The lead story tonight - my "lede," as we spell it here - should have been about the remarkable fact that a black man has been nominated by a major party to lead a developed Western nation for the first time in the history of the world. A man - in whose lifetime people with his shade of skin were denied the right to vote and to use public accommodations - who is now on the cusp of the presidency. It says something good about America, and I would like to have been able to dwell on it.
But no. Once again, it's all about Hillary Clinton, who delivered the most abrasive, self-absorbed, selfish, delusional, emasculating and extortionate political speech I've heard in a long time. And I've left out some adjectives, just to be polite.
Here's an interesting point for you. Barack Obama's speech, which featured a long and gracious nod to Clinton toward the beginning, was posted on various websites as early as 8:10pm East coast time. That means that Clinton - who didn't start speaking until 9:31pm, noticeably missing her introductory cue - and her staff had more than an hour to read Obama's speech and see that he was going to be more than kind to her.
But Clinton, who did not post her speech in advance, gave Obama a much briefer and more perfunctory nod. She congratulated him on his well-run campaign, but not on his victory, which is historic and assured. She told her crowd that, though she is now defeated, she "will be making no decisions tonight." She urged her voters - naturally nudged up to 18 million, which exaggerates the matter by about a half a million votes - to visit her website and send her messages, a piece of demagoguery that merely ensures that a week hence, if she wants to, she'll be able to say, "more than 10 million of my supporters have written to encourage me to go on to Denver". And speaking of the convention city, when her audience began chanting its name, she did not of course try to stop them and say that a convention fight was not in the interest of party unity.
What's her game? It's this, I think. It's not merely to be vice president. Although apparently it is that. I take it she and Bill have decided that being Obama's vice-president for eight years is the most plausible path to the presidency. But she did not on Tuesday night merely try to make a case for herself as a good vice-presidential candidate. She held a rhetorical knife to Obama's throat and said, in not so many words: I'm still calling some shots, buddy. You offer me the vice-presidency, or I walk away. But she has also forced Obama into a situation whereby if he chooses her now, he looks weak. So that's the choice she is hoping to impose on the nominee: don't choose me, and Bill and I will subtly work to see that you lose; choose me, and look like a weakling who can't lead the party without the Clintons after all. Now that's putting the interests of the party first, isn't it?
Democrats had better understand what this means, and they'd better not kid themselves. With any person other than a Clinton, this whole thing would have been over in late February - that is, any other candidate who lost 11 primaries in a row and ran out of money would have been shamed out of the race at that point. Or if not then, after May 6 (North Carolina and Indiana), when it became obvious that she could not come within 100 delegates of Obama, no matter what happened with Florida and Michigan.
But the Clintons know no shame, and more importantly, there has been no referee who could end this game, no one who could say to a Clinton, "Enough now." Well, Democrats have to say it. Now. Enough.
I really wanted to write a happy piece tonight. I wanted to write about Obama's amazing victory and about Clinton's tenacity being finally tempered by an acceptance of reality - reality that she'd lost and reality that, while there are indeed good arguments for her being on the ticket, the person who won the nominee has the right to choose the running mate.
Obama, after a slowish start, ended up giving a good, fiery speech aimed at John McCain. And McCain's speech, though flat in delivery, laid out his themes reasonably well. A race between these two men will be a race between two people who - whatever you think of their politics - are presenting substantive cases to the country and asking the people to choose. That's going to be a good show. But someone has to send that sore loser on the sidelines off to the showers once and for all.
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH US SENATOR CHUCK HAGEL
SPIEGEL: Senator Hagel, your friend and Republican presidential candidate John McCain says that the United States Army has a moral obligation to stay in Iraq. Is he right?
Hagel: We have responsibilities, no doubt about it. We invaded Iraq, we are occupying Iraq and we have made Iraq dependent on us. By our actions we have done terrible damage to our own country and undermined our interests in the world.
SPIEGEL: What are the consequences?
Hagel: Our first moral obligation is to our own people whom we keep sending back to Iraq again and again. Four-thousand US soldiers have given their lives, over 30,000 have been wounded, many seriously. I just got an e-mail today from the father of a helicopter pilot. His son is going back to Iraq for the fifth time. That is not acceptable.
SPIEGEL: The question is: Should the US go or should it stay?
Hagel: We need to get out, but responsibly. Much depends on how we are going to engage Iran. That spills over into the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. It spills over into Lebanon. It spills over into the relationship with Syria. We need a regional strategy, and in my view that means a permanent Middle East conference in which all Middle East nations participate. The longer we stay in Iraq, the more difficult it becomes to implement such a process. Many of the Arab nations don’t trust us.
SPIEGEL: You would bring back diplomacy? That was certainly not one of the strengths of President George W. Bush.
Hagel: That was a fundamental error. In the end it will be a diplomatic solution that will bring the Iraq War to an end. General David Petraeus has also said that.
SPIEGEL: John McCain clearly places much more emphasis on the military than you do. Are there any further differences?
Hagel: We must engage Iran and reach a point where we can begin to negotiate. I do not see an alternative. What has American involvement accomplished so far? The Middle East is as combustible and as complicated as it has ever been. Our policy has been disastrous. We now must apply all the instruments of power -- diplomatic power is part of that, as is trade and economic development. Certainly the military is a part of that and so is intelligence sharing. We have to build relationships and define common interests. Only then is stability and security possible.
SPIEGEL: You are, then, an advocate of America relying more on soft power than on the military?
Hagel: That's the way we will make progress. We have to use our economic and also our cultural strength. Trust is the crucial currency in international relations. We willfully diminished the value of this currency and we now have to rebuild it. Trust is more important than anything else. North Korea was a part of the Axis of Evil, but now the United States is using the instruments of diplomacy in the Six Party talks.
SPIEGEL: But that would mean that you are closer to Democrat Barack Obama than to your own party as far as foreign policy is concerned?
Hagel: Well, that’s right, but I don’t develop my position on foreign policy based on which politicians I support or do not support. I was espousing this position on Iraq and Iran before Obama even got to the Senate.
SPIEGEL: You didn’t follow him, he followed you?
Hagel: (laughing) He has accepted my position and my direction.
SPIEGEL: That may be an important prerequisite should you want to become a member of his cabinet later on.
Hagel: I don’t expect to be in anyone’s cabinet. I think I will be on the outside of government.
SPIEGEL: Your name has been mentioned in connection with the offices of Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State in an Obama administration. You don't like such speculation?
Hagel: I appreciate people having confidence in me. But I don’t expect to be in any government.
SPIEGEL: What should the Europeans expect from the next American president?
Hagel: Both candidates will have a new approach, more cooperation, a greater emphasis on alliances. Whichever candidate is elected, our European allies will see a president forging a stronger relationship. It was a grave mistake to alienate the allies. Both candidates realize that the challenges today are global and we can only deal with these challenges working together with our allies.
SPIEGEL: And what does America expect from the Europeans? George W. Bush has been an easy president, because it was easy for Europeans not to follow him, for example in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hagel: A strong America is in the interest of the world. I often meet with foreign leaders and they know that the world is more dangerous when America is stumbling, bumbling and weak. America should lead, but through consensus and common interests.
SPIEGEL: Does the next president owe the Europeans an apology for America’s solo in Iraq and for belittling the West Europeans as “old Europe”?
Hagel: I do not think we should relive those times. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is disgraced and gone. Anybody who had anything to do with that is gone. There are books being written about them. Let’s go forward.
SPIEGEL: Do you also see a silver lining on the horizon when you look at the US economy? The United States has huge public debt and huge private debt. America consumes the most, but does not export enough. How can the United States restore its economic power?
Hagel: All the points you make are correct. We are the greatest debtor nation in the world. We have an enormous trade deficit. I look at it like a business -- you have a balance sheet: We are by far the largest economy in the world and the most flexible; we have ideas; the debt represents only a very small percentage of our gross domestic product. But you cannot continue to spend $600 billion a year that you do not have. We are spending $3 billion a week in Iraq alone. And we are going to have to do something about our steadily increasing costs for entitlement programs. The European nations have all had to deal with that.
SPIEGEL: What precisely do you want to change?
Hagel: We need to reform Social Security, reduce our costs for prescription drugs. I have submitted legislation in the Senate on every one of these issues.
SPIEGEL: Economically, America today is doubly dependent on China. China finances the enormous trade deficit and China supplies the country with a huge number of vital consumer goods. Is China a rival or a partner?
Hagel: It is the same question you can ask for America and Germany. Are we trade rivals? Yes. Are we partners? Yes. Are there tensions? Yes, there are.
SPIEGEL: You're comparing Germany to China?
Hagel: No. What I am trying to say is that every country has a multitude of dimensions. Foreign relations are always complex. I do not see China as a threat. It is a competitor who could turn out to be dangerous if the relationship is not managed right. If both sides are not attentive they could become, down the road, enemies.
SPIEGEL: It doesn’t look good for your own party. After seven years of George W. Bush, 81 percent of Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track and only 27 percent have a favorable view. What went wrong?
Hagel: The party is in terrible shape and it is because we did not do a very good job of managing this country. We have gotten into two wars. We have run up a third of the national debt in the last seven years. So we have controlled the government and we have made a lot of mistakes. All the same, McCain and Obama are within the margin of error in the polls.
SPIEGEL: Is the era of the hawks in your party definitely over?
Hagel: I hope so. That segment of the Republican Party, the so-called neocons, held the Republican Party hostage much of the time. What this element has done to our party is clear now and I would hope that it will come back to the party of Eisenhower, even the party of Ronald Reagan. Today’s party is no longer Ronald Reagan’s party, who, contrary to his reputation, governed from the center. But he sat down with the Soviets, the great evil empire, and was able to get results, for example in nuclear disarmament.
SPIEGEL: You write in your new book about former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt visiting you in your office in the Senate, chain-smoking and complaining that “there are no more great leaders." Do you agree?
Hagel: Today, I don’t see any great global leaders of the stature of Reagan, Kohl, Mitterand and Thatcher. They were important, whether you agreed with them or not. But as Schmidt also told me in my office, there will come a time when we will find those new leaders again.
SPIEGEL: A lot of Germans hope Obama is that someone.
Hagel: He could be. But until he is in office, you don’t know.
Hagel: We have responsibilities, no doubt about it. We invaded Iraq, we are occupying Iraq and we have made Iraq dependent on us. By our actions we have done terrible damage to our own country and undermined our interests in the world.
SPIEGEL: What are the consequences?
Hagel: Our first moral obligation is to our own people whom we keep sending back to Iraq again and again. Four-thousand US soldiers have given their lives, over 30,000 have been wounded, many seriously. I just got an e-mail today from the father of a helicopter pilot. His son is going back to Iraq for the fifth time. That is not acceptable.
SPIEGEL: The question is: Should the US go or should it stay?
Hagel: We need to get out, but responsibly. Much depends on how we are going to engage Iran. That spills over into the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. It spills over into Lebanon. It spills over into the relationship with Syria. We need a regional strategy, and in my view that means a permanent Middle East conference in which all Middle East nations participate. The longer we stay in Iraq, the more difficult it becomes to implement such a process. Many of the Arab nations don’t trust us.
SPIEGEL: You would bring back diplomacy? That was certainly not one of the strengths of President George W. Bush.
Hagel: That was a fundamental error. In the end it will be a diplomatic solution that will bring the Iraq War to an end. General David Petraeus has also said that.
