The Billary Road to Republican Victory
In the wake of George W. Bush, even a miracle might not be enough for the Republicans to hold on to the White House in 2008. But what about two miracles? The new year’s twin resurrections of Bill Clinton and John McCain, should they not evaporate, at last give the G.O.P. a highly plausible route to victory.
Amazingly, neither party seems to fully recognize the contours of the road map. In the Democrats’ case, the full-throttle emergence of Billary, the joint Clinton candidacy, is measured mainly within the narrow confines of the short-term horse race: Do Bill Clinton’s red-faced eruptions and fact-challenged rants enhance or diminish his wife as a woman and a candidate?
Absent from this debate is any sober recognition that a Hillary Clinton nomination, if it happens, will send the Democrats into the general election with a new and huge peril that may well dwarf the current wars over race, gender and who said what about Ronald Reagan.
What has gone unspoken is this: Up until this moment, Hillary has successfully deflected rough questions about Bill by saying, “I’m running on my own” or, as she snapped at Barack Obama in the last debate, “Well, I’m here; he’s not.” This sleight of hand became officially inoperative once her husband became a co-candidate, even to the point of taking over entirely when she vacated South Carolina last week. With “two for the price of one” back as the unabashed modus operandi, both Clintons are in play.
For the Republicans, that means not just a double dose of the one steroid, Clinton hatred, that might yet restore their party’s unity but also two fat targets. Mrs. Clinton repeatedly talks of how she’s been “vetted” and that “there are no surprises” left to be mined by her opponents. On the “Today” show Friday, she joked that the Republican attacks “are just so old.” So far. Now that Mr. Clinton is ubiquitous, not only is his past back on the table but his post-presidency must be vetted as well. To get a taste of what surprises may be in store, you need merely revisit the Bill Clinton questions that Hillary Clinton has avoided to date.
Asked by Tim Russert at a September debate whether the Clinton presidential library and foundation would disclose the identities of its donors during the campaign, Mrs. Clinton said it wasn’t up to her. “What’s your recommendation?” Mr. Russert countered. Mrs. Clinton replied: “Well, I don’t talk about my private conversations with my husband, but I’m sure he’d be happy to consider that.”
Not so happy, as it turns out. The names still have not been made public.
Just before the holidays, investigative reporters at both The Washington Post and The New York Times tried to find out why, with no help from the Clintons. The Post uncovered a plethora of foreign contributors, led by Saudi Arabia. The Times found an overlap between library benefactors and Hillary Clinton campaign donors, some of whom might have an agenda with a new Clinton administration. (Much as one early library supporter, Marc Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, had an agenda with the last one.) “The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,” said Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat whose legislation to force disclosure passed overwhelmingly in the House but remains stalled in the Senate.
The Post and Times reporters couldn’t unlock all the secrets. The unanswered questions could keep them and their competitors busy until Nov. 4. Mr. Clinton’s increased centrality to the campaign will also give The Wall Street Journal a greater news peg to continue its reportorial forays into the unraveling financial partnership between Mr. Clinton and the swashbuckling billionaire Ron Burkle.
At “Little Rock’s Fort Knox,” as the Clinton library has been nicknamed by frustrated researchers, it’s not merely the heavy-hitting contributors who are under wraps. Even by the glacial processing standards of the National Archives, the Clintons’ White House papers have emerged slowly, in part because Bill Clinton exercised his right to insist that all communications between him and his wife be “considered for withholding” until 2012.
When Mrs. Clinton was asked by Mr. Russert at an October debate if she would lift that restriction, she again escaped by passing the buck to her husband: “Well, that’s not my decision to make.” Well, if her candidacy is to be as completely vetted as she guarantees, the time for the other half of Billary to make that decision is here.
The credibility of a major Clinton campaign plank, health care, depends on it. In that same debate, Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Russert that “all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care” are “already available.” As Michael Isikoff of Newsweek reported weeks later, this is a bit off; he found that 3,022,030 health care documents were still held hostage. Whatever the pace of the processing, the gatekeeper charged with approving each document’s release is the longtime Clinton loyalist Bruce Lindsey.
