Go Hillary

[JoB]

i like that idea, but Obama still wants to be top dog and his linear thinking wouldn’t make things work out so well if he isn’t.

I have impishly thought of a Clinton/Clinton ticket.

Bill is charming… He charmed the pants off world leaders when it was his watch… She could keep him busy enough to keep him out of the way of predatory females…he will be there advising her anyway (whether she wants him to or not)… and he too would hit the ground running.

and.. he would help keep hillary safe because if they shot her he’d be presdient:)

just a thought… Yes, it is saturday night and some of us want to play ;-)

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[JoB]

ok.. i need to make a shameless plug for my candidate… who did not do so well in caucuses here but was only a few percentage points away from the front runner Obama in the privacy of the voting box in our primary elections.

She lost last night in both Wisconsin and Hawaii… but was outspent 4 to 1.

She still has a good chance. Her delegate vote count is only slightly lower than Obama’s.

If you were like me and didn’t financially support Hillary earlier because she had plenty of funding, you might want to reconsider now. If she is to stay in the race, she needs to win Texas.. and that will take money.

if you believe in her as i do and want to help her win in Texas, you can volunteer for her phone bank..she is still looking for callers…

or choose to keep her in the race from the privacy of your home (or bank account) and send money http://www.hillaryclinton.com/joinme

It’s not just because she is a woman.. it is because she is clearly the better qualified candidate for a job that is going to be just about as difficult as it has ever been…

Of the female democratic senators in congress now…. those who are in place to understand the kind of work that needs done… only one supports Obama…and then because of the interest he has generated because of his charisma… not because of his overwhelming qualifications to get the job done once he is elected.

if you want real change… not just the rhetoric of change… Hillary knows what needs to be done and how to get it done…

if you want to restore hope to more than just the middle class… if you want those who are disadvantaged to also have reason to hope… this is the candidate who understands what needs to happen and now has the influence to get it done.

Help produce a candidate who can produce real change not just someone new who makes us feel good.

Yes, i know this is shameless… but sometimes there are things you believe in enough to be willing to take the flack for it. This is one for me.

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[Huindekmi]

This sums up Hillary’s latest talking point very well:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2008/02/15/2004184495.jpg

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[villagegreen]

Hillary’s “been working to bring positive change to people’s lives for 35 years.” “I’ve spent so much of my life in the nonprofit sector.”

15 of those supposed 35 years bring ‘positive change’ were working as a corporate lawyer. 6 years were spent on the board of Wal-Mart. She worked at the Children’s Defense Fund for less than a year, and that’s the only full-time job in the nonprofit sector she’s ever had.

Let’s face it, she was a Republican in college, voted to authorize the Iraq war, vote for the Patriot Act, and has accepted tons of money from lobbyists and PACs. That’s not change. That’s Washington as usual.

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[JoB]

villagegreen…

yes, she was a republican in college. surprisingly, a good many of us were when we were idealistic young women molded by our parents to be

good girls. We grew up and we changed:)

Yes, she worked in corporate America… And yes, she sat on the board of Wal Mart when Sam was still alive…(it was a good company to work for then and she could still make a difference).

Her corporate work was the economic engine that made her husband’s political career possible. But that wasn’t her only job during that time period.. nor her only interest. She was also a full time political wife… highly involved with local politics and the Democratic party. She maintained volunteer interest in children’s and women’s issues throughout her career… and has done what she could as a First Lady (both local and national)to further those interests…

You don’t have to work directly in the full time non-profit sector to contribute to it. ( i sure haven’t, but i have contributed heavily for many years now.. money… time… talent…etc…) And she has been in a position to make the kind of contacts that leverage every contribution. In plainer words.. she has had influence which she has put to good use for women’s and children’s issues.

but yes, she did put her public career on hold while she supported a political husband, raised a child and put her through school.

Yes, she has accepted money from lobbyists and PACs. That’s one of the ways you build influence in Washington.

If you are expecting that to suddenly change, I think you will be disappointed. and you won’t find Obama’s hands so clean either (he didn’t make the same claim in his run for the senate) and in spite of his assertion that his campaign has been funded entirely by individual contributions (“million strong” from his latest email)… it is still possible that he has collected a great deal of corporate and private interest money. (The republicans have shown us exactly how big… and not so big.. corporations funnel contributions through individuals.)And let’s not forget where he started his political life.. in Chicago politics… where no favor is ever forgotten.

