So Hillary Clinton has announced that she’s forming an exploratory committee to look into running for president.
I have several problems with this:
First of all, when she ran for Senator, she swore it wasn’t to position herself for a presidential run, but rather because she loved New York and wanted to serve its citizens. If she’d been in that position through, say, 2012, I might be convinced she saw the gig as something other than a means to an end. As it is, I feel as if she were here for the minimum amount of time necessary to establish some political cred. That’s a touch too manipulative for me.
Second, she’s come across to me as too mealy-mouthed and–there’s that word again–manipulative on various issues. Even her announcement about running isn’t firm and positive: She’s announced that she’s sticking her toe in the water. Say you’re in, say you’re out, but make a decision. It makes me think of Mr. Miyagi telling Daniel something like, “You karate yes, fine. You karate no, fine. You karate maybe, you get squished like grape.”
Third, I don’t think she’s electable. I just don’t. I don’t think she’ll play anywhere outside of large metropolitan areas, and even in some of those. I’m not sure Barack Obama is, either. I don’t think he’s got enough experience and, frankly, I still think there’s sizable pockets of this country that don’t put a black man in office (hëll, I grew up in the 1960s where assassination was the order of the day, so I’m worried some white supremacist is going to pop a cap in his head.)
As crazy as it sounds, I’d almost rather see Al Gore take another run at it. Hëll, Richard Nixon came back from a loss, and that wasn’t even an election where he won the majority of the popular vote. Unlike everyone else in the field, he’s got a six year track record of being actively involved in something other than trying to get office and stay in office. He’s been sounding the alert about serious problems this planet faces while the administration had its ears covered saying “la la la, I’m not listening.” What’s wrong with electing a man who has demonstrably been ahead of the curve on one of the gravest problems these next generations will face?
PAD
• 
I voted for SENATOR Barack Obama, not PRESIDENT Barack Obama. It would be nice if he finished at least ONE term as senator, don’t ya think? You know, to see what he is capable of accomplishing. If he is elected in 2008, he’ll be older than Bill Clinton or JFK were when they took office, however, he has nowhere near the experience of either. Obama has never managed any sizeable organization, and he’s spent most of his career working for someone else.
I don’t care how nice a guy he is, nor how good a phrase he can turn. Can he lead? Can he handle real pressure? Can he organize and pick a decent staff? Frankly, I think it is way too early to tell, and I think he is being forced by desperate people in his party to go too far, too fast.
As far as Hillary goes, she is so, well, underwhelming. That being said, if she is in a weak field of luckluster candidates, she just might be able to pull it off.
Remember, Bill Clinton backed into the White House in 1992 with only 43 percent of the popular vote — hardly a ringing endorsement by voters.
Yeah but that was with a relatively strong thrid party candidate. It’s hard to see one of them now unless:
SCENARIO #1- Gulliani or McCain so upset the arch-conservatives that they nominate someone to represent the “true” conservatives. Given that this would almost ensure a Hillary victory it’s hard to imagine it gaining traction.
Scenario #2- Hillary so upsets the hardcore anti-war crowd that they nominate someone to register their disgust. In all liklihood this would be more of a protest vote than anything else–I can’t see a strong candidate breaking from the party.
Third party candidates appeal to people who want fresh faces. One nice thing about 2008 is that whoever wins they will be someone who hasn’t been president or VP (I’m assuming Gore is sticking to his guns over not running).
Pitiful.
“I don’t care how nice a guy he is, nor how good a phrase he can turn. Can he lead? Can he handle real pressure? Can he organize and pick a decent staff?…”
After the joke of a president we’ve had for the last six years, does THAT even matter anymore?
The fact that McCain is a more moderate, less religiously fanatical person than Bush, imminently more qualified, and a combat veteran and POW, would definitely make him attractive to the non-extremist Republican voters, and for that matter, the fence-sitters. …Who knows what could happen with the right campaign and the Party behind him?
Luigi – no way in hëll. McCain has been majorly towing Republican party line for a year now, and in the process has run roughshod over all the things that made him such a novel Republican the first time around. He’s gone back or outright contradicted himself on many stands, the most prominent being his simple support of the current Administration.
If he gets the nod, it’s not just The Daily Show and The Colbert Report that are going to be having a field-day showing “before” and “after” clips of McCain. He’ll be labeled a flipflopper faster than any other presidential nominee; it’d basically be like handing not only news and late night comedians a silver plate of material, it’s giving the Democrats amazing fodder.
The fact that you give a crap about making an informed vote puts you head and shoulders above a LOT of people. That you back that up by actually making a good-faith effort to ascertain the facts, rather than just accepting what people tell you at face value, puts you head and shoulders above even more people.
*shuffles feet*
Er, thanks Mr. Myers. I’m just gonna go stand in the corner and blush for a bit…
(I do very much appreciate the compliment.)
For everyone giggling over the idea of my cat helping me type, I offer you the following proof, from last week: Toledo helping me index an academic blog. (Granted, it was the other cat helping me type this morning, but I work with what I have.)
Giuliani’s only problems, as I recall, was that he developed colon cancer. Isn’t it presumably now in remission?
Actually I was referring to how a briefcase containing his campaign strategy was lost by his people, found by somebody else, and leaked. At the time it happened, it sounded as though it had hurt his chances quite a bit.
The look in Toledo’s eye is exactly the same one my Maine Coon gives me right before he tries to open an artery in my throat.
You know, Rob, I’m not altogether certain that the “stolen” briefcase wasn’t a deliberate leak. Better to get some of this out now in the open than later. And anyway, it’s not as though Giuliani’s marital tales of woe weren’t common knowledge.
