by Matt Stoller, Sun May 27, 2007 at 06:13:35 AM EDT
I'm watching a Chris Matthews show, which seems to be entirely focused on the new books coming out on Hillary Clinton and trivial nonsense from the 1990s. Ugh. Pundit freaks.
Tags: Hillary Clinton (all tags)
The might after the Iraq War Funding bill vote all Matthews wanted to talk about on Hardball were the Hillary bios....until a spokesperson from Moveon.org refused to discuss hte bookd and insisted on talking aboujt Iraq.
When I want gossip news I'll flip over to the E! Channel.
Tweety can't help it, it's in his nature. Besides, those free inside the beltway cocktail weenies add lustre to his television hair look.
I never saw someone so obsessed with the Clinton's accept maybe Tucker that's all them two been talking about on their shows since the books came out, its sick.
Earlier this week on NPR there was a quick take on Hillary CLinton. The person on there was noting that if you put her name into Amazon Books that you will get her book, Bill's book and then tons and tons of why/how to hate Hillary books. He then went on to lambast her as paranoid in that she thought some pople were out to get her. Hello? Didn't he just prove that by tlaking about all those books?
If they can discuss ten year old stories about the Clintons' marriage, can we start talking about the fact that Rudi Giuliani's children don't talk to him?
trivial? trivial?!?
ITS CLINTON!! nothing can be trivial if it's aboud a Clinton!
-yours, the beltway media.
some people who were adults during the 1990s still are repelled by this stuff. Case in point is my brother in Arizona, who has never voted for a Republican for president but says he will write in a candidate if Hillary is our nominee. He would vote for any of our other Democratic presidential candidates against any potential Republican candidate.
Top of his list of reasons why he will never vote for Hillary is that she had documents under subpeona for two years that magically turned up in her private office.
Gerth is terrible, Matthews is terrible, the Staff investigation was a bad joke, but don't kid yourself by thinking there are not voters who will respond to this.
Yes, she got a very respectable 55% in a state that went 60% for Al Gore. Nearly 350,000 Gore voters opted to vote for Lazio or someone other than Clinton.
That's real classy of you. Calling another Democrats supporters stupid. Shows more about you then them.
She didn't exceed expectations, she significantly underperformed her party's presidential nominee.
In her reelection, she spent $40 Million and still underperformed the other statewide Democrat, now-Governor Elliot Spitzer.
http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary .asp?cycle=2006&id=NYS1
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/r esults/states/NY/S/01/index.html
She's so cool.
Yes!! They have called her every name in the book, and yet she won Republican counties in upstate New York in both of her senate campaigns (Clinton Kevlar, perhaps?).
Further, I do not doubt much of her support extends from some Democrats' instinct to defend the Clintons. Matt once referred to it as tribal; that seems right on to me.
people that actually hang out with non-democratic voters know what Hillary is in for, If she gets the nomination we'll fight like hell, but she's y far the least likely to win.
I seem to recall there being a lot of proverbial brothers in Arizona in 1998, as well. If all the Clinton-hate anecdotes of the past decade had any relevance or representativeness at all, Bill would've been drawn and quartered and Hillary sold to the Chinese before the 90's were through.
Your brother has bought into a right wing talking point. No documents "magically" turned up in her "private" office years later. Gene Lyons and Joe Conason debunked this right wing lie years ago.
First, those documents were not in Hillary's private office. They were in the office of Carolyn Huber, the former office manager of the Rose Law firm, and they had been gathering dust there for years before Ms. Huber realized they were there.
Second, they weren't even originals. They were photocopies, so if someone was allegedly trying to hide them, they must have been stupid because they would have no way of knowing how many other copies were floating around.
Third, it's clear Hillary had nothing to do with the records being "missing" or turning up at a later date. Here's a description of Ms. Huber's discovery of the billing records:
Huber recalled coming upon the time sheets in August 1995 in the "book room" on the third floor of the White House, inside the Clintons' private quarters. Without looking to see what they were, she had stuck them in a box and taken them to her office for later filing. Then in January 1996, she had opened the box and gotten scared.How she could be sure they were the same papers without having examined them in the first place was never clear. Putting the 1992 campaign records in order and storing them was one of Huber's secondary tasks at the White House.
