Hey, Elviswas responding to charges about what the campaign did, not about what was sanctioned or not. The people who made those remarks were part of the campaign when the made those remarks. There is nothing disingenuous about that. If **unconventional **wants to move the goal posts, then he needs to own up to that.
I see a very plausible chance for her. Suppose Obama wins the nomination and the Clintons campaign hard for to show there’s no hard feelings (both are very likely). Now suppose that McCain wins the election. The hard-core Obamaphiles will have Clinton as a handy scapegoat but the broader consensus will be that Obama was another Kerry or Dukakis - a guy who looked good on paper but didn’t have the right stuff to go all the way.
Now move ahead to 2010. Clinton’s 62 and still a major force in the Senate. The Democrats have been out of the White House for a decade. McCain may be running again or may decide to pass on a second term due to his age. In either event, the Clintons can start a whispering campaign that this time the Democrats have to follow their heads not their hearts - nice guys finish last - we need to pick a candidate that will do what it takes to win. And Clinton’s a contender again.
That’s all well and good, but Obama is a cigarette smoker! What, Philip Morris becomes the next Halliburton when Obama declares war on Iran?
Nonsense. The campaign did not call Hillary a monster or say she’d never been called a nigger. The campaign had nothing to do with those remarks. The campaign didn’t even know they were spoken in one case, until long after the fact, and the campaign took immediate and decisive action against the perpetrators in both cases.
Neither of those two examples is even remotely in the same universe as the charge he was supposedly illustrating with them, that the Obama campaign waged deeply personal and damaging attacks against Hillary Clinton. They didn’t.
Heh, at this point, I will vote against Hillary for Senate in New York.
Well, I don’t want to change the goal posts. The comments cited by Elvis were not part of the Obama campaign. They were not organized or sanctioned. If the examples cited are within the agreed definition of campaign, then Ferraro’s comments count as part of HRC’s campaign tactics. I gave HRC a pass on Ferraro but believe she was behind it.
HRC has personally attacked Obama on his association with Rev Wright and the dreaded elitism. She has been outspoken and public with her criticism. Her campaign created a Hillary Clinton approved ad that attacked Obama’s character. I haven’t seen anything comparable from the Obama campaign – not even remotely.
BTW, posted by a she 
I agree. Show me anything any other Democratic presidential candidate said in the primaries comparing a rival unfavorably to the Republican nominee. Did Humphrey say Nixon was more qualified to be commander in chief than McCarthy? Did Ted Kennedy say Reagan passed the commander in chief threshold but Carter didn’t? To my knowledge, this has never been done. Does Obama himself sling mud the way that Hillary herself does? Did Obama say anything about Hillary one tenth as damaging as this? No, he hasn’t. Would he be in the race if he had lost 11 straight primaries and could not catch Hillary in pledged delegates or popular vote? Not a chance. I believe Obama will weather the storm and still beat McCain, leaving Hillary’s chances blown forever, as they should be.
I’m switching parties here, and they didn’t make direct comparisons, but in 1964, Rockefeller said that a Goldwater nomination would “spell disaster for the country and the party”, and Rommney said that his nomination would be the “suicidal destruction of the Republican party”.
And, back on the Democratic side, in 1972, Humphrey said that McGovern’s defense cuts would “cut into the very security of this country”.
Then of course, there was the Mondale Red Phone ad.
And, as it turned out, Goldwater’s nomination was the suicidal destruction of the Republican Party! But it was also the beginning of the modern conservative movement that ultimately marginalized the moderate/liberal “Rockefeller Republicans,” took over the party, and won the White House in 1980.
So as you can see, things still turned out well. 
But- did Rockefeller say that LBJ was qualified and Goldwater was not? And did Muriel Humphrey say how great it was that Humphrey and Nixon loved America and McGovern did not? You say things about your opponent, that’s the nature of the beast. But you do not express a preference for the other party’s guy to your primary rival.