People say that Giuliani is way to liberal and New Yorkish to appeal to the flyover state conservatives but I think they may underestimate just how much those people remember and respect his actions on 9/11. A little moderation on his gun control stance and a promise to at least consider pro-life judges for the Supreme Court and I think he can still get the nomination, though at this point it’s McCain’s to lose.
That DRM stuff is interesting, but it wouldn’t alter my support for Biden because A) I think we’ve got bigger issues to worry about and B) All these attempts are doomed to failure anyway; you can’t stop the progress of technology. People will find a way around it in short order, and in a few decades time, the companies will give up and get used to the new model.
Luigi – no way in hëll. McCain has been majorly towing Republican party line for a year now, and in the process has run roughshod over all the things that made him such a novel Republican the first time around. He’s gone back or outright contradicted himself on many stands, the most prominent being his simple support of the current Administration.
Yes, indeed. I used to have a lot more respect for him than I currently do. He’s gone from calling Jerry Falwell one of America’s “agents of intolerance,” (yay!) to sucking up to the Falwell, presumably to get more right-wingers to vote for him. (Boo!)
He’s done the right thing in the past by voting against drilling in ANWR and for standing in the way of the administration on torture, but lately it seems as though somebody’s stuck a magnet on the bottom of his moral compass. There was a time I might’ve considered voting for him, but that time is gone.
Luigi Novi: Well, he didn’t say that, only that he was afraid that someone who try to assassinate him. Not that he shouldn’t run because of it.
Whether it’s a question of somebody wanting to kill him or just vote against him because of his skin color, it doesn’t matter. Fûçk those people. If Obama is a stand-up guy (which he appears to be thus far), and has a shot of winning even if it’s just by a narrow margin, he should go for it.
There are people who can’t abide a black man in office, or a woman in office, it’s true. If I had to guess, though, I believe that some of those people are just afraid of the unknown; they’ve never had a president who wasn’t a white male before. So the sooner somebody qualified (and not, you know, pure evil) gets into office and sets a precedent, I believe that there will be a lower percentage of people who will cast their votes based on things as irrelevant as gender or race.
I am glad someone above made the “carpetbagger” comment, that is how I always have felt about Hillary since she and Bill made the move to New York. And did anyone believe her comments about running for the senate not to wait to be Pres., anymore than when George W. Bush ran for Gov. of my state in 1998?
I have mostly voted on the right side of the ticket since 1980. The one exception was when I voted for Paul Tsongas (Spelling?) in the primaries way back. But for 2008 I can not find one person Demo or Repub that I can look forward to supporting. While the Democrats will have to most diverse slate looking to the office. Obama-Black, Hillary-Woman, Richardson-Latino, who can run on pure ideas for the future?
Also what may harm Hillary and Obama is that since 1960 no Senator has run for the big office and won.
Not sure which talking head pointed it out, but the point was that senators tend to not be leaders but compromisers,(Does is that a word and if it is how do you spell it?) That is why candidates who ran states have a better chance, (Reagan, Carter, Clinton, George W.). So maybe the Gov of New Mexico could be the Democrats best chance. Me I’m getting my old Howard the Duck button out, that or my C’Thullu for president shirt out of mothballs. It’s time we stopped voting for the lesser evil!
Bobb
(Your mileage may vary.)
You know, Rob, I’m not altogether certain that the “stolen” briefcase wasn’t a deliberate leak.
Do you mean by him or by one of his opponents?
Giuliani is a guy I used to respect, similar to McCain, but don’t anymore. I trace this loss of respect back to his speech at the RNC. If he had not spoken at the convention and lavished such praise on Bush, I’d feel differently.
I’ve been following U.S. politics for less than five years, and it has never ceased to amaze me what people will do out of party loyalty. Republicans who seemed otherwise sane (Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chafee being examples) have backed Bush administration policies they didn’t agree with out of party loyalty in the past, and I’m like “What the hëll is wrong with you guys?! Just vote your conscience, dammit! This guy doesn’t deserve your loyalty!”
Giuliani has never challenged Bush, and therefore I don’t care how liberal or R.I.N.O. he may be. Barring some huge development that proves to me he’s seen the error of his ways, I will not vote for him. He took a side in 2004, it was the wrong side, and I hope the 60-some percent of Americans who currently oppose the war don’t forget that Giuliani helped the architects of that war keep their jobs and guaranteed it wouldn’t end anytime soon.
I have a dream, and that dream is simple a Gore/Clark ticket…. this combo covers all the bases enviromental, military, foriegn and domestic…
John
If you’re looking for a candidate that actively went against his own party…good luck! I suppose you could give Lieberman and Zell Miller a shot.
As for McCain and Failwell, I’m thinking that McCain can point out that one of the things that people supposedly liked about him was that he reached out to those who didn’t always agree with him–a true “uniter not a divider” kind of guy. Well, one of the things you have to do to be a uniter is to actually have a dialogue with people who might oppose you. As ong as he continues to oppose some of the issues that Fallwell espouses I have no problem with him treating him with a certain level of respect. It’s like how Democrats have to tolerate Al Sharpton–a necessary, if repugnant, bit of theatre.
