Obama '08?

Barack Obama has said he won't run in '08 and also that he wouldn't accept a VP slot.

My advice to him, if he somehow gets talked into making a bid in '08, would be to simply say he's changed his mind. He'd be more believable (it would be the actual truth, after all) and who doesn't identify with people changing their minds?

I mean, the truth is what we're after, is it not - whether it affirms our political beliefs, or not?

I'd dearly love to see him run. I'd dearly love to see him explain his Senate voting record. I'd dearly love to hear his views on how to best insure our national security and also take on the economists who've proven tax cuts do work.

(J-B - your reference to the GOP running Pat Robertson made me laugh Smile

...the Dems wouldn't even need a candidate)

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SierraSong wrote:

My advice to him, if he somehow gets talked into making a bid in '08, would be to simply say he's changed his mind. He'd be more believable (it would be the actual truth, after all) and who doesn't identify with people changing their minds?

Exactly. (This, by the way, is what Thomas was saying, too.)

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Quote:

Make sure that the three are carefully selected to match the voters he intends to reach, that their quotations strike the right mix of self-depreciating humor (1x) and "together we can do this" enthusiasm (2x), and that the whole thing sounds completely unscripted and natural.) And the beauty of it is, he may not even have to lie in this fall 2007 announcement!

Sure it was. Smile

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You're not big on irony, are ya?

Anyway...

Looking forward to the Kenya visit, lots of advance buzz about it, will be interested in what kind of coverage it gets and what happens.

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J_B said:

Quote:

There is no way I can see myself voting for Hillary Clinton and it has nothing to do with Bill. She was interviewed many times during the many months/years leading up to Bill's impeachment. She repeatedly put all allegations of wrong-doing on his part to 'our enemies trying to bring us down'. This was more than a wife with blinders on defending her nincompoop husband. I believe she was actively and politically involved in his administration (although she did it quietly after the health care fiasco) and took on his enemies as her own. She's got too many ghosts in her closet for me to consider her as a Presidential candidate.

I know of one, perhaps two, interviews where this matter came up.

You refer, I think, to her statement re "a vast right wing conspiracy" attempting to oust her husband from power. That's an accurate description of what was actually taking place. Are you at all familiar with the research and writing that's been done on this matter? Let me just give you two quick bits.

First, Matt Drudge has related a conversation with Ann Coulter from the period well before the impeachment talk began where she referred to activity on the right to discredit/find dirt on Clinton. The phrase she used was "there are lots of elves working busily away."

Second, Bob Guccione Jr., son of the founder of Penthouse and editor of Spin, was in a relationship with Coulter near that period and he has recounted an early morning phone call she got at his house when she was notified of either (can't recall which) notice of formal impeachment or the discovery of Monica and the recorded phone conversations, where she lept out of bed yelling, "We've done it. We've done it."

Here's a lot more...with some books on the subject noted... http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=4351

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Well, but he did it.

I think it's axiomatic that the group of people you're talking about would be happy that they found the dirt they were looking for -- but the dirt existed. That was his fault, not the fault of the vast right-wing conspiracy.

The machines on both sides are always looking for dirt about the other side. My parents were certainly rather jubilant when the dirt on Nixon -- much worse and more important dirt, to be sure -- was finally unearthed. (Er, bit of a mixed metaphor there.) It'd be nice if the machines stopped, but it's not limited to the Republicans, and they didn't force Clinton to do anything. That was all his own, really dumb, decision.

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I'm afraid I'm not even near you on this soz. Of course he did it. As did Eisenhower, as did Kennedy and god knows who else.

What's important is the motivation and scope of the organization set up for the singular purpose of removing a President from office. NOT for acts committed (this was all in place long before) nor out of serious policy worries, but rather out of a deeply extremist motivation to gain power. That isn't typical american politics.

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blatham wrote:

I'm afraid I'm not even near you on this soz. Of course he did it. As did Eisenhower, as did Kennedy and god knows who else.

What's important is the motivation and scope of the organization set up for the singular purpose of removing a President from office. NOT for acts committed (this was all in place long before) nor out of serious policy worries, but rather out of a deeply extremist motivation to gain power. That isn't typical american politics.

