I think helping Illinois-based businesses is kind of his job as an Illinois senator. YMMV.
Yeah, drink that kool-aid. I have no problem with Obama, but he’s an establishment candidate and people that generally think he’s some reforming outsider are lying to themselves because they are desperate for that to be true.
Obama has used his position as Senator to enrich lobbyists in the past, why do you think he wouldn’t do the same with his position as President? Because he says so? Well, if we’re in the business of believing everything a politician says, then the American people must be more foolish than I had ever imagined.
Obama’s actions are clear, and they are a clear contradiction to his flowery words.
For the viewers at home, note how Martin has now tried to shift the goalposts from the initial claim. Adding ad hominem arguments as well. Classy, Martin. Classy.
Mmhmm, and no one here has problems with Ted Stevens helping Alaska-based businesses? I could have sworn I’ve seen people have problems with just that.
FTR I have no problem with lobbyists, I actually agree with Hillary Clinton’s words, “they represent ordinary Americans.” Lobbying groups are just ways for interested parties to collectively speak with those in power, your voice is easier to hear when you have money and are many versus when you have no money and are one. In fact, PACs and lobbying groups are just about one of the most American things out there, and I grow tired of people bashing them.
I do have a bit of a problem with a candidate spending most of his political career in bed with lobbyists then campaigning against them when it’s time to run for President. That’s little different from Romney’s “miracle” shift to deep-rooted conservatism when he was no longer Governor of Massachusetts.
They are the most constructive means out there for citizens to become part of their government, by pooling resources. Sure, some lobbyist groups are primarily funded by multi-millionaire corporate executives, but many of them are made up of ordinary Americans (and even multi-millionaire corporate executives have a right to make themselves heard, much to the annoyance of leftists.)
I’m not trying to shift the goal posts, in fact I never made the claim that Obama has received money from PACs and lobbyists during this campaign. All I did was present information, I in fact, never refuted your initial claim, I just gave the “viewers at home” some more information so they could form a more complete picture of Obama.
Has Obama directly accepted money from lobbying organizations or PACs in this Presidential campaign? No.
Does he have a history of being close with PACs and lobbyists? Yes. He has accepted quite a lot of money from these sort of organizations throughout his career as a politician.
I never argued “ad hominem” if you can show where that was the case I’ll eat my hat. I have no problem with people supporting Obama but I do grow tired of people supporting Obama with no regard to the facts. Obama is a politician, and everything that that implies, is true for Obama. What he isn’t is a dirty politician, I’d argue Hillary Clinton is probably a bit dirty, considering some of her fund raising fiascoes and et cetera in the past–and that is why Obama looks so much better by direct comparison. However, Obama is no true agent for change, he’s been in bed with Washington for years, and is now campaigning as being an “outside the beltway” guy.
Guess what, that’s the same message candidates try to sell every single year, and I have a hard time buying it every single year, because usually the facts don’t support those claims.
Ok, so you agree with me. Great. I know, and he has addressed, that he has not allows tried to run his campaigns without PAC or lobbyist funds. But he has this time, and that’s a change and an important one.
As for ad hominem, you suggested I’m “drinking the kool-aid.” Because I couldn’t just legitimately disagree with you. It must be that I’m somehow irrational. That’s an ad hominem–attacking my capacities rather than addressing the arguments.
-Clinton 
Sen. Kennedy has done a great job in the Senate of not only advancing an agenda for the people, but also in carrying the torch of the Kennedy legacy; I suspect Hillary will follow a similar career path. Though I do not wish to see her as President, I also do not wish to see her disappear from the political scene. I believe, and someone else alluded to it, that once she clears her plate of Presidential hopes, she will be less calculated and more courageous in her Senate actions. I think this will be a very good thing for the America.
If Kennedy is the lion of the Senate, and as the rumors here go, Hillary divorces Bill, does she then go on to become the cougar of the Senate? ::d&R::
No.
Like JFK before her, Hillary ran for the NY senate seat with the express intention of building her resume for a run at the white house. Every vote she has cast, and public statement she has made as a senator has been chosen to enhance her (perceived at the time) electability as a presidential candidate.
