December 2006 CNN poll: Hillary 37, Obama 15. December 2014 CNN poll: Hillary 65, Warren 10. For all you “she was inevitable BEFORE!” folks.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) December 2, 2014
Sure, many of us who follow politics even though we’re not paid for it, plus a very vocal segment of those who are, find the very idea of a Hillary 2016 campaign shopworn and boooorrrrring. Per Martin Longman, at the Washington Monthly:
… I think we political junkies operate with certain assumptions that we internalize after a while. We’ve had it in the back of our minds for years now that Clinton will run, will likely win the nomination, and should be heavily favored to win the presidency. We have good reasons for making these assumptions, but having internalized them long ago takes the novelty and excitement of having a female president out of the picture. Far from feeling like some path-breaking moment in American history, it seems more like a very boring and predictable outcome.
The midterms reiterated for us the importance of excitement and interest in the elections to driving Democratic turnout. Barack Obama was able to provide that in a way that Al Gore and John Kerry simply were not. Hillary seems like she is somewhere in between. She isn’t as charismatic as Obama or her husband, but she isn’t crushingly dull, either. Her fan base does include some very strong enthusiasts which we simply didn’t see with Gore and Kerry. She’s somewhat better at riling up the base.
And, when the time comes and the opportunity is finally at hand to make a women the most powerful political leader on the planet, there will be a real sense of novelty and possibility and potential for progress. I just don’t know how strong it will be…
Dave Weigel, at Bloomberg Politics, has a post explaining his tweet(s):
…[T]he latest CNN/ORC International poll… conducted right before Thanksgiving with a sample of “1,045 adult Americans,” finds the former secretary of state far ahead of the Democratic field in a national ballot test. Clinton’s at 65 percent support among Democrats, followed by Senator Elizabeth Warren at 10 percent, Vice President Joe Biden at 9 percent, Senator Bernie Sanders at 5 percent, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Governor Deval Patrick and (the only candidate so far exploring a bid) former Senator James Webb at 1 percent, and Governor Martin O’Malley with support too low to calculate….
It’s just a national test, but the story’s identical in the states—Clinton with swollen leads in New Hampshire and Iowa. In Iowa her numbers are better than twice as high as they were at this point in that cycle, when a war-skeptical Democratic electorate was desperate for another choice. You see why the discussion among the chin-strokers is about whether Clinton can remain so aloof from voters and still win the nomination. The press wants a race, and the left wants a race, but the Democratic electorate isn’t sure that it needs one.
Voters — that undernourished segment of the American electorate — were desperate for CHANGE in 2008, which worked to then-Senator Obama’s advantage. The GOP tried promoting Willard Romney as the CHANGE candidate in 2012, but the people who bothered to go to the polls weren’t convinced (that we needed it, or that Romney represented it, or both). A big part of the 2016 equation is going to be whether Hillary Clinton — assuming she runs — will be perceived as carrying on President Obama’s agenda. And whether the voters we can drag to the polls decide they want that agenda carried forward, as well. But as the first “serious” female contender for the Oval Office, she does have a positive CHANGE metric that can’t be denied.
***********
Apart from the eternal “horserace” campaign, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
jeffreyw
Is it just me or was the Johnny Depp Movie Dead Man really strange?
Hildebrand
Until she actually announces all is pointless blather.
Patricia Kayden
While I’m not necessarily enthusiastic about Secretary Clinton, I cannot abide a Republican Clown Car Occupant in the White House. Bush the 2nd was more than enough.
Go Hilary!!
D58826
I got two ‘ready for Hillary’ campaign kits today. I am just so blessed (SNARK)
Botsplainer
I’ve decided that the American Roman Catholic Bishops and Cardinals need to be sent to Guantanamo Bay and water boarded as a group for crimes of stupidity and malice, and that their conservative clerical knob gobbling sycophantic congregants need to be forced to watch, like Clockwork Orange.
