinted that would be the case. They’ll hit him with everything they have including a retooled and vicious Southern Strategy. Fortunately for the GOP, Clinton has shortened their lead time for generating lines of attack against Obama and endorsed their candidate.
myiq2xu
Who said this?:
“And if longevity is the measure by which we determine who’s got the best experience to answer that phone call, then John McCain wins because he’s been there the longest.”
bdr
I think you’re absolutely right about taunting Obama re: vpotus talk, but if she’ll do anything to win, and Pennster polling says name Obama, she’ll name Obama.
And if Obama says yes, then he’s Borg too.
myiq2xu
Chimpy vetoed the anti-waterboarding bill
I am soooo surprised.
myiq2xu
We certainly wouldn’t want him to put the country and the Democratic party ahead of his own personal aspirations.
John D.
Obama, delineating exactly why her comment was the dumbest thing said in a long while. What, you think that quote wasn’t exactly what every rational being was thinking when she took that line of attack?
myiq, you suck at playing gotcha, bacause you don’t think these things through.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
…and then Obama goes on to explain that longevity is not the measurement you use to make that judgment.
quichercryin'
I just love the Hillarybots who pontificate about her “I’m a fighter” toughness that she brings to the general election.
Like the Republicans are not going to pick up on the “he’s not qualified to be CIC, but we can still share the ticket” hyporcrisy and destroy her with it. Duh.
And who the hell wants to spend this fall defending our candidate against the “I was for the war before I was against it” charges that will come from the right.
Oh, but she’s ready from day one and hanging out with celebrities while sipping tea in foreign countries pushes her accross some fictional threshold.
Yeah, she’s immune to righty attacks in November alright. Whatever.
And don’t even get me started about all the Clinton shit that is being brought out of cold storage by the truckload and being dusted off just in case the righties need even more ammo.
But it’s all about Rezco dammit….REZCO!
myiq2xu
Who said this?:
Probably the strongest experience I have in foreign relations is the fact I spent four years overseas when I was a child in Southeast Asia.
myiq2xu
Actually, he said it before she made her comment.
Gotcha!
AkaDad
Will Hillary be reinstating the policy of holding bed and breakfasts in the Lincoln bedroom?
I’m just trying to be helpful and prepare her for the Republicans.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
If proximity to the President is qualification for holding the highest office in the country, then Monica Lewinsky is qualified to be President. Remember, Monica worked under the President and even substituted for Clinton’s “right arm” on occasion.
John S.
Ok, let’s start with their backgrounds.
Barack Obama
Hillary Clinton
Interesting, it seems that despite Hillary’s experience claims, Obama actually has spent more time in public office.
Delia
There was that Harvard educational psychologist a few years back who floated the idea of seven different kinds of intelligence. I’m willing to grant that Hillary is awfully smart in IQ points and policy wonkery. But in everything else, like emotional response and perceiving ultimate outcomes, she’s way down below room temperature.
John S.
Funny you should mention that, since Obama said that last November. And here was his response to the ‘gotcha’:
I guess Hillary has been running as a Republican from the beginning. And here I thought her recent transformation was solely a fucntion of her desperation.
Stooleo
I’m hoping that there will be some blow back for the shitty behavior. My 82 year old mother said “I’m just so mad at her about this.” I hope there is a whole lot of old ladies who see this for what it is and are mad too. The fact is the only way for HRC to win is to strong arm a bunch of super delegates at the convention. Check out this widget. Other than that, is to get Obama to make a major gaffe. Its pretty obvious that she intends to do anything to make that happen.
Helena Montana
Vishnu Schizt Says:
What he said. Exactly.
PeterJ
myiq2xu, when Obama said this
did he also say that he thought that McCain’s experience in foreign relations was good enough, but that he wasn’t sure if Clinton’s was and that she would have to prove that herself?
John D.
her comment her ad.
Clearer now?
myiq2xu
Well, yes, by implication, since McCain spent more years in Southeast Asia than Obama (or Clinton) did.
Splitting Image
The funny thing is, the Democrats could be using this protracted battle to spend months double-teaming McCain. It’s okay to attack your opponents in the primaries, but the most important rule is to attack your opponents for weaknesses that are even more pronounced in the other party’s nominee.
The Right Way:
Obama: “People want change, and I am the candidate for change. Clinton has been in Washington a long time, and McCain has been there even longer. You must vote Democratic to vote for change, but I am a better candidate than Clinton.”
Obama: “People want to see an end to the war, which they see as a mistake. Clinton voted for the war, and McCain says he wants to stay there for a hundred years. You must vote Democratic to show your opposition to the war, but I am a better candidate than Clinton.”
The Wrong Way:
Clinton: “People want experience, and I am the candidate of experience. John McCain and I have experience, while Obama is just a young pup. McCain probably has more experience than me, so I’ll think of a reason you should vote for me instead of him when the time comes, but in the meantime, vote for experience.”
Clinton: “We need a candidate who is ready for the 3AM phone call. You can all see me being ready to take the call, but you can’t see Obama being ready. You can probably all picture McCain taking the call too, probably moreso than me, but I’ll think of a reason you should vote for me instead of him when the time comes. In the meantime, think about who is taking that 3AM call.”
If Clinton had directed her attacks at McCain instead of Obama, and talked about why she is a better candidate than him, this would have been a much more productive couple of weeks.
One other thing. The conventional wisdom is that Obama should be going on the attack himself to fend off the attacks from Clinton. I wonder. If Obama is confident he will win the nomination anyway, he can spend the rest of the campaign saying that he really is trying to be above that sort of thing and people are responding positively to his efforts to do that. He can then defuse some of the Republican dirt by saying “There you go again”, just like Reagan did in 1980.
He’ll also be able to say that more than anything, it’s important for a president to be able to resist temptation and not appear to be about to lose your temper when things are getting difficult.
If Obama can successfully frame Clinton’s negative attacks as the result of a politician getting frustrated and losing it, McCain is doomed. There is no way that Hot-Head can escape being seen as too temperamental for the office, unless he avoids negative ads completely. Fat chance of the Republicans winning if they go that route.
John D.
So why did the strikeout of “her comment” disappear in the post, even though it appeared in the preview?
Dug Jay
Channelling Bill Clinton:
myiq2xu
From TalkLeft:
Obama opposes new primary in Michigan, Carville say HRC will raise $15M for do-overs in MI and FL and challenges BHO to do the same.
PeterJ
So he didn’t. That’s good. A really bad thing would have been that if he had decided to say that.
Hasn’t someone else recently done such a stupid thing? And just not once.
myiq2xu
I blame Mark Penn
Grumpy Code Monkey
Because the preview lies. Something’s b0rken between the preview and the actual post, and a lot of formatting that works in the preview gets swallowed up and doesn’t render correctly when the actual post appears.
PeterJ
I asked this before, but do anyone know an Obama-cenetered site that behaves like talkleft?
I’m talking about banning users, removing comments that they don’t approve of, restricting comments when they can’t monitor them and so on…
wwz
you mean this party?
It appears that not only is this election attracting more participation generally, but more who are willing to call themselves Democrats.
rawshark
O/T
Firefly comicbooks
Bruce Moomaw
You miss the point, John. Her (and her husband’s) campaign is “base”, all right, but there’s nothing stupid or “self-destructive” about it — the Clintons have simply decided once again that their personal interests come before the interests of the Democratic Party and the country (as he so spectacularly did during the Lewinsky Affair), and so they’ve decided to apply the “rule or ruin” philosophy to the Democratic Party. For them, it’s a no-lose proposition: either she manages to win the nomination, or they wreck Obama’s chances of winning the general election and give her an opportunity to run again in 2012 instead of 2016. They’re not fools; they’re psychopaths — something I didn’t believe about them until the recent stages of this campaign, but which is unavoidably and painfully obvious now. Well, we’ve all been disillusioned a lot in recent years.
Dennis - SGMM
There may be such a site but if there is I think that the Obamaphobes here would have been sure to point it out long ago.
PeterJ
Most of them are probably from states that don’t count, so they don’t count either.
There’s no need for new democrats, those that already was are hopefully enough to win exactly 270 electoral votes.
If the new ones didn’t vote for Gore or Kerry than we don’t want them since they are to blame for Bush.
/SNARK
tBone
Either you didn’t read past the first paragraph, or you can’t refute the charge that Obama is a sleeper Muslim intent on establishing a new caliphate in America. How “honest” of you.
myiq2xu
From C&L:
I can’t even come up with any snark on this one.
Alan
If Hillary wrestles away the nomination from Obama the worst thing Obama could do is become her Vice President. The Clinton taint will poison an Obama future candidacy for crossover voters like it did to Al Gore.
TenguPhule
If Obama makes her VP, no force in the Universe will stop him from becoming Overlord of America.
PK
It does not matter what experience Hillary Clinton has. Ultimately what matters is judgement and how will she act in tough times. She has proved her poor judgement time and time again. Start with sticking around with Bill and taking all his public humiliation. She is no feminist! She behaved like women from my grandmother’s generation and all that came before did. Suck it up and stick around with the lout come what may. She is worse than Tammy Wynette. At least Tammy followed up “Stand by your man” with D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
Her enabling Iraq vote is another piss poor decision. Either she believed Bush’s crap or she was looking ahead and did not want to cast an unpopular vote. Either way poor judgement.
Third is the hateful way she is going after Obama. This is power at all costs! A good decision maker would look farther and have figured out the broader repercussions for the Democratic party.
She may win the nomination and even the presidency, but she will start with all the republicans hating her and half the democrats hating her. Good luck trying to govern that way!
PeterJ
Why should he say no to Clinton? She has been graceful and allowed him a chance to follow her and learn from her so that he will be ready in eight years to be president.
And she’s willing to do this despite the fact that he really isn’t ready at all.
This is a once in a lifetime chance. It would be serious unwise for him not to give up right now.
/SNARK
myiq2xu
AKA “The Clagina”
myiq2xu
Brad’s Pit?
Dennis - SGMM
Let me make sure that I have this right: Obama isn’t ready to be president but having him “a heartbeat away from the presidency” is okay?
I could make a million if I invented a cream that would salve the pain of the stupidity burns from McClinton’s campaign.
Alan
The Clintons don’t play Nine-Ball. They couldn’t care less about the next shot. All they ever care about is the current shot. Then cry foul and blame others if there isn’t a next shot for them to play. That’s why watching the Clintons is like a tailer trash soap opera. They don’t give a rats ass about anyone but themselves.
PeterJ
Obama is leading Clinton 58%-40% with 30% of whatever being counted.
Obviously that means that right now Wyoming and any democratic voters that live there don’t count.
That might change though as long as Clinton wins.
So if they want to count they ought to vote for Clinton.
Or they should move to New York.
Dennis - SGMM
Someone needs to sneak into Clinton’s campaign headquarters and post a sign:
“It’s the cognitive dissonance, stupid!”
