Senator Clinton with her enormous qualifications makes any presidential
opponent look pale and inadequate in comparison. She is a fighter who has the support of millions of Americans.
Senator Clinton will drop out when her supporters say it is OK.. The primaries end in early June so there is plenty of time for Senator Clinton to withdraw without cannibalizing her. This is disrespectful toward women. Obama better be cautious about having his surrogates call for Senator Clinton to withdraw or he may lose die-hard Clinton supporters as follows.
Senator Clinton is recognized by working Democrats as a hero capable of restoring their part of the American dream.
Senator Clinton is recognized by middle aged women as a hero on the verge of breaking the glass ceiling bringing dignity to women"s issues.
Senator Clinton is recognized as a hero among senior citizens as a true contender for the Presidency. The only female president that they may see in their lifetime.
Senator Clinton is recognized as a hero to young girls who long to be a fire- fighter , a senator and now President of the United States.
Senator Clinton is recognized as a champion for minority groups like Hispanics giving their cause a voice.
Senator Clinton would make a spectacular President. Senator Clinton is bright, she"s strong, she"s passionate, she"s enthusiastic, she"s resilient, she"s full of hope for the future and she is determined to give us the kind of future that us Americans deserve-all Americans.
Obama's Clinton Dilemma
As Dave Neiwart points out over at FDL, the results for Hillary in North Carolina and Indiana were less than she needed, and may have destroyed her chances with the superdelegates. Her speech sounded suspiciously like a concession speech. Now anyone counting Hillary out until she formally says she's out is taking a big chance, this is the energizer bunny of candidates. But let's assume she will decide the gig's up and to throw in the towel and turn our eyes forward.
Obama has his work cut out for him. The possibility that a lot of Hillary's white working class base could turn to McCain or stay home should be a real worry for him. There's been a great deal of bitterness and anger on both sides of the fight. And, to be crass and point out the unpalatable truth, there isn't a lot in it for Hillary to back Obama in a more than pro-forma "going through the motions" fashion. If he loses, she's the presumptive nominee in 4 years, after all. If he wins, she probably has to wait 8 years, and she's not getting any younger. If she really wants to be president, well, Obama's still in the way. Now I'm not saying she won't help Obama even if such thoughts are going through her mind, no doubt she understands what another 4 years of a Republican presidency would mean. Still, there's help, and there's going all out. And there's a lot of space between the two.
So if I'm Obama; if I'm one of Obama's advisors, no matter how much I may share the view of some associated with the campaign about Hillary, I'd be thinking real hard right now about what it's going to take to bring her and Bill on board in a big way, so that they do everything possible to really deliver the votes of their supporters.
For Bill, probably a seat on the Supremes if the opportunity comes up (and it will, if Obama is elected.) For Hillary? Probably Senate Majority leader--it's not like Harry Reid really likes the job anyway.
For our hopes of there being a Democratic President taking office in 2009 I trust that similar thoughts are going through Obama's mind. Because he's going to need all the help he can get.
Read more reactions from Huffington Post bloggers to the Indiana and North Carolina primary results
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I really don't know what qualifications are required for the Supreme Court or Senate Majority Leader, but I think they should be based on more than who the person knows. I think Obama has stated that he is against Washington doing things on the basis of political favoritism. However, if the Clintons are truly qualified, then the appointments may make sense going forward.
Is this a joke?
Bill Clinton on the Supreme Court? He was DISBARRED!
And Hillary as Majority Leader? 1. This is not Obama's decision to make. 2. She couldn't win THAT election either.
Nope... this isn't a joke.
It isn't even funny.
What seems obvious to me is neither Hillary or most of her supporters are willing to bring this party together so its up to us Obama supporters to stop this infighting and get on with nominating a candidate for President and take our fight to the Republican's instead of another Democrat .
I for one don't want to make Rush Limbaughs opeation chaos work for Republican's by joining in on a fight against someone of my own party .
So who will it be folks a Democrat in November who can change things around in this government or a Repulican who will continue with Bush's plan to distroy our country and seel it off to foreign countries ? Stop feeding into these Republican bloggers smear tactic's game that can only divide us.
he wasn't disbarred he was suspended for five years and has been reinstated for at least a year or two.
i can't stand the mofo personally, but i do wish you would get your shtuff straight, vbond.
