First off, I can’t imagine what it would take for me to vote for other than the Dem nominee. Not sure what I’ll do in the primary. And I hate that the election is such big news/money this far in advance. My days as a PolSci grad student are decades behind me, so I am not reading detailed position papers. It is probably enough for me that I do not want a Republican nominating any more Supremes anytime soon.
But I sure wish I could be more excited about the possibility of having a female president and another Dem in the White House. I’m trying to figure out who Clinton is trying to appeal to. She impresses me as a sports team who builds up a lead, and then screws the pooch by trying to protect that lead instead of remaining aggressive.
Do you think this an accurate reflection of her apparent strategy? If so, do you think that a good or bad strategy? Is she biding time right now, to reveal something closer to the general election?
Is the idea of a female politician so threatening to some voters, that that is not being played up more? Do not the trend of social and political issues - gay marriage, legal pot, Cuba - provide fodder for someone to really try to continue that trend? Would a more aggressive campaign focus attention where she wants, instead of on Benghazi, e-mails, Clinton foundation (the latter 2 of which contribute to my lack of enthusiasm for her.)
If she is the Dem candidate next fall I’ll vote for her. But I sure wish I could be excited about the prospect instead of thinking “I’d rather have this mediocre career politician Dem, than that mediocre career politician Repub.”
She’s being a little more pro-active than that, but she really is an empty pants suit. Still, most candidates in her position will do the same kind of thing. She has no reason to mix it up with the other Democratic candidates and she has no idea who she will face in the general election, and getting to that is her only concern right now. She’s sitting in the cat bird’s seat, so yes, her major concern at the moment is avoiding falling out of that seat.
Agreed. I would vote for her in the general but I’m not exactly fired up over her potential presidency. Although, her platforms have become somewhat more progressive since the last election.
Mostly though, I’m just annoyed. It’s not that I think the emails or the foundation are smoking guns. But it should have been patently obvious that those are the things that republicans will go mad about and Clinton should have avoided it from the start. Yes, they will still find things to attack her for, but like Benghazi, it would just make the attackers look like idiots.
I think she isn’t going out on a limb too much, as that makes her a bit vulnerable, and since she is polling ahead of the rest of the Dem field, why take the chance?
Her being a bit centrist (albeit, boring), gives less fodder to potential swing voters with the thought that most on the left will hold their noses and pull the lever for her when faced with the crazy choice that the GOP puts forth.
For the primary, she doesn’t need to engage anyone who isn’t catching fire, and neither Sanders or O’Malley is catching fire.
For the general, she will indeed need a motivated Democratic base. But I think it’s pretty safe to bank on that happening as a result of the GOP even if she did nothing, and she will of course be more active as the primary wraps up.
There is a risk of too many Democrats feeling unenthused about her. But you have to be careful not to generalize your own feelings to the party as a whole, and I strongly suspect that even you will not feel this way come October 2016. You will be fired up to vote for her then.
Hillary is really a politician. I’m not saying she doesn’t have some honest beliefs, but she really feels like a blob that tries her hardest to morph into whatever the people around her want.
A lot of her opinions have “evolved” for the better, but they don’t feel like a whole-hearted evolution of ideals so much as a cynical attempt to appeal to demographics.
So yeah, I think that she’s basically the presumptive lead, and because of that, she’s staying mostly static until she has to mold to fight whatever she thinks is a changing trend.
Not all of this is necessarily bad, in that maybe someone with a bit more of a political viewpoint is what we need in the White House to do all the dirty dealing to get things passed. Earnestly held beliefs can be a bit inflexible to compromises, but I still prefer someone who earnestly holds my beliefs to someone who I feel like is trying to sell me a political platform.
She’s in the prevent defense, and we all know what the prevent defense prevents you from doing. She needs to show a little passion, a little genuineness, something that I can’t put my finger on that she lacks so far. She is good at lining up endorsements and securing money. But she was in 2008 as well. What she isn’t good at is giving an inspirational speech or telling us at the bumper sticker level what she stands for.
