Hillary Clinton Crushing Rivals

[Lance]

CNN is reporting that Hillary Clinton has opened up an "enormous lead".

I'd like to personally thank Bill Thompson for the part he has played in helping this become a reality.

Thanks, Bill! <tip o' the hat>

[Bill_Thompson]

I think she is going to win.
I was just telling some friends this earlier.

[Bill_Thompson]

I predict that Mitt will win the Republican nomination
and I predict Hilary will win the presidential race.

I have a feeling judging from what I have learned about the press and how people behave. I think I mentioned this before that the democratic press had all this planned. And now I see Mitt is on the cover of Time.

I can just imagine the ads when the gloves come off. "Don't let Lincoln turn in his grave". There is a lot more mud that Hillary's camp can sling at Mitt than the other way around.

[Arneb]

Yeah, they just had to collect the mud that had slung her way over the years from the right.

Nice conspiracy theory you have there. Yeah, sure, any other political candidate, especially Republican, would be far above wishing for (and tacitly promoting) an opponent he thought was easier to beat. Noone else but Evil Hillary (T.M.) would even consider that.

[Bill_Thompson]

I am seriously thinking of throwing my support to Romney to ensure he looses.

[Bill_Thompson]

This might come as a suprise to you people. A lot of my friends say that the only reason that they do not support Obama is that they do not want to get their hopes up and that since the Clintons have always been favorites of my brothers and sisters, they support Hillary.

Hillary Clinton is going to shoot herself in the foot if she disrespects Obama and will be cutting off a large base of her support.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007 ... -on-obama/

It takes huge courage to stand up and run for president if you are viewed as being black. THis is something to admire and respect. To disrespect this shows a lack of character.

[Bill_Thompson]

http://www.time.com/time/politics/artic ... 19,00.html

Will Clinton's Obama Attacks Backfire?

It started in earnest a couple of weeks ago when Hillary Clinton questioned how much Barack Obama's time spent living in Indonesia as a child could actually help him make foreign policy decisions as a commander-in-chief. "Voters will judge whether living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next President will face," Clinton said November 20 in Shenandoah, Iowa. "I think we need a President with more experience than that."

Then Clinton announced in an interview with CBS that she was sick of being a punching bag for Obama and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards and that she intended to fight back. "After you have been attacked as often as I have from several of my opponents, you cannot just absorb it. You have to respond," she said.

Since that declaration Clinton has done just that, attacking Obama's plans for health care, Social Security reform and diplomacy with Iran. She even went so far as to dig up a kindergarten essay of Obama's entitled "I Want to Be President" to accuse him of lying about not having a lifelong lust for the Oval Office. "So you decide which makes more sense: Entrust our country to someone who is ready on day one ... or to put America in the hands of someone with little national or international experience, who started running for president the day he arrived in the U.S. Senate," Clinton said in Iowa Monday. But at a time when two new Iowa polls show Obama actually pulling into the lead and Clinton losing support among women, some political observers are wondering if Clinton will come to regret her newly assertive strategy. She already has the highest negative ratings in the race, and the shift in tactics comes only a month before the Iowa caucus — where voters are famous for their distaste of negative campaigning. Launching the attacks herself, rather than with via surrogates, only makes the move even riskier.

"The attack will backfire in two ways: it will reinforce the negative stereotype of Mrs. Clinton as a cold and calculating person who will do whatever it takes to win," said Stephen J. Wayne, a government professor at Georgetown University and author of The Road to the White House. "And two, it will make Mr. Obama seem to be the less shrill and more emotionally mature candidate."

John Norris, who ran Senator John Kerry's Iowa campaign in 2004 and now serves as an adviser to Obama's campaign, said that's what they were banking on. "Barack positioned himself as drawing distinctions with Hillary," Norris said in an interview. "You don't want to get too negative — he's come close to the line but I don't think he's gone over it with Iowa voters." Clinton is "the one who made it personal by calling him na�ve — that was the first personal attack in the campaign," Norris said. "It's not a good position to be in — being forced to go negative in the last month."

