It strikes me that Barack Obama is playing a dangerous game here (HT: Scott Helman).
“I think it is fair to say that I believe I can bring the country together more effectively than she can,” Obama said. “I will add, by the way, that is not entirely a problem of her making. Some of those battles in the ’90s that she went through were the result of some pretty unfair attacks on the Clintons. But that history exists, and so, yes, I believe I can bring the country together in a way she cannot do. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be running.”
Ah. Translation: I don’t necessarily agree with the attacks of the Clinton-haters — but hey, what’s done is done, so Hillary is damaged goods and there’s no going back.
Seems to me that the last thing a Democrat should be doing is giving any kind of validation to the grotesque actions of the Clinton-haters back in the 1990s. Yet it seems to me that that’s exactly what Obama is doing, because he sees it as a way of boosting his campaign. I don’t like it.
It’s especially ironic when today’s news also brings this tidbit:
Obama, meanwhile, is up with a new radio ad in Spanish in Nevada, a key early primary state this cycle. Narrators describe Obama as the “son of a foreign father who came to this country looking for a better life” and “a Christian man committed to our community, his wife and his daughters.”
No outreach to those non-Christians, I guess. Not perhaps the most country-uniting message I’ve ever heard.
UPDATE (by Charley): Here’s the Hillary camp’s response:
“It sounds like Karl Rove is writing Senator Obama’s talking points,” said Clinton spokesman Phil Singer. “The reality is that as the campaign now gets under way, Senator Clinton’s ratings are improving because Americans are seeing that she has the strength and experience to deliver change.”
Not to totally undercut David’s point (OK, I’m undercutting his point): This is the stuff of Rove? How frickin’ soft are we?
FURTHER UPDATE (by David): All right, the Rove comment is stupid. I’ll definitely give you that one. They should have stuck with what Wolfson said and been done with it. Who is this Phil Singer fellow, anyway, and why did he feel the need to pile on?
YET ANOTHER UPDATE (by David): Turns out that Singer’s Rove comment, while still ill-advised IMHO, actually does have a basis in what turd-blossom’s been up to lately.
“Look, she is who she is,” Mr. Rove said on Mr. Limbaugh’s syndicated program. “There is no front-runner who has entered the primary season with negatives as high as she has in the history of modern polling. She’s going into the general election with, depending on what poll you look at, in the high 40s on the negative side and just below that on the positive side. And there’s nobody who has ever won the presidency who started out in that kind of position.”
-First off Obama is right, I for one do not want to relive the Clinton years with all that dirty laundry. Granted they were clear of any real wrong doing but the point is she is damaged good, lets stop fighting the fight from the 1990s and move onto a new promising future. In my view it fits right in with his message as a change candidate. Plenty of people are sick of two families running the country and respective ideologues on both sides sticking it to them. I for one dont want to go back to the 90s I want to move on!
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-Second, whats wrong with saying he’s a Christian? Must every presidential candidate be secular? All he is saying is that his faith is a prominent part of his life, and also to be fair his Hispanic audience is more likely than not to be Christian so far from alienating its targetted correctly. Did Joe Lieberman saying he’s Jewish make him less appealing to non-Jewish voters? Or John Kerry saying he’s Catholic turn off non-Catholics? Does a candidate stating their religious affiliation automatically divide the country? Thats terrible logic if you ask me.
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Also its unfair criticism since all the candidates are talking about their faith. Edwards had a public prayer session after Virgina tech, Hillary talks about her faith almost as much if not more than Obama, again very unfair criticism.
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Why do you dislike him so much?
were cleared of any wrong doing, particularly Hillary.
THAT should be “the point,” not that she’s allegedly “damaged goods.” Why would any Democrat give the time of day to the slingers of all the anti-Clinton crap? Hillary’s not saying she wants to go back to the 1990s, for God’s sake. It’s the people running against her (on both sides) that are doing that.
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Why do you dislike him so much?
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I don’t dislike him, but I do dislike what he’s doing here. I also disliked what he said about Edwards a few months back. If Obama’s serious about pushing a new kind of politics, he should start walking the walk as well as talking the talk. He could learn a lot from Deval Patrick.
If you are pro-Clinton, let’s hear something about why she is right for the country, right for this election, not more of these pseudo-issue slams at Obama that sound like they are Clinton campaign talking points.
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On Hillary:
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“It’s clear [Hillary] is not about running from the grassroots”
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“Hillary is likely to deliver political maneuvers and triangulation, a willingness to jettison core Democratic constituencies to curry favor with social conservatives”
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“the Clinton campaign is engaging in the fine art of political attack and deflection – an art the Clintons certainly had to perfect in their eight scandal-ridden years in Washington.”
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On Richardson:
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“It’s like watching kids fall off the balance beam at the Olympics. I’m just sitting here wincing waiting for more mangled syntax and incoherent responses.”
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David’s comments are a lot less vitriolic than this stuff…
…even if you have a funny idea of vitriol. But what is this “guy” stuff? I don’t even identify as butch.
You caught me in an assumption.
I disagree with David in this case, but I really, really don’t see him as a Hillary shill. If anything he’s leaning (or was leaning) Richardson.
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Anyway, David: If you’re getting some, uh, “considerations” from the Clinton campaign, can I have some?
I’m undecided. I might vote for Hillary, but then again, I might not. But it’s perfectly fair game to hold Obama’s feet to the fire on this kind of stuff — he’s the guy making a big bloody deal about changing politics and all that.
You hate negative campaigning so much – how about trying some positive campaigning yourself?
I’m undecided. So I’ve got no one to campaign for right now. But do you see a problem with calling out candidates who aren’t living up to the ideals they’re talking about? I mean, what’s the point of blogging if we don’t do that?
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By the way, are you for Obama? If so, let’s hear it!
…on calling out one of the leading candidates for issues that are so marginal that they spark huge threads of debate about whether they even represent issues at all. You also seem to be spending a some ink (bits?) defending a leading candidate who is poo-poohing some ideals entirely (such as avoiding taking money from lobbyists). I would say from reading your posts that you don’t sound as undecided as you say – perhaps the posts are part of your process of coming to decision? Or perhaps you follow what my state senator once described as the Boston Globe school of endorsement (oh boy, Sabutai is going to accuse me of vitriol again) – you smack the candidate around with a string of front-page articles illuminating failings real and insinuated, demonstrating the independence and vigilance of the press, and then you write a nice editorial the Sunday before election day declaring that same candidate the paper’s pick.
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Obama is so far my first choice among the Dems, but I’ll be there for whoever the nominee is in the end, even the hated Hillary.
Not another talking point! Quick, reframe it!
Okay, under what circumstances is it okay to say something is a talking point and when is it not?
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I agree with you that just because something is a talking point does not mean it is false. I also agree that we can overuse that accusation. I also agree that calling something a talking point — or even proving that it is a talking point — does not constitute a refutation of said alleged talking point.
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On the other hand, the Republicans have shown extraordinary message discipline. That is not because the Message Fairy appears in all their dreams every night and tells them what to say. Hasn’t “talking point” entered our lexicon because it represents an actual, observable, phenomenon that requires a name? You know, like “gravity”, “neutrino”, and “Lorentz contraction”. (Footnotes to follow, I’m sure.)