Come on Blatham. You can't really think Coulter is an important player. Laughing

She's almost exclusively around for her entertainment value, even to conservatives. She isn't part of anybody's brain trust. You're slipping if you think either side wouldn't rejoice in an adversary's downfall, and to think either side is "above" anything is more than a little naive. There's a Michael Moore for every Ann Coulter.

Your insight on Republican unity shouldn't go unnoticed, though, as that is pretty solid. Too much public infighting is obviously bad, but what the Left really needs to do is provide some form of a contract with America, instead of relying almost exclusively on not being Bush. That didn't work two years ago and the man isn't even running next time.

Soz is also right about the Bill/Hillary equation. Unless the man dies (that would probably get her elected), she will always look like a dull clod in his shadow.

Look for Biden to gain ground. The man clearly likes the sound of his own voice more than most, but at least he has a plan that doesn't rely on being ambiguously "better". The Reagan campaign was probably the best run campaign in my lifetime. He sold his plan. This strategy only works if you a) have a plan, b) talk about it and c) people like it. Ambiguously better is a much tougher sell.

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billybobjoe said:

Quote:

Come on Blatham. You can't really think Coulter is an important player. She's almost exclusively around for her entertainment value, even to conservatives. She isn't part of anybody's brain trust. You're slipping if you think either side wouldn't rejoice in an adversary's downfall, and to think either side is "above" anything is more than a little naive. There's a Michael Moore for every Ann Coulter.

Quick notes here. I brought up those two examples merely as an indication for J_L on the coordinated/organized effort to achieve a particular end. On Coulter as "entertainer"...see what I wrote for finn here. As to "important player", I'm not sure what your criteria might be for that category, but you can turn to the link below for more...

Quote:

Coulter attended Cornell University, where she launched the conservative Cornell Review, part of the conservative Collegiate Network funded by Scaife. She trained at the National Journalism Center, run by conservative columnist M. Stanton Evans, whose lectures are sometimes sponsored by the Young America's Foundation. The Center claims no partisan bias but its lecturers and postings are skewed to the right. The center receives funding from the conservative Olin Foundation. While at the University of Michigan law school, Coulter founded the local chapter of the Federalist Society. After the Republicans Congressional takeover in 1994, Coulter joined the staff of [former] Sen. Spencer Abraham, (R-MI), a Federalist Society activist. She then became a legal commentator for MSNBC.

Coulter's book was published by Regnery. Phillips/Eagle, a major owner of Regnery, also publishes Human Events. [blatham adds: Regnery is an exclusively conservative imprint, managed by Robert Novak's son] Coulter went to work for the Scaife-funded Center for Individual Rights, then as a legal affairs writer for Human Events, which had previously run a favorable review of her book. Coulter also played matchmaker, helping Paula Jones find lawyers and suggesting that attorney Jim Moody help Linda Tripp with her legal problems

link

Quote:

Your insight on Republican unity shouldn't go unnoticed, though, as that is pretty solid. Too much public infighting is obviously bad, but what the Left really needs to do is provide some form of a contract with America, instead of relying almost exclusively on not being Bush. That didn't work two years ago and the man isn't even running next time.

That's a notion held by others too, Nimh for example, and I've argued it myself. But it's not a certainty. Gingrich had an uphill battle to make headway against Clinton's popularity and it worked in that instance (along with a number of corresponding strategies). So the same factors aren't in place now. I also consider the Contract a gimmick which depends upon a deceitful simplicity so I'm not happy with such a move, but again, we ought to play to win.

Quote:

Soz is also right about the Bill/Hillary equation. Unless the man dies (that would probably get her elected), she will always look like a dull clod in his shadow.

Perhaps. Again, not a certainty. He's smart enough to figure this out, as will be the case with other advisors, and act accordingly. But I also don't rule out a re-perceiving of her as an autonomous and capable figure, which she is. The difference in charisma is unfortunate, but folks like Bill Clinton don't come along that often.