Fourth, and most importantly, the billing records were actually exculpatory. Why would she hide records that proved everything she said was true?:
Hillary Clinton emerged from Starr's grand jury to say that she had no idea where the billing records had come from, but was glad they had turned up -- perhaps because they provided only exculpatory evidence. Along with Vince Foster's handwriting, FBI fingerprint analysts found his fingerprints, as well as those of the first lady. Hers were found only on those pages dealing with issues discussed during the 1992 campaign -- but not on topics of more recent interest, such as the ill-fated McDougal real estate development and shopping center known as "Castle Grande." All the forensic evidence suggested that the billing records had in fact been misplaced ever since the 1992 election.The records' contents also supported Hillary's testimony and public statements in detail. In her sworn statements to RTC investigators, she had recalled only a single phone conversation with Securities Commissioner Beverly Bassett Schaffer regarding the Madison Guaranty preferred stock issue. The records showed exactly one, on April 29, 1985.
Asked whether she had done any work on McDougal's "Castle Grande" development, she had replied no. Republicans charged that an unused 1985 real estate document she had prepared for Webb Hubbell's father-in-law contradicted her. But the billing records, like all internal Rose Law Firm documents, referred to that transaction not as Castle Grande but as "the IDC matter."
A small part of a large parcel of land Madison Guaranty bought from a company called the Industrial Development Corporation later became known as "Castle Grande" -- but not the part described in the document Hillary Clinton had prepared. Her answer was accurate. After studying the newly found billing records, the investigators at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro came back with an even stronger conclusion that nobody at the Rose Law Firm had done anything unethical or illegal in their representation of McDougal's savings and loan.
To be clear: I would absolutely vote for Hillary in the general election, although I would not support her in the primaries.
Keep in mind that he is a Democrat who has never voted for a Republican (and he became eligible to vote in 1976) :
That answer and the referenced article were interesting, but whenever the Clintons are involved, I am EXTREMELY SKEPTICAL about the spin that Clinton supporters produce. I would be curious whether that Hillary supporter had a problem with Bill Clinton's deceptive statements that were made under oath during his deposition. Remember that the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the suspension of Bill Clinton's law license for 5 years.My views about the records under subpoena came from reading articles from the New York Times or Washington Post Weekly and not from Fox News. If the records were so exculpatory, then why weren't they produced earlier?
I also wonder what the Hillary supporter has to say about the $100,000 profit that Hillary made on cattle futures. He or she probably accepts the Hillary explanation that she made the trades based upon her reading of the Wall Street Journal. I DO NOT buy this notion at all. You should know that the trading firm that Hillary used has a long history of wrongdoing.
I already let him know that taylormattd is not a Hillary supporter in the primaries.
Look, I do not agree with my brother on this, but I am saying that there is a portion of the Democratic electorate that would not vote for Hillary and would vote for any other Democratic nominee.
IIRC those document didn't turn up in her private office but in a different one. Still in a box from the move.
Those documents actually supported her case. So she purposely hid documents that would have helped her case?
Funny story, recently the company I work for had to settle case because we couldn't find the relevant documents anymore.
Later when a colleague retired we found them, in one of his bookcases, still in the box from when we moved. It had cost us a lot of money.
HARDBALL is turning into a strange reality show where you get to see a disintergrating mentally ill host play out his obsession. Even the guest panel look at him slightly askance while humoring him. Matthews is getting increasingly strange. I wonder what his secret is? Its funny but the most vehement Clinton critics always have the most lurid vices to hide. I suppose it will all come tumbling out one day.
Well Tweety's brother is a county GOP chair in PA. Didn't Tweety once work for Tip O'Neill? Is Tweety bending over backwards to convince people he's no northeast liberal elite or something?
is it that wrong to point out that while all this stuff is trash, maye it's vest that we should simply as a party move on? The warning signs are there as to what a Hilllary nomination would bring. It will all e aout her, not Bush, not Iraq not the economy, in the end will people vote for her even if they don't like her, sad to say she probably has a very low ceiling as to how may votes she can get.
