We’ve had a lot of “primary Obama” comments recently. I know I shouldn’t go here, but I am genuinely curious….
I was a Billbot from 1993-2001 and now I’m an Obot. I would have become a Hillbot if Hillary had become president, but she didn’t. I did vote for Obama in the primaries, but only because Edwards had already dropped out by the time of the New York primary.
I’d like to know, from all you Hillbots, what would Hillary have done differently/better than Obama? As I see it, Obama made one bad mistake, and that was listening to the old Clinton people (that’s what Larry Summers and Rahm are, old Clinton people) on the economy in 2008. I can’t see how it’s likely that Hillary would have done better on that score.
So someone explain to me how Hillary would have been better. I don’t see it.
gogol's wife
She would have fought! (this is not me speaking, I’m just predicting what they’ll say) Sorry, just sick of hearing that Obama doesn’t fight, when that’s all the man has been doing since fall 2008.
baldheadeddork
Popcorn, please.
TBogg
Oh, this ought be good….
Spaghetti Lee
It’s storming outside, and I heard a clap of thunder when I saw this thread.
Yutsano
Because SHUT UP THAT’S WHY!!
Also: what a lot of Hillbots really wanted was a backdoor restoration of the Big Dog, by just swapping out the roles. Since the assumption naturally is that Hillary would toes do everything just like Bill!
ETA: what gogol’s wife said. Also.
different church-lady
The point in enabling the playing of this game is what?
Ol' Dirty DougJ
What’s funny is that the Dana Milbank piece about how HIllary might/would have been better had her friends all saying she would have given up on the health care bill.
existential fish
100% OBot here, but as an aside, I question your sanity if you were willing to vote for Edwards. The policies he was advocating were great, but he was so fucking transparently unqualified to be president that I would have voted for anyone but him.
Can you imagine in an alternate world how his 04 campaign would have brought down the Kerry Presidency?
Sorry, I see someone defending Edwards, even tangentially, and my ire goes up.
different church-lady
@Yutsano:
It’s like I gotta FTFY everything around here…
Randiego
I doubt she would’ve touched health care early given her history. It would’ve been WWIII.
General Stuck
I doubt we would have passed HCR, as I think Hillary would have followed Rahm’s advice, or his equivalent in her WH, and dropped the big overhaul effort at least, and taken some smaller steps.
I like Hillary okay, now, and did before she went insane in the primary, but she is surrounded by hucksters and wanna be Rasputins that would likely have had a anxiety effect on the country, at a time when we needed a no drama person with just about no baggage for distraction.
The wingers would have gone crazy in a different way, but I doubt the Tea Party would have happened. I think the unhinged energy that created that group, beyond differing ideology, was generated purely by Obama’s skin color.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
@existential fish:
I erred in supporting Edwards, if he had been the nominee, we might be looking at president Palin right now.
John O
If anything, HRC is more corporate than Obama, so I don’t see any different outcomes.
The House is a moron, and that (presumably) would not have changed.
Woulda shoulda coulda.
Yutsano
@different church-lady: I submit that this is not an either/or proposition. Plus I thought that answer was the obvious one, so I was looking a touch deeper.
NobodySpecial
She handles sniper fire better.
Anya
Why, oh why would you open that door, DougJ? But since you did it, I’ll go with gogol’s wife. Also, too, shut up about Hillary.
shecky
I never understood the Hillary-is-inevitable meme. Especially once Obama became known. Not that she’d be bad. Just unelectable in the general election. I figured if Hillary had won the nomination, the Dems would have been daring defeat.
lamh34
OMGoodness Doug J, I see you’ve gone there. Good on you dawg.
I predict another 200 comments??? It really depends on how many of the PUMA minions follow their walking orders.
Yutsano
@lamh34:
If this gets picked up at FDL, we go at least 400. Easily.
Mr Furious
She wouldn’t have done any better, and arguably might have done worse. If her campaign is any indication, she would have surrounded herself with even worse advisors–Mark Penn as White House Chief of Staff?
Not that the Republicans would have gone any easier on any Dem that wonthe White House, but the only target equal to a black Muslim soshulist would have been Hillary freaking Clinton.
She would have faced all the same obstruction, and arguably would have reacted in a way that would have backfired worse in the media.
Sorry. As much fault as I lay at the feet of Obama (and I agreed strongly with this NYT OpEd this morning), most of the fault lies on the other side, and HRC would be in at least the same shitty situation.
The Dangerman
We would have President McCain though perhaps not VP Palin.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
how about we hear from some bayhbots, and some vilsackriders while we are at it.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
@Mr Furious:
The Mark Penn stuff is what clinches it for me, that she would have been worse.
I could be wrong, but I just don’t like the idea of that guy having any influence.
Mr Furious
And let me pile on the “people who supported Edwards In 2008 have little to no credibility.”
shortstop
@Yutsano: You’re both low, baby!
John O
@gogol’s wife:
Obama doesn’t “fight” in the sense most of us would like him too, and with pretty good reason.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
@shecky:
I also thought she was inevitable. I still think she would have won the general and done about the same as Obama in terms of percentage (though probably different in the electoral college).
Yutsano
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ: Mark Penn is her biggest failure IMHO. He was a total cancer on her bid that seemed to serve little purpose than to advance his own centrist goals. If he had any position in her White House, we’d be having “HILLARY SOLD US OUT!!” conversations.
@shortstop:
This thread promises to be epic no matter what. Which I think may be DougJ’s point.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
@Mr Furious:
You know, there is no public record of my support that I know of (I think gave him $75 but that’s it), so I could pretend I hadn’t supported him. Would that be better?
Mattsky
I’m not a Hillbot but I’ll answer your qestion any way.
I think Hillary would have passed a budget in the fall of last year while the Democrats controlled boths the House and Senate.
jwb
As an Obot, I will add another early item that Obama and his team got wrong: allowing OfA to erode rather than transforming it into a political network that could be used to bring regular pressure on the process.
Mr Furious
Yeah, Doug, Penn was probably at more fault than anyone else for that campaign’s implosion. He would have been a policy and political debacle in any Administration.
Corner Stone
DougJ, you’re an idiot. What a fucking simple.
Tim (The Other One)
Comment #15 + 1 AND Tbogg !
Linda Featheringill
Not a Hillbot. I was also an Edwards fan, although I now think that we dodged a bullet there and it’s a good thing that he flamed out. I listened very carefully to Hillary and Barack and finally went for Obama.
But to the question at hand. I’ve seen some mumblings about “Hillary would have been different” and have thought about that question a bit.
I concluded that:
1. We might or might not have gotten the ACA through congress. Hard to call that one.
2. The winding down from Iraq would have been quicker but we would be slower getting out of Afghanistan.
3. We would have boots on the ground in North Africa. Somewhere there.
4. DADT would have been resolved in much the same way. A little later perhaps but during the first term probably.
5. Her stimulus would have also been too small. NOBODY in the world was prepared for the depth of the crash and EVERYBODY in the West is still struggling with it. The US isn’t the only one.
6. I think she would have really tried to get a public works project going. Some WPA-type of thing. She probably would have been at least partially successful at that. And unemployment may have been a little less but not by a whole lot.
7. Assuming she was faced with a non-cooperative House on the debt ceiling, she would have declared it unconstitutional and soldiered on. We probably wouldn’t have a downgrade on our hands but would have a Constitutional Issue to deal with. Better than what we have? I don’t know.
8. In short, differences here and there but not tons better or tons worse.
AA+ Bonds
Depends on whether you believe her or not.
Mr Furious
No, I appreciate the honesty, Doug. But I might not bring it up first anymore if I were you… ;-)
Corner Stone
You know DougJ, you drop some obvious stinkers sometimes. But this is fucking brutally ridiculous.
soonergrunt
@NobodySpecial: You get a win just for the reference.
PaulJ
I was for Edwards and dodged a bullet, preferred Obama over Hillary (can’t remember why now), changed my voter registration for the first time in my life from Republican to Democrat.
Now, I don’t think there is a single Democratic or Republican politician that will ever do anything that displease the rentier class. The rest of us have already lost.
So, hell yeah primary Obama. What do we have to lose? It will take decades to take power away from the Big Money Boyz™. What happens in the 2012 Presidential election won’t mean much in the scheme of things.
John O
I was an Edwards guy, too, and maintain that just because he turned out to be an ordinary human being with a complex personal life doesn’t mean he understands the problem and may have offered up some good solutions.
It’s just that none of them would’ve passed. I don’t get the blame game, I get the win game. Obama has done all right considering the institutionalized hatred against him. *I’m* on record as saying we may never recover from Bush the Lesser, and that seems about right so far.
Mr Furious
Sorry, btw, I don’t get the reply button on my iPad.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
@Mattsky:
Why do you think this? The budget showdowns worked out well for Bill, I don’t see why she’d have been more motivated to pass those things than Obama was.
nalbar
If Clinton had won, no health care bill. So no drama at the town halls, so no tea party. Bill would have used his magical penis powers to right the economy in the first year. So no bad economy + no tea party means no republican take over of the house, allowing Hillary to use the democrats in the house and the senate to give us all ponies.
And just ordinary ponies, but unicorn ponies with glitter!
.
Violet
You were going to vote for Edwards? Oh dear. To me his insincerity shone like a warning beacon. Never could understand what people saw in him.
jwb
@Corner Stone: Take care; you’re flailing.
Mike E
One word: Pantsuit!
Our 1st female governor here in NC is taking loads of sniper fire, and she doesn’t like it one bit. Also.
existential fish
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ:
Fair enough. The man is the Democrat’s version of Nixon and they somehow just barely avoided him in positions of executive authority that would have either time destroyed the party for a decade at, safe to say, a very inopportune time.
And Hillary is Obama’s SecState and advises him. Safe to say there’d have been little meaningful difference. That’s both bad and good.
Corner Stone
@PaulJ:
Oh wow. Another former Republican here at BJ.
Hoocoodanode?!
geg6
Damn, you must be bored, Doug.
I’m outta here before the PUMA brigade shows up. Back to grilling tuna steaks.
nalbar
I meant;
And NOT just ordinary ponies……
.
AA+ Bonds
@Violet:
Probably all the union endorsements.
eemom
oh my fuckin gawd.
I thought Cole was Teh Master of Teh Trollbaiting Post, but this…..this…….I am SPEECHLESS.
Yer a bravely bold man, DougJ. Crazy, but bravely. And bold.
Linda Featheringill
@AA+ Bonds:
Ooo! Like your new name!
AA+ Bonds
@Linda Featheringill:
I don’t :( but thanks.
Lev
I think she would have panicked 50% more at the failed terror attempts we’ve had. And not half the troop drawdowns. Plus, she represented Wall Street in the Senate…I bet Dodd Frank would have been great compared to what what Clinton’s team would have produced.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
so, who would have closed gitmo?
different church-lady
@Yutsano:
I submit that my comment was at least partially tongue-in-cheek. Although I don’t doubt it’s where it began-and-ended for some Hill-bots. (Some, not at all all.)
ppcli
No question in my mind there would have been more movement on the V-chip and school uniform front.
JonF
The clinton MO would have been to abandon the HRC/FinReg fights pretty early for something superficial(like a limited medicare expansion). There would have been scandals and the tea party still would be holding the GOP’s balls.
Yutsano
@eemom: Ah c’mon this is masterful. And it’s working already!
AA+ Bonds
This post owns
different church-lady
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ:
Why? What would McCain have died of?
It would probably be better if we didn’t speak of him very much anymore.
sb
I’m setting the over/under on this thread at 425.
It’s a Sunday so people might not be inclined to comment or check the blog. Then again, this might get picked up by the firebaggers. That and it might be the last post for awhile…
425? Might be low. I’m taking the over.
Kobie
@Corner Stone: You could try actually debunking some of his points, instead of being an asshole troll. Get fucked.
AA+ Bonds
I am quite serious though (NON-TROLL!) that Hillary Clinton did not equivocate and repeatedly promised universal health care throughout her campaign, unlike Barack Obama, and that’s how I knew Obama was never for it in the first place.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
The same thing John Paul I died of.