ThymeZone
Several days of this, and it has begun to boil down to this for me.
Need a single, overarching reason not to vote for Hillary Clinton?
Here it is: myiq2xu.
If a stronger case can be made, I haven’t seen it here.
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t vote for anyone preferred by that lying, weasely little piece of crap if she were the last candidate on earth. myiq is a black hole in the world of intellectual integrity, a force field into which intelligent thought disappears, never to be seen again.
I’d have to think twice about voting for that awful woman over John McCain at this point, knowing that this moron here supports her.
We are judged by the company we keep, at times. Anybody who attracts a myiq2xu is not somebody I want as president. Or for that matter, as County Animal Control Officer.
myiq2xu
Aw shucks! Thanks TZ, I love you too!
ThymeZone
In a manly way, I hope.
I tried to say it all in the most kind and nurturing way possible.
Of course, you could always float a speck of objectivity into your work, and surprise everybody, and I’d reconsider.
But, I’m just a dreamer ………..
Dennis - SGMM
As much as I enjoy the back-and-forth here, I finally set up Cleek’s pie script and put the childishly named myiq2xu and pluk in it. So both of their posts now read like this:
myiq2xu Says:
It may look like I talk about pies a lot, but I’m actually restraining myself from bringing them up more often. They’re that good!
Dennis - SGMM
As much as I enjoy the back-and-forth here, I finally set up Cleek’s pie script and put myiq2xu and pluk in it. So both of their posts now read like this:
I enjoy the thrust and riposte of well thought through argument, I enjoy snark and zingers – even when they’re at my expense. These two dullards have simply become tedious, tendentious vomiters of lame rationales, half-baked reinterpretations and stale calumnies. So now, from my point of view, they post a lot about pie and so I go on to other posters.
Dennis - SGMM
Apologies for the post-and-a-half.
Tsulagi
You got that right.
Hillary promises to make Angelina SecState, she’s got my vote. Rest of you can play in the MUP dust, I’d take Angelina over that any day.
PeterJ
Democratic voters in Wyoming don’t count in record numbers.
(This one actually links somewhere…)
myiq2xu
I’d want to be Undersecretary of State.
Pb
The funniest part:
myiq2xu
TZ said it better.
Tsulagi
I’d rather have the position of being her top advisor.
shortstop
But…but…Mark Penn’s internal polls, which he can’t show to us because they’re really, really secret and we can’t let them Fall into the Hands of the Enemy, says his numbers show the ad really, really helped Hillary!
Temple Stark
This refrain echoes around here: “I can’t believe I’m saying this because I thought any Democrat would get my vote, but I’m starting to think that I might vote for McCain if Clinton wins the nomination.”
There was a time just a few short weeks ago and for many months before, that frequent mocking of John Cole occurred whenever he posted something about “Democratic Stupidity.” That mocking centered around the fact that Cole might get in a huff and look for any excuse to vote for a Republican candidate for prez.
Let’s see if I can get a pause here or more rationalization. … …
Fast fo- … You see where I’m going with this don’t you? Fast forward to now and suddenly the contingent that now claims it has an overabundance of personal reasons – and often unsupported assertions – to not vote for a Democrat is rapidly approaching a majority here, if it’s not already.
Choke.
I haven’t wanted to call people idiots, because I’m not really not into calling people names. You’re not, you’re fucking idiots.
Kidding. Now, I’ve tried to rationalize why I couldn’t go ahead and do that and be someone I’m not because, hey why not, no one believes what they write here since it’s it’s all spoof (right?).
Trouble is, I’m not great at insincerity. And it slightly belies the idea of “spoof” when those who keep on saying “I’m just a spoof” seem to get most bent out of shape when called on their bullying BS; such over-the-top reaction could still more more insincere spoof, but it’s unpleasant to read and a waste of space.
The idea that Obama has unquestioning, uncritical support would be less easy to believe if, you know, there was a great deal more evidence of the contrary. And sure, the reverse is true to a certain extent, from the four remaining Hillary Clinton supporters here (and one is way too happy to call people names).
So, can we name a few things that Obama’s done wrong? That don’t involve “he needs to go more negative” which sure puts the nix on the idea that Hillary’s done something wrong if you want your candidate to do it.
Hillary Clinton only becomes divisive if people choose to be divided. Whatever’s easy?
Slightly off the point, but the sustained willingness – Drudge? Dick Morris are credible here? – to absolutely believe the worst, like Republicans do and not to look at the actual evidence, like Republicans do, is dispiriting. Perhaps people are “anti-Clinton” because they’re not really paying attention? Go do a little research and find out, to start with on the most often cited “reasons”:
— No, the Hillary Clinton didn’t send out the picture of Obama dressed in Kenyan clothes, Freepers did so;
— That she did not let her campaign willfully, with racist intent, darken his face in an ad scheduled to run for three days. Nevermind that the risk-benefit ratio is WAY unbalanced toward risk. This is a Democratic primary; just how many racists would she be appealing to and wouldn’t the charges of “racism” vastly outweigh that tiny number. If words here – and many other blogs – are any indication the answer is yes, much riskier.
— That Jesse Jackson nor John Lewis took any offense at the supposed race-baiting comments from Bill Clinton about Jesse Jackson winning SC. Man, he was thrown under the bus. Lewis said it was ridiculous to say that the Clintons, who he’s known for years, were capable of race-baiting. Jackson said he was proud of his wins and didn’t mind Clinton bringing them up. Jackson is also a friend of the Clintons.
— That one Iowa County co-chair for Hillary sending [[[ or forwarding]]] out a stupid-ass anti-Muslim, anti-Obama is not representative of the campaign or Hillary herself. Especially when the guy is fired quickly and is roundly condemmed by the campaign.
Instead Hillary is called a “monster” by his senior policy advisor (notably not a political advisor so she really doesn’t know how to play the game that way) and online supporters of Obama nod mindlessly in agreement.
The plagiarism claim was a waste of time. I’ll also agree that, though it certainly doesn’t rise to the level of “endorsement” the “me and McCain are better then that nice-talking man” is a step too far. I note obama’s Obama soundbites along the exact same lines are completely ignored as unimportant.
Then again, as I said at the top of all this, people are saying they’d vote for McCain, too. Clinton should be able to say this without the collateral damage. But guess what, she’s not perfect. That statement, though, just happened this week, when the fix, the narrative and the blinders were already in place.
Obama, who is a thoughtful, strong person, and members of campaign team never do anything wrong?
The Grand Panjandrum
Contrary to what you’ve been told [ this ] is not ten inches. But I understand why men lie. Another inch you’d be a king and an inch less and you’d be a queen.
Be careful with the pie! It could be tough on the old waist line.
Temple Stark
“myIQ’s soundbites”
Martin
Someone in the other thread asked:
Powers has argued that the Clinton White House received a 3AM call on Rwanda and failed to answer it. Since Hillary wants to claim experience credit for that time, she has to carry some of the cost for the US reaction to Rwanda.
athensboy
Dear Hillary, when you’ve lost the progressive netroots you are finished. Guess what honey, the netroots hate you.
PeterJ
Voting for Clinton isn’t a problem since she won’t win.
Simple as that.
Only delusional people still actually believes that she will.
On that subject, I’m starting to see some frightning similarities between Taylor Marsh and that nutjob that blogs over at Atlas Shrugs. They both have these cartoonish images of themselves as superwoman. Does Taylor Marsh post videos of herself? If not, then maybe she should start.
Back to the point, the problem right now is how far Clinton will go before she backs out.
Check the video of Terry MacAuliffe from Real Time, he didn’t want to answer about if Clinton would give up if she had lost the popular count and the delegate count.
So instead they cut the feed.
And check Real Time Overtime over at hbo.com, Joe Scarborough still seems to believe in the democrats…
Napoleon
One of my projects this weekend since I am snowed in is to set that up.
srv
If it takes an idiot to run a country, then surely it takes an idiot to run the party.
Sheesh, after the last seven years, you’re just figuring out the democratic party now?
Rarely Posts
Dear Hillary:
John Cole and every other supporter of Obama would like you to quit campaigning for president. You’re just too tough on Obama and pointing out that you’d be better qualified to go up against McCain on foreign policy is outrageous. Please give up trying to be a politician and discuss instead what kind of wallpaper you’d hang in the downstairs White House ladies’ room if you had the chance.
Andrew Sullivan has vowed to do Obama’s dirty work for him and you know what that means–more derangement over things that Drudge publishes and more accusations based on false information. He’ll probably even call you crazed. Oh, whoops, that was Mr. Cole.
I’m partial to a rosebud pattern for the bathroom, in case you’re interested.
All the best.
JL
The sleeping girl in the 3am ad for Hillary will actually be 18 next month and has been campaigning for Barack Obama for months now. The ad used 8 year old film footage. TPM Election Central has more. I wonder what the hidden messages on her pajamas mean now.
Cain
Jeezus, it looks like a blowout for Obama in Utah. Must be that rich Cheney blood that’s speaking to them.
cain
Mike
It’s too bad that call when to one of Obama’s other foreign policy advisors, Susan Rice
…who served on the National Security Council and later as the Assistant Secretary for African Affairs at the State Department under Bill Clinton. We don’t know for sure what Barack or Hillary would do with a “3 a.m.” phone call, but we don’t have to wonder about Susan Rice. She sits on her hands doing nothing.
During her time on the National Security Council, as the senior person responsible for giving the President policy options on Africa, Rice reprised the role of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. She sat by while more than one million Rwandans were butchered in a bloody genocide. She let the phone ring and declined to offer any answer that would have saved lives. And she is one of Barack’s key advisers…..,
Martin
Mike needs to read faster:
Martin
My point in the above is that some people can acknowledge when they screwed up and commit to not repeat those errors, and other people can’t.
reid
TZ, my growing dislike for Hillary is probably caused 50/50 by her campaign tactics and some of the Hillary supporters on this site. (Yes, I’ve been spending way too much time reading this site.) They’re both polarizing. I have a hunch (or a smooth-talking hope) that more people are driven away than are drawn to the cause in either case.
The Grand Panjandrum
I would not have a problem with Clinton if that is how she characterized her “threshold.” What she did do is say that she AND McCain had crossed the “threshold.” You do not say something like that about a member of the SAME party.
If she does indeed believe Obama has not crossed the “threshold” will she support him if he is the nominee? If she does believe Obama to have not crossed the”threshold” then WHY would she support him? Furthermore, if she believes Obama has NOT crossed the threshold, then why would she agree to take him as VP? He would be a heart beat away from the Presidency.
I would love for a journalist to pin her down on these very obvious questions.
She probably did tell Bill to do something about it, but she can’t divulge anything else about this conversation or she’d have to have us all killed. Perfectly logical in Clinton World.
Ted
Yeah. As an attack on McCain. Get a new handle; your current one is entirely inaccurate.
PaulB
Which means “no”. Glad we could help since you appear to have trouble answering straight questions.
