It was lunacy to attack Obama, I could have crushed Hillary with a piece on the parallels of the CA race for governor last time, people gave up on Democrats after the primary fight, Arnie cruised to a win just after we beat the shit out of him a year before.
People have HAD IT with this, we want change! Accusing Obama of plagiarism isn't it, for the love of Jesus!
Posted by paradox at February 20, 2008 06:24 AMThe politics of hope have beaten the politics of sleaze. Now it's time for Hils to do the party a favor, and drop out before she does permanent damage to our candidate. So long, Hillary! And bring on Mumbly McWarMonger!
Posted by balthus at February 20, 2008 06:26 AMi'm with you, paradox...
westly-angelides was a case-study in how to blow a winnable race.
Posted by Turkana at February 20, 2008 06:28 AMI supported Clinton. Looks like she is not going to win the nomination. I am not one of those who claim I will not vote for Obama if he is the nominee, but I am not really convinced by his politics of hope. Hope he can deliver what is proposing.
And I certainly think it is time for Clinton to drop-out of the race.
bkk,
given that she's been saying all along that ohio and texas would be her firewall, i think we should give her a chance to prove it. this has been a strange enough year that i don't rule anything out. it's not likely, but it's not impossible.
Posted by Turkana at February 20, 2008 06:37 AM"Hillary's campaign strategists have proved consistently inept". Yes, Turkana, they have. But it seems not to worry her supporters that the same judgement that filled her campaign staff with "inept" strategists might be later this year filling her Cabinet with "inept" strategists charged with leading this country, not a campaign. We hear the constant bleat from Hillaryville about Obama having no experience and no accomplishments, but it's Clinton who's being roundly out-campaigned by someone who she claims has no "experience". Will she ever understand that it's precisely the "experience" that leads to "inept" judgments that the voting public is now rejecting.
Posted by T2 at February 20, 2008 06:46 AMt2,
i think her supporters can safely assume that mark penn wouldn't be in her cabinet.
Posted by Turkana at February 20, 2008 07:09 AMLook, on the "first day" Obama won't be slapping himself on the forehead and saying, "Damn, what's next?"
Also, things like healthcare, the war, etc., already have constituents in Congress on whom Obama will rely to carry through the process.
Most of the "change" message is roughly "there is a better place than here." "Here" is mostly BushWorld, but it also includes Hillary, who has been absolutely ineffective in doing anything to stop illegal wiretapping, the war, and a thousand other bad things that keep happening with Dubya in office. Despite all the talk about how she's done so much the record shows that she's done damned little to make things better on her watch in the Senate. And when she was in the White House. NAFTA, WTO, etc., all happened with her sitting in the White House, and she wasn't publicly fighting against them. Healthcare? Her push for healthcare failed 16 years ago. What happened to healthcare on day two, day seventeen, day thousand and twenty-one?
Fair or not, Obama doesn't have much of a record, and that's to his advantage.
Bush and Clinton and Reagan and Carter never held office in Washington. Being the outsider helped their runs. Bush One got most of his experience between oil wells, embassies and the CIA, so he was a covert insider.
And, granted, Clinton's campaign advisors have been bad. Her people expected to blow out the opposition. There was no real Plan B. But the more important thing that her supporters missed was that she wasn't a very appealing candidate. Being the wife of an Arkansas governor doesn't lift all boats, or votes. And living in the White House isn't a qualification either. Laura Bush, anyone? Forget the right-wing propaganda. Clinton isn't a very good public speaker. My girlfriend says she reminds her of a bad supervisor yelling at someone when she speaks. Is that sexist? Maybe. But there are workarounds, there are ways to make your voice more pleasant, even in front of a crowd where you have to raise your voice.
In short, the presumption of H. Clinton being the best candidate was always wrong. Obama may not be the best, but his organization is way superior and persona was more appealing than Clinton's.
Posted by Bob In Pacifica at February 20, 2008 07:25 AMNoticably, Hillary Clintons campaign strategists get blamed on this blog after every loss. The reasons change, but the "campaign" consistently gets the blame.
When does the President "ready to go from day one"
assume the blame for the campaign's mistakes? Words are just words according to Hillery, well decisions are just decisions, we have had a President GWB who blames everyone but himself, finding scapegoats everywhere for every reason, do we need another one?
The endless focus on Hillary's "advisors" and the "strategy" keeps ignoring the monumental unprecedentedness of the Clinton Restoration and the just plain fundamental oddity of their proposal----put the same couple back in the WH for 8 more years! This was ALWAYS going to be a tough sell, "inevitability" be damned, deranged Penn be damned.
And the political anaylysts apparently can't see this might be a sticking point for many people, even Dems?
Say, exactly why wouldn't Penn be involved in a future Clinton WH? By every account they both have complete faith in him, he's a leading Clinton Courtier. More fab judgement, no?
Bob in Pac---Author James Kunstler has a witty take on Hillary's (very weak) public speaking manner: He says she comes across like "a regional director of a State Department of Motor Vehicles", which seems a perfect description to me.
(I want to make sure I give Kunstler credit, though, with our newfound need to footnote every remark in political discourse and speech.)
Posted by euzoius at February 20, 2008 07:51 AM"i think her supporters can safely assume that mark penn wouldn't be in her cabinet."
