Here Comes Clinton. A Semi-Reassuring Note for Those Who Cringe

Great Debates
1

I have said before that the Democratic primary, and the election, is Clinton’s if she earns it. It is not going to be handed to her. But my prediction is that she is a scrapper and will just plain make it happen. I didn’t expect her to take NH and still expected her to take the nom after losing Iowa and New Hampshire.

In the event that Obama does not manage to take it from her, I hope he comes back in a later season. Damn, he’s nice to listen to! Obama supporters: the guy’s got legs, he’s young, he’s eminently electable and it’s just a matter of time. If not this time, next time. Trying for the nom and not getting it is not a political death sentence.

Also to Obama supporters and others for whom Clinton is not your ideal choice:

• there are things she wants to do (aside from “I’d like to be President”). Seriously. She wants a second run at Health Care. And I strongly suspect she’d like to play a role in changing the composition of the Supreme Court.

• the things you probably don’t like about her may be assets in her line of work. She’s way pragmatic and likes to do politics and make deals and connive a bit and plan and deploy plans. Straightforward and honest and non-smarmy and idealistic? Nope. But as Captain I think she can run the ship. Run it with every angle considered beforehand. Sharp. Unless you live in dread of her political intentions, that’s not so horrible. Hey, a freaking competent prez in the Oval!

• she is not charismatic. Bill was charismatic. Obama is charismatic. Kennedy was charismatic. She ain’t. She’s your everyday spectacularly efficient administrative type writ a bit larger than usual. Efficiency and willfulness without charisma can be abrasive, but I think she’s calculating enough to lube interactions where abrasiveness would result in bad outcomes. She’s not likely to make people hate the US. She will be able to deal with Ahmadinejad, Kim, Poutin, and whoever else needs dealing with, without provoking them or leaving you shaking your head or jeopardizing the US or its interests, idealistic or practical.

• she doesn’t phone it in. Whether you regard it as admirable, as weird, or as freaking psycho, she likes doing the work itself, getting a bunch of oppositionally-poised and aggressively self-interested parties to the table to bang out deals. The admiration from various Republicans who expected to continue hating her as Senator Clinton and then didn’t is largely due to the work-ethic thing, and that she’s pragmatic, not that she’s a diluted Democrat. The Republicans should not underestimate her but neither should the Democrats. She’ll get things done.

• OK she can be nasty. You think Giuliani can’t be nasty? McCain? Heck, Carter could be downright nasty. Willful + not charismatic tends to come across like that. Fuckit. It’s not like she’s up to no good and you’d be worrying with good reason where she’s taking the country. An occasionally ill-tempered, very competent, policy-loving, intellectual back-room deal-making end-result-getting kinda sensible person who wants to be at the helm. Got a problem with that?

2

Excellent OP. I agree on all points.

3

Not a huge fan of Obama (sorry, he hasn’t done anything and really doesn’t actually say anything other than the usual socialist-lite sound bites Dick Gephart was spouting 20 years ago) and this is after meeting the man.

Still, I will agree that losing will not hurt him at all. In fact, it will just confirm him as the candidate in 4+ years.

4

You know, I’ve spent the last few days scouring the internets - campaign sites, blogs, and so on - and really couldn’t figure out why I had such disdain for BO’s candidacy. He has all the traits I value in a leader, sans experience and age, and while I preferred Hillary I would be happy with him as the nominee.

But something changed for me Saturday. Maybe it was Edwards’ cowardly pile-on on Hillary/ass-kissing of Obama, but I started to feel a lot of dislike for everyone in the race except Hillary and Richardson. And I thought Edwards was awesome four years ago!

I did figure out what made me question Obama’s wisdom and judgment. Know what it was? Oprah. I’m sure Oprah is a nice person - hell, I have a friend who works for her and she is incredibly generous to her staff - but when Oprah endorses something, whether it be a diet, a book, or Dr. Phil, half of America suspends critical thinking and swallows what she says whole. That’s more of the fault of half of the people in this country, I suppose, but Oprah has used her cathode ray tube bully pulpit to foist new age glurge and disgustingly facile “self help” gurus that promise, “If you buy my book/DVD/self-help system, you’ll be happy and successful!”

