If Clinton Wins

ebrown_p wrote:

Advocate wrote:
eb, please first give me your views with detailed reasons.

NAFTA created hardships for workers in both Mexico and in the United States... the obvious winners being the corporations. It has increased poverty in the agricultural sector of Mexico (particularly for corn farmers) and has puts a downward pressure on US wages as well.

I think Bill Clinton was a great politician when it came to his own candidacy... but he did little to help his party. He went with the Republicans on issues like welfare and would not stand up for progressives in issues like gay rights. He certainly did not help the Democrats in Congress (who didn't do very well during his term).

I would have had mixed feelings about the Clinton presidency if it weren't for the sex scandal (that whatever you want to say about the detestable conduct of the Republicans was his own fault).

I think we can do better.

Mickey Kantor, former US Trade Rep., stated:

"No economist, no economist will tell you that imports cost you jobs automatically. Every export creates jobs. And let's talk about what's happened with NAFTA; three things that are very important. Positive impact on our economy; 311,000 jobs and increased exports to Mexico by 37 percent, in spite of the peso crisis, exactly the same way we increased our exports around the world, which has been an enormous increase to the United States worldwide over the last three years, the second global economy.

We've taken leadership of the global economy. We've opened markets for U.S. workers, and third, most importantly, we have changed what has recently been one-way trade to two-way trade. What we've said is we want everybody to play by the same rules. That's exactly what NAFTA does, a combination of phasing into playing by the same rules, opening Mexico's market, create new markets for U.S. goods, keeps U.S. companies in the United States. It was one of Thea's allies, and as Ross Perot said, our aerospace industry would move, would move to Mexico if NAFTA was passed. The last time I looked, Boeing's still in Seattle."

I tend to agree with this. In almost every international agreement, each country has to give something away. Overall, I think the treaty was a plus for us.

It is not fair to blame Clinton for what happened to the Dems. The Reps, with their blatant lies and persecution over four years, certainly dragged Clinton and his influence down.

Regarding "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," it was a great, but imperfect, solution to a festering problem at the time. This was typical of Clinton's remarkable problem-solving. The same was evident in his handling of Haiti, Yugoslavia, and many other problems.

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I was just pointing out the amusing irony.

Having everyone die sooner is a great way to save social security.

((I understand this is not Obama's solution.))

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Advocate,

Some of your posts in earlier threads gave me the impression that you were progressive on economic and social issues.

I am sorry misinterpreting your political position.

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Advocate wrote:

ebrown_p wrote:
Advocate wrote:
eb, please first give me your views with detailed reasons.

NAFTA created hardships for workers in both Mexico and in the United States... the obvious winners being the corporations. It has increased poverty in the agricultural sector of Mexico (particularly for corn farmers) and has puts a downward pressure on US wages as well.

I think Bill Clinton was a great politician when it came to his own candidacy... but he did little to help his party. He went with the Republicans on issues like welfare and would not stand up for progressives in issues like gay rights. He certainly did not help the Democrats in Congress (who didn't do very well during his term).

I would have had mixed feelings about the Clinton presidency if it weren't for the sex scandal (that whatever you want to say about the detestable conduct of the Republicans was his own fault).

I think we can do better.

Mickey Kantor, former US Trade Rep., stated:

"No economist, no economist will tell you that imports cost you jobs automatically. Every export creates jobs. And let's talk about what's happened with NAFTA; three things that are very important. Positive impact on our economy; 311,000 jobs and increased exports to Mexico by 37 percent, in spite of the peso crisis, exactly the same way we increased our exports around the world, which has been an enormous increase to the United States worldwide over the last three years, the second global economy.

We've taken leadership of the global economy. We've opened markets for U.S. workers, and third, most importantly, we have changed what has recently been one-way trade to two-way trade. What we've said is we want everybody to play by the same rules. That's exactly what NAFTA does, a combination of phasing into playing by the same rules, opening Mexico's market, create new markets for U.S. goods, keeps U.S. companies in the United States. It was one of Thea's allies, and as Ross Perot said, our aerospace industry would move, would move to Mexico if NAFTA was passed. The last time I looked, Boeing's still in Seattle."

I tend to agree with this. In almost every international agreement, each country has to give something away. Overall, I think the treaty was a plus for us.

It is not fair to blame Clinton for what happened to the Dems. The Reps, with their blatant lies and persecution over four years, certainly dragged Clinton and his influence down.

Interesting tangent on this thread. My thoughts:

NAFTA: one of President Clinton's greatest accomplishments. Free trade overall benefits all parties by allowing each country to specialize in what it does best. The US has greatly benefited on whole even though it's not hard to find those who didn't.