He didn’t talk about LBJ much at all. He spent most of the campaign attacking Goldwater. At least Hillary hasn’t said of Obama’s supporters that they" …feed on fear, hate and terror"
If you want to draw the line in a place where it makes you feel good, then go right ahead. But do you really think the distinction you wish to draw matters to the broader electorate?
In response to his own foolish statements, in the latter case, and his own many-years-long close embrace of a man capable of saying “God damn America!” with the cameras rolling (and you can expect to see much more of it from McCain, obviously).
Yet for her to point out either of those things is *attacking * his character, rather than *revealing * it? Come on now.
You’ve drawn the line in such a way as to conveniently avoid admitting that yes, you have indeed. You’re not fooling anyone.
I agree it doesn’t make much difference to the general electorate. When someone associated with the campaign says something negative or launches a smear about the opponent, it affects most voters and provides fodder for a media blitz. The delineation I am making is the difference between a surrogate making a comment that the official campaign denounces and negatives or smears deliberately launched and sanctioned by the official campaign.
If surrogates’ comments count as attacks against the candidate, then I’ll include those. There is still an enormous difference between what Rev Wright or Samantha Powers said and comments made by Ferraro and recently Bob Johnson. Not only is there a difference between emotionally charged rhetoric and deliberate smear tactics, there is a difference in the response from the two campaigns. Obama immediately fired Powers, and he has spent the entire campaign explaining his association with Rev Wright. Clinton has had little to say about Ferraro or Johnson. The founder of BET, Johnson, made racially charged comments about Obama yesterday in NC. Ferraro is now a regular contributor on Fox News and has made numerous appearances on the network defending her racist comments. Ferraro’s comments are celebrated on the fair and balanced network. I don’t hear about Powers or even Wright making news appearances or speaking at campaign stumps bad mouthing Clinton.
There has been no intentional smear launched against Senator Clinton by the Obama campaign or his surrogates nor has Obama made deeply personal negative comments intended to question Clinton’s character or ability. This is the difference.
Oh come one, Elvis, in the interest of fairness, I was not trying to fool anyone.
Clinton’s scorched earth policy? :dubious: Dude, it’s Obama who is refusing to seat the Fla delegates, which will cause the Dems the general election.
Ok, cite?
Someone called up Obama and said “hey, your call dude. We got all this money for a new primary, the legislature is onboard, the voters are all pumped up, all we need is your permission”, and Obama refused, right?
Oh wait, that’s right, you’ve been discredited about 50 times on this…
More or less right.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/featur.../04/07/hillary/
"Crucially, Team Obama doesn’t want to count the votes of Michigan and Florida. (And let’s note that in a winner-take-all system, Clinton would still be leading in delegates, 1,430 to 1,257, even without Michigan and Florida.) Under the existing system, Obama’s current lead in the popular vote would nearly vanish if the results from Michigan and Florida were included in the total, and his lead in pledged delegates would melt almost to nothing. The difference in the popular vote would fall to 94,005 out of nearly 27 million cast thus far – a difference of a mere four-tenths of 1 percentage point – and the difference in delegates would plummet to about 30, out of the 2,208 needed to win. Add those states’ votes to the totals, and take a sober look at Clinton’s popular-vote victories in virtually all other large states, and the electoral dynamic changes. She begins to look like the almost certain nominee.
The exclusion thus far of these two vital states has come about because of an arbitrary and catastrophic decision made last year by Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee. Two democratic options are available to clean up the mess: Either relent by including the existing Michigan and Florida results or hold new primaries there.
Yet in this, as has happened more than once this primary season, the Obama camp’s reaction has not been to clean up the mess the party has created, but to benefit from it. Given the original primary outcomes in Michigan and Florida, Obama has rejected the idea of certifying the results. Although Obama’s supporters conducted a stealth “uncommitted” campaign in Michigan after he voluntarily removed his name from the state ballot, and even though, contrary to DNC directives, his campaign advertised in Florida, Clinton still won both states decisively. This leaves open the option of holding new primaries in both states. National and state party officials have announced that such revotes could be conducted.
