It just never stops:
Residents of U.S. territories do not have the right to vote in presidential elections, nor do they have full representation in the U.S. Congress.
In an interview with KUAM-TV, Clinton, asked about giving Guam citizens the right to vote for president, said, “I am in favor of full voting rights for every American and that includes the people on Guam.”
After watching every expert denounce her ridiculous with us or against us gas holiday nonsense, her campaign responded with “yeah, but it is polling nicely for us in Indiana.” One can only conclude that the Clinton camp has made the cynical bet that the low information voters they are targeting will never figure out that she is utterly full of shit, so they just say what they have to say to get that extra percentage point.
While extremely cynical, it is also extremely stupid. The only votes that matter at this point are the super-delegate votes, and they are not low-information voters and they aren’t fooled by her nonsense. So in her bid to win more popular votes to attempt to bully the super delegates to vote for her, she turns off more super delegates through blatant dishonesty and pandering. And this is before you realize that while she is throwing out ultimatums to Congress, she hasn’t even written a bill she wants people to consider. She is, quite literally, just saying anything.
And people think this woman and her team are ready on day one to lead this country? Some days I wonder if we might as well just keep Bush.
Dave_Violence
Wow! first!
OK, so thusly, the US territories should be come states and thus have electors and such. Or amend the US constitution. Whee!
Pug
Demanding that every member of Congress go on the record about her cynical gas tax holiday was not exactly a brilliant political move. She should have kept that one focused on the low info voters she courts.
Uncommitted super delegate and Senate candidate, Mark Udall, from Colorado has now gone on record. He’s against it.
Dennis - SGMM
“With us or against us,” plus the messianic vision that it’s okay to do whatever it takes to get elected and save us as only she alone can do. Sounds like George W. Bush to me.
Mithras
The only votes that matter at this point are the super-delegate votes, and they are not low-information voters and they aren’t fooled by her nonsense.
I gotta disagree with you here. She’s trying to convince the supers to vote for her. Her argument is electability. What’s she got going for her there? Popular support among stupid people.
There are a lot of stupid people.
Dennis - SGMM
Once he Republicans proved that you could get people to vote against their own economic interests the stupid became the “must get” demographic. Presidential elections are becoming as cynical, dumbed down, and substance free as the nightly news.
“Idiocracy,” it’s not just a movie any more.
jake
Cancel that, reverse it. Via the housemate, Guam is now GuamBama so it doesn’t count and the people on of to or from Guam all suxxors.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
The problem with that, as has been proven time and again, is that’s a fight we can’t win. Democrats can’t out-stupid the GOP, they’ve completely cornered the market on it.
Brachiator
Senator Clinton is finally hitting her stride as a politician. She can easily throw every “expert” under the bus, including Paul Krugman, who continues to support her strongly in his NY Times columns even though he disagrees with her on the gas tax holiday. After all, the experts, like Obama are all “elitists.”
By calling for a gas tax holiday in North Carolina, a NASCAR state, she not only reinforces her thororoughly manufactured image as a blue collar mamma, but she has managed to steal ownership of the gas tax proposal from John McCain. No matter what you might hear from the talking heads on the weekend political shows, this has got to steam the Republicans, because it is a reminder of how Bill Clinton regularly outflanked the GOP when he was president.
If she pushes it further, she can also get a dig in at Bush, for example, by challenging him to get the tax holiday done as quickly as he pushed the Stimulus rebate idea. She can’t lose on this, even if the tax proposal dies and is never spoken of again. People will remember that Hillary tried to do something for the for the little guy.
And there is not much point in voters stupid who believe Clinton on this. I listened to Senator Clinton reiterate the idea of a gas tax cut at a campaign stop, and noted that she got some of the most enthusiastic cheers that I have ever heard her receive. Including a couple of rebel yells.
I’ve noted before that whenever you dangle tax cuts in front of people, they will stop listening after the word “cut,” and will tune out subtlety, caution, and complications
Ironically, had Obama embraced the idea of a gas tax holiday, the pundits would have used this as more evidence that he was too inexperienced to understand national economic issues. By contrast, Senator Clinton is just seen as playing political hardball, even though it is entirely that she isn’t as smart as people assume.
Senator Clinton believes that she is in in the catbird seat. If she can win Indiana and win or at least do well in North Carolina, she can try to put pressure on the super delegates.
