Might as well let the wild rumpus start. Tomorrow, probably, Hillary Rodham Clinton will announce that she is campaigning to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016. And the adjective most liable to be overused in discussing her announcement will be… well, here’s Mark Leibovich, Beltway anthropologist, on “What It Really Means to Call Hillary Clinton ‘Polarizing’“:
… Last February, when I was interviewing attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the subject of Hillary Clinton came up a lot, and when it did, the term “polarizing figure” was never more than a few sentences away. Maybe this is a simple conjugation issue. Hillary Clinton is not “polarizing” so much as she is “polarized.” She has been at the center of a long brawl that has left people weary on all sides. But if Clinton was not so willing to fight (and so well equipped for battle), she could be called worse. She could be called Michael Dukakis.
Initially, reporters said Clinton was “polarizing” because she was a transitional figure in the culture wars as they existed a quarter-century ago. She was a working woman and full political partner with (gasp) feminist tendencies. Among would-be first ladies in the early 1990s, these were exotic qualities. Today Hillary Clinton is a cautious and exceedingly diplomatic politician, perhaps to her detriment. (She is often criticized for being “calculating” and “robotic.”) If anything, her willingness to be deliberate, speak carefully and appeal to the political center was a big part of what sank her with liberal Democrats who opted for Barack Obama in 2008. If Clinton really were polarizing, wouldn’t the left be more excited about her? Wouldn’t people be roused from their “Clinton fatigue”?
When people say Clinton is polarizing, they are largely indicting her by association. She has been a fixture of our political climate for so long that the climate defines her. But the political climate has not been made, or polarized, by mysterious outside forces. It is us. You could argue that the act of showing up at CPAC and cheering a red-meat speech from the likes of Ted Cruz is an act of self-polarization, or at least an indication that common cause with Clinton probably was not much of a possibility to begin with…
Phillip Bump, one of the Washington Post‘s politics-as-a-sport touts, spells out the statistical measure of HRClinton’s “polarization“:
… Clinton has polarized America since the outset. There’s been a remarkable stability to her net favorability since America first learned who she was: Democrats like her, Republicans don’t, and independents can go either way.
That is because — stick with me now — Democrats like Democrats and Republicans don’t, and vice versa. The strength of that opinion varies depending on how politically charged that person is. Hillary Clinton was much more disliked by Republicans in 2007, when she was a threat to win the presidency, than she was in June 2008, when she wasn’t. And when she was happily working away in Foggy Bottom in 2012, Republicans barely bothered to hate her at all…
HRClinton is polarizing because she’s a Democrat, and a woman, who won’t accept the role her Republican opponents want her and all of us Democrats to play. Just as President Obama is divisive, because he won’t give his Republican opponents 110% of what they demand, this very moment & on a silver platter. Both adjectives have become code words for those too mealy-mouthed to use uppity in public.
WaterGirl
I hope this thread will get stomped on soon with news and photos of Lovey and Koda. Puppies puppies puppies. (nothing personal, AL) I mean, Obama sent out a text when he picked Biden as his running mate, surely this rises to that level of importance!
Baud
I disagree. I see Obama as polarizing and Hillary as divisive. But reasonable Villagers can differ.
Pogonip
I’m independent, and I think anyone who can get financed to run will end up being a tool of Wall Street, about as far as you can get from “uppity.”
Did Lovey get to geg6’s house OK?
Lee Rudolph
@Baud: The only reasonable, centrist position to take is that both of them are both polarizing and divisive.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It wasn’t, to paraphrase the pol in question, “just speaking”, Mr Leibovich.
Okay, I’ll give him props for something few of his kind do
Corner Stone
*cough cough* John Cole *cough cough*
Pogonip
@WaterGirl: Hear, hear (or woof, woof!). Never mind the Wall Street whores–Er, the dignified presidential candidates. We want puppies!
Baud
@Pogonip: But didn’t you see how divisive Lovey was in that video John posted last night!
Corner Stone
I, for one, am just totes tired of all the potential Democratic candidates for President. I can only hope that our future holds a Santorum for President run in the D primaries!
Huzzah!!
Tree With Water
“HRClinton is polarizing because she’s a Democrat, and a woman”.. and because she supported the Bush-Cheney War with all her political heart.
VidaLoca
If I actually thought HRC would be polarizing, I’d be more enthusiastic about her. Instead, I expect it will be pretty much business as usual and not too different from what we saw in 2008.
@Pogonip:
Nailed it in one.
Baud
@Tree With Water:
Somehow, I don’t think that’s the reason the folks at CPAC think she’s polarizing.
Villago Delenda Est
Lazy sacks of shit like Phillip Bump are the reason for my nym.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
I think we should all ask Kropadope what (s)he thinks of Hillary.
Baud
@Amir Khalid: Indistinguishable from Santorum, apparently.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Was he the Oilers coach?
eta
Corner will know.
WaterGirl
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Polarizing: to divide or cause to divide into two sharply contrasting groups or sets of opinions or beliefs.
Even if all the republicans were taken away by aliens, I think we would still find that the remaining individuals had widely differing and strongly held beliefs and opinions about Hillary Clinton. Isn’t that the definition of polarizing?
Baud
@raven: :-)
Corner Stone
@Tree With Water:
And again, the only politician who will ever be punished for that vote.
Kerry came within an inch of Ohio votes to beating GWB in 2004 and any guesses as to how he voted on the war issue?
Mike J
If Republicans hate a Democrat, the Democrat is polarizing. If Democrats disagree with a Republican, they’re partisan and deranged.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I thought she was a pistol! What a charmer. Sometimes people (and pups) surprise you. ThurstonHowl was initially so much bigger that I thought he would be dominant. And it turns out that Lovey is the play-baby. I’ve gotten attached to both of them.
raven
@Corner Stone: Which war?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Although I don’t think she’s inevitable, the fact that she has a commanding lead for the nomination right now suggests to me that the polarization issue is largely a Republican phenomenon.
Corner Stone
@raven: I don’t know. How many did he have a vote on?
raven
@Corner Stone: That’s true, he was just a spokesguy for mine.
schrodinger's cat
Whenever I hear another Beltway Punditubbie opine about the horserace my brain cells die.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I don’t disagree with you very often, but this appears to be one of those times.
Corner Stone
@Baud:
I don’t think that’s true. Everytime I hear her voice it’s like chalk on a blackboard, or someone nagging me to take the trash out.
MattF
Uppity and bitchy and argumentative. And, um, polarizing.
Baud
@WaterGirl: You disagree that she has a huge lead right now or that having a huge lead doesn’t answer the question of whether she is polarizing. The first statement is based simply on polling I’ve seen (obviously, pre-campaigning). I suppose the second statement is more debatable with respect to what it takes to make someone polarizing.
ETA: More importantly, I’d like to hear more about your plan to have aliens take away all Republicans.
MattF
@WaterGirl: The problem is, by that standard, all Democrats are polarizing. Well, sure, because they’re not Republicans. QED.
Pogonip
@MattF: Hilary, or Lovey?
gene108
I was 18 in 1992 and was blown away by how much crap Hillary took for having a career outside of being a convenient political prop for her husband’s political ambitions.
The right-wingers were shitting in their pants that a woman would do things in a marriage, without checking with her husband for approval first.
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl:
So you do feel HRC is inevitable?
MattF
@Pogonip: Only one of whom sleeps with John Cole. I hope, anyhow.
Pogonip
@Baud: She was assertive.
David Koch
I just wonder how this will impact Bernie Sander’s frontrunner status.
Jasmine Bleach
Speaking of polarizing: remember that measles outbreak and how many here were getting their undies in a bundle about how it was the wurst thing evar and we were all going to die and laws should be changed ’cause anti-vaxxers are going to kill us all! (Okay, that’s somewhat hyperbole, but I was called names by some here because I thought it was no. big. deal.)
Let’s take a look:
February 17, 141 cases in the United States this year.
April 3 (latest data from CDC), 159 cases in the United States this year.
(Zzzzzzzzz . . .) Looks like we’re nowhere near the pace to equal last year’s 644 cases nationwide, which didn’t cause a stir for some reason. The last death from measles occurred in 2003 in the Unites States.
Will continue to monitor things . . .
Corner Stone
@gene108:
Contrast to the tenure of Mrs. GWB.
Pogonip
@MattF: *chortle*. “Bill, remember all those girls you had parading through the White House? Well, while you weren’t paying attention, I met this soldier from West-by-God-Virginia…”
HA-ha!
Corner Stone
@MattF:
For Cole’s sake, anyway. Last dude who got a little too close got turfed, ninja-Rahmbo style.
Baud
@Pogonip: Who do you think introduced Cole to naked mopping?
Pogonip
@Baud: The White House maid?
WaterGirl
@MattF: I think Hillary Clinton is polarizing even within the democratic party.
Keith G
I am looking forward to see the choices Hillary makes in her rollout. Lots of needles to thread and so much more potential downside than potential upside. No one looks bad by taking a shot at her and so few feel the need to exert energy on behalf of such a juggernaut. Familiarity breeds contempt and she has been a part of our world for 23 years.
And if she is a polarizing force who becomes President, she will not be the first. Many of the best ones were.