The Grand Panjandrum
I can see it now: PNWNED!
Tim (the Other One)
What Temple Stark said. What’s gonna piss me off is the Obama cult NOT voting at all if they don’t get their pony.
Me; I’m voting for 1000 Island dressing if there’s a (D) after it.
The Other Andrew
How is Hillary experienced in foreign policy, again? Unless voting for the war counts…
Gus
Yes, I agree with Temple Stark. I will vote for Clinton if she wins the nomination. I will just do it holding my nose rather than with a smile on my face.
Zifnab
Ok, to be fair, I’d just like to point out: 9/11, 9/11, 9/11. Did I mention 9/11? Because, yeah, 9/11.
However, this is definitely breaking the curve in terms of Democratic Political Blunders. How the hell did Bill win back in ’92 with this kind of campaign strategy?
Dug Jay
Aside from his home state of Illinois, Ron L. Obama hasn’t carried one of the really big states yet. Somehow I don’t think Wyoming, the latest of his great victories, counts as “big.” Beyond that simple fact, a great many of the states that he has carried are strong “Red” states and are clearly not going to be carried by him in the Fall in the event that he gets the nomination. It’s not yet clear that he really has a wide breadth of followers once you get past the swooning bubbleheads on the stump and the brain dead acolytes on the web.
Zifnab
Are you kidding? That shit is delicious!
Tim (the Other One)
“Are you kidding? That shit is delicious!”
I did stack the deck w/ 1000 Island didn’t I !
The Grand Panjandrum
It just gets better. Anyone remember the Farrakhan thingy? Well, well, well:
I’m not sure if that’s a denouncement or a rejection, but he did the right thing. But …
Imagine a Clinton having it both ways. So does this mean Clinton must now reject or denounce her husband? I’m going to hold my breath.
Bruce Moomaw
I see Hilzoy has noticed what I have about Hillary — not that it’s difficult to notice. With the Clintons, the moment comes when you just have to shake your head.
borehole
Switch the “Ron” and the “L” and you’ve got yourself one reasonably amusing little quip there, Dug Jay.
PeterJ
Not when it’s 35 years old…
Zifnab
Does Virginia not count as a “big state” anymore? I can never remember. And then, of course, there is Texas where he claimed a majority of the caucus votes despite losing the primary itself. And, of course, its worth noting who’s winning the popular vote.
I know this is hard to understand – how a number of close races in which Hillary “wins” the big states fails to net her a victory in the delegate count – but try to sit back, crunch the numbers, and understand that Senator Clinton is not actually the heir to the throne just because.
Dug Jay
From the Derbster:
cleek
well, unless you count Texas as a “big” state.
PaulB
Nice try. Clinton’s been trying this argument for months. It didn’t work for her, either.
srv
Well, at least his mommy doesn’t have to come down into the basement and do it for you.
empty
Because they are just not as brilliant as you are TFH. Isn’t that obvious?
PaulB
By the way, this article puts that silly “can’t win the big states” argument to rest.
Dug Jay
Obama carried his home state in an open primary wherein people voted secretly by ballot. He failed to get a similar outcome of popular support in Texas and in almost all other large states. As the Clenis has said, “Where it really counts, he’s proving to be a loser, and a mighty sore one at that.”
cleek
don’t know if the Clintrolls have mentioned this or not, because, well… pie, but this is unfortunate: Obama & Clinton are tied, nationally, in this one poll, at least.
The Other Steve
Well it looks like Clinton lost yet another state.
PeterJ
With 78% in Wyoming counted it now seems certain that those voters voted in vain since they won’t count.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
I see myiq brought his mental faculties with him today. He pulled a good number on John S. about 30 comments in. Maybe he does better on the weekends.
Mutaman
“Hillary is reminding me more and more of why I voted for Nader in 2000.’
I guess I can forgive those “total fucking idiots” who voted for Nader, just like I can forgive those “total fucking idiots” like John who voted for Bush. But to brag about it 8 years later?
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Because Al Gore, Howard Dean, and Joe Biden still have some work to do, and it’s bad enough to watch the new star Democrat get savaged by one of his own.
Those three are smart to stay the fuck out of this. We don’t want to let Hillary — not just figuratively — literally destroy the only defense against the Republicans
myiq2xu
Who told you about the mental facility?
Dug Jay
That Newsweek poll that “cleek” linked to above is interesting in ways beyond just proving that Hillary has got her mojo back:
srv
Ah, but did ppGaz answer the pollster as a Clintonomicon construct or as an Obamalot? It’s quite possible many will psyche themselves out.
slippy hussein toad
Dug Jay:
How many Hillary supporters does it take to change a light bulb in a small state?
Answer: None. Those light bulbs DON’T FUCKING MATTER.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
For perspective, he *was* running against the father that raised a coke-fiend war-criminal.
slippy hussein toad
I’m not bragging. I’m putting Hillary on notice. I will not vote for her. Period.
srv
You people just don’t get the math. If GW can lose two WARS and still get 28%, then Hillary can afford to lose a few outlier states.
Todd Alcott
Not to be pedantic, but I would say George McClellan was the George McClellan of Democratic politics. Seeing as how he was, you know, a Democrat.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Nobody. I lick one stamp, and all of a sudden I’m in one.
That aside, I really hope Mr. Ford wins this election! A President worthy of the Bicentennial yessireebob!
slippy hussein toad
Remember Ross Perot?
That’s how. His strategy was forged in an environment where THAT and ONLY THAT strategy would work. An overwhelming majority of voters voted AGAINST each of the three candidates. The one who was the LEAST unpopular won.
Hillary’s political machine doesn’t know how to get voters. it only knows how to drive them away and piss them off.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Maybe you’re not aware, so I’ll inform you: Voting for Nader isn’t frightening. It’s fucking laughable. It’s effectively staying home, but standing for 30 minutes in line in the rain to it.
A threat sounds like “I’ll vote for McCain”. Because McCain can actually win against Hillary.
borehole
I’m hard at work on my Hillary Clinton EZ-burn effigy, but even a hardcore partisan Obamalamadingdong (i.e. I think he’s okay) like myself knows that anyone who’s threatening to sit out/vote for Nader/etc. in ’08 needs to knock it the hell off, and I’ll tell you why. Eight words: The God damn fucking Supreme Court, you assholes.
Yeah, Hillary sucks. She’s also term-limited.
cleek
well, you see Clinton was a fresh face, with a positive attitude, a stunning gift for oratory, no national experience, and he was running in a down-turned economy, against the establishment which had been in place for too long. nothing at all like today.
Dug Jay
Given this Clinton/Obama mess, several above asked where is Al Gore. Well, it looks as if he’s too busy becoming a billionaire to try elective politics again:
quichercryin
Hillary’s strategy on national security is to tell Americans that if she can’t be the Democratic nominee, that John McCain is the next best choice. That isn’t being tough on Obama, that is an attempt to frag him. If Clinton wins a nomination this way, just exactly how does she earn a nomination worth having?
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Well, when you put it like that…
Not a single one of us knew the 43’s obvious mental issues was going to translate into him being a war criminal, a political prosecutor, and/or the most un-American CIC ever. And he, too, was term limited.
I’m afraid of what HRC’s obvious emotional issues could surprise us with.
That said, I’ll probably take her over McCain for the reason you noted. That is, unless McCain manages to give one gigantic, rational middle-finger to the Super
SexBible ClubDennis - SGMM
And what in the name of fuck-all makes you think that Clinton wouldn’t appoint someone like Dianne Feinstein, or even another Roberts or Alito if she triangulated her way into thinking that would help her out somehow?
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Dug, you are *too* pathetic.
When you’re smart and connected in the private sector, you make money. Easily. When you make lots of money, you put it into high-performance, risk-adjusted hedge funds, because you can afford the overhead.
After which you’re not prevented from doing a damn thing politically.
Try harder, would you?
jake
Since you must have been out of the country and without access to U.S. news in ’00 and ’04, this may come as a shock: Bush’s antics set the standard for dumb and base. Now, maybe you’d argue that they couldn’t have been that dumb because he won [???] two times in a row. In that case, if HRC wins you’ll have to concede that her campaign wasn’t dumb.
I wish I could find the numbnuts who started the “Waaah! Hitlery’z Ruininning teh Party!” bullshit and shove it up his ass. The GOP has survived Nixon, Reagan, and nearly six years of Bush43 and his lackeys without showing a crack in the facade. (Thanks Mr. Foley!) But one senator’s year-long presidential campaign is going to single-handedly fuck up the Democratic Party.
Oh ye of little faith and great hysteria.
ThymeZone
Might have been the CSMH stenciled straightjacket that gave you away.
Looks good on you, by the way. Tucks in that big tummy and really hides the bubble butt.
John S.
I realize that the letters ‘S’ and ‘D’ must look awfully similar to you CFC, but I believe the ‘number’ you are referring to was pulled on John D., not me.
Bob In Pacifica
You should remove the link to Democratic Stupidity because Hillary is no longer a Democrat. She’s Republican-Lite.
Can Willy Horton be very far away?
ThymeZone
James Dobson, to Karl Rove.
gbbalto
I haven’t seen any comment on the Rasmussen results on preferences for the 3 AM phone call:
Obama 25%
Clinton 25%
McCain 42%
Given the hypothetical election outcomes we’re getting now, I wouldn’t expect it to have been any different without Clinton’s and Obama’s commercials. The Republicans don’t have a choice any more.
borehole
See, Dennis, I don’t need to trust her on this one. McCain WILL appoint far-right idealogues. She MIGHT. Who she’d be appeasing by doing so, I can’t imagine, but yes, it’s a possibility.
There’s a lot to dislike about the woman, and she pisses me off on an hourly basis. But she’s pro-choice and isn’t deeply indebted to biblical literalists, so there’s that.
Look, if there’s a way to punish her for being a despicable campaigner without also punishing an entire generation of women, plus anyone who gives half a crap about civil liberties or social justice, I heartily endorse doing just that. But saying you’ll stay home if she’s the nom is just bratty and dumb. I know it’s hard to hold your nose when the candidate stinks this much, so here, borrow one of my industrial-strength clothespins.
John S.
Really?? That’s some pretty crack analysis there, fella.
Considering the legacies of those individuals, I’d say there were plenty of cracks. The GOP just did a good job of repairing them. And ultiamtely, Bush43 may prove to be the nail in the coffin for the GOP, so don’t underestimate the damage one person can actually do to a political party.
I don’t think Hillary is going to destroy the Democratic party, though. She’s just going to burn a whole lot of bridges. That’s how the ‘scorched earth’ tactic works.
shortstop
That sure is a popular Clinton talking point. But you might want to take a look at this.
ThymeZone
Good morning, ACME Dirty Political Tricks, how may I direct your call?
Dug Jay
Come now, Caidence. You’re not nearly smart enough to diagnose an “emotional” condition, clearly not even your own I suspect.