The thing that so many found appealing about John McCain was that he appeared to be a man of principle, who stuck with what he believed in. The perception right now is that he’s compromising those principles and running to embrace whatever faction he needs to to get elected. If he is actually dialoging with people while still standing by criticisms of their actions or stances, Bill, that is more admirable, and maybe the truth of that will be more clearly perceived by actual campaign time. The bind that he’s in is that the only way he can get the endorsement of the Republican party powers may be to publicly abandon some of his beliefs. He might think he can go back to following his beliefs after he’s elected; but losing the trait which has caused so many outside of the Republican party to admire him could win him the nomination battle, but cost him the election war. I guess a lot could come down to how far the Party forces him to change.
I have liked a lot of what I’ve heard from/about Wesley Clark. And it’s occurred to me of late that it might be good to have a president with actual military experience for a while (he didn’t become a general just through desk duty, right?).
And, I’m also a little disappointed that Hillary may be running for president this early into her second term. Even as a registered Democrat and fan of President Clinton, I was a little dubious of her moving here to become one of our senators. But, she showed a willingness to pay her dues, gained some reputation for working with both sides, has gotten good marks from observers as a senator, and has done some good work for New York state. The timing of the open (no incumbent as president) election just works out poorly, I suppose, with the beginnings of campaigning being so soon after the start of her second term.
Isn’t the point of an exploratory committee to see if a run is feasible? All candidates do it now, she’s not even the first on the Democrats’ side. She also said, that she had no intention of running for President DURING HER FIRST TERM IN THE SENATE, and she didn’t.
I know someone who met Hillary Clinton years ago, and said the unfortunate part about her, is that while she’s a very warm, caring person, she’s not a good public speaker, and comes across badly, as a result.
Given the crap we’ve been through these last 2 presidential terms, I’ll take Hillary Clinton, very gladly, any day of the week, because there’s no way, this side of hëll, that she could be any worse.
I wish the Dems would just come out with a JLA lineup…
President – Al Gore
Vice President – Joseph Biden
Secretary of State – John Kerry
Secretary of Defense – Wesley Clark
and go from there…
Until later
John
It’s Hilary’s turn. And Jeb Bush goes in the on-deck circle.
Personally, my hope is that Joe Biden will get the nomination.
Luigi Novi: My statement was based on observations of fact, the details of which I cited. Not optimism.
Mike: Surrounded by people who voted blacks into Washington, are you?
Luigi Novi: Mike, I’m sorry, but really have no idea what this comment means. You accused me of responding to Peter’s comments about Obama and race based on experience and optimism, and I responded by saying that it was based on facts that I cited. I don’t see how this comment by you serves to refute that point. I vote for the candidate that I think will do the best job. If the parties nominate someone of that description who happens to be black, so be it. If Obama is nominated, he’ll get my vote. If the people who surround me haven’t put blacks into Washington, maybe it’s because there haven’t been any black candidates from the two major parties. These comments didn’t even have anything to do with me but with Obama. I pointed out how minorities will no longer be minorities by 2040-2050. That isn’t optimism. It’s a stated projection by the Census Bureau. In what way do your responses disprove this?
I am, however, surrounded by people who vote for Latinos locally, since that’s the dominant ethnicity in Union City, NJ, where I live. I don’t know if that answers your question or not.
Luigi Novi: As for privilege, I’m not certain what privileges you think being white has afforded me. But if you could name some, please do so.
Mike: For one, a movie portraying the males of your ethnicity exclusively as sexually predators — with southern states crowded with guys who look like you and apparently one woman of the same ethnicity to share among you — didn’t dominate film houses for 25 years.
Luigi Novi: Unless you’re at least 67 years old—older if you yourself were witness to life during that 25 year period, I don’t see how this has anything to do with you. Can I assume that you’re in your seventies, just out of curiosity?
No, such a movie portraying males of my ethnicity has not done this. No, I only have to deal with films and TV shows that consistently treat Italian-Americans as one-dimensional, stereotypical, monosyllabic, racist thugs and murderers. And the occasional business in my hometown that tries to charge me more or refuse me service because I don’t speak Spanish.
The problem with this statement on your part (aside from the fact that you seem to think that blacks are the only group with a distorted media image—something largely mitigated by modern political correctness and diversity) is that it seems to imply that simply by being white, I somehow have it made, as if the concept of “privilege” is such a stark black-and-white question (no pun intended) that merely because I was not the group unfairly targeted by The Birth of a Nation, that that somehow means that I have not had to deal with the same pitfalls in life as everyone else has. Well, I’m sorry you feel that way. There are undoubtedly aspects of some white people’s lives that I suppose they owe to the color of their skin. But there are also other variables that help determine where you are in life, like socioeconomic class, parental upbringing, education, and maybe even luck, not to mention all sorts of other obstacles that every human being has to deal with, no matter how much greener you think the grass is on my side of the lawn. But looking around, I don’t see my life as one of “privilege”. I’m broke, have a lousy outdoor job in which I’m often treated like dirt, and in which I haven’t been working since before Christmas because of the weather, and the one temp job I was given after New Year’s lasted two days, without any reason give to me as to why I was not kept on. I’ve been looking for a new job since October 2005. I don’t see how being white has mitigated this.
Mike: For another, you don’t have to worry about housing brokers losing interest in serving you based your skin color, or car salesmen charging you more based on the same.
Luigi Novi: I don’t have to worry about housing brokers because since I can’t afford to live on my own right now, that I have to live with my parents. Nor can I afford a car.
Mike: Last year a study was done at a major university where subjects were bombarded randomly with ethnic imagery and the random invocation of virtues and vices. While some people were able to attribute favorable characteristics evenly among ethnicities evenly (establishing the standard for objectivity), most people demonstrated a bias favoring white males — including black and lesbian subjects. I can only imagine such a bias — where even blacks and lesbians default to trusting people who aren’t like them — is only more powerful when you don’t even acknowledge it exists.