People don’t change. Bill Clinton, having always lived on the edge, is back on the precipice. When he repeatedly complains that the press has given Mr. Obama a free ride and over-investigated the Clintons, he seems to be tempting the fates, given all the reporting still to be done on his post-presidential business. When he says, as he did on Monday, that “whatever I do should be totally transparent,” it’s almost as if he’s setting himself up for a fall. There’s little more transparency at “Little Rock’s Fort Knox” than there is at Giuliani Partners.
“The Republicans are not going to have any compunctions about asking anybody anything,” Mrs. Clinton lectured Mr. Obama. Maybe so, but Republicans are smart enough not to start asking until after she has secured the nomination.
Not all Republicans are smart enough, however, to recognize the value of John McCain should Mrs. Clinton emerge as the nominee. He’s a bazooka aimed at most every rationale she’s offered for her candidacy.
In a McCain vs. Billary race, the Democrats will sacrifice the most highly desired commodity by the entire electorate, change; the party will be mired in déjà 1990s all over again. Mrs. Clinton’s spiel about being “tested” by her “35 years of experience” won’t fly either. The moment she attempts it, Mr. McCain will run an ad about how he was being tested when those 35 years began, in 1973. It was that spring when he emerged from five-plus years of incarceration at the Hanoi Hilton while Billary was still bivouacked at Yale Law School. And can Mrs. Clinton presume to sell herself as best equipped to be commander in chief “on Day One” when opposing an actual commander and war hero? I don’t think so.
Foreign policy issue No. 1, withdrawal from Iraq, should be a slam-dunk for any Democrat. Even the audience at Thursday’s G.O.P. debate in Boca Raton cheered Ron Paul’s antiwar sentiments. But Mrs. Clinton’s case is undermined by her record. She voted for the war, just as Mr. McCain did, in 2002 and was still defending it in February 2005, when she announced from the Green Zone that much of Iraq was “functioning quite well. ” Only in November 2005 did she express the serious misgivings long pervasive in her own party. When Mr. McCain accuses her of now advocating “surrender” out of political expediency, her flip-flopping will back him up.
Billary can’t even run against the vast right-wing conspiracy if Mr. McCain is the opponent. Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay hate Mr. McCain as much as they hate the Clintons. And they hate him for the same reasons Mr. McCain wins over independents and occasional Democrats: his sporadic (and often mild) departures from conservative orthodoxy on immigration and campaign finance reform, torture, tax cuts, climate change and the godliness of Pat Robertson. Since Mr. McCain doesn’t kick reporters like dogs, as the Clintons do, he will no doubt continue to enjoy an advantage, however unfair, with the press pack on the Straight Talk Express.
Even so, Mr. McCain hasn’t yet won a clear majority of Republican voters in any G.O.P. contest. He’s depended on the kindness of independent voters. Tuesday’s Florida primary, which is open exclusively to Republicans, is his crucial test. If he fails, his party remains in chaos and Mitt Romney could still inherit the earth.
That would be a miracle for the Democrats, but they can hardly count on it. If Mr. Obama has not met an unexpected Waterloo in South Carolina - this column went to press before Saturday’s vote - the party needs him to stop whining about the Clintons’ attacks, regain his wit and return to playing offense. Unlike Mrs. Clinton, he would unambiguously represent change in a race with any Republican. If he vanquishes Billary, he’ll have an even stronger argument to take into battle against a warrior like Mr. McCain.
If Mr. Obama doesn’t fight, no one else will. Few national Democratic leaders have the courage to stand up to the Clintons. Even in defeat, Mr. Obama may at least help wake up a party slipping into denial. Any Democrat who seriously thinks that Bill will fade away if Hillary wins the nomination - let alone that the Clintons will escape being fully vetted - is a Democrat who, as the man said, believes in fairy tales.
Frank Rich is a regular columnist for The New York Times.