Napoleon
The more I think about it Hillary mentioning that she wants MUP to be on the ticket isn’t really for any of these reasons, but for another reason, basically a variation of the strategy Dubya has been running on the congressional democrats, a good example of which has been the telecom immunity bill. Basically it’s the “hey I just pulled the pin out of a hand grenade, what are you going to do about it” to which the dems to date have dully thrown themselves on the grenade.
Basically she is signaling to the super delegates with her other recent comments that she is willing to blow the party up to get her way. There simply is no other way to take the McCain comments, and since the genie is now out of the bottle there is no way to put it back in. There is one huge problem with that strategy, which is as long as they think MUP maybe willing to blow the party up, or even not take sufficient steps to try to heal any rift HRC creates, that the supers may not have sufficient motivation to go with HRC and potentially piss-off one of the most loyal segments of the party, the African-Americans, which would also tend to sink the party. Her problem is that MUP isn’t going to just offer on his own out of the blue that he will not blow the party up, and that he would be willing to heal the rifts she has created. So the next best step is to start talking about him being on the ticket and MUP failing to bat it down. Now the supers maybe thinking “Billary are going to blow the party up but MUP isn’t, I am going to take the safe bet and vote her at the convention”.
MUP has to, even if it is backchannel with Daschle making calls to other super delegates, suggest he would rather serve out his term in the Senate.
gbbalto
For Obama supporters who would vote for McCain over Hillary, I recommend the following, especially the last two lines (sorry, don’t know how to embed…)
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=belloc&book=cautionary&story=jim
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Now, now. We Obamabots don’t call them “emotions”, we call them Revelations for a Better Future. The revelations come from the Pony Dust!
Trying to insult individual people over the internet. sad sad sad. Kids your age should be out trying to get laid.
Cain
So, it looks like PA is totally in play. Here is a pro-obama article in which PA seems to be tilting towards Obama.
Pennyslvania Voter Voices
I wasn’t really expecting that.. I really thought PA would go to Clinton since I was under the impressin that it was a lot like Ohio, blue collar/union type demographics.
cain
gbbalto
Re my previous – also works for Hillary supporters who would prefer McCain to Obama!
John S.
What’s there to really say?
Hillary is acting like Wile E. Coyote, using Rube Goldberg machines and mail order weapons from the ACME corporation that will ultimately blow up in her own face. I only hope Obama can continue to be more like the Roadrunner – coming within inches of the coyote’s grasp only to pull away at the last minute.
Meep, meep!
John S.
Damn, TZ.
I guess the Wile E. Coyote analogy was too good to pass up. I didn’t even see your comment until I had already posted mine.
tBone
Seems that Rolling Stone has been struck with MUP fever.
Even a certified O-bot, I have to ask: how fucking ridiculous is that cover? “A New Hope”? The soft glow surrounding him? I’m voting for a presidential candidate, not Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I guess it’s not as bad as the every-crag-exposed extreme closeup cover of Kerrey in 2004, though.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
It’s both. The cities are Cities, and the countryside is Countryside.
Add to the chaos that Clinton dropped the ball on her delegates for PA, and PA has rarely been a significant player in the primaries, and the governor is strongly pro-Clinton…
You get one answer: Fuck if I know how it’s going to turn out.
tBone
“Even as a certified O-bot” . . . damn uneditable posts.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
You trying to allude to this?
jake
Oy vey.
Here’s a tip: Don’t calculate time for the Republicans using dog years.
Seven years of Bush43 and his lackeys running the country does not = One year of Hilary running for president. If you still think they are somehow equivalent, if you really think the Democratic party is so fucking fragile that it’ll shatter under one person’s bid to get in the White House, start working to create another functioning party now because this one is going down like Monica.
Of course, the fact that you have to hedge about the amount of damage 43 had done to the GOP only proves my point. Thanks!
John S.
Heh, some of those phony latin names sure do seem to apply as well.
Wile E. Coyote aka Hillary Clinton aka Super Genius
Overconfidentii Vulgaris
Hardheadipus Oedipus
Apetitius Giganticus
Nemesis Riduclii
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Jesus, after seeing that, I’m going to have to hold a 5-minute prayer session for Hillary’s success just to cancel it out.
As someone strongly pro-Obama, that cover is *disgusting*.
gbbalto
For clarification, I don’t see how the Rasmussen results prove anything about either Dem candidate. 25% prefer Clinton, 25% prefer Obama, and the total is more than the % that prefer McCain. What’s the surprise? The only problem is if many current supporters of Dem candidates vote Rep if their candidate loses the nomination. Maybe this will happen, but the numbers here don’t prove it.
Dave_Violence
I don’t Think any of it matters. This is Hillary! Clinton we’re talking about.
She automatically gets 1,000,000 hit points in any game. She’s going to win it all, man.
John S.
I guess you don’t read so good. There really isn’t much ambivalence to the statement:
And regarding this little gem:
Hedge? Nobody can predict the future. It seems as if Bush43 is going to do tremendous damage to the GOP brand, but nobody can really say for sure.
Does being arrogantly wrong feel more stupid than just being plain wrong? Inquiring minds want to know.
John S.
Not really. Are you feeling OK today, CFC? You seem a little slower than usual.
DougJ
Anyone who’s ever seen the “Dirty Dozen” knows that doesn’t mean it’s not a valid military mission.
jake
Shorter John S: When I have nothing to say, I use a lot of words to not say it.
The Fail Continues…
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Goddamnit, that’s what I get for assuming Sully knows how to link.
I meant this.
Still don’t see why the veiled ad hominems have to come out, though.
Dug Jay
Tsk. Tsk. Pot…Kettle…Projecting again, eh Caidence?
Callisto
you’re just pissed that darth clinton is trying to flip the superdelegates to win the head spot on the jedi council.
Dennis - SGMM
I am not voting for McCain. I would counter with the notion that as a one-term president, McCain’s SCOTUS appointees would likely be right of center but, perhaps actual jurists. On the other hand, I’d bet that if Mark Penn convinced Clinton that putting someone like Roy Moore on the court would net her the evangelical vote in 2012 then she would be demanding that the Senate give her an up or down vote on Moore.
chopper
NERD ALERT
Tsulagi
Huckabee had a floating cross over his shoulder, Obama a transcendy glow. Both sell to their target demographic. Only thing surprising about the Rolling Stone cover is there isn’t sparkly dust also floating in the glowing aura. Why do they hate Obama so?
chopper
i basically go by the assumption that even the most normal, not-crazy gooper will put a total nut on the scotus.
Dennis - SGMM
You could be be right. I’m not sure what the goopers are capable of now that they seem to be backed into a corner. Losing the presidency and the congress didn’t seem to affect the Dem’s behavior very much.
Dug Jay
Several here have worried about the kinds of justices a new President might appoint to the Supreme Court. Here’s some of the criteria that Obama has said would inform his choices:
So much for the judicial virtue of dispassion. So much for a craft of judging that is distinct from politics. So much for possessing a sound grounding in the Law.
DougJ
This may be the weakest comeback in the history of Balloon Juice comments. I ought to sue you for using my name.
J. Michael Neal
No, Ohioans are a special sort of stupid. I’m from Michigan, so take it with a grain of salt, but there’s a lot of supporting evidence.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
So… you’re saying that Obama’s target demo is comprised of… Acidheads? Or club-goers?
Seriously. I said it before: try harder, Duggy.
Svensker
Ad hominems in burkas?!!!?! That’s it, the Islamofascists have WON. OMG.
Temple Stark
But why hold your nose? Most of the worst allegations against her are made up or have very weak underpinnings as laid out above.
My question again is, can we name a few things that Obama’s done wrong?
Temple
Brachiator
Good one. But it is more like she is the brilliant assistant to a great painter, who lacking the courage and creative spark to step out front, instead has carps that she was not just an assistant, but a true collaborator, who not only deserves equal credit for past work, but should, just by previous association, have her current work judged as equal to her former mentor’s.
The irony is that there are many who try to throw a force field around Senator Clinton by shouting “sexism” and “misogyny” at certain types of comments directed at her. But if Margaret Thatcher’s husband had declared that he should be able to stand as the next prime minister because of his “years of experience” or his private counsel to her, or any of the insubstantial claims that Senator Clinton is making, people would quickly brand him as a loser and laugh him out of town.
Actually, the better play is to go directly at your opponent’s strengths. The NY Giants defeated the Patriots by going after Tom Brady time and again. This in turn rendered Randy Moss and the other receivers ineffective.
So Obama can go after McCain’s claims of foreign policy experience, such as when he toured Iraq and claimed that it was safe, only to be embarrassed when the massive amount of security he had following him was displayed. McCain can be attacked for showing poor judgment in apparently signing on to Bush’s Iraq plans. And what does McCain think about Bush’s veto of the anti-torture legislation? He can obviously be attacked for not having the full confidence of those military people who see him as hot-headed.
He can also humorously deflate Senator Clinton’s claims of a lifetime of experience of being ready as the obvious and empty hyperbole which they are. They simply are not to be taken seriously.
Yep. The conventional wisdom must be avoided here because it is totally wrong. Going negative means playing your opponent’s game, not your own. Obama has to play to his own strengths, which is presenting himself as a clear alternative to Clinton and McCain. He is still a new face to some and has to sell himself. Going negative wastes precious time and keeps his opponents’ names in the limelight.
He must also continue to connect with voters. Senator Clinton was helped tremendously in the Ohio and Texas primaries by using a combination of live and TV appearances, and campaign ads to show that she was not just willing to work hard for the people, but that she was working hard just like they were working hard.
Obama must find an equivalent way of doing this, and should easily be able to do so using the skills he accumulated as a community organizer. This, not just his oratory, is his best weapon.
Exactamundo!
Napoleon
Well MUP bats down the idea of him being VP.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/03/obama-you-wont.html
Dennis - SGMM
Go for it.
myiq2xu
I wouldn’t vote for her period either.
chopper
to me it’s mostly that the modern gop is still under the thumb of the radical religious right. even a more sane, moderate gooper is beholden in one way or another to the crazy wing of the party, and the thing the crazy wing wants most of all is a stacked court.
Callisto
I’d vote for her periodically, if I lived in New York.
Temple Stark
Dennis, I’m not the one who thinks he can’t do anything wrong.
Try. Go on.
myiq2xu
Cleveland. Duh!
Zifnab
Tell you what. When the Democratic Party stops bending over and taking it from the GOP every time Bush jumps out from behind a hedge screaming “Terror Alert! Terror Alert! Give me more executive authority!” I’ll consider the Green Party a bad alternative to voting yellow-dog (man that takes on a second meaning nowadays).
If it’s between a sleaze bag GOoPer and a legitimate Democrat, I’ll happily vote for the Democrat. If its between Kang and Kodos, I’ll be voting third party, even if it “throws my vote away” – whatever that means. Al Gore might have been the better man in 2000, but he did a poor job of showing it. Kerry might have been the more able Commander in Chief, but he failed to command the nation’s respect. All the Democratic nominees have a habit of looking like great choices after they’ve lost. But if they want my vote on November 8th, they need to show me they are worth voting for before November 9th.