Luigi Novi: Again, you have not established that I don’t acknowledge that it exists, for the simple reason that the comments on my part that prompted your responses had nothing to do with it.
I do acknowledge that it exists, specifically because I took that test online myself (assuming that the one you’re talking about is Harvard University’s Race Implicit Association Test). It showed that I slightly favor Europeans, and overweight people, both of which surprised me. It should also be pointed out that that test (which you can take at https: //implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ [connect the prefix to the url]) makes a point about implicit, unconscious attitudes, rather than overt, fully conscious ones. (More on that point at: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-11-29.html.) It only stands to reason that even unconsciously, a person will tend to favor members of groups to which that person belongs, a point that is obviously not exclusive to whites. I don’t know why the results you cite would also hold for black subjects, but if you could furnish us with sources, please do so.
In any event, none of this refutes my statements about Obama, or even pertains to it. You saw a comment I made about race, and used it to begin a satellite thread about a different a completely different topic about which you seem to have a very self-righteous chip on your shoulder, launching into an attack upon my personal life, which I never brought up, even accusing me of basing my statements on “experience” and “optimism”, when my post made it explicitly clear that it was a statement on a matter of fact based on cited sources. For someone who extols the virtues of citations, it’s a bit surprising that you ignored this fact, instead choosing to respond with just attacks and assumptions about me and my life, without much citations of your own.
Mike: From the way you’ve framed things, if the insurance companies are charging their fees — from which they make their fûçkìņg huge profits — to make doctors feel safer, they seem to be doing a piss-poor job.
Luigi Novi: The point is that contrary to Czar’s comment, things would not necessarily be “okay” if Edwards gets elected. The point was not about how well insurance companies are doing their job.
Luigi Novi: Just out of curiosity, where are your citations for the assertions you’ve just made to me?
Mike: What assertions are you referring to?
Luigi Novi: You disagreed with my statements about how the Census Bureau has projected that whites will be the minority by 2040-2050 by dismissing it as “optimism”. Where is your citation that that statement is not true, or for that matter, the citation upon which you established my state of mind? You also asserted that the university study on race demonstrated a bias towards whites even on the part of black subjects. Where is your citation for that?
Kelly: For everyone giggling over the idea of my cat helping me type, I offer you the following proof, from last week: Toledo helping me index an academic blog.
Luigi Novi: Geez. I’m happy that I can just get Elsa to use the litter box and stop scratching up the house. And just a minute or two after I wrote this, she jumped into my lap and started rubbing her face on the lower right-hand “Enter” key, causing spaces to appear between the different paragraphs. Now why can’t you be helpful like Toledo, Elsa?!
Rob Brown: Actually I was referring to how a briefcase containing his campaign strategy was lost by his people, found by somebody else, and leaked. At the time it happened, it sounded as though it had hurt his chances quite a bit.
Luigi Novi: Oh yeah. I had forgotten about that.
If you’re looking for a candidate that actively went against his own party…good luck!
Well, here’s the thing about guys like Specter and Chafee–eventually, they stopped blindly supporting Bush and began questioning him. Specter did with the wiretapping, and Chafee explicitly refused to vote for extending that same NSA wiretapping program and John Bolton’s tenure as U.N. ambassador because, as he put it after losing his seat in the midterms, the American people had spoken and expressed their disapproval for those things and he wasn’t going to go against their wishes.
I just have to ask why these guys didn’t wise up sooner.
With Giuliani, he could’ve just politely declined the invitation to speak at the RNC. You know, “Thanks guys, I’m honored that you’d ask me, but I don’t agree with the man and won’t endorse him, so you’ll have to find somebody else. I’m sorry.”
I was willing to overlook McCain’s appearance because aside from the war, I pretty much agreed with him on everything. He denounced the Swift Boat guys, torture, drilling in a wildlife refuge, etc. I think I started to have my doubts when he was willing to settle for a compromise on the torture thing with the Bush; this is not the kind of thing that you compromise on. Plus, since taking that stand (and then caving a little bit), I’m wondering “what has he done lately?”
History repeats itself. When her husband was put back into the Arkansas governor’s seat after a term out, he said he was there to stay and would not be using it as a launchpad to the Presidency.
At least Hillary put in a full term before she made the power grab.
Al Gore for President. Howard Dean for Vice President.
Then the Republicans could run on the slogan:
GORE-DEAN NOT!
// But a Clinton/Obama ticket? That could be unstoppable. //
Have to disagree, I think that would pretty much garentee the Dems would lose, The other side could run a brain dead guy (or just get Bush to run again, same thing) and they wouldn’t even have to do anything to beat that ticket. Like it or not, There are large parts of this country that will not vote for a black person and an equally large, (if not bigger) segment of the population for which the idea of woman in the White House is obscene. These predudices can, and someday will, be overcome, but they need to be overcome by strong well liked personalities with lots of good solid, unarguable experience behind them. Neither of which is seen in evidence here, Clinton is just too unliked, (there are people who liked her husband but still can’t stand her), and Obamba is to new on the scene, (plus he has a name that sounds like the worlds most wanted terrorist, something Fox News has already picked up on). Combine those and you have pretty much the definition of a ticket that’s lost before it’s out of the gate.
Well, if you can find a republican who will admit he exists, there’s red state senator and Vietnam veteran Chuck Hagel:
That last one had me ovulating.
PAD,
Did you see Gov. Bill Richardson announce his Presidential Exploratory Committee today? I’ve been a fan for a long time. He is totally electable. He has lots of political and government experience and he has a proven track record. Check him out!
