Hillary Watch '08

Speaking of Hillary, I note that Ed Cox, Dick Nixon's son-in-law (Tricia's hubby) has all but announced that he's running against her for Senate in NY. This will be rich...

HILLARY IS SMART TO ZIP HER LIPSource

My fondest wish is a race between Giuliani and Clinton. That would make it a win- win situation. They are idiologically not too far apart. It would be made even more sweet since it would leave the conservatives and religious right without a candidate.

BUSH-BASH HILL MAKES LEFT TURN
By DEBORAH ORIN

MAYBE Sen. Hillary Clinton has come down with a bad case of tone-deafness. Or maybe she's caught MoveOn disease.

But over the past week the wannabe moderate with an eye on a 2008 White House race suddenly sounds shrilly left wing.

Just hours after last Thursday's London terror bombings, Clinton tried to score instant political points off those deaths by accusing President Bush of failing to protect U.S. mass transit.

A few days later, she compared Bush to Mad magazine's goofy Alfred E. Neuman, painting him with a "What, me worry?" world view.

"That's not how people want to hear a president or a first lady speak," says a veteran Democratic fund-raiser. "It's just not ladylike."

Nor does such language convey strength or sound presidential.

Then Tuesday she copy-catted Sen. John Kerry and nodded to echo his view that Bush guru Karl Rove must go even though the special prosecutor probing who leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame's name has yet to accuse anyone of wrongdoing

HILLARY GOES CONSERVATIVE ON IMMIGRATION



HILLARY VOTES AGAINST BORDER PATROL BILL



<So much for Hillary's feint to the center>

JustGiggles...you really ought to get out more often. Perhaps a play or a ballgame. Libraries, I appreciate, aren't your thing but, golly, there must be lawn-bowling or birdwatchers club in the neighborhood.

JW

Thanks for starting this thread.......I just want to add a sincere thought.....the only woman who would terrify me more than Hillary, as CinC, is Jane Fonda.

"Hillary Watch"? Didn't Rupert Murdoch's New York Post install that as a permanent column in the paper as soon as Hillary took office?

Funny, the New York Post never ran a "Watch" column over any other Senator from New York in it's history. But Hillary takes office, and bingo! - we have "Hillary Watch".

And now JustWonders gives us Hillary Watch on Able2Know as well.

When I first heard that Hillary might run in 2008, my first reaction was that after all the bashing the Right has committed against her, she was probably too "controversial". That, in addition to her being a woman, would make the odds long.


But now, with all this hysteria against her, I am beginning to change my mind. I think the Right is afraid of Hillary. Not because they think she would make a bad President-because they sense she would make a great candidate.

If the Right were not afraid of her candidacy, then why all the heavy artillery? Heck, you would think they just lay back, say a few mildly disparaging remarks just for the record, then let her lead the Democrats into electoral failure in 2008.

Why are they putting up such a fuss? The Republicans should love the idea of a Hillary candidacy-if they really felt she had no chance to win.

Great thread, JW.

I nearly fell out of my chair a couple of days ago, when I read her recent remarks about abortion.

She's in full Rightward Shuffle mode. Her mating dance with Middle America will be interesting to watch.

I'll go get the article.

Yes, Dad. By the way...you might want to think about taking your own advice, rather than searching for and posting expired links just to show Dubya in a bad light. Surely there must be better uses for your own time.

Clinton Angers Left With Call for Unity
Senator Accused of Siding With Centrists
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 27, 2005; A03

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's call for an ideological cease-fire in the Democratic Party drew an angry reaction yesterday from liberal bloggers and others on the left, who accused her of siding with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) in a long-running dispute over the future of the party.

Long a revered figure by many in the party's liberal wing, Clinton (D-N.Y.) unexpectedly found herself under attack after calling Monday for a cease-fire among the party's quarreling factions and for agreeing to assume the leadership of a DLC-sponsored initiative aimed at developing a more positive policy agenda for the party.

The reaction highlighted the dilemma Democratic politicians face trying to satisfy energized activists on the left -- many of whom are hungering for party leaders to advance a more full-throated agenda and more aggressively confront President Bush -- while also cultivating the moderate Democrats and independents whose support is crucial to winning elections. The challenge has become more acute because of the power and importance grass-roots activists, symbolized by groups such as MoveOn.org and liberal bloggers, have assumed since the 2004 election.