So your point is, well she's a good person but the republicans have made her radio-active, so lets invest in somebody who hasn't been made radio-active yet.
It doesn't work that way. the republicans will make every candidate of ours radio-active. And after yet another Kerry or Gore or Dukakis or who-ever, people will wonder why they went wrong yet again
It isn't us, it isn't our candidates. It's the republicans. And if we let our fear of them make our choice for us, we'll simply lose again.
I agree with Nevadadem here. We have just seen the Republicans go with somone who had the "advantage" that he energized the base by always being able to count on the hatred of liberals. That has worked out so badly for them that we actually have chance to nominate and get elected someone who can start afresh. And instead we may pick someone who's election simply resets the political table so we can refight the same battles of 8 years ago against a now reunited opposition? I suppose it is emotionally satisfying in a way, but is it really the best choice we can make? What a missed opportunity!
And, yes, this is unfair to Hillary. It is not really her fault that she stands for battles of the past, but she does. Politics is often unfair. For example, Jeb Bush is now eliminated by the lousy job his brother did. That is unfair, but it is just the way it is. I do think that in 2008, Pres. Bush will be unpopular enough that she wins if nominated. The question is how open a hearing does she get for her Presidential proposals versus the other Presidential choices she has, and what chances for political realignment does she create against our other choices?
Come on. Republicans are already making a laughing stock out of Edwards early on over haircuts, speaking engagements, etc. for crying out loud. They will put every Democratic candidate through the swiftboat routine, over and over. All they need is for 10% to stick, and they make that candidate look weak, unsure and generally unacceptable to many. And they get that 10% to stick with either Obama or Edwards. Of course, we will get back at them and stick stuff to their candidates, but don't fool yourself into believing that our candidate won't be brought into a tidy box with tons of "negatives" ribbons attached.
I am not an Edwards supporter, Obama is by far the best choice for the nomination.
They are looking at the general election. The only one that even gives Republicans a chance is if Hillary runs(Recent polls of course .. who knows what they'll look like 6 months from now). Just look at the polls.
Because he had an expensive haircut? Are you on crack?
As yet, there's less substantive dirt that's been dug up on Edwards and Obama. That said, by November 2008 there'll be enough opposition research in the field for any candidate to look questionable in certain areas of their life. Buying into the notion that the current slurs will be important in the grand scheme of things is a big mistake.
That said, suggesting that Edwards' haircuts make him unelectable is the funniest thing I've read this week.
I like Edwards, I gave him money, and will vote for him over anyone but possibky Gore if he gets in.
However, I feel like I've been left holding the bag, here. He must be politically tone deaf to a) be running for president and even getting that kind of haircut, and b) having it accidentally come out of your campaign account.
It's inexcusable and an insult to his supports. Don't get me wrong, not the haircut in and of itself (I could give a shit), but the fact that he wasn't aware that, politically, it would reinforce a negative stereotype of him. Doesn't he have advisers?
Don't kid yourself, a $400 haircut during a primary season is really stupid and will be talked about for the rest of this man's life.
"That said, suggesting that Edwards' haircuts make him unelectable is the funniest thing I've read this week." (Englishlefty)
_______
With Edwards it is NOT the haircuts or his lifestyle that make him unelectable. It is the bad timing and the mismanagement, within his campaign, of each of these things. It is possible (and highly advisable) to prevent shit from hitting the fan. You don't give gifts to the GOP and the rightwing dominated media, that they can then use against you. John Edwards had a firsthand lesson in swiftboating when he ran with Kerry, so this is all the more astounding.
Didn't he realize that building that huge funky house right when he decided to run for President on a poverty platform, would cause controversy? A basketball court. A raquetball court. A gym with two stages. A tower with private lounges. A pool. Two more guest houses on the way. Come on! Didn't a little bell go off in his head, or Elizabeth's? Like maybe this isn't the best timing?
The haircuts simply got added to the house issue, and then the filing of his FEC report revealed the details of the hedgefund he worked for; and it became every politicians worst nightmare -- a snowball effect. In fact, Edwards was asked in an interview how much money he made at the hedgefund and there was his chance to take control of the situation. But he blew it by saying "You will have to wait and see." And so the media waited. And when the information was filed, they jumped on it like hungry fleas on a dog.
