i think she is unelectable, her negatives are too high, and the idea that she is somehow a symbol of "change," standing at the podium with Bill, Madeleine Halfbright, and Wesley Clark is laughable. Its just one more instance of her focus group mentality, its like some advisor polled the word "change" and so they adopted it as a tagline.
Truth
She's walking off the stage with Terry McAuliffe. This is the old Democratic Party machine behind her.
i think she is unelectable, her negatives are too high, and the idea that she is somehow a symbol of "change," standing at the podium with Bill, Madeleine Halfbright, and Wesley Clark is laughable. Its just one more instance of her focus group mentality, its like some advisor polled the word "change" and so they adopted it as a tagline.
Truth
She's walking off the stage with Terry McAuliffe. This is the old Democratic Party machine behind her.
Bill is/was the ultimate frontman for that machine - Hillary can't pull it off - she lacks star quality
You cannot point to one speech or vote from Obama that propelled him into higher numbers. Either she did this to herself through a poorly worded answer, or the media wanted to make this a race. That is the reality.
You cannot point to one speech or vote from Obama that propelled him into higher numbers. Either she did this to herself through a poorly worded answer, or the media wanted to make this a race. That is the reality.
And i'm probably not the only one who laughs when people below the age of 75 start out a sentence with "Good god". Tell Wally and the Beaver I said what's up.
And i'm probably not the only one who laughs when people below the age of 75 start out a sentence with "Good god". Tell Wally and the Beaver I said what's up.
Fuck Wally & Beaver...
NO ONE started more sentences with the words "Good God" than James Brown!!!!!
And i'm probably not the only one who laughs when people below the age of 75 start out a sentence with "Good god". Tell Wally and the Beaver I said what's up.
im surprised to find out that a hillary fanboy knows someone under the age of 75
i think she is unelectable, her negatives are too high
COSINE. Hilary doesn't stand a chance of winning a general election. Too many people hate her. Even democrats. And a lot of women. And possibly as many men. I like her fine but she just isn't going to win. Just not.
i think she is unelectable, her negatives are too high
COSINE. Hilary doesn't stand a chance of winning a general election. Too many people hate her. Even democrats. And a lot of women. And possibly as many men. I like her fine but she just isn't going to win. Just not.
I find this so-called conventional wisdom rather suspect.
For one thing, we're not even out of primary season yet. The idea that Clinton would be absolutely un-electable, when we don't even know who the other candidate(s) is/are is, is hard to buy into. In an open race, with other alternatives around, it's easy enough to say, "I'd never vote for her." But if the choice were, say: Clinton vs. Romney, with no viable third party candidate (*cough cough* McCain and/or Bloomberg), you really think people would rather vote for Romney or no one at all, then vote for Clinton?
Sure, there will be some people who, under no circumstances, would vote for her, but I think a lot of Hillary-haters would be willing to change their tune given a limited set of choices. If this were in a different era, that'd be one thing, but after 8 years of Bush, people are likely willing to stomach a lot in order to see "the other side win." I can't see how any GOP candidate would be palatable to even ardent anti-Clintonites in the Dem camp.
All I have to add is:
GEORGE BUSH GOT RE-ELECTED WITH HIGHER NUMBERS THAN HE GOT IN 2000.
That, more than anything, proves that there's no such thing as "un-electable."
i think she is unelectable, her negatives are too high
COSINE. Hilary doesn't stand a chance of winning a general election. Too many people hate her. Even democrats. And a lot of women. And possibly as many men. I like her fine but she just isn't going to win. Just not.
I find this so-called conventional wisdom rather suspect.
For one thing, we're not even out of primary season yet. The idea that Clinton would be absolutely un-electable, when we don't even know who the other candidate(s) is/are is, is hard to buy into. In an open race, with other alternatives around, it's easy enough to say, "I'd never vote for her." But if the choice were, say: Clinton vs. Romney, with no viable third party candidate (*cough cough* McCain and/or Bloomberg), you really think people would rather vote for Romney or no one at all, then vote for Clinton?
