Yeah, I don’t really agree with that criticism of her, either. I saw an interview Bill did (it may have been on the Daily Show??) where he said they went through months of marriage counseling, and not just hour-long sessions, but all-day sessions. I think they worked really hard at repairing the damage that his infidelity caused. And like you, I really don’t feel qualified to judge her marriage. Her politics on the other hand. . .
Whoop de doo…
Okaaaaaay.
One thing I’d like to address is the whole issue of ‘experience’ that the Clinton campaign is trying to make their touchstone, now. (Or so it seems - a caveat here, I’m a NYS voter, and a registered Independent: as such I could not vote in the primaries here without joining a political party, and I refuse to do that. Because of this background I’ve only paid marginal attention to either party’s primary process. I have some interest, but no dog in this fight, really.)
To my mind, the biggest single campaign promise Hillary made when she ran for the Senate, here in NYS, was to use the Federal gov’t to jumpstart the upstate economy. She even promised to add 200,000 jobs to the economy. And it hasn’t happened. There are a number of excellent reasons why it hasn’t happened, and it’s certainly not all Sen. Clinton’s fault. Exapno Mapcase has written a couple of excellent posts on the Dope to explain a lot of the reasons for why the upstate NY economy is in trouble. And one of his recurring points is that until/unless a new industry comes to fill the void of the various local industries that have been moved from the area and even off shore, nothing the government can do is going to be sufficient to prevent the local economy from leaking jobs.
And I believe that HRC is smart enough, and well-enough educated, to know that.
So, why did she make the promise? Because it was what she needed to say to get elected. Even if she knew it were an impossible promise to keep.
And that’s the sense I have of her, even now, as a politician - she will keep saying what she feels she needs to say to get elected, rather than to take a stand for anything she believes in.
Phlosphr, who said or implied that Obama deserves criticism but Clinton doesn’t. This isn’t an either or choice between Obama bashing or Clinton bashing. I voted for Obama and hope he is our next president. This is about mob mentality Clinton bashing that reeks of misogyny. I made my assertion and supported it. Obviously, most posters choose to dismiss the idea that Clinton’s gender has anything to do with the bash fest and believe the press has treated her like any other politician. Okay! There it is - Bob’s your Uncle. Beam me up, Scotty!
Why don’t you ask them? Or at least point to an example of the thing that puzzles you?
I’ve even been told by women that there are women who simply won’t vote for a woman. I don’t understand that at all, any more than you do.
I agree. Yeah, her voice is grating and she comes off as being smug and arrogant. But at the root of her problems is that she gives off a vibe of insincerity. Perhaps this vibe wouldn’t be so apparent if she was running against someone else. But she’s running against the one person who has patented the art of looking sincere.
I suppose I was wondering what about him makes him unlikable? Some people won’t like him because of his skin tone, some because of his age, but what else?
As for Clinton - she’s got some support from diehard fans, but I don’t think her base has the girth of Obama’s and I think that’s what will ultimately win him the nomination.
Hell, it makes me uncomfortable to make the judgment, but there it is.
It’s not the cheating, it’s who was doing the cheating – a state Governor, a President. Bill’s a charismatic good-looking guy – he’d attract women even if he wasn’t in a position of power. But some of those women were attracted to the power and he used it and she accepted it. I think that’s repulsive.
I’d say it’s a combination of:
(1) she started with a lead in name recognition and fund raising that took a while to piss away
(2) her campaign didn’t start seriously going south until post-Super Tuesday, when she expected to have the nomination sewn up and didn’t have a plan for what to do when it wasn’t
(3) since few, if any, Democratic contests are winner take all, there’s only so far Obama can pull away even while racking up 11 straight victories
(4) she started with a lead in the pledged super-delegates that kept her close in the overall delegate total
Honestly, between all that Tom Golisano does for the region and the large number of colleges we have up here (which produce some seriously talented people), “increase jobs in upstate” should have been a gimme.
Although the fact that it hasn’t happened doesn’t surprise me.
- examines waistline *
:eek:
Couldn’t you have picked another term for what you mean here?
I’ve been told several times that many women voted for JFK because he was “handsome.” I think the motive for both is this: a lot of people vote for shallow and/or thoughtless reasons, and some of these voters are women.
Did I miss a post, or has no one brought up one of the biggest reasons I wouldn’t vote for her? I fear that the “wow, it’ll be great to have Bill back in the white house!” crowd are not delusional. With the way Bill was so forcefully campaigning for a while there, it reeked of a way to subvert term limits. I am 99.98% sure that Bill would play a major role in many if not all of the issues she’d handle as president, and I don’t want to see that happen. We don’t need a second, unofficial, vice president pushing for his way from behind. I can’t be alone in this.
I think the major problem has indeed been that Clinton keeps coming across as calculating and doing everything by poll numbers. That, along with the arrogance and other problems that have been mentioned throughout this thread. It doesn’t help that at times the following appears to sum up her policy positions fairly well: “I am Clin-Ton. As overlord, all will kneel trembling before me and obey my brutal commands. End communication.”
Kinda thought I did there. Aside from not saying she’s a bad person in response to your post, I mentioned that she had a huge lead and has now lost it. She has lost momentum while Obama has gained it. That would be why her results are the same as a result of her bad candidacy. To start with such a huge lead and to lose it? Bad campaign. A halfway decent campaign wouldn’t find itself in the position it is in now.
Does that (re)answer your question?
You’ve already forgotten “boxers or briefs?”
well, she did tear up just before the N.H. primary…
Question for the original poster:
Do you notice that the asked question implied, by use of “in trouble,” that Clinton should be in a better position?
Why can’t Obama be seen as a better candidate by the core Democratic party?
I haven’t seen this discussed, and have not followed the thread. But I think quite a few miss that the 2000-2008 period has been marked by a “fundamentalist” upswing in the Democratic party, much like the fundamentalist upswing of the Republican party of the 80s and 90s- which mainly had Republican Presidents but a Dem Congress. Frankly, HRC is more central than Obama overall politically, and Obama’s looking like he’ll get the nod. This same phenomena saw Kerry-Edwards selected in '04, in my experience, whereas Bush only got his nods by including Cheney, who was seen by the fundamentalists on the right as “their man” in the White House. Bush- many seem to forget- billed himself as the centrist Republican and appealed to the American moderate in his campaigns.
So, why is Clinton in trouble? Well, why is it trouble, when she’s simply not winning? I’d also say she’s not winning because Obama appeals more to the dedicated left than she does, and it’s a party primary election. She might do better in a general election (we lack the data to conclude), but not a popularity contest among what is effectively the political left, barring many moderates.
Hush. Stop trying to prove that people ask rude questions to candidates of both genders. Everyone hates Hillary because she’s a WOMAN. The sooner you accept that, the sooner we can all sleep sounder at night, worry-free from the threat of terrorists phoning the White House at 3:00AM.
The Los Angeles Times gave yet another accounting of how Hillary fucked up her own campaign with incompetence in this morning’s National News section.
I honestly don’t know how any of her supporters can claim she would make a good President at all, let alone a better one than Obama, who has been running a brilliant and well-honed campaign. Why they would want to saddle us with this level of utter incompetence, bickering, finger-pointing and blame-gaming is beyond me.
I think we’ve had enough of this kind of shit from Bush for the past 7 years. I beg you, please re-think your position. A Clinton presidency would be a nightmare.
(A) The winner of an election is decided by the actual vote count, not its first derivative, and (B) this campaign has gone on for so long that we’ve just about reached steady state there - and they’re still essentially even.
So why aren’t we reconsidering our premise yet?