AA+ Bonds
@Kobie:
White knighting a troll? FABULOUS.
Corner Stone
@jwb: go suck eggs.
PaulJ
“Oh wow. Another former Republican here at BJ.”
The irony is I am most likely way to the left of 98% of the people that post or comment here (based on the history of comments that I have read).
Must be common among people that have been “saved”.
soonergrunt
For me it was her completely unapologetic attitude and refusal to take responsibility for her pro-Iraq war vote when she was asked about it. She said that Bush had lied about the threat from Iraq and she voted with with what the President said. When specifically asked if she felt any responsibility she said no, and continued to blame Bush.
Then later with that “3AM” crap, I was certain that she wasn’t my candidate. If any Democratic candidate had ever had a “3AM moment” as she liked to say, it was her with that vote, and she not only had failed in that moment, but she refused to take responsibility for her failure or to give any indication at all that she had learned anything from it.
eemom
@Yutsano:
someone oughtta cross-post it at all the hard-core PUMA hangouts….like that River-something one. I predict we could blow up the whole innertoobz.
Taryn H.
She wouldn’t have been pursuing this post-partisan strategy over the cliff. She knows that Republicans do not recognize the legitimacy of a Democratic President. Someone who knew this going in would’ve been a more effective negotiator.
Loneoak
My opinion on Hillary today is still pretty much the same as it was during the primaries: I think she’s savvy, brilliant, and tough, with the potential to be a great president, but was surrounded by the worst political and policy advisors ever. And Obama really fucked up by inviting half those folks into his administration.
Speaking of this, I’m surprised no one discussed this piece from the NYT on the front page today: “What Happened to Obama’s Passion” by Drew Westen.
ETA: Forgot to mention that I could never vote for her because of Iraq, regardless of her advisors.
Linda
She would have been reasonably paranoid, and would have never trusted the good intentions of her opponents. One of the things Obama mentioned in the primaries was that we needed to put aside our old bitterness and personal dissention. The problem is, the Republicans never did that. I understand him giving it a try, but past a certain point, it’s like Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football.
Corner Stone
@Kobie: What points, you fucking deranged monkey bitch?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
If she had picked Obama to be her running mate, as I can see her doing, then things might not have been much different as far as policies go. Probably more stumbling around initially, due to the fear of having to prove herself. I dunno.
But the “vast right wing conspiracy” would have cranked up and it would be non-stop. We’d be hearing retrospectives about all of the “lingering questions” about Whitewater, cattle futures, rapes, murders, drug-running and who knows what else. Fox would have loved it. Breitbart and O’Keefe would be millionaires by now.
But since her campaign ended up imploding (“sniper fire” in #15 is right), and she never could catch up fairly, she might have lost even with the economy imploding and McCain picking Palin. (I think he would have still picked her because he wasn’t going to get his BFF Lieberman).
Oh, but you didn’t direct this to me. Sorry.
!!!Hillmentum!!!! (From ExcellentNewsforHillary)
Cheers,
Scott.
eemom
folks, let’s go easy on poor Corner Stoned. Hillz is the only woman he’s ever loved. The man is heartbroken. : (
AA+ Bonds
Corner Stone takes the lead.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
@Loneoak:
As much as I hate Mark Penn, I think that’s an exaggeration. I mean, Andrew Mellon and Dick Cheney called and they want their rightful place in history back.
Reality Check
Is AA+ Bonds m_c?
Joseph Nobles
There would have been a WEDDING IN THE ROSE GARDEN!!!!!!!!
Corner Stone
@PaulJ:
I’m not sure that’s actually “irony” here at BJ.
CT Voter
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: No one, unless you had different Democrats in the Senate.
different church-lady
@Corner Stone:
Please don’t make me agree with you. I hate that.
AA+ Bonds
Here’s some evidence to refute your claim.
Kobie
@Corner Stone: LOL, you’re adorable.
AA+ Bonds
@Reality Check:
MAYBE
shortstop
I recall someone on Benen’s old blog making me laugh when he said of Penn, Wolfson and Ickes: “Those three could sink Molly Brown.”
Reality Check
@AA+ Bonds:
Lyndon LaRouche? Gee, what does Alex Jones have to say about all this?
debbie
I preferred Obama over Hillary. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Hillary, but I figured that, knowing how conservatives are, we’d just be fighting the 1990s all over again, and there were more important issues to deal with, like jobs.
I’m still for Obama, but boy, was I wrong.
Corner Stone
@different church-lady:
You know what else I think? The sun rises in the East and sets in the West.
Suckit churchie!
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Loneoak: I posted it on the last thread. . .thank you.
existential fish
@Violet:
Exactly. It’s the insincerity and being maniacal about being President that was a warning sign on Edwards. To say that his personal life was that of “an ordinary human being” misses the point. The man completely changed policy positions on two consecutive presidential runs. Moreover, he had an affair with a staffer while on a Presidential campaign, then tried to hire her to shut her up. And when that didn’t work, he arranged for donors to give her money directly to shut her up. This is what normal people do in their personal lives?!
Edwards is and was a train wreck. Adopting decent policies while in a campaign doesn’t cover for that.
RossInDetroit
Hillary in the WH is an interesting question but it would have been more interesting to me before she had spent 30 months or whatever as SOS. Hard to un-link her from that job now.
Corner Stone
@Kobie: It’s true, I’m a pretty damn good lookin’ guy.
Now what “points” did DougJ make that can actually be debunked here in this craptacular troll post from him?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@soonergrunt: The phony “got shot at” shit was enough for me.
AA+ Bonds
@Reality Check:
His site begs to differ:
wrb
What would be different if Hillary was not Secretary of State?
A: Our presence in Afghanistan would be much smaller.
Probably some stuff would be worse too,
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
ok, and why not ask, how many times would hillary have cried? more than boehner? would hilary and boehner have gotten together for a good cry during the debt ceiling debate? would their tears be the salty fuccen tears of bipartisanship, in a polarized washington?
different church-lady
@Corner Stone:
You are so fucking wrong: the sun doesn’t rise at ALL anymore.
Joseph Nobles
@Reality Check: http://mediamatters.org/blog/201108040017
fhtagn
Fewer stories about Kenyan usurpers, more stories about Bill’s bimbos. Plenty of allegations about lesbian Communist orgies in the White House. No healthcare, not much financial reform. Taylor Marsh would have been happy, for a change.
Tim (The Other One)
104 and heatin’ up ! Must admit Edwards had me bamboozled w/ the pro Union/Labor bit for awhile but Hillary never grabbed me. Answers to questions no one asked…
Reality Check
@AA+ Bonds:
Ok, so I’ve confirmed it. Have fun babbling about pie, retard.
boss bitch
Hillary would not have been better. Just look at her campaign staff. Look who she surrounded herself with? Her people were grimy and lacked character.
AA+ Bonds
@wrb:
The narrative given to the press at the time was that Obama was reluctant to go to war in Libya until Sec. Clinton convinced him.
I don’t believe it, really, but that’s the positioning.
RossInDetroit
This reminds me of Brigadier Ernest Pudding writing his book Things That Can Happen in European Politics and never finishing it because things keep HAPPENING.
Once time has passed, ‘what if’ really has no meaning.
Admiral_Komack
The only reason Hillary would have fought is because she would have found out Bill was chasing poon in the Oval Office…again.
AA+ Bonds
@Reality Check:
Confirmed it! That’s science.
Cain
@TBogg:
Love it when Doug trolls the blog.
Arclite
The point of primarying Obama in 2012 has nothing to do with Hillary running in 2008. If Hillary ran in 2012, there would be no point in supporting her, as her policies would not be much different that Obama’s, honestly. The main reason to primary at this point is to get him to pay attention to liberal issues and not take the liberal vote for granted. A primary challenge from Leahy or Sherrod Brown, for example, could accomplish this, even while they don’t much chance of winning.
LesGS
@General Stuck: I agree that the Tea Party as we know it would not exist, at least not in this particularly virulent incarnation. Hillary-hatred from the Right is well-aged, pungent as Limburger cheese, but utterly unsurprising. I believe that many, many of the TPers were shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that a black man won the White House. They would have been grumbly and cantankerous if Hillary would have won it, but it would not have galvanized them into a movement, at least not as loud as it has been. So it’s possible, with Hillary, that the House would not have flipped in 2010, or at we might have a smaller and maybe not as crazy Republican majority.
(I recall reading that a lot of the older white folks who had not bothered to vote in 2008 came out in 2010. I suspect they would not have felt such a need to “take their country back” if the person in the WH were white.)
AA+ Bonds
@Cain:
Kobie
@Corner Stone:
It’s right there in his post. Or did you just see the word “Hillary” and instantly become blind with rage?
Reality Check
@Arclite:
Go for it! Primary that centrist squish! He SOLD YOU OUT!
boss bitch
By the way, NEVER trust any politician or any man as pretty as John Edwards.
Linda Featheringill
And to you guys still freaking out about Edwards:
We [his supporters] lost, shouldered our disappointment, and carried own, trying to be very supportive to Obama.
We are the ones who suffered the loss and we have moved on. Why can’t you? Do you really have to call us weird and stupid for not seeing what you detected?
wrb
@AA+ Bonds:
Corner Stone
You know DougJ, I started hating your posts when you began the recent line of “Derrr, really?” posts.
If there were a cake, this one would fucking take it you fucking douchebag.
RossInDetroit
@Arclite:
Plus wasting a lot of money that could be used winning the general.
And giving the GOP plenty of ammo to use against BHO in the general.
Would that be worth it in what’s likely to be a close race?
Corner Stone
@Kobie: What’s refutable about that section?
Tell us, what’s the counter argument?
Violet
This thread is boring. It’s like the blog version of mom’s I’m-too-tired-to-cook meal.
different church-lady
@Joseph Nobles: So many Howard Beales, so little time.
arguingwithsignposts
@Arclite: Are you talking about 71-year-old Patrick Leahy?
Reality Check
@RossInDetroit:
But Obama is a neoliberal subservient to the ideology of the shock doctrine which the disaster capitalists in the rentier class of the Village are using to take us back to the gilded age and turn us into Somalia! Also, The Empire must fall! Or something.
SANDERS/BROWN ’12!
Go for it!
jwb
@Corner Stone: Just reporting. Don’t like it, don’t flail.
wrb
@LesGS:
It wouldn’t have existed for another reason. The most corrosive and nasty anti-Obama memes were invented by the PUMAs. The TPs weren’t creative enough to invent them, but they could adopt them. And if there were Democrats who agreed, the memes must be true, and there was no reason to show restraint, right?
It took PUMAs to come up with shit as crazy as birtherism.
Southern Beale
I’m not a Hillbot so I can’t answer your question.
However, I will blogwhore these pictures of my garden. I missed Anne Laurie’s garden blogging thread this morning, so I figure better late than never!
Cat Lady
The alpha and omega of Hillary.
@soonergrunt:
This. And how you doin’? You’re not around much anymore.
Great post DougJ. I hope the Taylor Marsh and Agent Flowbee minions swarm here – we need a WWF-style smackdown. Liberals don’t circularly shoot at themselves enough/
soonergrunt
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): before she ever claimed that, there had been the whole question about Iraq votes. I might have voted for Kucinich had he actually been on the ticket in OK over that one. Hell, at least John Edwards took responsibility for his mistake in voting for the Iraq war, which put him above Hillary in my book. In the end, I voted for Obama in the OK primary (and eventually in the general election) primarily because of Iraq.
gbear
How many times will corner stone say this is the worst thread ever? I’ll guess 40.
eemom
@Linda Featheringill:
thisety thisety This. FFS. The dude talked a good game and not all of us are blessed with psychic powers. We MEANT well.
Reality Check
@gbear:
He sure loves to talk about pies.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
I was hoping she would use her presidential power to take revenge on the Republicans and the vast right-wing conspiracy that embarrassed her, nearly destroyed her husband, and ruined the Promise of America, by burning down everything they created and pissing down their throats. Hell hath no fury and so on and so forth… I”m open to someone else doing that, but I guess all the would-be heroes are made out of chicken shit.