© 2008 The New York Times
Bill will be back in business, and with Hillary engaged in commanding the army and navy, he’ll be able to devote all his time and energy to making pretty girls happy. It will be high times for paparazzi.
Same $#!^, different face. It’s been the same from Reagan to Bush to Clinton to Bush. Same $#!^, different face.
Is it so easy to forget how bad the first 8 Clinton years were? Do we forget the way they just continued the Republican agenda, and even shoved bits of it through that the Republicans couldn’t pass on their own? If so, read this … http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/26/6641/
When we see massive telecoms breaking the law by spying on us, and that want to block and control the content on the internet, say thanks to the Clinton’s Telecom act of 1996. When you see the sub-prime banking crisis sending our economy into collapse, say thanks to the Clintons keeping Alan Greenspan at the Fed and for repealing the old depression reforms that were Glass-Steagal. The list goes on and on and on.
If you like Republican rule, vote Democrat. Same $#!^, but they put a new and different face on it. Same $#!^, but they try to deorderize it with lots of talk about ‘hope’ and ‘change’. But its still the same $#!^.
Who are Billary’s Friends..Lieberman, McCain, Bush Sr., The Board of Walfart? Just to name a few. Dont politicians reward their loyal friends whence they secure The Office?
Yes, Clinton, Bill, is setting himself up to get scrutinized and skewered. This is one leopard who’s spots are unmistakeable. The ghosts of his Presidential Pardons will for sure re-visit him, among other “things” He is reminding me of King Midas and his love of gold. And his shock when he realizes everything he touched, while it turned to gold, also killed the one thing he truly loved the most.
Which leeads us to Billary v McCain
Oh Lordy, Not one red-faced, white haired man against another!
Obama-Edwards is the only ticket that I dare to hope for.
I believe an OE Administration would have Kucinich and Paul annd Barbara Lee and others in places of importance.
For the sake of our freedoms, our economic well being, and that of the world at large, the stranglehold Mr. and Mrs. Clinton have on American politics needs to be released.
I have a bad feeling that Romney is going to be the next president.
Why do I think that?
He now has Liz Cheney on his team. that means ALL of the Cheney family money and power:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080127/ap_on_el_pr/romney_cheney
His terrorism adviser is Blackwater’s Cofer Black:
http://www.mittromney.com/News/Press-Releases/Cofer_Black_Joins_Romney_Campaign
Blackwater has way too much invested in the Regressive’s war machine to allow the election to go any other way
Mormonism is too kooky. The Clintons would go overboard attacking mormonism for its polygamist ties and other strangeness. I think evangelists would rather have a McCain than someone who espouses an alien version of christianity.
If it was Romney vs Clinton and there was an attack, it would benefit Clinton because of Bill.
Not Romney. If it was Mccain it would benefit him not Billary.
Democratic leaders have no more courage to stand up to the Republicans than they do to the Clintons.
Frank Rich is a coward. And he writes like a coward. The Clinton’s had the second term of their administration totally disabled by the right wing attack machine and the phony impeachment.
They feel as though they have unfinished business, and I can understand that.
Rich was a coward during the 2000 Presidential election when Al Gore was being attacked for all kinds of phony things. In fact, Rich went along with some of them.
You will never see Frank Rich writing about the Bush sex scandals, namely Tammy Phillips, the Austin exotic dancer who came out in 1999 and said that she had a sexual affair with George W Bush while he was governor of Texas.
Or Margie Schoedinger, who filed a rape and sexual harrassment lawsuit against George W Bush in Ft Bend County Texas on Dec. 2, 2002. Nine (9) months later, she committed suicide.
Or, as Randi Rhodes told Brian Lamb on CSPAN that Laura Bush had moved out of the Whitehouse temporarily and into the Mayflower Hotel because of problems she had with George.
Frank Rich is too much of a coward to write about that. All he’ll do is attack the Clintons.
