Hillery, Obama, Edwards and the Democrates

Who can beat Hillary?
Republicans must heed the voters to beat Hillary
John O'SullivanWednesday, 12th December 2007
The battle for the Republican nomination

Washington

After almost a year of the candidates manoeuvring for position in the national and state polls, one aspect of the 2008 presidential election campaign remains as constant as the North Star: Hillary Clinton is the favourite. She is backed by most party regulars, supported by a national machine, advised by the most brilliant politician of her generation and perched on a consistent lead in the national opinion polls. Almost the only thing that could lose her the election is her personality.

Behind their hands, observers compare her to Richard Nixon in 1968. Like Nixon, Clinton has a withdrawn, cool and calculating personality. The comparison does not end there

nimh wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:

Bernie, Where did this distaste for the Clinton dynasty come from? I hadn't noticed this strain in your views before.

I think he was being sarcastic...

He was being sarcastic.

Liberals in america have done a bangup job carrying the water for the worst elements in the conservative movement, biting into each cliched smear and focus-grouped phrase like it was a big juicy apple.

Hillary Clinton tried to teach Barack Obama about power, but then he got ideas of his own. A story of nasty surprises, dueling war rooms, and the Drudge Report

A few weeks after he was elected to the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama told his staff he wanted to meet with Hillary Clinton. In her years as a senator, Clinton had deftly navigated many of the challenges that now confronted Obama. She had come to the Senate as a national figure whose celebrity eclipsed (and therefore imperiled) her status as a freshman senator. She had a broad but shallow base of support among the voters she represented. And she, like Obama, held national political ambitions that depended heavily on how well she performed in the Senate.

On February 1, 2005, the two talked for an hour in Clinton's [..] Senate office. Obama developed a good sense of the Clinton algorithm for success: Don't be a showboat. Keep your head down. Choose the right committees, the ones that will allow you to deliver tangible benefits to your state. Go to hearings, stay the whole time, wait to speak, follow the lead of the chair or the ranking member, and remain quiet and humble at press conferences. [..]

The senators' staffs soon paired off. Obama's aides drew on Clinton's example to face the barrage of questions aimed at the new senator. [..] Clinton's staff was collegial. Obama's overture was viewed by some as genuflection to the party's natural leader, its likely presidential nominee; Obama himself was thought of as a possible apprentice and, perhaps one day, an heir. Clinton's own decision to run for president had a whiff of destiny about it?-she'd been preparing for years, had served four years as a senator, and had developed a nuanced political strategy. Some of her top advisers exuded a sense of entitlement: Clinton deserved to be president; it was her turn. They did not perceive any threat until it was almost too late.

What caused Obama to suddenly decide to run? The conventional explanation is that Democrats implored him to. "It was the closest thing to a draft that I've seen in my years of participating in politics," Axelrod told me. Obama, having invested considerable time and effort studying the traditional path to the presidency, seems to have concluded that his unique biography perfectly suited the historical moment. (Obama's friends speak of this process as his "calling.") [..]

Another theory, held by longtime advisers like Dan Shomon, who was Obama's chief of staff in the Illinois state senate, is that an ambitious, action-oriented politician was propelled toward the presidential race by the Senate's sluggish pace and partisan provincialism.

Obama's potential appeal had occurred to Clinton's advisers, but as several of them later admitted, they failed to anticipate the intensity with which the Democratic Party and the national media would embrace him.

In April, after Obama announced his record fund-raising total for the primaries, the Clinton campaign began to panic. Basic strategy was called into question. Senior advisers began to fight with each other. In an extraordinary interview with Time, Terry McAuliffe, Clinton's campaign chairman, seemed to blame Clinton herself for not working hard enough. Obama, McAuliffe said, "works the phones like a dog. He probably did three to four times the number of events she did" since the start of the campaign. "No matter who I call, he has already called them three or four times."

[..] Worried advisers to Bill Clinton unsuccessfully tried to oust Solis Doyle, who had never run a campaign. A Clinton staffer told me that going to work was like stepping into a snake pit.