Stop playing apologist to the incompetents in the party.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
You’re talking (validly) on the level of punishing the Democratic party. Obviously, you have to find other options if you’re going to do that.
But this guy was threatening that just _Hillary_ was not going to profit from her tactics of savaging her colleague. In which case, you have to threaten her with a complete loss, not just a minor embarrassment.
chopper
if i hadn’t won a single day in the entire race until march 4th i’d be frustrated too.
Cain
That’s what I’m gathering too. They seem to like to vote against their interests at least in the 2004 election. I’m from Indiana myself and I would guess that Obama would win there. (except my Mom and Dad are voting Hillary.. same reason for what was stated in the article.. Bill was great.. get him back in the White House and we’ll have magic dust all over Washington)
BTW I think Hillary’s angle on conflating herself with McCain is to show that she’s a unity candidate as well. Bill was recently quoted[1] as saying that McCain and Hillary were so close that during the election there would hardly be any fighting. That’s a shot across the whole unity pony business.
Oh and speaking of Mccain and Hillary. Check this out:
It’s insane
[1] Bill Takes on Polarizing Issue
chopper
the whole idea of a vote for nader in 2000 being a vote for bush is stupid. yeah, nader got more votes than the difference b/w bush and gore in florida. so did the socialist party candidate, but i didn’t hear anyone blaming him or his voters for giving us george w bush.
besides, i lived in DC during the 2000 election, and the people there who voted for the guy aren’t responsible, are they? a vote for nader there didn’t change a thing as it’s the most reliably dem state in the nation.
now, i’ll admit that the whole ‘the two candidates are the same’ shtick was shown to be pretty laughable after 2000. but if people vote for someone they honestly think is better than the big, corporate party candidates i aint a blame em for it.
J. Michael Neal
Cleveland is the garden spot of Ohio. Think on that.
AkaDad
Wyoming Fun Fact
Voters in Wyoming clearly and overwhelmingly rejected Clinton’s morally bankrupt fear and smear campaign strategy.
myiq2xu
I thought it might have something to do with this:
myiq2xu
Yeah, and if my grandma had balls she’s be . . . really strange.
Cain
Yeah, but some people on the Hillary camp actually support Hillary because they think she will crush the Republicans. I’m not sure if this sort of thing is going to help that meme. Maybe after she takes the White House the gloves comes off. Whatever the case maybe, someone must pay for the past 8 years.
cain
myiq2xu
Fixt
BTW – Wyoming does count. 40-something percent does anyway.
The Other Steve
That’s sexist.
myiq2xu
That will be us, our children, our grandkids, probably even some of out great-grandkids.
That’s what happens when you cut taxes and go on a spending spree that would horrify drunken sailors.
Rick Taylor
Ulg. Via Daily Kos:
You know, on the off chance Clinton wins the nomination, her aides might not want to gratuitously insult people whose votes we’re going to need in the general election. It took me a while, but I’m finally getting where some of that CDS comes from.
reid
So, what will it take to get the media to stop mindlessly parroting “Hillary’s big wins in Ohio and Texas”? That sounds a lot more impressive than “Hillary’s big win in Ohio”. It’s enough that she got several days of free Media Momentum Points.
myiq2xu
This isn’t negative is it?:
He’s only telling the truth about the monster, right?
chopper
ouch. not a statement the clinton campaign wants to hang their hat on. she’s already eating enough shit over her statements on mississippi.
i can’t believe they wouldn’t think that all the ‘fuck the caucus states, as well as the states we didn’t win’ statements would come back to haunt them sooner rather than later.
Dug Jay
This ABC News report may ruin the diapers of a few of the Balloon Juice moonbats here, especially those of the pre-pubescent Caidence. Not good when your name – Obama – is found in a terrorist’s hands [laptop computer] with documentation stating that when elected he will end the military aid that holds South American thugs and murderers at bay.
AkaDad
I need both.
I’m showing symptoms of Clinton Disgust Syndrome. They include Tourettes Syndrome type outbursts and uncontrollable facepalms.
myiq2xu
Did the reporter get a name? Was it one of Hillary’s inner circle or the kid who fetches coffee and bagels in the Punxatawny volunteer office?
Chuck Butcher
Obama cannot afford to get down into the mud with Hillary, not and run his campaign. Cold hard political reality is that he can’t back down on the “unity” message. He should not, either. This is a Democratic Primary, however Hillary wants to run in it.
There is value in an extended Primary, voters should have choices, across the nation, not just Feb 5. But the value can be destroyed by running scorched earth contests. That is the candidate’s decision. Should the candidates pay for that? That is the voter’s decision. I’ve sure screamed loudly enough about it.
Howard Dean cannot interfere in a contested Primary, Party rules. Period. DNC cannot interfere, Party rules. Period. If you want to goddam yell about stuff, try knowing what the hell you’re talking about. Party super delegates may well be prevented by State rules from interfering, DPO (Oregon) is by rule explicitly barred from interfering in a contested Primary. Period. We have as super delegates: Chair, opposing sex Vice, 2 DNC committepersons, at large DNC Committee person; not one of these people will committ or make public statements of support. These 5 super delegates are out of the mix in a contested Primary, though they may have made up their minds or not.
Whether or not MI/FL do something to select delegates is up to their State Parties. How it is done is up to them as long as it meets DNC rules. Neither Obama’s or Clinton’s opinions or desires matter one iota in how they are conducted. Virtually the only affordable and schedualable means left are caucuses. If you want to blame somebody for the delays, it is first the State Parties and then Hillary for making people think something else would happen. DNC cannot seat the delegates based on their “Primaries,” that means the end of DNC and any control over elections. Imagine trying to make the case to the States that followed the rules even though they didn’t want to that it should be allowed. OR was blocked from Feb 5 because of our vote by mail, essentially allowing voting ahead of Feb 5. Which OR DNC delegate is going to forget that?
From the time of Hillary’s beginning the contest I’ve stated that I’d have to hold my nose to vote for her, and I would. It has now reached the point where I have to not only have to hold my nose but restrain the gag reflex to do it. I would, because the alternative is John McCain. Ralph Nader’s vanity campaign will send a message to no one. John McCain is what he is, period, 4 more goddam years. I loath Hillary, that ought to be clear by now, but John McCain scares the hell out of me.
If you claim to be for Obama and think what he stands for counts as something then voting for McCain is the most dishonest possible course, followed closely by Nader and staying home. I damn near strangle making that argument, but it is true and I’ll face facts even though I don’t like them. Throwing yourself on the floor and screaming accomplishes exactly that, making yourself look childish and getting bruises.
p.lukasiak
As a sufferer from BDS, Cole leaves out a rather crucial fact. This was a three way question, and while McCain got 42%, Clinton and Obama got 25% each. In other words, 58% of people either favored someone other than McCain, or were “undecided”.
The question is, what percentage of the Obama people are so under the influence of CDS that they would choose McCain over Clinton — if Obama supporters do think “judgement” is the issue, then Clinton should wins hands down over McCain, even if its the “lesser of two evils”.
The problem is that voters who think “preparation” is important (i.e. the people who chose Clinton over Obama) could well gravitate toward McCain without any “derangement” playing a part.
evilbeard
God I hate this crap. Why oh why did we have to start the primaries a year early?
I’m sitting out the rest of this primary season and will come back to support whomever the Democratic party’s nominee ends up being. I would have preferred John Edwards but mostly what I prefer is a return to oversight, the rule of law, and the checks and balances between the three branches of government that have been eroded in the past decade.
Obama seems to me a better candidate but I have to feel that whomever the Democrats nominate will easily win in November. If they don’t, then I fear all hope is lost for returning to the great nation we once were.
p.lukasiak
oops.
this
should be this
Brachiator
One apparently important enough to be interviewed by the Times of London, and also apparently important enough to demand a degree of cover (Obama aide Samantha Power quits over Hillary ‘monster’ gibe).
The clear context of the story is that the reporter spoke with people who have some degree of mojo:
myiq2xu
There is nothing apparent about it. If the person was speaking (by agreement) off the record, then why did they quote him/her?
A quote, but no name, makes sense only if they are trying to falsely imply that the aide was important.
I notice that they didn’t say “senior aide.”
If I was Hillary I would want to know who said it so I could fire them.
Delia
Yeah, I’m beginning to get a case of that bug as well. But Wyoming as a boutique latte-sipping crowd has me confused. I grew up next-door to Wyoming. I spent many summer vacations camping in Wyoming. I got a speeding ticket in Wyoming for driving with California plates. Wyoming has many fine and admirable qualities, but boutique and latte sipping it is not.
Someone is not paying attention.
John S.
No ad hominems, bro.
You mistakenly confused me for John D., then you posted a link that had nothing to do with the topic. You’re usually pretty sharp, so I asked a genuine question. Don’t take it personally.
John S.
Shorter Jake:
I got busted for my lack of reading comprehension. Quick, look over here!
AkaDad
I wouldn’t recommend insulting the intelligence of the Superdelegates. I don’t think that’s a winning strategy.
Rick Taylor
That’s a good point, the press isn’t always trustworthy.
evilbeard wrote:
Amen.
chopper
depends on where you live. i live in NY. it’s going to the dem in november, and even more so if hillary is on the ballot.
if hillary ends up on the ballot due to shenanigans, i reserve the right to vote for some third party (not nader, he’s a kook) or write in someone. i know it’s only a protest vote in a blue state and all, but i’m not going to encourage that sorta shit.
if i lived in a swing state, i’d be more inclined to hold my nose, clench my butt, make the cross and sprinkle holy water on myself to pull the lever for her.
chopper
dude, cheyenne is chock-full of beatniks and coffeehouses and hippies. i hear some dude there got his volvo to run on granola. true story.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
No, it was you myiq got a shot on.
Review:
myiq got a bad quote from Obama in, and you couldn’t dodge it. Instead, you tried to take a shot at Clinton crossing the party lines. But, that’s not a defense against the silly point Obama made, is it?
Mostly myiq et al. have been throwing quotes with pure effort and no aim. But that one was a good quote, and I haven’t seen anyone disqualify it. It’s not an insult against you, you just fouled a bit, is all.
That’s all :)
myiq +1 point.
/myiq is still well below his career average.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
I don’t have anything to say about this, I’m just repeating it because it’s funny.
Official Notice: Obama is now disqualified because a terrorist wrote an opinion about him. Delegates must now check in with HRC-HQ and get branded.
/there’s something hilarious about a person perpetually scared of terrorism employing pants-soiling as an insult.