Yes, she voted for the Iraq war. She voted to authorize the use of military conflict if and when all diplomatic channels had been exhausted.

Obama was not in a position to vote, so we don’t know what he would have voted on that issue. We only now what he wrote after we had already invaded Iraq.

We do know that Hillary and Obama voted similarly on almost all of the issues you named after he was elected to the senate… in spite of the fact that he clearly campaigned on a far more progressive platform.

As you said.. that’s Washington as usual. And Obama is as much a part of that as anyone running for President.

Believe it or not, there are political decisions that Hillary has made that i think were a mistake. All politicians will make mistakes… will honor poor counsel. It is how they learn and gather the experience that makes them effective.

I hear people saying… “if she would only admit her mistakes”… but, I am not so sure that would help. I think it would just be more “evidence” that “she doesn’t know what she is doing”. (Changing his mind on Iraq and admitting his mistakes didn’t work out so well for Kerry.)

It seems she can’t win… she is maligned for honorably supporting her family, putting her child through school and waiting till her husband had exhausted his political ambition to begin her own. She is faulted for a having a dysfunctional family because she chose to stand by a wandering husband and keep her family together. She is faulted for being effective at her job. (She is, after all, the US Senator for New York). She is faulted for having realized while still a very young woman that republican politics didn’t work for her. She is faulted for having political experience.

So, like her or not… you have to ask yourself just how much of what she is faulted for are really things we should admire her for? And would be, if she hadn’t been the non-stop political target of the republican party and republican pundits from the moment she stepped foot into the white house. The poor woman couldn’t even get a haircut without criticism.

She has become too easy a target… and her own party uses that against her. That, is Washington as usual. And that is what i think we need to change more than any other single thing.

If democrats don’t take back the political conversation, if they allow our polits to be led by republican talking points, a new face won’t change much.

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[andrea]

I don’t have anything to add, but wanted to note that JoB takes the words right out of my mouth…however, in a much more eloquent, straightforward, and extremely well written way…after reading this entire thread, JoB I am jealous of your way with the written word and of your life experiences, good and bad. Your voice is one of the most rational and honest I find on here…as a voracious reader of this blog, thank you for your input.

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[JoB]

thank you andrea.. i just call it as i see it.

however, friends of clinton did something today that i think unwise. they are nudging the law with a new funding mechanism for some television ads in texas.

i don’t think they are illegal in spite of all the bluster coming out of the Obama campaign. If they were, they would have an injunction stopping them immediately… but they are definately pushing boundaries… tho those boundaries may not be legal.

The obama campaign is calling them a slur campaign and likening them to the Swift Boat Ads… but other than the funding mechanism, i don’t see the correlation… they simply talk about needing more than rhetoric to institute change. I can’t see how that is slanderous. It’s certainly true whether they are talking about Obama or Clinton…

And it is not the Clinton campaign… at least not officially. But still. It doesn’t look good.

I think it must have been a hard call. (that is if she had any say at all) … without some serious tv spots in texas, she will not win there… and she doesn’t have the money in spite loaning her own campaign 5 million.

The amounts that have been spent on this primary are obscene. And i personally am not impressed. And I don’t think it makes the amounts any less obscene when they are gathered in “one million small donations”. In fact, i think it makes it worse. but that is just one woman’s opinion.

i want to see more debates and less ads…

And i would like to see real campaign reform.

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[JanS]

JoB….I second the campaign reform.

I watched the debate tonite, well…most of it….and while I like seeing the candidates debate, it seemed to me to be more of the same for both candidates.The questions were the same, , and some even seemed to me to be phrased so it would make the comments get personal, instead of telling me where each stands on what needs to be done in this country.I just didn’t see a lot of substance…instead of arguing that “my plan is better than your plan”, tell me the real specifics, and don’t make me go to your website to find out.

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[Kayleigh]

I watched part of the debates, which I generally dislike, much the way I dislike reality tv (if I wanted to watch people argue and insult one another, I’d go hang out with my family.)

And I was reminded of an uncomfortable fact: I really don’t like Hillary, despite trying to see her good points.

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[JoB]

Kayleigh, what’s not to like about this?

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/tonight

I know, this was only an outtake from that debate… but this is the woman i like and support.

she laughed at herself and her troubles… she was gracious… she was inclusive… and she was dead on about what is really important.