.
.
different church-lady
@Reality Check:
But seriously, pretty good ironic imitation of Jeffrey Goines there.
AA+ Bonds
@wrb:
Is it believable that she was for it? Yes. Is it believable that Obama wasn’t? No.
ChrisNYC
I think this is fun. I was and am an Obot but I think she would not have done the OBL raid. Too much risk. She’d be happy to go nuts with troops and fancy weapons but not risking her presidency (and a FEMALE presidency) on that hand-to-hand, possibility-of-Iran-hostage-rescue-replay business.
And obvs, she would have pushed hard the Red v. Blue thing. You wouldn’t need a Tea Party — regular GOPers would do the work. But, because there would be Dems willing to have her back and be on tv and in op eds saying how awesome her policies were, probably would have been an easier road for Dems. And voila, no professional left. She’d be throwing VRWC red meat daily. Same policies as Obama but somehow no one saying she isn’t a Dem.
And, come on, there’d be a money scandal by now — with the way Bill gets money from foreign corps. Probably easier to prosecute for the GOP too since he’d have no official position — just endless investigation as to whether he has pull in the WH, is shaping policy.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@soonergrunt: I’m with ya, that just sealed the deal for me.
Corner Stone
@jwb: Focus your keen mental acularities elsewhere.
SiubhanDuinne
I supported Obama from the outset but certainly would have worked for and voted for Hillary had she gotten the nomination. But I wonder: would a President HRC have offered BHO an important post like SoS? Or maybe even asked him to be her VP?
Joel
Clinton would have dropped ACA when it encountered stiff resistance. Politically, it probably would have been a winning move, and the Republicans never would have built the momentum they needed to try their hand at hostage-taking. However, if you can’t pass legislation with big majorities, what’s the use?
In other words, we’d have given some, and gotten some. Net-net, I don’t see much improvement in the Clinton alternative. Republicans would have been trolling relentlessly no matter what. And let’s keep everything straight, republicans are the fucking problem here.
different church-lady
@gbear:
Well, it is Sunday night, so sure, he might come in at about 70% of average.
Corner Stone
@gbear: I’m a few away. I doubt I’ll get there.
AA+ Bonds
@Reality Check:
This is true, though. Clinton’s name works fine there too. The argument is whether you want that or that and also hating gay people.
Lojasmo
Neither a hillbot nor an obot:
What would she have done differently? Lost to McCain.
eemom
@arguingwithsignposts:
srsly. That anyone could be fucking stupid enough to think Leahy would do such a thing is, well…….evidence of just how fucking stoopid these primary-bots are.
Hey idiot — I hear Walter Mondale is still alive — maybe HE could primary Obama.
SiubhanDuinne
@NobodySpecial: OK, that did make me laugh.
Corner Stone
And this is by no means the worst thread ever. I just think DougJ is running out of material. Ever since he’s returned from his -indoctrination- trip to upper Europe he’s been extremely weak on his posts.
It’s hard to run 3 or 4 personas on a spoof site for science for the last 10 years. I’m sure it’s about at the breaking point.
Linda Featheringill
@eemom: #133
Thanks.
AA+ Bonds
I mean if you really think the White House is not subservient to capitalists profiting from the class divide I hope the sky is a nice shade of green in your world.
It’s going to take a lot of very visible events for that to change.
celticdragonchick
@Loneoak:
I just read the article at the NYT, and it sums up everything that has alarmed me about this President that I still support. He was the best we had to choose from(and I see no reason to believe Hillary would have been measurably better), but I am not convinced that he is up to the task.
At this point, my support largly hinges on keeping the office away from the GOP (not to mention keeping away from appointing SCOTUS candidates).
I know an awful lot of other people are beginning to feel the same way, and negative reinforcement does not make for a motivated base.
Sly
I found Clinton to be an effectively competent Senator who represented me well, her video games bullshit notwithstanding. Of the five opportunities I had to vote for her (two Senate primaries, two Senate elections, one Presidential primary) I voted for her four times.
Maybe its because she reminds me of my old High School principal, but I think it is completely bizarre that she brings out the kind of raw emotion that she does. I never loved her, and I never hated her. But it always seemed to me that most people either loved her or hated her, and I found that very disconcerting.
Having said that, I find the notion of a Clinton challenge far less hilarious than the notion of a Grayson or Kucinich challenge.
@PaulJ:
For the past hundred years, a challenge from the left against a sitting liberal President has ended one of two ways: the challenger loses and the party loses, or the challenger loses and the party wins.
So I’d say the only thing that people who want a challenge to Obama have to lose is what remains of their credibility. It certainly wont be their historical perspective, because they likely never had any of that to begin with.
demz taters
I had a problem with Hillary because it didn’t seem right to keep the presidency in the hands of two families for a generation.
jwb
@Corner Stone: Eat nachos.
Jenny
This is bizarre.
How could you support some one who co-authored the Senate resolution to invade Iraq with Joe Lieberman?
How could you support some one who voted to repeal Glass- Steagall?
You might as well have wrote in Zell Miller.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@AA+ Bonds: Thank you Che.
Litlebritdifrnt
The only difference that I can see is that Hamsher and her ilk would be singing the praises of St. Hillary while she followed the EXACT same policy decisions that Obama has made. The fucking PUMAs would have shut the fuck up and everything would be hunky dory. Had to listen to Tammy Bruce sub for Laura Ingrahm this week, and the amount of times she said “I used to be a liberal” was pathetic. You weren’t a liberal you idiot, you were a vagina worshipping PUMA who immediately ditched every liberal cred you held dear to support the most anti-feminist VP pick in the history of the universe because she had lady parts.
At least there would have been that.
jwb
@Corner Stone: Speaking of running out of material…
celticdragonchick
@ChrisNYC:
True. We would all be eating up her red meat attacks and willingness to fight fire with fire…and we would also get all the money/finance bullshit that seems to go along with the Clintons like a scum ring around a washbasin left in the sun too long.
Culture of Truth
Were I of the Joan Walsh mindset, I could complain about Hillary Clinton supporters bullying progressives into giving her the nomination to the Senate in New York in 2000. Believe it or not, as a non resident there wasn’t a whole of built in support, and plenty of more liberal politicians to choose from….
Corner Stone
@jwb: Alright dog. Alright. Hope you enjoy it.
Southern Beale
I think the one thing I heard people say about Hillary is that she would have stood up to the Rethugs more. This is based on an assumption people have that Obama is unaware that the GOP are thugs and bullies and that Hillary, having spent so much time in Republican crosshairs before, would “know better” and dealt with the assholes differently.
However, there’s no reason to think that Obama is clueless about the Republican opposition nor is there any reason to think Hillary would deal with them differently.
Really I think what people on the left want is someone to stand up to the Republicans and kick some ass, the way Alan Grayson did and Anthony Weiner did. And look what happened to them.
So …
JPL
I haven’t read through the comments but Obama is black and Bill has a wandering pe.nus so it’s a toss up for the MSM
slightly-peeved
Regarding the ‘obama needs to pay attention to the left’ idea, ddoes anyone know if an election in the US has been won due to massive turnout of self-identified liberals? I’ve heard of them sitting out plenty of times, but without an instance of them doing the opposite, the threat to stay home isn’t credible. Angry old seniors are listened to because they get out and vote.
FlipYrWhig
Of one thing I am absolutely sure: if Hillary Clinton had taken the nomination and won the presidency, and faced approximately the same challenges Obama has, we would be dealing with an astonishingly loud and insufferable pro-Obama second-guessing faction that would have overrun the entire blogosphere.
I know that a lot of people think that criticism from the left of Obama on the blogs stems from race and racism, but I don’t think it’s that — the over-the-top part comes from the wishful thinking that there’s a champion of the left who would use her or his Sword of Righteousness to get done what no one else ever has. It’s a fantasy that can’t survive contact with political reality, but that doesn’t make imagining it any less wistfully sweet. The other guy is always The One, the one who wouldn’t have fucked it up.
AA+ Bonds
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
Maoist revanchist. NEXT
Corner Stone
@Southern Beale: One lost in an anti-incumbent wave in a +R district and one imploded.
What’s the lesson?
AA+ Bonds
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
Seriously though? You’re saying I’d have to be a Marxist to acknowledge that?
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
Hitlery is a closet Republican so no HCR, a constitutional amendment banning flag burning, and lots o’ TARP. I think she’s a great Secretary of State and appreciated her work as our Senator, except for the Iraq War vote – grow a backbone.
Nora Carrington
@Loneoak: Everything you’ve quoted +1.
I was agnostic between Clinton and Obama right up until the end (was an “uncommitted” vote in the WA caucuses). I saw them both speak in person in January-February 2008 in Seattle. He won me over with his passion, most especially his passion for the Constitution. Yeah, well, that’s worked out for me. I was more impressed with her than I’d expected to be. I was still undecided because the single most important thing, to me, was that a Democratic win. Not because I’m a party-first person as a general rule, but because I have become, since Tom Railsback was in the House, a “Republicans can never win anything I care about” person. The bottom line for me was that I didn’t think the US would elect the black guy (I’m 55). I was deliriously happy I was wrong.
I think Krugman’s column today (?) is wrong, and all those folks who keep saying we’ve gotten what we voted for are wrong. It’s not so much that Obama is governing as a centrist and ran as a progressive — although I think in the main that’s true. It’s more that he campaigned as though he believed the country was in trouble and wanted to put his shoulder to the job of helping to fix it. He campaigned as if he gave a shit about those farmers in Iowa and the chicken pickers in South Carolina and the high tech dudettes in California and Washington. He campaigned as if he cared about and knew something of the lives of folks looking for work.
I find his rare “folks are struggling” nods to those of us who have been out of work for more than 2 years utterly unconvincing. Painful in their insincerity, especially when I go back and look at old video clips of the campaign trail. He cares about the monied classes, now that he’s one of them.
Would Clinton have done better? I don’t know. I think the Obama-hatred on the part of the Tea Party/hard right is almost entirely racial, and I think Obama is factually correct that if he’d kept up the progressive rhetoric it would have driven them into a rageful frenzy we can barely imagine. She would not be suffering under the disability of the racial hatreds that still inflame the minds of too many and so, maybe, could have gotten more relief to the unemployed and underwater. Maybe.
It would be a bitter pill to swallow, for me, if the delight I felt in being wrong that he could not get elected were replaced, in the end, by the painful realization that I’m right that his blackness made it impossible for him to govern as I believe he promised he would.
PaulJ
“For the past hundred years, a challenge from the left against a sitting liberal President has ended one of two ways: the challenger loses and the party loses, or the challenger loses and the party wins.
So I’d say the only thing that people who want a challenge to Obama have to lose is what remains of their credibility. It certainly wont be their historical perspective, because they likely never had any of that to begin with.”
Either way we’re getting sold out. If it feels better to you getting sold out by people that call themselves Democrats but don’t act like it then go for it.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life it’s don’t be an enabler.
Tim (The Other One)
“Uncle Clarence Thomas” = name win !
JPL
@FlipYrWhig: I have not idea where the criticism is coming from. Jane wanted Hilary and attacked every chance she could to prove that her person would have been better. Bill would have been followed all over town and we would spend time talking about lengths and numbers and I don’t mean in an economic sense. The repubs were ready to attack anyone.
FlipYrWhig
@eemom: George McGovern is still alive too. And he’s a war hero!
eemom
@Litlebritdifrnt:
precisely. Hamsher would have been fellating (cunnilinguing?) President Hillary 24-7 and launching MISOGYNIST MISOGYNIST MISOGYNIST jihads against anyone who said boo in Hillary’s direction. Would’ve been a whole nuther reality.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Dangerman:
Yes. Very good point. The ONLY ONLY reason grumpy nominated SnowbillyBibleSpiceSnooki was to bring in some feminine DNA to appeal to the forsaken Hillbots. If HRC had prevailed over BHO for the Dem nomination, most of us would never have heard of Sarah Palin. She would be in her second term as Governor of a state most of us pay little attention to, and Bristol would be a blip of a statistic, and Sully would have found all kinds of other things to fret about.