Quote:

Look for Biden to gain ground. The man clearly likes the sound of his own voice more than most, but at least he has a plan that doesn't rely on being ambiguously "better". The Reagan campaign was probably the best run campaign in my lifetime. He sold his plan. This strategy only works if you a) have a plan, b) talk about it and c) people like it. Ambiguously better is a much tougher sell.

If trends continue (in Iraq, Afghanistan and the ME generally plus domestic matters) then it is quite possible that a rubber duck would look good in contrast to Bush. Plans, like the Contract, aren't difficult to nail up to a door. We'll see.

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Obama will be lucky if he remains a Senator from Illinois. Something tells me, he's not the popularity kid in Cook County. Will all the illegals vote for him?

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What tells you, Dizzy? Nimh recently posted a poll about how he is one of the MOST popular incumbent senators (I don't remember if he was the single most popular).

Blatham, I know what you mean, really -- there are about fifteen different levels to this though and we're skipping around between them. J_B's point was a more narrow one than what you're talking about now, and I understand what she's getting at. Just in terms of what J_B is saying, the core fact is that Bill actually did what the vast right-wing conspiracy unearthed. And it's not like it was a surprise that he'd be in deep doo-doo if it was found out. Eisenhower, sure, but things had certainly changed by the time Monica flashed her thong (just ask Gary Hart).

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sozobe wrote:

Well, but he did it.

I think it's axiomatic that the group of people you're talking about would be happy that they found the dirt they were looking for -- but the dirt existed. That was his fault, not the fault of the vast right-wing conspiracy.

The machines on both sides are always looking for dirt about the other side. My parents were certainly rather jubilant when the dirt on Nixon -- much worse and more important dirt, to be sure -- was finally unearthed. (Er, bit of a mixed metaphor there.) It'd be nice if the machines stopped, but it's not limited to the Republicans, and they didn't force Clinton to do anything. That was all his own, really dumb, decision.

Indeed, and well said.

Blatham throws up prior philandering presidents as if they have some relevance. By the time Clinton became president the rules had changed, and he knew it.

Personally, I never thought the man's sexual indiscretions were the issue. It was never a matter of a bl*wjob in the White House, however there are always moral issues associated with infidelity that have nothing to do with sex.

Clinton's serial philandering speaks to his character.

By all accounts, Hilary may have tolerated these indiscretions but she neither approved of them or accepted them. This, however, was between him and her, but that he was capable of consistently betraying his wife says something about the man. Does it say he couldn't be an effective president? I don't think so.

More troubling was his recklessness. Thanks to Hilary, he dodged the Jennifer Flowers incident. One would think that after that near disaster he would have learned his lesson. Obviously not. He knew full well, from personal experience, that the days of the press turning a blind eye to the sex romps of leading political figures was over, and yet, presumably, he couldn't help himself. Who knows whether or not the man qualified for sex addiction, but its clear that that he had the addict's willingness to ignore all consequences to specific action.

Most troubling was his lying to the American people about it, and his unceasing attempt to weasel his way out of the jam he put himself in.

He is a brilliant but deeply flawed man. Whether or not those flaws rendered him unfit for the office of president is not so clear as some would suggest. In my mind, nothing from the unfortunate scandal rose to a level requiring him to be booted from office, but it is silly and naive to suggest that he was a victim of a "vast right wing conspiracy."

Bush has weathered the charges around his National Guard service, but they have been consistent and heavy. Where did they come from? A "vast left wing conspiracy?"

At the power levels these people play in, there are not a lot of rules. It is a given that your enemies (whether right or left) will be gunning for you, and if you give them ammunition, it is unseemly to then cry foul.

In another time, men like Clinton and Bush had to worry about losing their heads rather than simply their positions. Politics is more civilized today but it remains brutal.

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Finn wrote:
Clinton's serial philandering speaks to his character.

Isn't it interesting that many of the most popular presidents during our lifetime were also philandering, but very few people attacked them the way you and your ilk attack Clinton. Never mind all the lies Bush have told the American People and the world.

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Last post here on this particular matter...

finn said

Quote:

Blatham throws up prior philandering presidents as if they have some relevance. By the time Clinton became president the rules had changed, and he knew it.

Bush has weathered the charges around his National Guard service, but they have been consistent and heavy. Where did they come from? A "vast left wing conspiracy?"