In politics, there is a Side A and a Side B. Each side tends to marshall facts/opinions/arguments that are most favorable to its side, and least convenient to the other. These are talking points, and the term is, as you suggest, an apt method to descibe them. Please note that the description is value-neutral.
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It is when used as above, as a refutation, that the term becomes an admission of defeat in the argument. Something becomes a talking point because it is a good point– not necessarily irrefutable or correct, but good (And just because you disagree doesn’t make it bad). If made by the bad guys, it needs to be refuted, not labeled.
I think we’ve said the same thing about whether it needs to be refuted or not. There might be a contextual difference, though. On Daily Kos, I think there is the expectation that you have already read the refutation of the talking point. It’s been bandied about enough that some diary somewhere has shot it down and your admission ticket to the discussion is knowing what are and aren’t the Republican talking points and, if you repeat one of them, you at least do it consciously with the standard refutation in mind.
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Here there is no such expectation, I suppose.
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I think there’s another aspect to it. The Republicans have gotten very good at message discipline. The Democrats are terrible at it and it’s one reason we lose so often. A result of Republican message discipline is that the press tends to adopt their language and framework. I don’t believe that’s because Republicans are winning any arguments. On the contrary, I think that’s because the media want to be cool kids and want to say whatever everyone else is saying. So in a sense, these talking points become “true” in the national discourse even if they aren’t the result of careful examination, debate, or all those other lovely incidentals of Jeffersonian democracy. Why, for example, does anyone believe that Iraqi insurgents might cross the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and half of Massachusetts to murder all the lawyers and parents they can find? Answer: Republican message discipline, certainly not any facts about insurgents or their plans.
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And of course, talking points drive liberals batshit — as you are apparently discovering.
Country music lyric there somewhere.
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It is an entirely unsatisfactory response, no better than dismissing liberal arguments as “moonbat” “socialist” or “communist.”
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How can anyone read every blessed thing on one of these sights? I can’t do it on this one, and I spend WAY too much time here.
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Perhaps I will now request a link to the aforeposted refutaion.
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Again, I take issue with the way the term was used above.
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In any event, I see far fewer requests to reframe “tax burden” as “user fee” so perhaps I will have to be content to take some small solace in that.
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BTW, did you read Rudy’s Foreign Affairs? To paraphrase: the entire world, not unlike the world of organized crime, is divided into good and bad guys. Any negotiation of any kind shows weakness and empowers the bad guys. Therefore the only means of dealing with said bad guys is coercive force, meaning economic or military force. And economic sanctions don’t work.
Scary stuff, this neo-con anti-diplomacy.
This short clip explains quite a lot.
Is this the “How high is a horse?” interview?
Colbert is brilliant. CC vid player not so much.
And the baby food brand preferred by Neonatal nazis? Goebbels’
beat the rap. That said they deserved everything they got and richly deserved more.
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ANYONE would be a more honorable candidate than Mrs. Clinton.
I was younger ….:)
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Economy was better.
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Budget was balanced.
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COPS program, Youth Opportunity and other urban initiatives helped support Boston “miracle”
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Community service groups got a major boost;
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We weren’t finding phony pretenses (WMD) to invade countries.
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Democrat held the WH for 8 years (ok, we lost Congress …)
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Bottom line — no one will want to go back to the 2000’s, will they?
And I still have a few of my flannel shirts!
Since when is it non-unifying to point out that you’re Christian? Can’t people be as proud of their religion as they are their party affiliation, culture or heritage?
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And he’s got a point about the Clintons in the 1990s. It doesn’t validate anything to say that by the time the Clinton’s left office, a great many Americans were sick and tired of them. And a lot of people still remember Hillary Clinton’s, (and for that matter, Bill Clinton’s) missteps a decade ago. They may not have deserved a lot of what happened to them, but there’s no denying a great many of their wounds were self-inflicted. That’s real, and it’s out there. If it’s not faced now, it’s certainly going to be faced if she wins the primary.
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In other words, if Clinton is going to say, “Barack, you’re young and naive. Where were you a decade ago when I was doing this…” You can certainly expect him to say, “Okay, lets talk about that decade, and the general effect your time in Washington had on the voting population, a good portion of whom still can’t stand you…”
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Fair is fair.
He’s running the same “christian” ad in SC (without the immigrant emphasis), and I frankly don’t care for it. I thought one of the dangers of the Bush presidency was his wrapping himself in the bible as a way to gain votes. I don’t think it is particularly good for the Party, even if outreach to christian’s is positive.
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These old Clinton stories won’t stick. They are old news, and I don’t find the public at all interested in rehashing these attacks.
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Personally, I think it is risky business to run against Bill Clinton in a Democratic primary. This campaign is becoming increasingly negative, which is disappointing, but typical for Democrats.
Hillary paints Obama as dangerously naive, Obama reminds voters that Hillary as a nominee would mobilize the republican base more than any other candidate. It’s a presidential election. Candidates take swipes at each other. Get over it.
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Seems to me that the last thing a Democrat should be doing is giving any kind of validation to the grotesque actions of the Clinton-haters back in the 1990s.
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Acknowledgement != validation. We can’t pretend away things that we don’t like.
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No outreach to those non-Christians, I guess. Not perhaps the most country-uniting message I’ve ever heard.
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In case you hadn’t noticed, the right wing noise machine has been in overdrive trying to create the perception that Obama is some kind of secret radical muslim. I think acknowledgement of his faith, as contrived as it may seem, is probably going to be a recurring theme.
I’m a Hillary supporter, but I’m a big fan of Obama as well. It’s unfortunate that so many blog commentators on center-left blogs can’t have the same attitude of supporting a candidate but holding back from smearing another good Democrat (not you David, but some of the other comments here and elsewhere).
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Anyway, I see nothing wrong with Obama’s strategy here — in fact, it makes perfect sense for two reasons:
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(1) He is stressing “electability”, which is and should always be a key concern. He has some data to support his position (i.e. his high positives and relatively low negatives), and Hillary has been polling among Democrats as the most likely to win in November, so he needs to attack this angle.
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(2) Obama and Clinton are in a tight battle for minority voters right now, with Clinton (perhaps) having the edge right now. He should indeed stress his Christianity to help among Latinos and African-Americans, groups key to the Democratic primaries. Since these groups as a whole tend to be fairly heavily religious and Christian, this should be a positive (particularly in a ad targeted at recent Latino immigrants).
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Call it pandering; I call it smart strategy on Obama’s part, an area in which Clinton’s campaign has dominated to this part in the campaign.
Gaah! That’s what killed us in 04. Are we really going to fall into that trap again?
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Like I said upthread, Obama could and should learn from Deval Patrick. Patrick never talked about “electability,” nor did he EVER, as far as I can recall, undertake these kinds of attacks at Reilly, Gabrieli, or Healey — despite the many opportunities he had to do so when they all attacked him. And it was precisely because he never attacked that when the mud started flying at him, it didn’t stick and in fact rebounded onto the mudslinger.
How many times did someone ask you “Can Deval win?” The question was still there, and I agree that he was smart not to address it directly, nor to attack his opponents. In fact, that’s HOW he answered it — by being gubernatorial.
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Obama has to address electability. It’s his biggest hurdle. And not just for the same reason Deval had to, but because there are more alternatives.
