Richardson I think could stand up to scrutiny. Depends on what skeletons he has. My Father who is a Republican in New Mexico and has worked with him likes him just fine and thinks he would make a good president.
Richardson’s big deal that he can rely on is the fact that he is the singularly most qualified candidate in the entire field from any party. I doubt it will be enough, but it is true. It would be hard to smear him I think.
Man, this is an easy one!
Nope…she is a serious candidate with wide spread support by the Dem’s and loads of cash to back up her run. She ain’t no Alan Keyes by any stretch of the imaginations…
Not only are they actually going to run her (well, no…she is running herself actually. She isn’t a dog after all :)) but she is currently in the lead and pulling away from the pack. Unless she has a major fuckup in the next few months I think its a safe bet to say she WILL be the Democrat candidate.
Now, whether she can win in a national election against who ever the Pub’s toss out there is another matter…
Gee, you think? 
This whole ‘class warfare’ bullshit should have died a deserved death decades ago…but then some folks are still clinging creationism, flat earth and aliens killing Kennedy from 6 miles under the grassy knoll, so its not that big a surprise…
-XT
Not to give myself to much credit but I spotted it back when he was running. The trigger for me was his position on the death penalty. Bush had a long history of approving every capital punishment that came across his desk (and in Texas that’s a lot). Then when he announced for President, he suddenly had to explain his position to a national audience. He waffled around about how it had really been other people who had sentenced all those people to death and he just rubber stamped their decisions. And then he commuted a death penalty for the first time in his administration to try and create the illusion that he took the job seriously. But you could see he didn’t - he didn’t give the impression that he was in favor of capital punishment or that he was against it. He just seemed bewildered when other people said that it was something he should have thought about and made a moral decision on at some point.
I can respect a man who says he’s against the death penalty and I can respect a man who says he’s in favor of the death penalty. It’s a tough issue and there are thoughtful people on both sides of it. But a man who will send hundreds of people to death without stopping to think about whether or not it’s the right thing to do? That man doesn’t have what it takes to be President.
Back around 2002, the consensus would have been that John Kerry was a perfect candidate and could stand up to whatever was thrown at him. He was an experienced and hard-working politician, had strong knowledge of both foreign and dmostic issues, and was a genuine war hero. Where’s his reputation now?
It doesn’t matter what the reality is about Bill Richardson (who I chose mainly because he’s an unknown at this point - the same argument can be made about Dodd or Gravel or Vilsack). If there’s not anything true out there to use against him, then they’ll use lies instead. Does anyone really believe that the Swift Boaters were telling the truth about Kerry?
Obviously someone believed the Swift Boaters, because they were successful.
According to a Rolling Stone article I read about Giuliani, he is using a lot of the same people who funded the Swift Boat stuff to go after Hillary.
Well, we can only hope the people are wise to all that by now . . .
We can only hope.
Sure they believed it then. But they don’t believe it now. At some point a rumor has to put up or shut up - after a few months you have to either come up with some real evidence or people are going to start believing you’re just crying wolf. Political campaigners know this and save their best material for the summer before the election.
Which is my whole point - Hillary Clinton is the strongest Democratic candidate because they’ve used all their best stuff on her already. Sure a lot of people hate her; but it’s reached saturation point - there’s no new reasons to hate her and the old reasons are getting stale. The other candidates haven’t gone through the ringer yet - their negative ratings are still ahead of them and will be fresh wounds on Election Day.
It would be inconvenient for the upper class, that’s what. They have no problem with class war; they just want to be the only ones waging it. And I don’t think the upper classes believe that they have many if any “interests in common” with the rest of us.
I think it’s pretty likely Clinton will be our next president assuming the Dems don’t implode or Bush doesn’t pull his best move*. But…
Come on people! Can we at least pretend we live in a thriving democracy where different ideas and people can come to the table and have a realistic shot? I was born in 1985. I can’t remember a president who wasn’t part of either the Bush or Clinton crime family duopoly. Are we seriously going to go Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton? That’s 28 years, assuming Ms. Clinton is re-elected. I guess we need to give more time for Jeb to get ready…
Aside from that, from a personal stand point, everyone currently running for the GOP appears to be a deranged lunatic. Most everyone on the left appears to be a bunch of mealy mouthed spineless whimps going through the motions, satisfying their corporate overlords. Give me Kucinich, or failing that, Gore.
Ms. Clinton is better than anything the GOP has to offer, but that’s damning with faint praise.