J.D. Rhoades
“Polarizing”=”I don’t like her.” It’s become a meaningless term.
schrodinger's cat
If Hillary is polarizing does that mean voters are transverse waves? I love how Punditubbies like to use physics terminology to sound more erudite, their other favorite word is optics.
VidaLoca
@Corner Stone:
She’s also the only politician running on the Democratic ticket in 2016 who has not taken a single one of the many opportunities she’s had over the years to reflect on, explain, or apologize for that vote. So I have no idea whether, if faced with the same circumstances (opportunity?) she’d make the same choice.
She’s also the only politician running on the Democratic ticket in 2016 who, when she saw her chances at the nomination in 2008 slipping away, jumped right on the bandwagon of white privilege w/r/t some of her arguments to white voters in support of herself over Obama.
Those two facts tell me all I need to know about who she is and what she stands for. I think they’re damning.
Here I’ll insert the obligatory caveat: I’m quite willing to vote for her, and even organize other people to vote for her, for the same reason that you all have expressed in other threads I’ve read here over the last couple of days. These reasons all come down to one thing, and one only: whoever the Republican candidate is, he’ll be worse. I get that.
But how I can expect the people I’ll be talking to to have any belief in, much less any passion for, a party so bereft of new ideas, so bereft of critical analysis of the situation we find ourselves in in this country and the world that it can nominate and run Clinton for President is beyond me.
different-church-lady
That’s a whole lot of words to say “People are lazy parrots.”
Davis X. Machina
@VidaLoca: Don’t vote for her. She’ll win without you, I guess.
Ought to make both parties in the arrangement happy.
Corner Stone
MattF
@WaterGirl: It’s fair to note that there are some Dems who don’t like Hillary. But I don’t see this as a defining characteristic– I see it more as an Inside-the-Beltway, horserace meme. I could be wrong about that, but I never got the point of Clinton-hating, so maybe I’m the wrong person to try to make sense of it.
Suzanne
I am trying to share a picture of my pottery with y’all. Flickr is sucking arse. Plz go Instagram follow me—baddesignhurts is my user name. Would love to hear what y’all think.
Pogonip
@Baud: P.S. if THIS doesn’t prompt an “I-hate-you-all” post we may as well give up.
NotMax
If this be inevitability, uncertainty looking pretty darn good.
And before certain people’s noses get bent out of shape, no, that doesn’t imply voting for whomever the R is.
Baud
@VidaLoca:
That’s just not true. She said she was wrong in her book.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Breaking it down for clarity…
#1
“she has a commanding lead for the nomination right now”
AGREE
#2
“the fact that she has a commanding lead for the nomination right now suggests to me that the polarization issue is largely a Republican phenomenon”
DON’T AGREE
I don’t understand how her having a commanding lead for the nomination right now suggests that the polarization issue is largely a republican phenomenon.
edit: loved your ETA, sadly no plan, just a hope
different-church-lady
@schrodinger’s cat: If I hear “focus in” one more time I’ll just… get annoyed again.
You don’t “focus in” on something. You just focus on it. If you want to “zoom in” on something, that’s a different story.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Post a pic? Thumbsnap. Free, easy, no fuss, no muss.
Corner Stone
@VidaLoca:
This is a straight up bullshit lie, but wts, what tf does it even mean?
Where was Jim Webb? Castro? Warren? Schwartzer? O’Malley?
Keith G
@Baud: VidaLoca no RedaBuca?
VidaLoca
@Baud:
Can you expand a little more? It’s important enough, I’d be willing to stand corrected.
WaterGirl
@Corner Stone: hahahahaha good one!
Kropadope
False. She actually ran to left of Obama on some important issues like healthcare and gay rights. The problem is her encouraging of this false media narrative for the sake of her political benefit and other false narratives, such as the experience narrative and the judgment narrative, which continue to have resonance and have been rather harmful to Obama and, by extension, to the Democrats.
For example, these themes were prominently on display as the media whipped the public into a pants-pissing frenzy about ISIS and Ebola prior to the 2014 election. For her part, Hillary reaffirmed her belief in Obama’s poor judgment with respect to ISIS and Syria.
Hillary has been at the center of every major Democratic party failure for 20+ years and hasn’t done a single thing to improve its status. Makes one wonder if she isn’t trying to destroy it from within.
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: And there you have it.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: I think Castro was in day care.
Baud
@VidaLoca:
I had to step away from my computer and it’s a little hard to do on the phone. Google Hillary Hard Choices Iraq “I was wrong.”.
WaterGirl
@VidaLoca: I thought Hillary had finally made some sort of apology about there vote. Am I wrong?
Cervantes
@schrodinger’s cat:
Just FYI, the usage is from the 1940s.
MattF
@Kropadope: Ah, you were almost making sense there. Until that last sentence.
Alan Keyes has similar suspicions about Obama:
http://wonkette.com/582433/alan-keyes-not-crazy-obama-colluding-with-iran-to-bomb-u-s-like-hitler-probably-not
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: You see! If Hillary weren’t so “polarizing” everyone would know this!
*gives pundit nod*
craigie
What sort of pagan sacrifice is required for this to happen?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
off the top of my head, expansion of social security, possibly Medicare, and a massive restructuring of student loan debt are pretty significant issues. The furthering of advances made in environmental policy over the last eight years my not be a technically “new” issue, but given that we’re twenty to thirty years behind, I’d say it’s pretty important. Is preserving and improving the ACA a “new” issue? Are LGBT rights a “new” enough issue? Cause barely ten years ago homophobia was vital to Bush’s re-election effort, and a significant part of the Republican party wants to go back to it.
What?
Steeplejack (tablet)
Screw this! Everybody upstairs for pupdate!
The Dangerman
@Baud:
Or indicative of the fact that there hasn’t yet been a viable candidate from the Left to rise up and challenge her so far. I’m sad that Elizabeth Warren clearly appears to be sitting it out.
My problem with Hillary is similar to the problem I had with Romney; both want(ed) to be President so BAD but do they have a platform to “change things” (Obama put forth a strong one from the very beginning) or do they just want to have the best seat in the cool plane?
VidaLoca
@Corner Stone: Webb might have been in the Senate when the AUMF vote went down but his interest in running for President is only a rumor. The others weren’t in the Senate.
But I’m willing to be consistent, treat any of them under the same standard I posed for HRC.
Corner Stone
@Kropadope:
And the clown show continues apace…
VidaLoca
@WaterGirl: No you may be right. Per Baud, I may be wrong.
schrodinger's cat
@Cervantes: So Pundits in the 40s were no better than the ones we have now?
Polarization does not make much sense unless one is talking about transverse waves.
NotMax
@Kropeadope
One doesn’t hire and schmooze with the political advisers she has a record of without a commonality of interests and motives (not to mention poor judgment).
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman:
Ummm, Romney is a Republican candidate for president.
His ambition was the problem for you?
WaterGirl
@MattF: 7 things:
I don’t hate Hillary.
I sure as hell don’t want her to be president.
I will vote for her as president if she is the democratic nominee.
Everyone I know in real life feels the same way (with the exception of my conservative relatives).
It pisses me off to hear time and again that she is so popular among democrats because I believe the initial high poll numbers are way higher than what we will see once the campaign starts.
The whole inevitability thing is arrogant and clueless; it pissed me off in 2008 and I have the same reaction now.
The way Hillary has let this play out, with her waiting to announce until it’s almost too late for anyone else to get in the game – I think that is very bad for the democratic party and I think she puts her own self-interest above that of the democratic party and the country.
Corner Stone
@VidaLoca:
You mean you plan to lie about the rest of them, too?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodinger’s cat: what about sun glasses?
Mandalay
@VidaLoca:
Here’s the relevant chunk from her book “Hard Choices”.
It’s an acknowledgement that she made a mistake rather than an apology, but short of some career-terminating misbehavior that is about the best you can hope for from most politicians.
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl:
This is fucking ridiculous. She is dictating other candidates’ actions? If they don’t have it in them to run against HRC then why the fuck would anyone want to support their candidacy in the general?
Bullshit.
The Dangerman
@Corner Stone:
I don’t mind ambition.
I do mind craven. Romney and Hillary both qualify, Republican or Democrat.
MattF
@schrodinger’s cat: Ah, Hillary-tilt and Hillary-ellipticity. I should have thought of that.
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl:
Of course they are, askew. That’s what happens in every.single.fucking.campaign.
David Koch
What I really like about Hillary is she’s not afraid to say her favorite book is the Bible.
It takes a lot of courage to say that in today’s environment where Christians are persecuted for their beliefs.
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman: Craven? WTF are you talking about? Romney put himself forward two cycles.
That takes balls, no matter what the fuck you seem to think.
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Light can be polarized since it is a transverse wave.
Corner Stone
@David Koch: Just like President Obama.
raven
Oh boy, wait till the wingers get ahold to this!
gene108
@VidaLoca:
Though this gets overlooked because she voted for the AUMF in 2002 and that killed her with most Democratic voters in 2008, she was to the left of Obama on gay rights and gun control, off the top of my head.
I wouldn’t be surprised she was to the left of him on other issues as well.
I think being a two issue voter has its limits.