Amanda Marcotte and the other blogger, whose name I forget - another issue that was handled badly. I don't think it had a lasting or residual effect, but again, it was carelessness within the campaign. It should not have happened - those two bloggers were not even vetted before they were hired.
After awhile, people start to wonder if John Edwards careless campaign strategy might carry over into his strategy as President, and that is very damaging to him.
Again, as I said in my long post upthread, these are campaign strategy issues, not lifestyle issues.
You may all recall when Obama realized he had not paid those parking tickets. He immediately sent out a press release admitting his mistake and saying he had just paid them. That is the kind of campaign control that Edwards needs to learn. Obama did it again when he realized some of his donors were lobbyists. He returned the money and issued a press release. In other words, Obama controlled the headline. His advisors knew the media would likely find out and make a huge deal out of those parking tickets, so they beat the media to it by coming clean right upfront, and in the process they were able to play it down, almost in a laughing manner.
I am not saying Hillary won't fuck up. Every candidate is going to do something he or she regrets, but Hillary really is a pro, and in all the years that I have been following campaigns, I have never seen a campaign run as brilliantly as hers. It is synchronized; smooth; seamless and highly aware. And Hillary stiff-arms the press at her discretion. Next to Dick Cheney, she is the hardest politician for the media and press to book. She rarely makes herself available and, only then, when she has something important to say to the country. She cannot control what is fabricated by the media and the GOP, but she isn't giving them one damned thing; and yeah, she's often criticized for this. People say she is calculating and unspontaneous and that she measures her movements and words. She learned that it's the only way to outsmart the bastards. There is no way an Amanda Marcotte would have made it past the front door of Hillary's campaign, let alone be hired as an unsupervised online spokesperson! Why give the GOP(Rove) and the media a gift like that?
I don't know if I have explained myself any better. I do not hate John Edwards and I certainly admire Elizabeth. But Edwards, like Al Gore and John Kerry, is not an astute politician and it would seem that he hasn't assembled the best strategists or if he has, he is not listening to them.
If the GOP don't get him now, they're going to get him in the general if he makes it that far. He has, thus far, been the GOP's biggest target - one negative story after another. With Hillary, there are three new books, all of them written to destroy her chances. There is also a film coming out in the summer, thanks to Dick Morris, and we can only imagine what that will be like. But I would bet the roof over my head that Hillary will not be swiftboated.
Don't be fooled into believing that the GOP are anxious to go up against Hillary. That is what they want the Democrats to believe. The reality is, she is their worst nightmare - this is why the GOP want Fred Thompson in the race. They believe he's the only one who can take her on.
If Edwards is unelectable (and I am in his camp at the moment), it's that his very well fleshed out platform is not resonating with American voters at the time in history - and with war going on and the economy in the bizarro shape that it's in, that's a real danger for him. Americans may very well want someone that they are very confident can get in the White House, get us out of Iraq and clean that mess up, all the while, getting the economy back in order. And that's Brand Clinton all the way to the bank.
No one who lived through the 90s can reasonably doubt that Hillary's got the chops to clean up Iraq and that she will give balancing the budget everything she has with her considerable skills.
I love Edwards' platform and I am going to push as hard as a I can to make it part of the American consciousness and help us develop a conscience once again. That being said, I'm pretty certain that we're looking at another Clinton presidency. Short of her committing and unpardonable gaffe, I think she's as close to a shoe-in as I've ever seen.
Edwards has the misfortune of running against two charismatic candidates with tons of appeal. If this were 2004 all over again, he would probably now be the leader amongst the group of Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman, Dean and himself. But, this is not 2004. His focus on poverty issues is important, but the narrow group it would mainly attract are about as close to Obama's and Clinton's core constituency as it gets.
Gore made that calculation last time. He thought CLINTON was the problem. Clinton was the smell offending his refined moral sensibility so he banished Clinton and thought his problems were solved....until he ran into the Republican attack machine that just ran him over and Gore could not fight back, he was paralyzed by the realization that he too was the recipient of the "Clinton treatment." You see he thought it was only meant for Clinton who afterall brought it all on himself. As George Bush laughingly said "we spooked Al Gore good."