Now admit it.. if she wasn’t hillary you would like the woman in this outtake ;-0

The thing about dislike is that it is self perpetuating. They did a functional MRI study on people who held strong negative political views (but it might as well have been religion or morals or any strong personal dislike) and found that when information contrary to the subject’s personal belief system was mentioned, their brains literally shut down. Although they were still listening, they were no longer processing.

I think this has happened to some people where Hillary is concerned.

It’s funny, Obama supporters almost universally strongly dislike Hillary and if the caucus is any example, can’t even hear that she might have more experience or impact in some area Obama supporters are promoting him for. Yet, Hillary supporters almost universally like Obama.. they just think he isn’t ready to be president.

You might think that is a good reason to have Obama as our candidate… but i think it is the reverse.

Hillary is already disliked. She already expects to be lambasted. (Unlike Obama, who became visibly incensed when she said that we need more than just words in one debate) … she is accustomed to being challenged and accepts that as part of the job. This will make it very easy for her to make tough decisions.

Hillary’s supporters know she is flawed. Obama’s think he isn’t. I think America is piling too many expectations on Obama that he will be unable to meet.

And we haven’t seen his dirt yet. When anyone get’s close to revealing something, the Obama campaign responds with moral indignation and outrage. That may stop Hillary who actually wants a united party after this primary contest.. but it won’t stop the republican political machine. and right now, they have no reason to pull their stuff out because Hillary is still obviously the candidate they fear (their pundits are still constantly after her… a good indication of their thinking).

again, just my rational two cents:)

JanS.. it think the questions may have partly been a result of the negotiations from the Obama camp prior to the debate (he has refused to actually debate her in any meaningful way) and the negotiations from her political camp who know that she has to come across as a person if she is to win that primary. For once, they were in agreement… much to the dismay of those who would prefer substantive debate.

i didn’t watch the entire debate so i don’t know if this personality lovefest worked better for Obama or Clinton… We will see:)

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[JoB]

oh.. i forgot to add.. i will be without the ability to post on the internet for a week or so…

come on kayleigh, you know you will miss me:)

but i hope this thread continues without me because aside from Andrea’s very complimentary post, i too think this has been a really great thread with some thoughtful conversation… and that has been missing in this campaign.

Talking truth is one of the things i love about being back on the west coast.. and west seattle… and this blog… seem particularly articulate.

I may have a breakdown while i am off… silenced at last:) i am already in withdrawal.

so.. please keep politely slogging it out. i promise to lurk from afar:)

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[Kayleigh]

‘course we’ll miss you JoB. :)

It’s funny because it’s the Hillary supporters that I see doing mental gymnastics to try to convince folks that she’s really not a corporatist, that she voted for the Iraq war but didn’t mean it, that her days as a Republican and a corporate-protecting lawyer were just pretend, etc.

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[Anonymous]

I have to say, since I watched part of the debate last night, I don’t see the charisma in Obama. What charisma? Compared to Clinton, he looked uncomfortable, inexperienced and defensive. Everyone keeps talking about how eloquent he is and I didn’t see it. He mostly looked flustered to me.

Clinton, next to him, was completely in control. She handled herself beautifully. If I were a Democrat, there would be no question for me. I find it amusing (maybe a little scary) that Obama has so many supporters. What are his supporters real intentions? I don’t possibly see how any intelligent person could have watched them head to head and feel confident that Obama could handle the job.

Just my opinions about the debate.

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[charlabob]

OK — Here’s my take on the war, which is still the critical election issue to many of us.

No one (president or congress critter) is going to be able to end the war as quickly as we’d like. It has momentum; it has legs. It will go on in some form and most of us will be hugely disappointed.

If Obama opposed the war “from the beginning,” why did he select Joe Lieberman as his mentor when he entered the senate? Even when Lieberman was still claiming to be a Democrat, he was the main democratic hawk in the Senate.

There are at least three possible reasons for the choice: The war wasn’t that important to Obama and he thought he’d get something else useful from being a Liebercrat. Or, he agreed with Lieberman’s view of the war. Or (sadder and more likely) he though that might be the winning position.

The bob half thinks Hill isn’t raising the issue because she (as a Democratic Leadership Council-crat) doesn’t want to trash Lieberman. The charla half thinks the Hill campaign is being much too careful in general about selecting attack issues.

Attacks on Obama are met by major whining and not much else. “That’s not fair,” is a familiar theme. The republican slime machine won’t play fair. If the Obama campaign isn’t ready to fight (dirty or clean), they’re going to lose and the folks who supported him because he could win will, once again, be disappointed.