SPIEGEL: John McCain clearly places much more emphasis on the military than you do. Are there any further differences?
Hagel: We must engage Iran and reach a point where we can begin to negotiate. I do not see an alternative. What has American involvement accomplished so far? The Middle East is as combustible and as complicated as it has ever been. Our policy has been disastrous. We now must apply all the instruments of power -- diplomatic power is part of that, as is trade and economic development. Certainly the military is a part of that and so is intelligence sharing. We have to build relationships and define common interests. Only then is stability and security possible.
SPIEGEL: You are, then, an advocate of America relying more on soft power than on the military?
Hagel: That's the way we will make progress. We have to use our economic and also our cultural strength. Trust is the crucial currency in international relations. We willfully diminished the value of this currency and we now have to rebuild it. Trust is more important than anything else. North Korea was a part of the Axis of Evil, but now the United States is using the instruments of diplomacy in the Six Party talks.
SPIEGEL: But that would mean that you are closer to Democrat Barack Obama than to your own party as far as foreign policy is concerned?
Hagel: Well, that’s right, but I don’t develop my position on foreign policy based on which politicians I support or do not support. I was espousing this position on Iraq and Iran before Obama even got to the Senate.
SPIEGEL: You didn’t follow him, he followed you?
Hagel: (laughing) He has accepted my position and my direction.
SPIEGEL: That may be an important prerequisite should you want to become a member of his cabinet later on.
Hagel: I don’t expect to be in anyone’s cabinet. I think I will be on the outside of government.
SPIEGEL: Your name has been mentioned in connection with the offices of Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State in an Obama administration. You don't like such speculation?
Hagel: I appreciate people having confidence in me. But I don’t expect to be in any government.
SPIEGEL: What should the Europeans expect from the next American president?
Hagel: Both candidates will have a new approach, more cooperation, a greater emphasis on alliances. Whichever candidate is elected, our European allies will see a president forging a stronger relationship. It was a grave mistake to alienate the allies. Both candidates realize that the challenges today are global and we can only deal with these challenges working together with our allies.
SPIEGEL: And what does America expect from the Europeans? George W. Bush has been an easy president, because it was easy for Europeans not to follow him, for example in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hagel: A strong America is in the interest of the world. I often meet with foreign leaders and they know that the world is more dangerous when America is stumbling, bumbling and weak. America should lead, but through consensus and common interests.
SPIEGEL: Does the next president owe the Europeans an apology for America’s solo in Iraq and for belittling the West Europeans as “old Europe”?
Hagel: I do not think we should relive those times. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is disgraced and gone. Anybody who had anything to do with that is gone. There are books being written about them. Let’s go forward.
SPIEGEL: Do you also see a silver lining on the horizon when you look at the US economy? The United States has huge public debt and huge private debt. America consumes the most, but does not export enough. How can the United States restore its economic power?
Hagel: All the points you make are correct. We are the greatest debtor nation in the world. We have an enormous trade deficit. I look at it like a business -- you have a balance sheet: We are by far the largest economy in the world and the most flexible; we have ideas; the debt represents only a very small percentage of our gross domestic product. But you cannot continue to spend $600 billion a year that you do not have. We are spending $3 billion a week in Iraq alone. And we are going to have to do something about our steadily increasing costs for entitlement programs. The European nations have all had to deal with that.
SPIEGEL: What precisely do you want to change?
Hagel: We need to reform Social Security, reduce our costs for prescription drugs. I have submitted legislation in the Senate on every one of these issues.
SPIEGEL: Economically, America today is doubly dependent on China. China finances the enormous trade deficit and China supplies the country with a huge number of vital consumer goods. Is China a rival or a partner?
Hagel: It is the same question you can ask for America and Germany. Are we trade rivals? Yes. Are we partners? Yes. Are there tensions? Yes, there are.
SPIEGEL: You're comparing Germany to China?
Hagel: No. What I am trying to say is that every country has a multitude of dimensions. Foreign relations are always complex. I do not see China as a threat. It is a competitor who could turn out to be dangerous if the relationship is not managed right. If both sides are not attentive they could become, down the road, enemies.
SPIEGEL: It doesn’t look good for your own party. After seven years of George W. Bush, 81 percent of Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track and only 27 percent have a favorable view. What went wrong?
Hagel: The party is in terrible shape and it is because we did not do a very good job of managing this country. We have gotten into two wars. We have run up a third of the national debt in the last seven years. So we have controlled the government and we have made a lot of mistakes. All the same, McCain and Obama are within the margin of error in the polls.
SPIEGEL: Is the era of the hawks in your party definitely over?
Hagel: I hope so. That segment of the Republican Party, the so-called neocons, held the Republican Party hostage much of the time. What this element has done to our party is clear now and I would hope that it will come back to the party of Eisenhower, even the party of Ronald Reagan. Today’s party is no longer Ronald Reagan’s party, who, contrary to his reputation, governed from the center. But he sat down with the Soviets, the great evil empire, and was able to get results, for example in nuclear disarmament.
SPIEGEL: You write in your new book about former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt visiting you in your office in the Senate, chain-smoking and complaining that “there are no more great leaders." Do you agree?
Hagel: Today, I don’t see any great global leaders of the stature of Reagan, Kohl, Mitterand and Thatcher. They were important, whether you agreed with them or not. But as Schmidt also told me in my office, there will come a time when we will find those new leaders again.
SPIEGEL: A lot of Germans hope Obama is that someone.
Hagel: He could be. But until he is in office, you don’t know.
The dream ticket - Latest obama news and views
Putting Hillary Clinton on the ticket for vice president creates a ménage-à-trois. Bill will be the unexpected roommate. Even if a President Obama can discipline Hillary and get her to play second fiddle, there is not the remotest chance that he can get the former president to accept such rules. Even if Bill Clinton wanted to rein in his newly prolific public expressions of rage and frustration, there is doubt that he is any longer capable of doing so.
Hillary, who likely desperately wants to be tapped for vice president, is going about it in exactly the wrong way. She seems to be demanding a kind of coalition government between herself and Obama, a definition of the vice presidency not likely to appeal to the president. It reminds me of 1980 when there were discussions of a ticket with Reagan as the presidential nominee and former President Gerald Ford as the vice president in a coalition government where the VP would have extraordinary powers.
Intended to reassure voters who were panicked by Reagan's "extreme" conservatism, the arrangement never came to fruition, a development which gave us the House of Bush.
Instead of conceding defeat and campaigning for Obama, auditioning for the spot of loyal teammate, Hillary insists on keeping her options open and vies for the spotlight with Obama, exactly what you do not want a vice president to do.
Last night, when Obama went over the top in delegates and could claim the nomination as his, Hillary organized a rally of all of her supporters, directly competing for airtime with the newly minted nominee.
Adding Hillary to the ticket would not bring Obama a single vote (except possibly for Bill's). Her supporters are divided into two distinct categories. The original Clintonistas were strong Democrats, party faithful, pro-choice, middle-aged and up, largely female and all white. But Hillary's recent backers have been downscale whites of both genders who were turned off by Obama's pastor, wife and other associates and were afraid he might be a Muslim in disguise. Unhappy about voting for a woman, they never really liked Hillary but turned to her when the alternative was Obama.
If Hillary had won the Democratic nomination, these latent backers of Hillary in the primaries might still have voted for McCain in the general. Their support of Hillary is purely linked to her opposition to Obama. Were she to join the ticket, they would vote for McCain anyway. After all, Obama will still be black and the Rev. Wright will still be nuts.
But adding Hillary to the ticket brings, along with her, Bill.
The public Bill Clinton has morphed over the past few months from a statesman and philanthropist to a petulant, angry, cursing, spoiled narcissist, accusing everyone of being sleazy and biased and in so doing fashioning himself as a foil for Obama. This unattractive image is not the right one for the bottom of a ticket in a presidential race. And make no mistake, Bill comes along with Hillary.
But the more serious problem is the public record that Todd Purdum, an excellent journalist, laid out in his Vanity Fair piece. Bill's relationships with billionaires, his pursuit of financial gain, his alliance with the emir of Dubai, and his acceptance of speaking fees and income from some of the least savory of types is not what you need to carry around with you in a presidential race. To put Hillary on the ticket is to confront nagging questions about donors to the Clinton Library and Bill's refusal to release them. It would be to inherit a load of baggage that Obama does not need as he tries to position himself as the candidate of change, antithetical to the corrupt and corrupting ways of Washington.
On her own, Hillary would be no bargain as vice president. She would never accept direction and never sublimate her ambition or agenda to Obama's. But with Bill in tow, her candidacy becomes even more fraught with peril should Obama be inclined to bow to pressure and put her on the ticket.
Hillary, who likely desperately wants to be tapped for vice president, is going about it in exactly the wrong way. She seems to be demanding a kind of coalition government between herself and Obama, a definition of the vice presidency not likely to appeal to the president. It reminds me of 1980 when there were discussions of a ticket with Reagan as the presidential nominee and former President Gerald Ford as the vice president in a coalition government where the VP would have extraordinary powers.
Intended to reassure voters who were panicked by Reagan's "extreme" conservatism, the arrangement never came to fruition, a development which gave us the House of Bush.
Instead of conceding defeat and campaigning for Obama, auditioning for the spot of loyal teammate, Hillary insists on keeping her options open and vies for the spotlight with Obama, exactly what you do not want a vice president to do.
Last night, when Obama went over the top in delegates and could claim the nomination as his, Hillary organized a rally of all of her supporters, directly competing for airtime with the newly minted nominee.
Adding Hillary to the ticket would not bring Obama a single vote (except possibly for Bill's). Her supporters are divided into two distinct categories. The original Clintonistas were strong Democrats, party faithful, pro-choice, middle-aged and up, largely female and all white. But Hillary's recent backers have been downscale whites of both genders who were turned off by Obama's pastor, wife and other associates and were afraid he might be a Muslim in disguise. Unhappy about voting for a woman, they never really liked Hillary but turned to her when the alternative was Obama.
If Hillary had won the Democratic nomination, these latent backers of Hillary in the primaries might still have voted for McCain in the general. Their support of Hillary is purely linked to her opposition to Obama. Were she to join the ticket, they would vote for McCain anyway. After all, Obama will still be black and the Rev. Wright will still be nuts.
But adding Hillary to the ticket brings, along with her, Bill.
The public Bill Clinton has morphed over the past few months from a statesman and philanthropist to a petulant, angry, cursing, spoiled narcissist, accusing everyone of being sleazy and biased and in so doing fashioning himself as a foil for Obama. This unattractive image is not the right one for the bottom of a ticket in a presidential race. And make no mistake, Bill comes along with Hillary.
But the more serious problem is the public record that Todd Purdum, an excellent journalist, laid out in his Vanity Fair piece. Bill's relationships with billionaires, his pursuit of financial gain, his alliance with the emir of Dubai, and his acceptance of speaking fees and income from some of the least savory of types is not what you need to carry around with you in a presidential race. To put Hillary on the ticket is to confront nagging questions about donors to the Clinton Library and Bill's refusal to release them. It would be to inherit a load of baggage that Obama does not need as he tries to position himself as the candidate of change, antithetical to the corrupt and corrupting ways of Washington.