Sure, there will be some people who, under no circumstances, would vote for her, but I think a lot of Hillary-haters would be willing to change their tune given a limited set of choices. If this were in a different era, that'd be one thing, but after 8 years of Bush, people are likely willing to stomach a lot in order to see "the other side win." I can't see how any GOP candidate would be palatable to even ardent anti-Clintonites in the Dem camp.
All I have to add is:
GEORGE BUSH GOT RE-ELECTED WITH HIGHER NUMBERS THAN HE GOT IN 2000.
That, more than anything, proves that there's no such thing as "un-electable."
i'm voting for whomever the dems field, and if that's hilary then i'm fine with that. but i think it would be stupid for the dems to nominate hilary when they have better and better-liked candidates. seriously. any one of these folls would have crushed kerry.
and as for bush once you get jesus all up in the mix your metrics for electability no longer have any rational basis
and as for bush once you get jesus all up in the mix your metrics for electability no longer have any rational basis
Without discounting the power of the evangelical vote, if you look at what platforms Bush won on in 2004, most of it had to do with post-9/11 fallout and fears. Bush won because people felt safer with him than with Kerry (god knows why but whatever, that's what the exiting polling suggested). His religious views aren't what drew non-fundamentalists to vote for him and it's important that we don't give the religious right more credit than they deserve. The number of voters for whom 'values issues' are truly important is still a small minority compared to bread and butter things like national security and the economy.
And here's my point: how is it that Clinton still polls >>>>>>>>>>> ahead of the rest of the Democratic field (or, at least did pre-Iowa) if it should be obvious to people that she's un-electable? It's not exactly a secret that many people don't like her yet in state after state, she's the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Have all the polled Democratic voters gone stupid? It's not like the brain trust here is seeing something that most other rational voters don't.
Don't get me wrong - I'm pulling for Obama. But I think people have a warped view on just how unliked Clinton is.
and as for bush once you get jesus all up in the mix your metrics for electability no longer have any rational basis
Without discounting the power of the evangelical vote, if you look at what platforms Bush won on in 2004, most of it had to do with post-9/11 fallout and fears. Bush won because people felt safer with him than with Kerry (god knows why but whatever, that's what the exiting polling suggested). His religious views aren't what drew non-fundamentalists to vote for him and it's important that we don't give the religious right more credit than they deserve. The number of voters for whom 'values issues' are truly important is still a small minority compared to bread and butter things like national security and the economy.
And here's my point: how is it that Clinton still polls >>>>>>>>>>> ahead of the rest of the Democratic field (or, at least did pre-Iowa) if it should be obvious to people that she's un-electable? It's not exactly a secret that many people don't like her yet in state after state, she's the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Have all the polled Democratic voters gone stupid? It's not like the brain trust here is seeing something that most other rational voters don't.
Don't get me wrong - I'm pulling for Obama. But I think people have a warped view on just how unliked Clinton is.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the American majority's political leanings.
You really, really need to spend more time on the "other" side if you want to understand why Bush got re-elected, or why Clinton might be unelectable. Shit, even spend some time in an office of a big corporation. I worked in San Francisco and the majority of my office voted for Bush.
IMO, Clinton = Kerry. If it ends up being a race pitting Clinton against Romney, you will see a 3rd Party Candidacy from Bloomberg, at least that's what I'm hearing. Bloomberg might win but more likely he'll split off a lot of votes from the Democratic candidate.
Another scenario is that Clinton goes up against McCain, who could beat her. I think she could beat Giuliani but not sure about Huckabee. I think Huckabee could beat Clinton.
Clinton is in no way a shoe-in and in many ways is just more of the Same Old Democratic Party that people started running from in 2000 and haven't stopped.
IMO, Clinton = Kerry. If it ends up being a race pitting Clinton against Romney, you will see a 3rd Party Candidacy from Bloomberg, at least that's what I'm hearing. Bloomberg might win but more likely he'll split off a lot of votes from the Democratic candidate.
Another scenario is that Clinton goes up against McCain, who could beat her. I think she could beat Giuliani but not sure about Huckabee. I think Huckabee could beat Clinton.
