Hillery, Obama, Edwards and the Democrates

Cyclo,

Well as the esteemed Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote (in an essay entitled, Self Reliance) "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". As I recall it, he was making a serious distinction between wise and foolish consistency, and issues involving hotly debated questions of contemporary politics were at the top of his foolish list.

I don't know what standard of morality you are applying to Guliani, but I wonder if you are applying it consistently to a field including the Clintons and the wealthy tort lawyer Edwards, and others.

I don't think Romney's experience in managing the stunning success of Bain & Co. (you should check this) and in managing (indeed rescuing) the late olympics, or of completing a very successful term as governor of Massachusetts merits your calling him a "used car salesman".

If you applied the same standard to Obama and his record as an Illinois Legislator and first term senator what conclusion would you make?

I'm not suggesting that the situation is profoundly different among Republicans - only that the charactitures that the Democrats so relentlessly put forward of Republican evil neocons and fanatic evengelicals are more than amply matched by the parody of class warfare (Edwards); adolescent 'vision' (Obama) and professional stage management (Hillary)

Is Obama's vision really 'adolescent?'

What does 'adolescent' mean? Does it meant that his proposals aren't serious? Does it mean that what he thinks is wrong? Does it mean that he is naive?

What is it about Obama which says to you 'not a serious leader?' Specifically, please.

Obama has less experience then some of the Republicans, but so what? What good has 'experience' shown when there is no vision to back it up? Nothing. No good. He's obviously intelligent and can get the job done as well as any of the other candidates.

In fact, I would say that Obama is the only candidate who has displayed any of the qualities, at all, that I would say are 'leadership' qualities. By far, he's more of a leader then Hillary or Giuliani. He inspires people; the others have claims of competence, but little emotional vector.

Cycloptichorn

The value of experience to the electorate is that it tends to find out and expose the frauds and the failings of those subject to it.

Well, besides changing the subject to evade a perfectly clear argument and question, you are also misrepresenting the facts and illogically contradicting your own arguments.

You are merely throwing dust in the air and indulging in inflated rhetoric to evade the confrontation with your own contradictions. OK by me. Just don't expect me to follow it.

The value of experience to the electorate is that it tends to find out and expose the frauds and the failings of those subject to it. This is often more important in the choice of leaders than the direct benefits they may derive from it. Obama has not been tested - the others, particularly including Romney, McCain, and Guliani, have.

History is littered with "young men in a hurry" who looked attractive but proved to be great disasters for those who chose to put their faith in them. Consult Nicias' speech to the Athenians concerning the appointment of Alcibiadies to lead the expedition to Syracuse in Thuycydides' Peloponnesian War.

I generally agree with you about McCain, whom I know well.

Giuliani is the only Republican candidate who could be described as 'disturbed.' He's more hawkish with Bush with comparable leadership skills and exactly the same ability at picking incompetent associates.

Romney is a businessman, not evil but not good.

McCain is good but Republicans don't seem to like him.

Grandpa Fred didn't live up to the hype.

Is Obama's vision really 'adolescent?' Are people so jaded nowadays that anyone who isn't a cynic isn't a serious leader?

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Giuliani is the only Republican candidate who could be described as 'disturbed.' He's more hawkish with Bush with comparable leadership skills and exactly the same ability at picking incompetent associates.

Romney is a businessman, not evil but not good.

McCain is good but Republicans don't seem to like him.

Grandpa Fred didn't live up to the hype.

Is Obama's vision really 'adolescent?' Are people so jaded nowadays that anyone who isn't a cynic isn't a serious leader?

Cycloptichorn

Interesting conversation here, including this and following it.
I share some trepidations about Guiliani, although not to the extent that you do.
I am interested that you seem to give Romney some credit of being competent, but you criticize him for evolving in his views.
I am puzzled as to why you like McCain, as he is far different than what your party is pushing.
I agree that Fred Thompson does not inspire me greatly at this point and I fail to understand the hype.
Obama is a much nicer person than Hillary, but is that the best you have? I see the Republican field as much stronger, much deeper, a better bench if you will, and rich in experience and competence.

I still think Romney might have the most upside potential, but fail to understand why Guliani and Thompson are able to keep the numbers they have so far.

By the way, I disagree that running a business doesn't mean much. I think it means alot, as I think we need somebody that understands free market economics better and what really makes the country what it is, and understands how to straighten out the government much like a business. You are correct about Bush not being that great as a business person and that may be one reason why his domestic spending has spiraled out of control.