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You’re not going to say the rest of the country is like Massachusetts, are you?
David,
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You keep mentioning that Barack should learn from Deval, but I’m not sure it’s an apt comparison.
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Though not everyone here was an early Deval supporter and so I’m certain not everyone will agree with me, Deval had his primary opponents entirely outclassed. The same isn’t true of Barack. Both Hillary and John Edwards are strong candidates and Barack can’t afford to simply stay above the fray … especially when his opponents are taking shots at him for being inexperienced and naive.
They lost because they stressed electability and then nominated a stiff anyway.
Ah, but see sabutai’s comment downthread, referencing a poll that showed Obama’s negatives to be twice Clinton’s among Democrats.
especially since obviously Obama needs to win the nomination first, but my reference to high positives and relatively low negatives was to all registered voters, including Republicans and independents.
They’re trying to win, and it would be nice to see if they know how to duck BEFORE the first post-convention punch gets thrown.
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Also, FWIW, it is interesting that Obama puts his finger on the single thing that makes me uneasy about HRC. But for the baggage, I would be a slam dunk HRC voter.
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I would like to see her put to the test of dealing with the baggage sooner rather than later.
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So, Obama is trying to win. And in the process, he is testing the mettle of HRC. These are necessary things.
It’s not the worst kind of attack by far. Typical primary stuff. But it certainly isn’t necessary. I think the baggage has been thrown at Hillary since she started talking about running, and it simply hasn’t had an impact. For example, a number of books rehashing those old days came out recently and didn’t cause a stir. Yet, she beats every candidate on the Republican side in the most recent Q poll, her negatives continue to trend down despite being one the best known people to ever run for office, and a majority of americans believe she will be the next president. The problem for Obama is there is not much to differentiate from Hillary on. He said as much before deciding to run. This isn’t the worst kind of politics, but I don’t think it will be particularly useful for Obama.
This was forgotten in ’88 and ’04 to the Democrat’s cost. Bill Clinton’s great strength as a campaigner was that he excelled at playing defense. Let’s see how these guys can do before the end of the pre-season.
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FWIW, I’m not sure that I like how HRC has responded thus far; I’m somewhat concerned that she’s coming across as brittle on defense. That would be very bad this time next year.
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A campaign based on “you are excellent but I might be better” though high minded, does not adequately prepare a candidate for the general election.
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What responses haven’t you liked to this point? I’m curious because I think she’s done an effective job on the attack/counter-attack so far (i.e. with the Pentagon tussle, the “naive” angle on Obama, etc.)
here
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I don’t think it is anywhere near as bad as Chait seems to, but it seems a little whiny to me.
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Again, a problem that HRC has is that she can sound shrill and/or brittle, and this little episode has highlighted that to a small– small!– degree.
to tell you those characterizations sound sexist to me. She’s a strong woman who defends herself when attacked. I think that’s a good quality in a presidential candidate.
As I have posted before, I really rather like HRC, and would prefer that she can break through these issues.
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That said, she can come across as a scold. This is not a good image for a presidential candidate. FWIW, Al Gore has the same problem.
that I don’t understand the TNR piece at all. Wolfson’s comment is a perfectly obvious response to what Obama said. I saw Wolfson’s response in the WaPo article before I read the TNR piece, and it didn’t strike me as even remotely an “overreaction.” I mean, come on — Obama is setting himself up for this, by talking about hope and how he wants to changing politics, and then engaging in the same old same old. HRC would be crazy not to respond that way.
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TNR gets weirder every day.
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And yeah, careful with that shrill and brittle stuff. It’s kinda like calling Obama clean and articulate.
I nevertheless remain concerned that an HRC general election campaign will be forced to spend 90% of its energy contending with Vince Foster, Whitewater, the midnight pardons, and the Starr Report, and I don’t relish it.
…I disdain (don’t hate) sHillary because, as far as I can tell she is nothing more that a snake oil salesperson, and an incompetent one at that.
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From her previous activities (health care, Iraq vote), what would we conclude her terms in office might look like?
that prevents you from being an HRC supporter?
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What is it that ‘Obama put his finger on’?
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HRC is the most solid DLC candidate IMHO, and (as I understand your comments) you’ve identified yourself as being a supporter of the DLC, so what is the issue?
That I remain ambivalent about the Clintons. On the one hand, I am very comfortable with their DLC-moderate politics. I never had an issue with a single policy decision of theirs, with the single exception of DOMA. I supported the welfare reform bill. I loved that he paid attention to Palestine and Northern Ireland. He could effectively communicate that we were the good guys– to a degree that might now be forever lost.
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Bill had enormous potential, most of which went unrealized because of the way they conducted their personal lives, which just handed their enemies weapon after weapon after weapon. For all of the unjustified attacks by the 1990s GOP, Bill just handed them most of their tools. I mean, really, WTF was he thinking? It is still frustrating.
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So, I remain concerned that, for all of the professionalism of her campaign, HRC may not be able to escape the “no controlling legal authority”, “what ‘is’ is, “I did not have sex with that woman” legacy of her husband’s administration. The next administration, and the next Democratic nominee, needs to get airborne.
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That is why, if HRC’s brain could be transplanted into a “fresh” face, I would be gung ho. It is hard to be gung ho for the Clintons at this point, though. Of course, removing HRC’s white house years would rob her of the experience– not to mention the close advice of Bill- that is a pretty big selling point as well.
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As I say, I support HRC, but I am ambivalent about it.
interested. If that is your particular reason for not voting for Hillary, it’s a rather weak one. Like I said, the media has tried to dredge these things up already, and the public wasn’t interested. You really don’t give the american people enough credit. Further, Hillary(by the way, a completely seperate person than Bill) was cleared of every innuendo cast at her.
actually he was answering a direct question: why are you hesitant about Hillary if you support her positions? CentralMassDad is very much a self-identified Hilary supporter, and hasn’t said anywhere here he’s not voting, but talking about what her weaknesses are.
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I’ve been clear to talk about Obama’s weakness when they’ve been valid, especially the idiotic coal-to-liquid stuff, and that’s important to participate in a discussion board blog situation like this critically and try to get past ones own biases. I’m not here to promote my candidate, though sometimes will in the course of things. but of course theres things I don’t agree with Obama on, and there’s plenty of ways other candidates are stronger in certain areas: Edwards has been excellent on tax reform, though terrible by pushing for National RomneyCare as a health care solution, and I think Richardson has the deepest foreign policy experience anyone could have, despite his ridiculous support of the invasion of Iraq and Iran-Contra and the NRA. You clearly support Clinton, but by attacking even your allies when they point out weak spots is a terrible tactic, and not constructive in contributing to the discussion.
I don’t think anyone cares about those old smears. That’s not a smear of CentralMassDad. I certainly mean no offense. I simply do not think that is a very valid concern because as I see it several books have recently been published, there are pundits both Right and Left who have tried to rehash these stories, and there seems to be no appitite in the public for that. I think more relevant weaknesses of Hillary’s is her timidity toward policy changes, and her eagerness to sound tough too often. There are a great many policy position’s Edwards has taken that I heartily agree with, and I’ve said so. Perhaps I was too harsh with CentralMassDad.
