If not one of those two, then it won’t matter.
I’ve already explained that. What part of the post did you find confusing?
I think people forget that in 1992 Bill Clinton campaigned on the slogan “Two for the price of one” - meaning, you get Hillary and Bill for the ‘price’ of voting for Bill. He was basically asserting that Hillary Clinton would be the co-President. I mean that’s not nothing. I think one can argue that it may have been Hillary Clinton’s role from the beginning. Arguably she would have ran for a smaller office had Bill not become a viable candidate for President (I mean in order for a two for the price of one to work, you can’t have the spouse being an Attorney General somewhere else after all).
Whether you believe it’s acceptable to not vote for someone because of their race or sex. Do you? It’s not clear if your ideas only apply when it is used against white males, or more generally.
If anyone needs it, flashback to the 90s. Putting aside the focus of the article (whitewater), a choice quote: “Never has a First Lady, not even Eleanor Roosevelt, been as powerful.” She also graduated ahead of Bill in their Yale law class (she was first, he was fifth). Now, you can still make the argument that she wouldn’t be running for President without him, but let’s not pretend she just sat around doing the Martha Washington thing for 8 years.
This is a No True Scotsman fallacy. “Palin’s a woman, but not *true *woman, Carson’s black but not *true *black,” etc.
For all that contradiction, you might as well have saved trouble and effort and amended your first sentence to “There’s nothing wrong with voting for someone because of their race or sex as long as they’re not white men.”
Especially if they let you cheat on them.
She was the first woman partner at Rose Law Firm. She did that completely without Bill.
I have friends who are two doctors. He’s an orthopedic surgeon, she is an surgical oncologist. She is not a worse doctor because she is married to him.
Bill and Hillary are both lawyers. At some point, they both become politicians. Bill, being more likeable than Hillary, became the frontman for their political ambitions, but for the past nearly 20 years, Hillary has been on her own.
Yes, she got a start from the exposure being First Lady got her. But we’ve had an endless string of getting a leg up in this country - from John Quincy Adams to the Kennedys to GW Bush. Why is it suddenly unfair when the leg up happens to be through marriage rather than birth. As Jeb and Ted both show, you need more than the right relatives.
Well, to be fair, Ted shot himself in the foot. Without Chappaquiddick, he just might have made it to the highest office in the land.
I think its time again to state categorically and for the record that the KKK and its preferred candidate have no place in Washington DC, let alone in The White House. (Not even on the Tour.)
I think its time to close the 2000 year old bible, open the 200 year old Constitution, and get up off of our asses to do our own hard work without expecting any Supreme Being to drop on down and do it for us.
I think its time to bring in the team with the experience to know Who is Who along The Beltway: Who blows smoke but does nothing, who glad-hands with one hand while picking your pocket with the other,
and who only holds their position because of their money, their family name or their alumni status from the “right” college.
I think its time to bring in someone who has seen the people who have sat in the important chairs over the years, what they know, and who can objectively tell of what value the people in them now are to America going forward.
I think its time to bring in the most experienced and the most qualified team to lead America forward From Day One instead of some behind the scenes “Bob Alexander” type who would derail the first 100 days for the easier and more profitable status quo.
I’m not saying I don’t like Bernie Sanders; he’s a good Senator, a good leader and a good Man. I’m not convinced that he can win, however, and I see that as a danger to America.
I’m not convinced that he can move our good-for-nothing-sit-on-its-hands Hemorrhoid Farming Congress to do anything but cash their paychecks and smirk.
In a prior administration, one that brought a nearly unprecedented era of prosperity to America, I believe that HRC was both an inspiration and a force towards progress, despite millions spent on an eight year daily onslaught of lies and hate.
If I want to know what a salesman can do in government, I need look no further than Congress. Hillary Clinton’s is the voice of experience and competence; a high quality steel, hardened by fire, and she is the right person to Lead us now.
We need her leadership because the hateful racist fascist words and actions of those on the right are attempting to scorch the earth of yet another free country, one where I never thought that I would see it happen… and if we learn nothing from history then we are indeed doomed to repeat it.
Now is the time for us, as citizens, to stand up and to be counted even if there are consequences to us personally, if it is what we truly believe in and if freedom is what we want for our children.
Now is the time to confront racism, fascism, and the bullies who would take our country from us. Now is when it matters.
They say that in France, millions of soldiers have passed through Normandy in the past 72 years. History honors most the ones who where there in those first two fateful weeks of June of 1944 when it was the hardest.
I don’t quite agree with the second sentence, but the rest of this is spot-on.
It is past “time” for a woman President, or VP, but this does not make me more likely to vote for a particular woman candidate who is otherwise objectionable. If anything, a touch less so. I would prefer the historical moment to be nobler.
That said, given the circumstances and choices I’m likely to have, I may end up voting for Clinton anyway.