Should she fail in this campaign, her reason for having sought the senate seat is gone for at least 4, and likely 8 years. Having already spent 7 years waiting on that particular stepping stone, it is sensible to ask if she is willing to make it 11 or 15 years.
Nebraska (31)? *Nebraska *?! You mean the state with less than 10% of the delegates of CA (370)? Where Hillary won? Nebraska? It is to laff. :rolleyes: Sure, Obama is running a great race and may yet win, but who gives a fuck about Nebraska? Jesus, you’ll reach for anything. :dubious:
This just in Obama also won North Dakota (13)! Wowee!!! Hillary won New York (232).
Look Obama is doing great, is a very charismatic speaker and could make a pretty good Prez. But let’s not stretch the facts too much.
This looks like it’ll go all the way to the convention, and is a very exciting race. Finally!
I don’t see it as a material difference, but YMMV.
I was specifically attacking your attempt to ignore the argument entirely:
I was not contradicting your points, but I was bringing up what I feel is a valuable piece of information about Obama that more people should know. It’s not exactly a secret, that news I linked was old news, I heard about it a long time ago and I presume others have as well. But I don’t see it mentioned very often here on the SDMB.
Your response was basically to just repeat yourself, that isn’t debate and don’t expect me to regard it as such. I referred to it as “drinking the Kool-Aid” because you were willfully ignoring the content of the articles–just because they did not refute your point directly doesn’t mean they did not present important issues that should be of concern to anyone who is considering voting for Obama in November (or in a primary election.)
All I ever said to you before that was, “here’s an interesting article about Obama” instead of actually addressing Obama’s past relationships with lobbyists and PACs you simply repeated yourself. That to me, was demonstrating a willful desire to ignore anything that contradicts with your conception of what “Obama, Ideal President” is.
I was not personally insulting you or attacking your capabilities, I was implying that you were being deliberately closed-minded, not that you were not capable of behaving otherwise.
More specifically it can’t be said that I was arguing ad hominem because you had not, in fact, presented any argument to me. For me to circumvent claims of yours by attacking you directly you would have had to have made some claims for me to address, since I had no material disagreement with any of your claims, such a situation did not exist. We were never in disagreement about whether or not Obama had accepted money from lobbyists or PACs in his campaign for President.
- You mean RFK, and 2. You don’t know that, and 3. Even if true, she’d *hardly * be the first :dubious:, and 4. and hasn’t Obama done pretty much the same thing?
Wow … she wants to be President !!! She’ll even do what it takes to win it!!! Unforgivable! Intolerable!!!
Come on now, people. :rolleyes:
ElvisL1ves, Oh c’mon yourself.
First of all in context of this op it is a relevant point, not an attack on her personality. If her reason for being in the Senate was exclusively to prepare for a Presidential run then she would be less motivated to stay there if she loses. I believe that it was most of her motivation but I also believe that she wants to use power effectively and that once she gives up on the Presidency she will be an outstanding Senate leader. Others are reasonable to conclude otherwise however.
Second, no, in no way did Obama embark on the road to the Senate with an eye to use it a quick step off to the White House. Now after his convention speech was reacted to so well, he may have started to dream a little …
DrDeth I think you miss her point. HRC has won a few big states and those were not blow-outs. Meanwhile across the country, from Louisiana to Nebraska, Obama is blowing her away. It aslo speaks to the question of who’ll do better in a general - she who can win in the states that will be blue no matter which of them runs, or he who might take a few purples and even pull out a red or two?
No doubt New York and California are important and populous. And so is the host of the rest of the country.