I scrolled through the below link a bit. I do not see anything that is out of whack, with regard to Hillary and mainstream Democratic positions.
http://www.ontheissues.org/hillary_clinton.htm
germy shoemangler
Did you hear the latest from Wayne LaPierre?
Eight years of one “demographically symbolic president” is enough. Translation: “we had a black president, we don’t want a lady president.”
I’d vote for Hillary just to hear his head explode.
Mandalay
@Corner Stone: When it comes to stinking out a thread you are peerless. Are you even capable of not being nasty?
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Light can be polarized since it is a transverse wave. Polarized sunglasses act like polarizing filters for sunlight.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: Wasn’t that Bush? OK now I remember, Bush said that Jesus was his favorite philosopher.
Cervantes
@VidaLoca:
Take a look at Hard Choices, pp. 134-137 or thereabouts.
Or if you have looked at that section already, then in what way do you find it lacking?
The Dangerman
@Corner Stone:
Hey, I work remotely, too, and if I conducted my work business the way she apparently did, I get fired. Quickly and well deserved.
Why did she do it? No answer she has provided so far explains it to me beyond craven.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gene108: you’re the second person to say HRC was to Obama’s left on gay marriage, that’s not how I remember it. You link suggests she thought it should be left to states, while Obama wanted to stop at civil unions? That’s pretty thin. What I remember is she had two stump speeches, one that mentioned gay rights and one that didn’t, depending on who she was talking to, and Obama had it in every speech. Also, the arch lift to her voice and eyebrows when she helpfully noted, in case anyone missed it, when Obama made his “clinging to guns and religion” comment, he was talking in San FranCISco.
gian
@Corner Stone:
The Iraq vote was an albatross for Kerry in the 2004 general election
Pogonip
@Steeplejack (tablet): I was at the front of the stampede. I had worried about Lovey all day! Ridiculous, isn’t it?
different-church-lady
@gian:
And yet not for Bush. Funny that.
dogwood
@WaterGirl:
“The whole inevitably thing is arrogant and clueless.. . ”
Let me get this straight. The press and political pundits calling her “inevitable” makes Hillary Clinton “arrogant and clueless”?
schrodinger's cat
@gian: Was that the whole, he was for it before he was against it stuff?
Corner Stone
@Mandalay: Are you disputing something here, or just being your ridiculous glibertarian self as usual?
David Koch
What a difference. Obama attacks fundamentalist Christians like Hillary when he disclosed his favorite book was by an openly gay author.
Corner Stone
@gian:
For which constituency?
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman: I have completely lost whatever point you think you were making here.
Keith G
Speechless.
Nineteen more months of this.
I may be back in rehab before the end.
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat: No, when this first came out and Schlemeziel gave HRC shit for mentioning the Bible in her list I also mentioned that President Obama had the Bible in his top five.
I think you were in those threads as well, so not sure why I have to remind you.
It’s just the kind of shit HRC gets to take about it, and it just does not matter what she says or what she does. It just doesn’t matter.
David Koch
You have to admire how Hillary was able to bounce back after leaving the White House – she was “dead broke”, living paycheck to paycheck with only a government job and a husband’s pension to scrape by and make ends meet.
What spunk. What grit. What determination to pull herself up by such thin bootstraps.
germy shoemangler
@efgoldman: I never understood how a veteran with shrapnel in his leg could be swiftboated and lose to a guy who spent the war damaging his nasal cavity?
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
What I remember is Hillary was O.K. with gay marriage being legal, while Obama thought the law should stop at civil unions and not go all the way to marriage.
Also, there’s something I’ve never understood:
Why doe the Left HATE THE CLINTONS SO DAMN MUCH?
David Koch
Vs
Hmm, why could any find threatening genocide polarizing? Only a sexist would.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone: You have a better memory than I do about Balloon Juice threads! As for Hillary, I am not her biggest fan, nor do I think that she is history’s greatest monster.
different-church-lady
@gene108:
My guess is because he actually dared to win the election.
mdblanche
@Cervantes: I believe the term “nuclear option” also originated in the 1940’s.
@dogwood: 103 years later and the White Star Line still hasn’t lived down the press and maritime pundits describing the Titanic as unsinkable without asking their permission.
J.D. Rhoades
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: While I have never been a rabid Hillary Clinton fan, I find myself being driven into her camp by the infuriating fuckwittedness of her critics.
muddy
@Suzanne: I think they’re lovely! What kind of clay and glaze did you use?
mdblanche
@gene108: She mispronounces “shibboleth.”
VidaLoca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Right, those examples you mentioned — and you could add on more, Supreme Court for example, all fall under the “better than any Republican” category. And as I said, I get that.
There are other, more speculative, things I’m less clear about. For example I think it’s reasonable to say that the causes of the economic crash of 2007-2008 were not fixed in any real way in the aftermath, only papered over. We’re living in a “recovery” today under some definitions of that word, for some people, with no confidence that another crash will not present itself in the Clinton administration after Jan. 2017. Can you make a persuasive case that she’ll take the lead in fixing the problem in a fundamental way, making sure while she does so that the appropriate people face real and serious punishment so they won’t do the same thing again a few years down the road? Because I can’t; I have a fairly good idea how things will go down if it comes to that point.
In a very small sense it doesn’t matter; I’m personally not interested in any high moral ground here. In fact, I’m not interested at all — I’m going to vote in Nov. 2016 so I might as well vote for Clinton if she’s the candidate; I really don’t give a rat’s ass.
Here’s the problem I’m wrestling with. I spend a lot of time on GOTV and canvassing for candidates. In the neighborhoods I go into, nobody votes Republican; if they vote they vote Democratic. But if Clinton is going to carry Wisconsin she has to carry Milwaukee in a big way, and that means she has to generate some kind of affirmative passion for her positions among people who are having a really hard time making ends meet. That was not hard to do with Obama. But I know I’ll run into people who will say in so many words, “I keep voting and I keep on being poor — how’s Clinton going to help me fix that?” Of course I can say, “well the Republican will make you poorer”. If the Republican is Scott Walker I for sure will say that because in his case it will be effective. I don’t see anybody connecting with Clinton around the economic issues in their lives though, and “Republicans are worse”, while true, won’t turn out votes in the quantity we need.
Cervantes
@schrodinger’s cat:
I can’t imagine being literate and not understanding that words acquire meanings in a variety of ways.
germy shoemangler
I remember a vile wingnut co-worker in 1993 (who kept a Rush Limbaugh book on his desk) joking about her “fat ankles”.
Corner Stone
@David Koch: Ha. What a chump you are. How about actually including the real text from the article you quote, instead of cutting and pasting to help your pathetic cause?
WaterGirl
@Corner Stone: She should have gotten the word out – either publicly or in quiet rooms – and said that she hadn’t made a decision yet about running yet but that even if she does run she would hope for a vigorous primary, which is good for everyone.
Instead, from what i have read, she has been quietly tying up all the big donors and other candidates are holding back because they do not want to get on the Clinton bad side. We can read the same things and reach different conclusions. You seem to want Hillary as president; I do not. Surely that plays a part in how we take in the information we read.
WaterGirl
@Corner Stone: You and I are saying the same thing there, with the exception of your rude crack where you call me askew.
You and I both believe the poll numbers start out artificially high and we both believe they will drop as soon as things get real.
I’m just saying that no one should take those artificially high poll numbers seriously and conclude from them that Hillary is immensely popular and will wipe the floor with all her opponents.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: I like them, they seem silky smooth. What’s the design element behind the stretch and/or elongation of the necks?
gene108
@David Koch:
Where the Wild Things Are has been a beloved children’s book for what? 45 years now?
It’s not like he took a huge political risk in saying he still likes some picture books he read as a kid, especially one of the most popular in the last 50 years.
This is the hysterical anti-Hillary crap I do not understand.
You praise Obama for saying he like’s a super-duper popular book. A picture book so damn popular Hollywood made it into a feature length movie a few years ago (I’m personally waiting for the full feature length version of The Hungry Caterpillar, but Hollywood only seems to want to put insects into movies as creepy super-charged genetically altered irradiated monsters leveling towns, or as swarms that kill innocent people…the bias against insects is chilling…)
Anyway, saying you like a book damn near everyone else, who has read it also likes is not a huge statement about anything.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@VidaLoca: You have a “fairly good idea of how things will go down” in a hypothetical crash? What’s going to cause this crash? Who is going to need to be “punished”?
Your other points are valid: People vote their pocketbooks (absent things like 9/11 or the collection of clusterfucks it took to make 2006 happen) and it will be Hillary’s job to connect her platform to their pocketbooks. Let’s wait and see what that platform is before we declare her a failure.
as to hating the Clintons @gene108: — as I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t hate her, and I don’t think I’d even say I hate Bill, though he needs to go on a serious diet of get-the-fuck-over-yourself. I just don’t like to see her history re-written.
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl:
Let’s get real. A candidate for Leader of the Free World should have told other people to run against her. And she should be happy that competition will cause her to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the primary that she won’t have for the general.
You are out of your cotton picking mind. The nonsensical shit you say…fuck me.
WaterGirl
@dogwood: I said: The whole inevitably thing is arrogant and clueless.. . ”
You said:
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. It’s not the press and the political pundits calling her inevitable that was arrogant and clueless. It was Hillary Clinton and her team believing that she was inevitable that came off as arrogant and clueless.