"Clinton baggage" is just a symptom of a rotten runaway Republican party that will stop at nothing to win. Without being challenged and fought every step of the way there will be Obama baggage, Edwards baggage, etc.
"never leaves a fingerprint"- I'm laughing too- you have to give them credit when credit is due. I guess they have picked up something over 16 years. They are really good at attacking their enemies and bad news. But of course, they have had plenty of practice at it. Let's see what happens when the books actually come out.
why go in this direction when we have a candidiate much more appealing to swing voters and independants while also more "liberal" on the issues. Do we really want to win the election or just refight the god damn 1990's again, yes Hillary is the victom, I agree but nominating her is cutting your nose of to spite your face, when half the country tells pollsters they are tired of her and what she brings to the table, maybe it's time we listen.
hate to brake the news to ya but those swing voters simply like Obama and they don't like Hillary, everything else is secondary to Americans when selecting a president, there is a reason why Reagan won 2 landslide wins.
They aren't going to like him once the Pubs start coming after him. They're going to push every racist button that crowd has - and they have a lot of 'em - and they are going to rightly go after him on his lack of experience. And Obama doesn't even begin to have the chops to deal with the Republican Wurlitzer. He's gonna look Elmer Fudd up there.
Obama is a shoehorn for the next Republican presidency. Whoever gets the nom is gonna use him to slide right into the White House.
Your crazy, Edwards will win the IA primary.
Clinton has had the most favorable press from the MSM the past 4-5 months.
Did you not think these books would not come out?
The first week of June the books hit the book stores. Then their will be promotional tours and the authors will be on all of the talk programs.
Carl Bernstein, the pulitizer prize author, will get a ton of press and interviews from the MSM.
The author's have said that over 50% of their books focused on her senate years and the Washington Post only focused on the presidential years
They used to call guys like Mathews 'girl's bike seat sniffers'. And he fits the bill exactly. He's probably satisfied with just used undies, but the bike seats.... look out Hillary.
Can we be a little bit more ambitious and want the next President to do more than just "fix" the Bush mess?
Are you serious? Having just one president fix the Bush mess is already unrealistically ambitious.
It's far more likely the Bush catastrophe will take decades to fix.
Your comment is like asking somebody to swim up a waterfall. But to do it with one arm behind the back, just so we're a can be a little bit more ambitious...
While you're at it, you can wish for a pony. Any candidate that can make it most likely that he or she can fix Bush mess, will get my support. right now that is Hillary. But the minute Obama, Edwards, Dodd, Biden, Richardson or anybody else convince me that they're better up to fixing that mess ...
I agree with you on the allegations of copying which are ridiculous but I have to disagree about how being rich has anything to do with caring about poor people. Bad journalists use that excuse all of the time for how a candidate is weak because he or she has millions whilst speaking out against stagnant real wages and the declining middle class.
If a candidate has a history of promoting policy that hurts the poor, that's one thing. But a rich person, and a person who garners donations from wealthy people can have just the same interest in the welfare of the American people. Ari Berman used that kind of attack this month on Hillary in The Nation failing to understand that anyone running for president pretty much has to be a millionaire.
I think you are very paranoid and delusional.
I am not an edwards supporter, but your attack not only on Edwards, but his supporter's is repulsive and you will not win any friends on this blog for Hillary.
Miraleung why are you on this diary if you donot give a dam about what we think and that we are irrelevant?
It's a free country, but it is a waste of time to just throw out inuendo's with no proff to back them up.
"She flunked the DC bar exam just after graduating from Law school. This surprised me , since everybody talks of how brilliant she is."
(by BDM)
Hillary Rodham Clinton was twice named by the National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America, in 1988 and in 1991. Hillary did just fine as a lawyer.
That's great but she did flunk the bar exam in DC. that is a fact. She doesnot like to talk about it and hid it from her best friend for years.
Well hey you know ... John Edwards flunked his last two attempts at making it into the Oval Office.
Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Isn't that a song?
I believe he only ran once as the vp candidate in 2004. If Hillary was so confident, then she should have put her hat in the ring and run against an incumbent president. Incumbency is worth 5 points generally in a presidential election.