Not sure that McCain would have beat Hillary in the general, but regardless we wouldn’t be saddled with Sarah.
ETA: I typed “grampy” but it came out “grumpy.” I decided to leave it alone.
hilts
Doug,
What’s your response to these comments from Hillbot Taylor Marsh?
h/t http://taylormarsh.com/blog/2011/08/a-friendly-rebuttal-to-david-sirota-from-the-ultimate-outsider-a-former-clintonite
Ken
Every time Boehner or McConnell left a meeting, she could mutter just loud enough to hear, “Vince Foster once turned his back on me.” Kind of like judo, where you use your opponent’s mental illness against him.
Reality Check
@PaulJ:
That’s right! Right on brother! Take it to the streets, MAN! Run Grayson up to New Hampshire! Take down that sell-out!
Elie
@PaulJ:
But you know what, you are stoopid just like a republican. Maybe it takes a couple of generations to get rid of the effects of too much inbreeding.
kwAwk
I think for the past 3 years we would at least known where the hell Hillary stood on these issues being addressed. Its hard to get behind Obama and fight for something when you really know where Obama is most of the time.
Bill Clinton was most successful when he was taking Republican issues and making them his own. Welfare reform. Balanced budget. NAFTA. This resulted in the right veering uncontrollably to the right to try to take issues back from Clinton and other centrists.
Rather than trying to follow the Repubs further right as Obama did, I think Clinton really would have stuck to the middle and made a clear and concise case to the American people about how crazy the right had become.
Its all just supposition, but I think Clinton would have done better at articulating a position and a course of direction for the country. I became a Hillbot because I believed that Hillary having gone through all she did during the first Clinton administration, was better prepared to combat the bullshit from the radical right. Two and a half years of Obama hasn’t really changed my mind about that.
Also too. I find it interesting that at the end of the Primary against Obama people were saying that Clinton had finally found her voice. Two years into the Obama administration he seems to have lost his.
Baud
I have nothing to add to the debate, but obviously BJ needs some page hits, so here is my contribution.
Heliopause
Not a Hillbot, and I doubt there are even a measurable number of them on BJ, but the one area I perceive Hillary to be superior is that, even when full of shit, she speaks with some degree of conviction. As time goes by Obama’s policy preferences seem to be everything and nothing. Kind of pathetic, really.
Really, though, I doubt Hillary would have done many things differently.
different church-lady
@Ken:
Have the internets been awarded to anyone yet today?
FlipYrWhig
@eemom: Perhaps, but don’t forget how belligerent the Kossacks were about Obama (ETA: on his behalf, I mean). I don’t think that would have changed. FDL wouldn’t play the same role it now does, but the already bad-enough DK would be massively worse.
Jenny
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t think so. Howard Dean’s supporters were passionate and poured tens of millions into his campaign, and for a significant period of time, he was the frontrunner. The orange hat crowd was crushed when Ho-Ho was displaced by an establishment candidate who voted for the invasion. But despite their disappointment, they got over it quickly.
The same thing with Edwards supporters who dominated the blogs in 2007. They got over it quick; long before the scandal surfaced.
The PUMA thing is unique. There weren’t any Edwards supporters at the DNC meeting screaming Obama is an inadequate black man or joining the McCain campaign.
ChrisNYC
@celticdragonchick: Thanks!
And a note for any Hillbots reading — I love both of the Clintons now. Sometimes I’m just floored by how much these two people out of really nowhere did to really shape our political world. Just for that they are endlessly fascinating.
JPL
Yeah..a President Clinton would convince MSM not to follow her husband around but instead listen to her. What are you Hillary folks smoking?
Edit.. Besides who is Bill ………………. they would be saying who is running the White House…
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@AA+ Bonds: No, I’m saying “what an incredibly incisive statement”.
soonergrunt
@Cat Lady: I’m holding together, thanks for asking. It’s hot as hell here, but the house is only a few years old, so we haven’t been hit too hard by electric bills. One of my co-workers who is renovating a 1930’s Victorian bungalow/whatever-the-fuck-it-is downtown just got hit with a $700 electric bill.
I don’t hang here much anymore because there are a large number of posters here who have either gone balls-out-insane, or came here that way, and a fair group of people who are just assholes. Neither is really worth my time or energy, so I check here daily but only comment occasionally now.
Cat Lady
@Corner Stone:
You can blame DougJ, but when a shoe fits but causes discomfort, you might want to consider changing shoes.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mr Furious:
Haven’t read all the comments yet so someone else might have replied already, but tap the word “link” after the number/nym/date/time and as if by magic there appears a Reply with Arrow in the lower right of the comment. Tap that and Bob’s your uncle.
Cat Lady
@soonergrunt:
How’s your heart? Literally, and metaphorically?
FlipYrWhig
@kwAwk:
I can hardly picture a world in which Barack Obama acted similarly and a similar result occurred.
Corner Stone
@Cat Lady: I agree. DougJ should reconsider his posts and stop being so fucking lame.
I mean, the one where he had a conversation with a racist at a wedding and that was what it took to get him to snap?
Two years + later?
Yeah, that wasn’t a “Derrrr, really?” post.
WaterGirl
@soonergrunt: Glad to see you here and see that you are well. If you were still commenting more, it would improve the ratio of sane/interesting to balls-out-insane.
The BJ feel has been changing, but every time I think I will go away for awhile because of it, the blog seems to right itself somehow. Still hoping for that this time, too!
AA+ Bonds
@Raven (formerly stuckinred):
It’s just weird to see Democrats red-baiting, is all.
FlipYrWhig
@Jenny: But there’s no fun in second-guessing someone who lost. Second-guessing the winner is where the action is. I don’t remember die-hard Jerry Brown people giving Bill Clinton a hard time, but the left critics were very loud. Left critics are always very loud and hard on Democratic presidents.
Elie
@PaulJ:
Enabler?
Whatchoo think? You been hired to do an intervention on an alky family member?
Yeah, the President and the Democrats have been attempting to enable a process using the structure and constitutional requirements of making policy. Yeah, when the other party is crazy, and when their antics put us at risk, unless you are suicidal, you are careful. That is both logical and sane in situations where there is a lot to lose.
You wanna revolution? Go make it the right way. But having some quack post republican interventionist talk big on the blogs about bringing down the system while they file their nails and sip absinthe is too much. Get lost. Shouldnt be hard given how stupid you are.
toschek
This topic was a good idea, a real good idea.
All of you need to go to the cornfield and think about your posts.
rikyrah
no HCR under any circumstances
Baud
@FlipYrWhig:
Hence the paucity of Democratic presidents.
The Dangerman
@SiubhanDuinne:
Think of it this way; Barack and Michelle have lived a fairly exemplary life, with limited hiccups along the way (I’m thinking Reverend Wright) and still 2008 was one ugly campaign (Pallin’ around with terrorists, et al).
Now, picture the campaign if Bill was in the picture; it would have been UGLY on steroids (I figure the Republican Convention would highlight cigars). Obama had to deal with racism, but Hillary would have had to deal with the misogynists. I just don’t see her winning the general.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ:
Ooooooohhhh you went there !!
Elie
@kwAwk:
Hahaha —
Bill Clinton, as you said “taking republican issues and making them his own”
Yeah.
But Obama, doing the same things is just a sell out, right?
hilts
testing 123
Hillbot Taylor Marsh on Obama:
“The problem that Pres. Obama and his advisers have created now, however, is that when you compromise with extortionists who are also wrong on the facts of the current economic disaster unfolding in America, as Europe’s financial volcano comes close to erupting further, and you have no ideological compass of your own on these matters, the purposeless floundering and dangerous compromises can boomerang.”
h/t http://taylormarsh.com/blog/2011/08/a-friendly-rebuttal-to-david-sirota-from-the-ultimate-outsider-a-former-clintonite
AA+ Bonds
I’m hard on everyone because life is hard.
Mr Furious
@SiubhanDuinne: Awesome! Thanks!
Corner Stone
@toschek:
“He wants you too, Malachi!!”
chopper
@rikyrah:
i agree that HRC=-(HCR).
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
so who thinks union-vote president hilary clinton would have called in drone strikes on the wisconsin state house ?
kwAwk
@FlipYrWhig:
That was kind of the point. The right wing is bound and determined to prevent Obama from fulfilling his campaign pledge of bringing people together, toning down the politics, and being a uniter and not a divider.
Obama is still intent of making good on that campaign promise. He’s trying to make Republicans be his friends in spite of themselves, and by doing so he’s allowing himself to be pulled further and further to the right.
The right learned from Clinton that when they compromised with Clinton it only made him stronger, because he could lay claim to every victory they wanted to lay claim too. So the right isn’t going to compromise with Obama about anything, yet Obama is still acting like compromise is an option and he’s getting his ass handed to him on every issue.
He needs to quit compromising and lay out a coherent agenda for the country and fight to enact it.
Jenny
And how would Hillary have contrasted herself with McCain when they both were unapologetic supporters of the Iraq invasion. Hillary even voted for the Kyl-Lieberman bill. They would have just debated who was more passionate about killing rag-heads.
eemom
@Ken:
THAT is the best comment on the thread.
eemom
@Corner Stone:
no dumbass. Twilight Zone, not Stephen King.
Linda Featheringill
@Nora Carrington:
It’s bitter to even contemplate, isn’t it?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
First off: I’m not totally convinced Clinton beats McCain. Ken Blackwell or Michael Steele don’t hurt his campaign nearly as much as Palin did, and he doesn’t look nearly as old compared to a walking re-hash of the ’90’s.
Secondly: If she is elected, there’s no ACA. FinReg is even more watered down. Yet it doesn’t help her at all in 2010, the Tea Party was going to lose its shit and the gubernatorial fail parade was going to march on regardless if a Dem was in the White House. And what would embolden the GOP than Clinton flailing about like Bill did in his first two years? I think we were pretty much fucked regardless.
Thirdly: I’m sure putting Obama up to a primary will push him to the left. Just ask Joe Lieberman.
Cacti
@The Dangerman:
The minority vote wouldn’t have turned out for Hillary the way it did for Obama. I think she would have won, but with more of a Bush-2004 electoral college margin.
soonergrunt
@Cat Lady: I’m doing well on that front, thanks for asking. The vacation to San Diego a couple of weeks ago was (literally) just what the doctor ordered.
@WaterGirl: That’s very kind of you to say! For me, it’s just not worth getting my blood pressure up over people who desperately need to be kidney-punched that I can’t reach.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
@hilts:
And Hillary does? Not that I want someone who does, but this doesn’t seem like a place where the two differ.
Johannes
@kwAwk: I really think you’re being unduly harsh here. Obama achieved a lot despite (1) the filibuster becoming routine and the prevention and then the loss of a filibuster proof majority (Franken? Ted Kennedy; (2) the need to get votes from Blue Dogs; and (3) an unending cascade of racist hate (birthers, etc.).
The fact that he can’t get a progressive agenda passed by a House that is willing to crash the economy to go back on the gold standard, or whatever today’s Beckian bullshit is simply not surprising. Even Jed Bartlet couldn’t, and he was fictional.
As for his passion, Obama has spent the last year (God, it feels longer! Trying to talk down a hostage taker. Yelling at the Teatards is, shall we say, contra-indicated. Meanwhile, regulations get written, policies changed.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I went from Dodd to Obama, never seriously considering Hillary because the last thing I wanted was the Big Dog back in the White House. In any capacity. Though I supported Obama I would have just as easily supported Hillary if she had got the nod. Why? Because, like Obama (or any other Democratic candidate for that matter), she would be the lesser of two evils. It’s that simple.
I don’t hang my hat on this issue or that issue, declaring it a cross to die on if necessary. I’m looking at the forest, not the trees. Hillbots are looking at a few trees and that’s it, fuck the forest because those few trees are all that really matter. They’re more than happy to let the rest of the forest die because they know that if they can nurture those few trees, then they can grow a new, moar bettah forest!