Joe
(Texas)
Have to disagree, I think that would pretty much garentee the Dems would lose, The other side could run a brain dead guy (or just get Bush to run again, same thing) and they wouldn’t even have to do anything to beat that ticket.
I don’t think it would be that easy at all. Yes there are people who would never vote for a black person but there are also many American who are LOOKING for an appealing African American to vote for. Again–look at how Colin Powell was courted, practically begged to run. He would also probably be a big factor in increasing turnout of the black vote–they overwhelmingly vote Democratic but turnout has not always been enough to tilt the outcome.
I keep being told by my Democrat friends that Hillary can’t win, people don’t like her, she won’t get the nomination and if she does she’ll be crushed in the election, etc. I just don’t agree. Even though the Democrats traditionally kill the early front runner I still say she’s got it locked up. She can raise more money than all the other candidates combined. How do you stop that? And as far as the general election, it’s unlikely that anything new will come out about her. There are no bad surprises waiting to be sprung.
This is going to be one of the most interesting elections ever, if only because it will be the first to use the internet as the primary vehicle of disseminating information. Both Obama and Clinton made their announcements on the web. This will be huge.
The one thing I’d like to say is that I find that in elections, predictions tend to become self-fulfilling prophesies. worrying about someone not being electable tends to make them un-electable.
Thanks.
Randall, that’s a great point. However, expectations can also work for you–if Hillary is considered “unelectable” and she is shown to be close or even slightly ahead in the polls at any point it will seem like a far greater deal than it ought to be.
Sometimes negative perceptions can be your friend, if they can be easily contradicted. A lot of people painted Reagan as a dangerous scarey guy in 1980 but when people saw him on TV he looked like a friendly grandfather. Similarly, if the word against Obama is his supposed inexperience, if I were him I’d be boning up on my geo-politics. Drop a couple of references to the ongoing potassium situation in Kazakhstan and whether or not Afoa Moega Lutu will challange Togiola Tulafono for governorship of Pago Pago.
Has Richardson responded to the criticism he delayed a ban on cockfighting to avoid alienating voters with whom cockfighting is still popular?
I also got the impression it was Richardson’s stupidity that nurtured the weak case against Wen Ho Lee — his obvious political manipulation helping not at all to dismiss rumors he was responsible for leaking Lee’s name to publicly scapegoat him. Even the presiding judge went on record apologizing to Lee, and the government chipped in the lion’s share of his $1½ million settlement of his lawsuit .
While there are certainly probable candidates I like less than others (let’s just say “social conservative Kansas Senator” qualifies pretty darn quick there), right now I don’t really like any of the prospectives on either side. I was leaning towards Mark Warner, based on a talk he gave to myself and about 40 other people at work a year or so ago, but he pulled out.
Gore I think would be better than the current crop, with the caveat that he’s also the only one I’ve had the opportunity to personally interact with a few times (group lunch, small group conversations). As for money, there’re reports that he may have sufficient Google stock from being a long time advisor to self-fund a campaign, or at least to jump start it. I stress that I’ve no idea whether that’s true or not.
Obama I had pencilled in for VP in ’08; he talks real purdy, but it’s all generalities and he’s nigh-zero experience. Edwards is similar; he really accomplished nothing in his one Senatorial term, has a used car salesman vibe about him, and for someone who’s supposed to be a charismatic trial lawyer, he sure didn’t do well against Chaney in the VP debate. Hillary just has too much baggage.
How quickly you guys forgot! It wasn’t more than six months ago that all the talk was how Hillary Clinton would be DOA if she became the Democratic candidate.
The Republicans have all those nice sharp knives and the short-phrase attacks ready to remove from the display case. You know, short phrases like “lesbian,” “anti-Christian,” “supporter of adulterer,” “health care meddler,” “more ambitious than Caesar,” and a whole bunch more. They might even help out people on the left who want to nail her for her wholehearted support of Bush’s war; why should the Repub’s care what happens to Bush’s legacy now?
Now, Obama…well, his lack of experience is a problem, but it’s harder for them to attack a black man without instant cries of “Racist!” Which, given the usual Republican strategy, is a nice turnabout.
If the Democrats nominate or don’t nominate people based largely on the mean things that republicans will say about them they will not only lose, they will deserve to lose. Nominate the best person for the job and let the chips fall where they may. Was nothing learned from throwing Dean overboard for the “more electable” Kerry? Hint–if the members of the party don’t like the nominee why should they expect the general electorate to?
One factor we’ve left out in all this–if California is moved up as they are discussing it to be that may end the primary season really quickly. Win California = win the nomination. Not sure if that’s a great idea–California may not be a national bellwether–but it will probably be a further reason to consider Clinton the frontrunner.
Bill,
I feel this is the PERFECT time for Obama to run, for the following reasons:
1.) Part of his strength right now is his freshness and that he is a “new” face. It won’t be quite so new in 2016 and especially not in 2024. Which brings me to…
2.) History would indicate that the democrats will regain the White House in 2008. Since Truman’s second term ended in 1952 and ended the fifth straight term for Democrats, neither party has been able to hold onto the White House for three straight terms, except for Reagan/Bush Senior from 1980-1992. Considering how unpopular Bush is right now, it increasingly looks like this trend will continue in 2008. So if a Democrat is going to win, why not take a shot, especially….
3.) Since, if the current trend does in fact hold, and a Democrat wins the White Housein 2008, odds ar good he/she will be reelected. Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Dubya have all been reelected (and Johnson was basically seen as reelecting JFK). Even Ford and Carter came close in their campaigns for a second term – and only Carter can be seen as a failure entirely of his own making.