Imagine Hillary at the helm of the unitary executive. That’s scary to me, because when I watch her foreign policy speeches she strikes me as Bush in a skirt, without the stutter. Well, OK, pantsuit, whatever – you get the idea. Iran, Iraq, the bases, America going back to 1898 in a big way – she pretty much seems to buy into it to the hilt. I wish she were a “radical leftist.”
actually it’s was spelled - YEEEE-AAARGGHH!
He really was a good candidate at the time tho was too far Left for me. Too bad that’s his one memorable quote.
To the OP- and I say this as a C’tian Righty Repub, the Dem nomination & perhaps the Presidency itself is Hillary’s to lose.
[hijack]
If the key of C is the people’s key, then what is the key of the bourgeoisie? I ask this question most sincerely: In what key do they play?*
*Does anyone else remember the song with these lyrics?
[/hijack]
Oh, yeh, the topic of the thread: Count me as another bleeding-heart liberal who’s not thrilled about Hillary (much prefer Obama at this point), but as others have pointed out, she’s already had her life raked over and over the coals of rightwing righteous indignation and those burgers are burned to an unappetizing crisp by now. She’d have to do something majorly stupid to lose the nomination at this point, and I just don’t see that happening.
Can she win the White House? Depends who the Republicans run, and how that candidate runs his campaign, but yeh, I believe she can win it.
Giuliani’s troops have been busy spreading smears (it’s an un-Christian cult!) about Romney’s religion among the fervently Christian base, it appears from news reports I’ve been reading lately. His campaign using Swiftboating against Hillary I think would be a given, but I doubt it will work on her to any significant degree.
I agree with Larry Borgia about the tendency to underestimate Hillary. From her tour-de-force interview on FoxNews (where she slew both Chris Wallace and Lindsay Graham) to her announcement that it’s okay to believe in God to her plea for tolerance on behalf of pro-lifers — she is the consumate politician. I think she has a ruthless determination and resolve. It is my opinion that she will put the major mojo on her opposition, doing whatever is necessary to win. And if she runs, I think she will win.
As a minor hijack (but at least tangentially relevant), how much of the “success” of the Swift Boat campaign was due to the mind-numbingly stupid responses (or lack thereof) from the Kerry Campaign?
Even if the 'Pubs discover something new against HRC, I can’t see her campaign letting them have even one full news cycle without a coordinated response and counter-assault, let alone the weeks of one-sided spin Kerry gave them.
So, I guess the question is:
Can Swift Boating be successful against active opposition? If not, will it ever become a widely used campaign tactic or will it become a footnote of history?
Good point. The Rebublicans would be foolish if they expect Clinton to campaign like the hapless and pathetic John Kerry.
It worked because it was so dearly craved. Those who wanted to believe, who hungered for a reason to sneer at Kerry’s war record in favor of a man who never risked more than a poke in the eye from a swizzle stick, seized upon the “Swiftie” lies like a pack of starved dogs on a pork chop. On these very pages, people you might otherwise have thought sane and sensible fought an increasingly bitter rear guard action to defend the indefensible. There is nothing easier than convincing someone of something they crave to believe. Frankly, I doubt there is anything Kerry might have done.
Takes you back to old story about LBJ, how he urged his press guy to spread the rumor than his political opponent was a bestiality enthusiast.
“Lyndon, you can’t go around saying he fucks his cattle!”
“No, I can’t, but if I work it right, I can make him deny it.”
As some who dislikes HRC intensely and hopes fervently that Obama gets more traction, it all depends on who she is running against doesn’t it? And right now there doesn’t seem to be anyone, including those not yet running, who are strong candidates themselves. A lot can change very quickly but she is playing her cards well and shows little sign of being on the edge of making any real stupid moves.
Oh, for crying out loud. Are you going to pretend that you’ve never heard that phrase before and insist on a literal interpretation? Class warfare is, and has been, when you try to pit different socio-economic classes against each other in the political arena. I can’t even believe we’re having this discussion.
Anyone who owned Enron stock was allowed to sell it whenever he wished to.
The term “class warfare” doesn’t mean “having criticism of an economic or tax policy.”
The term “class warfare” doesn’t mean “if you think anything is unfair.”
The term “class warfare” doesn’t mean “believing that there are large discrepancies in the incomes and buying power of various Americans.”
It is an attempt by Republicans to create a bogeyman on par with “Socialized medicine.” It’s ludicrous hyperbole. Don’t blame me if you get called for swallowing their rhetoric.