At the power levels these people play in, there are not a lot of rules. It is a given that your enemies (whether right or left) will be gunning for you, and if you give them ammunition, it is unseemly to then cry foul.

soz said:

Quote:

And it's not like it was a surprise that he'd be in deep doo-doo if it was found out. Eisenhower, sure, but things had certainly changed by the time Monica flashed her thong (just ask Gary Hart).

There are three salient issues here. The proper context in which to consider them must be...which if any of them constitutes real jeopardy to the well-being of government, the nation, and the American political process.
1) the moral failing
2) the failure in judgement
3) the organized effort to oust him

1) Earlier Presidents acting in a similar manner (extra-marital affairs) are relevant to the moral question. We are all agreed (and polling at the time demonstrated that the majority of Americans agreed) that this isn't a serious matter.
2) This is what still gets all of us angry with him...the "You dolt!" thing. But as a judgement failure, how does it stack up against, say, Iraq or the constitutional seriousness related to signing statements or torture? As with the "But he lied to the public" true claim, the context has to be...how serious a matter is this? Does the failure in judgement/character have some other serious ramifications or can it be seen to extend to other more serious aspects of governance?
3) But it is this last one that seems truly dangerous in terms of threat to governance/democracy. The claim that "politics is always at least partly about finding dirt" has a lot of truth to it. Finn's claim that the Bush military service story is a parallel example is far more wrong than it is right because of magnitude and motive. Many, many millions of public and private money were put to the task beginning at the outset of the Presidency (and even earlier) through Whitewater and then to the impeachment. The blow job and the lie about the blow job were the single thing he/she was found to be guilty of.

This magnitude of this project (please read Boehlert and others) together with the radically exclusivist ideology behind it (eg Scaife) represent something in American goverance for which I know of no precedent. If one were to imagine - in a modern media-rich and institutionalized society such as modern America - what shape a non-military coup would take, it will be something very much like this.

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You're slipping fast, dude. He wasn't and couldn't have been impeached for a blow job. Swearing an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to a Grand Jury and failing to do so after being ordered to by the Supreme Court of the land was his crime... and a crime it was. However misdirected you may find the investigation; the conclusion was a President giving the finger to our system of governance. That is not cool.

Oh, and investigations with hopes of impeachment are hardly unprecedented. Wasteful, sure, usually, but that's how checks and balances work. At the end of the day, to find the appropriate person(s) to blame, Bill Clinton need look no further than the nearest mirror.

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Forgive me for being behind on the curve.. thread is moving rather fast. But I still wanted tor respond to some things Blatham and Thomas said about Hillary a few pages back.

First, Blatham.

blatham wrote:

Thomas wrote:
Dunno. According to Pollingreport, the next candidates in line are Al Gore, John Kerry, John Edwards, and Joe Biden. [..]

Pretty strong results for Hillary in every one of those polls. Perhaps we ought to rethink her chances, after all.

The polls this link refers to is about the Democratic primaries (I'll get to the other link in the next post). Yes, Hillary is polling pretty well to win the Democratic primaries, so far. But as said before, current primary polls can be said to reflect not much more than name recognition, and compared to possible rivals like Biden, Feingold, Warner, Bayh, Richardson or even Edwards, Hillary's got that plenty. Many respondents won't have heard much about the rivals.

Blatham wrote:

We know that it does not matter who the candidate might be, the same species of 'swift boat' strategies will be applied against that candidate. That is just a given in this climate.

True, but you tend to imply that the impact of such "swiftboating" is equal on whichever Democratic candidate, determined purely by the force of the 'Rove attack'. I think its effectiveness depends largely on the object of the attack as well. Negative campaigning can backfire, as Bush Sr in 1992 showed - depending on how rooted the public's perception of the object's sympatheticness or trustworthiness are, in comparison to that of the 'attacking' candidate.

Clinton did not naturally come across as trustworthy, but he did have a natural gift for eliciting sympathy, and Bush Sr was already considered cold and disattached even without negative campaigning. For Bush Jr. to make the smears against Kerry stick, on the other hand, was easy as pie, since Kerry already appeared unsympathetic and untrustworthy from the start - predating the smears.