So, Obama would be waiting until at least 2016. Of course…
4.) If trends # 2 and 3 hold, then a Republican will be elected in 2016 and be elected to two terms, meaning Obama will have to wait until 2024, when he will be 63.
5.) After 16 years of two men holding the office who were absolutely villified by their opponents, Obama’s “positive” message and “we are a purple nation” will likely never resonate so much as right now.
6.) Part of the reason Senators have failed so miserably in their quest for the White House is because they have reams of votes which can be sifted through to find controversy and contradictions. With Obama’s sparse experience, that will be nowhere near the problem it would be in 2016 or 2024.
Just something to think about.
Matt Adler,
Do you really find it unthinkable that Hillary already has people digging up dirt on Obama? Right now, he is her biggest obstacle to the White House. This is a woman who used to hire private investigators to dig up dirt on Bill’s mistresses to discredit them. As someone once said, “All’s fair in love and war” and most successful campaigners I know own a copy of “The Art Of War”.
Craig Ries,
“Carter, Clinton, Gore. Three men who were president or vice-president and they haven’t stopped working since leaving office.”
Really? No vacations? they must really be tired!
“Unlike Ford or Bush Sr. And, I suspect, Bush jr. will be the same as his father.”
On what factual basis do you make these ridiculous assertions? Ford and Bush Sr. both did/have done a lot since leaving office. They may not have made a movie or made a deal that allowed North Korea to develop nuclear weapons but Ford’s legacy grew in the years he left office and he worked with Carter on several things, to say nothing of his wife’s famous rehab center.
Bush Sr. has, among other things, been working with his former rival Clinton on many things. Honestly, it’s been on the news.
She’s not ever real she’s living on the plastic lifestyle Bill created for her. Power hunger and stupid what more could you ask for???
Posted by: Bill Mulligan
Agreed.
She may not have a lot of choice in that; if Obama is Very Popular, she may be stuck with him as VP candidate.
“What’s good for General Bullmoose is good for the USA!”
Posted by: JamesLynch
Or, perhaps, hard as it may be to believe, maybe she actually sorta likes the guy?
Posted by: Bill Mulligan
Jerome, at THIS point in time, the only evidence that Hillary has people digging up dirt on Barack is from the usual right-wing loudmouths who are quoting–AS THEIR ONLY SOURCE–a website owned by Sun Myung Moon’s people. (Of course, it wouldn’t be unthinkable that Karl Rove is the “source” that Insightmag.org was quoting. We should never forget how Rove operates–the sleazier the tactic, the better.)
Hillary *may* be doing some investigating on Barack, but as long as the only reports are coming from the right-wing noise machine, I’m not ready to believe that either she or her campaign is the source of any “whisper campaign”.
The more and more political posturing I see, the more and more I’m liking Bill Richardson’s chances when he eventually throws his hat into the ring.
Joseph W,
I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised to see her digging up dirt on Obama. The Clintons have made a political killing by destroying their opponents. It has obviously gotten them very far, so why would they change now?
// Yes there are people who would never vote for a black person but there are also many American who are LOOKING for an appealing African American to vote for. //
Sadly I strongly suspect that the amount of Americans who are looking for an appealing African American canidate is vastly outnumbered by the amount of American’s for whom putting a Black person in office is the worst possible scenerio they can think of. There are way to many people out there for whom the civil war never ended or they feel the wrong side won, (and for the wrong reasons), and a whole lot of folks who feel that all the problems of this country started with the civil rights movement and really resent the idea that Martin Luther King has his own holiday. I would like to believe otherwise but the world I see around me, (not the one I see on TV shows, where a white guy can bring a black girl to the school dance and no one says anything), tells me a very different picture.
I feel this is the PERFECT time for Obama to run, for the following reasons:
And you have an impressive list of reasons. You may well be right.
One thing that must weigh on Obama’s mind–Democrats are not terribly kind to those who go for the bras ring and fall short. If he tries and fails to get at least the VP nomination he may end up on the scrap heap along with Bill Bradley, Joe Biden, etc. It’s an odd thing that the opposite seems to occur with the GOP–last times primary loser is often this times frontrunner.
But I’m thinking that you are right. Mario Cuomo is probably kicking himself for not running when his stock was high.
Power hunger and stupid what more could you ask for???
No more power hungry than anyone else who runs for president. And stupid? Not at all.
She may not have a lot of choice in that; if Obama is Very Popular, she may be stuck with him as VP candidate.
That’s true though if she beats him in large part by portraying him as inexperienced it will take a heaping handful of chutzpah to then put him a heartbeat away from the presidency…I guess it depends on how ugly the campaign gets.
The more and more political posturing I see, the more and more I’m liking Bill Richardson’s chances when he eventually throws his hat into the ring.
VP candidate at best. (And not a bad choice for that.)
I would like to believe otherwise but the world I see around me, (not the one I see on TV shows, where a white guy can bring a black girl to the school dance and no one says anything), tells me a very different picture.
I can only speak from my experience as a Northerner in the middle of Nowhere NC; A black boy can take a white girl to the school dance and nobody even blinks. (The reverse is less common but still isn’t going to set any tongues wagging). A surprising development to me and a pleasing one.
I’m not saying it’s that way everywhere but my oldest daughter was also dating a gentleman from Nigeria in Upstate New York and did not report any ugliness from people. Perhaps times are changing for the better–kids today have grown up in a culture that shows such relationships on TV and movies and it’s the bigots who are the villains. Maybe real life is starting to reflect that TV ideal.