It’s ugly and desperate, but it’s all she’s got.
HRA
Blech! I cannot stand to watch her anymore. Though I wished they had shown her climbing into the NASCAR race car on CNN.
One of her campaign’s gurus said Obama was frustrated because he was losing. This was a quick call about a speech Obama gave moments ago and mentioned the gas tax.
Guam is split 2 for each one.
An environemtal group just endorsed Obama and will be campaigning for him.
Broadway Carl
I couldn’t agree with you more, John… except for that last sentence.
Genine
Bite your tongue!
Elections have been like that for a while. But that is rapidly changing. Just the fact that Obama is in the lead and he has galvanized millions of new voters show that.
There is definitely hope and a vision of the future yet to come.
PaulW
Yeah. They’re the 104,900 Republicans left in that other party, and they’re already all voting… um… Ronald Reagan, even though he’s all zombie now.
Richard Bottoms
Are you people mental?
The current leaders of this country have racked up 4,000+ dead soldiers, 250,000 dead Iraqis, maybe 100,000 wrecked and maimed soldiers, airmen, and Marines.
People are losing their homes by the thousands, the economy is in shambles, our is over $100 a barrel headed for $200 pretty soon, we are being poisoned by products from China, our future is mortgaged to foreign countries and Global warming may kill us all.
And 49% of the country will still vote for McCain.
Grow the fuck up.
Hillary, do whatever it takes.
justinb
Hillary, do whatever it takes.
Yeah, ’cause HRC is going to save us from corporate control of the country.
Mighty fine kitty litter you’re smoking there, dude.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Very perceptive comment
Don’t you feel smarter now that you left the GOP?
Richard Bottoms
This country is too full of stupid motherfuckers who react like Pavlov’s dog to any hint that someone running president might be better than the average joe. (The same dimwits who voted for Bush because he seemed like the kind of fella you want to go with to have a brewski.)
Hillary will win by painting McCain as too goddam old and not sufficiently connected to the problems besetting real folks, not by how nuanced her proposals are.
She will do it in a manner too vicious for Obama because he’s too damn nice.
Hillary knows that the GOP is not just kinda wrong, or representative another point of view we must all respect; she knows the modern Republican party is flat out evil.
The GOP supports torture, makes disenfranchising an entire class of people based on sexuality an objective, and supports making rape & incest victims jump through hoops for an abortion.
Fuck the GOP. Fuck anyone who supports them.
If you think the GOP is not prepared to do anything, no matter how low to beat Obama, you haven’t been paying attention these last eight years. If he can’t stand up to the attacks of HRC, he will not survive the political flamethrower the Republicans have ready for him.
I am fine with Hillary taking a political razor to Obama because that tells me she’s ready to kneecap McCain from June until November, and smile the whole time she’s slicing off his rhetorical nuts.
Do. Whatever. It. Takes.
MobiusKlein
I may be off base, but if you add up the populations of all the various territories and protectorate of the US, the population would approach several states: (population estimate 2000)
American Samoa: 57,291
United States Virgin Islands: 108,612
Guam: 154,805
Northern Mariana Islands: 69,221
And Puerto Rico: 3,913,055
The first four together have just 100,000 less that Wyoming ( 493,782 / 389,929 )
All together, and it’s 4,302,984 – more Americans than Oregon. (26th or so in state rank.) Doesn’t it bother us that so many Americans don’t have a sayso in our politics?
Brachiator
Which kind of makes you wonder why Hillary is so eager to say that only she and McCain are presidential, why she was so hot to suck face with, and get endorsed by, conservative scumbag Richard Scaife – a man who made it his life’s work to topple Bill Clinton. Is Hillary so stupid that she really believes that Scaife won’t turn on her in the general election? Or did she cut a deal with Scaife because she fears that Obama and like-minded people might upset the apple cart that allowed Bill and Hillary to amass a $109 million fortune and get Chelsea a sweet job working for a hedge fund?
And then there are those who think that just because she is a Democrat, Hillary must be on the side of sweetness and light. But her actual performance as a senator has shown her to be either a craven opportunist or an agent of the status quo. She is like the worst of the hedge funds whose unconscionable compensation schemes she has never seriously opposed: “Several hedge funds are completely “black box”, meaning that their returns are uncertain to the investor.”