In terms of the handicapping … his must-do was to at least win the bulk of the states coming into OH and TX. Doing so by overwhelming margins is gravy. Assuming he wins the bulk of the Potomac Primaries on Tuesday as well, then she needs to win TX and OH both by decent margins to stay reasonably viable. And he’ll have lots of time to work on those states. With her having to explain why so many states really don’t matter much (it’s one thing for you to dis all these states, another for her to do so). If she fails to win both after an Obama several week run of wins, then she’s effectively done. Even if the delegate count shows it still close. She wins both and it slogs on…
Well Said DSeid
I see it slogging on, waay before I see a Hillary pull-out to the clear front-runner. I just don’t think she can pull out that far. Obama is winning the Bread and Butter Belt states with 2-1 and more margins. Scenerio 1) He keeps his course wins either Texas or Ohio or Penn and becomes the clear front-runner or 2) she pulls one or both of those states and it slogs on to a brokered convention - in which Obama might still win. If the FL, MI delegates are sat and Hillary comes out on top from that, millionss of future voters will again lose hope in the democratic party in the U.S . I hope that doesn’t happen.
Yet that is an *assumption * with, to be charitable, little factual evidence to support it. There are lots of other assumptions, and visceral emotions, that it is based upon, of course.
You have a similar amount of actual evidence for that statement as well. You could switch the names and say almost exactly the same thing. The reasons for the different assumptions you’re happy to make is most certainly open to question. :dubious:
Was Hillary Clinton thinking of the presidency in the 90’s? Late 90’s?
What was the #1 thing people wondered of Hillary after her husband cheated on her in front of the world? Answer: Why aren’t you going to leave him???
Why didn’t she leave him?
What’s the #1 reason the likes of Kate Michelman are supporting Obama and not Hillary?
My guess would be yes. But so what?
Right up there in the rankings was “It’s nobody’s damned business but hers and Bill’s”. Which was, and remains, true.
:shrug: Maybe you could provide one of those link thingies so we’ll know. Or state your point.
Elv1sLives, you really think the two speculations have the same amount of basis?
On the one hand you have a woman who entered her first lady status having been held up by her husband as a “two for one” deal, who after her first lady stint moved to a large delegate block Democratic state to run for Senate in and whose voting record in the Senate can be well explained by being that of someone not wanting to do anything that may be held against her in a Presidential run. I have no written evidence that she had a particular plan but I do hear and see a duck quacking and walking.
On the other hand I see someone who was running for the Senate from the position of state senator and long time activist/organizer and who was thrust onto the national stage at a convention partly to help support him in what at that point (before Ryan’s marital issues surfaced famously) was a tight race and who then hit the chord that the American public was desperate to hear. That is not a picture of someone running for Senate with a plan to run for President a few years later.
You think those are “almost exactly the same thing”?
:dubious: to you too.
Now I have no problem with her having had plans and ambitions. I like goal-driven people. Those are not bad things. But the what her goals have been is relevant to the question of what she does next. And her denying those goals is consistent with what many of us see as a lack of authenticity, and that is a problem for her.
This Cite is for NY Feminists for peace petitioning to endorse Obama - it quickly went from a state petition to a national one. Read carefully the names at the bottom.
This is the cite for why Kate Michelman is endorseing Barack instead of Hillary. This is very telling to me, and I’m a guy.
Your first cite is that, for that group, the Iraq war trumps all other issues, and they can’t overlook Clinton’s AUMF vote. That is an entirely mainstream view, of course, unrelated to gender relations in any way.
Your second cite does not even *mention * Clinton - it’s about why Michelman is supporting Obama over Edwards.
What was your point?
DSeid, yes, you see 2 people who both want to be President, and to so chose career paths that were available to them. Yes, those paths have been different from each other and from the white-man standard; for a black or a woman they inevitably have been. That’s just the way our society has been built in recent decades and at the present.
But your imputation of different motives is, as I stated, not based on much evidence.
Ok, in Nebraska Obama won 15 of 31 votes (some are undecided). How is that “blowing her away”? In LA, Ob has 31 of 66.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_delegate_count.html
In OK, Hil won 24 of 38. NY 139 Clinton to 93 Obama. Arkansas- Hil 3 times as many delegates, now that is “blowing away”. Obama did win his home state, but only by 2x.
Hillary still leads in the overall count. Not by much., sure but as long as she is leading, Obama is not “blowing her away”. A very very tight race is not anyone blowing anyone away.