Clinton is in no way a shoe-in and in many ways is just more of the Same Old Democratic Party that people started running from in 2000 and haven't stopped.
Yup. Spanky, I don't think most rational people are saying she can't win. People are reacting to this inevitability image they tried to push, combined with the amount of people who froth at the mention of her name, and saying, Hey, we've got good candidates, and momentum. Simply, Hillary is probably our best shot at loosing. Just like Kerry, she's deep, deep into the Democrats of the 90's (look at her concession speech team), and adding the word 'change' to her repertoire now ain't gonna do it.
for real...its amusing seeing her try to coopt Obama's "change campaign" by explaining that he is peddling false hopes and real change will come from a return to the 90s team.
Listening to the right wing talk radio hosts yesterday was interesting.
Republicans are afraid of the "we need new blood/changes" platform and realize that Obama will trounce the likes of a 72 year old McCain.
The core of the party do not support Huckabee.
Their real dilemna is they realize Romney is their best candidate against Barack and they are afraid the Mormon albatross will alienate the "evangelicals" and divide their party.
It was amusing hearing Mormons calling in and saying "I won't vote for Huckabee under any circumstance" while the hard core Christians were saying "I won't vote for Romney under any circumstance".
Some of these dissenters might vote for Barack.
None of them will vote for Hillary.
It's gonna get interesting and in my view, the election is the Dems to lose.
And if they stick with Hillary/old school they just might.
I'm suggesting that with an election 11 months away, it's hard to call who is electable and who is not. When's the last time there's been a "shoe-in" candidate this early in a non-incumbent race?
and as for bush once you get jesus all up in the mix your metrics for electability no longer have any rational basis
Without discounting the power of the evangelical vote, if you look at what platforms Bush won on in 2004, most of it had to do with post-9/11 fallout and fears. Bush won because people felt safer with him than with Kerry (god knows why but whatever, that's what the exiting polling suggested). His religious views aren't what drew non-fundamentalists to vote for him and it's important that we don't give the religious right more credit than they deserve. The number of voters for whom 'values issues' are truly important is still a small minority compared to bread and butter things like national security and the economy.
And here's my point: how is it that Clinton still polls >>>>>>>>>>> ahead of the rest of the Democratic field (or, at least did pre-Iowa) if it should be obvious to people that she's un-electable? It's not exactly a secret that many people don't like her yet in state after state, she's the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Have all the polled Democratic voters gone stupid? It's not like the brain trust here is seeing something that most other rational voters don't.
Don't get me wrong - I'm pulling for Obama. But I think people have a warped view on just how unliked Clinton is.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the American majority's political leanings.
You really, really need to spend more time on the "other" side if you want to understand why Bush got re-elected, or why Clinton might be unelectable. Shit, even spend some time in an office of a big corporation. I worked in San Francisco and the majority of my office voted for Bush.
IMO, Clinton = Kerry. If it ends up being a race pitting Clinton against Romney, you will see a 3rd Party Candidacy from Bloomberg, at least that's what I'm hearing. Bloomberg might win but more likely he'll split off a lot of votes from the Democratic candidate.
Another scenario is that Clinton goes up against McCain, who could beat her. I think she could beat Giuliani but not sure about Huckabee. I think Huckabee could beat Clinton.
Clinton is in no way a shoe-in and in many ways is just more of the Same Old Democratic Party that people started running from in 2000 and haven't stopped.
IMO, Clinton = Kerry. If it ends up being a race pitting Clinton against Romney, you will see a 3rd Party Candidacy from Bloomberg, at least that's what I'm hearing. Bloomberg might win but more likely he'll split off a lot of votes from the Democratic candidate.
Another scenario is that Clinton goes up against McCain, who could beat her. I think she could beat Giuliani but not sure about Huckabee. I think Huckabee could beat Clinton.
Clinton is in no way a shoe-in and in many ways is just more of the Same Old Democratic Party that people started running from in 2000 and haven't stopped.