Loss of Democratic control of Congress: Yes, the Republican tide was rising, but President Clinton sure did knock holes in the dike with an ambitious but unrealistic health care program, a slew of early administration political blunders and a certain "we know best" arrogance that drove a lot of voters nuts.

Advocate wrote:

Regarding "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," it was a great, but imperfect, solution to a festering problem at the time. This was typical of Clinton's remarkable problem-solving. The same was evident in his handling of Haiti, Yugoslavia, and many other problems.

Wow, I think this was an example of Clinton's biggest failure. He always did things in half measures. "Don't ask, don't tell" increased persecution of homosexuals in the military when President Clinton could have done away with the whole policy with the flick of a pen. Haiti is still a mess today. Kosovo is still not settled, but why on Earth should the US be involved in a small civil war in a country far away where no US interests are at stake? Why should we support the bloodthirsty, truce breaking rebels instead of the bloodthirsty, genocidal government? Kosovo laid the groundwork policy wise for another little adventure: Iraq.

Clinton's greatest accomplishment was that he effectively shut down the Republican machine for several years. Unfortunately, some of the victims of his success were people I think had the country's interests more in mind than those we were left with.

So how does that reflect on Senator Clinton? I think she will focus on the 50%+1 model where she will hammer legislation down the throats of Republicans, continuing the cycle of violence that we are in now. I know there are some out there who are all for that. Some things will get done and in eight years, the Republicans will take charge of the House, Senate and Presidency and start their payback.

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Good idea for a thread, Ebrown!

ebrown_p wrote:

This election will largely be about the war...

I disagree. I think it's going to be about the economy. The economy and jobs and mortgages and health insurance, etc.

Already now, pretty much every state's exit poll, regular opinion polls too, show the economy being the top issue for voters - usually for twice as many voters as Iraq.

And thats just now. The economy is rushing to a crisis, it will only become more important. Meanwhile, the situation in Iraq has at least stabilised, with the number of daily deaths at half or a third of what it was in the worst days before the surge. It's not going anywhere of course, but it's not escalating either.

Once again, it's the economy, stupid.

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And who runs it.

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Not that any of the candidates will be allowed to get anywhere near it.

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As for the question of whether Obama voters will be willing to vote for Hillary if she's the nominee, or whether Hillary voters will be willing to vote for Obama if he's the nominee, this is a reality check I've been pushing hard on the Polls etc thread. Each side's activists are all het up right now. Opinions run high among the most politically involved like the people who post on forums and such too. But these people are not representative for the regular voter.

In poll after poll, both Hillary and Obama voters at large are still shown to be largely satisfied with the other guy/gal winning as well. Of course theyprefer their own guy/gal, but for most regular primary voters out there, this election season offers a luxury choice, one between two candidates they both like.

We here at A2K, with all our contention of the last coupla weeks, are not representative, you cant say it enough. Favourability ratings for both Hillary and Obama are still at 75%, 80% among Democrats, among whites and blacks too. Hillary's ratings are lower among independents, but among Democrats, there isnt really all that much bad blood out there.

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Does it have to be either/or?

I'd agree that the economy is at the forefront of many people's minds and is the #1 issue overall. But I think the war is also a major issue.

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sozobe wrote:

Does it have to be either/or?

I'd agree that the economy is at the forefront of many people's minds and is the #1 issue overall. But I think the war is also a major issue.

Yes, it is either/or. I predict that not only will you not get both, but that they won't be more than professionally polite in the future. If Obama wins, it will stick in Clinton's craw forever and if Clinton wins, Obama will always remember the depths to which the Clinton campaign went to do him in.

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OCCOM BILL wrote:

kickycan wrote:
I have a gut feeling that if Obama wins the nomination he will win against McCain while if Hillary does she will lose to McCain. I think Romney is out of the picture.

I have the same gut feeling, likely brought about by the reams of information provided by Nimh and others that suggests as much...

Hhmmm.. well I'm flattered by the cite Smile

But it's not really clear, I'm afraid.

Polling wise, there's two main ways to check.

First, there are some national pollsters that regularly do "match-up polls". "If in the general election, the Democratic candidate was Joe Biden, and the Republican candidate was Tom Tancredo, for whom would you vote?" Well, except that they never asked about Biden or Tancredo of course. They ask about Clinton and Obama and McCain and until recently, Giuliani.

I've been tracking these polls since April last year, although the last month or so I havent paid as much attention so I may have missed a couple. And well, individual polls give extremely varying numbers.

E.g., an LA Times poll two weeks ago had Hillary winning against McCain by 4, while a Rasmussen poll in the same week had her trailing by 8. Hell, two successive Rasmussen polls, with just a week in between, had Obama first winning against McCain by 5, and then losing against him by 6.