MisoPretty: You’re right…Romney is definitely being set up by the Repug country club fascist oligarchy to succeed Bush. Did you see the video of Romney with George H W Bush at the Bush Library a couple of months ago? They were totally buddy buddy. Romney is just the sort of smooth front man the oligarchy thinks it needs now to try to pull the wool back over the electorate’s eyes. That wool has gradually fallen away during the Bush years due to the obvious mendacity, incompetence and criminality of that regime. There was no subtlety, no clever conceiling with bulls-in-china-shop like Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz et al. So now the oligarchy wants a smooth person with a mild outer demeanor but who is a shark under his skin, and Romney is there man.
MisoPretty: You’re right…Romney is definitely being set up by the Repug country club oligarchy to succeed Bush. Did you see the video of Romney with George H W Bush at the Bush Library a couple of months ago? They were totally buddy buddy. Romney is just the sort of smooth front man the oligarchy thinks it needs now to try to pull the wool back over the electorate’s eyes. That wool has gradually fallen away during the Bush years due to the obvious mendacity and incompetence of that regime. There was no subtlety, no clever conceiling with bulls-in-china-shop like Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz et al. So now the oligarchy wants a smooth person with a mild outer demeanor but who is a shark under his skin, and Romney is their man.
I consider myself a leftist radical, and I would vote for McCain before Clinton … simply because he’s more honest about the corruption of the system. Obama, on the other hand, has just a few other stands which recommend him over any of the current crop.
If it is Clinton vs. Romney …..
If it is Obama vs. Huckabee ….
If it is Clinton vs. McCain ….
Now why is EVERYBODY suddenly triangulating ?
There is one clear answer to any combination of two presidential candidates that you both don’t like (which is most likely, since they are going to be both from one of the two Corporatist parties), and her name is:
CYNTHIA MCKINNEY !!
Forget about ‘being a spoiler’. At least this is a clear way to communicate that you don’t buy into that Republican/Democrat stuff anymore and still call it a credible ‘democracy’. It is a noble thing to ’spoil’ things for corporate lackeys.
“Do Bill Clinton’s red-faced eruptions and fact-challenged rants enhance or diminish his wife as a woman and a candidate”
In my estimation, yes to both. It also, if Mrs. Clinton is the Democratic Nominee, puts the next 4 years of our lives in the hands of the Republicans. CRIPES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mr. Rich, given the fact that Hillary is the candidate this time around, I believe the correct compound moniker for the Clintons would be Hillbilly. (And Camps Clinton and Obama — but especially Camp Clinton, in my opinion — sure are feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys.)
geez, if these writers are so against a Clinton presidency, why don’t they give some column space to the alternatives? Yes, there’s more than one alternative than Obama, who is Clinton in a different color. Wishing that the MSM would talk about Edwards is spitting into the wind, I guess.
Also, I know Bill has the gravitas of ex-presidency, but complaining about him campaigning for Hillary when all other candidates’ spouses and children are also campaigning is hypocritical.
If Frank Rich had any balls he would point out the reality that the only Democratic Candidate still in the race, who could beat any Republican is John Edwards. I think Frank is just another fascist enabler trying to get the Dim wits to nominate the only sure thing the Repugs have, Barack Husein Obama.
It’s interesting how the MSM always frames the issue of candidates always having to heed caution with regard to Repugs. It’s always, be careful not to piss the Repugs off and risk uniting them or be careful not to scare Repugs from “crossing over.” It’s bullshit! Repugs have ruined this country! I for one am not at all worried about what Repugs think. And as for mindless “independents,” if you have watched this country spiral downward for the last seven years and are still not entirely convinced that Repugs are completely corrupt, devoid of conscience, and intent of destroying people in favor of profit, you’re a complete idiot and idiots deserve Repug leaders. So, Mr. Rich, with all due respect, quit trying to scare us into thinking we have anything left to lose. Freedom’s just another word, after all.
The press is happily waiting for another scandal to keep their sleezy papers and magazines flowing, so I expect they will turn their attention lovingly to the Clintons. Does one think having the Clintons at the White HOuse again will bar them from scandal? Bill is full of surprises and his wife should have abandoned him when he embarassed her with his disgusting exploits. I can see it now, another sex scandal looming ahead so that imporant issues like health care and iraq and Veteran care is placed on the back burner. The tabloids are anxious.