Yup. Spanky, I don't think most rational people are saying she can't win. People are reacting to this inevitability image they tried to push, combined with the amount of people who froth at the mention of her name, and saying, Hey, we've got good candidates, and momentum. Simply, Hillary is probably our best shot at loosing. Just like Kerry, she's deep, deep into the Democrats of the 90's (look at her concession speech team), and adding the word 'change' to her repertoire now ain't gonna do it.
Saying - I don't think she's a shoe-in either and she's not my pick for the nominee. But I also don't think it's guaranteed she's a shoe-out, especially at this stage of the game. I think New Hampshire will prove very, very interesting...from what I've heard, she's waiting for Florida to be where she makes her power move but I wonder if it'll be in time.
Here's what I want to know: if it ends up OBama...who is his running mate?
Big_Stacks"I don't worry about hittin' power, cause I don't give 'em nuttin' to hit." 4,670 Posts
Hey,
While it was deeply inspiring for Barack Obama to win in Iowa, it is yet another matter to win the general election in November 2008. Initial polls are great and optimism-inspiring, but the "inner redneck" rears his ugly head most behind the election curtain. Research has shown that people indicate stronger endorsement in opinion polls than in making actual election decisions. That said, I'm just not sure that "Redneck Bob" in Arkansas, who Obama will need votes from to secure a win, is going to vote for a Black man. We live a nation full of rednecks (and not necessarily overtly so, such as in pseudoliberals), just look at the rural outskirts of the city in which you live. I would love to think that America could get past this, but I don't have that much faith in American race relations just yet. I hope Obama can get the win though because America does indeed need change. Our nation is a mess!!!
Here's what I want to know: if it ends up OBama...who is his running mate?
A lot of people say Edwards. That is wrong wrong wrong. One, Obama will need some one who is experienced in foriegn affairs. Two, Edwards ran for vp in 2004. The calculus then was he would deliver the Southern states. He delivered zero southern states including his home state. The running mate's job is to answer the oppositions attacks so the head of the ticket doesn't get his hands dirty. Edwards stood passively by and watched Kerry get swift boated without saying a word. Edwards had his chance at vp and blew it.
So foriegn policy, who you got. Bill Richardson. Max Cleland. ????
and as for bush once you get jesus all up in the mix your metrics for electability no longer have any rational basis
Without discounting the power of the evangelical vote, if you look at what platforms Bush won on in 2004, most of it had to do with post-9/11 fallout and fears. Bush won because people felt safer with him than with Kerry (god knows why but whatever, that's what the exiting polling suggested). His religious views aren't what drew non-fundamentalists to vote for him and it's important that we don't give the religious right more credit than they deserve. The number of voters for whom 'values issues' are truly important is still a small minority compared to bread and butter things like national security and the economy.
And here's my point: how is it that Clinton still polls >>>>>>>>>>> ahead of the rest of the Democratic field (or, at least did pre-Iowa) if it should be obvious to people that she's un-electable? It's not exactly a secret that many people don't like her yet in state after state, she's the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Have all the polled Democratic voters gone stupid? It's not like the brain trust here is seeing something that most other rational voters don't.
Don't get me wrong - I'm pulling for Obama. But I think people have a warped view on just how unliked Clinton is.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the American majority's political leanings.
You really, really need to spend more time on the "other" side if you want to understand why Bush got re-elected, or why Clinton might be unelectable. Shit, even spend some time in an office of a big corporation. I worked in San Francisco and the majority of my office voted for Bush.
IMO, Clinton = Kerry. If it ends up being a race pitting Clinton against Romney, you will see a 3rd Party Candidacy from Bloomberg, at least that's what I'm hearing. Bloomberg might win but more likely he'll split off a lot of votes from the Democratic candidate.
Another scenario is that Clinton goes up against McCain, who could beat her. I think she could beat Giuliani but not sure about Huckabee. I think Huckabee could beat Clinton.
