I guess we can put it in the bank that Hillary Clinton is running for President in 2008. James Carville and Mark Penn have an editorial up at the Washington Post touting Hillary’s electability.
We don’t know if Hillary is going to run for president, but as advisers who have worked on the only two successful Democratic presidential campaigns in the past couple of decades, we know that if she does run, she can win that race…
Why? First, because strength matters. Our problems as a party are less ideological than anatomical: Our candidates have been made to look like they have no backbone. But the latest Post-ABC News poll shows that 68 percent of Americans describe Hillary Clinton as a strong leader. That comes after years of her being in the national crossfire. People know that Hillary has strong convictions, even if they don’t always agree with her. They also know that she’s tough enough to handle the viciousness of a national campaign and the challenges of the presidency itself.
One thing we know about Clinton campaigns: Nobody gets Swift Boated.
I don’t think Captain Cueball still has the right stuff. It’s good to see him back at work but, personally, I think he has grown too fat and contented in D.C. to have the kind of hunger that is needed to win a Presidential campaign. As for Hillary, how many people has she sold out just so Carville could say the following with a modicum of credibility?
Some people say she is too liberal, some that she is too conservative.
Yup.
< gagging >
you need some help with that?
What things are worth?
–Hilary running for president–$50,000,000
–Bill Frist running for president–$100,000,000
This image in relation to both–Priceless
Good pickup!
People know that Hillary has strong convictions, even if they don’t always agree with her.
People know what??!!! We know her convictions about the Iraq War, women’s right to choose, illegal wiretapping, torture, immigration???
Oh yeah right – we know her convictions about flag burning. Now we can all rest easy in knowing what a strong leader Hillary is.
Wow! Mr. Matalin thinks that Lady MacClinton would be the ideal Dem presidential nominee! Whoda thunk it?
No man born with a living soul can be working for the clampdown. – Joe Strummer
Well, James, I think we can safely say that let’s you out. The “Ragin’ Cajun” has long since morphed into the Lyin’ Lickspittle. What a fuckin’ pathetic waste of protoplasm.
Carville has the same desease most of the DNC has.. namely ‘moderatItus’ To these people no one is a viable candidate unless they are perfectly middle of the road. A ‘confirmed moderate.’ In other words – demogoguery
..and the one thing we know Hillary believes in.
Perhaps you do not get it.
For better or for worse, that is the ESSENCE of her course. That is her MESSAGE, and it is her main tactic as well.
And she will play that tactic right through to the very end.
Bet on it.
Odds that she wins the Democratic nomination with it…that tactic plus a SHITLOAD of money…I’d give you about 7 to 2, right now.
Win the Presidency… ? Off the board at the moment., Too many variables. (Third/fourth parties…it could happen…war and terrorist activities, future investigations, indictments and convictions of Rats, the results of the 2006 elections, vote fraud possibilities.)
But WITHOUT any major changes? If we remain in a threatening but not actively hostile posture with the rest of the Islamic and other oppositional worlds, if we continue to quagmire in Iraq etc., if BushCo remains in power and nominates their best choice in the Rat Party…McCain almost surely if they manage to survive long enough in power to do so. If these conditions remain roughly the same as they are now?
She will win.
Why?
How?
Because the disgruntled left will once again realize that they must vote center to avoid living under a total techno-dictatorship, the loyal right will vote for whoever it is TOLD to vote for, and the ALWAYS uncommitted center will want a change. A swing of as little as 10% of the center would produce what our pet media like to refer to as a “landslide”.
Voilá President Hilary.
So it goes.
The question is not whether Carville has enough fire in his belly. Like an aging pro boxing champion, he can rely on experience to take him a long way. (Provided of course he is even the boss of the campaign and not just another honored/dishonorable talking head).
The question is…does Hilary Clinton have enough fire in HER belly?
We shall see.
My guess…yes, she does.
But she does not look quite as physically robust these days as she did even three years ago.
It’s a hard life, Politicianville.
It is. (No snark.)
Hard hours, lots of travel, bad food and LOADS of stress.
We shall see.
Extroverts like Bill Clinton thrive upon it.
I suspect that the thriving is more of an act with Hilary.
We shall see.
We have ALL been born into interesting times.
Later…
S.
Let say your description is accurate/plausible and she wins with this strategy. What kind of presidency policy-wise do you see resulting under a president Hillary Clinton, and especially what kind of happiness would she provide to the progressive wing of the party for any support they gave her????
This is an interesting question NG and I wonder what other people think.
Given her financial ties to the DLC and folks like Murdoch, I’m not encouraged. I would guess she’d continue the “triangulation” on issues that her husband used so effectively.
What makes me really angry is that for once a woman has the chance for the Democratic nomination for president, and I just can’t find it in myself to support her. That really sucks!!
“What kind of presidency policy-wise do you see resulting under a president Hillary Clinton?”
Centrist to the max.
As opposed to the current right-wing/techno-fascist one.
She’s a survivor.
“And “…what kind of happiness would she provide to the progressive wing of the party for any support they gave her?????”
As much or as little as she thought she NEEDED to give it in order to get over.
Once again…she is a survivor.
A compromiser.
I really have no idea WHAT she actually “believes”. Except that she has been substantially more “left” than “right” throughout her career.