Now how does Hillary fit into the comparison? Asking the question is answering it...

Blatham wrote:

Folks like Finn and McG and mysterman and fox are NOT going to vote democrat even if george gets caught humping a farm animal. How many on the right presently posting here would ever vote dem? Outside of this fixed segment of the electorate though, with their visceral reaction against anything Clintonian

This is where I believe you make a mistake. The "visceral reaction" against Hillary Clinton, in any case, is in absolutely no way restricted to the venomously partisan conservatives. It extends deep into Independent and, for that matter, Democratic side - by ways of random example read that roundup of responses of TNR readers I posted earlier.

The fact that there are already plenty of people across the spectrum who have this visceral reaction indicates that Hillary is very vulnerable to any further character-smearing far beyond the conservative faithful - because it will be reinforcing already existing impressions.

Of course, A2K Politics posters or TNR respondents are more politically informed than your random voter, and many random voters may not have such entrenched reactions about Hillary yet. But sometimes you've got to respect gut reactions (something the Dems have too often failed to do). John Kerry elicited comparable intuitive dislike among those who followed the primaries from the start - even those who did support him, barring the odd exception (hi Soz) did so out of "electability"-type rationalisation rather than any genuine liking. And sure enough, when the overall electorate was confronted with Kerry, it had largely the same reaction, and was soon turned off.

My point being: if you have the one shot at putting someone up who might match up against the Republican, why put up someone who from the start - or from before the start - already triggers such negative personal reactions, even among your own constituency? Why take the hard way, where you'll be battling uphill against existing impressions from the start?

Blatham wrote:

It is hard to imagine any new direction or new content in such attacks which hasn't already slithered into the public 'debate'. And as she has survived all such to this point (it will be sixteen years of them!) that begins to make her look like a real survivor

As Soz pointed out, what did this "surviving" entail? What concrete tests of public approval did she weather and survive?

During her years of First Lady, she needed not suffer any votes on her job or character - Bill got her 'elected' to First Lady, and more despite her than thanks to her.

That leaves us with the one electoral test she "survived" - running for Senator of the state of New York. How much can that seriously said to mean, eyeing a national race?

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Then, Thomas, right after.

Thomas wrote:

Also look at Pollingreport's "General Election" page, which I visited after submitting my last post. Compared with the other Democratic candidates, Clinton consistently ranks near the top in "acceptable"s and "definitely vote for"s, and near the bottom in "unacceptable"s, "definitely not vote for"s, etc. If name recognition was the most important thing that sets her apart, she should be high in "pro" votes and in "con" votes. But she isn't. Among the general public, she's lower in "con" votes than most of her Democratic competition, though not as low as Giuliani and McCain.

I'm looking at the same page and I dont see the same numbers as you, Thomas. You say Hillary "consistently" ranks near the bottom in "unacceptable"s, "definitely not vote for"s, etc.? I dont see where you got that from.

In all of 2006 so far, I see only four polls on that page that compare Hillary with possible rival Democratic contenders. There's only two recent ones:

1) Gallup Poll. June 26-29, 2006
2) CNN Poll conducted by Harris Interactive. June 1-6, 2006

And there are two from last winter:

3) WNBC/Marist Poll. Feb. 13-15, 2006.
4) FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Feb. 7-8, 2006

OK. Poll #1 comes the closest to your assertion: among a whole array of possible Democratic contenders, Hillary has the second lowest "Not acceptable" rating.

There's a catch, though. The 496 respondents were selected exclusively among "Democrats and Democratic leaners".

Now I must admit I was (unpleasantly) surprised that Hillary did that well among Democrats. But the poll therefore says nothing about how acceptable / non-acceptable Hillary would be among the Independents and cross-over Republicans that a Dem nominee would have to win over. (Personally, I dont think Hillary stands much of a chance among them.)

In Poll #2, meanwhile, the only other Democrats that Hillary's chances of getting people's votes are matched up with are Gore and Kerry. (Does anyone seriously think either stands a real chance of becoming President?)