Clinton is in no way a shoe-in and in many ways is just more of the Same Old Democratic Party that people started running from in 2000 and haven't stopped.
huckabee stands no chance of winning a national election, barring the following:
1. somehow, all the way down the line the republican party remains so fractured that the evangelical vote is strong enough to SOLELY give him the nomination (economic + defense conservatives hate the guy)
2. whoever he's running against nationally ('should he win the nom') slips up in a big way (extremely unlikely)
hillary would destroy huckabee nationally. mccain is extremely beatable. he's old. giuliani you could worry about but generally has enough negatives of his own
the fact is that the repub field is so weak that it would be hard to imagine them really rallying around someone (lol romney as the establishment's hope) and getting people to fight for it
While it was deeply inspiring for Barack Obama to win in Iowa, it is yet another matter to win the general election in November 2008. Initial polls are great and optimism-inspiring, but the "inner redneck" rears his ugly head most behind the election curtain. Research has shown that people indicate stronger endorsement in opinion polls than in making actual election decisions. That said, I'm just not sure that "Redneck Bob" in Arkansas, who Obama will need votes from to secure a win, is going to vote for a Black man. We live a nation full of rednecks (and not necessarily overtly so, such as in pseudoliberals), just look at the rural outskirts of the city in which you live. I would love to think that America could get past this, but I don't have that much faith in American race relations just yet. I hope Obama can get the win though because America does indeed need change. Our nation is a mess!!!
Judge Him by His Laws By Charles Peters Friday, January 4, 2008; Page A21
People who complain that Barack Obama lacks experience must be unaware of his legislative achievements. One reason these accomplishments are unfamiliar is that the media have not devoted enough attention to Obama's bills and the effort required to pass them, ignoring impressive, hard evidence of his character and ability.
Since most of Obama's legislation was enacted in Illinois, most of the evidence is found there -- and it has been largely ignored by the media in a kind of Washington snobbery that assumes state legislatures are not to be taken seriously. (Another factor is reporters' fascination with the horse race at the expense of substance that they assume is boring, a fascination that despite being ridiculed for years continues to dominate political journalism.)
I am a rarity among Washington journalists in that I have served in a state legislature. I know from my time in the West Virginia legislature that the challenges faced by reform-minded state representatives are no less, if indeed not more, formidable than those encountered in Congress. For me, at least, trying to deal with those challenges involved as much drama as any election. And the "heart and soul" bill, the one for which a legislator gives everything he or she has to get passed, has long told me more than anything else about a person's character and ability.
Consider a bill into which Obama clearly put his heart and soul. The problem he wanted to address was that too many confessions, rather than being voluntary, were coerced -- by beating the daylights out of the accused.
Obama proposed requiring that interrogations and confessions be videotaped.
This seemed likely to stop the beatings, but the bill itself aroused immediate opposition. There were Republicans who were automatically tough on crime and Democrats who feared being thought soft on crime. There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama's bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to "solve" crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it.
Obama had his work cut out for him.
He responded with an all-out campaign of cajolery. It had not been easy for a Harvard man to become a regular guy to his colleagues. Obama had managed to do so by playing basketball and poker with them and, most of all, by listening to their concerns. Even Republicans came to respect him. One Republican state senator, Kirk Dillard, has said that "Barack had a way both intellectually and in demeanor that defused skeptics."
The police proved to be Obama's toughest opponent. Legislators tend to quail when cops say things like, "This means we won't be able to protect your children." The police tried to limit the videotaping to confessions, but Obama, knowing that the beatings were most likely to occur during questioning, fought -- successfully -- to keep interrogations included in the required videotaping.
By showing officers that he shared many of their concerns, even going so far as to help pass other legislation they wanted, he was able to quiet the fears of many.
Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping.
Obama didn't stop there. He played a major role in passing many other bills, including the state's first earned-income tax credit to help the working poor and the first ethics and campaign finance law in 25 years (a law a Post story said made Illinois "one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure"). Obama's commitment to ethics continued in the U.S. Senate, where he co-authored the new lobbying reform law that, among its hard-to-sell provisions, requires lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who "bundle" contributions for them.
Taken together, these accomplishments demonstrate that Obama has what Dillard, the Republican state senator, calls a "unique" ability "to deal with extremely complex issues, to reach across the aisle and to deal with diverse people." In other words, Obama's campaign claim that he can persuade us to rise above what divides us is not just rhetoric.