On her own, Hillary would be no bargain as vice president. She would never accept direction and never sublimate her ambition or agenda to Obama's. But with Bill in tow, her candidacy becomes even more fraught with peril should Obama be inclined to bow to pressure and put her on the ticket.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Hillary the Evil - Hillary Clinton is staying in the race in the event some nut kills Barack Obama.
SICK. Disgusting. And yet revealing. Hillary Clinton is staying in the race in the event some nut kills Barack Obama.
It could happen, but what definitely has happened is that Clinton has killed her own chances of being vice president. She doesn't deserve to be elected dog catcher anywhere now.
Her shocking comment to a South Dakota newspaper might qualify as the dumbest thing ever said in American politics.
Her lame explanation that she brought up the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy because his brother Ted's illness was on her mind doesn't cut it. Not even close.
We have seen an X-ray of a very dark soul. One consumed by raw ambition to where the possible assassination of an opponent is something to ponder in a strategic way. Otherwise, why is murder on her mind?
It's like Tanya Harding's kneecapping has come to politics. Only the senator from New York has more lethal fantasies than that nutty skater.
We could have seen it coming, if only we had realized Clinton's thinking could be so cold. She has grown increasingly wild in her imagery lately, invoking everything from slavery to the political killings in Zimbabwe in making her argument for the Florida and Michigan delegations. She claimed to be the victim of sexism, despite winning the votes of white men.
But none of it was moving the nomination needle, with Obama, despite recent dents, still on course to be the victor.
So she kept digging deeper, looking for the magic button. Instead, she pushed the eject button, lifting herself right out of consideration.
Giving voice to such a vile thought is all the more horrible because fears Obama would be killed have been an undercurrent to his astonishing rise. Republican Mike Huckabee made a stupid joke about it recently. Many black Americans have talked of it, reflecting their assumption that racists would never tolerate a black President and that Obama would be taken from them.
Clinton has now fed that fear. She needs a very long vacation. And we need one from her.
Say good night, Hillary. And go away.
It could happen, but what definitely has happened is that Clinton has killed her own chances of being vice president. She doesn't deserve to be elected dog catcher anywhere now.
Her shocking comment to a South Dakota newspaper might qualify as the dumbest thing ever said in American politics.
Her lame explanation that she brought up the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy because his brother Ted's illness was on her mind doesn't cut it. Not even close.
We have seen an X-ray of a very dark soul. One consumed by raw ambition to where the possible assassination of an opponent is something to ponder in a strategic way. Otherwise, why is murder on her mind?
It's like Tanya Harding's kneecapping has come to politics. Only the senator from New York has more lethal fantasies than that nutty skater.
We could have seen it coming, if only we had realized Clinton's thinking could be so cold. She has grown increasingly wild in her imagery lately, invoking everything from slavery to the political killings in Zimbabwe in making her argument for the Florida and Michigan delegations. She claimed to be the victim of sexism, despite winning the votes of white men.
But none of it was moving the nomination needle, with Obama, despite recent dents, still on course to be the victor.
So she kept digging deeper, looking for the magic button. Instead, she pushed the eject button, lifting herself right out of consideration.
Giving voice to such a vile thought is all the more horrible because fears Obama would be killed have been an undercurrent to his astonishing rise. Republican Mike Huckabee made a stupid joke about it recently. Many black Americans have talked of it, reflecting their assumption that racists would never tolerate a black President and that Obama would be taken from them.
Clinton has now fed that fear. She needs a very long vacation. And we need one from her.
Say good night, Hillary. And go away.
barack obama news: Voters just don't trust Hillary
Is Hillary Clinton the victim of a Vast Misogynist Conspiracy? Have her efforts to breach the ultimate glass ceiling in the world's labour market been destroyed - as in the end we're told all women's efforts inevitably are destroyed - by a lethal combination of sneering chauvinism and locker-room clubbiness?
To the cynics this US presidential election was always going to be a race to the bottom between racism and sexism. As the Democratic party continues to writhe through the final agonies of Senator Clinton's collapsing ambitions, her people think they know the real winner. They are muttering angrily that she is the most high-profile victim yet of sexual discrimination in the workplace. A favourite theme among them now is that Mrs Clinton is a kind of sacrificial figure: the woman who so obviously should have won the presidency but was denied by woman-hatred, the one whose efforts were not enough to conquer the legions of male bigots but whose sacrifice has made it possible for future women to scale the mountaintop. Henceforth, as it were, all generations shall call her blessed.
Before ascribing this sentiment to a particularly powerful case of sore loser syndrome, we ought to acknowledge that it surely has a little merit. There are things that are said all the time about Mrs Clinton's manner, her speaking style, assumptions that are made about her motivations, even the vocabulary in which she is described, that are, shall we say, certainly gender-specific. The cultural allusions played out with tired regularity to describe her campaigning style conjure the worst female images that lurk in the darkest corners of the male brain. She's Lady Macbeth and The White Queen and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction rolled into one.
And yet, are we truly expected to believe this is why Democratic voters have rejected her? I've no doubt that there are still some men who physically recoil at the thought of a woman in a powerful job but do people really think that there were not other - good - reasons for denying Senator Clinton her prize?
In the end the beauty of the “We only lost because people are sexist/racist/homophobic/stupid” argument is that it can't really be rebutted. The only way to deal with it is to explain patiently and with great understanding that there were valid reasons why millions of intelligent, thoughtful and tolerant Americans decided to run a million miles from the idea that this woman - this woman - should become the most powerful person on the planet.
The principal reason voters give for not liking Senator Clinton is that they don't trust her, that they sense that someone who would do or say anything to get elected is not someone who should be entrusted with the presidency. If anything has been demonstrated in the two long years in which she has been actively campaigning for the presidency, it is how right they are.
As she ratchets up her final efforts to wrest the nomination from Barack Obama's grasp, she has finally cut herself free from the frayed moorings that connected her campaign with honesty and reality. This week, as Senator Obama moved closer to securing a majority of delegates needed for the Democratic nomination, she was insisting with more urgency than ever that the votes cast in Michigan and Florida must be counted.
These states, you'll recall, broke the Democratic Party's rules and went ahead with their primaries earlier than they were supposed to. As a result the Democratic Party - not the Republicans, or the Supreme Court or the Bush Administration - decided to disqualify those states from the process. In Michigan, Senator Obama was not even on the ballot papers, yet now Senator Clinton not only insists those votes must count towards the final vote totals, but says it would be a terrible denial of Americans' civil rights if they did not.
She compared her effort to overturn the decision not only to Al Gore's controversial defeat in Florida in a disputed recount in 2000, but to the victims of tyranny throughout history - from enslaved blacks in pre-Civil War America to the cheated voters in the election in March in Zimbabwe.
This is, truly, disturbing. It matters not whether it is a man or a woman saying it. It is not only hyperbolic and cynical. It is inflammatory nonsense. But it is at least of a piece with her increasingly desperate struggle.
Mrs Clinton has received much credit for the fighting posture she has adopted of late. She has found her voice, it is said, as she fights to win votes in the remaining primary states among predominantly low-income, white voters. Yet what is this voice? It is a voice that explicitly appeals to white working-class solidarity and implicitly suggests that people outside that demographic cannot be president. It plays on the worst populist instincts of Americans, issuing threats to obliterate Iran and attacking the Chinese for poisoning Americans with toxic toys.
To see how completely Senator Clinton has changed in the course of her campaign, we have only to consider how the Democratic race was viewed two years ago as it got under way. Back then, when Mr Obama's campaign was merely a twinkle in his own eye, the question on Democrats' lips was: who could possibly beat Hillary? The assumption was that Senator Clinton would be the candidate of the elite, liberal, progressive types and African-Americans who in the end, as it turned out, flocked to Mr Obama.
Her problem, it was assumed back then, was that she would not be able to appeal to the white working class with its more conservative instincts and values. And so the discussion about potential rivals revolved around candidates who might appeal to those voters - Mark Warner, the former Governor of Virginia, John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina. Instead, Senator Obama became her main rival and outflanked her on the Left and outranked her among the progressives. So with barely a change of step, she pivoted and turned herself into the candidate of the hardworking ordinary Americans.
Now, there is much talk that if Mrs Clinton cannot be president she must be Mr Obama's vice-presidential nominee. But in her most recent speeches and actions she has surely demonstrated how dangerously unfit she would be. It would not be sexism or chauvinism but the clear-headed decision of a wise statesman, if Senator Obama brought this particular woman's presidential hopes to an unmourned end.
To the cynics this US presidential election was always going to be a race to the bottom between racism and sexism. As the Democratic party continues to writhe through the final agonies of Senator Clinton's collapsing ambitions, her people think they know the real winner. They are muttering angrily that she is the most high-profile victim yet of sexual discrimination in the workplace. A favourite theme among them now is that Mrs Clinton is a kind of sacrificial figure: the woman who so obviously should have won the presidency but was denied by woman-hatred, the one whose efforts were not enough to conquer the legions of male bigots but whose sacrifice has made it possible for future women to scale the mountaintop. Henceforth, as it were, all generations shall call her blessed.
Before ascribing this sentiment to a particularly powerful case of sore loser syndrome, we ought to acknowledge that it surely has a little merit. There are things that are said all the time about Mrs Clinton's manner, her speaking style, assumptions that are made about her motivations, even the vocabulary in which she is described, that are, shall we say, certainly gender-specific. The cultural allusions played out with tired regularity to describe her campaigning style conjure the worst female images that lurk in the darkest corners of the male brain. She's Lady Macbeth and The White Queen and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction rolled into one.
And yet, are we truly expected to believe this is why Democratic voters have rejected her? I've no doubt that there are still some men who physically recoil at the thought of a woman in a powerful job but do people really think that there were not other - good - reasons for denying Senator Clinton her prize?
In the end the beauty of the “We only lost because people are sexist/racist/homophobic/stupid” argument is that it can't really be rebutted. The only way to deal with it is to explain patiently and with great understanding that there were valid reasons why millions of intelligent, thoughtful and tolerant Americans decided to run a million miles from the idea that this woman - this woman - should become the most powerful person on the planet.
The principal reason voters give for not liking Senator Clinton is that they don't trust her, that they sense that someone who would do or say anything to get elected is not someone who should be entrusted with the presidency. If anything has been demonstrated in the two long years in which she has been actively campaigning for the presidency, it is how right they are.
As she ratchets up her final efforts to wrest the nomination from Barack Obama's grasp, she has finally cut herself free from the frayed moorings that connected her campaign with honesty and reality. This week, as Senator Obama moved closer to securing a majority of delegates needed for the Democratic nomination, she was insisting with more urgency than ever that the votes cast in Michigan and Florida must be counted.
These states, you'll recall, broke the Democratic Party's rules and went ahead with their primaries earlier than they were supposed to. As a result the Democratic Party - not the Republicans, or the Supreme Court or the Bush Administration - decided to disqualify those states from the process. In Michigan, Senator Obama was not even on the ballot papers, yet now Senator Clinton not only insists those votes must count towards the final vote totals, but says it would be a terrible denial of Americans' civil rights if they did not.
She compared her effort to overturn the decision not only to Al Gore's controversial defeat in Florida in a disputed recount in 2000, but to the victims of tyranny throughout history - from enslaved blacks in pre-Civil War America to the cheated voters in the election in March in Zimbabwe.
This is, truly, disturbing. It matters not whether it is a man or a woman saying it. It is not only hyperbolic and cynical. It is inflammatory nonsense. But it is at least of a piece with her increasingly desperate struggle.