The Obama campaign has started a website which almost gleefully tracks all of Clinton's attacks. And in an e-mail sent to supporters Monday asking for donations, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe cited the Des Moines Register poll that also showed Clinton with the highest negatives of any candidate. "And sure enough, less than 12 hours after the poll results were released, the Clinton campaign launched multiple frantic, baseless attacks against Barack Obama," Plouffe wrote, calling for 10,000 people to donate over the next 48 hours in response. "The emerging pattern is disturbing: as Senator Clinton's poll numbers slide, the campaign of 'inevitability' becomes more desperate and negative by the day. Barack will always respond swiftly and forcefully with the truth when attacked."

Negative campaigning has not had a history of success in Iowa. In 2004 Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean committed what some described as "murder-suicide" with their attacks on each other, opening the door for Kerry. In 1988 John Glenn's attacks on Walter Mondale helped to hand Garry Hart a surprise victory in the caucuses. The person who could stand to gain the most this time from the negative attacks is John Edwards. His campaign, which hasn't been shy about attacking Clinton in recent months, remained remarkably silent in recent days. "Edwards has been a pretty harsh critic of the Clinton campaign himself, so one could argue that when everybody goes negative no one gains from it," said Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist who is remaining neutral this cycle.

Clinton has insisted that her attacks against Obama are substantive, not personal. "There's a big difference between our courage and our convictions, what we believe and what we're willing to fight for," Clinton told reporters traveling this past weekend with her in Iowa aboard the first press plane of Clinton's campaign. That difference, she said, is "between someone who talks the talk, and somebody who's walked the walk." Asked directly whether she intended to raise questions about Obama's character, she replied: "It's beginning to look a lot like that. You know, it really is." (When asked if former President Bill Clinton would also be stepping up the heat on Obama or Edwards, Clinton spokesman Mo Eilleithee would say only, "I think you'll see him out there talking about his knowledge of her, because no one knows her better.")

Clinton's harsh new rhetoric has not won much support, either from pundits or other Democrats. "I could see the desire to raise the salience of personal traits — because her strengths are experience and strength of character," said Stephen Ansolabehere, a political science professor at MIT and author of the book Going Negative. "But her choice surprised me — she might be emphasizing the wrong thing. Given how close this is in the polls, especially a month out, this might be a very risky strategy for her."

"This series of slurs doesn't serve HRC well," said Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, in a blog post. "It will turn off voters in Iowa, as in the rest of the country. If she's worried her polls are dropping, this is not the way to build them back up."

Perhaps the biggest downside to Clinton's negative attacks is that the press seems to be focusing on nothing else, at least for the moment. "What's tough about the stories from this weekend is that they're telegraphing — they're more about going negative than the substance of the attacks," Simmons said. "It underlines the case that Edwards and Obama have been making that she's practicing politics as usual." And for Clinton, that kind of an association could be the costliest negative of all.

[St. Jimmy]

I'm voting for Stephen Cobert. Stephen Cobert is America and So Are You!

[Bill_Thompson]

I'm voting for Stephen Cobert. Stephen Cobert is America and So Are You!

What is that about?

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

Stephen Colbert.

Who is only on the ticket in South Carolina.

Didn't know St. Jimmy was a resident there.

[Bill_Thompson]

Stephen Colbert.

Who is only on the ticket in South Carolina.

Didn't know St. Jimmy was a resident there.

Isn't he that clown on Comedy Central? Makes fun of Neocons by pretending to be a retarded one and he is never out of character.

So he is running for president by only being on the ticket in one state. Is he making fun of someone? Did some concervative try doing that once or something? I don't think so. But it is fun to think they would be so stupid as to do that, right?

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

I'm pretty sure he is making fun of everybody.

Every civilisation needs his court jesters.

[St. Jimmy]

I don't live there, but it's fun to pretend that I could vote for him. Actually I think I would pick him over hillary if he was running for real... :?


AHH!! How did I forget the l in colbert's name?!?!?!

[Bill_Thompson]

I don't live there, but it's fun to pretend that I could vote for him. Actually I think I would pick him over hillary if he was running for real... :?