Like any Democratic president, Obama has had his plus and minus moments. I agree with him on some things and disagree with others, such is life. But I don’t expect Obama to bend to my will or else!, I’m not that egotistical. If you aren’t voting for Us, you’re helping Them win. If you want to side with Them then you’re one of Them too.
It’s Us or Them in power and I’m voting for Us. Fuck Them.
Southern Beale
@The Dangerman:
Again, I’m not a Hillbot but I fail to see how the “ugly” could have got any worse than it has with Obama. There’s the “blackety black black black” crap and the “Secret Muslim” crap and the “Birther” crap and Michelle’s “Whitey tape” and on and on and on.
Hillary would have faced different crap and it would have been ugly crap but I don’t see how it could be worse, uglier, more vulgar, you name it. Instead of racist it would be sexist. Instead of “secret Muslim raised in a madrassa” it would be “Those trailer trash Clintons who trashed the White House and killed every friend they ever had.”
It would be different but the same.
Tom Q
Hillary would have won in ’08; Edwards (maybe even WITH the scandal) would have won; Joe Biden would have won. It was one of the worst environments any incumbent party had ever faced, and the Dem candidate just didn’t matter that much. Hillary would have won differently — she’d have camped out in OH/FL/PA, won WV/MO, but never have snapped up IN or NC. She also would have responded to every McCain camp provocation — the ones Obama ignored which got so many people on this side freaked out but turned out nothing in the end. In the end, she’d have won by about the same numerical margin as Barack, with more Appalachian Valley whites but fewer minorities and young voters.
She’d have encountered the same bitter-end response from the GOP in Congress, suffered the same off-year losses from the bad economy, but she’d, I agree, have abandoned health care early on (certainly after Scott Brown) on Mark Penn’s advice. She’d be about where Barack is now, possibly a little less likely to be re-elected but still with a respectable shot.
Lawnguylander
The biggest difference is that Peter Daou’s tweets would have been coming from INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!
And, FlipyrWhig, bitter Obots would have been a pain in the ass had Obama not won the nomination, but Obama supporters went in supporting the underdog, nobody was telling them that their candidate just had to get through the formality of the primaries and put away those tomato can challengers before taking on the also inevitable Giuliani. It would have been an easier defeat for Obots to swallow.
Cat Lady
@Corner Stone:
DougJ is lame? Oooohhh, you’re an internet tough guy, just like Hillary in her epic Bosnian adventure.
DougJ has seen the enemy and it is
usyou, and all of the other Hill/PUMA/FDLbots with their purer than thou “progress my way or the highway” vanity projects.Let’s pull the same way, together. Together we stand, yadda yadda.
/some old national founder type guy.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Dangerman:
If we had had the same financial crisis and McCain had reacted the same way (suspend the campaign, hightail it to DC for emergency summits, etc.) then yeah, I do think he would have gone down to defeat against HRC or any other competent (or competent-appearing) Dem.
But that’s what is so much fun about alternative histories. It would be irresponsible as fuck not to speculate!
ChrisNYC
@Baud: You mean like the Dems in the WH for *half* of the 20th Century? With the GOP in for the other half? Dem sad sackiness bugs me.
OT but also, wildly better on economic results, the Dems:
“With twenty years on each side and since some of the ups and downs of the U.S. business cycle lie beyond the direct control of policymakers, one would expect similar results in the two groups. Not so. Instead, one discovers below a significant advantage when a Democrat occupied the White House in each of the five categories.”
http://currencythoughts.com/2008/08/19/how-the-us-economy-performed-under-democrat-and-republican-presidents/
srv
I think it would be experiences. Obama’s a smart guy, but the Clinton’s are smart too and they spent 8 years dealing with people wanting to destroy them. I kinda think many of Hillary’s mistakes in the campaign might have been because she was going on her own from Bill, so that didn’t speak well for her campaigning. They should have been smart enough to go outside their regulars from the 90s.
Many of the wingnuts I know, including some black helicopter folks who loathed Clinton were quite a bit less visceral about Senator Hillary in 2008. They’d gotten it out of their system or they at least knew foaming at the mouth about her would make their peers say “oh, there you go again about the f*ing Clintons.”
Obama gave them a whole other publicly acceptable range of reasons do go hate. Hitlery had burned much of those options up much earlier.
kwAwk
@Johannes:
I’m not sure that I am being too hard on Obama. Why can the filibuster become routine? Because the right isn’t feeling any pressure from the people to pass things. Obama doesn’t seem to be able to bring any pressure.
Perhaps Hillary would have given up on HCR. Or perhaps she wouldn’t have allowed all of the dilly dallying and letting the process drag out for 10 months. The only reason Scott Brown became a factor is because it took so damn long to pass the bill.
Its all speculation, and in spite of not really wanting to at this point, I’ll be out voting for Obama in 2012 when the time comes, but I’d hope if he does win a second term, he’ll show at least some backbone at that point.
PaulJ
I hate to tell you but these guys (the current crop including POTUS) are not real Democrats. These guys are to the right of Ronald Reagan.
So to claim accomplishments of past great Democrats (LBJ being the last) compared to this bunch is laughable.
The typical American is way to the left of their government, including the Dems in office now. People that self-identify as moderates or conservative would actually score much more liberal if asked for their opinions in the right way.
My wife is a life-long Dem and she self-identifies as a conservative. She has never voted for a Republican.
Unfortunately (for many posting here) if enough people are fed up like I am Obama will not be re-elected. You can run around with your hair on fire all you want saying how stupid we are, but ignoring us is/was not a good idea.
Not saying I would vote for a Republican ever again but I could just write in None of the Above. Election is a long way off.
Keith G
@hilts: A good link. I agree with much of the analysis, tho in the past I have not found it easy to agree with Marsh. Going all in for a cause you believe in is sometimes unnecessary for the long term success of a social cause.
But to reflect on the question on the table, would H. Clinton been more likely than Obama to go all in for the right cause?
The Raven
I answered this question in a letter to TPM before–here’s that again.
I think Clinton probably would have taken the economy as the first order of business in 2008, not health care, and the Tea Party Republican victory in 2010 might never have come to pass. I think also that Clinton would have fought the Tea Party Republicans harder: their backers, after all, dragged her marital problems into the headlines.
On balance, I think the answer is probably yes, Hilary Clinton would have been a more successful Democratic President.
LTMidnight
@PaulJ: No offense PaulJ, but you greatly over estimate your influence.
LTMidnight
@The Raven: There wouldn’t have been a Tea Party to fight had Hillary won the presidency.
Corner Stone
@Cat Lady: Ummm, no. DougJ has strung together a series of posts that border on the absolute absurd. Nothing to do with HRC, except this is the latest in his line of mental defect.
Look at what he’s pooped out recently and then get back to me.
fasteddie9318
ANGRY SHOUTING!
FIRM CONVICTIONS ABOUT THE DEGREE TO WHICH ONE MODERATE DC ESTABLISHMENT POLITICIAN IS OR WOULD HAVE BEEN PREFERABLE TO ANOTHER!
HOSTILE REMARK ABOUT THOSE WHO DISAGREE WITH MY CONVICTIONS AND THINK THAT THE OTHER POLITICIAN WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER DESPITE THERE BEING LITTLE OR NO POLICY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM!
AT LEAST MY PREFERRED POLITICIAN HAS NOT OR WOULD NOT HAVE SCREWED UP SOME IMPORTANT POLITICAL EVENT OR POLICY THE WAY THE OTHER DID OR WOULD HAVE, ALTHOUGH I CANNOT ARTICULATE WHY ONE OF THEM WOULD HAVE APPROACHED THE EVENT OR ISSUE ANY DIFFERENTLY THAN THE OTHER GIVEN THE GREAT POLICY SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THEM!
Omnes Omnibus
@PaulJ:
Sweet Mary Mother of Jesus, this shit again? Times change. Political circumstances change. 55 degrees is cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Before you ask, I would prefer more left-leaning policies. Unfortunately, I think what Obama was able to accomplish legislatively is about the left limit of what today’s political world will allow.
boss bitch
@FlipYrWhig:
not from me. I would have lost interest in politics after he lost and would have no interest in sites like this.
Corner Stone
@fasteddie9318: Stop shouting at me. I voted for Kodos.
Catsy
@PaulJ:
Damn, you really hit the nail on the head there. Remember that time when Reagan repeatedly made strong arguments for government as a force for doing good? And the man’s support for gay rights was way ahead of his time, especially the way he got out in front of the AIDS crisis and fought to raise awareness of it as something far more than a “gay man’s disease”. And then there was his support for equal pay for women and embryonic stem cell research, his efforts to reform the waste in the military weapons acquisition process, his progressive approach to relaxing our relations with Cuba, and countless other examples.
I remember all that stuff like it was yesterday. I don’t know why no one other than you or I seems to.
If enough people are as stupid and ignorant of history as you’ve just demonstrated yourself to be, this country is deterministically fucked on a level that goes far beyond whether or not Obama gets re-elected. Getting butthurt because people who’ve been paying more attention to what’s going on think you’re an idiot is the least of your problems, chief.
If you think you can accomplish anything positive by writing in None of the Above–in other words, completely abdicating your responsibility to make an informed choice and throwing away your vote in order to make a statement that no one but you will ever read or care about–the country is probably better off without you participating in the political process and waving your grossly uninformed vote around like a loaded weapon.
fuckwit
Because she was female, that’s why.
Actually, I don’t think the domestic policy would have been any different.
Foreign policy, ironically, would have been a disaster, though, because 1) Hillary wouldn’t have been around to do the solid and very competent job she’s doing as SecState, because, um, she’d be President instead, and 2) her foreign policy would have been an extension of Bush belligerence and AIPAC-funded NeoCon sabre-rattling. Do not want.
We’re definitely long overdue for a female President, but overall I’m glad it wasn’t Mrs. Clinton. Her style, ironically, and specifically in foreign policy, was too masculine and muscular for what we need right now.
Corner Stone
@boss bitch: No. Of course you wouldn’t.
Monkey Business
I think, had Hilary been elected, we would have seen a much different first term.
Remember that Democrat gains in the House and Senate were due mainly to Obama Excitement, leading to high voter turnout. Hilary wouldn’t have had the same effect. I doubt she would have had a Senate supermajority. On the upside, McCain probably wouldn’t have chosen Palin as a running mate.
I’m also going to guess based on the fact that she’s white that the GOP might not have gotten quite so ginned up to make her a one term President. The Tea Party might never have gotten off the ground.
Given her history with healthcare reform, I don’t think she tackles it in her first term at all. I think her stimulus package would have been smaller than Obama’s, but probably more effective as it wouldn’t have been loaded down with tax cuts to entice GOP votes. She definitely doesn’t win a Nobel Peace Prize. I don’t think that Sotomayor or Kagan get nominated and confirmed to the bench either.
So, in conclusion: she probably doesn’t pass healthcare reform. However, we probably wouldn’t have gotten the Tea Party or Sarah Palin either.
Donut
I know I’m late to the thread but the initial point is intriguing, so here goes:
On the first point about Obama’s one big mistake – I would have agreed up until recently. In the debt ceiling talks, he should have pulled the plug on Boner (sic) and Cantor way sooner. He let them go on with the charade too long. He should have started using harsh language and called their bluff way faster – I mean, did he really fukkin think those two were honest brokers? Srsly????!!! We will never know if Clinton would have stayed at the table that long, but her husband sure didn’t when Gingrich started in with that crap.
She wouldn’t have done any better in 2008, though. I agree on that.