Yet the Obama campaign has stoutly resisted any such revote in either state. In Michigan, Obama’s supporters thwarted efforts to pass the legislation necessary to conduct a new primary. In Florida, campaign lawyers threw monkey wrenches to stop the process cold, claiming that a revote would somehow violate the Voting Rights Act, and charging that a proposed mail-in revote would not be “fraud proof.” (Obama himself, it’s important to note, proposed a bill in 2007 to allow for mail-in voting in federal elections.)
Instead, Obama’s campaign has tendered the startling proposal that he arbitrarily be allotted half of the votes already cast in Michigan and Florida. Of course, a large number of these votes – more than a quarter of a million in Florida alone – were not cast for Obama. He simply proposes that the party add these votes to his total, as though they were rightfully his. Saying that votes already cast for other candidates should go to him is a bold power grab, worthy of the Chicago machine organizations that claimed the votes of the recently deceased, their names gleaned from the voting rolls. By any definition of democracy, those votes do not belong to Obama; nor do they belong to Hillary Clinton, nor to Howard Dean. They belong to the voters. Obama can no more lay claim to them legitimately than his supporters can declare he has won the nomination before the remaining primaries take place. "
I swear this place is some kind of freakin’ alternative Universe. In here, Obama is the Second Coming instead of a deeply flawed far-left radical nutcase, and Hillary isn’t a closet Republican.
Out in the real world, guess what? Everyone knows who Hillary is and just what she’s about:
As for Obama, he’ll get his during the general election. If the Dems win, it will be by the slimmest of margins.
Four years to find a rod of carbon that can bury the Republicans, given that they have managed to hand them a puerile fool who has turned out to be as unpopular, at minimum, as either Hoover or Carter, and these two dysfunctional boobs is all they can come up with. Pathetic.
Thank you. That was wonderful.
Obama is a man with an ego.
I don’t believe either Hillary or Obama can win, but Obama has proven he can’t win in northern industrial states (other than Illinois and we’ll see about PA). Obama will not win any southern state, (there is a slight chance Hillary can win Arkansas).
That said, Hillary and Bill worked since the early 80s for the Democratic, party the whole point of having delegates not elected is to stop an unelectable candidate from taking over.
Obama is just a left leaning liberal, this has never been discussed. He is Dukakis, Mondale and McGovern when he loses he will say it’s race, but I am against him because he’s an ultra liberal and that has been out of touch with America since the 60s. Maybe ultra liberals are OK at local levels but Reagan killed them off.
Oprah thought Obama was cute and took a senator with a dismal record and gave him enough money. Obama proved black people will vote for anyone they see as black.
Obama is not an African American, his father was African not African America. He has no claim to African America roots, yet all he proved so far is black people will vote against the Clintons who helped them for the sake of skin color.
Gore won 90% of the Black vote and Kerry won 89% and they both lost. Blacks are concentrated in areas where the electorate will vote Democrat anyway so they aren’t gonna help him nationally only locally.
So Clinton is mad and has a right to be. The rules were made so that a candidate like Obama who can’t win, won’t be able to unless they run away with the nomination.
You are all forgetting that Obama’s black supporters have also said if Hillary is the nominee they will not support her and consider his nomination Stolen from him.
The Republicans took a war hero like Kerry and turned him into a Draft Dodge, Obama will get shredded as his record is bad, and he’s done nothing for Illinois in the past two years but take a vacatation at taxpayers expense.
Obama will lose the south, and you can’t win without one southern state. That said Hillary can’t win either but she’ll make a better showing. Remember polls mean nothing because no one will state to a pollster he’s a racist, but when they aren’t accountable to a polster and not face to face they will vote that way.