Much as I admire Edwards he is not popular enough with the Democratic voters to win their nomination. I would hope that an Obama win would find him and Kucinich playing an important part in an Obama administration. I know that their views will at least be given a hearing. The Clinton’s, historically, have more in common with the Bush agenda, than they have with either Edwards or Kucinich.
Let’s get behind a candidate who is winning!
Arab money to Hillary? What about the developing scandal about Billary and his foray into Dubai Ports?
His consultant Fee of $1,000,000 from Dubai Ports when they tried to aquire our Eastern Ports with President Bush promoting the deal, along with the
Carlyle Group, the Bush Family Corporation that the Main St Press will not touch. When it became the style in Congress to appose this deal, Hillary like a two faced Clown decided against the deal as a threat to our country. The Bill Clinton investment in Dubai that he is now claiming that Dubai owes him some $20,000,000 needs to be explained in detail by Hillary. Just simply more Arab Money in the Clintons pockets. This issue does not take into account the tens of millionns that The Arabs have donated to the Clinton Library where the Secrets are kept..
This is an issue that should be developed in the context of a debate where Hillary cannot hide.
Although I agree that Frank Rich is a coward, I think he’s exactly right about the Repugs winning in November if Hillary Clinton is the nominee. Too many Democrats, Independents and Progressives hate her. Add all of them to the Repugs that despise her, and she doesn’t have a chance in Hell of winning the general election, no matter what dirty campaign tricks she and her slippery husband come up with.
There is no doubt in my mind that Clinton will be the Democratic nominee, in which case I’ll vote Green Party or not at all. To me, McCain and Hillary aren’t that different, and we’re screwed either way.
If Obama were the nominee, I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t know if I could bring myself to vote for him. The following video clip made me dislike him:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/26/democratic-candidate-debate-obama-kucinich-and-gravel-talk-iran/
Not only was he wrong; I thought he was condescending and overly confident.
But this is all moot, because Clinton is going to be the nominee, God help us all.
jeanne daykin - There will be no Obama administration in 2008. He can not win the general election. The Repugs can run any fascist loony they like and easily beat him.
John Edwards is the only sure thing the Dims have and they are to stupid to see it. Leave it to the Dims to blow an easy win.
Edwards (VP?) and Kucinich in an Obama administration? I like that idea …. I don’t think Hillary would.
I’m finaly tending towards Obama, its impossible to believe that Hillary represents change, her vaunted experience is with maintianing the staus quo. Speaking of triangulation, she will get no crossover votes from Repug voters, quite the opposite…Obama will.
and I’m also rooting for Ron Paul, although there is much there that I don’t agree with, he is believable…It might be time for all good Independents to flood the Repug primaries with votes for an honest politcian.
But in the end, I will vote Dem…and if we want progressive change we must work hard to assure a Democrat Sweep this election. The Repugs have become very practised at the filibuster. We will need to be able to break their grip when they try to stop progressive legislation.
There is reason to question whether the present administration intends to give up power in 2008. There will be elections alright, but after the elections somehow wouldn’t it be a surprise if Cheney and crew are still running America. On the hypothesis that this is the agenda the following predictions follow: (a) the Republican candidate will not be McCain or Huckabee; (b) it is irrelevant who the Democratic nominee is because the Democrat will not win; (c) the mechanism of continuity of the present administration post-2008 may be through the office of vice-president, on analogy of the present VP being unelected directly but the real power in the White House.
On “b”, if the Democrats nominate Hillary, then a Republican scorched-earth smear campaign emphasizing Hillary’s already-existing negatives combined with weak support among the left wing of the Democratic base would accomplish the Republican victory through existing electoral structures. Hillary would be the preferred Democratic nominee, from the point of view of partisans of the current administration, in this scenario.