I do not think that a candidate's legislative record is the only measure of presidential potential, simply that Obama's is revealing enough to merit far more attention than it has received. Indeed, the media have been equally delinquent in reporting the legislative achievements of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, both of whom spent years in the U.S. Senate. The media should compare their legislative records to Obama's, devoting special attention to their heart-and-soul bills and how effective each was in actually making law.
Charles Peters, the founding editor of the Washington Monthly, is president of Understanding Government, a foundation devoted to better government through better reporting.
Comments
Truth
She's walking off the stage with Terry McAuliffe. This is the old Democratic Party machine behind her.
Bill is/was the ultimate frontman for that machine - Hillary can't pull it off - she lacks star quality
Good God are you stupid.
nice one.
Fuck Wally & Beaver...
NO ONE started more sentences with the words "Good God" than James Brown!!!!!
COSINE. Hilary doesn't stand a chance of winning a general election. Too many people hate her. Even democrats. And a lot of women. And possibly as many men. I like her fine but she just isn't going to win. Just not.
I find this so-called conventional wisdom rather suspect.
For one thing, we're not even out of primary season yet. The idea that Clinton would be absolutely un-electable, when we don't even know who the other candidate(s) is/are is, is hard to buy into. In an open race, with other alternatives around, it's easy enough to say, "I'd never vote for her." But if the choice were, say: Clinton vs. Romney, with no viable third party candidate (*cough cough* McCain and/or Bloomberg), you really think people would rather vote for Romney or no one at all, then vote for Clinton?
Sure, there will be some people who, under no circumstances, would vote for her, but I think a lot of Hillary-haters would be willing to change their tune given a limited set of choices. If this were in a different era, that'd be one thing, but after 8 years of Bush, people are likely willing to stomach a lot in order to see "the other side win." I can't see how any GOP candidate would be palatable to even ardent anti-Clintonites in the Dem camp.
All I have to add is:
GEORGE BUSH GOT RE-ELECTED WITH HIGHER NUMBERS THAN HE GOT IN 2000.
That, more than anything, proves that there's no such thing as "un-electable."
i'm voting for whomever the dems field, and if that's hilary then i'm fine with that. but i think it would be stupid for the dems to nominate hilary when they have better and better-liked candidates. seriously. any one of these folls would have crushed kerry.
and as for bush once you get jesus all up in the mix your metrics for electability no longer have any rational basis
Without discounting the power of the evangelical vote, if you look at what platforms Bush won on in 2004, most of it had to do with post-9/11 fallout and fears. Bush won because people felt safer with him than with Kerry (god knows why but whatever, that's what the exiting polling suggested). His religious views aren't what drew non-fundamentalists to vote for him and it's important that we don't give the religious right more credit than they deserve. The number of voters for whom 'values issues' are truly important is still a small minority compared to bread and butter things like national security and the economy.
And here's my point: how is it that Clinton still polls >>>>>>>>>>> ahead of the rest of the Democratic field (or, at least did pre-Iowa) if it should be obvious to people that she's un-electable? It's not exactly a secret that many people don't like her yet in state after state, she's the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Have all the polled Democratic voters gone stupid? It's not like the brain trust here is seeing something that most other rational voters don't.
Don't get me wrong - I'm pulling for Obama. But I think people have a warped view on just how unliked Clinton is.
huh?
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the American majority's political leanings.
You really, really need to spend more time on the "other" side if you want to understand why Bush got re-elected, or why Clinton might be unelectable. Shit, even spend some time in an office of a big corporation. I worked in San Francisco and the majority of my office voted for Bush.
IMO, Clinton = Kerry. If it ends up being a race pitting Clinton against Romney, you will see a 3rd Party Candidacy from Bloomberg, at least that's what I'm hearing. Bloomberg might win but more likely he'll split off a lot of votes from the Democratic candidate.
Another scenario is that Clinton goes up against McCain, who could beat her. I think she could beat Giuliani but not sure about Huckabee. I think Huckabee could beat Clinton.