So one day Oprah says, “Hey, I like Obama! I want to give him my Oprah’s Candidate of the Month Award for all the sheep out there who do whatever I tell them to without critically analyzing or thinking for themselves.” Obama, being a smart guy, should have said, “Thanks, Oprah, but can I maybe come on your show for half an hour instead,” and gotten someone who actually does politics or policy for a living to go on the stump with him - you know, to address the fact that he’s a little light on experience…

Of course that’s not what he did. He went on the stump with her… and to me that showed that he was about the message and not about the specifics. And when I venture over to blogs and discussion boards about Obama, I get the same sense from many of his supporters. The Oprah endorsement and campaigning turned me off in a huge way. I wonder if other people felt the same way?

5

I feel the same way. As soon as Oprah started telling people to vote for Obama, I stopped thinking about him seriously as a candidate. And after I looked at his “issues” page, I thought: Geez, what a crock of vague, happy-sounding tripe! There’s not a single stance there that isn’t an obvious cop-out answer. Who doesn’t want to reduce the national debt? Tell us how you’re gonna do it. He completely avoided any serious issues like abortion, etc.

6

I feel the same way too. I like Obama…he’s very likeable. But, I hear too much vague happy, hope talk from him and not enough numbers, dates, plans and statistics.

I do think that an Clinton/Obama ticket would be just the thing, though. It seems they would balance each other out nicely.

7

If Obama chose to be Hillary’s #2, I’d never vote for him again. That would show him to be just another shameless politician. And if Obama wins the nomination, I hope to hell he doesn’t pick that ass-kissing Edwards as a running mate. Please don’t do that to us, Barack.

8

I seriously doubt that any of the oneish term senators would choose another of their number as a running mate. So no Clinton/Edwards/Obama combos.

That said, why would Obama choosing Hillary as a running mate be “shameless”?

9

Well, I was talking about the case where Obama agreed to be Hillary’s VP. His biggest campaign message is that he’s an agent of change and she isn’t. If he jumps on her bandwagon, I think it will be more about his own personal ambition than about actually fulfilling that campaign promise. I don’t agree with him on a lot of issues, and he doesn’t have a ton of experience, so the main reason I’m voting for him is that I like his decision making process, and I like the fact that he is (or at least appears to be) cut from a different mold than your typical pol. If it turns out he isn’t, then he’s just another junior senator with presidential ambitions. In that case, I’d say go to the back of the line-- we’ve got plenty of those to choose from.

10

I think it’s unreasonable to judge Obama negatively just because Oprah endorses him. Now if he went to her and begged for her televised support, then yeah, judge away. But if it happened the other way, what was he supposed to really do? “No, Oprah, keep your endorsement. I don’t want that kind of attention.” That’s a high expectation to have for a politician.

The main reason why I don’t think Hillary should be elected is because the amount of venom that her mere presence generates will inevitably lead to nonstop political warfare. You can count on the Republicans doing their level best to oppose any legislation that has HRC’s fingerprints on it, just to appease their anti-Hillary constitutuents. The Dems currently are in the majority, but that might change in 2010. I don’t think Hillary can generate the bipartisan backing to make the kind of changes her supporters envision. There will be more strife than progress with her in the White House.

I don’t see that happening with Obama. The haters have had a loooong time to foment their hate for Hillary. But Obama is new.

11

My biggest beef with Hillary is that she was an ineffective Senator. What makes me think that she will be an effective President? She didn’t care about her constituents then, why would she care about the American people now?

Obama, on the other hand, shows passion and concern. He is also arguably the most intellectual of the candidates, so it’s easier for me to accept him. He’s arguing about raising the tone of political discussion, and dragging political negotiations into the light of day, something that’s sorely needed (though surely difficult to achieve).

While I have no doubt that Hillary knows how Washington works, whether or not she will achieve anything of interest to me is debatable. Universal health care will be extremely difficult to pass, and that’s the focus of her platform.

12

Hillary’s uncared for constituents re-lected her by a wide margin (and she wasn’t running against Alan Keyes). And by what measure was she a more or less effective senator then Obama?

13

We do not regard her as an ineffective Senator. Lots of folks said “carpetbagger” when she first showed up. But she’s made good.

14

This is true with every candidate.

But this is only attainable if she can build coalitions and bridge divides. There is a tremendous amount of hate and resentment for her amongst the GOP. How does she expect to deploy if she’s facing a political party ready to obstruct her at every turn, sheerly out of spite? The biggest failure in Clinton’s campaigning is her unwillingness to address this reality. She can’t be much of a “doer” if there’s already a large percentage of people (which innumerable polls demonstrate) committed to seeing her fail.