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl:
We are not saying the same thing. It’s a lie if you say that again because I am telling you it’s bullshit. I completely fucking disagree with you and think your contentions are garbage bullshit.
Don’t say we are saying the same thing because we are not.
You and askew and Kropadope are all saying the same thing. Deal with that.
gene108
@VidaLoca:
Why do you think they they did not have a hard time connecting with Obama?
Policy wise there was not much difference between Obama and Hillary on the economy.
David Koch
Vs
Clinton “is going with the status quo,” said Sergio Bendixen, a Miami-based pollster who specializes in Hispanic voters. Obama, he said, “is with the position of change.”
On issue after issue she’s sided with reactionaries against progress. In short, she’s a relic of a bygone era, clinging to a long discredit past, and it’s time to turn the page and bury her failed Goldwater point of view.
VidaLoca
@Mandalay:
@Cervantes:
Yep, you’re right. “I got it wrong”. She does say it.
A little more elaboration on how she got it wrong and why she got it wrong would have been helpful but she at least admits she got it wrong.
Suzanne
@muddy: THX! It’s a clay called B-mix, which has a high porcelain content. I did a three-layer glaze technique, trying to get that ombré effect. I’m super-happy with it. Going to try it on a piece I’m doing to perhaps enter into a show.
different-church-lady
@David Koch: Well that does it: I’m voting for Obama in the primary.
Corner Stone
@VidaLoca:
Holy fuck. Fucking fuckballs.
You mean take the lead like HAMP, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and et al? Appropriate people face real and serious punishment so they won’t do the same thing again? HAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Are you for fucking real?
Peale
@Corner Stone: stop. You’re killing me.
Corner Stone
@David Koch: Wow, a Time piece from 2007. How could we possibly recover?
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: The design element is holy-shit-narrow-necked-tulip-shapes are hard to throw. These were practice pieces for a set I am making. I was testing the glaze. I want to emphasize the skinniness of the necks with the color.
WaterGirl
@Corner Stone: You need to improve your reading comprehension if you actually believe what you just wrote:
For starters, Kropadope appears to be saying she/he will not vote of vote for the democratic nominee. I have said the exact opposite of that.
Corner Stone
@Peale: Ben Bernanke’s on line 1 to see if you’re interested in collaborating on a book about the courage to give rich people more money for free.
Interested in contributing a blurb?
David Koch
@gene108: that’s not true. Hillary voted for the evil Bankruptcy bill, Obama voted against it.
Hillary supported overturning Glass-Steagall and deregulating commodities and derivatives. Obama opposed it.
Obama overturned Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. Hillary sent her campaign manager out to say Obama’s position was “divisive” .
It was none other than Elizabeth Warren who said this week on CBS that we still don’t know where Hillary stands on any economic issue.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I do not think her history is being rewritten, but that’s just me…
I personally think Hillary will be a continuation of the Obama Administration, much more so than Bush, Sr. was capable of being a continuation of the Reagan Administration. Bush, Sr. really did not buy into Reagan-nomics.
I do not see much of anything Obama has done that Hillary would have an issue with trying to defend and/or expand.
@David Koch:
In Hillary’s defense, she did spend four years smoothing over the disastrous Bush & Co. foreign policy regime.
She’s also come out in support of the current deal with Iran.
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl: Try again. I am saying a drop within the margin of error as the candidacy becomes reality isn’t statistically significant. You are saying initial numbers don’t mean she’s unbeatable. A position I have never argued either way.
muddy
@Suzanne: I was using a cone 6 porcelain for a while but it was like throwing cream cheese. I love the shape. And you are right that it’s hard to throw!
VidaLoca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Fair point. Implicitly I’m expecting some kind of collapse of an economic bubble driven by the banking industry because those were the culprits last time. Nobody got punished in the last instance (fines levied against corporations are just the cost of doing business, I’m talking about personal liability here) so no disincentive to do it again.
True ‘dat. Huge problem if she doesn’t.
Corner Stone
@David Koch:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
THat wasn’t necessarily directed at you, though I do think saying that Hillary was to Obama’s left is a stretch. What I was mostly thinking of is (specfic to this blog) the occasional bleat that “Hillary wouldn’t have spent six years trying to negotiate with Republicans”, and in ’08 “I’m a fighter who’s been fighting for thirty-five years”, there’s spin and puffery, and then there’s insulting the intelligence of the audience. Of course, she managed to convince quite a few people at the time, so…. WTF
@Corner Stone: If you’re gonna play boogey-man bingo, you might not last too long as a Clinton supporter.
Cervantes
@VidaLoca:
Did you read the four pages?
Suzanne
@muddy: That is B-mix, fired to come 10. Give it a try. I usually use a stoneware like Soldate 60, which can stand up to the more acrobatic forms I like to make, but I wanted a smoother finish, so I tried the B-mix. I’ve been happy so far. Not quite as strong as the Soldate, but much stronger than porcelain, and almost as smooth.
gene108
@David Koch:
Hmmm…
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00044
Anyway, what does it say about President Obama that he TAPPED THE BILL’S BIGGEST SUPPORTER TO BE HIS V.P.?
EDIT: The same man voted for the AUMF in 2002 and presided over the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas fiasco, in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yet everybody loves “Crazy Uncle” Joe Biden.
Hillary was not in office, in 1999 and 2000.
If you want to damn her for that, will you give her credit for expanding health care coverage in America by advocating for the State Children’s Healthcare Insurance Program (sCHIP)? How many millions of kids grew up with health care coverage because of her?
Keith G
@WaterGirl:
I am not sure of the time frame you are referencing here. I am racking my noggin (addled as it is) to remember any assertion by Hils that she is inevitable. And I do mean other than the boiler plate that all serious candidate must project lest they be pegged as insecure. That is rather stand MO.
But I guess I need some help in remembering what HRC said in the last year that communicated what your are asserting.
VidaLoca
@gene108:
So to compare Obama vs. Hillary we’d be talking about the primary election in the spring of 2008 and I’d have to say there that Obama had the better campaign organization. Pride and excitement about an African-American candidate with a solid chance of success didn’t hurt either.
WaterGirl
@Corner Stone: Try again in this conversation with you? Nah.
If I wanted to spend the day trying to communicate with someone who doesn’t respect me or try to have a real conversation with someone who just wants to play “gotcha”, I’d be in a bad marriage.
WaterGirl, over and out.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think on a couple of issues – gay marriage and gun control – she was more openly liberal than Obama.
I believe Ploufe stated, in his recent book, Obama down played his actual view on gay marriage because he felt it could be a political liability, in 2008.
Otherwise I do not think there’s much difference between the two politically.
David Koch
@gene108: That’s a real profile in courage ducking the Bankruptcy vote.
But in 2001, she didn’t miss the vote. That time she voted for it.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00236
VidaLoca
@Cervantes: I did read the four pages and I thought most of it was critique of other players not self-analysis. The self-analysis is pretty limited. I will agree that it meets the standard for admission of error though.
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl: Your responses are nonsensical and inaccurate. If you can’t accurately represent my comments then I’m not sure why I should let your posts pass without calling them out.
I could also make a crack about marriage but I have a beautiful and amazing child from mine so I’m good.
muddy
@Suzanne: From Laguna? I don’t do white clay anymore, I use a light brown one, I developed an iron red glaze for cone 6 oxidation that I use with it. I use a computerized kiln controller because I need to hold the temp at different places to form the crystals properly. If you just run it straight through it’s just a khaki colored glaze that breaks red a little.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Hey, that nonsense was just too easy.
Who in their right mind complains about a future crackup, and their worry that HRC won’t hold people to serious penalty when we have a real-deal financial crackup where no one was held to account?
That’s not so much bingo as just reality.
gene108
@David Koch:
Considering, as a Senator (and any Senator from NY for that matter) she represents thousands of people employed in the financial sector, she (and any Senator from NY) has an obligation to stick up for those jobs and the businesses that employ so many people in her state.
I absolutely get and do not hold it against Sen. Warren, that she wants to kill the Medical Device Tax that helps fund Obamacare, because medical device manufacturers are a big industry in the state she represents.
I mean that’s the point about having representation for every state. Each state has interests that are not always in accord with other states and therefore each state gets their representation in D.C. to push for their interests.
Big Finance will always have a hold on any Senator from NY. It’s a huge industry in the state. There’s nothing inherently wrong about that.
David Koch
Perhaps the worst part of Hillary is her Goldwater-like hate of puppies and kittens.
Obama on the other hand loves dogs.
VidaLoca
@Corner Stone:
I’ll assume this is said somewhat tongue-in-cheek but yeah, I’m for real. Somebody above asked me about HRC connecting with people’s pocketbook issues and this to me is one minimum standard for believing that she has a sense of how the economy affects average people.
In other words: “which side are you on?”
Keith G
@VidaLoca:
The second sentence gives the major contribution to Baraks Obama’s win. The campaign strategy cinched the deal. And just to note, I am glad that this is how it played out.
beth
Ugh. NBC News just showed a snippet of Chuck Todd’s interview with Rand Paul. Paul says that the problem with the Clintons is that they think they’re above the law. Of course Chuck immediately asked Rand what laws Hilary had broken – no, just kidding. Far as I can see good old Chuck just nodded in agreement. It’s going to be a long campaign.
