[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
Perfectly stated.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks. 
[QUOTE=Caridwen]
I’m curious about why a democrat doesn’t like her.
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My dislike goes back to her being given the job of healthcare reform in her husband’s first administration. She handled it like a queen. And she handled it with a rare degree of arrogance and incompetence. Healthcare Reform has been a non-issue ever since. This cycle is the first that it might come up for serious consideration again, and that may be more because of Mitt Romney than due to any of the Dems.
Since then she has given the impression of one driven by a vision of herself in the White House but with no vision of what she wants to do the position.
What does she stand for? What is her vision of America’s future?
After this many years in the public eye we shouldn’t have to scratch our heads to answer that.
What she has done is constantly try to position herself where she believes the middle is, and she is always behind in the game. Never leading the way. Never standing up against a tide for anything. The problem that she finds is that her failure to clearly define what she stands for allows others to fill in the blanks. Instead of being the person who everyone can identify with she is the person that virtually no one identifies with. Conservatives believe her too liberal, liberals believe her to be a neocon, and few trust anything that she says.
As to the Imus threads and Obama: you gotta be kidding.
[QUOTE=DSeid]
Since then she has given the impression of one driven by a vision of herself in the White House but with no vision of what she wants to do the position.
What does she stand for? What is her vision of America’s future?
[/QUOTE]
You’ve just described Bill Clinton to a T. The only difference being is that he’s more charismatic.
[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
You’ve just described Bill Clinton to a T. The only difference being is that he’s more charismatic.
[/QUOTE]
Ah, well, if things in general go even nearly as well for America under Hillary’s administration as under Bill’s, we shall be very fortunate to have her. Even if Obama or Gore could have done still better.
Yet the results were, on the whole, pretty damned good, weren’t they?
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
I don’t like Hillary for a few reasons:
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the aforementioned hawkishness internationally. I’ve yet to hear her say something that suggests she thinks the Bush foreign policy was misguided rather than badly executed.
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Iraq in particular. She’s fuzzy on how big a ‘residual force’ she might leave there, but informed analysts have worked from the missions she thinks it should have, and come up with a figure somewhere around 70,000 troops, IIRC.
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Her fuzziness, hypercaution, and general unwillingness to take strong stands on major issues.
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Her substitution of ‘smallball’ - taking strong stands on trivial shit like violent video games - for taking real stands on substantive issues.
It’s as if she’s trapped in a time warp. It’s as if she’s still flinching from the defeat of HillaryCare and the loss of the 1994 midterms, and getting ready to run Bill’s 1996 Presidential campaign. The rest of us have moved on - we’re aware that the tide’s running our way, that it’s a time for taking strong stands on universal health care, global warming, and getting out of Iraq. (Hell, even Rahm Emmanuel has figured this out, which is surely a sign of the impending Apocalypse, so what’s Hillary’s excuse?) A Democratic Party with Hillary as its de facto leader beginning next year would be a Democratic Party that would waste as good an opportunity as it’s likely to get for awhile to make things better for average Americans, and clearly define itself as a party in the process.
[/QUOTE]
I agree on every point. Nevertheless, I hope you will vote for her, if it comes down to a choice between her and any Pub.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
I agree on every point. Nevertheless, I hope you will vote for her, if it comes down to a choice between her and any Pub.
[/QUOTE]
Not to worry. Over the past several years, we’ve thoroughly disproved the notion that it doesn’t matter which party occupies the White House. The gap between me and Hillary pales next to the gap between Hillary and, say, Rudy.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Ah, well, if things in general go even nearly as well for America under Hillary’s administration as under Bill’s, we shall be very fortunate to have her. Even if Obama or Gore could have done still better.
[/QUOTE]
My cat would be a better pres than GWB. She would do absolutely nothing but eat, sleep, breathe and shit, and that would be a considerable improvement over the current situation.
Unfortunately she’ not 35, so she’s ineligible.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
I think that just by being an effective leader, Pelosi helps Hillary. Over time, people are noticing that the House of Representatives, with a woman Speaker, is the exact opposite of a train wreck. It’s not exactly a big jump from there to thinking a woman President might be tolerable.
[/QUOTE]
Agreed. And Pelosi is just doing what she should be doing, as Speaker, even if no woman were a viable candidate for POTUS at the moment. I don’t really think HRC’s electoral prospects play a significant role in Pelosi’s decisionmaking. She would, and should, have gone to Syria in any case.
I think there’s a common thread to why the left and right both dislike Hillary: She’s the wrong kind of centrist.
There are two kinds of centrists - the first kind is a centrist because he or she doesn’t fit the ‘mold’ - they hold some opinions equated with the right, and some equated with the left. Rudy Guliani is this kind of centrist. Conservatives like him because he’s strong on defense, strong on crime, and a big “American Values” kinda guy. They loved it when he threw that Saudi Prince’s money back in his face. So they’ll overlook at he’s pro-life, albeit uncomfortably. Liberals don’t like his support for the war, but they do like his pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-gun control positions. But on each individual position, you know where he stands. So both sides see something to like in Guliani.
Hillary Clinton is the second kind of centrist - she’s a centrist because she won’t take ANY position on the left or right. Instead, she ‘triangulates’. Claim she was both for the war but against it. Won’t take a real stand on any of the other important issues. She goes where the political winds blow. So nobody trusts her. What would a Hillary Clinton presidency be like? Does anyone know? Would she govern way from the left? Or from the center-right?
If you’re going to have some positions that your side doesn’t like, you’d better have some that they love. If they vaguely dislike you, and you’ve got nothing for them to love, you’re toast.
I don’t think Hillary will win the nomination, unless Barack Obama says or does something really stupid. Obama is matching her fund raising, and she’s had 8 years to build an organization. Her donors have given a lot already - Obama’s are just getting started. Her best hope is that Iraq turns around in the next year, because then she can triangulate herself right back into the Hawkish Hillary we saw in 2004. That will appease the moderates who, being relieved that the war is turning around, will embrace someone who both supported it and then worried about it like they did.
If the war continues to get worse, and public support drops even further, Hillary will be forced more to the left, and that’s going to leave her looking even more disingenuous.
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
My cat would be a better pres than GWB. She would do absolutely nothing but eat, sleep, breathe and shit, and that would be a considerable improvement over the current situation.
Unfortunately she’ not 35, so she’s ineligible.
[/QUOTE]
If Laura Bush was president and just stayed on the ranch and scrapbooked, she would have been a better pres than GWB. But I’d vote for your cat.
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
If the war continues to get worse, and public support drops even further, Hillary will be forced more to the left, and that’s going to leave her looking even more disingenuous.
[/QUOTE]
But more appealing to the voters all the same.