Will her choices for her cabinet be any wiser than her choices for campaign managers? They didn't plan ahead and neither did she. Now they want to strongarm superdelegates - working backroom deals to overcome the primary wins made by Obama. Is this what we want from the Dems - more old school politics?
She will NOT win the GE - the energized repuke base will come out in droves to make sure she loses, and that spells pain for those on the ticket w/ her.
"The endless focus on Hillary's "advisors" and the "strategy" keeps ignoring the monumental unprecedentedness of the Clinton Restoration and the just plain fundamental oddity of their proposal----put the same couple back in the WH for 8 more years!"
"And the political anaylysts apparently can't see this might be a sticking point for many people, even Dems?"
Did you happen to notice that the exit polling showed prior to the Chesapeake primaries that Clinton recieved the majority of votes by Democrats? So I do not believe that it was a sticking point for Dems.
Posted by w3 at February 20, 2008 08:09 AMI'm glad that Hillary (almost certainly) won't be President.
Having said that, I think that she proved that a woman can run for President and be taken just as seriously as a man. Just like Obama proved that a black man can be. She deserves some credit for that.
I also want to credit eriposte for getting me (a die-hard, refuse-to-vote-for-Hillary-in-November progressive) to see that even if Hillary was far from perfect, she was worth taking a chance on, if necessary.
I still believe that Bill Clinton is Hillary's worst liability. Not in terms of name recognition, obviously. But, for the first time, I would like to see Hillary and her wonky persona take a cabinet position in a Democratic Administration. I don't think she will ever have the political smarts to fight the GOP, but I would like to see her focus on just implementing Democratic policies.
Posted by space at February 20, 2008 08:12 AMHillary should never have voted for the AUMF. It was a cynical act by a calculating politician with her eye on the White House. Hundreds of thousands have died. America's reputation is in tatters. I'll take my chances with Obama.
Posted by nerdoff at February 20, 2008 08:24 AMnerdoff:
Not only that, it was a DUMB cynical act. There was no way that it wasn't going come back to haunt her. In the unlikely event that the war was "successful," she was never going to get any credit for a "me too" vote.
And if the war went south, which it did, she was going to look triply foolish: For believing the b.s. about a WMD threat, for letting Bush launch an aggressive war, and for not being smart enough to anticipate the problems that would ensue.
I just don't see a scenario where voting for the AUMF helps get Hillary into the WH in '08.
Posted by space at February 20, 2008 08:39 AMThat vote was the first crack in my respect for her. The latest vote on Iran brought the end for me. Great, smart lady but not the one to be president at this moment in our history.
Eric in Austin
Posted by ericl at February 20, 2008 08:48 AMThe Clinton strategy for winning the election is ineffective and wrong. The Clinton campaign is a preview of a Clinton presidency. The stategy is comparable to:
george bush's "shock and awe" and no plan "B".
and
Mike Tyson's first round knock out.
What happens when plan A doesn't work? We have lived through seven years of faulty plan a's with no plan b's and payed a heavy price. Can we stand another 8 years?
Posted by smooth at February 20, 2008 10:44 AMMy great fear is that after ten straight losses, most in double digits, most better than 20%, what's clear is that the momentum has swung for Obama. What hope can there be to win now? Rumors are that there is a pro-Clinton 527 starting up in Ohio. How much damage can she do to Obama and Democrats generally before the money runs out, or she finally decides to throw in the towel?
As Jonathan Alter said, Is she going down ugly or is she going down classy? Because, the way it looks from here, she's not going back up.
Posted by Bob In Pacifica at February 20, 2008 12:31 PMMore problematic than Mark Penn himself is Hillary Clinton's judgment, leadership and executive experience. I find it amazing that Barack Obama will be going up against TWO campaigns that bankrupted themselves. He doesn't need to talk fiscal responsibility. He does fiscal responsibility.
Posted by Elrod at February 20, 2008 01:01 PMIt's not that Clinton's campaign team is inept; it's just that Obama's team is really good. Plus, the Obama team has a candidate with charisma that appeals to several demographic groups and he's a great speaker. Fortunately, the majority participating in the democratic selection process remember that the '90s weren't great or understand that Clinton paved the way for Bush/Cheney in a number of areas. For example - that Clinton/Gore government streamlining made it so much easier for Bush/Cheney to dole out the spoils to their coporate buddies because that "streamlining" cut out the middle ranks of agencies that had made sure that regulations were followed.
These two teams say very important things about the executive skills of the candidates and how each would fare in the WH.
Posted by Marie at February 20, 2008 02:08 PMLook, I heard Clinton speak so eloquently on MTV, during that broadcoast: I heard Obama, who was hopechangehopenewnewshinynew. I heard Clinton, who knew so much about the specifics of the question asked her that I was left breathless.
Bush was all hype. Obama is all hype. Hillary is the real deal.
The funny thing was, about the MTV broadcast -- they had an instant ratings system. All those listeners, although they had heard absolutely definitive plans to very specific questions -- rated her as if they had not heard a word that she had said. Is that sexism? Is the Rove-spin? both?
She's like Roosevelt, but we're blind to her. Obama's like Ronnie Ray-gun, and some Faux-left jerks are just slavering to get him in. Feh..
Posted by No Blood for Hubris at February 20, 2008 07:23 PM