Divided Democrats could boost McCain

Another factor in the likely demise of a McCain win is the masses of angry voters eager to jettison Rep officeholders. Moreover, a number of Reps in congress and in state and local political positions will not even run again, sensing the anger of the voter over the terrible downward slide of the country. Thus, when these voters go to polls, they are not about to select a McCain, who has embraced most of the Bush positions.

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Isn't it about time for you Obamaniacs to stop whining about Clinton picking on little boy Obama. He ain't seen nothing yet. What will he do when the GOP machine goes after him. Go home and cry to grandma.

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The poor world population have other problems to deal with
than the xyz reisdent of USA

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This just goes over the head of the new young democrats. They have controlled the tenor of the debates and have damaged the democrat election machine and its ability to get out the word. I wont enjoy the way the republicans are going to slime whoever the dem candidate is. But the one thing we can count on is if Obama is the candidate and he loses they will blame Hill and all the people who supported her. God I wish Edwards or Kresinich were in the race!

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While I don't think a hard fought or even protracted primary campaign necessarily weakens the party's chances in the final election - indeed it often helps them in the final round (there are many good historical examples that support my skepticism on this point), I have recently concluded that the current struggle between Hillary and Obama has harmed the Democrat's prospects, though indirectly.

I believe this has been the result of several factors; (1) the cumulative effect of the Wright/elitism/debate/etc. "issues" in bursting what had been a rapidly inflating bubble of widespread support for and public excitement about Obama; (2) the somewhat mean-spirited character of the continued Clinton attacks on Obama and; (3) the adverse public reaction towards the Clintons resulting from otherwise effective personal attacks on Obama coming from the Clinton camp (refreshing everyone's memories of the trademark Clinton opportunism and sleaziness.)

There's lots of comparative polling data coming out now concerning the relative strength of the Democrat candidates in a race with McCain. While I don't usually follow them closely and don't put a great deal of stock in them, significant slippage in the poll results for both Democrat candidates is evident. There is lots of bias built in to such polls taken now, before the primary is complete. However, the declining trend in poll results (all with the same bias) over the past month or so may well be significant and indicative of something that may be enduring.

I don't know how significant all this may prove to be, and don't yet have any opinion about who is most likely to win the elections ahead in this very interesting, but increasingly tiresome process.

Lots of time (and opportunity for surprises) still left in this campaign - four months to go before the Democrat Convention even starts.

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Interesting take from Dick Morris on Hillary's dogged stay in the race despite all evidence pointing to her ultimate loss.

He argues that Hillary is looking to 2012. She recognizes that she can't win, but figures that she'll continue to tear down Obama as long as possible, thus hoping to ensure McCain's win in the general election. Typically a politician has one opportunity to be nominated for president and if he/she loses, then he/she is rejected by her party for any future nomination. Therefore, her real objective is to do what she can to ensure McCain wins. Then in 2012, with Obama safely out of the nomination picture, she can say "I told you I was more electable" and enjoy an unobstructed front runner campaign for the 2012 Democratic nomination.

Smacks of the "great left-wing conspiracy" but with a twist of left-wing against lefter-wing.

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Interesting theory -- though a bit too conspiratorial for my tastes.

Could that help explain the rather intense reactions of most Obama 'true believers' to her sustained attacks?

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au1929 wrote:

Isn't it about time for you Obamaniacs to stop whining about Clinton picking on little boy Obama. He ain't seen nothing yet. What will he do when the GOP machine goes after him. Go home and cry to grandma.

Rrriight... let's see if I can do that.

Isn't it about time for Hillary to stop whining about the "big boys" being out to "bully" her. Whining about how the media's against her. Whining even about getting the first question in debates more often than Obama (I mean, Oh my god, getting the first question!). She ain't seen nothing yet. What will she do when the GOP machine starts going after her again - digging up the whole psychodrama of the 90s, going after all of Bill's shady clients and donators since... Go home and cry to grandma.Yep - easy. And with arguably more reason behind the rabble-rousing.