I had a hideous phone call with a Santorum Catholic father of many, upset that his saintly, priesthood bound teen inseminated some whore of a teen. Of course, everybody goes to Catholic school.
I was told that a D and C is inconceivable (can I stop the girl if she wants one, asks gramps). The teen announced that he can in no way support or raise a child, and his dad supports this, as it would interfere in the boy’s priestly aspirations. Of course the family has clerics already in place who are sympathetic to the boy, and say that he is welcome since this shows his “humanity”, no concern for the child they’ll force born, of course.
I hate that fucking church. It is a goddamned abomination.
OzarkHillbilly
Let me be the first to say that if Hillary wins the nomination, she will lose the general. No, I don’t have any real reason for saying that outside of the fact that she is yesterday’s news, and if the GOP finds a way to nominate somebody “New!” and “Exciting!” (whatever that means), the idiot American electorate, who by 2016 will be really tired of gridlock and desperate for SOMETHING to get done (even if it fwcks them up the a$$ with a rusty corn cob) will vote for the “New!” and “Exciting!” like so many of them did in ’08.
Betty Cracker
I’m in wait-and-see mode about 2016, but I don’t doubt for a second that having a woman at the top of the ticket would drive unprecedented female turnout and even swing some married white women away from the GOP. I’ve got anecdata about the yoot vote that I’ve shared here in the past: My teen will cast her first vote in 2016, and she’d be thrilled to vote for HRC because “she’s a girl.”
BR
What Al Giordano said — Help Wanted: The Case for a Generational Challenger to Secretary Clinton:
Tommy
I am not a Hillary fan. But I recall she was the first lady. Then a funny thing. Seemed to rock SoS. Senator on the side. I feel like she can walk into any place, even next to President and drop the mic and say she is the shit. Not so sure I like this, but a reality.
OzarkHillbilly
@jeffreyw: I really liked Dead Man. Still don’t understand it, but I’ve only watched it twice.
Splitting Image
I think you could make a good argument that Obama’s win in 2008 wouldn’t have happened if John Edwards hadn’t done as well as he did. Having three frontrunners split the vote in Iowa allowed Obama to win by a 37-30-30 margin or something like that. If Clinton had picked up most of Edwards’ votes and won Iowa by a big enough margin, the race would have been over after she took New Hampshire as well.
The likeliest path to failure for Clinton in 2016 probably involves at least two of her potential opponents taking at least 25% each in Iowa. I’m not sure I see two different people doing that.
Anne Laurie
@BR:
…. Aaaand so Reagan, Bush, and Bush the Lesser ended up in the Oval Office, where they could do their best to destroy America. Heighten the contradictions, Gen Young!
JPL
Has Hillary released a statement on the Grand Jury decision on not to indict the police officer today.
beltane
@JPL: Not that I’m aware of. So far, I’ve seen statements from Sens. Gillibrand and Schumer, Mayor DiBlasio, Gov Cuomo, and a deplorable statement from Rep Michael Grimm (R-acist). And President Obama, of course.
Suzanne
I will be 35 next month.
And I am ready for someone who is not a white dude.
BR
@Anne Laurie:
Yeah, exactly — the point Al Giordano makes in the article is that it’s basically never the case that an older establishment Democrat beats a younger Republican. Sometimes the Dem primary voters push forward a fresh face like Carter, Clinton, or Obama and they get the nomination and go on to win. But sometimes the fresh face doesn’t make it all the way, the older establishment Dem gets the nomination and then loses the general.
He’s making the case that most of the candidates we have, including Clinton, Biden, Warren, and Sanders, are too old to win against a young “new” Republican. And so he’s hoping a younger fresh Democrat will come out of nowhere like Carter, Clinton, and Obama did and win the primary (and then the general).
JPL
@beltane: Thanks. I’m sure we were hear from her soon, though.
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer: Just ask their “pro lifing” a$$es how much money they are going to pledge to the raising of the child (minimum $50-100 per month) and tell them to sign on the contractually binding dotted line.