David Koch
@gene108: you’re a sexist. The only reason you’re opposing a True Progressive like Senator Sanders is because he’s not a woman.
I am sick and tired of the knee-jerk sexism.
askew
Hillary is polarizing because her favorables are underwater and the majority of the country finds untrustworthy. Her numbers have fallen with Dems and Independents and her numbers with Republicans have always been horrible. Every time she starts campaigning her numbers tank.
Yet, we are told over and over again that she is unique in that she’ll get votes from Republicans simply for being a woman. Even though polls say that isn’t true.
I wish Hillary supporters could talk about her without resorting to excuse making, accusing detractors of sexism or twisting facts to make her negatives seem like they are no big deal.
VidaLoca
@Keith G: Me too; just to be clear I was saying that comparison of Obama vs. Clinton on a policy basis didn’t have much to do with the election.
Corner Stone
@VidaLoca:
This is a real problem for me. President Obama believed in belt tightening and austerity and a Grand Bargain for a huge chunk of his first term.
How did that connect to people’s pocketbook issues? When he said that the government didn’t create jobs, and people’s kitchen table budgeting should be what the govt does and C-CPI was on the table. How did that connect?
Because I am seriously asking how you can say with a straight face that how average economics is a core issue for you and not btw even mention anything in the first term of President Obama?
Patrick
It’s the same garbage as they always refuse to ask Donald Trump the obvious follow-up question; where is the evidence that your private investigators dug up on Obama’s birth certificate?
How difficult is it to actually be a fricking a journalist for once and ask a real question? Instead Todd and his counterparts have chosen to be stenographers.
Brachiator
Hillary is polarizing in part because she and Bill engendered the hatred of conservatives for all kinds of reasons, most of them unfair. I think she can blow most of that crap off.
But she may be her own worst enemy if she has not developed better political instincts. For example, if she leaves it up to Bill to wrangle blacks and Latinos while she tries to convince white voters that she is A-OK, she might see her candidacy sink like a stone as Democrats scramble to find someone else, anyone else.
Hillary might even find that a younger generation of women voters don’t look upon her as their avatar, the way that women of a certain age might.
Hillary is, ironically enough, immune to most GOP hatred. They have thrown it all at her before. They can only retread tired nonsense.
And she and Bill have given off whiffs of arrogance in the past directed at other Democrats. This is more the problem, more than anything the GOP might have.
David Koch
Chuck Todd stands with Rand (literally)
askew
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Jesus, no one would say that she speaks deliberately. She’s the lunatic who lied about dodging sniper fire, who lost her damn mind screaming that Obama needed to meet her in Texas, gave her unhinged bunker speech. She insulted large swaths of the country between saying caucuses don’t count, Iowans cheated in their caucus, only the real Virginia counts. Her campaign race-baited so badly that Kennedy and Clyburn had to intervene publicly to tell her to cool it. She slimed Obama over and over again yet we didn’t vote for her because she was deliberate. Bullshit.
We didn’t vote for her because she voted for the Iraq War and then lied about her vote. We didn’t vote for her because she is a hawk and because she is about as inspiring as a wet dishrag.
The revisionist history about how much Hillary stunk up the joint in 2008 is baffling. It wasn’t that long ago. We all remember how bad she was on the campaign trail.
Patrick
I am not a Hillary supporter and I don’t whether I’ll vote for her in 2016 or just stay home. But I will say this. She is no more polarizing than Rand Paul, Jeb Bush (Terry Schiavo anyone!) or Scott Walker. Heck, will there ever be a more polarizing President than Bush/Cheney? How was it even possible to squander a united country after 9/11 with their absolutely idiotic attack on Iraq?
Brachiator
@askew:
This stuff about numbers is weak nonsense.
Just not meaningful, even if you hate Hillary.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
Yes, after passing an 800 billion dollar stimulus package, a health care plan that increased taxes on the rich to subsidize health insurance for the middle and lower middle class and expanded Medicare, and single handedly bailing out the auto industry with a quarter of a trillion dollars, Obama did make one remark about “belt tightening”. A “huge chunk of his first term” was devoted to austerity.
Jesus fucking christ.
Patrick
@David Koch:
And Chuck Todd calls himself a journalist…
VidaLoca
@Corner Stone:
Because Obama’s not running in 2016 — it doesn’t seem like a critique of Obama is pertinent to the conversation.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: You are out of your mind if you can’t recognize that we heard the rhetoric of austerity and belt-tightening for over two years.
That is indisputable.
Patrick
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist:
Plus 1. It’s like they totally forgot that Obama had to work with a mostly Republican congress during his six years in office. So are these same folks that are accusing Obama of belt tightening, austerity etc, going to accuse Clinton of the same things when she has to negotiate with a Republican Congress?
Corner Stone
@VidaLoca: No, that’s fine. He is not.
But how do you run a game where a future crash is going to happen and you’re worried about how someone may handle it when we see an actual crash and we know how it was handled?
eemom
Just kill me, is how I see it. These next 18 months are soooo gonna suck.
Ksmiami
@Corner Stone: to which I reply mrs gwb who?
I love Obama more than Hillary sure but any Democrat esp a well funded one will be light years beyond any republican period. At this point the GOP scares the ;)(; out of me.
dogwood
@VidaLoca:
The idea that Hillary Clinton can’t connect on “pocketbook” issues seems to be a complete rewriting of the history of the 2008 primary. Outside of the solid support Obama received from all economic groups in the African American community, the rest of his support came from the more affluent, well-educated voters in the Democratic Party.
different-church-lady
Can you folks slow down a bit? I gotta microwave another bag of popcorn…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
And, lest we forget, not a few Democrats. My biggest reservations about HRC are foreign policy, and some of her people have been assholes in the last few months (Panetta, I’m looking at you), but she’s been mostly supportive of the Iran deal.
cokane
Leibovich is basically the same purveyor of worthless political coverage that he postures against. I got nothing out of that column, and his analysis at the end about Romney’s 47 percent comment was so far off the mark it was absurd.
ETA: That column reads like a damn Dylan Byers piece, seriously it’s that bad.
VidaLoca
@efgoldman: Right, I’m on board with the “way preferable to any Republican” argument and like I said, I don’t give a rat’s ass: I’ll vote for her. Pure expediency. No high moral argument to be made. It matters not at all to me.
I have to go out and knock on the doors of people who really don’t have two nickels to rub together, though, and convince them that they should vote at all and that they should vote for Clinton. With them, “way preferable to any Republican” will get me part of the way there, especially if that Republican is named Scott Walker, because he’s hated with the heat of a thousand suns where I go. But in Wisconsin, for Democratic candidates, turnout in Milwaukee County is everything; we really need to rack up big numbers here and people need something positive and believable to connect to.
This is a massive sales job on behalf of something that even you concede — “I’m not crazy about Clinton” — is not a superior product.
VidaLoca
@Corner Stone:
Not exactly sure what you’re asking here — you seem to be agreeing that the standard set by Obama was not the greatest. I’d like to be able to make the claim, with a straight face, that Clinton would do better.
Mnemosyne
@VidaLoca:
As others have said, though, we got more than a little spoiled by having Obama as our candidate in 2008, who actually was a pretty easy sell if you could get people past their immediate But he’s blackity-black! reaction. Obama was the whole package — a great campaigner and a policy wonk. Clinton is mostly policy wonk, like most Democratic candidates, so she would be a harder sell no matter what (see also John Kerry and Al Gore).
askew
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’d say Hillary is preferable to Chuck Schumer and Cuomo. Luckily, neither or running for president. I’d still say Warren, O’Malley and Patrick are all preferrable to Hillary on domestic policy and would be a break from the disastorous Clinton policies and triangulation. Unfortunately, only one of them is running for president, O’Malley.
askew
@Mnemosyne:
Hillary is a policy wonk like Kerry and Gore with almost no accomplishments to talk up. Both Kerry and Gore had policy issues they led on that made it easy to do GOTV for them. I can’t think of how to talk up Hillary during GOTV without just resorting to she doesn’t suck as much as the GOP candidate. That isn’t going to turn our occasional voters. GOP voters when they are scared. Dem voters turn out when they have hope and are inspired. Hillary can’t deliver on that.
VidaLoca
@Mnemosyne:
You’re right.
Remember the graphic that John put up about a quarter of a million times during the 2012 election — Obama looking pissed: “Chill the fuck out — I got this?”.
Yeah, I do too.
Remember 2-3 weeks ago when the State Dept. email scandal broke? There were a couple of threads here at Balloon-Juice about that one. It was like a cheetah popped up in a herd of grazing gazelles. Mass panic. I don’t mean to cast aspersions on anyone here tonight who was in that, that’s not my point. My point is, we know. We fucking know because we’ve seen it all before.
Mnemosyne
@askew:
As I said in the thread below, if you’re completely comfortable having a 7-2 conservative Supreme Court filled with Scalia clones to fulfill the Koch brothers’ wildest dreams just so you can say, “At least it wasn’t Hillary,” have at it. I am perfectly happy to vote for the lesser of the two evils, because the greater evil is so much greater.
askew
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve said I’d vote for whoever the Dem nominee is countless times even if it is the completely uninspiring mediocre Hillary. I just don’t see her getting our sporadic voters out to the polls especially after the Bloomberg poll showed how little voters cared about her gender. She isn’t going to get crossover votes from GOP because she is loathed by Republicans.