But we’re used to it– the Kerry and Dole presidencies didn’t work out too well either.

c

who can argue convincingly for either or both, because, sadly, she still wants edwards

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[Huindekmi]

JoB, Clinton isn’t disliked. She’s HATED.

Hated with an intense passion by the far right, who will come out in droves to the polls to vote for a candidate they otherwise would turn their backs on just to prevent her from being elected.

Hated by many independents and swing voters – the type of people whose support is needed to actually win an election.

Hated by a large group of career politicians who place an ‘R’ behind their names. These are the people a president has to work WITH in order to accomplish anything significant.

You may believe that any Democratic candidate will engender the same intense hate from the opposing party. I don’t. Hillary has done much to bring this hate upon herself. It’s her “my way or the highway” approach to management that turns people away from her.

Remember her universal health care proposal? The proposal was considered too far reaching by many. There was also a bipartisan proposal in Congress (which looks a lot like the current proposals from both Hillary and Obama). She shot that thing down. Wouldn’t even work with the sponsors of the bill. When her proposal went down in flames, even though both houses of Congress were controlled by Democrats, she still refused to compromise. To this day, she STILL doesn’t speak with the Republican sponsors of that bill. Holding grudges. Refusal to compromise. Refusal to listen to counsel. Refusal to work with even the moderate members of the opposing party. And this is the type of executive experience that you want leading the country????

Face it. A vote for Hillary is a vote for a McCain administration. I’ll admit, there is a very slim and fading chance that Hillary could win, in which case it’s a vote for four years of intense partisan bickering and no progress. Woo Hoo!

Thank you, but I’ll vote for the candidate who is capable of inspiring, leading and uniting. We’ve already had too much division.

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[Kayleigh]

I think it’s that Obama inspires so much optimism, idealism, and hope that scares people, because that’s a power the Republicans can’t compete with. I’m not sure most of them even understand it at a deep level–but they know enough to be threatened by it. So of course they belittle it–what else can they do?

That last night Hillary went after Obama on the small issue of him “plagarizing” the quote, knowing how insignificant it is in the grand scheme of the campaign, made me realize just how bad she wants the presidency and what she’ll do to get it. She showed a side to her that I’m sure made her a great CORPORATE lawyer, but that ain’t a virtue in my book.

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[JoB]

Kayleigh…

i think that is because Clinton supporters are constantly under attack:)

When you can’t point out that Clinton might have more foreign experience.. just from her days as First Lady (she actually knows everyone) and her work on women’s issues than Obama had from living overseas when he was very young…

or that a woman as president might be seen as change by the world just as easily as a black man with a message….

or that working for a living isn’t exactly a crime in these United States…

or that getting sucked in with the rest of America… not too many nay votes on that one… doesn’t mean “she didn’t mean it”. It means that she was convinced we were going to actually pursue some diplomacy before plunging headlong into war…

or that there is a substantial difference between sitting in the senate and voting along with most of the rest of the democrats before the war and stating your opinion as a citizen (pre-campaign) after the war had already been waged….

or that changing her political affiliation when she became old enough to know better doesn’t really count … she was a kid and even from today’s perspective the buys a little breathing room…

or that working tirelessly for the democratic party… including on Obama’s campaign for the senate does count… it’s called “paying your dues” and she has been doing it even while campaigning.

or that having experience and influence in the business and political arena might just mean that she might know how to get some difficult things done…

when you can’t mention any of those things (without attacking Obama in any way)… without being attacked by Obama supporters … something is wrong.

generally this happens when people are defensive about the position they have taken… or have one they can’t actually defend.

But i don’t think that’s really it here. You could admit all of those things about Hillary and still support Obama. so it has to be something more.

The more is that it has become a national sport to hillary hate… a sport instigated by republicans. think it through… it may not be in your best interests to buy into that.

and… how exactly does a campaign of Hillary hating (or at the least baiting) tie into this percieved notion we have of Obama’s “high road” campaign… this is not a respectful way to campaign against another person…

and no… Obama doesn’t have to actually do it.. he only has to sit back and let his supporters… and those who manage his campaign… do it without making comment.

however, bill (who was certainly inside the clinton campaign) can’t make any kind of comment defending his wife without it being blown entirely out of proportion and labeled Obama bashing. That is a huge double standard… and only possible because of the long history of Clinton bashing.