Similarly, Hillary is a close second to Mitt Romney in being willing to say or do anything to get the nomination. The only difference is that while a critical mass of voters recognized that Romney was an empty suit, Hillary’s core supporters are willing to accept any lie, distortion or deception that the Clinton camp throw out because they believe that electing Hillary will magically bring about a restoration of the Bill Clinton Administration 2.0.
Problem Number One: Hillary is taking a political razor to the Democratic Party as she works hard to take down Obama, and neither she nor her inner circle have the political smarts to know how to build fences. Newsweek columnist (and Clinton supporter) Eleanor Clift recently suggested that a President H. R. Clinton would spend as much time punishing Democrats who “betrayed” her as dealing with the Republicans.
Problem Number Two: Candidates who campaign dirty are even worse when they turn to governing the country. Richard Nixon. George W. Bush. Administrations built on paranoia, deception, secrecy, disdain of anyone not in the inner circle, contempt for rules, and a fondness for dirty tricks.
Just like the Clinton campaign.
Richard Bottoms
I’ll settle for not on the side of torture and detention forever.
>Richard Nixon. George W. Bush.
Both Republicans last time I checked.
I know, I know: “but the Democrats would be worse.”
Horseshit.
Chuck Butcher
Richard Bottoms,
yes your scenario could play out. It also means we keep on doing the same thing the same way. We do no more than reade a (R) for (D) the way you would have it done.
The changes you want do not happen by doing the same things the same way. I’ve watched this slide into enemy camps subject to any kind of political attack for quite a few years and the defining characteristic is that it doesn’t go away with a win. It isn’t about principle once it is done this way, nor ideology, it is about power and the application of power. How that will play out is predictable, a narrow margin of win followed by falling support as the public wises up. It’s past time to knock it off.
eric
a few weeks ago i was telling people that i would vote for whomever became the democratic candidate. that is no longer the case. if by some sort of coup hillary is the nominee she will not get my vote. i will stay home. this political junkie is sickened and repulsed by her shameless and insulting tactics. she is without a moral compass. she can’t possibly lead, she can only follow the carrot. she has become, i’m sorry for saying this (because i used to have so much respect for her), a crackhead. she’s always needing one more fix, one more state, even though it’s an exercise in futility. like every other crackhead she brings everyone in her support system down with her. like every other crackhead she has lost her moral compass. there is no right or wrong, only getting the next fix. and that fix is never enough. it will never ever be enough, but she needs it. we’ve already had one president with addiction issues, do we need another? (be they cocaine, alcohol or unbridled power). “GUAM IS A STATE!”
shameless.
horrible.
unconscionable.
addict.
she needs an intervention.
Notorious P.A.T.
Hogwash. Just yesterday I saw a clip of Obama eviscerating Clinton’s gas tax proposal. He was just raking her and it over the coals. Of course, he wasn’t talking about her pastor, or calling her “elitist” or making up stories about sniper fire, so some people might doubt his ability to play hardball, but he is definitely a fighter, and an effective one.
Amen brother. How many times does Clinton have to praise John McCain, how many times does she have to say her vote to invade Iraq was not a mistake, how many McCain proposals must she endorse, how many times must she brush off the views of experts before we wonder if she is in the right party? She is telling anyone who will listen that if she doesn’t like the decision made by voters, that decision should be overturned. Sounds like a Republican to me.
Notorious P.A.T.
Yeah, sure, but Bush has whacked-out religious beliefs, whereas Hillary Clinton. . . uh, never mind.
shortstop
…with what? The “message” she’s been working so hard on these last months? “Me, too! John McCain, with breasts!”
Just Some Fuckhead
America will never vote for an angry black man.
Dave_Violence
That’s the most honest endorsement of Hillary! I’ve read. Simply stated: those who are going to vote for Hillary! made their minds up long ago. The object is to win and thus to bring about a change in Administration. The concern is that those folks who haven’t made up their minds must be convinced to vote for Hillary! no matter what.
It is a good strategy.
However, once elected, what happened to the campaign promises? Will there be a chorus of “there are more important things…” sung to the duped voters? Perhaps… But dupes usually have poor memories, right?
At any rate, cynical campaigning is honest campaigning in my book, well said, then Dick Bottoms!
Richard Bottoms
The only change I want is to kick the Republicans out of the White House and Congress.