Brachiator
You are confusing “off the record” with “not for attribution” –
Surely, you must be aware of this standard journalistic practice. The entire tone of the complete article is that of a pro-Clinton journalist getting some inside scoop from a highly placed individual. Team Clinton is calling in their international markers, in part to attempt to counter the kind of rebuke coming from another British newspaper (Nobel winner: Hillary Clinton’s ‘silly’ Irish peace claims):
A lot of people are beginning to take sides in this Democratic Party battle-royal, and others are being pulled in whether they like it are not. Samantha Power was collateral damage, but I get a sense that not a few Irish, and a number who respect Power’s work are sad that she put her foot in her mouth, but also not happy with Senator Clinton for indirectly being the occasion forthe acrimony (and here I don’t think that they are correct in blaming Team Clinton).
On the other hand, the Wyoming dig is a return by Team Clinton to old themes.
It’s a bit of a risk. Team Clinton here is trying to box Obama and his supporters in. Earlier in the campaign Team Clinton claimed that they did not do well in caucus states because their supporters were too busy working and doing those hard, middle class things. They think that this worked with Ohio and Texas voters, so they are returning to it again, looking ahead to Pennsylvania, and hoping that the voters in that state will look at Obama and his supporters as being outside the mainstream.
chopper
it would be funny if the clinton campaign indeed impugns wyoming in this way. if it sucks so bad, why did she campaign there? she even brought the whole family out!
myiq2xu
That’s five “Team Clintons.”
I think it’s interesting that everything any member of the Clinton campaign (no matter how anonymous or lowly) says is attributed to her as part of an intentional strategy, but comments by senior aides and advisors to Obama that differ from his stated positions are not attributed to him.
“That’s his advisor’s opinion, not his.”
ThymeZone
Why wuz them Clantons out there in a boutique state?
Delia
This strategy is also known as How To Kill The Democratic Party In Our Lifetime. The people of the Intermountain West have tended to be conservative, but that’s because these states have tended to be rural. Their overriding characteristic is they don’t like outsiders telling them how to think or what to do. The big energy interests that have been taking over in places like Montana and Wyoming have been disruptive of traditional ways of life, and many people are growing dissatisfied. If you’ve noticed, these states have started electing more Dem officials. For Hillary to take the tack that the Little Red States don’t matter on her way to snagging the nomination is a sure way of keeping them little and red. This is one in a long list of reasons why she’s getting more and more irritating.
myiq2xu
Q: How do you spot a “latte-sipping liberal” in Wyoming?
A: By the shotgun rack in their BMW.
Tim
“If you claim to be for Obama and think what he stands for counts as something then voting for McCain is the most dishonest possible course, followed closely by Nader and staying home. I damn near strangle making that argument, but it is true and I’ll face facts even though I don’t like them. Throwing yourself on the floor and screaming accomplishes exactly that, making yourself look childish and getting bruises.”
Which is why if she does manage to pull off the nomination, I will unhappily, pissed-offedly, with much whining carrying-on and general disgust, vote for her.
Brachiator
From Senator Clinton’s own mouth, reported on Feb 9, as she campaigned in Tacoma, Washington (Washington Is the Contest du Jour):
She had to campaign hard in Wyoming to attempt to keep the “momentum narrative” as the top news story. At the same time, she is hedging her bets, by impugning Wyoming (latte drinkers) and the upcoming vote in Mississippi — all those pesky black voters who insist on supporting Obama instead of showing loyalty to the wife of “the first black president.”
chopper
of course. because obama has an opinion on telecom immunity being bad and has publically stated it.
if obama and his campaign had said numerous things in the past about telecom immunity being a good thing and his advisor agreed, you’d have something. ‘well, this is just more evidence of the obama campaign’s support for telecom immunity’ etc etc.
your attempt to equate the two situations gets a D+. mostly for effort.
chopper
totally. what a shithole, ’boutique’ state. worthless, who cares. it’s a throwaway. like all the other western caucus states. like colorado for instance.
oh, wait, you say the democratic national convention is in colorado this year?
never mind.
Delia
So will I. But I just don’t know if I can manage to do phone banks, like I did for Kerry (and in Oregon it really helped.)
Gee, do you think Hillary would want this sort of conversation going out from her local campaign headquarters? “Yes, ma’am, I’m going to have to stifle a gag reflex to vote for her, too. But think what will happen to the Supreme Court if McSame wins the Presidency.”
Brachiator
Glad you’re keeping count. By the way, I don’t necessarily use “Team Clinton” as a pejorative.
Neither you nor I know how “lowly” the Clinton aide was, no matter how hard you attempt to either assert or guess at their status. Nor did I attribute the quote to her.
But you know, one of the reasons people talk to the press, especially when they want their names used, is because they are working a strategy. This even applies to lower level staffers who think that they can curry favor if they can get a reporter’s ear. If the senior staffers don’t like the story, they issue some kind of denial. Otherwise they let the story stand. That’s the way the journalism game is played.
On the other hand, I see that I have (but rarely) used “Team Clinton” to refer to that spectacular binary star, Bill and Hillary, but more often to those who direct the Clinton campaign. And you know what? I take the point here.
TenguPhule
If Clinton and her supporters continue to show poor judgement, that claim is in serious doubt.
Get this through your head. Clinton’s tactics are designed to destroy Obama’s support, not boost her own. She drives enough away through kamikaze tactics and not all of them are going to be driven by default into her camp.
Stop running on non-existant security credentials.
TenguPhule
In MyIq’s eyes, this is somehow a bad thing.
Teh stupid. It burns with the hate of a thousand suns.
tBone
Iowa, Nebraska, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Utah, Alaska, Wyoming, North Dakota . . . all well-known hotbeds of latte-sipping limousine liberal elitism. Those moonbats need to climb down out of their ivory towers and see how real Americans live.
Delia
I just took this little snippet out of the AP story on Obama’s win.
And I realized something. In Wyoming territory, calling someone you think is out-of-line a “monster” is positively mild-mannered. I expect this issue was quite the non-starter for Clinton in this neck of the woods.
Delia
Hah! In Utah you need a special license from the state to sip lattes.
chopper
wait, obama hasn’t won any rustbelt states?
Pug
I really hope Hillary wins because I just love those spinmeisters she employs. I mean, how can you not love Terry McAuliffe, Howard Wolfson and Lanny Davis. These guys are so much fun.
Lanny spent two years on TV denying Monica gave Bill a blow job. He is still a regular guest on Larry King and other shows. My question is why?
McCauliffe is just a dork, but a sleazy dork and Wolfson is sleazy even by political hack standards. I mean, the guy is oily, greasy sleazy.
These are the geniuses behind the so-called Clinton Machine?
AkaDad
Monster is the new bitch.
TenguPhule
In Mother Russia, Lattes sip you.
Sojourner
Michigan’s economy makes Ohio’s look positively booming.
That’s a really big grain of salt.
myiq2xu
I didn’t mean to imply you were saying as a pejorative. Neither was I trying to attribute any other quotes to you, but I realized after I posted that it looked that way.
I intended to generically address the meme that holds Hillary responsible for everything said or done by members of her campaign or her supporters as part of a intentional strategy, but treats Obama differently.
Sometimes Team Obama says something, sometimes an Obama aide says something. I don’t think it is official Team Obama policy to refer to Hillary as a monster.
I also don’t think Hillary approves of some of the dumbass statements that have been made by people in her campaign.
I think it is unfair and inappropriate to hold either candidate responsible for inflammatory “quotes” attributed to anonymous “aides.”
The media policy should be “On the record or STFU.”
No more pushing talking points and rumors anonymously. If somebody says something stupid, quote them by name.
ThymeZone
Damn! You are going to frigging FAMOUS.
myiq2xu
In myiqu2xu’s eyes, this is a good thing:
The original, not so good.
BTW – Try alcohol for your “burning” problem. It won’t make you smarter, but that way people will assume it’s because you’re drunk, not stupid.
myiq2xu
I owe it all to you. The student is but a pale reflection of the master.
Martin
Here’s a picture of a Wyoming latte-sipper.
This ‘undemocratic’ caucus talk is fucking annoying. The Democratic parties approved those caucuses. Her people were involved not only in approving those caucuses but *designing* those caucuses. Bill Clinton himself helped design the Texas system.
Seriously, she and her supporters need to knock off the crap on how the rules were set up. They have been in place for years. They weren’t designed for Obama, and they weren’t designed against Clinton. In fact, Texas was probably designed, at least in small part to help Bill.
Dennis - SGMM
Aha! I just tried Starbucks Store Locater on line and, by golly, there 25 Starbucks locations within a fifty mile radius of Cheyenne, Wyoming alone.
I just figured that I’d post this preemptively before myiq or one of the other hillbots uses it as proof that the good people of Wyoming are indeed sipping lattes and therefore Clinton should be president.
On the other hand, there are 82 Starbucks within a fifty mile radius of Cleveland, Ohio.
Clearly, both campaigns need to disclose their links with latte-sipping – although I’d settle for Clinton releasing her tax returns before most of the voting is over.
Delia
Send that guy to tangle with Teams Clinton. I’ll bet he can whup all five of them.
TenguPhule
From the idiot who approves Hillary’s ‘McCain has the right kind of experience and so do I’.
The difference? Obama isn’t slobbering over McCain’s knob while kicking his opponent where it hurts.
myiq2xu
I’m hoping Team Obama makes a really big deal about Bill&Hillary’s tax returns. I want a huge build-up.
It will be just like Al Capone’s vault.
Geraldo is available, isn’t he?
TenguPhule
I approve of Obama sticking a shiv in Hillary and Fuckstain McCain with the same speech and twisting it in.
TenguPhule
I’m hoping Team Hillary shuts up for a few weeks before they shoot off what’s left of their feet.
AkaDad
Obama campaigned for Bill Foster who has a special election today in Illinois. If he wins Denny Hastert’s old seat, which is in a red district, it’s just another reason Hillary should concede.
Dennis - SGMM
A cynic might conclude that the Clintons regard the Democratic party as nothing more than a vehicle for their ambitions – rather than something that deserved their attention and best thinking. Seems to me that if at some point in the past they came to regard the caucuses as undemocratic then Bill, at least, could have devoted some time and energy to working with caucus states to change their system to primaries.
Martin
He’s up by 8 points with about 1/3 of the vote in. He’d be another super in Obama’s camp if he wins.
And I agree that Obama’s ability to help downticket races (as this illustrates) is a HUGE benefit in his favor for the party.
evilbeard
That’s the best thing you’ve said all day Myiq. Huzzah.
BettyPageisaBlonde
SINBAD SPEAKS!!!
Conservatively Liberal
What I find interesting about the Hillbots is that they keep emphasizing that Hillary wins the ‘big’ states. They say this as if Obama would not be able to, yet they offer no evidence to back up their position. It is like if they ignore it, then it is not a fact that they have to deal with.
He can win the ‘big’ states just as easily as Hillary can. What is even better is that Obama brings some of the traditionally red states into play, possibly flipping them in the election. This is good news for downticket Democrats in those states as the only way the party will ever make any inroads in these states is to get Democrats elected. Obama will bring out Democratic voters in all states, and this will only make the party stronger. Obama builds the party, and the 50 state strategy tells everyone that they matter to him.