An impeached president shouldn't be let anywhere near the Supreme Court as a justice. This man has committed all kinds of crimes. He shouldn't be allowed to judge anyone morally, legally, or otherwise. And Hillary has been his partner in crime all along the way.
Why hasn't ex-IL State Senator Obama been vetted on his actions that he took to make sure Alice Palmer did not get on the IL Senate ballot?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-07040
This will be plasted all over MSM in the General Election if it isn't dealt with now.
Um, this has been reported many, many times. So he used a technicality to keep his opponent off the ballot. Exactly what both parties tried to do to Perot, for example? Vetting??? Give me a break.
A lot of Hillary supporters will never vote for Obama because they regard him as woefully lacking in experience and this represents a danger to the USA national security. There are other reasons but this is top of the list for many people.
Obama strategists don't get this point or won't admit it. The republicans are hoping Obama will be nominated. Obama ran into major brick walls (e.g., white blue collar) within the Democratic party primary sphere. He will fare a lot worse in the general election.
He has been a publicly elected official 4 years longer than the former First Lady. Her "experience" is a lot of smoke and mirrors. She used up her 7 years in the Senate twiddling her thumbs. Obama has even gotten more healthcare bills passed than her. Isn't health care supposed to be her cause?
So white blue collar workers just care more about national security than other races? hhmmm
I PREDICT THEY WILL! Once November nears.......CAN YOU IMAGINE A MC CAIN Victory??!!
If Obama does make it - - - after the luau they'll have with FLORIDA & MICHIGAN - - - it will be to Obama's good to include all those from MI, expecially, to be counted! I don't care how they do it, but they must get ALL FIFTY STATES IN !
Besides, Obama winning is not a bad deal - just as long as Mrs. "C" gets the VP nomination. Remember, as a VP - they cast the deciding VOTE in order to break a standing Senate tie.
I can at least TRUST HER to vote for the people and not vote for corporate interests. With Obama as VP...........well, I'm not sure he'd vote WITH the Democrats, as he's known to have voted MANY TIMES with the GOPpers!
Our Health Care is at stake!!!!!!!! We're the only country without it !!!!
Never fear, prophet. Michigan and Florida will count. Obama has the nomination now even WITH them. But don't count on a seat anywhere for Clinton. What makes you think you could trust her anyway? Because of her exploits in Tuzla?
Bill Clinton as a Supreme Court Justice is a pipedream. Even if you got everyone to forget him perjuring himself in a grand jury testimony, the Senate would require a supermajority to get through the Republican filibustering.
No, my objection to Clinton would not be qualificaitons or his character (after all, we recently had a racist vote suppressor and currently a sex harrassing boss), but his age and relatively frail health. GWB managed to get young fascists like Alito and Roberts in. They'll be screwing Americans over for another 20 years. The Supreme Court needs bright, young progressives who will defend individual's rights.
Bill Clinton lost his license to practice law. Something about lying under oath. How the hell would he be on the supreme court?
You don't have to be a lawyer to be on the supreme court. i don't think Earl Warren was. But you're right, given that he's known to have perjured himself, it'd be a tough sell. Almost worth it to hear the apoplexy of the Rush crowd.
I firmly believe a lot of these guys perjured themselves--in the hearings. When they are asked about abortion and say "I never really thought about it." You can't prove it, but you can strongly suspect that they were lying under oath.
I completely agree with your statement.
I cannot believe that Obama would besmirch himself by appointing a man who was not only disbarred, but impeached.
Early in this race, when the candidates were in Selma for the anniversary of the march, an Associated Press photographer shot a Pulitzer Prize-like photo of Obama and Bill Clinton, side-by-side, Obama's arm around the former president's shoulder, looking forward, looking to all the world to be an undeniable and unbeatable force. Obama used to talk about how he would utilize Clinton in his Administration, and as recently as the last fiasco debate unhesitatingly repeated that, along with finding a place for George H.W. Bush.
The Clinton "kitchen sink" strategy of destroying him instead of building herself up is exactly the kind of politics Obama feels belong to another era, a politics he is determined to, against all odds and in the face of unrelenting cynicism, change.