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Big talk from a guy who has double the negatives that Hillary does among Democrats.
Hillary has a 50% unfavorable rating among the public at large. And there’s hardly anyone who’s “undecided” about what they think of her. If Obama is going to win the primary, he has to fight this media narrative that Clinton is the only “electable” candidate. Why should anyone be surprised that he’s emphasizing his strengths in the real world of elections?
“His strengths in the real world of elections”??
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Obama lost a primary, and then didn’t lose a Senate election 4 years later as his primary and general opponents — and their organizations — imploded around him.
Giuliani also imploded when he faced Hillary. And as Machiavelli noted, good fortune is an important element of success in politics. Both Obama and Clinton have benefited in recent years.
And running up against Hillary — whose campaign is scary in its competence and professionalism — is not good fortune for anyone involved.
How much do you think this matters, however? After all, I seriously doubt that after the Republican machine is done with Obama (should he get the nomination) that his favs/unfavs will look much like they do now, especially amongst Republicans and GOP-leaning indies, where Obama draws a large part of his current general election favorable numbers.
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And given how quickly favorability numbers can change even for candidates with close to 100% name recognition, I wonder how many people are truly “decided” about their opinion of a candidate.
In my view: Obama is taking a quiet shot at Hillary, no question. It seems more pointed for two reasons: One, she’s so far ahead, and everyone knows it. Two, the GOP has spent so much time and energy on Hillary hatred that it just permeates the campaign, so that any criticism sounds like a “GOP frame” to us.
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So this statement — “I can unite the country” — takes on more meaning than it otherwise would. In my ideal works, he would abandon it, because it’s so obvious that it’s clumsy to even mention it.
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But again, as I said upthread, he has to address electability. So how does he do it? I don’t know.
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Re: the Christian ads, I haven’t heard them, but I hate all campaign God talk, especially from Democrats.
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Why? God is important to a lot of people. Why shouldn’t candidates talk about that subject.
To me, since “Allah talk” and “Vishnu talk” will kill any national campaign, “God talk” is merely exploiting others’ faith in order to troll for votes.
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I don’t see why it’s “exploitation”. It’s simply a recgonition that religion is important to a lot of Democratic voters and so shouldn’t be something simply avoided on the campaign trail.
Why is a candidate’s religion important to you and/or many Democratic voters?
It’s not important to me at all, but I suppose that if you derive the principles of your activism from your religion, it would indeed be important. Perhaps that is the case for many Democratic voters.
But shouldn’t we assume such voters can decide based on the issues, and not a candidate’s religion?
I can’t say that it is entirely irrelevant, but it isn’t very high on the list.
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But it is for a lot of people whose stance on a host of issues is intimately connected with their religious values. Especially in midwestern states that have proven in the past to be somewhat important in the electoral vote department. These voters are not all rabid Falwell followers. Many agree with the “progressive” stance on more issues than they disagree with the “progressive” stance. Obama’s ability to connect his liberal politics with religious values is among his greatest assets, in my view.
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It is nice to see a Democratic candidate that doesn’t just concede religious voters –once the very core of the New Deal coalition!– to the GOP.
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It is unfortunate that progressives see no difference between a campaign ad that notes a fact about their candidate from Brownback’s “All for Jesus!” stump speech.
Isn’t that the object in an election?
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I don’t see this a much different than “exploiting” the views of some voters on hot button issues to troll for votes.
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I mean, sheesh, the guy is trying to get elected, isn’t he?
If you gave Obama the choice of (a) getting elected, but he has to drag Hillary through the mud to do it, or (b) not getting elected, which would he pick? So far, I’d have to say that the answer is not clear.
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And sorry to keep harping on Deval, but it’s pretty clear to me that Deval’s answer would have been (b). He had numerous opportunities to go negative, when in fact people in his own party were begging him to. He didn’t — he repeatedly said he wouldn’t break faith with the people to whom he promised early on to run a different kind of campaign. He stuck to that, and it paid off handsomely.
Deval also had the early success of the strategy and his own discipline to keep him positive. If things had turned another way and he had to go negative, would he have? Hard to say; I’d like to think not, but the guy’s not a saint.
I think you’re correct that Deval would answer “(b)”, but I just have a difficult time equating a single state (and a considerably more liberal/Democratic state at that) campaign with a national campaign for the top job in the world. It’s like being able to get away with using a good-looking fastball against Double-A opponents but realizing that you have to start throwing effective curves and change-ups once you get to the majors against stronger opponents (cheesy anology).
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You have to be willing to drag your opponent through the mud to become President, IMO, if you really do want the job. And you really need to want the job to be an effective campaigner. I’m not saying Deval wasn’t capable of this or that his camapign wasn’t very well run, but the strategies that work in a single state’s gubernatorial election against relatively weak opponents don’t cut it in this much different race.
Not to slight the Governor, but the stakes in his election weren’t exactly high. The power in Massachusetts does not reside in the governor, so, except for the occasional symbolic issue (He rejected abstinence only!) the impact of a Patrick administration won’t really look all that different from what a Healy administration might have looked like, or from what Weld, Celucci, Swift, and Romney did look like. The state will be governed how the power-brokers in the General Court want it to be, regardless of who the governor is.
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As for Obama, after these last six (well, four) years, I want a Democratic candidate that will fight a little dirty if that is what it takes to win. We can’t afford a President Giuliani (Yes, I know KBusch, it is coming, please see his scary essay in Foreign Affairs). And Giuliani will fight dirty.
… until a candidate who is above the fray comes along? You’re not seriously trying to suggest Hillary would pick option (b) are you?
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Re: DP – I thought DP was the best candidate I’ve seen in my lifetime. I gave him all the money I could afford, worked my butt off, and am proud that we secured him a narrow victory in our Republican-leaning town. But DP isn’t running in this race. “He isn’t DP” is self-evident, not a reason not to support a candidate.
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Not a public one.
with Obama saying he can unite the country — that’s great. What I have a problem with is his saying that he can do it so much better than Hillary, because of what happened to Hillary in the 1990s at the hands of people who irrationally hated her and her husband. To me, that simply validates what the Clinton-haters did. I don’t see why he needs to talk about that at all; and to the extent he does, why not simply back her up against what they did? That would be taking the high road, a la Deval.
n/t
I’ve been leaning more towards BO & JE, but it’s very early. There are a number of things that I don’t like about HRC, but the fact that the GOP Congress spent $70 million smearing her and her husband, isn’t one of them.
Obama can criticize her on her positions and her record all he likes, but dredging up memories of Ken Starr is foolish.
1)DP did run negative ads against Healy through special interest groups so he wouldnt get his hands dirty, he attacked his opponents in debates, etc. Granted he ran a far more positive campaign but the general election was a cakewalk, the Dem primary won’t be. Also in my view if anything he learned from Obama, his whole campaign message was basically taken from the 2004 convention speech and the Obama endorsement in my view was incredibly helpful to Deval. Not to mention their shared Chicago roots and prior history working together.
