That’s funny because a lot of Democrats think she is too conservative. I think she could do a good job but her pandering to political expediancy makes me distrust her. I wish Joe Biden could get up the steam to make a real run at the nomination but he is just about the darkest horse in the race.
I’ve heard Vilsack being interviewed a few times he makes an unconvincing candidate to win the Democratic primary. The only thing this fellow has going for him is that he is a good draw for midwestern states. I think he might make a good running mate.
I voted for him in 2000, I would not vote for him in 2008. He let his pride get in the way of letting Clinton stump for him and after he lost, he vanished. I don’t know if the loss broke him but it certanly looked like it might have. These days the job of POTUS comes with the weight of the world, we can’t a fford someone who might break.
A Republican President with a Democratic House and Senate would be acceptable to me.
Well, I would suggest that Clinton did a pretty good job of reducing the national debt.
I wish Joe Biden had more momentum, maybe its too early to be building momentum. He is judicious, he has a ton of foreign policy experience, he is very centrist, he is well respected on both sides of the aisle. If only he were from Texas or Florida.
I will always give Guiliani a shot because of what he did with crime in NYC. With that said, he’s been a total tool about Iraq and supporting Bush. He dropped out of the senate race against hillary because (A) the Hillary campaign revealed that Guiliani was having an affair and (B) he had prostate cancer. If he had run against Hillary, Hillary would have lost.
He is in the pockets of some pretty unsavory trial lawyers.
You read my mind
[QUOTE=PoorYorick]
Someone like George Bush pere, on the other hand, seemed to have great resume, but was someone I considered to be just a bit above average.QUOTE]
I would settle for average after what we have had for the last 6 years. For what its worth, I thought he did a pretty good job, then again Nixon’s been looking pretty good compared to what we have now.
Hrmm, I don’t think it is quite that simple.
What do you mean by “in the pockets,” and what exactly do you suppose he could do for trial lawyers if he were elected? (Hint: Not much. Most of the legislation that affects trial lawyers is passed at the state level.)
Meanwhile, your boy Joe Biden is deep in the pockets of the credit card companies. He was their boy when they were pushing the bankruptcy “reform” package they wrote to make it harder for consumers to get out from under credit card debt. Between that and the plagiarism, I don’t see his appeal.
There has been a bill floating around the hill for several years for an asbestos trust fund (that would effectively institute a no fault recovery fund for victims of asbestos), he could kill it. The recently passed class action lawsuit reform could be repealed or scaled back. If it doesn’t bother you that half his campaign is being financed by the bad apples that give lawyers a bad name then that fine with me.
I posted a link to the 1988 campaign. If you read it, it sounds like he was swiftboated by some Dukakis aide (Dukakis immediately fired that particular aide when he found out what happened).
Hrmm, I didn’t like the bankruptcy bill. I’ll take a closer look at Biden’s link to credit card comnpanies if you will take a closer look at Edwards links to some of the sleaziest lawyers in America.
I don’t care about her character, I care about her actions. Maybe she’s really nice if you get to know her, but the thought of her as First Lady makes me gag. I think our government is too involved in
So you think the Edwards administration will hold secretive meetings with lawyers, then invade a plaintiff-rich country? You’ll have to forgive me if I’m a little skeptical that he would be more influenced by lawyers than Bush has been by the oil and energy industries.
I know it’s not that simple. I was summarizing.
col_10022, you haven’t provided a cite or explained what you mean by Edwards being “in the pockets” of these “sleazy” trial lawyers. So what do you mean? If you have no specific information about how “trial lawyers” are supporting Edwards or why we should be concerned about that, it just sounds like a smear-- not much different from what the Republican smear machine trots out against Edwards.
On the off chance that you have been successfully brainwashed into believing that trial lawyers are inherently evil ;), I prescribe viewings of A Civil Action and The Verdict as an antidote.
Here’s some info on Joe Biden’s ties to the credit card industry:
And here’s a column on the connection of the credit card industry to the so-called bankruptcy “reform” act, which Biden unsurprisingly supported.
I agree that Guiliani’s efforts on crime were noteworthy, though much of what he did was a continuation of the programs put in place by David Dinkins that were just starting to bear fruit when he came into office. When he was considering the 2000 Senate run, he had to deal with not only his marital issues and prostate cancer, but also that his popularity in New York City was flagging (and wouldn’t recover until the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks).
Had Guiliani run against Clinton in 2000, it probably would have been a close race. Clinton got tremendous (for a Democrat) support in predominantly Republican upstate based on her “listening tour” and active campaigning. Against Rick Lazio, a Long Island Republican, she won decisively. Had Guiliani – as he was viewed in 2000 both upstate and in the City – run, it would have been a very a competive race. Significantly, in 2006 Guilani declined to challenge for either Senate or Governor.