But Obama is almost an even shot to win the Democratic nomination at this point, helped even today with the not-insignificant endorsement of the respected party tribune, Ted Kennedy. Obama is exciting young people, would excite nearly all of the Democratic base (unlike Hillary), bears promise of turning out millions of new voters, and has proven appeal to independents and midwestern whites, including Republicans. Despite the expected Republican smear campaign the Obama momentum could easily continue to surge toward overwhelming victory in the general election. Meaning Plan B, the rigged election (of which there has been some prior practice).
This time, if there is an election which the Democrat, say Obama, is popularly believed to have won but which officially is reported as “lost”, then it should not be accepted lying down as in 2000 and in Ohio 2004. Doesn’t matter if the Supreme Court upholds it. There is one thing that no law of the land yet prohibits, and that is a massive call, from influential figures and organizations and supported by mass symbolic actions, for the illegitimate winning team to “RESIGN!” That should be our Plan B.
The Democratic party road to Republican victory. Thats how the bad guys got voted into office the last 2 times, by dividing the Dems. Maybe we are on to something here. If the bad guys are winning elections because the Dems are so diverse and Republicans are NOT diverse, maybe we can save our country by forming more political parties.
Do you think it’s worth saving? OK, now tell me how we can convince the FEC to allow other ideas to take place, by allowing more political parties. The sticky part of this whole thing is that both political parties don’t want new parties to form. The people IN those parties don’t want the competition that multi-party elections would bring.
I’m depressed because we don’t seem to be able to do anything about getting rid of people that most people don’t want around. We need to figure out how to shame them into resigning or figure out a way to recall people who are ripping us off.
Nice to see Clinton Derangement Syndrome hasn’t died down any. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy is manna from heaven for Beltway hacks. But I don’t think even they can lose it for her.
OBAMA IS A BAIT
by: Farhat Maghami
Democrats’ problem starts from the fact that they have no electable candidate except Edwards, who has neither the money nor the votes!! Chosing between an unelectable Obama and a Republican Idol like Clinton, while they destroy whatever is left of the Democratic Party is a pitty.
Nominations are done by the candidates you have not the ideals you desire!
Unfortunately Democrats have no other candidate on the arena!
I am afraid that Republicans have a Fiesta in seeing the legacy of the great Clinton years, no matters how they did it and no matter who supported them,completely destroyed by their Gladiator Obama. Indeed, Obama is destroying what Republicans could not destroy: The Clinton Legacy!
Obama: The Republican Bait that destroyed Clintons
America is a one party system in which the Republican Party members are focused and follow the party line follow the strict party line of defending the ideology of economic and military domination of the world in defense of the ruling elite. Democrats have always been the confused Majority!In every election Republicans follow and strategy to break the fragile unity of the hodgepodge lose alliance of interest groups that is called the Democratic Party.
The Republicans can only win by breaking this “lose alliance” by any means. They have done it in the past: support for Ralf Nader to win in Florida, Cheating in counting the vote, and the best of all sending a Bait to divide Democrats. Obama is :the Republican bait and there would be blood and bruises and the Brocken Unity of Democrats which would help McCain or Romney to win. There is no difference policy wise between Obama and Hillary!!
Clintons know this fact and by swinging to the right and appealing to the moderate miraculously won two elections and in every aspect put America in the right path of progress and respect while dominating the world.
Why democrats don’t get it? No Candidate of the left, or anyone belonging to a minority group has ever made it in an American Election (Kennedy won because he was rich first and Catholic second. He was not considered a threat to the American system and when he was he was assassinated. But Obama is not Jack Kennedy!
Obama is not elect-table in the American heartland and the support of Kennedy’s for him would be another nail in Democratic Party’s chances of winning the next election. With democrats divided, and Clintons in disarray there seems Republicans are the only winners. Just like in the past a minority party of organized true believers has been successful to fool the disorganized Democrats that they should vote with their liberal hearts rather than a strategy to win the presidency and get the vote of over 100,000,000 of voting white moderate Americans.