And that she has said things like:
“I have to confess that it’s crossed my mind that you could not be a Republican and a Christian.” Hillary Clinton, 1997
Nixon should have been impeached for bombing Cambodia
In Hillary’s opinion, Nixon was “evil.” [An office-mate during her time on the Watergate Committee] says that she believed that Nixon should be prosecuted or impeached not just over Watergate but over his conduct during the Vietnam War, specifically his order for the secret bombing in Cambodia, which she saw as immoral and even criminal.
Source: Hillary’s Choice by Gail Sheehy, p. 90 Dec 9, 1999
Strong words.
What has she said recently?
The Silence Of The Crafty.
Or…not.
We shall see.
AG
P.S. Sorry if I have misspelled Ms. Clinton’s first name here. I have a good friend who is a female jazz singer named Hilary. With one “L”. And I used to work for a male producer named Hillary. With TWO “L”s. So I have it in my little peabrain that it’s two “L”s for men, one for women.
Or…perhaps those tow “L”s are just one MORE evidence of Hillary Clinton’s guile.
(Jes’ kiddin’, folks. Jes’ kiddin’.)
Bless your hearts. Just doesn’t cheer any of you up knowing that neither Frodo or Bush has the ring huh?
You just gave me a grin that will last all day.
Buffy?!
I say we find out who has it and give them free tickets to the resort at Mount Doom 😛
There’s the weirdest and most suspicious-making conversation going on over at dK. Kos wrote a front page post saying that Penn is on HC’s payroll NOW, not just in years past as the tag on the column says. And there are a few people claiming that doesn’t make any difference and that to point such a thing out is “nitpicking.” Nitpicking? I rarely wonder about other people’s agendas–I have enough work just figuring out my own–but boy do they have me wondering about theirs.
And as for the Post. . .I was already appalled that a major newspaper once again published an editorial that amounts to nothing more than a free commercial, but to find out that at least one of the authors is currently employed by the person he’s writing about, and that the Post doesn’t mention that, is just too damned much.
thanks for putting this up so that I can go check it out.
say it again…..BUT WHAT A FUCKING WHINEY BABY ATRIOS IS IN HIS COMMENT ABOUT BEING HELD TO A STANDARD NOT KNOWN IN THE UNIVERSE! IF HE WANTS TO BE A BIG OLE SHILLING WHORE THEN GO FOR IT! NOBODY IS STOPPING HIM! FUCKING WTF?!?! And now I’ll just go quietly back to my corner and lay down like the big old bitch that I am.
I suppose you don’t want to hear how funny you are when you’re pissed? 🙂
Not for nothing, but…
One way or another, everyone in a position of real media power…INCLUDING Commandante Markos…is on somebody’s “payroll”.
The wages may be somethiung other than cold hard cash…power and fame or promised position should the payer win…but that’s the way it really stands.
And what you are seeing over at little Orange is just the employee of one contending centrist group dissing the employees of another.
Nothing more, and business exactly as usual only being performed with the inclusion of another form of media.
Business as usual.
Remeber…control over literally TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS is at stake here.
BIG TIME poker.
AG
One way or another, everyone in a position of real media power…INCLUDING Commandante Markos…is on somebody’s “payroll”.
Makes one wonder at what level of power does this apply, or is it that if you have to ask, are you too low??
I believe, no I sense, that most posters here (unlike at Kos) are sincere, and are not jousting for control by saying whatever needs to be said to get such control. Principles do count, but many only among the powerless! Still your analysis is likely realistic as it usually is!
At what level?
Depends on the strength of your microscope, I think.
Many, MANY regular posters are just getting off on the attention, it appears to me.
That is what I am sensing, whether I “agree” with them or not.
Others have various dreams of broader attention, wealth and fame.
And some just want to DO something and feel that left blogworld is the place that best suits their needs at the moment.
All of these levels are not self-limiting. of course.
One can for example have quite legitimate concerns for the future of this country and the world in general and yet ALSO be out for whatever stroking he or she can manage to attract.
Complicated, ain’t it?
Later…
AG
…finally realize that James Carville was a one-trick pony and that Bill Clinton was a political phenomenon, a rock star, and an amazing politician the likes of whom we will not see again until Democrats grow a pair like Feingold or Gore. These two strike me as the only true leaders of courage left in this party.
Hillary, if she is the nominee, would be the the ONLY person in the world even more divisive than Bush. God help us if we nominate her for she will lose in a landslide, consolidate, and strengthen Republicans for another generation.
Democrats need to : commission a poll of an immense number of ALL people (both for a smaller percentage of error and because many non-voters push voters to vote on candidates and issues). They should determine what the top five or ten issues are facing the country. Then they should call a convention of experts on society, finance, war, civil engineering, DIPLOMACY, and others in fields related to the top issues. That commission should come up with viable plans to actually IMPLEMENT SOLUTIONS to the problems that most concern the nation and THEN DO NOTHING BUT TALK ABOUT THEIR PLANS until election time.
Every time someone says, “The Republicans are saying…” they should be immediately dismissed with, “We could care less what the Republicans think. They are total failures at actually governing and we would look at any advice from them as being wrong and counterproductive, so this is what we will do when elected…”
Joe Biden said it best when Wolf asked him if he wanted to respond to comments by Cheney, “No, I don’t. He’s at 20%. No one believes anything he says. Why would I want to respond to him?”
and some people (mostly on the internets) say she’s not “too” much of anything, except perhaps “too” interested in triangulation and pulse-taking polls, sticking her wet finger in the air to see which way the wind’s blowing.
a smarter man than i once said, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.