Nope, not much high road there… Not much courtesy either.

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[Anonymous]

It’s impossible to post after JoB, she is so eloquent. But, what JoB said has merit.

Obama doesn’t scare me or threaten me. I am convinced he is the absolute WRONG person for the job.

I don’t get what is too deep to understand.

I think Obama supporters tend be be defensive and I think it could be that they really know, deep down, he isn’t cut out for it.

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[JanS]

the idealism in me would like that neither side unleash their “slime machine” on the other candidate…that’s politics as usual. That’s what we’re all tired of…it turns us off on either side…to the nit picking about “words”…to the impression that Obama is not qualified (he meets the criteria to run). I know this is an over simplification, but, geez, aren’t you all tired of the politics as usual bashing?And we wonder why people get turned off. Neither Democratic candidate, if either wins the presidency, is going to do what they have stated about the war, about health care, etc. alone…so all the positioning and promising is just that, positioning and promising. I guess I still need a little convincing on either candidate… I have to decide who has the best promises – and I’m not hearing that in the debates…IMO…

I get a bit cynical at times. I love Hillary, I totally admire Mr. Obama…but negative campaigning totally turns me off.

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[Anonymous]

JanS, I completely agree. Nobody wants to see the two candidates going at each other (well, I guess some people do). But wouldn’t it be better if they could be completely respectful of each other and have nothing negative to say about the other?

Kind of along those lines, and I know that nobody will agree with me, but I did think it was really tacky and classless of Hillary to speak so negatively about Bush. NOBODY is ecstatic about what he’s done while in office, but he is currently the President. If you are running for President, I think it shows poor judgment to speak badly about the current President.

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[JanS]

well, yes, he is president, but the current administration hasn’t exactly endeared itself to a lot of people. I think that both candidates need to point out how things will improve over the current administration. Perhaps it could be said in a nicer way…but…hey…that’s one of the reasons that they’re running…

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[BobLoblaw]

Screw Hillary. I’m voting for JoB.

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[Kayleigh]

JoB, many many young women I know don’t care for Hillary (and I am referring to Democratic women here, in our 20s and 30s.) To imply that because we disagree with you, we must be victims of the right wing hate machine is insulting. Reasonable people can disagree about the best direction for the party (which I still think would have been Edwards, actually). The Old Democrat ways don’t work any more and have not stopped the neo-cons from doing their damage to the country. We have to try a different way, and maybe Obama can offer that (maybe he can’t, but I know Hillary can’t, or she would have showed it by now.)

NewResident, are you even a Democrat?

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[JoB]

Kayleigh, i certainly didn’t mean to insult you.

I didn’t mean to imply that because you disagreed with me, you were a victim of the right wing hate machine…

i am truly trying to understand disagreement.

i may have implied that you didn’t care for her personally because you were influenced by the right wing hate machine… but i didn’t even really mean to do that. I did mean to make you and others who really don’t personally care for hillary ask yourself if the basis of that dislike is from a source you trust.

None of us can fail to be influenced by what we read… or the images and comments from television. and it would be very difficult for someone to like her after what has been published and presented about her in the past 12 years… Especially if those years were pretty much the entirety of your adult experience. Every new allegation would ring true, because it is consistent with what you have already learned.

To get outside that impression, you really had to dig. And most people don’t.

That so many people have such a strong dislike for her personally attests to the efficiency of the smear campaign.

If she wasn’t hillary… if you had not heard those things about her for so long… most of sexist remarks that have been made about her in this campaign would make you uncomfortable.

As for real differences, of course we can disagree… tho i will always question the basis of that disagreement:)

the old/new controversy will have to wait for another thread.. which i will start tonight if i can past my brain cells together:)

But… as for Hillary showing what she can do.. she has a pretty good record in the senate of working across the aisle to get things done.. and the persistence to find a way to get them done… as i read somewhere recently… the where-withal to work within the system to accomplish her goals… not necessarily a bad thing.

And last… even republicans can have opinions about hillary… who knows, maybe new resident is really one of those independents that the obama campaign hopes to capture…

we all want to know what they think;-)

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[Anonymous]

Whether I am Democrat or Republican doesn’t enable me to have opinions about all candidates.

I have stated that I am Republican, but am not thrilled about my candidate. Therefore, I am concerned about who will be up against McCain, because I think there’s a good chance the Democrat’s will take it this election.

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[Author]

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