Hillery, Obama, Edwards and the Democrates

Apparently, william buckley doesn't think fondly of Edwards' rhetoric and plans. Whooda guessed?
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjZjNDBlMTE2OTA0Mzg4Yjg3MTg1ZDQ2MTNkMGY3MGU=

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Here's a pretty nifty example from the robustly conservative spectator uk (I found it linked at National Review) of right wing narrative made palatable for the 'centrist' or 'open-minded'. Paragraph two is the hook...

Quote:

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 Like Nixon, Clinton has a withdrawn, cool and calculating personality.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

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/400061/republicans-must-heed-the-voters-to-beat-hillary.thtml

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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.

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.

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.

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The December issue of the Atlantic will feature an in-depth report on the history of the relationship between Hillary and Obama, and how it has evolved - or should that be devolved - over time. It's called Teacher and Apprentice; the lead is:

Quote:

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

They have a preview of the article online now at a "temporary" URL "made available to the press". With the excuse that the author, Marc Ambinder, quoted at length from it on his own blog as well, I'll quote some particularly interesting tidbits from it. But do read the full thing - it provides a level of detail I havent yet seen before.

The initial roles defined: teacher and apprentice

Quote:

Obama "gets ideas"

Quote:

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.

Hillary's campaign, late in recognising the danger, is blindsided in anger

Quote:

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.

Obama's summer "gaffes"; the Hillary campaign exploits the media narrative

Quote:

Obama, a candidate torn between ideals and effectiveness

Quote:

The Obama campaign, on the defense, starts getting caught in its contradictions. A purist campaign, frustrated by the media's failure to pick up on Clinton scandals.

Quote:

It's an interesting and, I think, fair story. Fair enough probably to actually confirm each of the readers' suspicions; i.e., it will probably make Sozobe like Obama even more, while it reminded me of what I disliked about him.

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georgeob1 wrote:

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??

No, Blatham was being sarcastic, in the post that led you to ask how he came to dislike Hillary so much. He doesnt have that kind of distaste for the Clintons, he was mimicking others'.

He also likes to talk of himself in the third person, as in his reply you're responding to now...

OK, now that we've got that figured out... :wink:

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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.

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okie wrote:

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.

Fun to be had everywhere.

Now, how about wager fun? Say a grand on the party winning the election? You up for such a wager, okie?

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During this extended pause in our conversation...

Krugman's column today brings up some points I think we have to be honest regarding. I'll post the whole thing...

Quote:

Thoughts?

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I don't know if this is the best place for it, but it kinda-sorta ties in to something I'd been thinking of already...

I've mentioned before that Obama's black and not-black experience reminds me a lot of my own deaf and not-deaf experience. One feature of that is being in situations where one "side" of your identity is demonizing the other "side." That was something that really resonated with me from Obama's first book -- accounts of how he'd talk to his black friends about how white people are not actually always that horrible, much the way that I talk to Deaf friends about how all hearing people are not necessarily horrible. While also being aware of the larger injustices that of course do exist, and recognizing the basis of why these feelings are there. And so at the same time arguing against people from the other "side" -- the ones who say "those Deaf people are just so reactionary and unrealistic," and you say, "Yes, but, you have to understand that they have dealt with prejudice and oppression for much of their lives -- that woman over there, she's not even 50, she had her hands tied behind her back when she was in school to prevent her from signing." Etc.

So you find yourself in this position, often, where you are talking to people who are quite sure they are right -- and are willing to tell you that because you're one of them, fully or partially -- but you see the other side of it. It instills in you a deep distrust of absolutism.

I saw this quote recently, and liked it:

Quote:

Mrs. Vandeventer is a Republican who "is tired" of being a Republican. More from her here:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/the-republicans-in-the-crowd/

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blatham wrote:

Thoughts?

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

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

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

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nimh wrote:

blatham wrote:
Thoughts?

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

Fair enough. Doing a few things here this morning, but you're on my agenda.

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sozobe wrote:

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

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

What d'ya think of it?

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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 pays no attention..... no wonder we've given the country away to a handful of megalomaniacal sociopaths....

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Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

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....

Hitting her below the belt?

Wasnt it her campaign that tried to use something that Obama wrote in the 3rd grade as "proof" that he had long term plans to be President?

Wasnt it her campaign that accused him of possibly being a drug dealer?

Since her campaign brought the attention on themselves, how is it "hitting below the belt" to report on it?

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This strikes me as unfair:

Quote:

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

It casts it as some sort of betrayal. Was it? The circumstances in 2004 and now were very different. An incumbent president was running for re-election.

Did Obama owe something to Hillary because he asked her for advice? Was he supposed to just not run for president because... why, exactly?

This too:

Quote:

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

Spurned? Are such weighted words really necessary?

He thinks he can be a good president. The 2008 presidential election is a unique opportunity.* He had a bunch of people urging him to run. <shrug>

The whole premise here seems weak. Obama went to a lot of people for advice when he became senator. I know that Lieberman had some sort of special role, because that came up when Obama endorsed him in 2006. I think the author is doing a bit of cherry-picking to make the "teacher and apprentice" storyline work, especially the whiff of betrayal.

*This is tucked in later in the article:

Quote:

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."

That's significant.

And another late-breaking observation:

Quote:

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

How's that square with the tone of the whole first couple of pages of the article? And then (finishing up) with the tone of the whole end, saying she's so knowledgeable about all this stuff?

She evidently really DIDN'T get Iowa, Register endorsement notwithstanding. And this article sounds like it was written well before Obama closed the gap... and Edwards, too. Overall it seems too dismissive of Edwards.

So in sum -- I liked parts of it, but overall wasn't that impressed with the article.

(Yes, I'm writing as I read the article.)

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

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and for weeks, nay months before these relatively recent incidents hasn't everyone else on both sides of the political fence and a large chunk of the media been attempting to cut her to shreds on everything from her policies to the size of her calves in a most nasty way?

And then a couple of missteps and all that is forgotten and suddenly she's painted as the lone dirty fighter and bully.

Gimme a f*ckin' break.

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She is going to win the dem nomination IMO and I believe she will be our first woman president.

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okie wrote:

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

I hope it is her campaign spreading those rumors.

Because true or not, it shows that Hillary has a religious bias against the Muslim faith.
And that is definitely not going to help her because it shows that she is a bigot.

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Hillery, Obama, Edwards and the Democrates

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