Hillary Clinton for President - 2008

It is clear that, as leaders, we have a choice who we associate with and who we apparently give some kind of seal of approval to. And I think that it wasn't only the specific remarks, but some of the relationships with Reverend Farrakhan, with giving the church bulletin over to the leader of Hamas to put a message in. You know, these are problems, and they raise questions in people's minds.

Well, I think that is a fair general statement, but I also believe that Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Foundation, which was a paid directorship position.

And if I'm not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York, and I would hope to every American, because they were published on 9/11 and he said that he was just sorry they hadn't done more. And what they did was set bombs and in some instances people died. So it is -- you know, I think it is, again, an issue that people will be asking about. And I have no doubt -- I know Senator Obama's a good man and I respect him greatly but I think that this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising.

Anyone know about this fraud trial Hillary is involved in?

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/04/breaking-news-hillary-clinton.php

nimh wrote:

Hillary anno 1993 sounds a lot like Obama now, or at least Obama at his worst. Has she learned a lesson Obama should still be revising?

No, I don't think so. I think she's tailoring her message (aka, pandering) to her target audience. That's what she thinks they want to hear and she may be right.

Totally agree, FreeDuck.

Thanks, Tico! That's from 2006, though...? Still gives some background. (Do you think the TPM article is just a rehash of old, resolved news?)

Rep. Ike Skelton Endorses Clinton

29 Apr 2008

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Ike Skelton, has endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Here's a statement from Skelton, released through his House campaign: "It is my intention as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention to vote for Senator Hillary Clinton because of her support in rural America, her commitment to National Security, and her dedication to our men and women in uniform."

FreeDuck wrote:

nimh wrote:

Hillary anno 1993 sounds a lot like Obama now, or at least Obama at his worst. Has she learned a lesson Obama should still be revising?

No, I don't think so. I think she's tailoring her message (aka, pandering) to her target audience. That's what she thinks they want to hear and she may be right.

Well but that too is a lesson to learn, though. A strategical one. She recognized the limits of the kind of appeal her 1993 quote reflected, and adapted accordingly.

I did see a couple of Obama campaign ads from the PA campaign on mediacurves.com that I liked because of how they had a distinctly more bread and butter-issues / populist tone. I like the quote Soz brought above too. I just think this is something where he's still got to learn stuff that Hillary's already had to learn. And hopefully he'd make the shift with more credibility and sincerity.

He's Back

Wall Street Journal
April 26, 2008

"Dubbed the "Billification" of Sen. Clinton's campaign by some insiders, Mr. Clinton has become something of a strategist-in-chief in recent weeks. He has been pushing for harder and sharper attacks on Sen. Obama. [..]

Mr. Clinton has placed several of his own aides at headquarters, including his former lawyer and a bevy of strategists. Known as a bad loser, Mr. Clinton privately buttresses his wife's drive to push on, telling her, according to aides: "We're not quitters."

On his own daily message calls, advisers say, he implores: "We've got to take him on every time." At the Clintons' Washington, D.C., home recently, these people say, he reviewed possible TV spots and told ad makers to be more hard-hitting, faster and harsher.

Mr. Clinton also told the campaign to double the number of his daily appearances. "Look at this schedule -- you've got me down for four events," he said the week before Pennsylvania's primary, according to one operative. "Give me six, eight a day. Get me to the suburbs where I can make a difference." [..]

His role has come at a cost -- to morale among some campaign staff, relations inside the Democratic Party and with African-American leaders, and in the view of some, his own legacy. He has lost considerable credibility with many party leaders, who, as "superdelegates" to the party convention, will be crucial in determining who is the Democratic presidential nominee. [..]
[Hillary's] new campaign manager, Maggie Williams, has worked to ensure that Mr. Clinton's role is "managed" in an attempt to prevent costly remarks.

To accomplish this, the campaign provides a daily briefing to Mr. Clinton with a message of the day or the week. This past week, he carried index cards with questions the campaign had received and wanted him to address on health care and other hot-button issues. [..]

In North Carolina this past Wednesday, Mr. Clinton hit rural and suburban areas, running several hours late most of the day because he stayed at each event to shake nearly every hand of lingering voters. "If you're not ready to vote for Hillary, then I'm going to keep talking," he said at one stop.

In Asheboro, Annette Milon, a 65-year-old retired housekeeper who waited four hours, burst into tears when Mr. Clinton appeared. "I love him, I love her," Ms. Milon said, and shook his hand afterwards.

"I shook his hand when he came through here running for president," said Lloyd Wright, who works for Orange County's public-works department. "I wish it was him running now."

Mr. Clinton promises something he says is even better. "For this time in our history, I believe that Hillary will be a better president than I was," he told the Asheboro crowd.

Not all the hastily arranged appearances for the ex-president have maximum impact. This past Monday, in Greensburg, Pa., so few people showed up for his appearance that the organizers unloaded the entire high school to fill up the gymnasium. The students, thrilled to be allowed to bring in their cellphones to take Mr. Clinton's photograph, talked among themselves during most of Mr. Clinton's remarks. [..]