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slkshock7 wrote:

He argues that Hillary is looking to 2012. She recognizes that she can't win, but figures that she'll continue to tear down Obama as long as possible, thus hoping to ensure McCain's win in the general election. Typically a politician has one opportunity to be nominated for president and if he/she loses, then he/she is rejected by her party for any future nomination. Therefore, her real objective is to do what she can to ensure McCain wins. Then in 2012, with Obama safely out of the nomination picture, she can say "I told you I was more electable" and enjoy an unobstructed front runner campaign for the 2012 Democratic nomination.

I've heard that one a couple of times. I dont know how far into campaign delusion Team Hillary's gone - bitter and losing election campaigns tend to take pretty much anyone pretty far down the rabbithole. But the notion that she could tear down Obama now and therewith help McCain defeat him, and then return to run in 2012 is pretty delusional.

If Obama ends up losing against McCain, and Hillary is seen as having cemented that loss by ruthlessly tearing down the Democratic nominee, aint no way she's going to be elected to any national office anymore after that. Not within ten years. There will be way too many people hating her guts, all the way from up at the top (Pelosi, Dean) to a Democratic grassroots movement of millions.

I'm not saying that's where it is now already - it isnt, by a long shot. There's still plenty of time for Hillary to concede and then campaign for the Democratic nominee in the months leading up to the elections, and then most (if not quite all) what's transpired so far will be forgotten. If Obama loses there will be some eyes being made at Hillary for her role this spring, but she wont be seen as anywhere near the main reason for Obama's loss.

But if she doggedly continues to run, not just past Indiana and NC but past the end of the primaries in early June, all the way up till the convention or a long way there, that will change. Or if she really goes ballistic - I dunno, making "daisy" TV ads against Obama or the like - then, too, there's no way she stands a chance in hell running for the Democratic nomination in 2012 if Obama loses.

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Nimh,
I'll have to respectfully disagree with you. If history is any indicator, Hillary has nothing to lose by going all the way to the convention...fighting the whole time. Look at the 1976 Republican Convention. Like Obama, Ford went into the convention with both more primary delegates as well as more of the popular vote. But Reagan challenged right up to and into the convention.

As expected, Ford won the nomination but then went on to lose the general election to Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter went on to serve his single term and then, as you know, was soundly defeated by Reagan in 1980. Reagan obviously suffered no ill effects from his long drawn-out primary battle with Ford.

I expect Hillary will be able to do the same. Four years are a long time and people's memories are short. She has nothing to lose by continuing as long as senior Democrats are too scared to ask her (and her husband) to stop. If they never get the courage, she can go on to the convention with little or no retribution against her four years later.

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DontTreadOnMe wrote:

teenyboone wrote:
Advocate wrote:
At present, according to Gallop and USA Today polls, McCain is about even in one-to-one races with either Obama or Clinton. I think that this does not bode well for McCain inasmuch the Dems have really not yet attacked him. Once that begins, McCain's support should, I think, plummet.

Hillary's too busy beating up on Obama, to notice what's she's done and when she does, will be profusely sorry, but too late! The damage to the Democrat Party is all but over! I see why the repugs win! We allow it!

yeah.. how dare hillary clinton try to win the nomination. the nerve.

any damage to the democratic party is the result of pissy factions in both the clinton and obama camps. this "my candidate or noone" routine is absolutely childish.

so even if the decision is finalized at the convention, the failure of supporters from either side to back the dem nominee will be what hurts the party. not that the process wasn't a McNomination.

dems either have to grow the hell up and act like adults or get used to the idea of president mccain.

Do the REAL math; the math, she won't acknowledge. The only way she'll win, is to cheat Obama out of it! Listen to the news, not her! Obama is ahead, with or without Florida and Michigan. Even if she's allowed the delegates, they'd have to give the "uncommitted" delegates to Obama, whose name isn't on either ballot, as he and she signed papers saying the vote would be disallowed, until she started losing. Get a hint! No one wants to discourage her but "I'm in it to win it", to quote her, but she's losing and BADLY! Cool

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nimh wrote:

au1929 wrote:
Isn't it about time for you Obamaniacs to stop whining about Clinton picking on little boy Obama. He ain't seen nothing yet. What will he do when the GOP machine goes after him. Go home and cry to grandma.

Rrriight... let's see if I can do that.