NO Democratic candidate has committed themselves to protect jobs here or make capital investment to stop job going to India and China , reducing balance of trade deficits, the War Middle Class.
Borrowing 150 billion from China to buy Chinese product is not to cure for the bankrupt US economy. that unfortunately is not addressed by any candidate.
Maybe as a way out of this Dillema Clinton should declare that she would pick Obama as her Vice Presidentor vice versa!
Clinton was not impeached for his real crimes such as the destruction of the Fourth Amendment and enthusiastic enhancement of police powers, or his bombing of the ha-ha ‘poison gas’ factory, or the bombing of Iraqi sites every day of his presidency, but for the infractions that could appall the religious Reich’s sexual sensitivities, rather than those that originated in lobbying, influence peddling and the rest.
Sixteen years ago, the Democratic Party was more progressive than it became over the two terms of Clinton Loyalism; two Bush administrations have wiped out those recollections, but a Clinton II candidacy would be a catastrophe of equal proportions to the first one.
Mr Rich spouts the same silly ideological line that his bosses at the New York Times support as friends of the Bush Administration. The tired old rehashed Reaganesque tirade over President Carter’s moderate, liberal position is echoed here in Mr. Rich’s fears of possible Clinton ‘dynasty’ in the White House.
Really, you Obama supporters are unbelievably misinformed.
I am a Black male, and I know the Right Wing. If Obama wins the nomination, Karl Rove and company will hit the rural white areas and Willie Horton will be an understatement on what they will do.
Rove, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc. will be telling all of those whites using coded language: “Do you want to hear Rap Music in the Whitehouse? — or, do you want a President with a Muslim name?”
Given Obama’s first and middle name, they will EAT HIM ALIVE.
I can’t believe you people are so fuzzy in the brain.
You people must be kidding. In truth, only Hillary and Bill can beat the right wing. They’ve done it twice with the presidency, and Hillary’s done it twice in the Senate.
If you numbskulls continue to buy into the right wing - corporate media propaganda that “Hillary can’t win” you are just falling prey to what they want you to think.
For the guy saying he’ll vote Green Party if Hillary wins, that’s the attitude that put George W Bush in the White House. If it wasn’t for Ralph Nader in 2000 (and of course, some crooked vote counting), Al Gore would be our President today and we wouldn’t be living in Hell!
Gee — what’s wrong with you Liberals? Are you out of your cotton-pickin’ minds???????????????
It never ceases to amaze me how the MSM define the parameters of discourse and people like Frank Rich anoint Ms. Clinton and Mr. McCain as the candidates before any important primaries have even been held. Watching the Punch and Judy shows called “debates” makes everything glaringly obvious. Anyone who doesn’t go along with the strict corporatist line is immediately marginalized and shut out of the conversation. Only the “real” candidates (chosen and funded by the fascist hierarchy)are paid any attention and given free rein to hit each other on the head with foam rubber baseball bats while they chant, “I stand for change! I stand for you!” in their otherwise issueless speeches. Well, I could go on and on but what’s the point? As Mencken so eloquently said: “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
Visualize Post-Clintonian Politics
Obama 2008
comelbox11, you are correct to argue that an Obama nomination will occasion nasty race-baiting. I’ve already seen one inept smear campaign against him that uses CAPITAL LETTERS to emphasize scary terms like HUSSEIN and ATHEIST.
You are incorrect to argue that voting Green put Bush in the White House. Electoral fraud did that, along with Democratic acquiescence.
As you continue to call other people numbskulls and “fuzzy in the brain” while exposing your own mediocre reasoning, please enjoy voting for the pro-war candidate of your choice. I won’t be joining you.
As I read it, Frank Rich’s main point: IF McCain is the Repub nominee and IF Clinton is the Dem, she will have an impossible time beating him in the general election, particularly given her entanglement with Bill.