Then came a pivot point?-the moment when Clinton's campaign felt the idealized view of Obama suddenly snap into alignment with the reality, and in doing so realign the contours of the race to emphasize precisely the asset Clinton had cultivated: her immediate readiness to become commander in chief. The moment came at the first Democratic debate [..]. The moderator, Brian Williams of NBC, asked the candidates to respond to a scenario in which two American cities were hit by terrorists and the responsible parties were identified. "The first thing we'd have to do," Obama answered, "is make sure that we've got an effective emergency response [..]. I think that we have to review how we operate in the event of not only a natural disaster, but also a terrorist attack." Only after that did Obama suggest that he might "take potentially some action to dismantle that network." Clinton spotted her opening, and pounced. "I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate," she declared. [..]

Later, Obama concluded that Clinton had weathered enough Republican attacks to understand where the minefields lay. "So if the question comes up on terrorism," he told me, putting himself in her mind, "your goal is to look tough, and the first thing out of the box is retaliate." [..] As the race settled into a summer lull, this cycle would repeat itself [..] ?- such as when Obama answered a question in another debate by saying he would meet with morally dubious world leaders in the first year of his presidency without preconditions. [..]

The national press corps places tremendous importance on consistency with an established narrative. Lacking a basis to judge Obama's neophyte foreign-policy views, reporters were much more willing than they otherwise might have been to accept the Clinton campaign's charge that Obama's answer was naive. They weren't nearly as willing to accept the countercharge from the Obama campaign that Clinton herself had flip-flopped in answering the question (earlier in the year, while criticizing Bush's recalcitrance about meeting with rogue leaders, she had expressed practically the same sentiment as Obama), because such a slip-up didn't track with the emerging campaign narrative of Clinton as disciplined and savvy. Nor could Obama's campaign deploy, as Clinton's did, an army of surrogates to flood the airwaves and drive home a point. In August, Obama told a reporter that under no circumstances would he use a nuclear weapon to destroy terrorist bunkers in Afghanistan or Pakistan. The Clinton campaign again pressed charges of inexperience. A year earlier, as it turned out, Clinton had said essentially the same thing [..]. But reporters largely ignored this fact, because it wasn't in character for Clinton to mess up.

Obama seemed to recoil from many of the tasks that have come to be expected of someone serious about running for president. Cerebral and loquacious, given to lengthy disquisitions, Obama chafed at the sound-bite culture of politics and disliked criticizing opponents by name. One day in New Hampshire, caught up in the moment, he called Hillary "Bush-Cheney lite"?-a phrase he never again repeated. Occasionally, Obama behaved as if conventional expectations were beneath him and an insult to voters' intelligence. "The one thing I am absolutely certain of," Obama told me, "is that if all I'm offering is the same Democratic narrative that has been offered for the last 20 years, then there's really no point in my running, because Senator Clinton is going to be very adept at delivering that message. What makes it worthwhile for me to run is the belief that we can actually change the narrative and create a working majority that we haven't seen in a very long time?-and that, frankly, the Clintons never put together."

Though he dislikes cattle-call interest-group forums, he prepared diligently for a June forum on black issues at Howard University in Washington, D.C., understanding that, by dint of his race and life experience, he had a chance to shine. Obama believed he'd excelled during the debate, and was stunned when press coverage focused on a single applause line?-from Hillary Clinton. "If HIV/AIDS were the leading cause [of] the death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34, there would be an outraged outcry in this country," she had declared. Obama, by contrast, was chided for his long-winded answers. "He was very, very frustrated," one of his friends recalls.

Two weeks later, at an NAACP forum in Philadelphia, Obama, according to The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn, "played to the crowd." The press rewarded him. A friend e-mailed him a note of congratulations. "Well, but all I did was throw sound bites back at them," Obama wrote back.

"The campaigns shouldn't be about making each other look bad," [Obama] declared in his brief appearance at the DNC winter meeting. "They should be about figuring out how we can all do some good for this precious country of ours. That's our mission. And in this mission, our rivals won't be one another, and I would assert it won't even be the other party. It's going to be cynicism that we're fighting against." This kind of sentiment is a large part of Obama's appeal. But it's also a good illustration of why process-oriented campaigns often run into trouble. Committing himself to a higher standard of conduct meant that either Obama would refrain from doing much of what campaigns do to jockey for position or he would endure criticism for failing to live up to his own standard. In a campaign staffed by talented, though conventional, operatives, this would prove problematic.

In June, Obama's staff slipped reporters a memorandum about the Clintons' financial ties to Indian American entrepreneurs who benefited from job outsourcing?-an act well within the norm of political conduct, though the memo did have a rather tasteless title ("Hillary Clinton, D-Punjab"). A Clinton aide caught wind of it and, no doubt inspired by Obama's call for better conduct, persuaded a reporter for a Capitol Hill newspaper to disclose its source. Obama was forced to apologize.

[..] In August, Obama's team scored a significant hit by helping to place a story in several newspapers revealing that Norman Hsu, a major Clinton donor, had skipped town after having pleaded no contest to a charge of grand theft 15 years earlier and still faced an outstanding warrant. Hsu fled once more [..] and ignited a costly media frenzy for Clinton, who decided to return $850,000 in donations that he had arranged for her. (Hsu had also contributed to Obama.)

His campaign staffers, too, have become frustrated by the focus of the media's attention, specifically that the press has not covered Clinton in the way they expected it would. During an interview this summer, Obama's friend Valerie Jarrett said to me, unbidden, "He is a man who is devoted to his wife. There aren't going to be any skeletons in his closet in terms of his personal life at all. Period." And at a campaign event in Iowa, one of Obama's aides plopped down next to me and spoke even more bluntly. He wanted to know when reporters would begin to look into Bill Clinton's postpresidential sex life.

blatham wrote:

nimh wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:

Bernie, Where did this distaste for the Clinton dynasty come from? I hadn't noticed this strain in your views before.

I think he was being sarcastic...

He was being sarcastic. [..]

No sarcasm at all. My recollection is that Bernie thought very well of the Clinton Administration. Hillary be another matter, but I simply hadn't yet noticed any antipathy on his part for her. Who does he like? Edwards?? Obama??

Actually Liberals have done a bangup job in amusing each other with affirmations of the inevitability of their victory and the innate superiority of their policy fixations. The reality may be somewhat different - especially if the Democrats reject Hillary.

georgeob1 wrote:

Actually Liberals have done a bangup job in amusing each other with affirmations of the inevitability of their victory and the innate superiority of their policy fixations. The reality may be somewhat different - especially if the Democrats reject Hillary.

Yes, and has anyone noticed an increased nervousness among the Democrat elites? They may wake up here soon to the fact that they put all of their money on the wrong horse again? They never guessed their prize race horse that they've been grooming in the stable all this time, and licking their chops while placing bets, now that she is now making a few practice laps around the track a few times --- horrors to them --- is she beginning to look more like an old tired worn out nag? And now not enough time to find another horse, after all another is probably too young and untested and another just don't have the pedigree or the smarts to win. And all the others are past their prime and just don't have it, no way. It is fun to watch.

Big Table Fantasies

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 17, 2007
Broadly speaking, the serious contenders for the Democratic nomination are offering similar policy proposals ?- the dispute over health care mandates notwithstanding. But there are large differences among the candidates in their beliefs about what it will take to turn a progressive agenda into reality.

At one extreme, Barack Obama insists that the problem with America is that our politics are so "bitter and partisan," and insists that he can get things done by ushering in a "different kind of politics."

At the opposite extreme, John Edwards blames the power of the wealthy and corporate interests for our problems, and says, in effect, that America needs another F.D.R. ?- a polarizing figure, the object of much hatred from the right, who nonetheless succeeded in making big changes.

Over the last few days Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards have been conducting a long-range argument over health care that gets right to this issue. And I have to say that Mr. Obama comes off looking, well, naïve.

The argument began during the Democratic debate, when the moderator ?- Carolyn Washburn, the editor of The Des Moines Register ?- suggested that Mr. Edwards shouldn't be so harsh on the wealthy and special interests, because "the same groups are often responsible for getting things done in Washington."

Mr. Edwards replied, "Some people argue that we're going to sit at a table with these people and they're going to voluntarily give their power away. I think it is a complete fantasy; it will never happen."

This was pretty clearly a swipe at Mr. Obama, who has repeatedly said that health reform should be negotiated at a "big table" that would include insurance companies and drug companies.

On Saturday Mr. Obama responded, this time criticizing Mr. Edwards by name. He declared that "We want to reduce the power of drug companies and insurance companies and so forth, but the notion that they will have no say-so at all in anything is just not realistic."

Hmm. Do Obama supporters who celebrate his hoped-for ability to bring us together realize that "us" includes the insurance and drug lobbies?

O.K., more seriously, it's actually Mr. Obama who's being unrealistic here, believing that the insurance and drug industries ?- which are, in large part, the cause of our health care problems ?- will be willing to play a constructive role in health reform. The fact is that there's no way to reduce the gross wastefulness of our health system without also reducing the profits of the industries that generate the waste.

As a result, drug and insurance companies ?- backed by the conservative movement as a whole ?- will be implacably opposed to any significant reforms. And what would Mr. Obama do then? "I'll get on television and say Harry and Louise are lying," he says. I'm sure the lobbyists are terrified.

As health care goes, so goes the rest of the progressive agenda. Anyone who thinks that the next president can achieve real change without bitter confrontation is living in a fantasy world.

Which brings me to a big worry about Mr. Obama: in an important sense, he has in effect become the anti-change candidate.

There's a strong populist tide running in America right now. For example, a recent Democracy Corps survey of voter discontent found that the most commonly chosen phrase explaining what's wrong with the country was "Big businesses get whatever they want in Washington."

And there's every reason to believe that the Democrats can win big next year if they run with that populist tide. The latest evidence came from focus groups run by both Fox News and CNN during last week's Democratic debate: both declared Mr. Edwards the clear winner.

But the news media recoil from populist appeals. The Des Moines Register, which endorsed Mr. Edwards in 2004, rejected him this time on the grounds that his "harsh anti-corporate rhetoric would make it difficult to work with the business community to forge change."

And while The Register endorsed Hillary Clinton, the prime beneficiary of media distaste for populism has clearly been Mr. Obama, with his message of reconciliation. According to a recent survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, Mr. Obama's coverage has been far more favorable than that of any other candidate.

So what happens if Mr. Obama is the nominee?

He will probably win ?- but not as big as a candidate who ran on a more populist platform. Let's be blunt: pundits who say that what voters really want is a candidate who makes them feel good, that they want an end to harsh partisanship, are projecting their own desires onto the public.

And nothing Mr. Obama has said suggests that he appreciates the bitterness of the battles he will have to fight if he does become president, and tries to get anything done.

"Obama seems like someone who would say, ?'Let's sit down and reach a solution,'" Mrs. Vandeventer said approvingly. "He's not one of those people who says, ?'I'm right and you're wrong.'"

Thoughts?

blatham wrote:

Thoughts?

I'll offer you mine if you offer me yours on the Atlantic article.. :wink:

The temporary url no longer works, but I found it here:

http://www.ocnus.net/artman2/publish/Analyses_12/Teacher_and_Apprentice.shtml

In a related observation.

Drudge report has been running a PARTICULARLY unflattering picture of Hillary with no story for 48 hours.... and yet people are talking about how she's been hitting below the belt here just lately.... Jesus the plain truth is the media, the repubs, and EVEN FELLOW DEMOCRATS have been piling on this woman the whole time.....and the electorate pyas no attention..... no wonder we've given the country away to a handful of megalomaniacal sociopaths....

Clinton, focused at the time on the challenge posed by John Edwards, was blindsided.

But first he would have to get past the woman whose advice he solicited, then spurned.

In mid-December, after a successful trip to New Hampshire and a surprise appearance on Monday Night Football, Obama met former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, once a presidential hopeful himself, for dinner at Tosca, one of Daschle's favorite Washington restaurants, and had what Daschle describes as a four-hour "heart-to-heart." Daschle's message was clear: "Don't think that you're going to have another opportunity in 2012 and 2016," he told Obama. "You might. But-like me-you might not."

One of the mysteries of this presidential cycle is how the Clinton operation, with its vaunted foresight, failed to see Obama coming.

MM, it is probably time to find out too if it is her campaign that is spreading rumors of Obama being a Muslim.