And no, your hatred for the Catholic church is nothing compared to the white hot beacon mine is, but then, mine is personal.
Betsy
I remember when Barack Obama wasnt quite black enough for black folk, or so the story went — his was not an authentic African-American experience, or not typical enough, and “African-Americans weren’t excited about him.”
Then, suddenly, it was November 2008, and oh! the turnout!
Waldo
@jeffreyw: Dead Man might be strange for a Johnny Depp movie, but it’s relatively conventional for a movie directed by Jim Jarmusch.
skerry
@Botsplainer: This makes me sick to my stomach.
Forced-birthers who want no responsibility for raising the child.
I don’t know how you deal with people like that.
HR Progressive
Hillary Clinton running for POTUS 2016 is the worst kept secret since POTUS 2008.
All of the other people have either dropped off the radar since then (Jim Webb, for example) or have not really declared any attempt to run (Warren) or haven’t made anything official official (Sanders).
Show me a poll like this after 1-4 of any of those other people actually fucking announce something, and if those numbers still hold, then I’ll be impressed.
beltane
@efgoldman: Al Gore was featured in many of the 2006 polls and there was even something of a Draft Gore movement. It all seems like such a long time ago.
Splitting Image
@OzarkHillbilly:
Ordinarily I’d agree with you, but the Republicans are doing everything they can to remove whatever “New” and “Exciting” sheen their top-tier candidates have before the campaign moves into high gear. If Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, et al. had spent the last few years with their noses to the grindstone getting a few things accomplished, they’d be ready for prime-time when the cameras move in. But all they’ve done the last few years is mug for the cameras, and it feels to me like they’ve been around a lot longer than they have. I suppose Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney have been lying low, relatively speaking, but they’ll be the least able to run on the “New” and “Exciting” platform. They might as well dig up Newt for one more kick at the can.
shelley
I see NewsMax took down the headline, “100 brains stolen from Texas school’
I guess somebody finally explained the unintentional humor to them.
Mike E
Filling my empty stomach…slooowly.
raven
@jeffreyw: Ha, cool that Mitchum is in it. And, of course, Neil rippin his axe throughout.
Botsplainer
@skerry:
Rage.
Anne Laurie
@BR:
I don’t remember Reagan being younger than Mondale, or Bush being younger than Dukakis.
I read the whole post, and Giordano seems to think that if the Democrats won’t give “us” the fresh young face Giordano craves, we deserve to lose to whatever turd rises to the top of the GOP septic tank. He’s not the only True Leftist to support this theory, but I fail to find it persuasive.
Ripley
@jeffreyw: It’s a bit more coherent if you consider the possibility that Depp’s character was dead from the start and his weird journey (Iggy Pop in a dress!) is purgatorial and symbolic of the decline of the west.
Alternatively, per @Waldo, it could just be a fairly typical Jarmusch film.
Major Major Major Major
Got the wedding license… Date set for December 29!
Mike E
@Major Major Major Major: Nice grouping!
Another Holocene Human
The OP is a brilliant deflection from the fact that Hilary is starting to lose opinion poll matchups against GOP contenders instead of crushing all of them like 18 months ago. Ready for Hilary pulled a masterful manipulation of the dumber contingent of the Dem base. So ready to forget that so many other pols have won polls years before the contest but lost the only one which mattered.
lamh36
I’ll be honest. At this moment in time I could give two fucks about 2016.
But here’s what I do know, if, as it has been published, HRC et al think after Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, Eric Garner and soon to be nothing for 12 year old Tamir Rice, I’m sure…if the HRC team thinks they can expand theit voter pool by trying to attract more whites and in doing so takes the Black vote for granted then they will be in for a rude awakening.
Let’s we forget, this new generation don’t care bout the golden days of Clinton, all they see are Dems not doing nothing (or in case of Ferguson, Dems actually doing the backstabbing this time ) and Repubs being bigoted racist and sexist…so for the first time I can see some idiot Rand Paul or more glib libertarian type being able to rally this younger generation to their cause by virtue of NOT being the other two parties of ole foagies.