The most pointed critique of Clinton came in one of the most influential blogs on the left, Daily Kos out of Berkeley, Calif., which called Clinton's speech "truly disappointing" and said she should not provide cover for an organization that often has instigated conflict within the party.

"If she wanted to give a speech to a centrist organization truly interested in bringing the various factions of the party together, she could've worked with NDN," the blog said in a reference to the New Democrat Network, with which Daily Kos's Markos Moulitsas is associated. "Instead, she plans on working with the DLC to come up with some common party message yadda yadda yadda. Well, that effort is dead on arrival. The DLC is not a credible vehicle for such an effort. Period."

Other blogs noted that the day Clinton was calling for a truce, one DLC-sponsored blog was writing disparagingly of liberals. Marshall Wittman wrote from the DLC meeting in Columbus, "While someone from the daily kosy (misspelling intended) confines of Beserkely might utter ominous McCarthyite warnings about the 'enemy within,' here in Columbus constructive committed crusaders for progressivism are discussing ways to win back the hearts of the heartland."

Roger Hickey, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future, said Clinton had badly miscalculated the current politics inside the Democratic Party and argued that she could pay a price for her DLC association if she runs for president in 2008.

"There has been an activist resurgence in the Democratic Party in recent years, and Hillary risks ensuring that there's a candidate to her left appealing to those activists who don't much like the DLC," he said.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson tried to deflect the criticism. "Her point was simply to say that the goals and issues that divide us are less consequential than are the ones we share in common, and that unity is needed in the face of our shared challenge," Wolfson said.

John D. Podesta, who was White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, said he interpreted Clinton's remarks as critical of those on both sides -- centrists as much as liberals -- who would devote more energy to internal party battles than to confronting the right . But he said Clinton may have underestimated the bad feelings within the party. "I think she was trying to push the DLC back a little bit, but she walked into a crossfire maybe she should have realized was out there," he said.

Meanwhile, Jesse L. Jackson reopened his decades-old battle with the DLC by accusing the group of fronting for corporate interests while ignoring labor and civil rights leaders. "The DLC embraces CAFTA and sells admission to its conference to corporate lobbyists," he said in a speech to the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072601645.html

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Popcorn's popping

That is a shrewd woman. She just kicked Howard Dean, Conyers and the fruitier nuts of the Dem party in the teeth.

She may have given the limping Democrat party an eleventh hour reprieve.

Next question: Will the libbier libbies cannibalize her?

Tune in next week, when we'll hear Howard Dean say: "The Clintons aren't real Democrats."

I just can't picture the Move-on.org faction and Howard Dean ever assimilating into the mainstream Democratic Party. Perhaps Brother Dean will start a third party with his crowd and further fracture the Dems.

Wouldn't that be heaven on earth?

Hillary's cease-fire is, like, so not going to happen

BBB
bm

56% See Hillary as Likely 2008 Nominee

August 24, 2005--Most Americans (56%) say it is somewhat or very likely that Senator Hillary Clinton will be the 2008 Presidential Nominee for the Democrats. While that's still enough to grant her front-runner status, that's down eight points from 64% two weeks ago.

Just 24% now say the former First Lady is "very likely" to win the nomination. That's down from 33% two weeks ago and is the lowest level recorded all year by Rasmussen Reports. (review trends).

Forty-seven percent (47%) say that New York's junior Senator is politically liberal. That's up from 42% in the previous survey. However, this is the eleventh straight survey that the number viewing Senator Clinton as liberal has been within two points of the 45% mark.

This week, as a larger portion of survey respondents see Hillary as politically liberal, the Senator's electoral prospects appear a bit bleaker. The latest edition of the Hillary Meter finds that 28% of Americans say they will definitely vote for Mrs. Clinton if she runs in 2008. Thirty-nine (39%) will definitely vote against her. Two weeks ago, those numbers were 32% for and 36% against.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2005/Hillary%20Meter.htm


Poor ole Hil.