Joel
@The Dangerman: VP Alan Keyes. Amiright?
ruemara
I started off playing with my eternal presidential bf, Kucinich. I was sorta in the Edwards camp after K dropped out or whatever flame out it was. The “2 Americas” thing has been my life, and it was seductive to hear someone actually talk about it. Afterwards, I was torn between Hil & BHO. I think the thing that really made me pick BHO was “hard working white people”. It cut me to the quick. I know the Clintons were not and are not bigots. But being willing to play that game, it was stomach turning, especially since so many people of colour them. Plus, I liked what BHO had planned for the econ. Some of which still hasn’t happened, like more money for local municipalities to add jobs or increase part time positions to full time. Forgiveness for using 401k to get through the down times; things like that. But I doubt HRC would have done much different except probably pass on ACA and maybe get the budget messes resolved earlier with better handling of the caucus. Not sure if there would be such a cottage industry of being anti-Democratic president on the left, also not sure we’d be drawing down in Iraq and Afghanistan quite so quick. Or maybe not. It’s hard to write for the these fanfic alternative histories. At least, not without a sweaty man tussle between Kirk & Spock.
fuckwit
@LTMidnight: Um, are you kidding? The Teabaggers would have gone even more apoplectic if she’d been elected– it’d have been a repeat of the 90s all over again, but even with more vitriol.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but teabaggers and wingnuts seem to hate women a LOT more than they hate black people, or, perhaps they just feel like they can get away with showing it more in public.
I mean, the first thing the teabaggers did as soon as they got power in January was to attack women. It’s fucked up.
Corner Stone
@Monkey Business:
Neither did Obama.
Donut
Oh yeah, and having not read this while thread I’m just gonna throw in for the point of view than anyone who us arguing to primary President Obama is really really not thinking straight. And wasting their time. Not gonna happen.
Talmage
I think your question is unfair because it is asking the reader to answer a question that has infinite possibilities and no way to prove the reader right or wrong. What would Hillary have done differently is not the correct question. The correct question is what could Obama have done differently. The answer to that question is to fight for the progressive values that he ran on. A transparent government. Ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (Iraq within 18 months). Closing Gitmo. Letting the Bush Tax cuts expire. To ask readers to expound on what they think would have happened had Hillary won the election is an exercise in futility and detracts from an honest debate about policy and the performance of our president. An honest debate that I am sure you are happy to detract from seeing as you really have no platform left with which to defend your blind allegiance to Obama.
LTMidnight
I’m actually disappointed there’s not more PUMA sewage in here. Let me sweeten the pot here.
First of all, IF (big IF) Hillary would’ve won the presidency, she would’ve barely done so. Why?
1) She would’ve went into the general election with the highest unlikability rating of any presidential candidate in history (47%).
2) She would’ve used the tires “50 +1” campaign strategy the democrats have been using for ages, which means forget winning states like Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio.
3) McCain wouldn’t have picked Palin as his running mate since one of the primary reasons he picked her in the first place was because he was led it would helped him get the disgruntled and bitter Hillary supporters.
4) I actually believe she would’ve picked Edwards as her running mate. talk about the fireworks with that.
So basically, Hillary would’ve started her presidency with very little political capital. And let’s not forget that her cabinet would’ve been filled to the brim with lobbyist since, as she so aptly put it, the “represent real Americans”.
Catsy
@Monkey Business:
Truly? You think that McCain would’ve been somehow less likely to tap Palin as a running-mate when presented with a female opponent rather than a black man?
The entire raison d’etre of picking Palin in the first place boiled down to “she’s got ovaries”.
boss bitch
@Corner Stone:
No. I wouldn’t. Another Clinton headed to the WH? yawn.
Rishi Gajria
Sure, get an Uber-Liberal to try and primary Obama. It would only help his cause by fostering the impression that he is a centrist and not an ideologue. It would hurt the liberal cause but some folks see it differently. Feingold, Grayson and so many liberals lost the 2010 election but some folks (Im thinking Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks)think there is some big liberal majority waiting to be won.
Omnes Omnibus
@Monkey Business:
@Catsy:
McCain would have picked Ken Blackwell to attract disgruntled Obama voters.
fasteddie9318
@Catsy:
It was more like, “she’s got ovaries and a bunch of ovary-havers seem to be upset that a fellow ovary-haver lost the primary to that Young Buck.” Five gets you ten that if Hillary had won the nomination with a reversal of the kind of trumped-up feelings of resentment that we were supposed to think Clinton supporters had against Obama, McCain runs with Michael Steele. So still stupid, but not as nastily so.
PaulJ
Cenk Uygur voted for Bush twice.
fasteddie9318
@Omnes Omnibus:
Steele was higher profile and, before his stint as party chair, not widely known to be the complete buffoon that he is.
Omnes Omnibus
@fasteddie9318: But Blackwell is actually the bigger idiot and from Ohio.
fasteddie9318
@PaulJ: Teh Wikipedia says he voted for Bush I and Dole, but then Gore in 2000.
nellcote
That NYT editorial by the philosophy prof is the suck.
Starting off in the first paragraph with his dissapointment in the Prez ON INAGURATION DAY should be a tip off.
cleek
1. obama sucks, because…
2. ????
3. so HRC would’ve been teh awzome
PaulJ
Then I am mistaken – heard him speak on a DKos convention video and that’s what I thought he said. Guess I didn’t.
aisce
@ boss bitch
poutrage! enthusiasm gap! it’s all your fault republicans won the midterms!
…hmm.
also, too, big ups to whoever it was that called clinton “hitlery” and still had nice things to say about her tenure as secretary of state. i’m not sure what to make of that. and big opposite-of-ups to corner stone for being the whiniest ass punk this site has ever seen. i’m not sure it’s possible for the juicebagger community to hold you in any lower esteem right now.
Johannes
@kwAwk: The filibuster can be routine because: (1) the GOP base hates Obama for …well, several reasons, one of which is his race, the other is the same reason they hated Bill Clinton–the White House is theirs, my Precious, and they wants it!; (2) Red states don’t pressure GOP-ers for fighting the Dems especially in view of factor no. 1; and (3) the GOP leadership–McConnell avowedly–made a tactical decision to oppose everything–the most important priority, he said, is that Obama be a one term president.
Just how could Obama have brought pressure on them?
Talmage
@Talmage: how long does it take to moderate a comment? Is it posted during this moderation period? I am just curious…where is the moderation policy of balloonjuice located?
ChrisNYC
@nellcote: Westen has been writing about how terrible Obama is since 2009.
He also wrote a piece in Salon in 2007 that basically said, “Dems, you need to run like GOPers to win.” Most especially the fear-mongering. He talks about how Dems should tell voters that they shouldn’t let their kids travel overseas because they might be arrested and tortured, courtesy of GWB. Yick.
Also too, he said Obama better not be so “we can all come together” or he would sooooo lose the election. Ha ha. Instead, Obama was supposed to yell at Ann Coulter, was the jist. Because that’s masculine. The yelling.
Cat Lady
@Corner Stone:
LOLWUT?
If DougJ’s posts bordered on the absolute absurd, other commenters than you would be weighing in to agree. That’s what happens here. Methinks you doth protest too much. It’s not DougJ, it’s you.
OzoneR
She wouldn’t have been better. She’d almost certainly IMO have less success stories because she wouldn’t have taken on HCR or financial reform because YOU DON’T DO BIG PIECES OF COMPREHENSIVE LEGISLATION IN THIS COUNTRY!
and we would be listening from the likes of kos about how Obama would be better
And yes, Hillary would’ve been far more partisan and used her “bully pulpit” a lot more and it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference, except possibly make the situation worse, and nobody would have given her credit for it.
the end.
shortstop
@Omnes Omnibus: Also, too, Blackwell has GOP election-stealing cred, so it would have been that little extra slap in the face for black voters, accompanied by bona fide Republican bewilderment at Negroes’ failure to come over to the Republican ticket en masse.
FlipYrWhig
@kwAwk:
He’s trying to make the general public, including Republicans, see him as someone who’s willing to try to make Republicans be his friends. That’s not the same as genuinely trying to make Republicans be his friends.
Omnes Omnibus
@shortstop: Party of Lincoln, doncha know?
FlipYrWhig
@kwAwk:
Perhaps not, but the right’s response to pressure from the people to move leftward is to say, “Fuck you twice, and if you don’t like the sound of that, fuck you again and I’ll see you on election day.” They don’t move in response to pressure from the people. They don’t act to preserve themselves or to address the problems of their constituents. They see themselves as playing a part in a vast ideological drama, and if they lose, they still win, because they were right.
FlipYrWhig
@Monkey Business:
How would President Hillary have pulled that off, getting smaller but more effective stimulus through a smaller Senate majority? She would have needed more Republican votes, but she wouldn’t have tried to entice them with tax cuts? I don’t get how these features work together.
FlipYrWhig
@Talmage:
Also, apparently, proroguing the Senate to rule by fiat, so that his preferred policies didn’t have to suffer the indignity of being “voted on” by an “equal branch” of “government.”
scottinnj
@Monkey Business:
I think this is right – no Obama means almost certainly we don’t have Senator Franken, and most likely either Senator Merkley or Begich also is defeated.
McCain picks Romney as the safe choice as the perception is that HRC is more beatable than BHO with her high negatives. The current Rep presidential race is a snooze as Romney has it all locked up. Bachmann still staring at wrong cameras.
I’m not sure we get quite the activity of the Tea Party in 2010, but then a 2010 election without as active a TP you don’t get Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle nominated either so you get 2 Rep Senators from Delaware and Nevada…So probably still have Speaker Boehner, with smaller TP contingent, but Senate Majority Leader Durbin has no real working room.
Corner Stone
@Cat Lady: Take a stroll through the recent archives.
Or better, let’s put it to DougJ himself? Let’s see if he agrees he hasn’t been on his snap for a while.
Why am I arguing with you when I couldn’t give a shit what one of the cat people have to say here.
Cat Lady
@FlipYrWhig:
How do otherwise smart people not understand the separation of power taught in grade school? Were progressives so smart they skipped the fourth grade?
Donut
Respectfully disagree, Flip.
The Grand Bargain? I think he misread Boner and Cantor, badly. They never wanted a bold deal. But Obama was calling for it almost up to the end – knowing full well the base and the broader public did not want such a deal. On whose behalf was he doing that posturing for the grand bargain? It sure wasn’t
because people who like and support him wanted it, IMO.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: “Cat People”? Nastassja Kinski?
clayton
@Donut:
That’s not true. Obama moved that line fairly dramatically in polling.
Cat Lady
@Corner Stone:
You’re really just kinda sad now. Your time has past, but you’re not aware of it. You’re what my daughters call a “Larry”. A “Larry” is someone who thinks they’re relevant to the discussion, but sadly they’re sure they’re “all that” to only themselves. To everyone else who has moved on from PUMAville, they’re just that “sad Larry”. The corollary to what Larrys do is called “Larrying around”.
eg.: “What’s Corner Stone saying about Obama?”
“Nothing. He’s being a sad Larry.” or,
“What do you think Corner Stone is doing on Balloon Juice?”
“Nothing. He’s Larrying around.”
OzoneR
@Donut:
the broader public and the “base” were on two completely different sides of this debate. The broader public didn’t want the debt ceiling raised AT ALL, if they did, they wanted a big deal, a lot of budget cuts.
FlipYrWhig
@Donut: The middle-of-the-road public and most Democrats like the idea of working together and compromising, even if the result of the compromise is something they wouldn’t support. They say that in poll after poll. I think that’s kind of weird myself, but I’ve seen that result a lot. I have no doubt that Obama knows that Republicans are dishonest assholes. I likewise have no doubt that he takes pride in being seen as the guy who’s willing to work with dishonest assholes.
But in general my view is that Obama makes many concessions that are designed to appeal to moderate-to-conservative _Democrats_ — and there are no shortage of those, especially in the Senate but also in the general public — and that the “left” critics wrongly read those moves as currying favor with Republicans.
I think he has to work hard to keep the right half of his own party on board with anything he wants to try, and part of how to accomplish that is to be less of a partisan. He’s not trying to impress Mitch McConnell, he’s trying to impress Mark Warner and the kinds of people who would reelect Mark Warner: moderate Democrats, conservative Democrats, nonpartisan independents, and old-guard Republicans, all of whom value efficiency, savings, and balanced budgets.
Corner Stone
@Cat Lady: This was awesome. Thank you.
clayton
@OzoneR:
This is not true. Just look at Polling Reports. The public wanted a balanced deal. We didn’t get that.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus:
One can only hope. One can only hope.