To me, it’s an important point well worth discussing and Rich is spot on. But look over the posts here, and how many posters even address the main point? Two? Maybe three? What’s up with that?
cornelbox11, there are structural problems to the US economy that have been created over decades, backed by an outdated and an ideologically rigid (as rigid as any ruling class group in the world) economic and social philosophy. Bush has been a disaster, no one would deny that. However, if you ask me, all he has done is speed up the inevitable, the US’ economic collapse. The US public is who the blame lies with. You give politicians power over your life because they’re supposed to make your life better. You don’t give them power over your life for the sake of the system. Too many people have benefited from what amounts to decades of US imperialism. They’ve voted for politicians who’ve done immoral things, like taking out governments and forcing economic systems on countries that didn’t want it, and turned their head, pretending they didn’t know it was happening. They stood back and allowed their country to become militarized and to depend economically on war, and military industry, simply because it provided a paycheck. Now that the house of cards is crumbling everyone wants to pretend like they were surprised and weren’t aware of what was going on. About the only positive I see is that the collapse might force people (like it did in Argentina in 2001) to do what they should have been doing all along, forcing them to work on fostering democracy and bottom up participation in decision making. One thing I’d like to see emerge, but am not holding my breath because there is no mass movement calling for it, is to create a fourth branch of government. People claim that there are checks and balances in the US government but that isn’t true. The elites in government check themselves but who checks the elites collectively? It would be nice to take away their power and to give it to the people directly, like we’re seeing in places like Venezuela. The ability of people to vote on laws created by elites, national referendums on candidates at all times, more participation in decision making, etc. I don’t expect it to happen any time soon but it would be nice.
WmC, I think that many people on the left are disappointed in the end results of this primary campaign, and had some unrealistic expectations from the beginning (like believing the leaders of the Democratic Party wanted the same changes they did and could carry out that change “from above” with no mass participation in decision making). The polls show that the public is on board with the traditional left on many issues, and have been for years, and yet the nominees are people who almost assuredly won’t bring about much if any needed change. To think that the Republicans, with their recent record in power, are in a position to potentially win the presidency says a lot about the elites running the Democratic Party. Two things stick out to me: 1. The elites running the Democratic Party either don’t care about the change that is needed or don’t want that change to happen. 2. As a result of them being so isolated from the general public, only working within the DC elite bubble, they have no clue what the mood of the country is and what policies they’d like to see implemented.
serious professor - I’m probably an equal, if not more, of a progressive than you.
I love Obama. I think he is great. But in truth, I think if he he nominated as the Dems Presidential candidate the same thing will happen to him, that happened to Harold Ford Jr.
Don’t underestimate the Right Wing.
They want Obama. He’s a sensitive and honorable man. They will break him down - shatter his heart. The right wing is brutal.
As for RAlph Nader, didn’t he get over 200,000 votes in Florida in 2000? And didn’t Bush steal the election in Florida with less than 500 votes?
Professor, where is your logic?
Grant, very good points
With the advantage of writing this comment today, 1/28, the day Ted Kennedy and his son and niece stood up to the Clintons, I say let the fight begin!
cornelbox, I hear your take on how the right wing would eat Obama alive over race and his name, but I don’t think those smears need to play out as you say. The Obama campaign has been run very intelligently up to this point, hardly missing a move. The white racist/ Islamophobe type smears won’t gain traction outside of racist circles which wouldn’t vote for him anyway. Obama generates an enormous reservoir of goodwill reaching beyond Democrats. His platform and agenda as spelled out on his website are basic Democratic Party positions, but his rhetoric is visionary and inspiring across about all sectors of America with the exception of hardcore racists. The smears on Obama being a covert Muslim or mocking his name will, if the Obama campaign handles it right, be counterproductive in resulting in a sympathy bounce from mainstream America. When JFK ran in 1960 there were vicious smears that the US would be ruled by the Vatican, etc. Who better to break the color barrier than Obama? What better time? This is the opportunity. The Democrats have the votes this time. If Obama is nominated he will have all Democrats behind him and more, including even some grassroots evangelical-Republican votes against the wishes of their venal leaders. I think Obama would win by a landslide.
I agree with Scroller.
The Regressives are going to “win” this election too. they have far too much too lose.