George,

Fair enough; below is my answer.

I don't think that 'experience' has really done a good job exposing the frauds. It doesn't seem to me that the people who end up doing the voting have the time or inclination to go back and see just how someone's record really played out. Just that they had the job seems to be the component in question.

For example, while Romney was by all respects a great governor, he was b/c he followed the liberal ideas his constituents wanted. Will that same track record persist as he attempts Conservative values?

And, as to his businesses. Were they responsible? Were they good businesses that were good to their employees? Did they care about anything but making money? Who can say? I guarantee you that 99% of voters cannot say.

Giuliani - mayor of 9/11 and that's his campaign. Was his term as mayor a postivie one? Depends on who you ask. He certainly had many questionable activities. Has he been 'tested' and found capable? Most couldn't say.

I think an accurate statement would say that History is littered with characters of all ages who 'looked attractive' but proved to be disasters. It isn't a feature enshrined in the young, poor decision making. In large part, we know that the ability to work with Congress and with the people of the US is as important as policies and proposals; it is clear that Obama has a leadership style which makes people believe that he can accomplish this. I don't think Hillary has that style and I don't think that any of the Republicans other than McCain do either.

I wish I could say that age brings wisdom; in many cases it seems to. But, man - how many people, who have literally decades of experience in Washington or elsewhere, have we seen making truly stupid decisions over the last few decades? It's difficult for me to think that Obama will increase this average in any way.

Quote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
For example, while Romney was by all respects a great governor, he was b/c he followed the liberal ideas his constituents wanted. Will that same track record persist as he attempts Conservative values?

It seems to me this is a virtue in a democratic leader, not a defect. The fact is he didn't simply follow the whims of the liberal constituency in Massachusetts, he worked out practical solutions acceptable to a broad base of the voters there.

Obama is simply untested - there is no objective basis for your confidence in him other than your enthusiasm over his "style". Do you believe that is indicative of wisdom on your part?

sozobe wrote:

Plonking this here:

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6e01fdce-ad97-4dab-a07d-bf98dc52f681

I don't really have any specific comments on it (yet anyway) but came across it while researching something and it's the kind of thing that I often want to refer to later but then can't retrace my steps. (Keywords for myself -- Bunker Hillary The New Republic media machine)

I'm curious what Blatham thinks of this.. here's the article again:

[size=14][b][URL=http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6e01fdce-ad97-4dab-a07d-bf98dc52f681&k=30118]Bunker Hillary[/URL][/b][/size] [b]Clinton's strategy for crushing the media.[/b] The New Republic by Michael Crowley Monday, November 12, 2007

As will be nauseatingly clear by now, my response to Hillary (and her machine) is ambivalent: I think she (and it) is ruthless, strident and on a strategical level unprincipled; but I also feel that this might just simply be exactly what's needed at this time, and we're better off saving the kind and uplifting mode for better times.

But Blatham has been more insistent that the notion that Hillary is "ruthless" and the like itself should be reconsidered, and is largely a product of the branding and casting done by the rightwing media and pundits. Yet here you have Michael Crowley from TNR - hardly a rightwinger - painting a fairly detailed portrait of a ruthless, strident and on a strategic level unprincipled Hillary and accompanying media machine of the same cut.

Again, one could quite reasonably defend such a machine as having been borne out by recent history as simply necessary, and as just being what we will need to undo the Bush-era damage, no matter what our sophisticated natures might prefer. But in the light of info like this I think it's pretty hard to maintain that the image of a "tough, calculating" Hillary itself is a mere invention of the rightwing smearing apparatus.

a principled reporter.

Student describes how she became a Clinton plant

The college student who was told what question to ask at one of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign events said [..] she wasn't the only one who was planted. [..]

Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, a 19-year-old sophomore at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, said giving anyone specific questions to ask is "dishonest," and the whole incident has given her a negative outlook on politics.

Gallo-Chasanoff [..] said what happened was simple: She said a senior Clinton staffer asked if she'd like to ask the senator a question after an energy speech the Democratic presidential hopeful gave in Newton, Iowa, on November 6.

"I sort of thought about it, and I said 'Yeah, can I ask how her energy plan compares to the other candidates' energy plans?'" Gallo-Chasanoff said Monday night.

According to Gallo-Chasanoff, the staffer said, " 'I don't think that's a good idea, because I don't know how familiar she is with their plans.' "

He then opened a binder to a page that, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, had about eight questions on it.

"The top one was planned specifically for a college student," she added. " It said 'college student' in brackets and then the question."