Cat Lady
@Corner Stone:
You’re welcome. I’m not a mean person.
The Tragically Flip
If the point of this thread is to reassure ourselves that the best viable nominee won the 2008 nomination, then fine, I’d say on balance I agree. The only potential major advantage I can see from Hillary is that she literally coined the term “vast right wing conspiracy” and thus very clearly did understand what she’s dealing with on the right.
But I have no idea how much difference that would make in practice, nor if it would be enough to make up for her real flaws in other aspects.
The real question worth asking is why certain candiates are “viable” and “serious” and others are “also rans” so early in the process. I think there is something wrong when the most obvious pro-Democratic year in decades comes along, and the only choices are 2 centrists and a fraud pretending to be progressive (and I was fooled by Edwards too). Why wasn’t Richardson in real contention? Or Dodd or Biden? There are lots of other potentially qualified candidates who never ran, what happened?
I’ve heard political scientists speak of an “invisible” primary that takes place before the primary, which filters out a lot of candidates. I worry this filter is why no Democratic President will ever actually be a liberal at heart.
Corner Stone
@Cat Lady: No, obviously not.
Which corner are your girls working tonight?
I’d like to give them a little extra cash for their works, for all the hilarity they’ve helped share here tonight.
I know you believe in a strong work ethic. Never too young to earn a little on their own.
FlipYrWhig
@The Tragically Flip:
The problem with being Actually A Liberal is that there aren’t enough people demanding that profile to win even a Democratic primary. So what the liberals have to do is demonstrate how they can, and have, worked with the other side, or hold a few heterodox opinions. Howard Dean, I remember well, was touted nearly as much for having a high rating from the NRA and for governing a rural state than for being antiwar. Even the “liberal at heart” is made to affirm his signs of moderation, by the media and even by Democrats, who want victories and don’t want to have trouble holding The Middle.
Cat Lady
Corner Stone:
One of my daughters has been an elementary school teacher for 4 years, and the other daughter works her ass off for the Harvard Business School. They’ve earned their own way since high school, and have contributed to society way more than they’ve taken. If you and I were in meat space right now, I’d kick you in the nuts for your “corner” statement. Why are you such a tiresome prick?
The term “Larry” is a really useful term of art in general, and I encourage you to own it: For example, you’re sitting waiting for a person to be helpful in a store or restaurant, and the person you’re waiting for is doing something stupidly unhelpful and irritating that you don’t understand. That person is a Larry, and they’re Larrying around. It’s a useful catch-all for those people that are needlessly, willfully and cluelessly obstructionist. We all know and despise those kinds of people, right? They’re Larrys. Like you.
Corner Stone
@Cat Lady: Oh. Sorry. I thought they described their johns to you as “Larrys”.
My bad.
Oh, and good luck to you in meat space honey. You’re really tough and shit.
Cat Lady
@Corner Stone:
You’re just pathetic.
priscianusjr
@FlipYrWhig:
Corner Stone
@Cat Lady: Hey, whatever they’ve got to do to work their way through school, amirite?
Nothing wrong with that.
Larkspur
Oh, thank you very fucking much, Doug.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
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300! Also too, SUPER KOCH!
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hitchhiker
oh, what the hell.
one thing I don’t understand is why people who believed Hillary really was more qualified, but then happily voted for Obama, are NEVER recognized.
it’s as if we don’t exist, in spite of the fact that almost all of her voters — half the democrats who voted in the 2007 primaries — went to the polls on election day and voted for Obama.
Hillary voters were just dumb vagina-motivated Clintonite racist idiots who deserve to be disdained for evah. somebody went on laura ingraham’s show and they were annoying, so screw hillary.
i wanted her to win. i wanted to see a competent, smart, experienced person in the oval office. i didn’t want her to be punished for having married the man she married. i thought her time in the senate and her standing among her colleagues there probably counted for something.
i thought that 2007 was a valuable lesson in how bollixed up our primary system is, but that seems to have been lost. too bad. caucuses? iowa gets to be first always? some primaries are winner take all, some are not? is this really the best imaginable system?
all the bad shiznit from 3 years ago has as much to do with a stupid, broken system as it does with the particular candidates who were running at the time.
and in response to the original question, nobody knows what would have been different. but what we should be talking about is the structural bars to a clean and open primary system. we’re going to be going through it all again in 2015, no matter what happens in 2012.
hey, then maybe in 2015 we can bait each other about the candidate who lost! that will be something to look forward to.
AxelFoley
@Yutsano:
As of this post, we’re 98 posts away from that number. ;)
AxelFoley
@eemom:
No wonder. I did notice he was a little sensitive about all the Hill-bashing in this thread.
We’ve found his kryptonite! Now, if only we could do the same for Fuckhead.
soonergrunt
@Corner Stone: insinuating that the woman’s daughters are whores because she called you annoying. Wow.
And then later flat out stating it. Sad, sorry, and something I had never thought to see from you, annoying and self-reverent as you are.
Pie filter +1
William Hurley
Your premise relies on a category mistake, in this post and in the post regarding Conason’s column about Obama’s shortcomings.
It’s not a question of “would Hillary” be better, it’s a very simple question that is laid before the electorate with every President (or other office holder) seeking re-election. The question is this, did the incumbent meet the goals, promises and expectations s/he set during the campaign that put him/her in office?
There are other questions of course, but this one is the framing question for every incumbent Presidential re-election cycle. It is the framing question because it’s a litmus test in many ways and sets or frames the range of debate between the 2 major party’s nominees.
As of today, less than 40% of the electorate would answer “yes” to the above question. Given the economic prospects for the nation from now until Nov 6, 2012, the odds of that 40% number increasing is very unlikely.
Putting these realities into the mix with present and projected unemployment rates, wage deflation, higher taxes on working people in the form of fees and “co-payments”, and other outcomes of states/cities/municipalities cutting back (in order to meet voter approved “balanced budget” laws), the prospects that Obama will be re-elected are weak and weakening.
And we I’ll only refer to the terra incognito that is the radicalized campaign financing environment.
The last data set of interest I’ll refer to is the various analyses of voter turn-out in the calamitous 2010 mid-terms. The “Tea” Party did not “win”, meaning that the TeaOP did not draw more votes (within parameters of demographic drift) that it did in prior mid-terms. The GOP’s (TeaOP’s) grand wipeout of the left from the Village to every local school board or town council was the result of sharply below trend turnout for registered Democrats. In short, the TeaOP was able to electorally tread water while the Democratic Party sank – for about the same amount of money spent.
As I see, Obama is not re-electable. Given his Janus-esque response to his various legislative “wins” (thx to Nancy Pelosi!!!!), on one-hand being “we got the best we could get”, while on the other is an expression of existential fatigue and disgust with the “electorate” for failing to appreciate him. Add to that Obama’s own pre-saging of the potential for his Presidency to be a single term and, voila!, you’ve got a recipe for disaster – electorally.
Importantly, recipes are merely guidelines. One can creatively add or change ingredients to improve upon or reinvent an old “recipe”. One way to do that is to try to convince the long-term unemployed that their situation is worse because of the TeaOP. That’s, to my judgment, a true statement. However, the long-term unemployed don’t give a shit about that, they want jobs. Another is to “educate” the electorate (both those sympathetic and unsympathetic to the “D” cause) that majoritarian democracy has been thwarted to the detriment of the nation by TeaOP partisans’ extremism and unflinching use of Parliamentary tactics. Again, some people, me included, care about this serious institutional malfunction – but far, far more people don’t and won’t no matter how much money is spent “educating” the electorate on this suite of issues.
And so it goes…
I had written elsewhere in late 2009 and the spring of 2010 that Obama needed a primary challenger. At that time, I thought such a challenge would be good to enliven the party, force the press to cover both “dramas” of the respective parties’ primaries and to give medium and voice to the Democratic base of the Democratic Party in the hopes of engaging them electorally (early!!, as in pre-convention) and to “drag” the President back from his rightward drift.
Now, I say primary him because he’s going to lose – and in doing so he’ll take-down dozens of seats with him. Would a primary challenger win, and even if so could s/he win the generals? Who knows! What I do know it that unemployment will be north of 9.4% in Sept and Oct 2012. If you think Obama, or any incumbent could be re-elected with unemployment at that level – I’d really like to see the argument and the data underwriting it.
$1,000,0000,000+ is a terrible thing to waste on a lost Presidential election.
Yutsano
@William Hurley:
Do you know next week’s lottery numbers too? The rest of your post is mere unsubstantiated bullshit. We already have trolls that specialize in that here.
PS: There’s a guy named Lichtman who would like a word with you.
Mnemosyne
@William Hurley:
Sorry, but you have that precisely backwards: Democratic turnout was normal for a midterm election, but Democrats were swamped by Republicans and Tea Partiers.
2010 was very much a classic Karl Rove campaign — Crossroads GPS ran thousands of ads under the radar telling seniors that Obama had killed Medicare with PPACA and, surprise surprise, seniors turned out in numbers far higher than normal for a midterm election. It’s the same way he won 2004 for Bush, though in that case the scare point was banning gay marriage.
Republican voters are happy to turn out to vote against something “evil.” Democrats, not so much.
ETA: Regarding 2006, keep in mind that that one is considered an anomalous election because of the large turnout for a midterm, so claiming that the 2010 results weren’t because of an extra-large Republican turnout is especially silly.
FlipYrWhig
@William Hurley:
I don’t believe that’s true. IIRC turnout for Democrats in 2010 matched turnout for Democrats in 2006. Turnout for Republicans, OTOH, spiked. But it all comes down to the varied meanings of “turnout,” whether it’s being used to refer to how well a certain segment was represented in the total composition of those who voted, on the one hand, or to refer to the proportion of voters in that segment compared to total members of that segment, on the other.
(IOW, if you know 1000 people voted and 250 of them were self-identified liberals, you could call that “25% turnout”; or if you know there are 500 liberals in the population, you could take the same figures and call it “50% turnout.” As I recall, liberals were a smaller subset of the mass of voters in 2010 than they had been in 2008, but it wasn’t because fewer self-described liberals showed up to the polls, it was because a wave of older, more conservative voters overtook them easily.)
ETA: Ah, there’s Mnemosyne with the actual facts. Thanks!
Mnemosyne
I’m on my way to bed, but, to paraphrase Bob Uecker, the Republicans are like cockroaches — it’s not what they carry away with them, it’s what they fall into and ruin. They don’t actually have to do anything because as long as they make people think that government doesn’t work, they win by default.
BarbF
What would be different if Hillary were prez?
The nutjobs and the media would be impeaching Bill all over agaain. It would be one scandal after another.
Jeb Bush would be revving up to replace her, followed then by Chelsea.
Tom W.
What if Robert E. Lee had tanks at Gettysburg, huh??!!
Nice little game you got going here. Clearly, the answer is – we’ll have to wait till January of 2017, when President Clinton takes over from President Romney.
Marc
After that performance, welcome to the pie filter Cornerstone. Calling another poster’s daughters a pair of prostitutes because she’s arguing with you is extra-special pathetic.
On the bright side, your posts are completely incoherent, so there is no loss of actual information in my joining many others and just flushing you down the bit bucket. You do throw around a lot of insults, but they aren’t even amusing.
I’d actually recommend a permanent ban – as you contribute absolutely nothing and chew up more attention than you deserve. A handful of desperate attention cases are really fouling the water in this community.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Omnes Omnibus: November Foxtrot Whisky.
Black folks are not as stupid as the Republicans want to believe.
keestadoll
@PaulJ:
It’s the ex-smoker principal.
Susan
Quite simply, Hilary isn’t Obama.
I just read a great article in NYT, by Drew Westen, titled, What Happened to Obama?
It really got me thinking. Hilary isn’t Obama. No one is and his life experiences or lack of political experience has made him into the man he is today.
It’s depressing, but it’s worth a read. And it should clear up this whole mess about how Hilary would have been different. But it also leads to more questions about how Obama could have been different if at all. And maybe we should have saw the signs.