As for the Supreme Court, any Dem will appoint good justices. This isn’t unique to Hillary and the Supreme Court isn’t going to turn out our sporadic voters. We tried all that with Gore and Kerry and it didn’t work. We need an inspirational candidate or the Dems will lose IMO. I don’t think Hillary has the political skill to inspire anyone outside of the same diehard supporters she had last time. That won’t be enough to win the general election.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@askew: I’m starting to think you prefer O’Mally to Clinton. Good luck to you and to him. Does the fact that he can’t even seem to build a following in a left-blogosphere that is decidedly ambivalent about Clinton give you any pause at all? Also, too: You do know the Balloon Juice primary doesn’t award any delegates?
Mnemosyne
@VidaLoca:
I think the campaign will be a hard slog because the media is slavering to re-fight Whitewater and every other fake scandal of the Clinton years, not necessarily because Hillary Clinton is a terrible candidate in and of herself. That rehashing of old “scandals” is what most people are dreading, which is why you saw the scattering gazelles when yet another fake scandal was published in the New York Times, originators of Whitewater.
But I honestly don’t see the point in declaring who you (not you personally) absolutely will or will not vote for in the general election almost 18 months before the election is even held, much less before the nominee is chosen.
VidaLoca
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think that’s askew’s point though. I was hoping for somebody to come up with a nice robust response to this:
and so far I have not heard one. Everyone gets the lesser-evils argument, I’m not troubled by it at all (askew may be more troubled, s/he can speak to that one). This is more of a strategy question: how do we build a positive case for someone who — for a variety of reasons — we don’t have that much confidence in ourselves?
Mnemosyne
@askew:
Her diehard supporters came very close to winning the nomination for her last time based on sheer numbers — Obama absolutely did not win it in a walk. They were neck-and-neck until the very last minute. Since I can’t vote for Obama a third time in 2016, I’ll vote for my second choice, Hillary Clinton.
I also think a pretty fair number of Baby Boomer Republican women will vote for her. Not the Sarah Palins, but the women in their 60s and older, who not coincidentally are more reliable voters than younger ones.
But since no one — not even Hillary Clinton — has announced that they are going to run as the Democratic candidate for president, it seems a little premature to decide there’s no possible way she could win the general election almost 18 months from now, don’t you think? I know you think she’s a shoo-in to win the nomination, but I’d rather wait and see who else throws their hat into the ring before I make up my mind.
Fair Economist
Within the Democratic party, Hillary is very un-polarizing. All ideological groups poll over 60% for her.
The polls do indeed suggest she’ll steamroller any opposition. The closest non-incumbent in polling was Gore, 2000, and he won every single primary and caucus. And even he was about 10 points behind where she is, which is a pretty big difference.
Mnemosyne
@VidaLoca:
I would kind of like to wait and see how the nomination race goes before I decide how we should sell Hillary to general election voters a year from now. She may shoot herself in the foot again during the primaries. She may surprise us all and run a great, disciplined campaign that answers all of those questions. But we don’t know because the primary hasn’t actually started yet. Maybe we can at least wait for Iowa and New Hampshire to run their course before we decide on how to run the general election campaign?
Fair Economist
@VidaLoca:
What, you can’t get behind gender equality, expanded parental leave, expanded sick leave, a higher minimum wage, more negotiating rights for workers, and peace with Iran?
VidaLoca
@VidaLoca:
That’s a valid point — but if Hillary is going to declare her candidacy this weekend it means that some time soon (certainly before fall, say 4 months) my Democratic friends are going to start to grind the Hillary version of OFA into motion. One of the values that Balloon Juice brings is, it’s a group of fairly savvy people of generally liberal persuasion — you all think a lot like my friends to so arguing/debating with you is a useful way to spend some time. It does help me think this stuff through.
gene108
@VidaLoca:
There’s not damn much bit of difference between Barack and Hillary, with regards to actual policy.
http://www.ontheissues.org/hillary_clinton.htm
The list goes on.
If you can’t find a reason to be excited about Hillary, you will not find a reason to be excited about any Democratic candidate. Period.
There’s not much difference between Hillary Clinton’s views and where the rest of the Democratic Party is, including President Obama’s views on issues.
Omnes Omnibus
For those complaining that HRC had no accomplishments as SoS, I ask this: Isn’t getting rid of the Bush/Cheney unilateralist stink by traveling, talking, bridge-building, and fence-repairing an accomplishment? The accomplishments of the Kerry State Dep’t are built, IMO, on that groundwork.
ETA: She never was, and and never can be, Obama, but then no one else can either. Some people are sui generis.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: I’m enjoying that aesthetic. Are you commissioning pieces in the future?
VidaLoca
@Fair Economist:
Sure I can and I can promise you that we can sell all of this stuff like hotcakes in the liberal suburbs on the north side of the city, west side of the city, west side and parts of the east side of Madison. South side of Milwaukee and southern suburbs will split 50-50, maybe 60-40 Democratic. Waukesha/Washington/Ozaukee counties will be about 70% Republican. Population centers in the Fox R. Valley go Republican but not by as much. Democrats get counties in northwest along Minnesota border but population is thin there, they don’t count for as much.
The net: turnout in Waukesha/Washington/Ozaukee counties drowns out everything else and Republicans take the state say, 55/45, 52/47. That’s the way it’s gone in the last three elections in the state, and the reasons that’s all relevant is the candidates were all (especially in 2014) a lot like Hillary in their positions including the ones you listed. We have to get a HUGE turnout among people in Milwaukee County who will be less excited about gender equality, skeptical but probably willing to listen re expanded parental leave, expanded sick leave. And if you believe that ANY Democrat is willing to pay anything more than lipservice to a higher minimum wage or more negotiating rights for workers, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
Unmotivated voters here need to be really motivated by her or she won’t carry Wisconsin.
different-church-lady
@gene108:
Ooooh, you went there…
Omnes Omnibus
@VidaLoca: Madison will vote 70-75% D and Milwaukee will be, what, 80-85% D. The question, as you note, will be turnout. I think HRC would be a good candidate to push the idea of economic security that Kay had been pushing. But, in any case, the candidate who best pushes that idea is probably going to get my vote in the primary. For the parts of Milwaukee that I don’t see that often (the parts that aren’t the Third and Fitfh Wards and the rest of the East side south of the water tower), wouldn’t voting rights be a galvanizing force if someone pushes it?
Fair Economist
@VidaLoca:
I live in California, and the Democrats here have done both. Hillary is certainly enough of a loyal Democrat to do it. Given that Hillary’s husband raised the minimum wage, I think she’ll have a lot of credibility with the public on this too.
The Republicans have been winning Wisconsin in off-year elections but they continue to lose in Presidential years. We got Tammy Baldwin as Senator in 2012.
Don’t forget – while there’s a widespread belief that politicians don’t keep their promises, all the Presidents back to at least Clinton have had a good record on keeping promises.
Mnemosyne
@VidaLoca:
Okay, fair enough. I do think that most of the reservations online people have about her are based more on her 2008 campaign and the various screw-ups therein than about her positions as a candidate. I do think that she and Obama agree on far more things than they disagree, and that Hillary’s smartest move would be to position herself as extending and expanding on Obama’s accomplishments rather than running against him, which won’t automatically win over white voters but will automatically alienate minority voters. Since higher minimum wage propositions have won on a couple of state ballots, including at least one red state, I think she’d be smart to run to get to the head of that parade.
The thing people are most worried about and hold against her most from 2008 is her racial dog-whistling. Yeah, I went there. I think people are very worried that she will pursue “Reagan Democrats” (aka white voters) and ignore minority voters. If she does, she will deserve to lose, but the rest of us won’t deserve the results of a third Bush presidency.
Again, it will be a lot easier to formulate arguments in her favor once we see tomorrow what arguments she makes in her own favor. I’m sure there will be several very long comment sections discussing it tomorrow.
ETA: That’s the other part of what’s making me bonkers about this round-and-round we’re all doing — everyone is assuming that a 2016 campaign will be exactly like her 2008 campaign, so they’re pre-criticizing 2016 based on what she did in 2008.
bk
@Mnemosyne: Exactly. I was about to say this. FFS, people.
VidaLoca
@gene108: Just to be clear let me say again: my personal level of excitement about Hillary matters not. I’ll vote for her. Pure expediency. No moral high ground. End of discussion.
I have to get other people, other unmotivated voters excited about voting for Hillary and that’s where it gets complicated. Milwaukee County has been a Democratic plantation since the end of WWII and frankly, the recent period since de-industrialization hit here in the early 1980’s has not been pretty. The Democrats have not done a good job at all in addressing the consequences of the economic and social changes that have come in its wake. Those changes have impacted people profoundly and frankly, while it’s broadly recognized that Republicans are worse by any metric you can name, people are pretty burned out by Democrats too. They’ve seen it all before.