That’s what should scare Dems right now, a yoping electorate pissed and emoldened by this whole mess right now.
How is HRC gonna handle that if pressed to?
Another Holocene Human
@shelley: That’s a pity. :)
BR
@Anne Laurie:
I’m not sure he’s saying that. Yeah, he doesn’t like Clinton — that’s always been the case. But I’m not sure he’s saying anything about deserving to lose, only that it’s likely. (I think like someone says in another comment above, the electorate, especially when swayed by our crappy MSM, likes to go for new and exciting, especially when there isn’t an incumbent.)
JPL
@Major Major Major Major: How wonderful. Congrats to both of you.
Another Holocene Human
@lamh36: That’s true, HRC hasn’t said a damn thing and it would cost her nothing, she is not after all officially running for office (wink wink).
But I am so unsurprised, HRC has never been one to say anything so why start now?
lamh36
On the agenda for me tonight…anger and rage.
I’m at work right now, but I’ve been dying inside since I heard the news.
Another Holocene Human
@Betsy: It was not really that simple.
A lot of African Americans did not get excited because they thought he was going to be shot.
Clinton had oodles of name recognition and Clinton nostalgia but she managed to blow that but good with the nasty stuff she and Bill said.
Tommy
@Major Major Major Major: My best friend got married on a street in Alexandria, VA. A minister just there. I mean on the street. Let me say this again, they got married on the street. They lived with me for two years afterwards and wonderful times now 30 years plus.They are happy last I checked.
Another Holocene Human
You’ve got Dem GOTV base and Dem turnout base. GOTV base gets the irregular voters out, so you also have irregular voters and the GOTV base has a heavy influence on them (they also tend to be poorer). Dem turnout base tends to be older and richer and, well, whiter.
Turnout base is great at showing up at midterms and local elections and answering 2-4 years out phone polls.
eta: forgot to mention GOTV base are the worst political junkies and/or community activists (high emotion/freakout level/single issue purity stuff) while turnout base, they kinda follow NPR and other village news sources
GOTV base makes or breaks your election. If they fucking HATE your candidate they will not put themselves out getting those poorer, irregular voters out.
That’s how Alex Sink lost. Look out.
Major Major Major Major
@Tommy: cool!
We’re using a Justice though. Wanna be secular.
You’re actually legally forbidden from using any religious language at city hall during the ceremony in SF, which is pretty cool I think.
Another Holocene Human
by turnout I mean the Dems who don’t miss elections and show up regardless, they are smaller than the equivalent on GOP side which is why we lose, should have said yellow dogs or faithful but that always seems to imply the wrong thing … most of the people I’m talking about probably don’t know what a yellow dog even is
gotv-ers call themselves yellow dogs
need a term for people who always show up but aren’t big political junkies, the more moderate, better paid, more insulated voters
OzarkHillbilly
@Splitting Image: That is the flaw in my reasoning, but RAND PAUL!!! SCOTT WALKER!!! AND… the American electorate.
I have very little to no faith in the last.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Mitchum was killer in it.
Another Holocene Human
Colbert’s sister, ran as conservadem, the D totebaggers all turned out for her, got crushed. Didn’t excite GOTVers, and there was like zilcho turnout among poor people in the district.
Another Holocene Human
@lamh36: I’ve been ragey since they killed him. NYPD telegraphed this, they were in Ferguson kicking it with the STL area PDs.
JPL
@lamh36: Rand Paul released a statement.
Another Holocene Human
@Splitting Image: This is depressing.
lamh36
@JPL: of course he did
shelley
@skerry: And of course, the saintly, priest bound young man just happened to fall into her vagina by accident. Or she was an evil succubus who addled his senses long enough to have her way with him.
lamh36
@JPL: of course he has…
SiubhanDuinne
@D58826:
I’m sure they didn’t ask you for any money (EVEN SNARKIER)
OzarkHillbilly
@Major Major Major Major: You’ll be sorry…. Just kidding, congrats to the both of you. I know the best thing that ever happened to me was my 2nd wife, and she tells me nearly every day that the best thing that ever happened to her was her 3rd husband.
Live long and prosper.
Liberty60
Now that the Dem pols are starting to register their anger at the Garner decision, (Obama, Gillibrand, et al) I am hoping HRC can do something uncharacteristic, and say something sharp and unequivocal.
Just cruising through the intertubes, even some of the reliably rightwing outlets like Hot Air are expressing unhappiness, if not outrage. HRC has a low hanging softball here, and should be able to hit it out of the park.
OzarkHillbilly
@Tommy: I was once best man at a wedding in the St Louis City Hall elevator. Let me repeat that: My buddy and his not so blushing bride got married in the elevator of city hall.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Congratulations! Am I remembering correctly that you’re in California? When we got our license, I was interested to see that if you want to have a friend officiate, they don’t have to be clergy of any kind — you can have them apply to be a Deputy Commissioner for a Day and it’s all nice and legal. This is the LA County site, but they should have a similar one for your county:
lavote.net/home/county-clerk/marriage-licenses-ceremonies/ceremonies/deputy-commissioner-for-a-day-p…
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
Heh. You funny lady.
lamh36
@JPL: I refuse to look, but what did Rand Paul say?
geg6
@OzarkHillbilly:
Me, too. Fuck the Catholic Church. With a spiky acid dipped pen1s. I will never forgive or forget what that bunch did to me. But I do admit to some small affection for Pope Frank and lotsa love for Nuns on the Bus. But the institution itself and 99% of its dogma must die. The sooner the better.
skerry
@Major Major Major Major: Congrats!
feebog
@Another Holocene Human:
You have any links to polls that support your assertion?
scav
Here, teeny little bit of good-ish news on the getting rid of bad cops front, but we have to go a ways to find it. Pope Francis removes Swiss Guard chief
so, good eventually for Pope F, the Swiss Police have similar issues to ours. (Anrig defended himself “I had an investigative police job to carry out, and that is what I did.”)
BBC notes
otherwise, basically gnawing through steel and broken glass in a vain hope to improve the day.
JPL
@lamh36: He was upset about the decision. I’m sure we will hear from Hillary soon.
The right has forgotten that Michael Brown was stopped for walking down the street. They are in an uproar about cigarette taxes though.
SiubhanDuinne
@Major Major Major Major:
That is wonderful! Congratulations to you and your fiancé and thank you for bringing some truly good news to a generally sucky day. I am very happy for you, and hope you will post pictures on December 29th.
Okay, December 30th. Take a little time for yourselves.
lamh36
even Michael freakin Steele!!!! –>
OzarkHillbilly
@geg6: You and I are on the same bus with nuns on the bus and when it comes to Frank, I am still giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: So exciting! Please allow me to distribute some virtual rose petals in your path!
Mary G
@Suzanne: I’ll be 59 next month, and I am REALLY ready for someone who’s not a dude. Any color of dude. HRC is incredibly dull, but if it’s her, it’s her.
TriassicSands
@jeffreyw:
Well, it was directed by Jim Jarmusch…what did you expect?
Maybe you aren’t familiar with Jarmusch. I saw Stranger Than Paradise — Jarmusch’s breakthrough film — when it came out in ’84 and after that nothing from Jarmusch would or could seem strange. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a wonderful movie, but calling it bizarre really fails to do it justice.
His recent films have been mostly disappointing — but tastes vary (a lot).
lamh36
@JPL: well, blessings that Paul is an idiot.
All there needs to be is a more polished liberatarian candidate and the Dems will be in trouble
JoyfulA
@Mary G: My then 82-year-old mother cried when she learned her three daughters intended to vote for Obama in the primary. She’s always been a feminist without knowing it and direly wants a female president. (Of course, Clinton won the PA primary despite her daughters.)