I voted for Obama also because Edwards had dropped out. But I didn’t know who I was voting for then, and I’m even less sure now.
snarkypsice
@Ol’ Dirty DougJ:
I always thought that too. No way would she have put all that political capital on the line.
It wasn’t the smart thing to do politically but Obama did it anyway because it was the right thing to do. Not a sentence anyone would ever write about Hillary.
huckster
@hilts: My response would be: Project much?
or shorter take: the black guy is an empty suit.
Hewer of Wood, Drawer of Water
@Marc: Cornerstone is the type of guy who takes being called an asshole as a compliment
DaBomb
@Marc: I have had my pie filter on automatic when comes to Corner Stone. It’s about time more people join the brigade.
There are several folks who sully up the comment threads here. So I visit less frequently than I use too.
Kathy in St. Louis
I really don’t know what I would do if I were Obama. The Party of No should have been the first clue. The Fox News/Koch Brothers/Grover Norquist triumvirate would have been clue number two. Clue three would almost certainly be the all-to-obvious rhetoric of the past three years that prove that this is NOT a post-racial America, as the 2008 election seemed to indicate.
I don’t know what Hillary could have done differently. The Republicans has the long knives out for her for a couple of years before the election, since she was the candidate-apparent. So, I’m sure that Karl Rove and the boys had an entire scenario planned out for ways to ruin her presidency had she won. The only thing that I can see that Obama, himself, could have done differently is perhaps have seen the writing on the wall a long time ago. These guys don’t play well with others. They’d rather take their ball and go home.
Corner Stone
I have to confess I’m a little disappointed in this thread. I’d felt sure it was a 500+ when DougJ dropped it.
soonergrunt needs a pie filter at work
@Corner Stone: but with a significant number of those posts being your regular “watch, bitches, while I smell my own taint” routine, I thought we might at least have a shot at 350.
Corner Stone
@soonergrunt needs a pie filter at work: I thought I was verbotten by you Mr. Baby Killer?
I love you triumphant pie filter folks.
“I’m a little girl! I can’t take blog comments from assholes! Daddy save me!”
Talmage
@FlipYrWhig:
This is a fun typical response from Obamabots. When confronted by his record you state that it is Congress’ fault that Obama could not implement the progressive policies that he would really truly like to enact…because of our pesky democracy…not Obama’s fault…it’s the broken Senate and House!
This is a fraudulent argument on several points.
Who bargained away the public option in secret backroom deals with the Insurance agencies? The Senate?
Did the Senate refuse to use the 14th amendment option as a bargaining chip to help get some sort of revenue increases into the debt ceiling deal?
Did the Senate continue the war in Afghanistan?
Did the house start the war in Libya?
We have a president who is bargaining and fighting for conservative policies and values. This same president was elected on progressive policies and values. I am not making this up. I voted for Obama. I campaigned for Obama. I gave money to Obama. I canvassed. I knocked on doors and cold called.
I have heard all of the arguments and justifications for Obama’s failures as a president and a leader. There is an article in the NYTimes by Drew Westen…it should be required reading for all of you who choose to deflect Obama’s failures of leadership on others. here is the link.
Corner Stone
Hep me, hep me!! Somebody please hep me!
Someone I’ll never meet said something not kind about someone else I’ll never meet on a blog ran by an anonymous figure I’ll never meet! My life will never be the same!
God I hope my insurance covers therapy.
Larkspur
Mmmm, pie!
William Hurley
@ Yutsano
I can certainly understand skepticism even dismissal in the face of the numbers I expect will be a bleak commentary on the forlorn state of the nation’s economy in the fall of 2012. Yet, I don’t see any counter-argument in your reply – beyond a Yoda-esque or Matrix-esque platitude about “seeing” the future. I am interested to see what it is in today’s political/economic environment that leads you to your obviously different expectation.
The baseline underwriting my analysis draws in the very real and not too complex math of demographics, labor statistics and growth variables. Fortunately, Calculated Risk, the econ/real estate blogger extraordinaire, did much of the hard math upon which I extended his model. The model, or matrix if you will, that CR produced evaluated the state of unemployment in the nation today, “today” being July 10th which is the dateline of CR’s entry, toward determining the number of new jobs created, month-by-month every month until Nov 2012, to “stand-pat” as well as to improve the unemployment picture by 1.0% (9.2% > 8.2%) by October 30th, 2012. There is, of course, an important variable, but that too is accommodated by the model.
Here’s CR’s original:
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011/07/how-many-jobs-are-needed-over-next-year.html
CR shows that – all things being equal – the economy must generate ~125,000 new jobs a month, every month, just to keep the unemployment rate unchanged on election day. If, however, people who fall outside of the BLS’s bracketing of employment statistics categories choose to return to the labor pool, thereby increasing the participation rate, the number of newly created jobs required to “keep pace” jumps to over 250k/mo for each of the next 17 months.
That’s the treading water reality.
If you choose to review CR’s matrix, you’ll see his calculations regarding the total numbers of new jobs generated to bring the unemployment number down to 8.2%. Since he’s done that, I’ll skip ahead so as to not be redundant.
Using CR’s baseline, I worked out the math to see what the jobs engine must do to get unemployment down to 7.2%. Why 7.2%, it seems arbitrary. Well, it is a truth of Presidential re-election campaigns that no incumbent President – in the modern era – has been reelected when the national unemployment rate is at or above 7.2%. Now, I do expect that there’s some “elasticity” in this figure as its perceived by the electorate. However, I do also expect that the punditocracy, in true full-on Villager-style, will harp on this statistic ad infinitum between now and election day.
So, to get to 7.2% unemployment, the economy must generate between 475,000 and 550,000 new jobs a month, every single month, until the election.
That’s a very large number. By comparison, the economy generated an average of 240,000 new jobs every month for years during the Clinton Presidency. I don’t think anybody – left, center, right or TeaOP – expect today’s economy to behave as robustly as did the economy from 1994-2001.
Note also that the data I’ve provided here is slightly “stale” in that the estimates were generated prior to the initial July jobs report – a report which depicts an ailing economy that’s barely limping along. I might revise my data set – and if possible (a skills deficiency on my part) incorporate formulas allowing for easy modification and updating as the days and months peel off of the calendar.
Let me add, in closing, is that one alternative, though deeply cynical (a.k.a. a Village favorite!), means to “reduce” the headline unemployment number is to force more unemployed Americans off of the statistical map. To do so, one, such as a President, can talk, talk, talk about the need – nay, requirement – to extend unemployment benefits to 99 weeks for all and even to extend benefits beyond 99 weeks given the unprecedented number of “long-term” unemployed citizens who have been abandon by their communities and nation. And this one could, if truly Liberal!, demand that unemployment benefits be extended, temporarily, to those who had been “self-employed” – a category of working Americans who, save rare occasions, do not qualify for unemployment benefits at all.
This same one, after touting these necessities on stumps and on the TV-machine, would then take no actual action. Congress could be called to “lead the charge” or an “uber-committee” of politicos, academics and retired ne’er-do-wells who are chartered to make all things bad, good. The net result is that more and more Americans fall beyond the statistical boundaries of the participation eligible or labor force, thereby reducing the denominator of the “headline” unemployment data mathematics.
The thing about such a strategy is that, as most cynical ploys go, it assumes people are dumber and less self-interested or aware than they (we) actually are. It assumes, as marketing people are fond of saying, that people will confuse activity for outcomes. I can assure you, the unemployed may be confused and/or ill-informed about many things – but the fact that each and every one of them is jobless is not one of them. On that, they are crystal clear – as are their families, relatives, friends and others close to them in their neighborhoods or communities.
I realize that employment realities are not an invariable, providential determinant of future elections. By the same measure, the unemployment, under-employment and wage-deflating world of pre-election 2012 America amplifies the distressing realities facing tens of millions of Americans – everyday. By Nov 6, 2012, those Americans won’t – as a coherent group – blame George W. Bush and the GOP for gutting the nation’s vitality during their run leading the nation (from Gingrich’s “revolution” to the sweep of the House and Senate by Democratic pols in 2006). They’ll look first, as they have in every election, to the person whose occupied 1600 PA Ave for the ~48 months prior to submitting their ballots – if they choose to (or are allowed to) vote at all.
Thanks for prompting me to clarify and unpack my post, and for the opportunity to read a contrasting view and the data behind it.
William Hurley
@FlipYrWhig (308) & Mnemosyne (307)
I took a look at the MotherJones exit polling and did some other poking about on the web. My search was by no means comprehensive, as the day’s necessities occupied me for longer than expected. Still, with what I did find, I stand by my comments as various analyses of the 2008 cycle and the 2010 cycle confirm my views. Here’s one set of comparisons using the same root-source for the 2008 and 2010 cycles.
Pew, like them or not, produced a report that breaks-down the 2008 electorate to levels of fine granularity. That report can be found at here:
The one point I’ll highlight, foreshadowing the 2010 “dissection”, is that the “youth” turnout was “out-of-trend” high and favored Democratic candidates from the top to the bottom of candidates’ slates across the nation.
Again, using Pew data, the 2010 cycle saw a 60% drop in the “youth” vote. Of course, they weren’t exactly the same “youth” as the 2 year interval between elections pushed some out of the category and, naturally, drew in new “youth” voters at the “young” end of the category. The drop in the youth vote had a at least a 10 point negative effect on all Democratic candidates nationwide. Add to that the Pew conclusion that the TeaOP “won” every other demographic category for the electorate and – voila! – you have what we saw. An unmitigated disaster.
Voter suppression on the part of the TeaOP, a topic mentioned liberally, is a serious concern – then and now. Awareness efforts are good, on our side, as is news/reports or legal actions and/or preparations in states (e.g.: WI, OH, FL, …) where TeaOP obstructionist efforts surpass description.
Will the MSM pick-up on this decentralized, but wholly coordinated activity by the TeaOP? Consider my breath unheld.
As we know from activists’ and reporters’ efforts, TeaOP obstruction to the ballot-box targets not only minorities, working poor and immigrants. These villainous plots are targeting the “youth” vote as well – horizontal demographic “slice” that captures distinct individuals as well as many from the aforementioned “vertical” demo-categories. The “double-bind”, if you will, is that the “youth” vote is already under-enthusiastic (though feel free to disagree) and is being “hit” by the unemployment problem the hardest. If they are dispirited and out-of-work (a.k.a. illiquid & immobile), any minor obstacle to participation will – IMO – cause a full stop on the majority of this category’s prospective voters’ efforts to cast a ballot.
Consider also this Pew data concluding that the TeaOP has succeeded in capturing a larger portion of the “white” electorate. Pew suggests that the “white” vote has shifted right in significant numbers since the 2008 cycle. By significant, Pew means that a 2 percentage point spread in ’08 has become a 13 percentage point spread today, pushing the Democrats’ hold down to 39%. Since “white”, like “youth”, cuts across age, gender, income, place of residence, wealth, education, occupation (if any), … and captures the largest contiguous demographic group in the nation, the law of large numbers behind the percentage shift is enormous. I’ll do the math later, but I’d be surprised if the large jump in Latino/Hispanic voters (overall) is not exceeded in raw number by factors in the “white” shift from left to right.
My final point in this retort pertains to the WI recall elections tomorrow. I am not of the opinion that WI outcomes telegraph the shape if not exact “shoe size” of the up-coming Presidential cycle elections 17 months from now. Still, I do think that both the Democratic side and the TeaOP side have expectations for the actual vote as well as the function of the voting. For the “left”, it’s my opinion that turn-out, enthusiasm and precinct effectiveness are crucial to understand – win or lose. For the other guys, I suspect that in addition to lusting after a “vindicating” win, they’re really looking to see how the new financing vehicles they’ve been tuning and tweeking worked out. If the TeaOP can demonstrate, at least to themselves, that voter suppression and endless, anonymous cash can bring about victories, then that’s what we’ll see from the TeaOP – turned up to 11 – over the next 16 months.
But, in the end, the outcomes – as they say on Wall St – being past outcomes (on Nov 6, 2012) will not and do not indicate nor forecast future outcomes.
Pew Data: