There was a time when that might have been a factor. But the 2000 election killed that idea. I’m think every person who voted for Nader instead of Gore because Gore wasn’t pure enough spent eight years regretting that decision.
Hillary has a vast number of such vulnerabilities. Despite that, I expect she’ll cruise to an easy victory in the Democratic primary. For one thing, the other candidates are laughably weak. (Jim Webb, I’m looking at you when I say this.) But Hillary’s biggest vulnerability is also the reason she’ll win: she’s a creature of the Democratic establishment and Wall Street. Corporations and rich people will give her tons and tons of money, knowing that she’ll repay them if she becomes President.
A few things that could be brought up by a liberal primary opponent:
[ul]
[li]Claims to care about income inequality, but makes more in an hour than most of us make in three years.[/li][li]Opposed designating Boko Haram as a terrorist group.[/li][li]Supports the corn ethanol mandate.[/li][li]Opposed gay marriage for a very long time, and flip-flopped only after the rest of the Democrats had done so.[/li][li]When they moved to New York, Bill and Hillary chose to live in a very rich enclave. Moreover, it’s a place with virtually no Blacks or Hispanics.[/li][/ul]
In the Democratic primaries?:dubious:
As for the general election the gun nuts are going to vote against her anyway.
I don’t normally agree with you, but I do agree with the logic here. It may not be a huge deal, but it is something that could harm her versus someone equally viable.
Problem is, as people say, there isn’t likely to be an equally viable candidate. So these people will likely hold their nose and vote for Clinton.
Foreign policy isn’t just about what you did or tried to do, it’s also about what happened and how you reacted to it. When Mrs. Clinton was SecState, we had a fairly aggressive, strong foreign policy. Once she was gone, various bad actors started screwing with the administration and getting away with it. That’s obviously a point in her favor.
As for her weaknesses, if she starts trailing in the polls by the end of the year against Republican hopefuls(she’s currently only polling a few points ahead at 45-46 support), then her weakness will quite simply be electability. A fresh face will probably have a better chance. Clinton’s strength is based on her perceived strength, if that makes sense. If she looks weak as a candidate, the bottom will fall out of her campaign.
It certainly did matter in 2008 and was one of the reasons it cost her the nomination.
To answer your question
Russia/Ukraine. She touted the “reset” quite a bit when she was Secretary
Iraq-ISIS growth after withdrawal.
Syria WMD fiasco
Libya has gone quite bad since 2012
This is a statement of opinion, not fact. I don’t buy the right wing critique of Obama’s foreign policy.
Wouldn’t it make more sense though for us to say that things got BETTER after Clinton left? Observing that things got worse may give us satisfaction that we’re making Obama look bad, but he’s not the one running for President.
But yes, it is opinion to some extent. What is not opinion is that Obama’s second term has been much more difficult on foreign policy than his first. It is also a fact that his foreign policy poll ratings were very high when Clinton was SecState and very low shortly after she left.
The “very low” is not a fact – they were lower, but not very low.
Pretty darn low, and Presidents usually get pretty high ratings on foreign policy:
http://pollingreport.com/obama_ad.htm
Last poll had him at 42%. 38% according to CBS a month ago. CBS had his foreign policy rating at 51% when Clinton left.
And Russia is now at a historically low ebb in its international influence, it’s as isolated as a country its size can be, its economy is in the tank, and it’s Putin’s fault, not Clinton’s. Your point is not clear.
US withdrawal from Iraq is not the cause of the ongoing disaster there; arguably the cause was US entry into Iraq. Ethnic/religious fighting has been pretty serious there for a long time, and IS is not really anything new except for the beheadings part. How you link that to US foreign policy is unclear, but anything you could recommend that we aren’t already doing would be interesting to learn.
Pretty much the same answer, the Syria mess being basically ISIS again, following a popular uprising. How is that a failure of US foreign policy, unless your answer is the one many in the US have as their sole answer - to find someone to bomb? Iranian nukes, not Syrian gas shells, are the bigger concern in the region, wouldn’t you say?
Yes, it has. Same question.
With double-digit leads on all of them, you might acknowledge but won’t.
Once again, who? Can’t beat somebody with nobody. As you know.
Gotta be a pony in there …
If you cherry-pick the most Clinton-favorable result out of each, maybe. If you look at the median of the various polls, then no.
As usual, these polls aren’t reliable in any case, since it doesn’t matter whether people in New York and California really hate Jeb Bush or only sort of hate Jeb Bush; the Democrat is going to win those states anyway and you don’t get more electoral votes for winning them at 59% instead of 53%. When it gets down to it, who is going to win Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida? It’s folly to try to predict anything at this point.
So how ya gonna beat her? How ya gonna win all of PA, OH, and FL, which is what you have to do? Being against her isn’t enough, as the polls showing all of your guys getting beat badly show, you gotta make people wanna vote for your guy instead. How ya gonna do that?
Me? I’m not running for President, so I concede that I have little chance of winning the election.
If you don’t have an answer, it’s perfectly OK to say so.
If you’re asking how a Republican could win, the paths are:
*drop in consumer confidence between now and the election – always damages incumbent party with swing voters
*election becomes about guns – Democrats don’t win when this happens, and PA and OH have lots of gun owners who aren’t solid Republicans when elections focus on other issues
*credible anti-Obamacare candidate succeeds in making the election about ACA
I don’t know if the Republicans are capable of nominating someone who can stay on-message about Obamacare without waffling or verging into areas that turn off economic voters like social conservative bullshit. The other issues are beyond their control to some extent; Clinton can choose to not make guns an issue, and the economy is going to do what it does.
I can’t say about the population in general, but we’ve got a number of passionately pro-gun folks on this board who lean Dem on most other issues.
:dubious: Don’t follow politics much?
Consumer confidence seems to be on the rise, albeit slowly. That is not faster is mostly due to 30 years of growth being skewed to the .1% in the detritus of Reagonomics.
Given how the last eight years of “They’re gonna take our guns!!! ZOMG!!” has resulted in nothing, I think that particular cry of “Wolf” is not going to get any traction.
By 2016, “credible anti-Obamacare candidate” is going to be in the same deserted green room with the “credible anti-Social Security canditate”. Maybe there will be some peanuts left over for them to munch on.
Based on how many of the GOP wannabes are still bleating about same-sex marriage… it doesn’t look good.