// I would like to believe otherwise but the world I see around me, (not the one I see on TV shows, where a white guy can bring a black girl to the school dance and no one says anything), tells me a very different picture.
I can only speak from my experience as a Northerner in the middle of Nowhere NC; A black boy can take a white girl to the school dance and nobody even blinks. (The reverse is less common but still isn’t going to set any tongues wagging). A surprising development to me and a pleasing one.
I’m not saying it’s that way everywhere but my oldest daughter was also dating a gentleman from Nigeria in Upstate New York and did not report any ugliness from people. Perhaps times are changing for the better–kids today have grown up in a culture that shows such relationships on TV and movies and it’s the bigots who are the villains. Maybe real life is starting to reflect that TV ideal. //
Times are changing for the better but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a long way to go. New York for instance is realtivly progessive and intergrated, but I’m told just a few hours away in Philly the idea of a black kid playing with a white kid is still a rarity and that’s in a big city with a huge African American population. And even New York has more then it’s share of racial problems, see the recent cop shooting for instance. Could a black person become president, sure, but it wouldn’t be easy and would take a certain kind of person to overcome the predudice a whole lot of us have. I don’t think Obamba is that person, not only is he black but there’s a whole lot of people who think he’s Muslim, (I don’t think he is, not that it really matters to me, but thank you Fox News for blurring that truth) and his name is very simular to the worlds most wanted man (once again thank you Fox News for confusing that issue). Considering that one of the reasons Kerry lost the last election because the competition told a whole lot of people in the Bible belt that he planned to outlaw the Bible and leagalize gay marriage and they BELIEVED THAT, I don’t think it would be all that hard for the competition to squash Obamba before he gets out of the gate, (hëll Fox News has already started).
“What’s wrong with electing a man who has demonstrably been ahead of the curve on one of the gravest problems these next generations will face?”
IMHO, absolutely nothing.
If she’s the liberal doctor’s daughter, I’m glad she feels free to tell her defensive republican father just everything.
Is there any news on when and where Hillary made this tape that was released on the Internet? I don’t live in New York, but I can’t imagine it’s that green in January. That background looks like June or July. That, coupled with her statement about the “conversation being one-sided lately” makes me think this was filmed at least before the Democrats regained the congressional majority. I’m theorizing the tape was made months ago and just now released. (Shades of the cave guy!)
Peter said:
First of all, when she ran for Senator, she swore it wasn’t to position herself for a presidential run, but rather because she loved New York and wanted to serve its citizens. If she’d been in that position through, say, 2012, I might be convinced she saw the gig as something other than a means to an end. As it is, I feel as if she were here for the minimum amount of time necessary to establish some political cred. That’s a touch too manipulative for me.
I seem to recall a certain US Senator-turned-Presidential candidate named Robert Kennedy pulling the same strategy and I don’t recall anyone in the public eye yelling “Foul!” back then. How times have changed!
Luigi Novi: My statement was based on observations of fact, the details of which I cited. Not optimism.
Mike: Surrounded by people who voted blacks into Washington, are you?
Luigi Novi: Mike, I’m sorry, but really have no idea what this comment means. You accused me of responding to Peter’s comments about Obama and race based on experience and optimism, and I responded by saying that it was based on facts that I cited. I don’t see how this comment by you serves to refute that point. I vote for the candidate that I think will do the best job. If the parties nominate someone of that description who happens to be black, so be it. If Obama is nominated, he’ll get my vote. If the people who surround me haven’t put blacks into Washington, maybe it’s because there haven’t been any black candidates from the two major parties. These comments didn’t even have anything to do with me but with Obama. I pointed out how minorities will no longer be minorities by 2040-2050. That isn’t optimism. It’s a stated projection by the Census Bureau. In what way do your responses disprove this?
I am, however, surrounded by people who vote for Latinos locally, since that’s the dominant ethnicity in Union City, NJ, where I live. I don’t know if that answers your question or not.
Luigi Novi: As for privilege, I’m not certain what privileges you think being white has afforded me. But if you could name some, please do so.
Mike: For one, a movie portraying the males of your ethnicity exclusively as sexually predators — with southern states crowded with guys who look like you and apparently one woman of the same ethnicity to share among you — didn’t dominate film houses for 25 years.
Luigi Novi: Unless you’re at least 67 years old—older if you yourself were witness to life during that 25 year period, I don’t see how this has anything to do with you. Can I assume that you’re in your seventies, just out of curiosity?
No, such a movie portraying males of my ethnicity has not done this. No, I only have to deal with films and TV shows that consistently treat Italian-Americans as one-dimensional, stereotypical, monosyllabic, racist thugs and murderers. And the occasional business in my hometown that tries to charge me more or refuse me service because I don’t speak Spanish.
The problem with this statement on your part (aside from the fact that you seem to think that blacks are the only group with a distorted media image—something largely mitigated by modern political correctness and diversity) is that it seems to imply that simply by being white, I somehow have it made, as if the concept of “privilege” is such a stark black-and-white question (no pun intended) that merely because I was not the group unfairly targeted by The Birth of a Nation, that that somehow means that I have not had to deal with the same pitfalls in life as everyone else has. Well, I’m sorry you feel that way. There are undoubtedly aspects of some white people’s lives that I suppose they owe to the color of their skin. But there are also other variables that help determine where you are in life, like socioeconomic class, parental upbringing, education, and maybe even luck, not to mention all sorts of other obstacles that every human being has to deal with, no matter how much greener you think the grass is on my side of the lawn. But looking around, I don’t see my life as one of “privilege”. I’m broke, have a lousy outdoor job in which I’m often treated like dirt, and in which I haven’t been working since before Christmas because of the weather, and the one temp job I was given after New Year’s lasted two days, without any reason give to me as to why I was not kept on. I’ve been looking for a new job since October 2005. I don’t see how being white has mitigated this.