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2)I think you misunderstand what Obama was saying, he was saying the politics of the 1990s was divisive since the GOP hated the Clintons and went after them hard and the Clintons fought back, it was boring and naseauting, hell Monicagate crippled Clintons ability to govern almost as much as Iraq has crippled Bushs, and he is merely saying do you want another 4-8 years of refighting those fights or do you want to move on. That was the real reason Bush was even able to get close to Al Gore on the popular vote front is because the American people while they liked Clinton and his record were tired of the tone of his politics, Bush promised to change the tone remember? And dont go into the ad homineum “Obama is stealing Bushs strategy!” line because hey it worked, Bush got far more independent and swing voters than Gore. Its her biggest flaw and everyone including Edwards and Richardson are exploiting it.
Pretty mild stuff here, David. Is this as naz-tee as it’s gonna get? You can barely even call it a “criticism” of Hillary; it’s just a statement of opinion that we’ll have to re-live a lot of the anti-Clinton BS of the 90’s if she’s elected. I happen to think that’s mostly not her fault — but that he’s absolutely right.
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Of course, Obama will face his own kind of BS attacks from the right if he’s elected, so in the end I don’t necessarily agree with his thesis — or at least I think he needs to show exactly how he’s going to do so, and not just say so.
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As far as the “Christian” thing is concerned: Mostly I’ve been pretty impressed with Obama in talking about how his faith affects his values; that’s totally above board, and useful background for everyone to know. But this ad, essentially saying “Vote for me because I’m a Christian”, is on the other side of that line, i.e. not good.
at least someone finally agrees with me on the ad! 😉
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But come on, do we really want the Dems saying, “oh well, Hillary’s all right, I guess, but too bad about all the nasty shit that the VRWC made up about her and Bill back then, ’cause that pretty much wrecks her chances.” It was all bullshit, and you know it, and anyone taking it seriously just validates it. I’m sick of it.
And I’ll cut him some slack, especially in light of the Obama/Osama/Madras bull that’s already been mentioned upthread. I draw the line at re-enactments of The Last Supper though.
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HRC’s DLC affiliations (among other things) bug me, but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t vote for her over (fill_in_TheWingnut).
These oblique references and sideways glances about the 1990’s and “baggage” , I don’t understand.
Am I not supposed to want HRC because the GOP smeared her, or because those smears make her unelectable? Fuck that noise. I give her points for getting elected to the Senate on the heels of that barage of crap they threw at her as First Lady.
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BTW, Big Dog Clinton’s popularity ebbed and flowed during his eight years in office. At the height of the shitstorm over the Blue Dress Impeachment, when Lieberman was rendering his garments, Clinton’s approval rating actually went up to 73%.
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GWB would give Gonzo’s shriveled right nut for a rating like that.
…in the Hillary camp. I see no need to substantively denfend that position. It is what it is. I support Hillary. Fewer, but many, support Obama and fewer still support Edwards.
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At the end of the day, all that matters is that whomever receives the Democratic nomination receives ALL of our votes. If we can ALL agree on that RIGHT NOW, we win. If we can’t WE’LL LOSE AGAIN.
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It is really that simple.
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Democrats lose in the details and Republicans win in the big picture.
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Pull up your damn boot straps and wrap your minds around this:
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All this BS about Obama vs. Clinton vs. Edwards vs. Richardson is irrelevant.
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In November 2008 we must all wake up and regardless of wheter it is raining or snowing or cold or cloudy we must al go to the polls and VOTE for whatever DEMOCRAT is on the ballot.
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If we can’t all agree on THIS RIGHT NOW we have already lost.
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Period. End of story.
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Really.
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Stop thinking about disagreeing.
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End of story.
In a heartbeat vs. any of the GOP dudes. That’s not saying much, but it’s certainly true. Hell, donate, organize, call, canvass, whatever; I’ll do all of it.
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But we’ve got a decision to make before then: That’s why there’s a primary. And she hasn’t won yet. And I haven’t decided for whom I’m voting, and I’m trying to figure it out. So this stuff matters.
Dreams of My Father.
….disagree. This stuff doesn’t matter. This is like fighting over whether spiderman can beat up batman. Most of what I have seen on this thread amounts to setting up camps. My guy is better than your girl…blah, blah, blah.
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This is the ground work for the disenfanchisement that is going to get tossed to a third party candidate when this primary circus is over.
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People need to start accepting that, in all liklihood, they will have to vote for Obama or Clinton and start learning to like both of them. There is WAAAAY too much time between now and the nomination to develope a serious distaste for one or the other that causes one to withhold their vote in the election that actually matters.
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Batman could totally take Spiderman.
People need to start accepting that, in all liklihood, they will have to vote for Obama or Clinton and start learning to like both of them.
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No, Anthony, we don’t have to vote for either of them. And it is unlikely that I will vote for either of them, for reasons that I have presented here for months.
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If the other Dem candidates drop out of the race, I will sit on my hands. I am amendable to Obama, but I believe him to be a bit too inexperienced, and his recent “Jesus-bit” strikes me the wrong way. sHillary has proven herself to be nothing more than a snake-oil sales person, like her husband Billary.
Under no condition will I vote for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton whether it be for dogcatcher or for President.
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And about 50% of the electorate is with me on that one, we deserve a landslide in 08 not another close loss, especially if the GOP nominates Guiliani and he carries the Reagan Dems.
…I seriously cannot stand sHillary, and I would never vote for the thug Guiliani or the glorified salesman Romney.
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I guess I’ll be voting third party again in 2008. Protest vote, of course.
n/t
I personally will not vote for her if she wins, neither will the real Jim C (my dad) and we have both discussed alternatives. I have been trying to convince dad that Guiliani is a scumbag, my dad still thinks hes the RINO who ran New York on 9/11, and unfortunately the MSM isn’t really playing up his scumbag credentials as much as the blogosphere is (my dad isnt computer literate). That said we will not vote for Nader, and I doubt we will vote Green or Libertarian. Write ins for a Dem candidate that lost, a dead liberal (Hubert Humphrey is being considered), re-electing Jimmy Carter, or watching the returns at a bar and drinking ourselves silly have all been considered alternatives. We might also write in my mom which we both did this past 2006 election for a minor post.
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I am seriously hoping it won’t come down to that though.
And raj’s. HRC v. Giuliani/Romney, they vote for… Nader or Bloomberg, and effectively pitch the election to the GOP.
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Though I like HRC, this attitude is not uncommon, and presents a pretty big risk. The risk is that a HRC candidacy tips moderates and independents toward the GOP nominee, saps the energy from the liberal wingnut slice of the electorate, and energizes the right wingnut slice of the electorate, all of which risks a replay of 2000 and 2004.
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Democrats need all hands on deck in 2008, even all of you crazy progressives with whom I frequently disagree, AND need to keep support from the independents that, at present, seem poised to support any Democratic nominee.
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So, electibility is a pretty big issue for HRC. She has work to do.
I haven’t picked a candidate yet, but I will absolutely vote for the Democratic nominee.
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I defy anyone to name three substantial reasons not to vote for Hillary that are NOT:
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1) Based on a comment from the GOP, Fox News, Jay Severin, Rush Limbaugh, etc.
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2) Based on something Bill Clinton did
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3) Based on someone on her staff you don’t like (e.g., Mark Penn) or a donor you don’t like (e.g., Rupert Murdoch)
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In other words, give me an ISSUE that says, she’s wrong, you shouldn’t vote for her. Give me an issue. (This thread might not be the place.)