Topping that sheet of paper was the following: "As a young person, I'm worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?"

And while she said she would have rather used her own question, Gallo-Chasanoff said she didn't have a problem asking the campaign's because she "likes to be agreeable" [..]

Clinton campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee said, "This is not acceptable campaign process moving forward. We've taken steps to ensure that it never happens again." Elleithee said Clinton had "no idea who she was calling on."

Gallo-Chasanoff wasn't so sure.

"I don't know whether Hillary knew what my question was going to be, but it seemed like she knew to call on me because there were so many people, and…I was the only college student in that area," she said. [..]

Gallo-Chasanoff said she wasn't the only person given a question.

"After the event," she said, "I heard another man ... talking about the question he asked, and he said that the campaign had asked him to ask that question."

The man she referenced prefaced his question by saying that it probably didn't have anything to do with energy, and then posed the following: "I wonder what you propose to do to create jobs for the middle-class person, such as here in Newton where we lost Maytag." [..]

Gallo-Chasanoff also said that the day before the school's newspaper, Scarlet and Black, printed the story, she wanted the reporter to inform the campaign out of courtesy to let them know it would be published.

She said the "head of publicity for the campaign," a man whose name she could not recall, had no factual disputes with the story. But, she added, a Clinton intern spoke to her to say the campaign requested she not talk about the story to any more media outlets and that if she did she should inform a staffer [..].

Asked if this experience makes her less likely to support Clinton's presidential bid, Gallo-Chasanoff, an undecided voter, said, "I think she has a lot to offer, but I -- this experience makes me look at her campaign a little bit differently."

"The question and answer sessions -- especially in Iowa -- are really important. That's where the voters get to ... have like a real genuine conversation with this politician who could be representing them."

While she acknowledged "it's possible that all campaigns do these kind of tactics," she said that doesn't make it right.

"Personally I want to know that I have someone who's honest representing me."

A second person has a story similar to Gallo-Chasanoff's. Geoffrey Mitchell of Hamilton, Illinois, on the Iowa border, said the Clinton campaign wanted him to ask a certain question at an Iowa event in April.

"He asked me if I would ask Sen. Clinton about ways she was going to confront the president on the war in Iraq, specifically war funding," said Geoffrey Mitchell, a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois. "I told him it was not a question I felt comfortable with."

No questions were taken at the event. Elleithee said the staffer [in this case] "bumped into someone he marginally knew" and during a conversation with Mitchell, "Iraq came up." Elleithee denied the campaign tried to plant him as a friendly questioner in the audience.

[But] Mitchell said he had never met the staffer before the event. [..]

Not necessarily. I would think that wisdom would tell us that all superficial judgments of the candidate's experiences are equally useless; it seems to me that you have no special information as to whether Romney or Giuliani actually did the things that they are credited with doing, but merely use terms such as 'widely credited.' It is entirely likely that Obama has had experiences in his life in which he has displayed leadership; but, it wasn't on the big stage, so how can we tell?

Romney's business did very very well, and some of that is no doubt due to his leadership. But I don't see how that equates to managing the nation, as the motives - and techniques involved - are quite different.

Let's put it this way: I'm equally skeptical about all the candidates 'past experience.' I'm more interested in the big picture, and it's sad for the Republicans that the big picture for their top two candidates frankly stinks. The worst that you can say about Obama is that he is inexperienced; I can say much worse about Giuliani and Romney, that their 'experience' highlighted many mistakes that should prevent them from attaining the presidency. What were Obama's mistakes that you can highlight? mmm.

I'll repeat an earlier question: Can anyone point out to me which was the last president who was a successful 'big businessman,' and this was the selling point of their resume?

The "planted question" story on Hillary appears to be worse than it already seemed: it seems the Hillary campaign does this systematically.

According to Dan Schnur, however, such tactics are typical for campaigns - and not just Clinton's. Schnur was John McCain's communications director in the 2000 campaign and now teaches at University of California, Berkeley and The University of Southern California.

"I don't think in either party I've ever seen a campaign that holds question and answer events that doesn't arrange for some questions," says Schnur. "That's not to say every question is prepared. That's not to say the candidate knows every question coming. But it's pretty standard practice."

That's the John McCain campaign, explaining why McCain didn't object more explicitly Monday when a supporter asked the candidate, "How do we beat the bitch?"

McCain did indeed say Monday that he respects Clinton and "anyone else who gets the nomination of the Democrat Party" -- but only after calling the supporter's query an "excellent question."