I saw you made a similar comment in another thread, which I think has a lot of validity. But one thing that causes me difficulty is not having a CLUE what the party/electorate as a whole considers important. Also, it makes it a challenge to encourage myself to become informed about issues, when informed votes are greatly outweighed by partisan preference, single issue votes, or coin flips.
But I disagree with the last part of the quote above. I WAS excited about Obama - just didn’t think I would have to wait 6.5 years for him to resemble the candidate i thought I voted for. Hillary impresses me as even more conservative/establishment off the bat, so I expect even less from her. Of course, I would appreciate the figureheads of having had black and female presidents - something I would have bet heavily against ever seeing in my lifetime. Who knows - maybe since I expect so little of Clinton, she will surprise me in a reverse of the way Obama did…
That’s life though. There is no reward in being a high-information voter, which is part of the reason most people don’t do it!
There is value in being a high-information early donor, a high-information letter writer, or a high-information volunteer. Believe it or not, you can schedule a meeting with your local congressman today and go speak to him or her (or more likely a staff member, but not inevitably) about a political issue, and it will have some impact. Staff and members really do take into account what constituents have to say, and being well-informed in that meeting matters.
I am in the same boat. I was (and remain) extremely enthusiastic about Obama. I doubt there will be another candidate in my lifetime who is a closer match for my worldview.
But I also know that I am a partisan. Whatever distaste I have for Hillary will vanish in the face of anyone who could win a modern GOP primary. I know not everyone is the same, but I think a lot of the people who are tepid about Hillary are exactly the folks who after a summer of GOP campaigning will be eager to pull the lever for her.
I don’t think she really needs to do much as long as Trump is leading the Republican primaries, aside from not engaging him. Once there’s a serious candidate from the Pubs in a place where they can challenge her on an issue, we might see more.
I have to laugh at people who think she’s staying out of the way of the GOP trainwreck. She’s been doing a pretty good job of competing with Donald Trump when it comes to unfavorable press. And her ratings are about as good these days.
It’s hard to fault her for the strategy she is pursuing now-- almost any pol in her position would do the same. It’s funny to watch the press go after her for it. They are, of course, only looking out for our interest, and not disappointed that they don’t have much of anything to report about her.
So, yeah, right now she’s running not to lose. Once the GOP nominee is in place, if she needs to run to win, I’m sure she will. But… if the GOP nominee is weak (a distinct possibility) she may not move the needle much towards “running to win”.
Obama won exactly the same percentage of Democrats as Kerry. Clinton will also win the same percentage. The demographics of the electorate will continue their slow slide toward Democrats. None of it will have anything to do with how the candidates campaigned in the August of the year before the election.
As you were told ten million times, Kerry was running against a sitting president. Just like you were told - and adamantly ignored - that Romney couldn’t win because he was running against a sitting president.
There will be no sitting president in 2016. There will be a Republican candidate people will be less enthusiastic about than Clinton. End of story.
It’s not like she’s doing nothing. Her campaign clearly sees 2016 as being all about turnout, and so she has moved (Hillary Clinton runs left: Why the Democratic frontrunner is embracing the progressive movement.) on a variety of issues where they apparently see the gains from rousing the base as exceeding the possibility of losing voters elsewhere. There are elements in the party who still really don’tlikeher, and the danger isn’t that they will vote Republican but that they will stay home.
She has hedged on a few high-profile issues where the balance must seem less clear or that she hopes will be over with by 2016, and she is not engaging much with the press, but from a policy standpoint, she has moved significantly to make her positions clear.
Tump is getting something like 4-5x the coverage as Clinton is. You can quibble over how much is “unfavorable”, but clearly she is far less in the spotlight than Trump (and the other GOP candidates) are. Which you’d expect even without her low-key behavior so far.
As far as ratings, Pollster has her at 43/48. Trump is at 27/59. One of these things is not like the other.