"I believe he only ran once as the vp candidate in 2004. If Hillary was so confident, then she should have put her hat in the ring and run against an incumbent president." (BDM)
________
Hillary promised her NY constituents that she would not run for President in 2004 but work as their Senator for the full term, and obviously she kept her promise. I can only imagine what certain Democrats would have said if Hillary had thrown her hat in the ring for President, after only serving 2 years as Senator. Not likely she would have gotten a pass on that one.
Yes, that makes her clearly unfit for office.
I mean I can't think for the love why she wouldn't mention it in every conversation with her friends.
But fact is she didn't lie about it, she mentioned it in her biography long before it were any controversies about it. She proved again and again how smart she is, but she didn't pass one bar exam. And thats a fact. Whooptiedoo! she's human! Now acknowledge all good fact about her as well and you gain some sort of credibility.
"Miraleung why are you on this diary if you donot give a dam about what we think and that we are irrelevant?" (by BDM)
I cannot speak for miraleung. I will say this, however. I was a consummate "lurker" on mydd.com and on dailykos.com and on huffingtonpost.com for YEARS. At least a couple of times a week, I would visit these sites and recoil in horror at the hatred being spewed about Hillary Clinton. At times, it was very upsetting to me, both emotionally and physically, but I didn't register and I didn't post comments in Hillary's defense.
Those days are over. Now that Hillary is in the running, I am here to speak on her behalf and to correct some of the nonsense that is posted about her and that includes a head-on confrontation with sexists and misogyists who have, historically, treated Hillary like someone who crawled out of the sewer. No more.
If you don't like her policies or her stance on issues, that is your right obviously. But latch onto the crap being spewed about her marriage and you'll hear from me and, obviously from miraleung as well, and all the other Hillary supporters who are showing up, in greater numbers, on these blogs.
We are finally fighting back, and it's long overdue.
I could care less about her marriage. I care about policies, and I dis-agree totally with her stance and history on the Iraq war.
I have been to war and this is the most important issue facing the american people and opinion poll's bear me out.
So anything goes?
You do go on and on about everything negative about Clinton, whether it is relevant or not. Whether it's something you care about or not.
If your problem is with the war, argue against Clinton on the war. And leave all those other subject that you claim you don't care about.
I have never made one response about her marriage or personal life.
I made mu,erous responses about her vote to authorize the war and her policies regarding leaving a residual force in IRAQ.
I liked Bill Clinton, buy she is no Bill Clinton.
I don't hate her. but I donot like her
All you do here is bash Clinton. That is your entire purpose in your blog life. It is rather pathetic, since you don't even back another candidate but just bash Clinton for bash's sakes. Then you get hypersensitive if that is called "hatin'."
Tell me what I said was hateful about Clinton? Look every candidate is going to have negative
statements about their candidate which they think is un-fair.
It appears to me that any criticisim of Clinton on her war policies or anything else is hateful and an attempt to stifle dissent.
I have two candidates that I favor Obama OR Edwards. I have not made up my mind yet.
I know that I definitely will not be supporting Clinton. It is the war issue. That is the defining issue for me.
And yet Edwards (whom I support) sponsored the resolution and actually supported the war. Obama was a private citizen as it relates to the resolution, and now votes in LOCKSTEP with Hillary.
Hillary voted to give Bush the oomph he needed to get inspectors unfettered access. She said that's what she was doing and it worked. Two weeks before the invasion, in a meeting with Code Pink, she described the invasion as "the height of irresponsibility".
Should I conclude then that you have a problem with getting inspectors in Iraq to finish their surveillance and that you don't think the invasion was the "height of irresponsibility"?
Then stick to the war. You try to trash her with all kinds of non-sensical stuff, including your constant reminders and feverish hope that a couple of books would change people's minds about her. The truth is that DEMOCRATS genuinely like her. That is the crux of the issue, and all hyperventilating about books, a failed bar exam and other such incidentals can't change that.
Frankly the Clintons had their turn in the White House. I respect Hillary and all that she has accomplished. That saying, I don't really like her. It's a new century. Time for a new name other than Clinton or Bush. A President Edwards or President Obama would suit me just fine. It's time for a new story. The Clintons are passe.