“Spectacularlly efficient adminstrative types” don’t draw attention to themselves, don’t engender so much hostility, and don’t immerse themselves in drama and theatrics. She may not be charismatic like her hubby, but she’s hardly this benign presence in the political arena.

Her shifting farther and farther to the center didn’t have something to do with that? :dubious: Sure, she’s able, competent, and hard-working. All are improvements over W. But they’re useless qualities if facing hard & fast resistance. “She’ll get things done” is no less pie-in-the-sky, from where I’m sitting, than anything her campaign accuses Obama of.

Not good enough. This is what the “change” Obama represents really means, and that this nastiness might manifest itself runs completely counter to many of the “she’ll get things done” arguments you’ve already laid forth. The rancor and squabbling is all viscious and circular and just because I agree with her more than any of the Republicans doesn’t mean I like it anymore when it’s coming from her.

Given that some of these assertions are rather dubious (or overly optimistic), yeah, I do. Will I vote for her if she wins the party nomination? Yes. Will I hope she succeeds? Of course. Will I secretly believe that the Democrats have once again snatched a long-term defeat out of a short-sighted “victory”? Absolutely.

15

Speak for yourself. She’s pretty much toed the Republican party line up until 06. She went with the wind. That’s her main problem.

I think she’s plenty Charismatic. I don’t get where people get this lack of charisma thing from.

16

do not want

17

Oprah’s enthusiasm could have been cultivated and contained. Pols often have celebrity fans that they keep at bay. Here’s the problem: by making Oprah’s endorsement such a big part of his campaign, it only underlines the idea among many voters that he’s more style than substance. Hillary wisely avoids going on the stump with Barbra Streisand and 50 Cent. There’s no such thing as a universally loved celebrity, and just as the celebrity endorses the candidate, the candidate gives validity to the celebrity. If I was directing BO’s campaign, I would have politely thanked Oprah and asked her to stay in Harpo Studios. (She’s probably be a great asset in Illinois.)

How impressive is it that Hillary forged a working relationship with Newt Gingrich?

She’s also received positive remarks from Lindsey Graham, Bill Frist, and James Inhofe. If those guys find common ground working with Hillary, where exactly is the resistance on Capitol Hill?

He’s not so new that he hasn’t played the game, and it’s only a matter of time until they find those cracks in his armor. Hillary, on the other hand, has been demonized by the GOP for 15 years and there’s nothing new there. Barring some unforeseen huge scandal, we know all there is to know about Hillary, for better or for worse.

Nobody stays “new” in Washington for long. Not if they want to be effective. Jimmy Carter and GWB were new in Washington - one was stymied in his attempts to get anything done, and the other went super partisan. Not a great tradition to follow.

18

Of course NOT choosing someone because of who endorses them is just as mindless as choosing someone because they have been endorsed by X Y or Z.

And refusing support from someone who many people admire (and in particular those in a demographic you need to target) would be stupid not noble.

19

I follow politics pretty closely, and I’ve only seen Oprah pup up a few times. I don’t think she’s such a “big” part of his campaign.

I don’t know about Inhofe, but Frist and Graham aren’t partisan a-holes like a lot of the Pubbies, especially in the House. The Senate is a much more collegial place than the House.

And why is the spell checker telling me I misspelled “collegial”?

If you want to reform healthcare, Hillary is probably not your gal. I sense that any plan she puts forth will be DOA because of what happened last time-- fair or unfair, that’s politics.

20

I dislike Hillary even more after how she acted after her upset in Iowa. Getting shrill and angry during debates and then crying in diners about how emotionally draining a campaign is is unprofessional to the extreme. She needs to grow up. A PRESIDENT should be able to take a few hits without throwing a hissy fit. Sometimes you need to work hard for what you want, not just tantrum when it’s not immediately handed to you. What happens when her bills get shot down by congress? Is she going to go cry in a diner about how emotionally draining it is to not get your immediate way the first time around?

Despite her attitudes, in a more theoretical way, I’m sick of dynasties. I’m sick of a bush dynasty and a kennedy dynasty and a clinton dynasty. I’m sick of sons of former presidents and wives of former presidents deciding that they’re politicians, too. Let’s get some fresh air!