I still say the yes vote was the right call at the time, and all of the argument since about whether this vote was a mistake simply detracts that the fiasco in Iraq is 100.00% the fault of the Bush administration.
Most here will say AUMF I still say the yes vote was the right call at the time…
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…and I will tell you why. I predicted, on a conservative message board, that diverting resourses from Afghanistan to Iraq, which was the implication of the AUMF, would result in a resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. I was flamed for my prediction, but that is exactly what has occurred.
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I did not pretend to know the rivalries in Iraq. But Saddam at the time was being restrained. The real problem was Afghanistan.
But Congress disn’t put any resources, diverted or otherwise, into Iraq. Congress voted to make sure the President had a big stick to bring to negotiations.
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That was 100.00% Bush’s call.
…we discussed in my ConLaw course in 1971-72 was, what constitutes a declaration of war? The question at the time, of course, was whether the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was effectively a declaration of war. That resolution, plus the subsequent funding of the Vietnam Krieg by the Congress suggested that, yes, it was effectively a declaration of war, even though the resolution itself did not use the term “declaration of war.”
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Fast forward to 2002. The AUMF doesn’t use the term “declaration of war,” either. But it and the malAdministration’s subsequent funding by the Congress is exactly the same as with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The AUMF was essentially a declaration of war. And Congress’s continued funding of the activities persuant to the AUMF only continues to provide confirmation of that.
IMHO. Anyone who claims to be a progressive, or who would like to see Republican rule ended, is out of their minds if they would not support the eventual Democratic nominee — whoever it may be — against the Republican (most likely Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney, at the moment). You obviously don’t like Hillary, but come on. You cannot for a second think she wouldn’t be better than those guys, at least when it comes to, say, Supreme Court appointments (of which there could be several over the next 4-8 years).
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And no, “I vote in MA which is a safe Democratic state so it doesn’t matter if I vote or not” is not an acceptable answer. Place yourself in Ohio or Florida.
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I may or may not vote for Obama in the primary, but I’d gladly support him in the general — as I would any of the Democrats.
And what surprises me the most about these sorts of arguments is that they are still made by some self-described liberals/progressives after the consequences of throwing away a vote has been made abundantly clear after the 2000 election.
Anthony,
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I think you’re missing something incredibly important here if you truly believe that arguing about who is the better Democratic candidate is somehow irrelevant BS.
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Ideally, we’re looking to elect the best candidate to our nation’s highest office. You don’t go about determining who the best candidate is by ignoring the various candidates’ differences. In fact, the way that you determine who is the best candidate is by pitting them against each other — exactly what we’re doing here.
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Besides which, if you think that all the Democrats have to do to win in 2008 is show up at the polls, I’m afraid that you’re living in a fantasy world. Democrats don’t significantly outnumber Republicans, if at all. Elections are determined by independent voters and we need to make sure that we nominate a candidate who can convince the majority of independent voters that it’s in their best interest to vote for him or her. If we don’t… we LOSE.
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Don’t mistake healthy debate for a sign of weakness. It’s actually a sign of strength.
David-If the Democratic party continues to take me for granted by nominating stale, poll-tested candidates that can’t win anyway and make ME angry whenever they open their mouths they deserve their fate. My own dog could have beaten George Dubya in 2004 and he could beat any of the Republicans now. Nominating Hillary much like nominating John Kerry is the least pragmatic move the party can make. This is a chance for a realigning election, a chance to become a permanet majority party, and Hillarys nomination will completely ruin that. Not only will I not vote for her in MA I would not vote for her in any swing state since I am confident she will likely lose them all.
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On Supreme Court nominees you are forgetting that with the exception of Stevens no Justice is going anywhere soon and the Dems are going to increase their majorities in the Senate so its likely most of the really arch right nominees will be killed in committee a significant difference from 2004. Other than that there is no compelling argument. Hillary is a pro-Israel, pro-war, hawkish on Iran Dem, I see no significant difference in her foreign policy than in the neo-con foreign policy. I might vote for her yet but she sure as hell has a lot of convincing to do.
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JimC-
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-IRAQ!IRAQ!IRAQ! In my view every single Democrat that voted for this war did so out of political cowardice, nobody in their right mind could have sincerely voted for the Iraq War Resolution in its final form. Now a lot of Kerry and Hillary defenders say, Oh they wanted UN approval, or Oh they wanted inspectors in first, LIES! This bill had no such peramaters, it was and remains a blank check for Bush to go to war with Iraq at any time for any reason and it severely shows poor judgement on her part.
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-Flag Burning, abortion, and gays- She is continuing the mantra that if we move rightward we are electable, she supported a Constitutional amendment banning flag burning, she has consistently favored conservative talking points and positions on abortion (I am more pro-life myself but she did so as a political calculation betraying her lack of core beliefs), she continues to defend DOMA and DADT and opposes gay marriage and has given vague and contradicting opinions about civil unions
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-Record of Achievement-Hillarycare was the only time in her entire career where she actually had an initiative of her own and fought to enact it she failed miserably and gave up, she came off as too aggressive, too radical, and too shrill, and her plan on top of all that was terrible. And she lost bigtime. Since then she has been just a backbencher in the Senate and I have consistently challenger her supporters on this site to name a single piece of important legislation she sponsored and gat passed. So far no takers
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-Generational change-Her candidacy will continue the culture war waged since the 60’s bring back the divisiveness of the 90s and look forward to the past, as a young voter I want to vote for the future and not to rectify the past so I want a forward thinking politician, none of her ideas are new, none of them fresh, and we need greatness not mediocrity after Bush
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-Dynasty-Its indicative of a bannana republic when a nation is run by competing families, America is better than tha
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-Personality-She is craven, cold, and calculating and I am entirely confident that she would do anything if it served for her political gain, ditto her husband, neither one of them has a single ounce of credibility or conviction in them on any major issue beyond advancing their own careers
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– I believe she reversed her stance on the flag burning amendment, but I’m not sure. She opposes don’t ask don’t tell.
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– OK healthcare failed, but she has a plan now. And saying she’s been a backbencher is absurd.
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– Generational change: Not a real issue.
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– Dynasty: That’s why we have elections.
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– Personality: Not a real issue.
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stance on flag bruning. That was a compromise that Boxer and Obama supported. She voted no on the Republican amendment.
For years, everybody learned/assumed/knew that HRC was a extremely left wing. This is not true, and has never been true (at least not for many decades).
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So then when she takes a moderate and common-sense position on abortion, it is “calculating” “cold” and “craven.” Same thing for her moderate approach on all issues. Doesn’t matter that its right.
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The Clintons were always moderate to conservative Democrats, it was never a secret. BFD!
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Actually, I disagree — I think the Clintons have always been pragmatic liberals, certainly not far-left but certainly not “conservative Democrats” either. That’s a big reason why I like Hillary and not, say, Kucinich or Zell Miller.
If Iraq rules her out, there goes most of the Democratic field.
except Obama, Kucinich, Gravel, and (someone named Gore or Wes Clark perhaps….)
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Russ Feingold was the “anti-war” candidate this time, and when he dropped out and said he’d prefere a candidate who voted against the war, or at least some one like Al Gore or Barack Obama who was opposed to the authorization of force. By saying that criteria and those two names, he pushed forward the kernals of the Obama and Kucinich campaigns (to his right and left respectively) and the non-campaign of Al Gore.