Mrs Clinton has received much credit for the fighting posture she has adopted of late. She has found her voice, it is said, as she fights to win votes in the remaining primary states among predominantly low-income, white voters. Yet what is this voice? It is a voice that explicitly appeals to white working-class solidarity and implicitly suggests that people outside that demographic cannot be president. It plays on the worst populist instincts of Americans, issuing threats to obliterate Iran and attacking the Chinese for poisoning Americans with toxic toys.
To see how completely Senator Clinton has changed in the course of her campaign, we have only to consider how the Democratic race was viewed two years ago as it got under way. Back then, when Mr Obama's campaign was merely a twinkle in his own eye, the question on Democrats' lips was: who could possibly beat Hillary? The assumption was that Senator Clinton would be the candidate of the elite, liberal, progressive types and African-Americans who in the end, as it turned out, flocked to Mr Obama.
Her problem, it was assumed back then, was that she would not be able to appeal to the white working class with its more conservative instincts and values. And so the discussion about potential rivals revolved around candidates who might appeal to those voters - Mark Warner, the former Governor of Virginia, John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina. Instead, Senator Obama became her main rival and outflanked her on the Left and outranked her among the progressives. So with barely a change of step, she pivoted and turned herself into the candidate of the hardworking ordinary Americans.
Now, there is much talk that if Mrs Clinton cannot be president she must be Mr Obama's vice-presidential nominee. But in her most recent speeches and actions she has surely demonstrated how dangerously unfit she would be. It would not be sexism or chauvinism but the clear-headed decision of a wise statesman, if Senator Obama brought this particular woman's presidential hopes to an unmourned end.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Obama wins Oregon - Clinton Takes KY. - Latest Obama news
Barack Obama took a long stride toward history Tuesday, capturing a majority of pledged delegates to the Democratic convention even as he lost Kentucky by a wide margin to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Obama's big win in Oregon, combined with a share of Kentucky delegates, left him fewer than 100 shy of the 2,026 delegates needed to clinch the party's presidential nomination.
But Obama -- vying to become the first African American to head a major-party ticket -- staked no claim to the nomination, and Clinton showed no sign of standing down.
Instead, Obama celebrated the delegate milestone -- important both psychologically and mathematically -- with a Tuesday-night stop in Iowa, traveling full circle to the state where his candidacy took off with a win in the caucuses that began the nominating fight.
Standing in front of the gold-domed state Capitol, which glowed in the darkness, Obama declared: "Tonight, in the fullness of spring, with the help of those who stood up from Portland to Louisville, we have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States."
He offered a salute to Clinton -- "one of the most formidable candidates to ever run for this office" -- and urged Democrats to unify once the contentious nominating season had ended. "While our primary has been long and hard-fought," Obama said, "the hardest and most important part of our journey still lies ahead."
Clinton, appearing before cheering supporters in Louisville, Ky., reiterated her intention to keep running at least until the final primaries were held June 3. Describing the contest as "one of the closest races for a party's nomination in modern history," Clinton said she was "more determined than ever to see that every vote is cast and every ballot counted."
But the New York senator commended Obama and called for a cessation of hostilities after the nomination is settled. "While we continue to go toe-to-toe for this nation, we do see eye-to-eye when it comes to uniting our party when it comes to electing a Democratic president," Clinton said.
She defeated Obama 65% to 30% in Kentucky. Obama was leading 58% to 42% in Oregon, with about half of the returns counted.
Each state was suited to the candidates' respective strengths. Kentucky is heavily rural, white and filled with the kind of working-class Democrats who have strongly favored Clinton throughout the nominating fight. Oregon is home to large numbers of independent-minded, highly educated and more-affluent Democrats, the sort who have embraced Obama in large numbers. Tuesday's voter surveys showed that pattern repeating itself.
But the vote totals and demographics were less significant than the delegate math, which gave Obama 1,949 delegates to Clinton's 1,769 in incomplete returns, according to the Associated Press. It takes 2,026 delegates to clinch the nomination at the Democrats' August convention in Denver. The party has two kinds of delegates: pledged, or those awarded through primaries and caucuses, and so-called superdelegates, who are free to support whomever they choose.
Increasingly, these last primaries seem like an afterthought as Obama turns his focus to the general election against Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona. The two spent the last week sparring long-distance over foreign policy, Social Security and the influence of Washington special interests.
At the same time, the Democratic Party began to coalesce around the Illinois senator. A day after Clinton won West Virginia in a 41-percentage-point landslide, Obama picked up the endorsement of erstwhile rival John Edwards as well as the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America.
For her part, Clinton has scaled back her criticisms of Obama on the stump and pulled the plug on TV ads criticizing her rival. But that does not mean surrender. Today, she plans to campaign in Florida, a trip she scheduled after Obama announced his intention to spend the next three days in the Sunshine State.
The trip is driven by a simple calculation: Clinton's faint hopes of winning the nomination largely depends on seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan. Clinton won the popular vote in both states, though neither seriously competed and Obama removed his name from the Michigan ballot. The Democrats' Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet May 31 to discuss whether to seat delegates from the two states, which broke party rules by scheduling their primaries too early.
The Clinton campaign hopes to shave Obama's lead to fewer than 100 delegates by June 3, at which point she would argue to superdelegates -- members of Congress and other party insiders -- that she would be the stronger general election candidate. There are about 175 uncommitted superdelegates remaining, though any of the 800 or so could switch sides at any time.
One Clinton aide, granted anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for the campaign, said: "I don't want to sound naive or foolish, but if she's willing to play this out for two weeks to see where she gets . . . then those of us who believe she'd be a better candidate in the fall don't want to give up too soon."
Three contests remain: Puerto Rico on June 1 and Montana and South Dakota on June 3. Together, they offer 86 pledged delegates.
Obama's big win in Oregon, combined with a share of Kentucky delegates, left him fewer than 100 shy of the 2,026 delegates needed to clinch the party's presidential nomination.
But Obama -- vying to become the first African American to head a major-party ticket -- staked no claim to the nomination, and Clinton showed no sign of standing down.
Instead, Obama celebrated the delegate milestone -- important both psychologically and mathematically -- with a Tuesday-night stop in Iowa, traveling full circle to the state where his candidacy took off with a win in the caucuses that began the nominating fight.
Standing in front of the gold-domed state Capitol, which glowed in the darkness, Obama declared: "Tonight, in the fullness of spring, with the help of those who stood up from Portland to Louisville, we have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States."
He offered a salute to Clinton -- "one of the most formidable candidates to ever run for this office" -- and urged Democrats to unify once the contentious nominating season had ended. "While our primary has been long and hard-fought," Obama said, "the hardest and most important part of our journey still lies ahead."
Clinton, appearing before cheering supporters in Louisville, Ky., reiterated her intention to keep running at least until the final primaries were held June 3. Describing the contest as "one of the closest races for a party's nomination in modern history," Clinton said she was "more determined than ever to see that every vote is cast and every ballot counted."
But the New York senator commended Obama and called for a cessation of hostilities after the nomination is settled. "While we continue to go toe-to-toe for this nation, we do see eye-to-eye when it comes to uniting our party when it comes to electing a Democratic president," Clinton said.
She defeated Obama 65% to 30% in Kentucky. Obama was leading 58% to 42% in Oregon, with about half of the returns counted.
Each state was suited to the candidates' respective strengths. Kentucky is heavily rural, white and filled with the kind of working-class Democrats who have strongly favored Clinton throughout the nominating fight. Oregon is home to large numbers of independent-minded, highly educated and more-affluent Democrats, the sort who have embraced Obama in large numbers. Tuesday's voter surveys showed that pattern repeating itself.
But the vote totals and demographics were less significant than the delegate math, which gave Obama 1,949 delegates to Clinton's 1,769 in incomplete returns, according to the Associated Press. It takes 2,026 delegates to clinch the nomination at the Democrats' August convention in Denver. The party has two kinds of delegates: pledged, or those awarded through primaries and caucuses, and so-called superdelegates, who are free to support whomever they choose.
Increasingly, these last primaries seem like an afterthought as Obama turns his focus to the general election against Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona. The two spent the last week sparring long-distance over foreign policy, Social Security and the influence of Washington special interests.
At the same time, the Democratic Party began to coalesce around the Illinois senator. A day after Clinton won West Virginia in a 41-percentage-point landslide, Obama picked up the endorsement of erstwhile rival John Edwards as well as the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America.
For her part, Clinton has scaled back her criticisms of Obama on the stump and pulled the plug on TV ads criticizing her rival. But that does not mean surrender. Today, she plans to campaign in Florida, a trip she scheduled after Obama announced his intention to spend the next three days in the Sunshine State.
The trip is driven by a simple calculation: Clinton's faint hopes of winning the nomination largely depends on seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan. Clinton won the popular vote in both states, though neither seriously competed and Obama removed his name from the Michigan ballot. The Democrats' Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet May 31 to discuss whether to seat delegates from the two states, which broke party rules by scheduling their primaries too early.
The Clinton campaign hopes to shave Obama's lead to fewer than 100 delegates by June 3, at which point she would argue to superdelegates -- members of Congress and other party insiders -- that she would be the stronger general election candidate. There are about 175 uncommitted superdelegates remaining, though any of the 800 or so could switch sides at any time.
One Clinton aide, granted anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for the campaign, said: "I don't want to sound naive or foolish, but if she's willing to play this out for two weeks to see where she gets . . . then those of us who believe she'd be a better candidate in the fall don't want to give up too soon."
Three contests remain: Puerto Rico on June 1 and Montana and South Dakota on June 3. Together, they offer 86 pledged delegates.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Obama rops in 8 Edwards delegates
At least six of John Edwards' pledged delegates in South Carolina will throw their support to Barack Obama following Edwards’ endorsement of the Democratic frontrunner, bringing the total number of delegates switching to Obama on Thursday to eight.
One Edwards delegate from Iowa, Machelle Crum, came out for Obama on Thursday morning, as did New Hampshire delegate Joshua Denton. Crum made the decision after receiving a phone call from Edwards supporters encouraging her to make the switch.
In South Carolina, Daniel Boan, Christine Brennan-Bond, Robert Groce, Susan Smith, Mike Evatt and Lauren Bilton — all elected as pledged delegates for Edwards following his third place finish in the primary there on January 29 — announced Thursday they will follow Edwards’ lead and pledge their support to Obama at the Democratic National Convention in August.
John Moylan, the Columbia attorney who directed Edwards’ campaign in the state and is now serving as an alternate delegate for Edwards, appeared on CNN’s “American Morning” Thursday. He stated his support for Obama and hinted that more members of the Edwards delegation would follow later in the day.
“I didn't reach all eight of them, but I can tell you that at least six of the eight are prepared to endorse Senator Obama,” Moylan said this morning.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
How best to punish Hillary Clinton - Options for Barack Obama
After 15 months of fighting her off, as she veered wildly from bully to victim, as she brandished any ice pick at hand, whether racial, sexual, mathematical or marital (in the form of her Vesuvian husband), Obama must decide the most efficacious means of doing to Hillary what she has been trying to do to him: putting her in her place.