Richard Bottoms
Seemed to work for the GOP for 25 years. How’s that bringing down the size of government thing going?
Richard Bottoms
It’s this one: Fuck me? No, fuck you.
You “Hillary is mean” trolls go whine somewhere else. Stay home like a dumbass if you want on election day.
And if Barack toughens up enough to kick her ass, I’ll gladly vote for him.
Dave_Violence
Good point. It backfired and got Ross Perot into the game as well as lots of people behind Ron Paul. Enough to push an election away from the Republicans.
Rick Taylor
Richard Bottoms
One of the reasons I originally supported Hillary was I thought she would be a more effective candidate against McCain, but I haven’t been at all impressed. I mean, not bothering to contest a large number of caucus states, handing Obama the lead early on? Plus looking from a purely Machiavellian perspective, mean does not always equal effective; a lot of her responses strike me as mechanical, jumping on the bandwagon. For example, I think she would have done far better taking a back seat, letting the media do the pounding on Ayers and Wright while she took the highroad; as it was, she drove Obama’s negatives, but she also drove up her own. Plus scheme all you want to win the superdelegates, but don’t do it in the open. Don’t go out of your way to belittle states you haven’t won (you may need their votes later); and arguing that you should get the delegates from an unsanctioned primary in which your opponent wasn’t on the ballot is going to do nothing but turn people who aren’t already your supporters away from you. The trouble with the Clinton campaign is sometimes they drink their own koolaid. I will admit the gas tax was an effective pander (though threatening to take it to a vote and seeing who in congress was with her or against her was a bad idea), but in the main, I haven’t really been too impressed. Doing whatever it takes to win only works if you have an accurate idea of what it takes to win.
stuck in 200
The only change I want is to kick the Republicans out of the White House and Congress.
Not enough. If they’re replaced by a new crew that is pretty much more of the same, it does no good. I remember the (God help us, I hope never “first”) Clinton administration, and have no confidence that an HRC administration would result in any more than marginal changes in torture policy, the unitary executive, corporatist economics or mindlessly cowboy diplomacy. We’re headed off a cliff as a nation, and changing the angle of attack slightly isn’t going to help.
If Bush lite with a “D” after the names will make you feel better, bless your heart.
Richard Bottoms
Al Gore, George Bush, politicians they’re all the same. I heard that back in 2000. How’s that working out for you?
There are no bad Democrats. There are no good Republicans, anywhere, ever.
John Cole
Barack IS kicking her ass. Jesus.
dslak
Big fan of Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman, are you?
Richard Bottoms
Then there’s no problem.
I am voting for which ever Democrat comes out on top and they will be stronger for surviving the contest. The question is whether the Hillary is a meanie whiners are stupid enough to vote Republican if she pulls out a win.
Richard Bottoms
Lieberman is an independent.
We do what the Republicans have been doing for a quarter century. Contest the primaries, get your most ideologically acceptable candidate in the general if possible. If they don’t win, come back and do it again in two or four years.
In the meantime, never under any circumstances support anyone other than the Republican who is in the general, unless he is a current or former Neo-Nazi.
Seems to have worked pretty damn good as a strategy. I believe they call it the 11th commandment.
Brachiator
Great point. On the other side, we have Hillary Clinton cynically and strenuously staying on message, the re-branded Blue Collar Momma dismissing all those pointy-head elitists (yeah, she’s talkin’ bout you, too, Obama):
Clinton and her people know that anti-intellectualism, with a twist of religion, is the cornerstone of the Bush Administration. But instead of appealing to the citizens’ ability to deal honestly with hard realities, she embraces teh Stupid as tightly as some people cling to … their religion and their guns.
You have to admire the audacity of Hillary’s bullshit. Here is a woman who has long been a card-carrying member of the political (and now, economic) elite successfully selling herself to the rubes as Huey Long in a pantsuit.
dslak
So you were a big fan of him prior to 2006?
Richard Bottoms
I do.
As a black man I sincerely hope Obama beats her, but I don’t think he will and I am also very pleased I don’t feel obligated to feel all crushed if he loses.
The question still comes down to: are you stupid enough to vote Republican if Hillary wins.
slippy hussein toad
I wouldn’t vote Republican. I just would stay home. I have voted NOT republican for the last four Presidential elections. In November, I want to vote FOR somebody. Obama is that somebody.