The only real conclusion here is: right now, a general election match-up against McCain would be close. For either Democrat.

For what it's worth, I saw 10 polls matching up Clinton against McCain this year (and again, I may have missed some), and 10 matching up Obama against McCain as well, and on average Obama trailed by 0,4% and Hillary trailed by 2,3%. So Obama does marginally better than Hillary according to this indicator.

But both would face a tough time right now, with McCain at a crust of mostly positive media coverage. I think either would stand a good chance in November though, and it's not like McCain's always had a lead. This is the full chart for April 2007 until now:

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/3071/demsvsmccain2vf2.th.png

Now while Obama has at least an edge in this indicator, the situation is sort of the opposite if you look at match-up polls done on state level.

I've been tracking those too, although again I havent really kept up the last couple of weeks. For an indication of what kind of results those polls yield, check out this post. It's got a table that lists all the results of state-level polls matching up either or both Hillary and Obama against McCain anytime in October-December 2007.

That's an eternity ago in politics of course, but Hillary seemed better placed than Obama in a few states, and this pattern repeated itself in match-ups against other Republicans. Check out this overview. Hillary turned out to do especially well, compared to Kerry's 2004 result, in MO, VA, AR, TN, KY, AL and OK, of which she actually seemed to be able to bring MO, VA, AR and KY into play. Obama did well in MO and VA as well, but not in those other Southern states.

I did an update in mid-January using only Survey USA polls that had appeared this year. Against McCain, it showed Obama leading in Washington and Iowa, and tying him in Oregon, while Hillary was trailing in all three. But on the other hand, whereas both trailed McCain in Ohio, Missouri, Virginia and Kentucky, Obama did a lot worse there than Hillary.

In fact, completely against the common wisdom, all the SUSA match-ups of the two Dems against Republicans that had come out this year at the time had Obama doing better than Hillary in blue states, and Hillary doing better than Obama in red states.

_______________

So in short: in the national match-up polls, Obama has an edge over Hillary; but it's a small one, and basically both are roughly tied with McCain.

In state-level polls, Obama does better in some states and Hillary does better in others.

Hillary does seem to have a persistent edge over Obama in the South, where a number of states could be in play in November (MO, AR, VA, even KY), so that's a strategic plus on her side of the ledger.

On the other hand, there has just been little to no polling on the Mountains & Plains states, so they didnt much show up in my overviews, whereas you can speculate that Obama might be better able to win swing states there.

Bottom line - going purely on the match-up polls - there just isnt a lot of difference in electability between the two.

You can debate the merits of such polls almost a year before the elections of course...

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engineer, I think she meant either/or war/economy not Obama/Clinton. And to that I think it can be both, especially because many people are making the connection that the war has something to do with the economy.

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sozobe wrote:

Does it have to be either/or?

I'd agree that the economy is at the forefront of many people's minds and is the #1 issue overall. But I think the war is also a major issue.

Of course, but EB said the election will "largely be" about the war. I think it will "largely be" about the economy. But of course other issues will play an important role too.

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nimh, great analysis on your post before last. Interesting to say the least.

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I should hope that the general election will be about competence and character.

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Yes, very nice analysis, and thank you very much. No worries. I'm not afraid to rely on anecdotal evidence (a multitude of testimonials) and my nearly infallibly reliable gut instinct. :wink:

I have to agree that the war can't be all it's about... since I like Obama and McCain... and I'm not alone.

Cyclo seems to think independents are all against McCain on the war... but he's wrong. Not even the war is that polarizing with non-political junkies. I know at least one very liberal person who expressed a good deal of respect for McCain for wanting to see the "horrible mistake" with an acceptable ending. This is a position Nimh articulated very well; about a billion years ago. Most people see shades of gray, not just black and white.

Nimh's also right about the bad blood. Lots of folks are just now starting to pay a little attention.

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FreeDuck wrote:

engineer, I think she meant either/or war/economy not Obama/Clinton. And to that I think it can be both, especially because many people are making the connection that the war has something to do with the economy.

In that case, I'm sure the election will be both about the war and the economy as well.

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For me.....

Health care
Economy
War

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Asherman wrote:

I should hope that the general election will be about competence and character.

For sure.

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Engineer, I disagree that Hillarycare was unrealistic, and wager that you can't support your statement. It was largely based on the present German system, which is highly successful. It failed to take effect due to unrelenting and distorted PR by the Reps, and self-serving HMOs, and insurance companies.

Also, you are wrong on "don't ask, don't tell." It was far from a disaster, and was a great temporary fix. I wager your can't support your claim that it made things worse for homosexuals.

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If Clinton Wins

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