If I place myself in Obama's shoes, with his passion to affect change from the bottom up, not from the top down, I would find myself at a loss as to exactly where to place these two. Senator Clinton has morphed into someone that even long-time friends don't recognize. Former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton Robert Reich said yesterday in an Air America interview: "I've know this woman for forty-two years and I have to say; my God, what's happened to you?"
No wonder why the Repubs have been winning most elections -the rationale behind the Liberal-leftist (which has tended to dominate the Dem part, unfortunately) brain is so nonsensical that people RUN when they hear some of their diatribes, they go to the Repubs because there's NOWHERE ELSE TO GO..
Obama can't win without FL and MI and it's well known that he opposed counting their votes. Of course! He would have lost the nomination if they had voted.
Funny, a black man not letting people vote. What a hypocrite BO is! Or maybe he feels entitled to disenfranchise voters as payback for all the government evils listed by Rev Wright?
I'm kind of surprised that black voters have marched in lockstep behind BO. Especially when he consistently moves them to the back of the bus so that white supporters will appear behind him on TV. In the NC acceptance speech did anyone notice that behind BO it was a sea of white faces? And it was the black vote that got him elected in NC. And why do they just swallow trashing Rev Wright when Wright was responsible for creating BO's political base in Chicago?
BO has already lost. Dems lose again. There's nothing he can do to bring together the party he has divided so cynically by playing the race card and then accusing everyone else of doing it.
Gotta give it to the guy--the suit is empty and the rhetoric is cheap but he manages to get people to drink the KoolAid. Too bad the Repubs will beat him BIG TIME.
I predict a McCain landslide.
After what she has proven herself capable of in her rabid pursuit of the glory of becoming the first woman President at any cost to the Democratic establishment and its quest to get this once-great nation out of the hands of the repukes, and after Bill's "A contest between two people who love this country (meaning his wife and john mcinsane, implying that Barack Obama does not) I wouldn't put it past HRC to donate some of her millions to the repuke party to pay off the same ones who stopped the election and GAVE the presidency to gwbushit in 2000, and fixed the voting machines to switch a percentage of votes belonging to Kerry to bushit's favor. You call yourself intellifem and in MHO you need to change it to dummifem. If you are female, do you represent the all-too-many bitter females who are desperate to see a woman in the presidency before they die as a one-in-the-eye for being held down as second class citizens for so long? I am a woman older than HRC, have worked my butt off for years at a fraction of what the men got for doing less, and I would love to see a woman President. Not Hillary Clinton. Her "scrappy toughness" smacks of self-aggrandizement rather than concern for the country and its people. A shot and a beer does not a regular working woman make.
Good luck separating African Americans from Obama, freeper. Predict a landslide all you want--Obama will be very competitive with McCain and can beat him.
Remember, most of the Clinton voters who said they wouldn't vote for Obama also wouldn't vote for Clinton in the general--they were Republicans just like you.
You think a 5'3" senescent crank who can't tell Sunni from Shiite is going to look better than Barack Obama? Well, I hope you are wrong.
"Obama can't win without FL and MI and it's well known that he opposed counting their votes. Of course! He would have lost the nomination if they had voted."
This whole thing smells like Karl Rove's hand in it !
Except he will win with Florida and Michigan. The deal is done.
Did you say Obama should put a disbarred lawyer on the supreme court? That's funny! Perhaps he could nominate Hillary for chairman of the joint chiefs too.
Hillary I believe is dead certain that Obama can't beat McCain. He's been too badly damaged by the Wright controversary to persuade a majority of Americans that he's not a liberal leftist. The Wright and Ayers controversaries are not going away and will fully rip Obama's moderate mask from his face. Like Mike Huckabee Hillary's going to take her campaign to the bitter end and do as much damage to Barack as she can as Barack has commited the unpardonable sin of denying her the nomination. I never thought I could be in love with this woman but her campaign has won my heart. And I think I speak for a lot of astonished conservatives, Ann Coulter apart.
........Mine (heart) too!......but her focus has got to be on MC CAIN the SAME.
ROFLMAO. Large majorities of Americans are for single payer, Medicare for all, for total withdrawal from Iraq sooner rather than later, against attacking Iran, against torture (hey, even McCain was against torture before he was for it), for a restoration of Constitutional Rights etc etc. In other words, they're "liberal leftists".
Oh, please, Br'er Fox, please don't throw me in that there briar patch!