Clinton has gladly descended into the same moral sewer that Bush inhabits. With her latest obscenity she’s promised to obliterate Iran. Which would look like this, if you’re interested. Be patient, I think about 150,000 other people are trying to view that page right now, too.
Not something I’m ready to embrace.
Richard Bottoms
>So you were a big fan of him prior to 2006?
You mean when he was running for Vice-President in 2000? Sure.
Now he’s an asshole. But, we have the means to replace assholes, it’s called primary challenges. He’s switching parties soon anyway.
Richard Bottoms
Then you are stupid.
Just Some Fuckhead
If you really thought that you’d be trying to get him to vote for HRC.
Richard Bottoms
No, it’s the cornerstone of America. Half the population doesn’t believe in evolution.
Dumbass motherfuckers.
Richard Bottoms
Anyone stupid enough to stay home and pout after eight years of George Bush is an idiot.
demimondian
Jeebus — Richard Bottoms is one of the most radical Dems here, and people are DISAGREEING with him about the 11th commandment?
[headdesk]
[headdesk]
[headdesk]
Look, folks. If Hillary wins, then I’ll back her. Unhappily. Hell, miserably. Pouting every freeking second of the way. But do you know what? I’ll even give money. The alternative is John McCain and 100 years in Iraq. The choice is fighting for a ‘veto-proof majority’ in two years. The choice is…four more years in Hell. And I won’t let myself be responsible for that.
I won’t like it. I won’t want it. I’ll surely want to fix the party so it can’t happen again. I’ll make sure that McAuliffe can’t get the party back, and, yes, I’ll sabotage the DLC in every way possible…but I’ll start that on the 1/21/2009. Until then, I work to get the Dem — whichever Dem — into the presidency.
stuck in 200
Al Gore, George Bush, politicians they’re all the same. I heard that back in 2000. How’s that working out for you?
Wasn’t my argument in 2000, thanks. Those who couldn’t see a difference between Bush and Gore in 2000 were morons. Those who can’t see that the 2008 version of HRC is a whole lot closer to Bush than the 2000 version of Gore are also morons. And those who say there are no good Republicans and no bad Democrats are hopeless morons.
Bless their hearts.
Richard Bottoms
And of course President McCain would never go to war with Iran. Lord what a bunch of fools.
This is it. Us versus them. The torture, detention without trial, fag bashing, anti-evolution, no global warning, constitution shredding party versus the Democrats.
There is is no other choice. There are no other options.
It’s Barrack or Hillary, or stay home and be a dimwit.
dslak
The 11th Commandment only applies to public figures. I’ll vote for Hillary over McCain, but not because I think every Democrat is good. There are just some things worse than a bad Democrat.
Richard Bottoms
Any yet, here we are. Hillary or Obama. Those are your only two choices. Don’t like it? Tough titty.
I am a Yellow Dog Democrat which means I would vote for a yellow dog before I would pull the lever for a Republican. If Satan and Jesus were the match up and Jesus was the Republican, guess what.
There is an evil party and there is a much less evil and often foolish party, but there is never any question whatsoever about which one gets my vote.
Richard Bottoms
Republicans.
Richard Bottoms
You people do realize that if it wasn’t for Hillary, this Reverend Wright episode would have come out somewhere around October 27th?
If Obama wins in November it will be because of Hillary’s no holds barred challenge. All the dirt, all the weaknesses uncovered will before the end of the campaign.
dslak
Well, Jesus isn’t the official mascot of the GOP for no reason.
Are you saying that Hillary had something to do with the Wright stuff coming out? Even I wouldn’t go that low.
Shabbazz
Fuck that noise. I voted for Hillary! way back in her first Senate term and she has done nothing but disappoint me by bending over time and time and time again — all the wile claiming that she stood STRONG LIKE BULL!
“There’s an old expression in Texas — well, we have it in Texas, and I’m sure you all have it here….”
Richard Bottoms
I am saying she did Obama a favor by exploiting it no. Come October he’s immune.
JOEEEEE GUAMM
GUAMM ?IS IS FINE, BUT GUAMCAKE IN ENDENAGERED. AND STOP GLOBAL FREEZING.
NOOOOOOOO ONEEEEEE LIIKESSSSSS A TATTLETALEE