Tellingly, however, there is no sign of Hillary ranking "near the bottom in "unacceptable"s" even in this comparison. In fact, the percentage of people who said they would "definitely not vote for" Hillary is exactly as high as for John bleedin' Kerry: 47% - and within a point of that of Al Gore (48%).

This compared with just 30-34% who said they would "definitely not vote for" McCain and Giuliani.

If anything, this poll seems pretty conclusive about Hillary not standing a chance in the general election - just like Gore and Kerry.

For other polls we have to dig back to February. Poll #3 asked, "Do you want [see below] to run for president in 2008 or not?" "No", said 51% to a Hillary candidacy. Granted, this is indeed clearly better than Gore (68%) or Kerry (62%) did, but worse than Edwards (49%) -- and no other potential Democratic candidates were listed.

Meanwhile, of the two Republicans, Rice did worse than Hillary, but Giuliani (45%) and McCain (39%) notably better.

Poll #4 (on whether "you think [name] would make a good president or not") also only matches Hillary up with Gore and Kerry as fellow-Democrats -- oh, and Ted Kennedy (such jokers, at Fox).

Hillary again did a lot better than Gore (and Ted Kennedy), but no better than John bleedin' Kerry. 47% did not think Hillary would make a good president, 49% said that about Kerry.

On the other hand, those numbers dropped precariously for no less than four Republican candidates: Rice (38%), Pataki (34%), McCain (30%) and Giuliani (26%).

In short, there's only three relevant polls on that page, and the only thing they show is Hillary running about even with Kerry, with Gore catching up on both of them, and Edwards, the only time he's listed, slightly ahead of them.

-------------------------------

To me, if anything, all this spells big trouble for Hillary. Again, I'd say the "pro" ratings are at this point largely a measure of name recognition. If you got the favourability, good, if you dont, you can still win it - people have hardly tuned in yet. If your "con" ratings are already high, however - if there is already a large number of people who would definitely not vote for you, who do not want to see you run, etc -- those people are not likely to be won over after all during a bruising campaign.

If I were a Dems campaign manager, I'd rather have a candidate with low favourability and unfavourability ratings, than one with high favourability and unfavourability ratings.

Well, in the three above-mentioned polls that actually asked the electorate at large (rather than only Democrats), Hillary's "con" ratings were 47%, 51%, 47%.

That, IMO, makes her, like Kerry and Gore, a losing proposal.

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sozobe wrote:

Dizzy Delicious wrote:
Obama will be lucky if he remains a Senator from Illinois. Something tells me, he's not the popularity kid in Cook County. Will all the illegals vote for him?

What tells you, Dizzy? Nimh recently posted a poll about how he is one of the MOST popular incumbent senators (I don't remember if he was the single most popular).

THE single most popular Senator, yes.

See this table here on the approval rates of Senators amongst their own constituents.

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nimh

To be clear, I am hoping that Obama runs and gains the nomination, for all the reasons I mentioned previously. Other candidates...tough to know at this point who might shine and who not.

My thoughts on Hillary constitute a "revisiting" of her candidacy, possible positives and negatives. I don't want us to get too solid or unyielding in our notions because those might not be right after all. Also, I would like us to be alert to the dangers of forwarding negative assumptions which, in terms of effect, might as well be Republican talking points. Jamie Foser lays out some examples HERE

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nimh wrote:

sozobe wrote:
Dizzy Delicious wrote:
Obama will be lucky if he remains a Senator from Illinois. Something tells me, he's not the popularity kid in Cook County. Will all the illegals vote for him?

What tells you, Dizzy? Nimh recently posted a poll about how he is one of the MOST popular incumbent senators (I don't remember if he was the single most popular).

THE single most popular Senator, yes.

See this table here on the approval rates of Senators amongst their own constituents.

I checked out the Table and I noticed, no comments were posted about who the individuals were, who participated in the POLL. My comment specifically said the people of Cook County.
Were the voters in the Poll from Cook County or where they the rich white folks from the nearby Chicago suburbs, who departed CHicago to avoid the problem of diversity?

But of course, perhaps the only voters were the 400,000+ illegals scattered throughout Illinois? Was the Poll conducted in bothe English and Spanish? Laughing

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