Her last resort is to continue to press the “Psssst — he’s a black man” tactic. She insisted to USAToday, after the North Carolina and Indiana slide, that she has a broader base, citing an Associated Press article “that found how Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”
So how does Obama repay Hillary for running a campaign designed both to unman him and brand him as an unelectable black? Is the most ingenious way to turn the screw by not choosing her as his running mate, or by choosing her?
It is, verily, a sticky wicket.
One top Hillary supporter who is black warns that, despite the giddy dreams of some punch-drunk Democrats, a fusion ticket could backfire because “Americans can’t handle too much change at once.”
But should Obama ignore that caution and appease Hillary fans by putting her on the ticket?
As president, he could announce that, because Dick Cheney abused the powers of his office so grievously, taking the title “Vice” literally, he intends to shrink the vice presidency back to its “bucket of warm spit” Constitutional prerogatives — presiding over the Senate and taking over if the president goes under anesthesia.
He might also neglect to give Bill (whose acronym would be SLOTUS, Second Lad of the United States) full White House access.
Aside from the delight Bill would get from living at the Naval Observatory and having a huge telescope to window-peep with, there wouldn’t be much joy in Hillaryland.
The lady-in-waiting would be surrounded by Obama disciples who disdained her for fighting dirty. And she would be miserable holding up the train of the young prince who usurped her dream, derailing the post-nup she had with Bill to trade places.
As de facto veep for Bill, she had enough leverage over him, due to his shenanigans, to co-opt huge chunks of policy and personnel decisions.
But in a return engagement with Obama at the top, could she really wake up every day in the back seat and wish him well, or would she just be plotting? (Fourteen vice presidents have ascended, after all.) Wouldn’t she be, in Monty Python parlance, the Trojan Rabbit behind the gates?
On a positive note, maybe she could bring back all that stuff she pilfered on her way out.
Obama’s other option, laid out by Teddy Kennedy on Friday, is to go with someone who wouldn’t be a big dark cloud over his sunshiny new politics.
Teddy told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that Obama should choose a partner “in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people.”
That would be smart for another reason: Hillary has a strange, unnerving effect on Obama, and whenever he is around her, he’s unable to do his best. Probably, it’s because she’s furious, always shaking his hand off her arm, ignoring him, giving him the evil eye and emasculating him, and the Golden One is not used to such rough treatment.
In the last few days, as Hillary has deflated and Obama and the Democrats have dashed for daylight, he has been more like his old self, flashing his all-is-right-with-the-world smile on the cover of Time, joshing and charming Democrats and Republicans as he wooed superdelegates on the House floor, taking on James Carville for insulting his manhood.
“James Carville is well known for spouting off his mouth without always knowing what he’s talking about,” he told Terry Moran on “Nightline.”
Obama will never be at his best around Hillary; she drains him of his magical powers. She’s Jane Jinx to him. It’s a similar syndrome to the one Katharine Hepburn’s star athlete and her supercilious fiancé have in “Pat and Mike.”
The fiancé is always belittling Hepburn, so whenever he’s in the stands, her tennis and golf go kerflooey. Finally, her manager, played by Spencer Tracy, asks the fiancé to stay away from big matches, explaining, “You are the wrong jockey for this chick.”
“You know, except when you’re around, we got a very valuable piece of property here,” he says, later adding, “When you’re around, she’s no good, she’s dead, see?”
The best way Obama can punish Hillary is to reward himself. He’s no good around her, see?
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Hillary's five big mistakes or how Obama outplayed her.
For all her talk about "full speed on to the White House," there was an unmistakably elegiac tone to Hillary Clinton's primary-night speech in Indianapolis. And if one needed further confirmation that the undaunted, never-say-die Clintons realize their bid might be at an end, all it took was a look at the wistful faces of the husband and the daughter who stood behind the candidate as she talked of all the people she has met in a journey "that has been a blessing for me."
It was also a journey she had begun with what appeared to be insurmountable advantages, which evaporated one by one as the campaign dragged on far longer than anyone could have anticipated. She made at least five big mistakes, each of which compounded the others:
It was also a journey she had begun with what appeared to be insurmountable advantages, which evaporated one by one as the campaign dragged on far longer than anyone could have anticipated. She made at least five big mistakes, each of which compounded the others:
1. She misjudged the mood
That was probably her biggest blunder. In a cycle that has been all about change, Clinton chose an incumbent's strategy, running on experience, preparedness, inevitability — and the power of the strongest brand name in Democratic politics. It made sense, given who she is and the additional doubts that some voters might have about making a woman Commander in Chief. But in putting her focus on positioning herself to win the general election in November, Clinton completely misread the mood of Democratic-primary voters, who were desperate to turn the page. "Being the consummate Washington insider is not where you want to be in a year when people want change," says Barack Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod. Clinton's "initial strategic positioning was wrong and kind of played into our hands." But other miscalculations made it worse:
2. She didn't master the rules
Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game. That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates. It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all. Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified — and let Penn know it. "How can it possibly be," Ickes asked, "that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn't understand proportional allocation?" And yet the strategy remained the same, with the campaign making its bet on big-state victories. Even now, it can seem as if they don't get it. Both Bill and Hillary have noted plaintively that if Democrats had the same winner-take-all rules as Republicans, she'd be the nominee. Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign now acknowledges privately:
3. She underestimated the caucus states
While Clinton based her strategy on the big contests, she seemed to virtually overlook states like Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas, which choose their delegates through caucuses. She had a reason: the Clintons decided, says an adviser, that "caucus states were not really their thing." Her core supporters — women, the elderly, those with blue-collar jobs — were less likely to be able to commit an evening of the week, as the process requires. But it was a little like unilateral disarmament in states worth 12% of the pledged delegates. Indeed, it was in the caucus states that Obama piled up his lead among pledged delegates. "For all the talent and the money they had over there," says Axelrod, "they — bewilderingly — seemed to have little understanding for the caucuses and how important they would become."
By the time Clinton's lieutenants realized the grave nature of their error, they lacked the resources to do anything about it — in part because:
4. She relied on old money
For a decade or more, the Clintons set the standard for political fund raising in the Democratic Party, and nearly all Bill's old donors had re-upped for Hillary's bid. Her 2006 Senate campaign had raised an astonishing $51.6 million against token opposition, in what everyone assumed was merely a dry run for a far bigger contest. But something had happened to fund raising that Team Clinton didn't fully grasp: the Internet. Though Clinton's totals from working the shrimp-cocktail circuit remained impressive by every historic measure, her donors were typically big-check writers. And once they had ponied up the $2,300 allowed by law, they were forbidden to give more. The once bottomless Clinton well was drying up.
Obama relied instead on a different model: the 800,000-plus people who had signed up on his website and could continue sending money his way $5, $10 and $50 at a time. (The campaign has raised more than $100 million online, better than half its total.) Meanwhile, the Clintons were forced to tap the $100 million — plus the fortune they had acquired since he left the White House — first for $5 million in January to make it to Super Tuesday and then $6.4 million to get her through Indiana and North Carolina. And that reflects one final mistake:
5. She never counted on a long haul
Clinton's strategy had been premised on delivering a knockout blow early. If she could win Iowa, she believed, the race would be over. Clinton spent lavishly there yet finished a disappointing third. What surprised the Obama forces was how long it took her campaign to retool. She fought him to a tie in the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday contests but didn't have any troops in place for the states that followed. Obama, on the other hand, was a train running hard on two or three tracks. Whatever the Chicago headquarters was unveiling to win immediate contests, it always had a separate operation setting up organizations in the states that were next. As far back as Feb. 21, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe was spotted in Raleigh, N.C. He told the News & Observer that the state's primary, then more than 10 weeks away, "could end up being very important in the nomination fight." At the time, the idea seemed laughable.
Now, of course, the question seems not whether Clinton will exit the race but when. She continues to load her schedule with campaign stops, even as calls for her to concede grow louder. But the voice she is listening to now is the one inside her head, explains a longtime aide. Clinton's calculation is as much about history as it is about politics. As the first woman to have come this far, Clinton has told those close to her, she wants people who invested their hopes in her to see that she has given it her best. And then? As she said in Indianapolis, "No matter what happens, I will work for the nominee of the Democratic Party because we must win in November." When the task at hand is healing divisions in the Democratic Party, the loser can have as much influence as the winner.
Hillary Clinton eyes 2012 ticket by degrading Obama
Why Hillary contnues to fight?? It is because she's eyeing the 2012 ticket by the destruction of Obama in this election.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is staying in the presidential race despite losing among elected delegates, facing a slimming lead among superdelegates, losing the popular vote and behind by 2-to-1 in the number of states carried. She slogs on, hoping against hope for a sudden turnaround in the race.
Apart from the psychological reasons for her stubbornness, is there a more subtle political calculation going on?
Is she continuing her race so as to have a platform from which to continue to bash Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in the hopes of so damaging him that he can’t win the general election? Is she doing this to keep her options alive for the 2012 presidential race?
Hillary is obviously entitled to keep running until Obama has secured the votes necessary for the nomination, and it is certainly understandable that she would want to run until the last popular vote is counted. But must she run a negative, slash-and-burn campaign? Must she use her time on the platform and on television to belittle, mock, deride and try to destroy the man who will eventually be the candidate of her own party?
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) felt similarly justified in staying in the race for the Republican nomination until Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reached the majority threshold required for nomination. He contested the Texas primary vigorously, even though his earlier losses in South Carolina and Florida made it most unlikely that he could win the nomination. But he chose to run a positive campaign. He didn’t knock McCain. He just articulated the case for his own candidacy.
But Hillary won’t avail herself of that option because it does not serve her long-term fallback position: a shot at the nomination in 2012. If Obama is elected this year, he will seek reelection in 2012 and Hillary would have to face taking on an incumbent in a primary in her own party if she wanted to run, a daunting task. But if McCain wins, the nomination in 2012 will be open. And it might be worth having. McCain will be 76 years old and the Republican Party will have been in power for 12 years. Not since FDR and Truman has a party lasted that long in power. When the Republicans tried to do so, in 1980 and 1992, they fell flat on their face.
Hillary is using white, blue-collar fears of Barack Obama to try to stop him from getting nominated or elected.
She is playing on his “elitism” by hammering him on blue-collar issues and is mincing no words in painting him as a stranger to blue-collar white America.
Hillary is attracting the votes of cops, firefighters, construction workers, union members. Are they in love with Hillary? They can’t stand her. But they are terrified of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers and the various influences to which Obama seems to be subject. By playing on those fears, Hillary is undermining Obama’s ability to get elected.
This is not a byproduct of her continued candidacy — it is the goal. She, the consummate realist, must know that she has no practical shot at the nomination herself after her numbing loss in North Carolina and her paper-thin margin in Indiana. But she welcomes the opportunity an ongoing candidacy offers to bash Obama and to drive a wedge between him and the voters he must have to beat McCain.
The question is how long Democratic primary voters and the party leadership let her go on hitting their ultimate nominee. Will they bring Hillary up short and speak out about the harm she is doing to their party’s prospects by way of her refusal to recognize reality?
Hillary doesn’t have to pull out. She is entitled to run in the remaining states. But she should curtail her negative campaign and adopt the Huckabee strategy: Maximize your own vote share, but don’t beat up the party’s nominee. Unless, of course, that is her goal all along.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is staying in the presidential race despite losing among elected delegates, facing a slimming lead among superdelegates, losing the popular vote and behind by 2-to-1 in the number of states carried. She slogs on, hoping against hope for a sudden turnaround in the race.