My dentist was gung-ho about voting for Hillary just because she is a woman. But she told me (my dentist, not Hillary) that she has come to think that Hillary only says what she thinks people want to hear and will get her support.

It is what I have been saying for a long time.

[Enzo]

And in that, Hillary is not the slightest bit different from any of the others.

[St. Jimmy]

I don't live there, but it's fun to pretend that I could vote for him. Actually I think I would pick him over hillary if he was running for real... :?

My dentist was gung-ho about voting for Hillary just because she is a woman. But she told me (my dentist, not Hillary) that she has come to think that Hillary only says what she thinks people want to hear and will get her support.

It is what I have been saying for a long time.

That's exactally what I think about Hillary. She's fake. I believe that Obama's fake too. I wish a middle/lower-class civilian could run because they know what it's like to be middle/lower-class. They know what it's like to be in the situation that most people are in. They know what middle/lower-class people want done for America way better than any of the other selfish rich bastards that have run for preseident for a long time. Now obviously they would have to know what they were doing in politics, but I wish somebody who really knows and wants to do thing to help the average American.

[Superluminal]

I remember a sci-fi short story I read in the old magazine "Omni". People who craved power were deemed to be untrustworthy. So, every person in the country who was eligible to be president under the constitution was required to submit to psychological tests. Every ones name was put in a supercomputer and every six months the computer would pick a person at random to serve a six month term as POTUS. So anyone from your local barber to the school janitor could become POTUS.

[Мастер]

That's exactally what I think about Hillary. She's fake. I believe that Obama's fake too. I wish a middle/lower-class civilian could run because they know what it's like to be middle/lower-class. They know what it's like to be in the situation that most people are in. They know what middle/lower-class people want done for America way better than any of the other selfish rich bastards that have run for preseident for a long time. Now obviously they would have to know what they were doing in politics, but I wish somebody who really knows and wants to do thing to help the average American.

I'm glad you mention this, because it gives me an opportunity to contrast the middle/lower-class people with the selfish rich bastards you mention.

In this world, many hundreds of millions live on less than $2 a day, uncontaminated water is a luxury good for many, etc. But it is not all bad news. To take just two examples, China, now populated with over a billion people, was a pretty grim place not so long ago. Compared to the industrial countries, it still is for most. But it is making rapid progress, and arguably the greatest reduction of poverty in history is taking place now, much of it in China. Much of it is an export-driven manufacturing boom, by which China is industrializing like the UK, Germany, the US, Japan, and so on, but much more quickly, improving the lives of people who would otherwise be among the world's poorest. Similarly, many from Mexico try to escape poverty by emigrating to the US, where they can earn higher wages, often sending remittances back to families in Mexico. By this mechanism also, the lives of many people who would otherwise be quite poor are greatly improved.

Now, both of these effects can have a depressive effect on the wages of middle/lower class Americans (most studies show the effect is relatively small, but does exist). But, middle/lower class Americans, being very noble people, rightly applaud the means by which dismally poor people from places like China and Mexico improve their lives, even if it hurts some Americans a bit. They certainly don't act like a bunch of selfish rich bastards, and demand that the Mexican border be patrolled and trade barriers erected, keeping Mexican people and Chinese products out, harming some of the poorest in the world, so that vastly richer people (that is, themselves) don't have to take a small pay cut.

Oh, wait a minute, they do act like that. Never mind.

[Dragon Star]

[troubleagain]

KOS, will you marry me and have my babies? :wink:

[Dragon Star]

KOS, will you marry me and have my babies? :wink:

KOSagains?

[troubleagain]

Yeah, but first we'd have to figure out how to get KOS pregnant.

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

Yeah, but first we'd have to figure out how to get KOS pregnant.

I believe Doctor Arnie knows how to do that.

[Dragon Star]

Yeah, but first we'd have to figure out how to get KOS pregnant.

Impregnate the inner-lining?



[spoiler]Remember folks, he is a shoe. [/spoiler]

[Bill_Thompson]

That's exactally what I think about Hillary. She's fake. I believe that Obama's fake too.

What makes you think Obama is fake? Maybe we are to a point where we naturally suspect that they are all fake. But let's not risk throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath water.