As I noted in a response above to Fair Economist, the list of issues that you gave will move some votes in liberal enclaves in some parts of the state. As I also noted, recent experience suggests that it won’t be enough to matter.
Here’s what might matter. Short list, 1 item:
To the question, “which side are you on?” Hillary has to have a convincing answer — policy and how to implement it. Class politics, though how she pulls that off given her background I don’t know. If she can convince people that she can create conditions under which they will be better off in 4 years than they are now, that would be a good thing.
Cervantes
@VidaLoca:
There could have been more self-analysis, I agree.
dogwood
@askew:
The idea that Hillary Clinton has no political skills and is a horrible campaigner is absurd. She’s a good as anyone else who has or will put their hat in the ring on either side. And I don’t buy that you can’t knock on doors for her because you can’t come up with anything she’s ever accomplished. I’ve knocked on doors and voters who are willing to sincerely engage want to know what the candidate is going to do. Past accomplishments are relevant in selling a candidate who is relatively unknown. I don’t think that will be an issue with Secretary Clinton.
Chris
@J.D. Rhoades:
It’s become a meaningless term, but not for that reason. It’s simply that in a society as polarized as ours, any politician who has the support of either party is going to be “polarizing” by definition.
VidaLoca
@Omnes Omnibus:
Right, because it’s not percentages it’s numbers. If the Hillary campaign is the same kind of a clusterfuck that the Burke campaign was, well, it won’t be pretty. Hope to god that Hillary does not let the Wis. Democratic Party people play much of a controlling role in this because they are just not ready for prime time.
If she were indeed such a candidate it would be a good thing. but as other people have (validly) pointed out above, it’s too early to tell. If she does not, it will be a bad thing in terms of turnout.
Hard to say conclusively since no candidate has really tried. Based on my own limited experience, I’d say with older voters it does matter: they get pissed about what they rightly see as disenfranchisement. But keep in mind that a person born in 1980 — Reagan’s first term — is now 35 years old. What has voting ever gotten them? If they weren’t planning on voting anyhow there’s nothing of importance to them being taken away.
gwangung
@dogwood:
This is a low bar to clear. But it’s absolutely true.She’ll beat the crap out of the dwarves in the Republican race (Rand, Santorum, etc.) because they’re even worse than she is.
Out of that bunch, only Bush is halfway competent….and I’m not sure he can be as good as she is.
Yeah, she stumbled against Obama…but people keep forgetting he was a SUPERB candidate. Nobody even close to that on the Republican side.
Howard and Nester
Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party is fucked in 2018 unless she makes some major changes to the platform and soon.
Because of her heavy ties to finance and Wall Street Hillary Clinton has to run the Obama playbook. That is, a coalition of urbanites, college professionals, LGBTers, atheists, Millenials, and racial minority kept together mostly by social issues and identity politics while being mostly neoliberal on economic issues and doing their best to keep mum about foreign policy. This can allow her to win the 2016 and perhaps the 2020 election, but she’ll lose the House and Senate in 2018 and 2022.
If the Democratic Party wants to have any victory that’s not Pyrrhic, we have to make a serious play for the white working class. Unfortunately, with the composition of our base the only real way to do this is with economic leftism.
What’s more, economic leftism is not only good politics but it’s also good policy. The United States is headed for an economic crash course of disaster in the 2016-2024 timeframe. All of the indicators are there: the Eurozone is still being fucktarded, Japan and China are about to be hit with massive demographic time bombs, household debt is record high, income inequality is almost record-high, boomers are about to retire in massive numbers and drive down consumer spending, and above all-else leftists are still under the impression that debt and deficit reduction are a good thing and are actually cheering the declining deficit like that’s something that augurs good fortune.
If Clinton sticks to her recipe of warmed-over economic triangulation then worrying about the USSC is going to be a moot point. Because when those justices start retiring a Republican is going to be in the White House with all three houses after the country gives her a massive bitchslap for having the temerity to be presiding over a recession.
VidaLoca
@Fair Economist:
Fair point, I’ll grant that Democrats in CA are different from Democrats in WI.
Tammy Baldwin got elected because we put her squarely on Obama’s coattails and used that to haul her over the finish line. The turnout in Milwaukee was important for Obama but it was critical for Baldwin. Baldwin had a good organization too, and that was because she brought in people from outside the state rather than relying much on the Wisconsin DP. And she had the good fortune to be running against Tommy Thompson who made his career as Governor in the early 1990’s by cutting welfare benefits. But nobody here knew who she was, back then she was just the Representative from Dane County. No name recognition at all. It was hard work, not party identification, that got her that seat.
Point is, there was not magic involved. It was smart campaigning.
What’s your knowledge of Obama’s actual record in terms of following through on the promises he made to the labor movement re greater freedom to organize? I’ll concede that I haven’t followed it closely but as far as I know it’s not good.
dogwood
@Mnemosyne:
You bring up a good point. I don’t think the email stuff or old nineties scandals like Whitewater are going to cause her much political problem. The press will bring them up and republicans will harp on them, but it will be mostly background noise. Where the press is going to try to give her grief will be in their desire to get her to distance herself from Obama and his administration. If she lets the narrative of this election become republicans against Obama and Clinton against Obama she will be in a world of hurt.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
watching Bush choke out his stances on guns at the NRA convention, he looked like his father, stumbling as he tried to remember what he truly and deeply felt at teh moment. Gives me some hope that he’ll prove a big bucket of fail if he shambles past Scott Walker
askew
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I am never going to like Hillary. I think she’s been a mediocre, charisma-free, seat warmer for the past 14 years in public office. She shown no ability to lead anything effectively. Had she not been married to Bill Clinton, she’d have Stabenow’s career at best. She is just completely uninspiring to me.I like O’Malley, Patrick, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, Baldwin, and Warren all more than her.
What I find irritating is that instead of putting together a positive reason to vote for Hillary (she lead on x, she accomplished this while SoS, etc.), all I hear are insults, derision and threats. If people don’t like my candidate of choice, that’s fine. Support Hillary. But, I can GOTV for O’Malley with the following arguments: He has a real record of successful leadership on increasing minimum wage, funding education, signing into law SSM, DREAM Act, repealing death penalty. He can talk about America’s future with progressive language and is someone who is willing to take risks. I am well aware that he has a 1/100th chance of winning the primary. And I’d rather vote with my head and heart than cynically support someone who I think is a do-nothing with ethical issues.
Hillary supporters do start to think long and hard about what they are going to do to sell her the general electorate and her gender isn’t going to do it. The latest poll on this shows that she isn’t going to attract independent or Republican woman based on her gender. You are going to need to talk about something positive that she has done. And being a seat-warmer in the Senate and SoS isn’t good enough. Talking about the Supreme Court nominees and abstract votes in the Senate isn’t going to cut it. Only die-hard partisans care about that shit.
When I supported Obama, I could say he was one of the few politicians smart enough and brave enough to oppose the Iraq War. While he was in the Illinois State House he led legislation on videotaping confessions that gained support of both of ACLU and police. He brought opposing sides together on a compromise that no one thought was possible. While in the Senate for only 3 years, he became one of the most effective freshman Senators in leading on getting nuclear disarmament legislation passed and stronger campaign finance legislation passed.
Why can no Hillary supporter make a positive case for Hillary like that?
Corner Stone
@askew: IOW, “Meow”.
Corner Stone
@askew:
He was in a state house.
Omnes Omnibus
@askew: Are you anti-HRC or pro-O’Malley? Seriously, you still come off as an anti-HRC crank. You seem to spend far more time attacking HRC than you spend advancing your apparent candidate of choice.
dogwood
@gwangung:
I’m always amazed that the most ardent Obama supporters are so invested in perpetuating the idea that she ran a horrible campaign in 08. If that’s the case, are we to then assume, given the outcome, Obama ran a a slightly less incompetent campaign? She ran a pretty good campaign, unfortunately for her, Obama’s was exceptional. She’s a good campaigner, he’s extraordinary. Accept it and move on.
Omnes Omnibus
@dogwood: Yes. That primary was tough. HRC was tough. Obama was Obama. Can anyone point out another Obama? No? Then we deal with real politicians and the real world.
AxelFoley
@dogwood: Because she DID run a horrible campaign in 2008. And those saying, “The race between Hillary and Obama was close”, please. She was mathematically done after the first few primaries. She just didn’t know when to quit. Someone refusing to step aside for the likely nominee doesn’t mean the race was close.
askew
@Omnes Omnibus:
I am both. I post my criticisms of Hillary in AL’s passive aggressive pro-Hillary posts. Are we only supposed to cheerlead for Hillary here? I don’t particularly care if no one shares my opinion of Hillary. Go ahead and pie me if you don’t want to read it. I find my bitching about how much Hillary sucks lowers my stress levels. If I am going to be stuck with incompetent President Hillary in 2017, I am going to bitch about it up until the day she gets inaugurated.
I post pro-O’Malley comments in the open threads but no one really cares which is fine. I am not trying to convert anyone to support O’Malley.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@askew: “threats”? seriously? Look I’m sorry if you feel insulted and derided, but you’re an obsessive fucking crank. This post is a perfect example:
1) do you honestly fucking believe that “the latest poll” means dick all this fucking far out?