Hillary and her supporters disparage and dismiss the caucuses, their supporters and anyone in a state who does not give her a win. Hillary will only bring out the right wing voters to vote against her, and with a weakened Democratic party she would not stand a chance against McCain. If Obama goes in to the convention with a lead in pledged delegates and the SDs hand it to Hillary, the party will be divided and the Democrats will lose a lot of AA support along with that of some other Obama supporters (crossovers and independents). I am an independent, and there is no way I will ever vote for Hillary. No f’ing way.
Hillary is not my kind of politician. She is not a true progressive, and her lack of experience (contrary to what she claims) is more than apparent. Her flag burning ban vote, the AUMF vote, the constant triangulation to try to cover everything while actually not accomplishing anything. She is all talk, and the little action she has done is far from impressive. Obama is wet behind the ears, just like her, but I feel that he is the better candidate and he is a huge net positive for the Democratic party.
Hillary is one huge negative, and she is going lower with every day that passes. I am convinced that she is going to fight this out to the bitter end unless some party members grow some and tell her to pack it in.
PeterJ
AP has called the race for Bill Foster.
So Obama gets another superdelegate.
myiq2xu
Hillary! Stop winning primaries and quit running for President! Conservatively Liberal (a non-Democrat McCain supporter) said so!
Don’t lie about being a McCain supporter. You gave yourself away when you freaked out because I said he looked like the Crypt Keeper.
Delia
This is the important thing. California and New York are going to go Dem if the party runs a dead cat. Obama has the potential to swing states like Missouri, Colorado, and who knows what else. Who knows how much of the Intermountain West is in play at this point? States like that are just going to go back to the other side of the old red-blue divide with Hillary at the head of the ticket.
jbarntt
I’ve lurked this blog for a long time, back when John Cole was a centrist with a a conservative/libertarian leaning. Now he seems to be totally in bed with the Ted Kennedy wing of American politics. I really don’t get Cole’s complete change.
That G. W. Bush is a complete moron, and a liberal, is a fact, I voted for the idiot twice, in the first case because I didn’t think it really mattered much, in the second case because the Democrats went with Kerry.
I am still a conservative, and will vote for McCain. I suppose some would call me a “country club republican” or a Rockefeller republican”. Oh well, I’ll live with it.
My political beliefs don’t change based who is in office. John Cole is a fickle girlfriend.
Mark Hatfield is a fine man, as is John McCain.
John Cole is as stupid as Bush 2.
jbarntt
myiq2xu
What about Florida and Ohio?
Martin
Obama is weak in Florida, but holding steady with her in Ohio against McCain. He picks up the northwest and some of the midwest and mountain west.
Clinton’s problem is that her map looks *exactly* like Gore and Kerry’s. She’s been running the 2000 and 2004 campaigns over again. Obama simply has more swing states than Hillary does.
I know, Clinton supporters keep coming back to the one or two must-win states for a Democrat, overlooking that there are 30 others in play. Are you really so insecure of the Democratic message that Nebraska, Colorado, and Iowa should be tossed away in favor of Florida?
jbarntt
You know, maybe Hillary wants to win, a shocking thing to suggest. Me, I’m a conservative, and therefore am on the sidelines, hoping Clinton and Obama will tear each other apart in order to make room for Pres. McCain.
It is a wondrous thing to see: The Democratic party tearing itself apart over race/gender politics. They made it, they get to live with it.
Given that Hillary goes for the female vote, Obama goes for the black vote, is it fair for a Republican to go for the white male vote ?
If not, why not ? Can’t Republican’s play by the same sexist/racist politics that the Democrats advocate and say that a woman or a black should not be president ?
jbarntt
tBone
If you put in stock in the SUSA projections, either Clinton or Obama would win Ohio. Clinton would win Florida, Obama would lose it – but gain a number of other states that Clinton wouldn’t.
Really, it comes down to this: if you believe in the DLC strategy, Clinton’s your candidate. If you believe in the 50-state strategy, it’s Obama.
AkaDad
Obama will take Virginia, Colorado, and Missouri.
Fausto Carmona
Don’t worry! We’ll get that square peg through that round hole this time! Really!
chopper
holy crap.
chopper
i repeat. holy crap.
that’s the district i was born and raised in. it’s pretty red.
obama should be happy, this is the second democratic special election win in the past month or so that he’s helped.
jbarntt
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Fair enough. Your phone call is awaiting Dick and Nancy.
Agent 007
myiq2xu
What we’re talking about is “electability.” We can argue this until the cows come home but it really is just speculation. We can look at various polls, exit polls, and prior elections, and try to guess how certain voters will vote next November. But it’s just guessing.
These voters here went for Gore, those went for Kerry, these others went for Bush. This poll says they’ll go for Obama (but not Clinton) but that one says these others will do the opposite. Obama puts these in play, but Clinton might win with these others.
Meanwhile, 1 in 10 polls is accurate one to two weeks before an election. We might as well consult an astrologer.
BTW – Obama is as much a DLC candidate as Hillary. That’s good or bad, depending on whether you like the DLc.
Martin
We were fools for even competing in a 2nd-class red district. There’s no way we could win there.
Martin
Glad you brought it up. Hillary isn’t any more electable then Obama then.
Let’s look at downticket, however. Do we want to try and win downticket senate and house seats in red states? How will that happen if Hillary doesn’t even show up there? If only there were some evidence that downticket races in red districts can be won. Hmm….
You have to be fucking kidding me. Obama and Dean are as much or more the enemies of the Clintons and DLCers as the Republicans are. If McCain wins over Obama, the Clintons retain their power in the Democratic party. If Obama wins, they’re essentially out. I’m not suggesting that they actually want to see McCain win, but you’ve lost your mind if you think that Obama is a DLCer.
isit2009yet
Could it be that the Clintons WANT McCain to win? He will possibly only serve one term, then she can run in 2012…
TenguPhule
Corrected.
Dennis - SGMM
I’m hoping that this does mean that Obama has coat tails. Electing a Democratic president will do no good absent solid Democratic majorities in Congress.
TenguPhule
The Codpiece admin has demonstrated that you don’t need Congress to get your own way.
Obama simply needs to shoot a couple of Republican Senators and the rest will fall in line like the good little puppies they are.
If America is going to be another Russia, by damn it is going to be a Mother Russia run by our side.
chopper
trust me, they’re all a bunch of latte-sipping jerks. that house seat is less than worthless.
Martin
Coattails has a lot to do with how you campaign. I know a number of people that phonebanked for Foster using Obama’s infrastructure. All of those volunteers that he attracts will be volunteers for the downticket races – and if Obama runs the general as he has been running the primaries, that’ll mean ground games in every state and in every district.
chopper
apparently the only people worthy of campaigning to are people who are voting democrat anyways. this country doesn’t need any more democrats, what it needs is for democrats who were already going to go out and vote in november to go out and vote in november.
AkaDad
1. Obama has crossover appeal with republicans. Hillary, not so much.
2. Obama has awoken a new generation of young voters to become involved in politics. It would be a tragedy to ruin that.
3. He’s also getting people involved that never used to pay attention, or were too busy to care about politics.
4. I have a man-crush on him.
J. Michael Neal
In fairness, Obama did win here in Minnesota. I worked in downtown Minneapolis for eight years, and I’m pretty sure that there were fifty Starbucks within 25 feet of my office.
Which state voted for Bush twice, and which didn’t?
Conservatively Liberal
Sinbad speaks out at TPM about his Kosovo trip with Hillary in 1996. It a short but funny read, and he does not think Hillary is being truthful about her foreign policy experience.
Talk about a blast from the past, but I always liked Sinbad.
Dennis - SGMM
In Mother Russia is only one branch of government, bitches! All others are backslapping toadies who would otherwise be sweeping streets.
TenguPhule
Heh, the MUP has the legendary power of GAR.
myiq2xu
Strictly heterosexual, I’m sure. After all, we’re not Republicans.
Dennis - SGMM
Sounds like the LA financial district.
Now that I’m stuck: In LA financial district you don’t drink Starbucks – Starbucks drinks you.
demimondian
Hmmm…I would like to observe that there’s no clear evidence that the IL-14 election has any predictive value for the rest of the electoral season.
This election a comment on the candidates involved, and nothing else. Foster is a blue dog in a conservative district who was running against a Republican candidate who had split the party during the primary race for this seat. Oberweis (Foster’s opponent) is now a five-time loser in Illinois politics, even when running against weak opposition. He had the support of the NRCC solely because he could “self-fund” — and, in fact, he ran a very expensive and very bad campaign.
The NRCC still almost managed to salvage the race in the end by spending money like water for a very short period of time. That speaks to how much this was a statement about how badly Oberweis did, not about how damaged the NRCC is.
TenguPhule
They just blew 1/3 of their remaining budget on a race they lost.
The fat lady is on stage and warming up her lungs.
AkaDad
I’ve never been to a Starbucks, and probably never will until it’s Idiocracy-ized.
demimondian
(As a voice minor in college, I would point out that the fat lady needs to be warming up long before she goes on stage.)
However, that’s off topic. What’s on topic is (1) They just blew 1/3 of their *cash on hand* on IL-14 — not 1/3 of their budget. The NRCC can raise a lot of money very fast, and I’m confident they will. Watch for them to hang Tom Cole out to dry, and use that public humiliation as a lever to pry more money out of corporate donors. (2) The fact that they spent that much money is irrelevant to what I was saying, which is that they also almost managed to salvage the race from the dreadful campaign Oberweis had run.
Dennis - SGMM
demi, thanks for the detail. I’m hopeful that the Democrat will be able to bring along down-ticket candidates but the Democratic habit of seizing defeat from the jaws of victory is definitely a prospect.
TenguPhule
Nods. Sorry, got them mixed up.
I’m comforted by the fact that they’ve been doing a terrible job of it so far. And they’ve still got a couple million more in debt to pay off.
Donors are not really stupid, they can see where the wind is blowing.
They did it with money. Money they are in short supply of these days. Money about to become a lot harder to get with tales of Republicans stealing from their own committe campaign piggybank. They can’t salvage campaigns with funds they don’t have.
demimondian
I’m expecting to get a job offer from the Republican party writing propaganda for them any day now.
TenguPhule
I know. This is not the beginning of the end. Merely the end of the beginning.
But the Republicans are well up shit creek and things are looking to get much worse for them.
demimondian
If I were in the NRCC torture cham—err, I mean, information processing center, I’d be looking at a strategy like this.
(1) Throw Tom Cole to the wolves. He’s dead meat anyway, between Boehner gunning for him and his fund-raising problems.
(2) Pick a new “business friendly” front man for the committee. Hide the fundies; they’re cutting into profits. It might work out well to pull in someone who’s not in Congress right now, but who has a reputation for being clean and smart. And Republican. That last one’s hard, I know, but I’m sure that there’s somebody out there.