Hillary has never before run for President. John Edwards has. He lost the Democratic nomination for 2004 and then he ran with Kerry and they both lost the general election to Bush (of all people). It's time for a new story?
Obama represents a new face but his story, when you really examine his voting record and his current stance on Iraq, is not so new. It pretty well mirrors Hillary's record.
This is not a novelty contest to please about ten percent of the Democratic Party who just hate the name "Clinton". Our country is suffering at too many levels to list; and the world has turned against us. Who is best able to clean up the mess and turn things around, in the shortest time possible? In my opinion, it's Hillary Clinton. Her last name is irrelevant when it comes to the job at hand. She's been working as a Senator for 7 years; she has decades of experience in the political world and she has traveled to almost 90 countries and done very good work in many of them.
How can Obama fill those shoes? If he wins the Presidency, it would take him a long time to catch up to Hillary's level of experience and expertise. This makes him a perfect choice for Vice-President.
How can he be a VP if he could not take over the presidency on day one? She would be irresponsible to pick a VP who could not immediately assume the presidency on day one.
I'm hopin' for a Clinton/Clark ticket. They'd be unstoppable.
I think you totally hit it on the head about the primary and the presidency not being a novelty contest. I've long agonized over why it is that we always cast our lot with the newbie whose mistakes we don't know of and whose experience is lacking (like, say, George W.) instead of the people who have experience (and whose mistakes we do know of). Clinton, Richardson, Biden, even Dodd have proven themselves but invariably there's this predilection for the dark horse candidate who somehow won't repeat the mistakes made by his predecessor.
Hillary might indeed want someone with more experience that Obama as her VP on the off-chance something should happen to her and he would have to immediately step into the role of President.
This could be the major reason for her not choosing Obama as her VP if she wins the nomination.
My point was simple however. Obama isn't ready to be the President. VP would make more sense.
Anybody choosing a VP needs to choose some one who could step in immediately if something could happen to them. Reagan was shot only two months after his inaugauration.
Thus, I donot understand your reasoning that the VP would make more sense to Obama. Politically it would be a very poor move to accept the VP position. How many VP's get to be President on their own immediately after a two term president.
Why would it be a politically poor move on Obama's part? Say Clinton wins the presidency and has two successful terms. Then Obama would run with White House experience to his credit, tons of name ID. How would that be a poor move? Compared to what? Running in 2016 as a sitting Senator against the VP of a possibly successful President/VP combo?
It's a bad idea for Obama because her VP would be irrelevant with Bill Clinton back in the White House. Now let me ask you this George- do you think HRC would accept the VP slot with Obama? (I think I know the answer to that one.)
I disagree here, mboehm. Her VP would be quite relevant. She just made things clear in regards to Bill Clinton's role (of course, that does not preclude BC having major input behind the scenes,) in that he won't have a official cabinet position. She cited a "family" law passed by Congress after Robert Kennedy was part of JFK's cabinet.
On your hypothetical, I don't see why not? Just take one thing at a time, though. Right now Obama leads in not a single state (aside from Illinois) and is about 10 to 12% behind Clinton nationally. If his stature grows to the point where he gobbles up everything and relegates Clinton and Edwards to mere "passengers," then that is a worthy point of discussion. At that point his stature would become "larger than life" and a VP slot would be something to consider for anyone. However, until that time comes it is not really something to ponder too closely, as Obama is clearly NOT at the "larger than life" point right now.
I am old know to remember that many said the same about JFK in 1960.
Thank god he was elected rather than Nixon. Especially with respect to the cuban missle crisis of 1962
Well, JFK had 6 years in the house and 8 in the senate.
And to be honest. He sounded great but was lousy on substance. It was luck that got us trough the Cuban missile crisis not him. He had done a lot that worsened it. The bay of pig is more exemplary for his presidency. It's not for nothing that it was LBJ that sparked the Great Society and the Civil rights gains and not Kennedy.
For me personally you're better of not comparing Obama to Kennedy. Because at the moment I want to believe Obama is a lot better.
I think it is a little pre-mature to be talking about a ticket when the first primary is 7 months away.
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myDD - skin
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