Isn't it about time for Hillary to stop whining about the "big boys" being out to "bully" her. Whining about how the media's against her. Whining even about getting the first question in debates more often than Obama (I mean, Oh my god, getting the first question!). She ain't seen nothing yet. What will she do when the GOP machine starts going after her again - digging up the whole psychodrama of the 90s, going after all of Bill's shady clients and donators since... Go home and cry to grandma.
Yep - easy. And with arguably more reason behind the rabble-rousing.

Nicely done...

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I have grown a bit weary of all the Democrat moaning about what the "evil GOP machine" will do to this or that Democrat candidate once the primary contest is settled.

The fact is almost all of the low road personal attacks being flung around today - against all of the candidates, Democrat and Republican - are coming from various segments of Democrat supporters and their several campaigns. In addition our sensitivities have all become quite dulled by the rather vicious rhetoric we have heard directed against president Bush for the past several years. It has become an unquestioned axiom of the left that he is so bad that no restraint whatever need be exercised in casting polemics against him - and very little is exercised.

All this has become exceedingly hypocritical. I suspect that the those on the left who so assiduously cast these stones aren't even much aware of their rather grotesque hypocrisy as they continue their polemics, interrupting it only briefly with moaning about what they assume the GOP will do about their favorite whenever he/she is selected.

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slkshock7 wrote:

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you. If history is any indicator, Hillary has nothing to lose by going all the way to the convention...fighting the whole time. Look at the 1976 Republican Convention. Like Obama, Ford went into the convention with both more primary delegates as well as more of the popular vote. But Reagan challenged right up to and into the convention.

As expected, Ford won the nomination but then went on to lose the general election to Jimmy Carter.

Jimmy Carter went on to serve his single term and then, as you know, was soundly defeated by Reagan in 1980. Reagan obviously suffered no ill effects from his long drawn-out primary battle with Ford.

I expect Hillary will be able to do the same. Four years are a long time and people's memories are short.

Slkshock7 - fair enough. Gotta say that's a pretty persuasive counterexample.

The only thing I got left to object to that is that Gerald Ford, of course, was no Obama. Most importantly, he had nothing like Obama's passionate and massive grassroots support in his party, nor had he mobilised such a mass of new voters and activists. I do think that will make a difference: I bet Obama's voters now will have longer memories than Ford's voters had back then.

But yeah, who is to tell for sure. I mean, Howard Dean had a big grassroots movement of pretty passionate supporters too. Nothing quite comparable to Obama now, of course. But still, to the standards of 2004 really big. And though some Deaniacs will have morphed into Obamaites, the Deaniac movement itself has left surprisingly little presence in the party. Dean's strategies (using the internet, mobilising the grassroots) have been gratefully copied, but his original movement is no constituency of importance anymore now (or any at all).

And yeah, I guess Hillary has little to lose by continuing.

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I hate to agree with some republicans; but they are right; the real damage being done to the democratic party is being done by the democratic party. McCain won't even have to work hard to find issues to fight with; he need only take everything being used now against who ever wins and use it against him or her. I know both Obama and Hillary have said they would fight for whoever wins; but by then anything they say will come off as hallow after everything which has already been said. All of this will not be as easy to dismiss as we (democrats) think it will IMO. It has went on too long with too much being used to make any difference now if they one of them decides to quit for the good of the party so they may as well ride it out to the end.

The only way the loser will be able to help the winner is just by talking about McCain and how he does not have any original answers but only more of the same policies which have gotten us into this mess with Iraq and the economy and the oil hikes. He has no new answers for the health care problem or any other issue and that is the angle both candidates should take after this is all over again in my view of this thing.

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When Democrats Go Post-al .... link

James Wolcott has long been one of my favourite commentators on media.

Quote:

http://www.vanityfair.com/images/politics/2008/06/poar01_wolcott0806.jpg

sometimes his turns of phrase just make me smile, whether or not I agree - they're just so vivid

Quote:

The majority of Huffpo's high-profile contributors were so over the rainbow about Obama that it was as if they had found rapture in the poppy fields and were rolling around on their backs like ladybugs.

and waaay at the end

Quote:

Democrats have pulled their punches for so long that they know only how to hit themselves in the face, earning the reputation for masochism that gives Dick Cheney a good chuckle each night at bedtime as he's being packed in ice.

I shouldn't giggle, because it's not good news, but I like the way he writes.

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Divided Democrats could boost McCain

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