Funny, she keeps on making these speeches outlining what her policies would be on various issues, which is what I would call a ‘platform,’ but according to you, her only platform is that she’s ahead.
Maybe we’re using the word very differently.
I doubt that. Are Dem voters in South Carolina going to swing to Bernie just because he won NH? How about Nevada?
Then comes Super Tuesday (March 1) with:
Alabama
Arkansas
Colorado caucuses
Georgia
Massachusetts
Minnesota caucuses
North Carolina
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
Vermont
Virginia
That’s 12 states, and Bernie will surely do well in VT and MA, and will have a chance in MN and CO. But that’s as good as it gets for him.
From there, Hillary will all but sweep March (Louisiana, Nebraska caucus, Mississippi, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Arizona, Utah, Hawaii caucus), and even if Bernie won both Iowa and NH, it will be a so-what at that point.
When the comparison poses a binary choice about the qualifications of the opponent then it’s negative campaigning. Unless you thought she meant to imply that Obama was the better choice.
Again, that’s hardly what I think of as negative campaigning.
Saying “I will increase the defense budget, but my opponent will reduce it” isn’t negative campaigning in my book. It’s just factual (assuming it is factual of course).
If I’m the opponent in question, and I’ve taken specific positions, having them accurately spelled out by the other candidate with a minimum of spin is hardly something I can point to as negative campaigning on that candidate’s part.
Turning “my opponent will reduce defense spending” into “my opponent won’t protect us from terrorists” is negative campaigning.
I don’t think she will. Candidates like Sanders and Trump are leading in polls now because the campaign hasn’t entered the serious stage yet. Nothing is real until Iowa and New Hampshire.
Clinton has nothing to gain by trashing Sanders at this point. She’s never going to win over conservatives. But she might alienate part of the left wing base. She’ll just want to stay quiet and hope that Sanders will pump the liberals up and that they’ll transfer their loyalty to her when Sanders drops out. Trying to push Sanders out might cause a backlash with liberals deciding there’s no difference between Clinton and a Republican so why bother voting? Attacking Sanders would also feed into the “Hillary is ruthless” theme that’s being played and that could hurt her with moderate swing voters as well.
Except for not contradicting or trying to counter “supporters” of hers inventing the whole “Obama Isn’t An American” thing. Or doesn’t that count?
[According to the article [in Politico],the theory that Obama was born in Kenya “first emerged in the spring of 2008, as Clinton supporters circulated an anonymous email questioning Obama’s citizenship.”
The second article, which ran several days after the Politico piece, was published by the Telegraph, a British paper, which stated: “An anonymous email circulated by supporters of Mrs Clinton, Mr Obama’s main rival for the party’s nomination, thrust a new allegation into the national spotlight — that he had not been born in Hawaii.”
Both of those stories comport with what we here at FactCheck.org wrote two-and-a-half years earlier, on Nov. 8, 2008: “This claim was first advanced by diehard Hillary Clinton supporters as her campaign for the party’s nomination faded, and has enjoyed a revival among John McCain’s partisans as he fell substantially behind Obama in public opinion polls.”
< big snip >
It is certainly interesting, and perhaps historically and politically relevant, that “birther” advocacy may have originated with supporters of Hillary Clinton <snip>. But whether those theories were advocated by Clinton and/or her campaign or simply by Clinton “supporters” is an important distinction. Candidates are expected to be held accountable for the actions of their campaigns.](Was Hillary Clinton the Original 'Birther'? - FactCheck.org)
(Bolding mine)
And if Hillary is absolved from speaking out against her “supporters”, then Bush is off the hook for what the Swiftboaters did with Kerry. (Actually Bush did better than Hillary in that regard: he (eventually) spoke out against the Swiftboaters. Granted, too little, too late, but it’s still better than Hillary’s record with the Birther thing.
I dunno. Did this actually make the news during the time the Dem nomination was still in doubt? I don’t remember anything about it, which doesn’t say much by itself, but I notice FactCheck couldn’t come up with a link to anything earlier than November 2008. Is there a reason to think Hillary was aware at the time that supporters of hers were going there?
Come on, we all know how this will play out. Sanders will soon be a forgotten memory as Hillary wins the nomination with ease. People are hyping Sanders for entertainment’s sake.
You could not be more wrong. Look, I know you’d like to believe this because you think it’s only a matter of “the Democrats” coming together at the end of the primary and coalescing around “their candidate.” But millions of Bernie’s supporters are neither Democrats nor feel beholden to the Democratic party once the primaries are over. Bernie Sanders is drawing support from groups that have never traditionally supported a Democratic candidate and in fact are *not * doing so with their support of Independent Bernie Sanders. For millions of people, it will be Bernie Sanders or bust.
And today I have firmly committed to that, as well. I’ll be damned if I’ll compromise my principles to cast an affirmative vote for someone I believe has few principles of her own. And if a Republican wins the White House because millions of us are sick to death of toeing the Corporate Party line, that’s Hillary’s and the party’s own fault for not earning enough votes to win.
As a free American, I will not play this corrupt game anymore. Our government is broken and if we don’t fix it now with the only candidate who’s brave enough to speak truth to power, the country is doomed to failure no matter which right-winger gets into the Oval Office … and that includes Hillary.
She was saying “I will answer the phone at 3AM and Barack Obama will not”. When did he state that as his position? I’ll give you a hint, he didn’t. So it’s not just negative campaigning, it’s dishonest negative campaigning.
Did you bother reading that? It’s calling her out on it. She was pandering to Texans. Oh yeah, and she lost. Face it, you still got nothing. It’s like a boy in Boston rooting for the Yankees because they have a better record on May 1st.