Some voters say they still find Mr. Clinton a distraction. "To me, Bill Clinton has become more of a liability than an asset," said Debbie Crane, a Hillsborough, N.C., public-relations consultant, at lunch across from the town's courthouse. Ms. Crane referred to a radio interview in Philadelphia on Monday during which Mr. Clinton got defensive and said the Obama campaign had "played the race card on me" by making his comment about South Carolina into a campaign issue. "Just this week, he spouted off again," said Ms. Crane. "I can't imagine why he does this." [..]

As evidence of Mr. Clinton's impact, the campaign cites the Pennsylvania primary, which Sen. Clinton won by a margin of nearly 10 percentage points over Sen. Obama. Campaign data show that Sen. Clinton won by huge margins in several rural counties that her husband visited: 44 percentage points in Armstrong County, 44 points in Cambria County, 48 points in Carbon County and 50 points in Greene County. This compares with an edge of 26 points for Hillary among rural voters statewide. In Bucks County, a Philadelphia suburb that Mr. Clinton visited, Sen. Clinton won by 26 points, compared with only three points in suburban Philadelphia as a whole, according to the campaign data. [..]

Cockroach-gate!

April 24, 2008
Rachel Morris



I realize this isn't a foreign policy gaffe of the same proportions as Goolsbee-gate or sniper-gate. But as a native of New Zealand, I feel obliged to draw your attention to an incident in which Hillary Clinton may have gravely insulted this small but very important nation. Asked by Newsweek (seemingly apropos of nothing), if she "had any good jokes," Clinton offered:

"Here's a good one. Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand: her opponents have observed that in the event of a nuclear war, the two things that will emerge from the rubble are the cockroaches and Helen Clark. [Laughs]"

Setting Hillary's sense of humor aside for a moment (the joke doesn't get funnier even if you happen to know something about New Zealand politics) Helen Clark is the current prime minister of New Zealand.

The diplomatic ramifications of this become even more dire when you consider that New Zealanders have been somewhat skeptical about Hillary Clinton ever since she met Sir Edmund Hillary, the first mountaineer to climb Everest, and mentioned that she had been named after him. It was later pointed out that Sir Edmund climbed Mt Everest six years after Hillary Clinton was born.

It appears that the local press is more indignant about Hillary calling Clark the "former" prime minister than the suggestion that Clark is a cockroach. You can read local press reactions here and here.

Photo from Flickr user lestath_x under a Creative Commons license.

Pro-Gun Calls For Clinton In Indiana

Marc Ambinder, the Atlantic
02 May 2008

Hillary Clinton or one of her allies is reaching out to gun owners in Indiana.

Two voters report receiving a telephone call from a woman, reading from a card, who said that if the voter valued his (and in one case her) guns, they ought not "trust Obama" and should vote for Hillary Clinton instead.

One caller reports interrupting the phone banker with a question about Clinton's "pretty terrible" record on guns, but the caller was undaunted and kept reading the script.

No immediate comment from the Clinton campaign.

Andrew Arulanandum, an NRA spokesman, said that Clinton's record and rhetoric on gun issues is "abysmal. The Clinton brand is synonymous with gun control," he said.

Group with Clinton Ties Behind Dubious RobocallsGroup's Ties to the Democratic Candidates

Will Evans of the Center for Investigative Reporting , who collaborated in reporting this story, found some Obama backers among the Women's Voices leadership, but the group mostly has ties to Clinton and her campaign. Gardner worked on former President Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. Board member John Podesta was President Clinton's chief-of-staff. Maggie Williams, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, used to be on the Women's Voices leadership team and did consulting work for the group.

Chris Kromm, director of the Institute for Southern Studies, in Durham, N.C., says there's no hard evidence that the robocalls were meant to suppress the pro-Obama vote. "We can't show that there's any formal or direct connection," he says.

Investigating the Origin of the Robocalls

The Institute for Southern Studies began investigating after receiving complaints about the robocalls. The institute traced the calls to Women's Voices, which has acknowledged responsibility.

The Institute turned up other complaints about the group as well, in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. A "Lamont Williams" robocall similar to North Carolina's ran in Ohio last fall. In Virginia, robocalls days before the February primary caused voters to flood the board of elections with phone calls, in turn triggering an investigation by the state police.

Kromm says this shows at least five months of a "deceptive tactic, illegal in many states." He notes, "Each time this group is criticized for this activity, they apologize for the confusion."

The North Carolina attorney general says the robocalls are illegal. State law requires that automated phone calls identify the sponsoring group and give the recipient a phone number or other means of contacting the group. The Lamont Williams call did neither.

Gardner told the North Carolina elections board that the follow-up mailing would go to 276,118 women. Now, the fair-elections group Democracy North Carolina is working with Women's Voices to pull back as many of those mailers as possible.

[size=14][b]Transcript of Robocall[/b][/size] "Hello. This is Lamont Williams. In the next few days, you will receive a voter-registration packet in the mail. All you need to do is fill it out, sign it, date and return your application. Then, you will be able to vote and make your voice heard. Please return your registration form when it arrives. Thank you."

whatever she's doing she's cut into obamas lead like crazy in nc

Is Hillary really using every damn dirty trick from the Rove playbook?