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Beyond that there’s Edwards who apologized for his vote, that is was a bad decision at the time, early-ish in the 2004 primary campaign, and Bill Richardson who supported it and still seems to think that it was a good idea at the time, but now wants to bring the troops home ASAP. Dodd is similar to Edwards I think, while Biden and Clinton still think it was “a good idea at the time” though they want to draw down the war in some way.
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The Biden/Richardson/Clinton position is almost a killer, and only Richardson seems to have made up for it in other areas.
First, on the Supreme Court: I am forgetting nothing. Stevens, of course, is likely to leave soon, and he’s the closest thing the Court has to a liberal — replacing him with another conservative will lock in a true conservative majority for many years, so don’t discount the importance of that seat. Moreover, Ginsburg is 74 and has had serious health problems, as has her husband. There are no guarantees with her (or with anyone else, for that matter — both Souter and Breyer are pushing 70). Moreover, it’s not just the Supreme Court that matters — there are always seats to fill in the Courts of Appeals and District Courts, and those are the seats that set the table for the Supreme Court for years to come. Also, I think you’re wrong about killing nominees in committee — a complex topic for another time. Just one word for now: Southwick.
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Second, the idea that it should have been super-easy to beat Bush in 04, and that the 08 election should be a cakewalk, is naive at best — you seriously underestimate the skill with which those guys operate, and respectfully, you have spent too much time in Cambridge. Yes, Kerry made some big mistakes in his campaign, and he paid for them. But no campaign is perfect, and every campaign will make errors.
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I’m pro-Israel too, so not sure where you’re going with that one.
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You’re simply wrong about her views on gay issues — she’s no different than any other major candidate. She doesn’t support marriage; she wants to get rid of DADT; and she wants to repeal the part of DOMA that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages or civil unions.
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I’ll defer to Jim on the rest.
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You say that because, what, you know her so well? Come on — that’s not an argument. That really is the VRWC talking. It’s a sad day when alleged progressives join forces with that crowd in explaining why they won’t vote for the likely (sorry, but it’s true) Democratic nominee.
JimC:
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Flag Burning
-Alright so she waffled a bit on the flag burning amendment, she still considered voting for it, and her eventual vote for a compromise is short of a sincere and unequivocal NO
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Iraq
-The difference between her and the other Dems that voted for the war, in particular Joe Biden, is that they have apologized for their vote and called it a mistake, Hillary hasn’t. Hillary supports permanent bases-they don’t. In the Senate Biden proposed and tried to pass several resolutions that would have forced Bush to get UN approval and get NATO support, granted they failed, but he tried, Hillary didn’t she just voted for the blank cheque and did nothing to help the Biden amendments which would have been the action to pack up her “pro-diplomacy rhetoric”. And yes Edwards in my view is just as guilty as Hillary on Iraq because he ran as a hawk on Iraq in 04 and is now apologizing for political expediency hence he doesn’t deserve my vote either.
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Gays
-All those awful bills were signed by her husband, she supported them then, she continued to support them in the Senate, she has supported them on the campaign trail, the only place where she voiced any opposition was at the LOGO forum. Sounds insincere at best if she has changed her thoughts on those issues.
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Backbencher
-She kept out of the spotlight, sponsored no major pieces of legislation, co-sponsored no major pieces of legislation that ive heard of, and has dont very little in my view to make her a great Senator qualified to be President
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David
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SCOTUS-I will say thats your best point and my weakest, I can only counter that the Judiciary Committee and the Senate will still be in Dem hands but they couldnt stop FISA and they caved on Roberts so Im sure they wont Bork every right-wing nominee like they ought too. Thats a very valid concern but the Roberts court has thus far been equally conservative as the Rhenquest court according to liberal legal scholar Cass Sustein in terms of voting, but more conservative in terms of the framing of the opinions. I am sure Souter, Breyer, and Ginsburg will survive the term, but Stevens could retire or go.
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But I can counter with three arguments to your points
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1)Hillary if nominated will not be elected so still a GOP president
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and
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2)As a MA voter my one single protest vote will not impact the Presidential race.
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3)She is not the nominee yet
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1) She wont get elected for a variety of reasons, you accuse me of spending too much time in Cambridge (and at other times accusing me of spending too much time in Chicago David!) yet I would say the charge applies more to you. I have campaigned in several swing districts in 2006 that were quite conservative and crucial to the Democratic win. A pro-life, pro-gun, anti gay Democrat in Indiana whose positions I despised but whose vote for Nancy Pelosi I knew was vital, especially considering the GOP incumbent was just as bad. This district was willing to vote for a Democrat that was conservative on the wedge issues but solidly anti-war and progressive on economic issues. Like it or not these average Joes in purple districts view Hillary Clinton as a flaming leftist and she will be swift boated as such until November, its a charge that I am not confident she can drop, especially if her opponent is Guiliani who will take a lot of working class Democratic votes, the Reagan Dems if you will. Also Bloomberg said he will get in a Hillary-Rudy fight and he will draw far more votes from Hillary than Rudy costing her the election. The other purple district was the IL 6th home to the arch right wing bastard Henry Hyde, we narrowly lost that one, but I might add that it was a district Obama was able to carry even though it had voted solid GOP for several years. And these are people that are conservative enough to like Alan Keyes and he still carried them.
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2)Its highly unlikely that the popular vote count will be decided by one vote so again my vote in fact while it does not matter electorally matters greatly to me personally, especially since it is my first presidential election, and frankly I do not want to choose the lesser of two evils again, I’m glad I didnt have to do that last election for governor. I can assure you if I lived in a purple state I would hold my nose and vote Dem.
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3) She is not yet the nominee and the MSM and Dems shouldnt be treating her as such, at this stage in the game in 06 Reilly was in the lead and Deval was an asterik in the polls, at this stage in the game before 04 Joe Lieberman lead nationally, Dick Gephardt lead in Iowa, John Kerry in NH, Edwards in SC, and Edwards and Kerry were going head to head in fundraising. There is still time yet so dont be so defeatist David (I know your a Richardson man dont give up and back Hillary until she actually wins!)
Biden et al. have “apologized” (hey, I like these quotes!) for their vote on AUMF. That seems to me like nothing more than a calculated, craven sop to the far left wing for primary purposes. It does nothing, changes nothing, requires exactly zero risk or effort on their part, and has no effect whatsover except that it somehow diverts blame for the Iraq fiasco onto the party that was not in power.
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I wonder why I don’t see more denunciations of their cold, calculated, contrived politics?
…they are “quotation marks.”
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Yee gads, what are people taught today?
The things you are referring to are quotation marks. There is nothing ironic about them. Nor are you calling them quotation marks when they are called something else. Hence your quoting the phrase “quotation marks” is not correct usage.
I’m no fan of Mrs Clinton. I think she lacks vision, compassion, integrity, and she has shown little aptitude or temperament for statecraft.
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But if there’s one thing I do respect about her, it’s her absolute refusal to cow to the apology fetishists of the press and the wingnut fringe of her party.