Apart from the psychological reasons for her stubbornness, is there a more subtle political calculation going on?
Is she continuing her race so as to have a platform from which to continue to bash Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in the hopes of so damaging him that he can’t win the general election? Is she doing this to keep her options alive for the 2012 presidential race?
Hillary is obviously entitled to keep running until Obama has secured the votes necessary for the nomination, and it is certainly understandable that she would want to run until the last popular vote is counted. But must she run a negative, slash-and-burn campaign? Must she use her time on the platform and on television to belittle, mock, deride and try to destroy the man who will eventually be the candidate of her own party?
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) felt similarly justified in staying in the race for the Republican nomination until Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reached the majority threshold required for nomination. He contested the Texas primary vigorously, even though his earlier losses in South Carolina and Florida made it most unlikely that he could win the nomination. But he chose to run a positive campaign. He didn’t knock McCain. He just articulated the case for his own candidacy.
But Hillary won’t avail herself of that option because it does not serve her long-term fallback position: a shot at the nomination in 2012. If Obama is elected this year, he will seek reelection in 2012 and Hillary would have to face taking on an incumbent in a primary in her own party if she wanted to run, a daunting task. But if McCain wins, the nomination in 2012 will be open. And it might be worth having. McCain will be 76 years old and the Republican Party will have been in power for 12 years. Not since FDR and Truman has a party lasted that long in power. When the Republicans tried to do so, in 1980 and 1992, they fell flat on their face.
Hillary is using white, blue-collar fears of Barack Obama to try to stop him from getting nominated or elected.
She is playing on his “elitism” by hammering him on blue-collar issues and is mincing no words in painting him as a stranger to blue-collar white America.
Hillary is attracting the votes of cops, firefighters, construction workers, union members. Are they in love with Hillary? They can’t stand her. But they are terrified of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers and the various influences to which Obama seems to be subject. By playing on those fears, Hillary is undermining Obama’s ability to get elected.
This is not a byproduct of her continued candidacy — it is the goal. She, the consummate realist, must know that she has no practical shot at the nomination herself after her numbing loss in North Carolina and her paper-thin margin in Indiana. But she welcomes the opportunity an ongoing candidacy offers to bash Obama and to drive a wedge between him and the voters he must have to beat McCain.
The question is how long Democratic primary voters and the party leadership let her go on hitting their ultimate nominee. Will they bring Hillary up short and speak out about the harm she is doing to their party’s prospects by way of her refusal to recognize reality?
Hillary doesn’t have to pull out. She is entitled to run in the remaining states. But she should curtail her negative campaign and adopt the Huckabee strategy: Maximize your own vote share, but don’t beat up the party’s nominee. Unless, of course, that is her goal all along.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Top 10 "Surprising Facts About Barack Obama,"
Barack Obama will appear on the Late Show with David Letterman Thursday night to deliver the Top 10 "Surprising Facts About Barack Obama," including his interest in singer Paula Abdul.
From the home office in Wahoo, Nebraska:
10. My first act as President will be to stop the fighting between Lauren and Heidi on “The Hills.”
9. In the Illinois primary, I accidentally voted for Kucinich.
8. When I tell my kids to clean their room, I finish with, “I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.”
7. Throughout high school, I was consistently voted “Barackiest.”
6. Earlier today I bowled a 39.
5. I have cancelled all my appearances the day the “Sex and the City” movie opens.
4. It’s the birthplace of Fred Astaire. (Sorry, that’s a surprising fact about Omaha)
3. We are tirelessly working to get the endorsement of Kentucky Derby favorite Colonel John.
2. This has nothing to do with the Top Ten, but what the heck is up with Paula Abdul?
1. I have not slept since October.
From the home office in Wahoo, Nebraska:
10. My first act as President will be to stop the fighting between Lauren and Heidi on “The Hills.”
9. In the Illinois primary, I accidentally voted for Kucinich.
8. When I tell my kids to clean their room, I finish with, “I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.”
7. Throughout high school, I was consistently voted “Barackiest.”
6. Earlier today I bowled a 39.
5. I have cancelled all my appearances the day the “Sex and the City” movie opens.
4. It’s the birthplace of Fred Astaire. (Sorry, that’s a surprising fact about Omaha)
3. We are tirelessly working to get the endorsement of Kentucky Derby favorite Colonel John.
2. This has nothing to do with the Top Ten, but what the heck is up with Paula Abdul?
1. I have not slept since October.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Obama news: Obama avoids media in final days of PA
It's now been ten days since Democrat Barack Obama has made himself available for questions from his traveling press corps, and it appears as though that number could rise even higher.
Aides have said it's unlikely he’ll hold an availability with reporters before Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary, but that they "could always add one." Given their track record over the past few days, however, that doesn't sound promising.
Since the start of the weekend, the possibility of a press conference has been dangled in front of reporters twice—only to be snatched away at the last possible moment.
On Saturday, reporters were teased for the majority of the day with a possible evening avail, only to be told at the eleventh hour that it would not be happening. To make it up, staffers said they were aiming to put him in front of cameras on Sunday but that, too, did not happen.
And at a diner Thursday morning, a reporter slipped in a question about former President Jimmy Carter's meeting with Hamas, but Obama responded by saying he just wanted to eat his waffle. Later that afternoon while taping an interview for "The Daily Show," a reporter tried to ask Obama about a new Clinton ad and the Obama ad that came as a response. The White House hopeful asked the reporter if she was "supposed to be" asking a question at that time and added that he might answer but that "it depends on how well behaved you are." In the end, he did not take the question.
Traveling press secretary Jen Psaki declined to comment on exactly why no time has been allotted for traveling press questions since a press conference in Indianapolis April 11. Obama did, however, make time Thursday for a few one on one interviews.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Obama news : New campaign crowd high for Obama
Barack Obama was greeted by the largest crowd of his campaign Friday night in Philadelphia. Some 35,000 people jammed into Independence Park to see the Democratic presidential candidate, four days before this state's crucial April 22 primary.
Frank Friel, director of security at the Independence Visitor Center, made the official estimate.
The crowd exceed the 30,000 who greeted Obama and Oprah Winfrey in December in Columbia, S.C.
Obama told the crowd the United States is at a crucial moment in its history, much like what the founding fathers faced in Philadelphia.
"It was over 200 years ago that a group of patriots gathered in this city to do something that no one in the world believed they could do," Obama said. "After years of a government that didn't listen to them, or speak for them, or represent their hopes and their dreams, a few humble colonists came to Philadelphia to declare their independence from the tyranny of the British throne."
The Illinois senator called Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton a "tenacious" opponent but said it was time to move beyond the politics of the 1990s.
"Her message comes down to this: We can't really change the say-anything, do-anything, special interest-driven game in Washington, so we might as well choose a candidate who really knows how to play it," Obama said.
Obama news : Obama dominates Pennsylvania airwaves in home stretch
Barack Obama has spent more than $8 million on Pennsylvania campaign spots over the past month – more than twice what Hillary Clinton has – as ad spending this year continues its record pace.
The Illinois senator’s presidential campaign had spent $8.1 million in the four-week period ending April 16, half of that in the critical – and pricey – Philadelphia ad market, according to an analysis conducted by TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG, CNN’s consultant on political advertising spending.
He is spending $400,000 a day, on a pace to exceed $10 million in ad spending – more than double Clinton’s $3.3 million in ad buys.
“Senator Obama’s campaign has done an excellent job of putting their fundraising advantage to work with record Pennsylvania ad buys, forcing Senator Clinton to spend valuable time and money in a state where she had a double-digit lead in the polls only a few weeks ago,” said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of TNSMI/CMAG.
“If her own message connects with voters and pays off, it could be a big moral boost for the Clinton campaign. If not: the Obama strategy has paid off.”
Obama is also dominating the airwaves in upcoming primary states, spending $1.4 million in North Carolina and $1.8 million in Indiana, and has ads on the air in Oregon, according to the analysis. Clinton has made smaller buys in North Carolina and Indiana, and has not yet begun airing ads in Oregon.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Obama news : Bitter Comments from our readers on Hillary Clintons new ad
| Lee - Austin, TX | April 14th, 2008 12:56 pm ET HA!!! I heard about this…that's what you get for playing too many dirty politics, HRC. | |
| YOU NEED TO KNOW | April 14th, 2008 12:57 pm ET What you are failing to realize is that Obama is fighting for the average American wheather you live in small town America or Big City. He wants to give tax breaks to those making less than 75k not the very wealthy like bush has. He wants to make sure your job where you make your salary stays in your town and does not get shipped off overseas somewhere and if it does then you'll really understand the "BITTER" part of knowing that Washington is looking out for you. Hillary and Bill are looking out for themselves and that 109 million will triple if she gets to be president because all the Rich folks that has there hands on Hill and Bill will get paid and so will Hill and Bill. | |
| Willis, Texas | April 14th, 2008 12:57 pm ET Obama said something which happens to be true, and everyone jumped on him like he stole something!! People do turn to GOD when times are bad! Small town people do go hunting when they do not have jobs — they have to put food on the table!! There is nothing wrong in trying to survive! | |
| Veterans for Obama | April 14th, 2008 12:57 pm ET That's right Hillary! You are in for a BIG suprise next Tuesday! PA is sick and tired of the infighting. Unions and Veterans will come out in droves for Obama! | |
| Darth Vadik, CA | April 14th, 2008 12:58 pm ET Good for you Pennsylvanians, dont take her crap, a petty woman, who makes a windsock look like its working hard to catch the wind. | |
| Veterans for Obama | April 14th, 2008 12:58 pm ET That's right Hillary! You are in for a BIG suprise next Tuesday! PA is sick and tired of the infighting. Unions and Veterans will come out in droves for Obama! | |
| Tanya, Chicago | April 14th, 2008 12:58 pm ET ______________________________________________________ Obama needs to give another speech in front of my special Obama-bots again, Buy out all political analyst, radio talk show hosts and also keep pay the bloggers who keep posting praises no matter what! and for some more beer parties for our College Kid supporters. Please help Obama today. Send in more of you hard earned money now. !!! YES WE CAN !!! (Cover up this again) | |
| Obama will be President | April 14th, 2008 12:58 pm ET I bet she cackeled uncomfortably. | |
| Angus McDugan | April 14th, 2008 12:59 pm ET I don't know how Obama escapes it, but Hillary's true strength is her ability to make people dislike her. It may be her credibility issues or her lack of leadership concerning her campaign. She has her issues and Obama has his, but he seems to not generate the strong negative emotions that Hillary does. Angus in 08! | |
| The Perpetual Student | April 14th, 2008 12:59 pm ET Goes to show you. Many people understood what Obama meant to say. | |
| ***AMERICAN*** | April 14th, 2008 12:59 pm ET Catch a clue. Quit NOW! | |
| DT | April 14th, 2008 12:59 pm ET Her little tactic backfired on her. Get on with the next topic! | |
| Capt. Smash, Salt Lake City, Utah | April 14th, 2008 12:59 pm ET CNN reported that superdelegates need to consider ""bitter"" remarks They also need to consider Hillary Clinton"''s campaign problems! 1st: NAFTA Flip Flop 2nd: The war in Iraq vote! 3rd: Agreeing to sign up for the rules that were stated by the DNC in respect to Florida and Mich. 4th: Destroying the Democratic Party for her win at all cost policy. 5th: Slashing and Bashing Obama and then wanting him to be her running mate. 6th: Financial handling of campaign funds spent over 100 million during Iowa campaign. 7th: Lying about Bosnia and Sniper Fire. 8th: Not taking Obama serious as a contender for President,. She thought she had it in the bag from the beginning of her campaign. 9th: South American tarde issue with Mark Penn and her huband Bill Clinton. 10th: ONE MORE BIG ONE SHE DOES NOT PAY HER BILLS FROM HER CAMPAIGN FUNDS. The GOP and McCain will use all of this if she wins the nomination. She has made herself very, very unelectable the way I see it. She has poor judgment that is the bottom line issue for Superdelegates to examine. | |
| hibbiejibbie | April 14th, 2008 1:00 pm ET THIS HAS TO BE ONE OF THE FEW TIMES IN U.S. POLITICAL HISTORY WHEN A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE HAS ACCUSED A MUCH LESS WEALTHY FELLOW PUBLIC SERVANT, A PERSON OF THE SAME PARTY AND VIEWS WHO MADE MUCH LESS LUCRATIVE CAREER CHOICES, OF "ELITISM"! Jason Linkins | |
| Jo | April 14th, 2008 1:01 pm ET I grew up in Pennsylvania outside of Hazleton and I know the people there aren't stupid. They're able to see right through Hillary's antics and lies. Obama is the best hope we Americans have. We really can't afford more of Clinton's lies and dividing the democratics. Obama '08 | |
| mary-NH | April 14th, 2008 1:01 pm ET I'm not the only one getting fed up with your attacks on Obama Clinton. Start paying attention! | |
| Tampa | April 14th, 2008 1:01 pm ET I guess the Key state is finally listening to their consciounce and hearing the words: Hope will always overcome fear. Can you feel PA sliiping away Hillary supporters? Your in for a BIG surprise come April 22. And if your not on board you WILL get left behind. Lets bring America back! | |
| Greg | April 14th, 2008 1:01 pm ET She just can't help herself. She is a shameless political opportunist who will stop at nothing to try and hang on in this race Worse yet, she is a pathological liar who has absolutely no business criticizing anyone. The American people don't want Clinton (either one of them) and soon she will be out of this race. | |
| Obama in 08, 12 | April 14th, 2008 1:01 pm ET Is there video? I need a good laugh. Love to see her squirm. | |
| Marc in DeKalb, IL | April 14th, 2008 1:01 pm ET Jeers for Clinton in "her" state… Looks like PA is realizing that Clinton's way is not America's way! | |
| SNOBama | April 14th, 2008 1:01 pm ET Typical reaction of childish SNOBama supporters | |
| JacknJill | April 14th, 2008 1:01 pm ET Hillary, you should take your own advice you gave to Bill. | |
| peter | April 14th, 2008 1:02 pm ET New poll, Hillary up 20% now in PA. | |
| no news | April 14th, 2008 1:02 pm ET we need to wake up and see whos pushing this story its the news media not hillary | |
| Ito, Yokosuka Japan | April 14th, 2008 1:02 pm ET Thank god some are not falling for her outright gradeschoolian tactics. Hillary Clinton has no morals and no self-respect. She is a shameless politician. Hopefully this will send a message for her knock it the bleep off. | |
| Ben, MD | April 14th, 2008 1:02 pm ET She has become quite a republican in this race! I think McCain is pretty happy that he has Hillary to do the dirty work for him while he tries to make an independent appeal. You know how you can know she is lying? Her lips are moving. Pennsylvanians! PLEASE don't waste your votes and help McCain beat us in November. | |
| Daniel from Kansas | April 14th, 2008 1:03 pm ET HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE FOR A PENNSYLVANIA FAMILY TO EARN THE $800,000.00 (EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS) THAT HILLARY CLINTON RECEIVED FROM THE COLUMBIAN GOVERNMENT? | |
| Obama 2008 | April 14th, 2008 1:03 pm ET Hillary deserves a long vacation in Colombia, near an emerald mine. She is tired and stressed out and now unable to even keep her audience interested in her boring monologue. Go home - Is it NY? PA? or AK? Whatever, just go. Leave us alone. | |
| Think - FL | April 14th, 2008 1:03 pm ET "The Clinton campaign later said the disgruntled reaction came to Clinton's remarks came from Obama supporters in attendance." More like people that aren't going to play along with your twisting of his honest words that were never intended to be demeaning or hurtful and didn't come from a bad place until they filtered through your head. Witch. | |
| Ex-Hillary supporter | April 14th, 2008 1:03 pm ET People do turn to God when times are tough and I speak as an atheist! | |
| Myke A. | April 14th, 2008 1:03 pm ET Hahahaha. Shame on Hillary. You remind me of how the dog bit the owner. LOL | |
| YOU NEED TO KNOW | April 14th, 2008 1:04 pm ET What this whole country should be BITTER about is the fact that we had a contract between 40 and 100 billion dollars to build UNITED STATES AIR FORCE aircraft and that contract was sent overseas (France). NOW IF THAT"S NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU BITTER, THEN WHAT IS? OR MAYBE THAT BILLY BOY HAS BEEN PAID BY THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT (dont" know how much) BUT THIS IS THE SAME GOVERNMENT THAT HILLARY HAS BEEN CARRYING ON ABOUT REGARDING HUMAN RIGHTS. HILLARY'S AGAINST CAFTA, BUT ALL OF HER HIGH RANKING PEOPLE (YES BILL ALSO) ARE IN SUPPORT OF CAFTA. WHAT'S GOING ON HERE???? YES WE ARE PISSED OFF AND BITTER. | |
| Isaac | April 14th, 2008 1:04 pm ET His attacks were way worse, but here we are again with his supporters attacking her. How can he jeer her for drinking a beer when he just did the exact same thing and has been talking about it ever since? Come on. | |
| Skipper | April 14th, 2008 1:04 pm ET Rumor has it that Obamabots have now started showing up at Hillary's speaking engagements just to heckle her. Yeah, that's real mature there Barry. I'm still trying to figure out what's wrong with "throwing back a shot and beer?" Is there anything "American" you won't attack? | |
| Paul | April 14th, 2008 1:05 pm ET Wow! I bet Clinton had no idea this would backfire in her face. I love it. | |
| brad, obamaha, NE | April 14th, 2008 1:05 pm ET wow. just wow. obama08 | |
| Bitter in oregon | April 14th, 2008 1:05 pm ET Barack the truth Obama that's who I am voting for …… If the next states can't close this up. where are the signs I'll take one, heck I'll tale two who else wants a sign???? | |
| NancyL-64 | April 14th, 2008 1:05 pm ET The truth is powerful, and Obama spoke the truth. Too bad Hillary just doesn't get it. So who is out of touch and elitist? | |
| rw md | April 14th, 2008 1:05 pm ET This is the kind of crap she has to put up with. | |
| dee | April 14th, 2008 1:05 pm ET Thank you sooo much labor crowd You have made me PROUD to be an Intellegent American Today. thank you and God bless you. | |
| P Walters | April 14th, 2008 1:05 pm ET What a pseudo-campaign put on by Barack Obama supporters! If they yell loud enough, they think it will sway voters… It doesn't work that way! To Obama supporters, you are shooting yourselves in the foot! We're finally seeing the real Obama - and it isn't pretty or humble - it's arrogant and snide… Let's see some more! | |
| Ron R | April 14th, 2008 1:05 pm ET There on to you Hillary!!!!!!!!!!!!! | |
| Let Freedom Ring | April 14th, 2008 1:06 pm ET Say "No!" to the Shady First Lady!!! Hillary Clinton continues to lob spitballs at Barack Obama and try to convince the public and the media that they're cannonballs. If that's truly all the ammunition that she has to use against him, he'll win the general election for SURE. Obama '08! | |
| Anna | April 14th, 2008 1:06 pm ET Penn people are really smart. | |
| Nancy in Ohio | April 14th, 2008 1:06 pm ET One of the few times Hillary is right. She nails it. I have a grudging respect and admiration for the woman. Think I'd like her on a personal level, but she's too liberal. | |
| Carol/Lansing Michigan | April 14th, 2008 1:06 pm ET She should be jeered at about taking his comments out of context. People do turn to religion and unfortunately some to crime with things get very, very bad. We are bitter, bitter to see our plants close and go south to Mexico taking the jobs with them. We can't turn to our government, they don't listen. Why do you think peoples approval levels of the Senate, House and President are some of the lowest in history. If Hillary doesn't realize that, then I guess being born into a wealthy family and living wealthy ALL her life has left her out of touch with the other 95%. | |
| Jessica, MI | April 14th, 2008 1:06 pm ET "no news" - are you serious? did you not see how Hillary INSTANTLY came out in public and laced into Obama, calling him "elitist", etc..? To call Hillary an opportunist is an understatement… | |
| Let Freedom Ring | April 14th, 2008 1:06 pm ET Say "No!" to the Shady First Lady!!! Hillary Clinton continues to lob spitballs at Barack Obama and try to convince the public and the media that they're cannonballs. If that's truly all the ammunition that she has to use against him, he'll win the general election for SURE. Obama '08! | |
| Let Freedom Ring | April 14th, 2008 1:06 pm ET Say "No!" to the Shady First Lady!!! Hillary Clinton continues to lob spitballs at Barack Obama and try to convince the public and the media that they're cannonballs. If that's truly all the ammunition that she has to use against him, he'll win the general election for SURE. Obama '08! | |
| David Smith | April 14th, 2008 1:07 pm ET I find it interesting that even though the media is jumping on Senator Obama again, and once again not reporting on the myriad of misdirections and obfuscations made by Senator Clinton and her campaign, that the people of the Keystone State are not buying her version of events - and identifying with Senator Obama. This will be an interesting week. | |
| Walt, Belton,TX | April 14th, 2008 1:07 pm ET You would think Hillary is fighting for the last slot on the High School Varsity Cheerleading Squad, not the most important job in America. Get a grip, Girl, and grow up! A little maturity would be nice…… | |
| Jane L. | April 14th, 2008 1:07 pm ET The crowd may not have been booing Senator Clinton; they were booing at what Senator Obama has said. | |
| Madana | April 14th, 2008 1:07 pm ET You can only create what you can articulate. Someone was able to articulate the "car" before the first car was invented. Barack articulates a future that's inspiring and promises new hopwe and he does it authentically, committedly and selflessly. Hilary could do the same if her attention was less on inflating herself. Clearly, Barack cares more about the people, us, that Hilary does - so, the choice is easy for me. | |
| joseph Jacir, nc | April 14th, 2008 1:07 pm ET Proud of you sons and daughters of Pennsylvania………YOU are not taking the bate of the CLINTONS | |
| FEDUP | April 14th, 2008 1:07 pm ET We need to look at the big picture. I hope people will read the full story, the title is a little ambigious. I can understand their plight. I am lucky in that I don't have to worry about myself. My children and grandchildren are another story. Neither minium wage nor unemployment, will support even a single person, much less a family. Thankfully, I am able help them on many occasions. I think the Clinton administration allowed us to secure our future. Things were good, people were better off 7 years ago. I believe they can be good again under Hillary Clinton. Obama may preach hope, but can he deliver? He appears to cave too easily, to get the job done. His nuclear bill became so watered down it was useless. Exelon benefited from his weak stance..I just don't see change, when your supporters are some of the oldest Washington insiders. Kennedy and Kerry in particular. So, my vote stays with Hillary, to the point of writing her name if necessary. | |