I would expect that the vague idea most of the country has of Guilani (based primarily on three months of leadership) is much more attractive than the view of those of us who have lived under him for eight years of ups and downs.
Cite for the Clinton campaign revealing that? My impression was that his affair was common knowledge.
That was always cited as the full reason he dropped out.
They were about even in the polls - I think she had a slight lead - when he quit, so I don’t follow your thinking here.
I dunno, JC, I think this is The Year of the Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) on the Dem side. Obama, Edwards, Clinton, and possibly Gore.
There are a few reasons for this. One is that for lightning to strike, there has to be a candidate who can harness it. Once past the Bigfoots, who is there? Biden? Kucinich? Vilsack? Richardson? Kerry? Some of these guys have nice resumes, but which one of them sets a crowd on fire? There’s netroots favorite Wes Clark, but even in the netroots, people are starting to see that he’s getting squeezed out. Besides Clark, maybe Feingold or Warner could have been the second-tier guy charging into the top tier, but they’ve both decided not to run.
Second is the speed at which this campaign is developing. I’m old enough to remember when a field hadn’t gone through this much sorting by this point in the election year, let alone the year before. The political niches have already been staked out, two-deep with Bigfoots.
And that brings me to my third and final reason: where’s the class of Democratic voters who are underserved by the current cast of Bigfoots? If you want a pro-war centrist, there’s Hillary. If you want an anti-war centrist, there’s Obama. If you want a guy who’s going to take on both the corporatists and John McCain, there’s John Edwards.
I think of Dems falling into two camps, really - less centrists v. liberals ideologically, though that’s part of it, than people who want a candidate who will stress his/her differences with the GOP candidate, and will be willing to strongly criticize the GOP opponent on the issues, versus those who want a candidate to, in some fashion, aim for the center or bridge the partisan gap. The former group tends to want Edwards or Gore; the latter, Obama or Clinton. Although Obama’s support in the netroots is definitely picking up.
The question in my mind is, has Clinton missed her boat? A candidate must give the voters a reason to vote for him/her. Obama’s out there, being a rock star, sucking up all of Hillary’s oxygen, and not leaving her much to run on that will differentiate her from Obama. Parental controls on video games? Sorry, Hillary, but it’s just not enough. Better find something big to lead on, Hil, and lead on it quick - if you still remember how to lead.
Because the other Bigfoots aren’t waiting around; they’re staking out positions, saying what they’re going to run on. Obama says his big three issues are universal health care, global warming, and a timed withdrawal from Iraq. Edwards is also running on the first two, a big troop drawdown (though not a withdrawal) in Iraq, and reducing the gap between rich and poor in America. Plus he’s been willing to attack McCain head-on.
Those two guys have each just pushed a healthy pile of chips to the middle of the table. It’s Hillary’s turn, and she’s practically invisible these days. What does she have to say to her fellow Democrats that might be of interest to them? She’d better find her voice before too long.
I’m thinking she and her brain trust may well be trapped back in 1996, when her husband, burned by the Universal Health Care Debacle of 1994, ran on a lot of mini-issues, symbolic issues. Like violent video games. If they can’t get out of that trap, and articulate strong, clear positions on the big issues, all the money she’s raised, and all her name recognition, won’t save her.
You’re correct that this is all developing early, but she doesn’t have much reason to rush. She’s going to be able to raise a ton of money and has big name recognition. This NYT article - which also says she wants to wait a few months to declare and indicates that Gore is not running right now - explains that she wants to accomplish a little more in the Democrat-controlled Senate before declaring her candidacy. Which could allow her to find her voice and some dominant issues in the process.
She needs to. Money and name recognition won’t help her if everyone in her natural constituency is already in love with Obama by the time she declares. She’ll need to be able to bring some distinctives to the table that Obama lacks.
This excerpt made me wonder just how out of touch she is:
Well, y’know, Hil, it isn’t 1991 anymore; it’s 2007. By the spring of 1999, GWB was practically the de facto 2000 GOP nominee. Things change over time. Get over it.
The other thing that’s kinda weird is Team Hillary’s attempts to put a Cone of Silence over which issues she intends to run on, and stuff like that. By now, she should know. And if her vaunted ‘experience’ is to be parlayed into an advantage over Obama and Edwards, it should be obvious what her issues are - just the way it would be obvious what Gore’s campaign would be about if he were to jump in. But it’s not. Does Hillary have the guts to be for Hillarycare? Is she willing to take a stand on global warming? How’s she gonna finesse Iraq? Hillary, we hardly know ye.
Why anyone at this juncture would want a pro-war anything is a mystery to me.
Sure, if it’s between someone who I think genuinely supports the war (McCain) versus someone who’s just paying lip-service (Clinton), I’ll take the lip-service. But it’s a repulsive choice.