JPL
@lamh36: Michael Brown was originally stopped for jay walking and I’m not sure what Michael Steele said about that. If you can find it, watch Mayor de Blasio’s statement. He was visibly upset .
lamh36
@JPL: Steele also was upset about Ferguson grand jury as I recall.
Steeplejack
@jeffreyw:
Dead Man is really strange—and really great. One of the movies I’m really glad I saw in the theater, with no distractions and an enforced attention span. The black-and-white cinematography is luminous, and Neil Young’s “tripping over guitars in an echo chamber” score is perfect.
Jarmusch’s movie Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a nice bookend: very different but strange in its own way.
beltane
It’s from FB but I’m hearing that there’s going to be a big protest march on DC this weekend. Huge police presence at Union Square in NYC right now with helicopters, prison buses, etc.
Belafon
@Mary G: I will be really excited if Clinton wins. And then I’ll be annoyed as hell at Democrats who will fail to realize that Republicans are opposing her because she’s a woman, and you can’t have women running the country because it will put a lie to what they say.
JPL
@lamh36: I just finished a phone call with a friend and said he could win. She said that John Stewart doesn’t like him so that might help diffuse his bullshit.
schrodinger's cat
I don’t get the excitement about Hillary’s candidacy. She is meh. If she does become President I will be curious to see how Bill handles his first gentlemanly duties.
ETA: There have been female heads of state and they weren’t above politics or all that wonderful actually. One can argue that they were worse because they usually behaved like they needed to extra tough. Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher come to mind.
jeffreyw
@TriassicSands: ,et al, Never heard of the director before, not a cinema buff though I do like watching movies. Saw a rec for Dead Man online somewhere re Netflix streaming and gave it a shot.
jeffreyw
@Steeplejack: I saw Ghost Dog, liked it a lot. Didn’t know it was the same dierector.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: How is former garage kitteh? still being nawty?
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
@lamh36:
I hear Steele now and then on one or another MSNBC program, and I have to wonder why he remains a member of the Republican Party. Not that he ever was, or would be, the most outspoken liberal Democrat, but he seems more often than not to disagree with either the official GOP position on whatever topic, or the conventional received wisdom from the conservative/Tea Party wing. He actually sounds fairly rational much of the time. If he ever wanted to change party affiliation, we could do worse than having him as a spokesman.
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: Homer and Toby got locked together in a bedroom the other day and it didn’t go well. Had the dogs looking for cover.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: They both want to be the alpha male?
jeffreyw
@schrodinger’s cat: Dunno, less than that or more. Tobe just hates him some Homer.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: Give them both skritches from me. I still remember when you first adopted Homer and he had that cast on his leg. He is a cutie.
Anne Laurie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Because the second he changes affiliation, the Foxbots will mysteriously lose his number. Better to be the left-most Token Black Guy in Fox-Hell than the right-most EvenTheDemocrat guy scrumming for face time on the not-so-heavenly talk shows.
Given the righteous anger in Ferguson/Cleveland/Staten Island right now, the Media Village Idiots are no doubt looking for “reasonable Negroes” who can hand-hold their scared-white-people talking heads through the basics of #BlackLivesMatter without actually smacking Scarborough or Bill O’Reilly, at least while the cameras are rolling. It’s not a job I envy Steele, but as my old dad used to say: No job is that bad if you can do it indoors while sitting down.
trollhattan
Ugh
Full metal Wingnut
@Anne Laurie: Reagan was getting reelected anyway in 84. And blaming Hart and Jackson for Democratic losses those years doesn’t pass the laugh test. That’s not heightening the contradictions.
Full metal Wingnut
@BR: Not another Carter. I think he gets unfairly maligned by Republicans, but he was still decidedly mediocre. We don’t need another Democrat to the right of the median Democrat in Congress. Fuck that.