| Venus | April 14th, 2008 1:08 pm ET YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go Obama! Keep your foot on her NECK and put the other foot on Bill's NECK! | |
| jr | April 14th, 2008 1:08 pm ET She might have avoided the response from the crowd if she had shared a shot of Kentucy Bourbon (not Canadien whiskey) with them before she went on the attack. | |
| Mark from San Diego | April 14th, 2008 1:08 pm ET Hillary doesnt realize it is HER that the voters reject!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She is every bit as dishonest as Bill. The Clintons just need to go away and us Dems would be better off for it. | |
| Fed Up Democrat | April 14th, 2008 1:08 pm ET It is truly sad to see what Hillary Clinton has become. Perhaps she and Bill were always so morally corrupt throughout his administration, however I and my family gave them the benefit of the doubt throughout all of their "problems". I couldn't wait for her to be the first female president, and not because she was female, but rather a continuation of the Clinton administration. Her dishonesty with the American people and especially herself is quite frightening. If she wins the the nomination, we as proud Americans will all loose. We will lose domestically and internationally. She is not the face of "moral authority" as she claims. She needs to get out of the race before she further becomes a danger to herself and others, and the future of America. | |
| Uncle Sam | April 14th, 2008 1:08 pm ET Sen. Obama has admitted that he was not present when those "bitter" comments were made. | |
| Ivar | April 14th, 2008 1:08 pm ET Why do I have a feeling that I want to be sick in my stomach..Doctor help me….oHHHH yesss I saw Hillary talking her crap again….Ahhh Oh I see. I am just having the same symptoms as the rest of our country when they listen to Hillary…. GUESS Hillary is intentionally in the race after having lost so she can make some money off the health care lobby. | |
| Al-Houston | April 14th, 2008 1:08 pm ET Hillary is the one who is unelectable!!!! —————-That's why the republicans wan't so much to see her win the nomination. The democrats are theyr'e own worst enemy, not smart enough to see reality. Keep going in this direction and McCain will be the next president. | |
| spyturtle | April 14th, 2008 1:08 pm ET gun packing beer swigging hillary has got to dodge more than sniper fire. hillary under estimated the intellect of the blue collar. who is the elitist worth 100 million? her lies have come to bite her back. | |
| Tampa | April 14th, 2008 1:08 pm ET THERE IS NO NEW POLL SHOWING HILLARY UP BY 20% UNLESS IT WAS CONDUCTED BY BILL. CUT THE BS PETER! NO WONDER YOU SUPPORT HER YOU GIRLY MAN LOL | |
| Sharon from Ohio | April 14th, 2008 1:08 pm ET LIAR HILLARY & DUMB MCCAIN | |
| Marj,Paso Robles, Cal | April 14th, 2008 1:09 pm ET Only a fool would vote for these Democratic clowns. | |
| Rex the wonder horse | April 14th, 2008 1:09 pm ET Has any body seen a real issue lately? All this 'made up' controversy and endless counter punching isn't doing any body any good about informing people of real issues. | |
| MC | April 14th, 2008 1:09 pm ET Thank you to the people of PA. Don't let her distract you from the issue. Let's show them we are tired of losing our jobs. We need a plan to create new ones. How many Republicans and Democrats have come to your Small Towns, promising to bring back jobs….and they haven't. At least Obama is being honest with you guys. Show the American people you are not buying it anymore. Vote for Obama and end the Drama. | |
| Dennis | April 14th, 2008 1:09 pm ET Go Hillary Go. —- Obama will say anything just to get votes. NOBAMA for all the "WRIGHT" reasons!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | |
| no news | April 14th, 2008 1:10 pm ET i think the "bitter" people of pa have spoken . and they are saying BYE BYE HILLARY! | |
| Eric | April 14th, 2008 1:10 pm ET The sad part in all of this is; to much time being spent on nonsense, and not enough time being spent on the issues. Obama hit it right on the button. Old Washington poitics. Now PA is really starting to see. GO OBAMA!!! | |
| jpowalski | April 14th, 2008 1:10 pm ET Hillary's comments sounded very elitist to me! | |
| AJ, IL | April 14th, 2008 1:10 pm ET Oh that Hillary! Loves to take credit for the positive things from the Clinton years, but disavows the negative things from the Clinton years. Wake up Pennslyvania and Indiana, let's turn the page on divisive politics! Heck, even McCain is telling his inner circle that he wants to run against Hillary and not Obama. | |
| kathleen retired Professional w/woman for obama | April 14th, 2008 1:11 pm ET Penn and Indiana. If she makes it, you will be voting for one | |
| Frank, Missouri | April 14th, 2008 1:11 pm ET That is definitely it … I would not be voting for Hillary Clinton (or any Clinton) every ! I rather would vote for George Bush to be president for the next generation! She is diverting the attention from her Bosnia-Gate and Colombia-Gate and the media is just blindly following the agenda. A sad state of a democracy … but then again, the media fell in lockstep with George Bush before when it was ordered. Bottom line, I think the Democratic Party is broken. Billary is taking it down with her eyes on 2012. The superDs don't have the guts to stand up to HillyBilly … I know Obama can lead this country in a better future .. about the Democrats at large, I am not that sure. | |
| Pat Va | April 14th, 2008 1:11 pm ET It's time to pack it in, Hill…everyone with a shred of intelligence are taking your rants and raves about the word "bitter" with much less than a grain of salt. You're merely using this tactic to take the onus off of you and your MANY issues that will (and do) harm to the American people. You're so pathetic and entirely irrelvant at this point. | |
| no news | April 14th, 2008 1:11 pm ET to tampa, some peoplenever come out from their rock so you have to let them say their bush like statements | |
| Relevant | April 14th, 2008 1:12 pm ET I like how at the end, she even throws her own husband under the bus… | |
| John Smith | April 14th, 2008 1:12 pm ET Deb, frrom another blog has been calling Obama a "creep" Deb is a "white, filty, racist" Deb is uneducated, and thus narrow-minded Deb has not done her homework or research on the Clinton lies and sins. Deb is simply a follower and must be very "gulliable." In the sphere of psychology, people like Deb are noted as "borderline personality." I could go on, but for anyone to use such a "filty" language against another human being says a lot and should not get away with it, period! | |
| obama 08 | April 14th, 2008 1:12 pm ET nomatter how dumb they sound | |
| Jen B. | April 14th, 2008 1:13 pm ET Hillary is looking and sounding pretty bitter herself as her campaign continues to self-destruct. | |
| Emma in CA | April 14th, 2008 1:13 pm ET Senator Clinton: You are beating a dead horse. Your shallow criticisms | |
| Casy | April 14th, 2008 1:13 pm ET I am a Clinton supporter but there is a such thing as an overkill. Instead of talking about Obama directly, I think she should just continue with her message of optimism and change for the better! As far as her getting booed—first off–I am sure they were Obama supporters—this isn't the first time she's been booed and I know it won't be the last! Oh well! All candidates get booed or have some type of heckling at some time or another. This is no biggie at all but Clinton SHOULD NOT continue to beat this thing in the ground! So hopefully, this was a wake up call to her. What CNN didn't report is how the crowd reacted to Obama! I wonder………. | |
| Benny | April 14th, 2008 1:13 pm ET I am an independent who does not want a continuation of the Bush/Cheney administration carried out by John McCain. It is therefore very important that people stop calling for Hillary to quit. Her tactics and strategy are not working but she must be allowed to take them as far as SHE wants to so that when she does concede, then everyone will know it is because she lost fair and square. Her attempts to be a republican in her attacks on Senator Obama only makes him stronger and yes, he has avoided taking himself down to her level. He is different in that respect. She will at some point release her people to vote democratic for the sake of the country and that action is what will save her political future. For those who think Mr. Obama is unelectable you need only look at the full-blown attacks he's survived from his OWN party to see that he is the true fighter and survivor, without being a dirty "kitchen sink" fighter. | |
| Concerned Democrat | April 14th, 2008 1:13 pm ET Obama is the Annie Oakley wannabe and he shot himself in the foot! The fact that should not be overlooked is that the "Bitter" comment were words that came out of Obama’s mouth. It wasn't anyone else's fault that he said it, he wasn’t forced to. I take him at his word, especially since he's supposed to be so honest, intelligent and poised. It did sound eliteist. He may not be rich but he sure wants to be. And if "he didn't mean it", he's just a panderer, just like he's been accused of being. Obama has had to "re-state" a lot of things in recent memory……more like had to spin a lot of things (especially that “race” speech)! Sorry Obama supporters, he brought this one on himself, with his own words. Words that sounded pretty sincere and well thought out. He obviously didn't think anyone would hear what he said outside of that room which means that they were probably more from his heart. What’s in a man’s heart is key! | |
| BV | April 14th, 2008 1:13 pm ET "New poll, Hillary up 20% now in PA." | |
| Bayou Joe | April 14th, 2008 1:13 pm ET Leave this poor woman alone. She is the Democrats best chance to beat McCain. Can't you fools see that Obama is not electable. This is America. We believe in our Country. We defend it. We own guns. Hillary is no different than me and you. She likes to have fun. Exaggerates a little about what she has done and not done. | |
| John | April 14th, 2008 1:13 pm ET What is wrong with the American public? No one has questioned Senator Obama on whether he feels that the violent and destructive preachings of Rev. Wright are based on "bitterness" or not. It appears that he willing to blame small town Americans as to holding on to "guns and religion" out of bitterness, yet fails to blame Rev. Wright for his attempt to teach hatred to black Americans. Senator Obama speaks differently in private than he does in public and that causes me concern. Yes, Americans (of every color) have a right to be bitter over the loss of jobs and for economic hardship but that does give him the right to catagorize it simply as "smalltown Americans". He offends everyone with his comments. | |
| Tobias | April 14th, 2008 1:14 pm ET Obama has been slinging mud since day one and when his back is against the wall his slings more. This time his calls to "just got past it" aren't going to work. He has proven himself again to be nothing more then a liar and a hypocrite. His chickens are coming home to roost and the super delegates are listening. He has absolutely no chance in November now so please vote smart, vote Clinton. Love her or hate her she will make a helluva president. | |
| anthony | April 14th, 2008 1:14 pm ET boycott cnn for their bias reporting. | |
| Homer | April 14th, 2008 1:14 pm ET When Obama gets the dem. nomination Hillary could team up with McCain. She seems to agree with him on alot of issues. | |
| Mary | April 14th, 2008 1:14 pm ET What Obama and the rest of America are saying is that Hillary will say and do anything to become President. ANYTHING!!! | |
| jason | April 14th, 2008 1:14 pm ET are people finally seeing hillary for what she is? consider my faith in the american populace to have increased slightly. | |
| Finally | April 14th, 2008 1:14 pm ET Hillary stick to the issues, people are tired of the kitchen sink tactic! | |
| Oregon IS Obama | April 14th, 2008 1:15 pm ET This woman is so clueless , she is about to get a huge wake up call. I look for her to get run completely out of the Democratic party . | |
| Rob, Boston MA | April 14th, 2008 1:15 pm ET talking about Bill Clinton and NAFTA Hillary says: "As smart as my husband is, he does make mistakes." So does her chief strategist, apparently. | |
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