Mary Matalin, maybe?
(3) Sell access to the strategy sessions. The NRCC is under very few restrictions for what it can do, and the “congressional strategy for the 2008 election — bringing American business back from the brink” should sell very well.
Remember, main street republicans don’t understand much — but they understand huckstering.
Martin
And the Democrats countered that money with manpower and grassroots fundraising. Where do you think that came from?
But you are correct in that we can’t detect a trend from this – but then again, Obama came out and helped Foster and Clinton didn’t.
Martin
But they were the Republican ground game and small donor base in 2000 and 2004. They were doing for the GOP what Obama and Dean are doing now for the Democrats. They were just quieter about it since a lot of it stayed inside the community.
There’s a lesson to be learned from how many votes Huck was actually able to pull in with no money whatsoever. (McCain only got 51% of the vote in Texas to land the presumptive nominee role)
tBone
Whu?? Obama’s strategy in the primaries runs completely counter to DLC conventional wisdom. Why do you think we’ve been hearing so much about the “unimportant” states he’s been winning?
I certainly don’t take the SUSA projections as gospel, btw, but I do think they lay out a fairly plausible scenario. Either way, I like seeing McCain in the loser’s column.
tBone
I, for one, fully support you in your effort to bring a more pie-centric focus to Republican press releases.
myiq2xu
There is no candidate who can be all things to all people. Bush has trashed the GOP brand name and the conservative leadership, but the right-left divide still exists. If the GOP dried up and went away, the Democratic party would split into two parts. It’s happened before.
CW says we win this year unless we fuck up. But if we win and don’t deliver, we will face serious challenges in 2-4-6-8 years.
Right now the Democrat ranks are swelling with John Cole-type former GOP conservatives. Most of them won’t stay. Their leaders failed them, but they still believe in the cause.
Neither Clinton nor Obama is making the case for an old-school FDR liberal realignment. Both of them are running on “Keep what we have, add health care, end the war.”
Even if we win, four years from now the argument will be “too liberal” vs “not liberal enough.” Blue-dog Democrats will have to defend their votes in conservative districts.
Perry Como
This is full of win:
Wyoming doesn’t count because Hillary won Texas.
OK, she didn’t actually win the most delegates. But she did win the popular vote.
OK, she lost nearly 20 percentage points in the last two weeks. But Obama did fail to close the deal.
OK, Hillary still has to win every remaining state by margins she hasn’t managed even once. But she’s still ready to take that 3:00 AM call and keep your children from being killed.
OK, so she did blow the single most important foreign policy vote in her Senate career. But George Bush tricked her by putting lies in the NIE.
OK, so she never actually read the NIE. But now she agrees that we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq.
OK, so she’s only saying that now because it’s popular. But Obama promoted NAFTA back when it was popular and look at all the jobs that left Ohio.
OK, so it was actually Hillary who promoted NAFTA. But now she says she didn’t, so that shouldn’t count against her.
OK, so she’s lying to avoid embarrassment. Isn’t Obama lying about Rezko?
OK, so he’s never been accused of anything with regards to Rezko that he could lie about. But doesn’t Hillary’s campaign bringing it up all the time make him look suspicious?
OK, so they’re just trying to smear him. But isn’t Obama trying to smear Hillary by challenging her to release her tax returns while people have a chance to vote on their judgment of them?
OK, so they challenged Rick Lazio to release his tax returns when they were running against him for the Senate. But transparency is important in judging a politican’s ethics.
OK, so they still won’t release the list of donors to the Clinton presidential libary. But how could you be concerned that the Clintons would sell White House access for money?
OK, so they did sell White House access for money with that Lincoln bedroom business. But they were broke from defending themselves against Ken Starr’s right-wing smear machine!
OK, so they’re worth somewhere between $10,000,000 and $50,000,000 now. But why should that make anyone suspicious enough to demand to see Hillary’s tax returns?
OK, so they never did explain exactly how she earned that $100,000 in futures trading….
J. Michael Neal
Hilzoy provides the proper analysis on Samantha Power calling Clinton a monster. Frankly, it’s hard to disagree with Power, in context.
Martin
Sorry to break the news, but FDR is dead, and retracing 60 years can’t be done in 4. Every manager knows you can’t get the job done if half your team won’t talk to the other half. That’s the first thing you have to fix.
J. Michael Neal
Which is one of the reasons I can’t bring myself to vote for Clinton in the fall. She has a long history of failure to produce anything useful, and I see no reason to think that she’s gotten any better at it.
Brachiator
Thanks for the clarification.
Sadly, this is never going to happen. Both the candidates and the media, especially the laziest reporters, depend on insiders and anonymous sources who will spoon-feed them information.
Stuff about either candidate’s electability, who might best withstand the GOP smear machine, and pre-election polls, is not even speculation. It’s just noise, stuff that the networks use to fill air time, and to satisfy the easy-sell story of a political campaign as a horse race.
On the other hand, we have some good examples of the futility of going negative in political campaigns. In the 2006 California gubernatorial campaign, Democratic hopefuls Steve Westly and Phil Angelides started off positively, but quickly went negative in the battle to determine who would run against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. A SF Chronicle writer noted how pointless this was for relatively fresh face Westly (Watch out Arnold: it could be ‘Dewey beats Truman’ again):
Angelides, the old hand and political insider, won out. But what was the end result in the Democratic primary?
The turnout in the November general election was about 39%. And despite some curious polling, including a notorious wrong LA Times poll which showed Angelides beating the Govinator 46% to 45%, ultimately Schwarzenegger crushed Angelides, 55.9% to 39%. The county breakdown was even worse: Angelides won substantially only in Alameda and San Francisco counties.
Whatever Senator Clinton’s strategy, the public reaction to it could be devastating to her in the general election (I duly note that Arnold was an incumbent, while McCain is not).
And as far as Obama is concerned, the SF Chronicle article I previously quoted might offer some guidance:
Obama should not waste time worrying about how to respond to Senator Clinton, and spend more time connecting with potential voters. Whether the love her, hate her, or are neutral to her, most voters probably feel that they know Senator Clinton. Senator Obama must work a little harder.
Beej
Good God, what does it take? Bush vetos the anti-torture (yes, Virginia, waterboarding IS torture) bill and there are still people here who “will not vote for Clinton if she gets the nomination” because their delicate sensibilities have been bruised. Goddam! I would vote for a spitting cobra if the damned snake would just make a solemn promise to outlaw torture once and for all!
And on the same subject, where the billy hell is our cowardly Congress? Why isn’t that madman in the white house in the process of being impeached? Why wasn’t he impeached years ago? This is beyond abominable.
So, yes, I prefer to vote for Obama for president, but if by some fluke (or dastardly conspiracy on the part of the Clintons) he doesn’t get the nomination, I will cast my vote for Hillary Clinton, and I won’t have to hold my nose. My nose has been so offended by the rotten stink emanating from the Bush white house that Hillary’s campaign smells ambrosial in comparison.
TenguPhule
The question is, will Hillary do so? I’d like a straight answer on that one. And from Obama.
And I want blood oaths from both of them that if they fail to keep torture illegal, they get burned at the stake.
PeterJ
A great comment from Matthew Yglesias’ post about Foster winning.
chopper
the foster win does not automatically reflect november, i agree.
however, it does show a few things; first and foremost that obama’s ground game comes with added benefits.
obama’s campaign didn’t just make a commercial for the guy – they set up phonebanks for foster and got a bunch of obama supporters in IL to make calls and campaign for the dude.
now, you notice that the obama campaign didn’t stop campaigning for the nomination. it didn’t have to. multiparallel multistate campaigning, bitches.
this is why obama’s a better candidate re: downticket races. he has this sort of setup in pretty much every state.
Sojourner
I hear my Clinton supporter friends say they won’t vote for Obama.
And so it goes.
John S.
Yes, especially when Obama wins a clear victory by 23 points in Wyoming picking up a net gain of 3 (maybe 4)delegates and practically wiping out whatever gains Hillary made last Tuesday, and Camp Clinton has this to say:
That is the biggest pile of bullshit on the intertubes right now. In Clinton-world, losing by more than 20 points and getting half as many delegates is a ‘near-victory’, but losing by 10 points or less and actually breaking even on delegates is a complete and total failure.
John S.
Wow, Clinton really is a Republican after all:
As Markos says, “why don’t Clinton and McCain get a room already? They’re all using the same arguments.”
reid
John S, that horseshit-speak is typical but annoying spin. It’s all about managing perceptions. I would hope anyone with a couple of brain cells would just dismiss it, but it’s too much like the crap that’s been floating out of the government for years. Do what you want, say the opposite, and never admit you’re wrong. Get the marketing and spinmeisters out of the system already! Whatever happened to honesty and integrity?
Brachiator
Do these people have a reason for their sentiment?
Or are they so stuck in a sexist vision that “there must be a woman president” that they refuse to look at the particular, individual woman running for president? Do they really not care that a great deal of Senator Clinton’s campaign is based on an appeal to fear, mendacity, and deliberate alienation of voters?
mrmobi
Well said Beej. Short of Hillary continuing to endorse John W. McCain as “CIC threshold qualified” (awesome stupidity on her campaigns’ part, no?) I’ll vote for her happily too, however the nomination is determined.
The Republican Crime Syndicate has to be stopped. It was great to see Denny Hasterts’ seat go to a Democrat, blue dog or not.
John S.
reid-
You said it.
And the thing is, I will still vote for someone as full of shit as Clinton rather than a warmongering freak like McCain. But I really am tired of the ‘same old politics’ in Washington. Even if Obama turns out to be false hope for better, it’s still hope. Hillary has proven that it would foolish to dare to hope with her.
tBone
I think most of this is just bluster. Feelings are running high right now, but once the nomination is settled and the RW smear machine really revs up, most of the internecine squabbling will be temporarily forgotten, if not forgiven.
simplicio
As a lifelong democrat, I can say with no equivocation that, given Hillary’s craven tactics of late, I will not vote for her in November if she becomes the nominee.
binzinerator
Aside from tacitly agreeing to four more years of Bushism, if you’re a lifelong Dem you ought to be thinking about who gets to appoint the next supreme court justice. Do you really want McCain to be the one to do it?
Like borehole said earlier, Hillary may or may not appoint far-right idealogues or religious fundamentalists. But McCain absolutely will.
As a lifelong Dem, what rights do you have now that you think are important? You can be certain that anyone McCain puts on the bench will undermine them or strike them down.
And if these corrupt republicans and their fundie friends get another four years, make no mistake, they will pack the court. That has been the religious fundamentalists and social conservatives’ goal since GWB was running for pres. And they’ve almost succeeded. And with a president McCain, they will.
Do you really want that?
By the way, I despise Hillary. But if she gets the nomination, I will vote for her. Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to be passive in the face of four more years of Bushism by sitting at home because I don’t like Hillary.