2) link to the fucking poll, show these devastating, dispositive numbers that fucking prove that the 2016 general election is over and Hillary lost. You’re worse than the Huffington Post, but at least when they hysterically click-bait minor shifts in polling, they eventually link to the fucking numbers
askew
@AxelFoley:
She was done after she lost 19 straight primary/caucuses in a row. But, she wouldn’t even concede after the primaries were over. Senior Dems had to intervene and finally explain reality to her. Then, she bitched that Obama wouldn’t pay off her insane campaign bills that she racked up after she lost the nomination. She showed herself to be a small, petty woman in that loss.
Omnes Omnibus
@AxelFoley: Step the fuck back. Obama was so ready for the D vs. R campaign because he beat someone as strong as HRC. She, overall, ran a good campaign; she just got beaten by someone who was a once in a lifetime candidate. He isn’t running again; I would vote for him in a heartbeat he could run, but he can’t. Now what? Hate HRC? Put up an alternative.
askew
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s funny because Hillary supporters have been pointing to the polls for months now saying they are all that matter. But, now polls don’t count. We’ve been told that you can’t determine people won’t vote for Hillary based on people you’ve talked to in real life, but we are supposed to believe that GOP women will rush out to vote for Hillary because of people her supporters have talked to in real life.
Like I said, I don’t particularly care if people think I am a crank. Don’t engage me then. I think Corner Stone is a moron, so I don’t engage with him.
Omnes Omnibus
@askew: Links?
Corner Stone
@askew:
Man. Talk about the monster of all non sequiturs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I asked for links. ::crickets::
ETA: I am iffy about HRC due to age and health issues
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re going to be waiting a long ass time before ONT Axel or Crank askew give up anything righteous.
askew
@Omnes Omnibus:
To what? If you are talking about the poll showing about Hillary and gender it’s from the guru of Iowa, Selzer and Co:
Her favorables are also down:
That added to the Quinnipac polls which show her favorables and match-up against GOP falling in CO, VA and IA. Same with PPP’s NC poll. I am less concerned with the match-up #s then I am with the high untrustworthy #s.
Corner Stone
“I’ve long believed wild rice wasn’t actually rice at all. But I don’t engage with Corner Stone either so I guess Uncle Ben’s is good enough.”
– askew
Omnes Omnibus
@askew: Any chance you could speak English? You seem to be digging deep to fight against HRC. I don’t see the same effort at promoting an alt. candidate.
If you want ppl to think you aren’t a crank, promote your guy/gal. It is really quite simple.
askew
@Omnes Omnibus:
Any chance you could stop hurling insults at me? If you want a constructive dialogue, you need to stop the personal attacks. I am speaking English. You asked for links. I provided them. You turned around and insulted me. So, at this point, it is quite clear you just want to attack me.
And it is possible to not support Hillary for president and criticize her for being mediocre while at the same time supporting another candidate. I’ve done both here. You’ve attacked me for doing both. So, at this point you get put in the do not engage category with Corner Stone, as neither of you are interested in a conversation but instead just want to insult me.
dogwood
@askew:
“I am never going to like Hillary.”
You should have stopped right there. The rest is just trying to justify a feeling that really doesn’t require justification. I don’t much like the Clintons. They give me a headache. But I had no trouble voting for Bill twice and won’t have any trouble voting for Hillary. What I’m not going to do is denigrate their accomplishments to rationalize why they “give me a headache”. Personal preferences and feelings about the personalities and personas of public figures really aren’t rational, and I’m fine with that. The majority of Democrats really like the Clintons and I think that’s great.
Corner Stone
@askew: Poor you. It’s amazing how so many people keep seeing you have nothing but a cranky fact-distorted/free monologue to present.
Keep raging against that dying of the light. You and WaterGirl, Kropadope and David Koch.
Sounds like a great candidate for MTV’s The Real World.
askew
@dogwood:
As I’ve said many times, I will vote for Hillary should she win the nomination. Until then, I am going to criticize her for being mediocre. I don’t like either Clinton. I find both to be sleazy, but at least Bill has real accomplishments to his name. Some of them were horrible mistakes, but at least he has real tangible accomplishments. I don’t find Hillary to have those. I don’t consider being a seat-warmer in the Senate and SoS who was sent on a do-nothing feel good tour to be accomplishments.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: I do not take commissions—I just do stuff for free for people I like. You want something?
different-church-lady
@askew: Sooooo…. you’re comparing the accomplishments of someone who has been president to someone who has not? Or are you limiting your list of Bill’s accomplishments to his time as Governor?
askew
@different-church-lady:
If you limit Bill’s accomplishments to his time as Governor, they are still more impressive than Hillary’s entire time in public office. She really didn’t do much of anything in the Senate or State. She just hasn’t successfully led on anything. She’s held office but she didn’t really do anything particularly impressive while there.
I wish she had done something impressive while at State so we’d have something to use to talk to voters about.
different-church-lady
@askew: Care to provide a short list of Bill’s impressive gubernatorial accomplishments so we can do a bit of comparison shopping?
dogwood
@Corner Stone:
“He was in a state house.”
That’s a cheap shot. He was running for the Senate at the time, so it wasn’t without some political risk. I never gave Obama a bunch of credit for opposing a war when he wasn’t in the Senate to take a vote. But what I do give him extra credit for is the absolute accuracy of his predictions about the war’s outcome. Years from now if someone wants a short summary of the Iraq war they can just read that speech. Several Senators opposed the war, but none were as prescient as Obama. Whether he was in the state house , jail house, or out house at the time seems pretty irrelevant.
dogwood
@askew:
Do you really think this Iran deal just began with John Kerry? Hell, the Bush administration was talking to Iran.
Mandalay
@dogwood:
Actually if he was running for Senate at the time it was very relevant – he showed that he had the courage of convictions.
He had another pretty good one on Iraq in 2007 when he was running for president. He sticks the knife in on Hillary Clinton’s claims about justifying her vote …
askew
@different-church-lady:
How about the Hillary supporters pony up the list of Hillary’s actual accomplishments? And no, she doesn’t get credit for anything Kerry finalized in his time at State. He’s the one who brought it over the finish line and all of the behind-the-scenes stories have credited Obama and Kerry with being the major players in all of them. She also doesn’t get credit for anything Bill did in his career. I’ve been asking for this list of accomplishments for ages now and have never gotten it. While in the Senate, she did get a good amendment on increasing the $ for kids who age out of the foster system. I liked what she did there. But, that isn’t a lot to run on for president.
dogwood
@Mandalay:
I said that given his candidacy the speech wasn’t risk free. I was replying to Corner Stone who had implied that since he was a state senator, his opposition wasn’t to be taken seriously.
askew
@dogwood:
But, neither Bush or Hillary got the deal completed. Bringing parties to the table to talk is just the preliminary step. Kerry/Obama is responsible (along with other countries) for getting the deal agreed to. Same with China deal. Same with Cuba. That’s the problem with Hillary. She is a mid-level bureaucrat. She can get the deals started but she doesn’t have the political or leadership skills to get them over the finish line.
dogwood
@askew:
Are you serious? This Iran deal was years in the making. It’s an incredibly complicated process involving multiple countries with varying interests. Do you really think John Kerry just walked into the State Department and made everything happen? The groundwork was laid by people who were there during Clinton’s tenure. Obama became actively involved at the appropriate stage in the process.
dogwood
@askew:
It would have been impossible for Hillary to finish the deal. She wasn’t there long enough. It wasn’t a 4 year process.
dogwood
@askew:
Cuba? You can’t be serious. There was never going to be any formal change in Cuba policy until after the the 2012 election.
Cervantes
@askew:
Why not?
At any rate, I appreciate your comments.
LAC
@WaterGirl: snother day..another thread about Hilary Clinton being shit on by the resident board bully drunk, corner stone. Nice going, asshole.
LAC
@AxelFoley: and also cobtributed to that embarrassing mess at the Hilton hotel in DC . I never forgot the sight of those angry Hilary supporters prolonging the process (and a couple supporters getting some not so veiled racist comments in)
All I hope is that she does not run her campaign running away from Obama. As much as the PUMAs in hiding or the wing nuts would like it, she cannot start off squandering the base to chase after some scared old white folks.
different-church-lady
@askew: Sooo… you can’t actually list those accomplishments you referred to?
Full… of… shit.
Corner Stone
@dogwood:
He did not announce his candidacy for US Senate until January 2003. The speech was Oct 2002. At a Chicago anti-war rally. A great speech, but not all that risky.
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
I like it a lot. Bigger bottoms might make the thin necks more thinner looking… the front pot is the smallest bottom and is my least favorite – I think for that reason.
Keep up the good work, post more pix.
I always wanted to do ceramics… I would like to do recreations of Anasazi and other ancient works, for one thing…
WaterGirl
@Corner Stone: Barack Obama did not wake up suddenly in January of 2003 and decide to run for president.
He may not have announced until 3 months later, but when he gave that speech in October of 2002 he either knew he was running or that it was quite a likely possibility. I agree with dogwood that his anti-war speech was not without political risk.
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl: To be clear, he formed exploratory committees in 2002 to gauge his chances for a 2004 run.
But that is not the same thing as running in Oct 2002.
Sorry, but State Senator Obama is not the same thing as candidate for US Senate from IL Obama.