I think if John Kerry had just said “Listen America I am sorry about Iraq, I severely misjudged it, had I been President I would have gone based on the intel and the fear of 9/11 but it continues to be a quagmire. As a veteran of a quagmire I understand better than most the terrible mistake I made, but as President I pledge to move past this mistake” and he would’ve won. America voted for Bush because he had a consistent honest position. Similarly I do not respect Edwards apology since he was a hawk pre 2006, continue to be an Iran hawk, and didnt do much to have a different vote. Ditto Dodd. But Biden I forgive, mainly because his son is about to be deployed, he realized a year into the invasion he was wrong, and he actually has a pretty good plan to get us out which none of his opponents even my fav Obama lack.
who voted, did so for Bush. I seem to remember a lot of talk about another 9/11 type attack if Kerry were elected, and referendums on scary gay marriage in battleground states.
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What was the Bush “consistent honest position” on Iraq? I seem to have missed it.
It was not consistent or honest to say “stay the course and we’ll win” but it appeared a lot more consistent and honest then “I voted for it before I voted against it”
dishonest positions, and the GOP framing. What I’m asking you is: What was the consistent & honest Bush position that America voted for?
First and foremost Bush was neither consistent nor honest when he said “Stay the course will work” but it appeared to be more consistent and honest than “I voted for it before I voted against it”.
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Essentially the gay marriage thing was just an excuse from the Kerry people and lazy analysis on the part of the MSM. The evangelical vote in swing states voted in near equal furor and numbers as it did in 2000 so the gay marriage amendments added little evangelical votes to the Bush column, or at least not enough to be the sole cause of the victory.
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Instead in my view the more socially libertarian independent swing voters who dont care about gay marriage swung towards Bush because they are hawkish on the War on Terror and felt that Kerry had a weak and pliable position while Bush’s firm and consistent pledge to win the war won them over. Again I am not saying Kerrys position was wrong or Bushs was right, just that Bushs appeared to be more firm and Kerrys more inconsistent and waverly and that turned indys over to Bush.
When you have multiple responses, you might actually type out multiple comments. You can respond to the same thing multiple times. No rule against it.
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Doing so makes it easier for the rest of us to interact with your points individually.
….but I don’t think I’ve missed a thing, especially in light of several people speculating about not voting or going third party because they just can’t vote for so and so. I don’t see people trying to determine who is the best candidate in this thread. I see people picking sides and arguing about stuff that is not substantive.
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Perhaps healthy debate is a sign of strength, but respectfully the above debate is mostly very unhealthy.
…do you know what a “protest vote” is? It’s a vote for “none of the above.”
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I, for one, am less likely to vote for the lesser of two evils, unless either of them come close to suitting my requirements. None of the Republicans currently satisfy my requirements. As I have made clear here, sHillary most certainly doesn’t. I have reservations about Obama, but I might be induced to vote for him; but his recent blathering about religion reduces that likelihood.
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None of the other Dems running for the nomination seem likely to be nominated (I have been clear that my favorite is Richardson because of his resume, despite some of his known problems.)
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I will vote, but, given the current main party lineups, it is likely that my vote will be a protest vote. As far as I know, MA does not provide for a “none of the above” category, which would be my choice. The likely candidates of the major parties (Giuliani or Romney on the Republican side, sHillary on the Democratic side) are all incompetent.
…you can do whatever you like with your vote. I just wonder how many protest votes didn’t go to Kerry in Ohio in 2004. If you would like to protest your way into another 4 years of what we’ve been getting the last 6 1/2 that is your prerogative.
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Seems to me, however, that like the provebial tree that falls in the forest…if your protest helps to guarantee that that which you don’t want to continue will continue does anyone hear it?
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Your protest vote is the equivalent of working class people voting for George Bush against their own interests because they have been convinced that if they don’t gay people will get married in their living rooms when they aren’t being used as abortion clinics. You soothe your burning sense of moral indignation while shooting yourself in the foot for having done so.
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Happy shooting!
you can do whatever you like with your vote.
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…for giving me your permission to vote as I please.
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Regarding
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Your protest vote is the equivalent of working class people voting for George Bush against their own interests
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I’ve seen this “against their own interests” mantra so many times, but it’s silly. I’ll merely mention something that the author of the book What’s the problem with Kansas (or something like that; we don’t own the book) noted. That is that working class people–at least in Kansas) don’t see much of a difference, from an economic standpoint, between the Reps and the Dems. Who was it who signed NAFTA into law? Bill Clinton. He opined that, because they don’t see an economic difference between the parties, they vote based on their conservative social values. Thanks, Bill.
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Let’s get closer to home. I’ve made it clear that I’m gay. Who was it that signed don’t ask/don’t tell? Bill Clinton. And who pushed DADT? I’m not exactly sure, but Sam Nunn, a Democrat from Georgia, was opposed to allowing gays serving openly in the military. Irony: of course they were serving surrepticiously in the military even at the time, and so the “shower” thing was somewhat silly. And actually, I do know who came up with the DADT “compromise”; he was a nutty sociologist from Northwestern Univ by the name of Moskos.
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And who signed the “Defense of Marriage Act” into law in 1996, and then advertised the fact that he had signed it in Jesusland during the 1996 election campaign. Bill Clinton. Thanks, Bill. Two strikes.
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I could go through a litany of other things, including the national Democrats’, under Clinton, incompetence in places like Somalia and Clinton’s misuse of Nato in the former Yugoslavia, but I’ll merely get back to a point I have made here a couple of times. The national Republicans have been the only ones who have actually benefitted gay people. It was, I am sure, unintentional, but the national Democrats want to take it away. That is, the elimination of the federal estate tax. Elimination of the federal estate tax means that I–or my spouse–have the same tax to pay when one of us dies, as a married couple would have: zero. And the national Democrats want to re-institute the discriminatory effect of the estate tax. Thanks, national Democrats.
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It should be obvious that I don’t have much use for the national Democrats, just because they are Democrats.
Both parties are the tools of Big Business and essentially toe the same line on globalization vs protectionism. The grassroots be they left or right are populist and support protectionism, for the Dems its unions the GOP anti illegals, same result same ideology. The actual committees running the parties like corporate cash and support unregulated and unfettered globalization. So both parties support the either or economics at the end of the day.
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Again Clinton was a bad President. George W Bush was one of the top three worst Presidents in US history. So of course Bill looks good next to dubya but compare him to a mediocre President like Ike, Ford, Carter, Kennedy or Nixon (minus Watergate) and he looks worse. Compare him to a great President like FDR, Truman, or LBJ (minus Vietnam) and he looks really awful.
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Essentially we are still living in Reagans America, very little of the New Deal-Great Society legacy he dismantled has been reinstated, and far too much of the Reagan legacy remains. He bragged about being a Reagan democrat, created and empowered the DLC, passed legislation and signed on to neo con policy proposals that led to the Iraq War which he and his wife both vigorously supported. He did little for the third world, launched an illegal and unnecessary war of his own in Kosovo that were it a quagmire like Iraq we would still be fighting (thank god Wes Clark got overruled), and I could go on and on.
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If we are to take the example of the first Clinton following a domestic disaster like Reagan and doing little to stop it then I am quite certain his wife being equally devoid of courage and full of craven ambition will leave too much of the Bush legacy intact, and too little of her own legacy or that of the liberal tradition in place.