I didn't feel sorry for her when she choked up in New Hampshire. I didn't think it was faked, but she used it pretty skillfully. She was on top of it. But I did feel sorry for her last night, watching her mount the stage in El Paso, Texas, watching her keep that brave front up, incipient despair mixed with exhaustion visible in the lines of her face and behind her eyes. She was not on top of that, and I felt sorry for her.
She marched determinedly through the same old lines, the same old gestures and intonations -- plus some imitative add-ons about young people and their hopes and dreams, trying to rev up a listless crowd just one more time, a trooper to the end. But they knew and she knew that that as soon as she was done, this young man from nowhere and everywhere, a genius of politics in this mediated age, was going to mount another stage in Madison, Wisconsin, before a crowd he could count on to rev him up, no matter what. And they knew and she knew that, somehow, he would strike all the right notes at all the right moments and move on. And he did.
Not only did he drive the last nail into the coffin of the "false hopes" bit, he began to showcase his campaign against McCain. He went after electability -- but positively (yet again), by previewing how he would take on McCain. And it looked pretty good, with much more to come.
Electability is the last argument the Clintons have. Never mind the polls that show Obama beating McCain by a wider margin than Hillary. That's a gossamer snapshot on windy night. What people who know their stuff are still wondering (John Edwards, for example) is will Obama be able to take the heat and strike back when the dirtball pros on the Republican right go after him for months on end. When Bill and Hillary say they can handle that -- they've been vetted, they've been tested, it's true and everybody knows it. We all remember that. So that's their last argument.
Which translates into a big decision for them in Ohio and Texas. Will they decide to go negative themselves? Will they insist on seating Florida and Michigan at the convention? Either one or both of those and they put democratic unity in peril.
Some cynics thought that when she choked up in New Hampshire it was narcissistic self-pity, a how-can-you-not-elect-me-after-all-I've-been-through moment. Hillary herself said it was because she so desperately wanted the country not to fall back yet further under another Republican regime.
The way the Clintons choose to go forward now will tell us which it was.
This is a losing argument for the Clintons as well. If they could've handled the right wing noise machine, there never would have been impeachment for lies about a BJ. They can't.
Obama can shut up the O'liellys, Rushes, and Hannity's just by being who he is.
Certainly, however badly or well Obama responds to attacks from conservatives, it would be pretty much impossible for him to do any worse than the Clintons did. It is LAUGHABLE that they are describing their failure to defend themselves as "valuable experience" when it comes to having crap hurled at one. They were absolutely helpless against it when they were in power, when it mattered in getting their agendas passed.
Besides that, if the Republican slime machine begins to attack Obama, he ought to be well prepared for it just from facing down the Bushrovian slime the Clintons are already trying to spew on him.
I have had enough of her phony Republican in a Democrats clothing.
And the same for Pelosi and Reid.
Out with all Blue Dog Democrats.
Vote for America, vote for Obama.
I was around during the endless witch-hunts as well as dozens of other orchestrated attacks to destroy both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Did not work, she is still standing. Why don’t we start some policy discussions that would actually affect the country? Why don’t we talk about who can best execute those policies? Low blows are par for the course for the Obama fanatics, some day the media will get a backbone and wise up.
I agree that Hillary's last stand is not electability, it is about who can govern. Hillary is rather good at coming through a battle on her feet, no matter how much we dislike the conflict. How will Obama take the power of his movement and bring it to bear on crafting and legislating good policy in a time of shrinking revenues, growing debt and overextended military, gutted foreign policy and a politicized bureaucracy?
The big meeting to explore Bloomberg's candidacy, attended by dems and republs alike asked us to challenge our candidates to talk clearly about their strategy to build consensus and tackle our problems with a bipartisan effort. Our politics don't give an incentive for any candidate to do this, and weaken the support of their base. What if Obama's movement expects something he can't deliver? What then? I hope he is preparing to govern. I hope once he has the nomination he has advice from non-politicians about how to use his power with the people. It could be amazing, but we can still wonder if he will change the rules of the game in governing or if perhaps we do need Hillary the fighter in there.
"MI. FL." Rules are rules, period. They may be bad rules, but they must be contested before one makes the argument that "they (the rules) shouldn't count now".
If they were agreed upon by all 9-10 Dem candidates and the DNC, than they are the rules!
If the situation were in reverse, and the Obama camp wanted them counted, they would be equally guilty of trying to change in the middle of the game.
Superdelegates have but only one choice. (With one extraordinary exceptions) They MUST follow the will of the majority primary voters! (Democracy in action.)
If they choose not to, then Green party leader Ralph Nader was right when he said, "voting for one, (Dem/Rep) is the same as voting for the other".
Rep's don't care about the will of the people, Superdelegates bad influence could mean the same for Dem's. The main exception to the Superdelegate input is: Not allow foreign interference/influence to dictate the nominee! If there is possibly a problem with the Ind's/Rep's primary vote, it should have been fixed before the middle of the game.
The DNC wanted the over-all majority to win the big prize, now they're stuck with it. They just didn't for-see it wouldn't be their candidate of choice.
The argument that if Obama was on the losing end, His supporter's would be taking a different position. Probably true and likely, but would be equally as guilty as Clinton supporter's are now.
We must be a nation of rules, and the rules are set before the game, and all must agree to them, or complain at the beginning that one side has an unfair advantage.
Two wrongs, wont make it right!
I could compare this Obama movement to Jim Jones leadership. The drinking of the kool aid came when an investigation began.
Maybe it is more like the religious right taking over the republican party.
It has taken eight years of radical rule to discredit them.
I think the best comparison is Nazi Germany where new technologies gave
Hitler's voice more influence than it should have had.
The republicans recognize the danger. They told their members to talk to
their children to make sure they weren't being influenced by Obama.
The danger is within.
I think that this sort of vitriol shows how desperate you are to have Hillary take the White House at any cost. Including tearing apart the Democratic Party.
Lee Atwater and Karl Rove have nothing compared to you.
You are the danger within.
The independents have pushed the partisans to the sidelines in the Republican primaries, and are showing an increasing inclination to push the Clinton apparatchiks aside on the democratic side. McCain and Obama are the least partisan and most independent of their respective parties, and both are attractive to independents. Thus it is the independent voter who will decide the election in November.
This is called EVIL, NO VALUES, NO MORALS, just like republicants.
This story should make all her contributors worried .
She has sold her mailing lists three times.
NPR is the only one to air it and she is not disputing it. Nice candidate you are supporting. Integrity and CLINTONS does not mix. Here is the start of the NPR story and link:
"Last year, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton took the unusual step of renting out some of her lists. The transaction once again highlights the Clintons' connections to a businessman who now faces questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Reports from Clinton's campaign show that on Dec. 3, it collected payment for renting out three mailing lists, the sale of which netted them $8,225."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18958566
There is no doubt that the Clintons will go negative in the next weeks but it could backfire as happened before.