Given the negative effect of Bill Clinton on Hillary's campaign I seriously doubt if OBama will fill any need to appease Bill Clinton. Clinton is worried enough about his own legacy that I think he'll step up to the plate to help Obama. Besides being disbarred the Clintons have many financial ties that would no doubt conflict either of them out from any judicial post. I think Senate Majority Leader would be a great post for Hillary. In that position she'd prove once and for all that she can truly effect important legislation rather than just support it. One of my questions throughout the campaign has been why didn't she try and put some of her ideas into action during the last 7 years - would have helped her campaign more. However I think Obama will be cautious in his use of the Clintons since Hillary had more than once endorsed McCain over Obama on issues like national security and the war in Iraq. Both Hillary and McCain have supported the war (and possible new war with Iran) and association with that idea could undermine Obama's campaign. .
Ian,
The Clintons are fighting so hard to stay in because they privately feel that whoever wins the nomination is a shoo-in to beat McCain in the fall. The country wants change, and McCain's brand is the opposite.
Even if Obama pays the Clintons' campaign debts, offers the VP position, and gives Bill something to do, they'd still undermine him. Or worse. Seeking their support is a bad deal for him. They want the Presidency so bad they can taste it, and their plan is to use their remaining leverage to seat the Florida and Michigan delegates at the DNC meeting on May 31st, African Americans be damned. Their objective is now to damage Obama enough that he loses to McCain. Nothing else makes sense from their perspective.
To think otherwise is to ignore human behavior both in general and in particular. Obama won't be getting any help from the Clintons, and luckily, he doesn't need it.
Good post, and you are probably right abou tit all.
And Hillary Clinton voted for a pandering anti-flag burning amendment to the constitution, and she voted for the Military Commissions bill which can take habeas corpus rights away from ordinary citizens like you and me if we are perceived to be "terrorists". She's trying to show the "big boys" that she's tough, and probably more likely to get us into still another war than Obama, who does not have to prove that he's THE MAN.
Just for giggles and the ultimate "gotcha" to the neocons, I say Hillary goes to the Supremes. Bill, a disbarred lawyer probably shouldn't "stain" the Court. Anyhow he's pulling down 'bout $10 million a year telling folks how to game the system as good as he did, so I think he's already taken care of.
Thats good , thats real good, it's about time for another woman on the Court. But all her 'experience" doesn't add up to even a judge judy.
As much as I like screwing over Republicans, I can't see it either.
She wasn't known for her legal mind. She graduated in the bottom third of her law class. The Congressional legal advisor for the Watergate hearings was so taken aback by her lack of legal ethics, he regrets not having initiated disbarrment hearings against her. Nor can I see her PROTECTING the rights of Americans. Sadly, Obama would be a PERFECT candidate for the Supreme Court.
Ian, Obama has mostly done what you have called him to do. He has not attacked Hillary the way she has attacked him. He has not demeaned her experience as she has his. He has not accused her of being unelectable. His taking the high road will pay off when the time comes. If the roles were reversed and somehow Hillary got the nomination, Obama would attempt to help her unify the party but I'm afraid there would be too many young, first time voters, as well as black voters, who would not be persuaded. His job as the nominee will be formidable, but reasonable compared to what hers would be.
I think there is a fatal flaw in your logic.
If Hillary Clinton doesn't pull out all the stops to help Obama, of her own volition, she will not get elected in 2012 should Obama lose in November. There will be a lot of angry folks, many of whom will blame her for the loss. So, she *has* to support Obama... **VISIBLY**. Of course, the potential flaw in that is that she *would* likely have to wait until 2016 if she does pull out all the stops.
One path potentially ruins her chances, while another path increases her chances in 2016. The latter path seems more likely because Hillary Clinton needs to stay relevant. If she can **claim** that she helped bring women, white working class, and older voters back into the fold, that would be a tremendous talking point for her. (It's likely that they will eventually back Obama against McCain, anyway) That's significant political power whether she decides to run at a later date, or simply to gain leverage with other prominent politicians to boost her standing.
In light of that, Obama doesn't really need to do anything to woo the Clintons. I'm not saying that he won't; he just doesn't *have* to. Self interest will get the Clintons on board.
Posted May 7, 2008 | 12:27 AM (EST)