When I hear people talk about how “it’s time” for Hillary, it usually seems like they’re referring to her specifically, not just “it’s time for a woman president”. It seems to me, and has for awhile now, that Hillary has been groomed by the Democratic party, since Bill was in the White House, to be the first woman President. That upstart from Illinois rudely booted her off her high horse in 2008, and now is her last chance to run and dammit, it’s her turn! She paid her dues in the Senate, Obama threw her a bone and gave her executive experience in the State Department, she learned from her husband the ins and outs of the White House, and those who don’t vote for her are just being a bunch of inconsiderate fuddy-duddies.
Why are they maintaining this charade with primaries and delegates and everything, when the party knew last year who they wanted to nominate? Hell, they’ve known for years.
To some extent, she is the best candidates the Democrats have to offer. Sanders certainly doesn’t have the support of the party - a party he didn’t belong to until last year. So, yeah, it kind of is her time, she’s qualified, she’s running.
If Biden had run, I’d be a Biden supporter and the party would have had two good candidates to offer. He didn’t run. O’Malley hadn’t made enough of a name to run.
On the second part of your question - the party isn’t too interested in a free for all like the GOP has - because you don’t reach consensus fast enough and the damage the candidates do to each other is too great. Remember that parties aren’t part of our constitution, they are independent entities.
All things being equal, absolutely I will choose the person I feel has been less represented.
All things are generally not equal. They are not equal this time around, either.
So I will vote for her because I think she’s the best candidate. I will be delighted to do so because it’s another first that should have happened decades ago.
I’ll clarify:
For America, if its ONLY race or sex, then no. The reason why is because race and sex itself is not a qualification for office. However, living as that race or sex, having experiences as that race or sex, and then helping to achieve equality for that race or sex IS ok. Since the traditional power holders are white males, it naturally means that most anyone else other than white males will have experiences that do not parallel their experience, and power will be spread among other races and women. I do not have anything against white males for their race or sex, I have something against how their experiences are held up as the standard to which the rest of us must abide by.
See my explanation above. I’m not against Palin because I don’t consider her a true woman, I’m against the traditional experiences of white males that Palin would uphold. Its just easier to talk in terms of race and sex, but that was a poor attempt at cutting to the chase on my part.
Someone like Bernie Sanders is a white male who would go against the traditional powers that his race and sex represents and create a bigger tent in which power is shared among more races and women.
That applies only to those people I was referring to in that paragraph, specifically, those who deny white male privilege while continuing to benefit from it
Let me tell you about an incompetent woman who thought her famous political relatives would allow her to win a U.S. senate seat from New York. She thought this despite the fact that she never had held political office of any kind. She thought this even though she would have been moving from being a (not-exactly practicing) lawyer directly to the Senate.
It was a terribly embarrassing time to be a Democrat in NY State, as I was and am, let me assure you; what with elected officials falling all over themselves to talk up her candidacy despite the fact that she was an intellectual lightweight who had minimal understanding of the issues facing the state, and despite the fact that her qualifications went no further than her famous family (and the assistance her famous name would provide where fundraising, publicity, and the like were concerned).
Hillary Clinton? No, no, not her. I had my doubts when she announced her intention to run for the Senate, but my goodness did she run a terrific campaign, clearly demonstrating her intelligence, her ability to listen, her ability to learn, and her ability to figure out what made the voters of this state tick (in a way that her GOP opponents, and many Dems born and raised in the state, never did figure out: Geraldine Ferraro, a suggestion: complaining that running for statewide office requires you to venture north of White Plains is not a recipe for success). Did she benefit from being the wife of a popular president? Why yes, of course she did; but she earned the seat through hard work.
No, I’m not talking about Clinton. I’m talking about Caroline Kennedy, who lobbied hard to be appointed to Clinton’s seat after Obama’s election. It was her seat by divine right, because it had belonged to her uncle (she made his connection frequently). She tried to do what Clinton had done–a “listening tour” of upstate–but had to call it off when it became evident that she knew nothing about the state or the issues.
As has been pointed out above, Hillary Clinton is hardly the only politico in U.S. History who has risen to a prime political position partly as a result of a famous political relative (or two, or three…). Clinton may not be the best of these (though she’s pretty damn good) but she is nowhere near the worst. So do we damn all the candidates with famous political relations, Bushes and Kennedys and Romneys and Gores, Adamses and Harrisons and (Jerry) Browns and so on and so forth? Do we denigrate their accomplishments when people are helped out by famous brothers or dads? Or is our disapproval limited to married women getting help from their husbands?
I’m also amused to see trotted out the notion that the first woman president, well, she should be just amazing. So we should just wait for this amazing first woman president to come to us and in the meantime vote Trump.
His new slogan: Vote Trump: Because men don’t have to be amazing!
Its the double standard that we bang our heads against all the time.
And rather than sending the message to our daughters that success has to do with your marriage, perhaps what we are teaching our daughters is what we’ve been teaching our sons for a very long time - use your connections. Network. Don’t be afraid to hit that buddy of your Dad’s up for an introduction or a job.