Full metal Wingnut
@Another Holocene Human: She would’ve lost anyway in that district. Poor example.
Bobby Thomson
@BR:
Based on what, exactly? Truman was older than Dewey, Ike was no spring chicken and had 10 years on Stevenson, LBJ and Goldwater were both olds, Nixon was a whopping two years younger than establishment Humphrey, Reagan was older than Mondale, Bush the Elder was older than Dukakis, Gore was younger than Junior, and Kerry was only three years older. Kennedy, 76 Carter, Clinton, and Obama were younger than their competition, but other Democrats didn’t lose because they were older. If this is all “well, the Republican won because he was perceived as younger,” than that’s just a massive tautology.
Stella B.
@lamh36: Here’s Hillary’s statement on Ferguson.
cdmarine
It’s not that I don’t get how exciting and significant the idea of the first woman President is; it’s that I wish we could at least pretend we’re not all living in an oligarchy.
Stella B.
@SiubhanDuinne: She was prompt with a statement about Ferguson. I think it would be fair to give her 24 hours to respond.
Sherparick
Although delicate in dealing with Obama, I think Hilary can run as President as both nostalgia (for the “good times” of the 1990s) and taking the hints that Schumer has laid out stating that she will focus more on the middle class than Obama hence “Change.” Of course there is the war thing, Hilary being hawkish interventionist liberal internationalist (or imperialist, if we want to be honest), and how that leaves a good part of the progressive left very hostile these days, for good reason.
Her foreign and defense policies would be somewhat less mindlessly war mongering than entire Republican field outside of Rand Paul, but like Obama’s policies have basically been a continuation of Bush II’s second term (Bush’s first term see “mindlessly war mongering,” example of), I expect Hilary will be a continuation with an accent on more on the ground intervention in carrying out those same policies. (One political lesson of Obama’s terrible surge decision on Afghanistan in summer of 2009 is that although it may have reduced base enthusiasm for him is that send volunteer professional soldiers off to kill and be killed and no one much seems to care).
Paul in KY
Not particularly a Hillary! fan, but 65 – 10 beats the Hell out of 37 – 15.
Jinchi
@Splitting Image:
I completely disagree here. Barack Obama won because he had an incredible campaign team along with a dynamic candidate. Edwards’ best result was coming in 2nd in the Iowa caucuses, 7 points behind Obama, and he never got more than 18% of the vote after that. Obama and Clinton both crushed him everywhere else. Soon after Iowa, Edwards lost in New Hampshire (39-36-17), and in his backyard of South Carolina (55-26-17).
2008 was never a 3-way race.
Another Holocene Human
@Full metal Wingnut: Probably, but if you look at Florida a month ago it’s a tale of turnout and it’s by no means inevitable, a Dem killed it in the NW while a GOP grabbed a seat in the Keys. For the Colbert race turnout was for shit. Except on the GOP side. I guess they love them some scumbag.
lol
@Jinchi:
The argument is that without Edwards splitting the vote, Clinton finishes a close second or possibly wins the caucuses, Obama has no momentum and she finishes him off on Super Tuesday.
The problem with the argument is that Obama was largely the second choice for the Edwards supporters. Obama picked up the vast vast majority of Edwards delegates at the county and state conventions. That was no accident of course because the Obama campaign team in Iowa assiduously courted the support of anyone not supporting Clinton the entire time to make sure they were everyone’s second choice. Edwards supporters supported Edwards because he wasn’t Clinton. Without Edwards in the race, they would’ve supported someone else not named Clinton.
Without Edwards, Clinton likely loses Iowa by 15-20 points and goes on to straight-up lose New Hampshire and Nevada. At that point, her campaign is dead in the water and the primary is over after Super Tuesday.
lol
The other difference in the polls is that at this point 8 years ago, Obama was beginning to put together his campaign team for his presidential run while Warren is not only openly supporting Clinton’s presidential run but has generally expressed no interest in running even if Clinton wasn’t.