Mike: For another, you don’t have to worry about housing brokers losing interest in serving you based your skin color, or car salesmen charging you more based on the same.
Luigi Novi: I don’t have to worry about housing brokers because since I can’t afford to live on my own right now, that I have to live with my parents. Nor can I afford a car.
Mike: Last year a study was done at a major university where subjects were bombarded randomly with ethnic imagery and the random invocation of virtues and vices. While some people were able to attribute favorable characteristics evenly among ethnicities evenly (establishing the standard for objectivity), most people demonstrated a bias favoring white males — including black and lesbian subjects. I can only imagine such a bias — where even blacks and lesbians default to trusting people who aren’t like them — is only more powerful when you don’t even acknowledge it exists.
Luigi Novi: Again, you have not established that I don’t acknowledge that it exists, for the simple reason that the comments on my part that prompted your responses had nothing to do with it.
I do acknowledge that it exists, specifically because I took that test online myself (assuming that the one you’re talking about is Harvard University’s Race Implicit Association Test). It showed that I slightly favor Europeans, and overweight people, both of which surprised me. It should also be pointed out that that test (which you can all take at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/), makes a point about implicit, unconscious attitudes, rather than overt, fully conscious ones. (More on that point at: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-11-29.html.) It only stands to reason that even unconsciously, a person will tend to favor members of groups to which that person belongs, a point that is obviously not exclusive to whites. I don’t know why the results you cite would also hold for black subjects, but if you could furnish us with sources, please do so.
In any event, none of this refutes my statements about Obama, or even pertains to it. You saw a comment I made about race, and used it to begin a satellite thread about a different a completely different topic about which you seem to have a very self-righteous chip on your shoulder, launching into an attack upon my personal life, which I never brought up, even accusing me of basing my statements on “experience” and “optimism”, when my post made it explicitly clear that it was a statement on a matter of fact based on cited sources. For someone who extols the virtues of citations, it’s a bit surprising that you ignored this fact, instead choosing to respond with just attacks and assumptions about me and my life, without much citations of your own.
Mike: From the way you’ve framed things, if the insurance companies are charging their fees — from which they make their fûçkìņg huge profits — to make doctors feel safer, they seem to be doing a piss-poor job.
Luigi Novi: The point is that contrary to Czar’s comment, things would not necessarily be “okay” if Edwards gets elected. The point was not about how well insurance companies are doing their job.
Luigi Novi: Just out of curiosity, where are your citations for the assertions you’ve just made to me?
Mike: What assertions are you referring to?
Luigi Novi: You disagreed with my statements about how the Census Bureau has projected that whites will be the minority by 2040-2050 by dismissing it as “optimism”. Where is your citation that that statement is not true, or for that matter, the citation upon which you established my state of mind? You also asserted that the university study on race demonstrated a bias towards whites even on the part of black subjects. Where is your citation for that?
Mike: For another, you don’t have to worry about housing brokers losing interest in serving you based your skin color, or car salesmen charging you more based on the same.
Luigi Novi: I don’t have to worry about housing brokers because since I can’t afford to live on my own right now, that I have to live with my parents. Nor can I afford a car.
Mike: Last year a study was done at a major university where subjects were bombarded randomly with ethnic imagery and the random invocation of virtues and vices. While some people were able to attribute favorable characteristics evenly among ethnicities evenly (establishing the standard for objectivity), most people demonstrated a bias favoring white males — including black and lesbian subjects. I can only imagine such a bias — where even blacks and lesbians default to trusting people who aren’t like them — is only more powerful when you don’t even acknowledge it exists.
Luigi Novi: Again, you have not established that I don’t acknowledge that it exists, for the simple reason that the comments on my part that prompted your responses had nothing to do with it.
I do acknowledge that it exists, specifically because I took that test online myself (assuming that the one you’re talking about is Harvard University’s Race Implicit Association Test). It showed that I slightly favor Europeans, and overweight people, both of which surprised me. It should also be pointed out that that test (which you can all take at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/), makes a point about implicit, unconscious attitudes, rather than overt, fully conscious ones. (More on that point at: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-11-29.html.) It only stands to reason that even unconsciously, a person will tend to favor members of groups to which that person belongs, a point that is obviously not exclusive to whites. I don’t know why the results you cite would also hold for black subjects, but if you could furnish us with sources, please do so.
In any event, none of this refutes my statements about Obama, or even pertains to it. You saw a comment I made about race, and used it to begin a satellite thread about a different a completely different topic about which you seem to have a very self-righteous chip on your shoulder, launching into an attack upon my personal life, which I never brought up, even accusing me of basing my statements on “experience” and “optimism”, when my post made it explicitly clear that it was a statement on a matter of fact based on cited sources. For someone who extols the virtues of citations, it’s a bit surprising that you ignored this fact, instead choosing to respond with just attacks and assumptions about me and my life, without much citations of your own.
Mike: For another, you don’t have to worry about housing brokers losing interest in serving you based your skin color, or car salesmen charging you more based on the same.
Luigi Novi: I don’t have to worry about housing brokers because since I can’t afford to live on my own right now, that I have to live with my parents. Nor can I afford a car.