Clinton is in no way a shoe-in and in many ways is just more of the Same Old Democratic Party that people started running from in 2000 and haven't stopped.
One of my fave things to do on SS is explaining my posts to Soul On Ice.
I believe that a lot of people looked at Obama 6 months ago and thought "I like him but mainstream America won't vote for a black man"
After Iowa they are saying, "Oh shit, mainstream America WILL vote for a black man, let's do this"!!
If you will pay 1/2 I am willing to open up a toll free phone number so that you can call me personally and I can explain each of my posts to you.
1-800-IAM-SLOW
Let's do this!!!
Yup. Spanky, I don't think most rational people are saying she can't win. People are reacting to this inevitability image they tried to push, combined with the amount of people who froth at the mention of her name, and saying, Hey, we've got good candidates, and momentum. Simply, Hillary is probably our best shot at loosing. Just like Kerry, she's deep, deep into the Democrats of the 90's (look at her concession speech team), and adding the word 'change' to her repertoire now ain't gonna do it.
Republicans are afraid of the "we need new blood/changes" platform and realize that Obama will trounce the likes of a 72 year old McCain.
The core of the party do not support Huckabee.
Their real dilemna is they realize Romney is their best candidate against Barack and they are afraid the Mormon albatross will alienate the "evangelicals" and divide their party.
It was amusing hearing Mormons calling in and saying "I won't vote for Huckabee under any circumstance" while the hard core Christians were saying "I won't vote for Romney under any circumstance".
Some of these dissenters might vote for Barack.
None of them will vote for Hillary.
It's gonna get interesting and in my view, the election is the Dems to lose.
And if they stick with Hillary/old school they just might.
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/01/hillary_booed_at_nh_democratic.html
Saying - I don't think she's a shoe-in either and she's not my pick for the nominee. But I also don't think it's guaranteed she's a shoe-out, especially at this stage of the game. I think New Hampshire will prove very, very interesting...from what I've heard, she's waiting for Florida to be where she makes her power move but I wonder if it'll be in time.
Here's what I want to know: if it ends up OBama...who is his running mate?
While it was deeply inspiring for Barack Obama to win in Iowa, it is yet another matter to win the general election in November 2008. Initial polls are great and optimism-inspiring, but the "inner redneck" rears his ugly head most behind the election curtain. Research has shown that people indicate stronger endorsement in opinion polls than in making actual election decisions. That said, I'm just not sure that "Redneck Bob" in Arkansas, who Obama will need votes from to secure a win, is going to vote for a Black man. We live a nation full of rednecks (and not necessarily overtly so, such as in pseudoliberals), just look at the rural outskirts of the city in which you live. I would love to think that America could get past this, but I don't have that much faith in American race relations just yet. I hope Obama can get the win though because America does indeed need change. Our nation is a mess!!!
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
A lot of people say Edwards. That is wrong wrong wrong. One, Obama will need some one who is experienced in foriegn affairs. Two, Edwards ran for vp in 2004. The calculus then was he would deliver the Southern states. He delivered zero southern states including his home state. The running mate's job is to answer the oppositions attacks so the head of the ticket doesn't get his hands dirty. Edwards stood passively by and watched Kerry get swift boated without saying a word. Edwards had his chance at vp and blew it.
So foriegn policy, who you got. Bill Richardson. Max Cleland. ????
1. somehow, all the way down the line the republican party remains so fractured that the evangelical vote is strong enough to SOLELY give him the nomination (economic + defense conservatives hate the guy)
2. whoever he's running against nationally ('should he win the nom') slips up in a big way (extremely unlikely)
hillary would destroy huckabee nationally. mccain is extremely beatable. he's old. giuliani you could worry about but generally has enough negatives of his own
the fact is that the repub field is so weak that it would be hard to imagine them really rallying around someone (lol romney as the establishment's hope) and getting people to fight for it
And... a lot of people WILL NOT vote for Hillary.
i really hope yr wrong!!
great article on obama's experience in the illinois legislature here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303.html