Its finally dawning on the “voices” of the GOP establishment, that D Trump is going to be their nominee. As starting to filter through into the MSM, we are learning that Trump as gotten more votes during the primary than any other Republican, ever. That while sounding tough, his foreign policy has points. That he will tone down his demeanor for the General Election….etc…. All the things you would think you would hear when your daughter brings home an arrogant, ignorant, bigoted, SOB to marry.
“Well, he dresses nicely.”
She (the GOP Base) loves him and the parents will just have to get along or miss seeing the grandkids.
Of course, the caveat thrown in is that he has the highest negative numbers for a Presidential candidate in recorded history. What is occasionally mentioned is that the presumptive Democratic nominee has the 2nd highest.
As we have discussed here before, the notion that Trump can’t win flies in the face of the whole primary season. I call it, “whistling past the graveyard” His ability to shrug off attacks on character, history or policy positions astounds the average political reporter. Add to that, HRC is disliked by the reporting herds and gets her back up whenever confronted with a contradiction or a question about past actions and decisions. Her face sets in an expression that must be well known to Bill and Chelsea, her posture stiffens, and she shuts down … freezing the questioner with a stare that communicates, “How dare you doubt me.” then begins to stonewall. Just the thing the average voter wants to see on TV. And they will see it more and more as the election advances. Because to the moderately informed observer, there are questions about past decisions and positions. We and reporters can Google flip flops easily.
Whereas Trump is entertainment.
So we have this to look forward too. A wealthy buffoon who appeals to a large portion (perhaps majority) of the electorate and who appears to be made of Teflon. And a woman who reacts negatively when pushed and criticized, hides things, stone walls and then wraps herself in the “Woman” flag. And you know the more she reacts, the more Trump and reporters will push. Its called bear baiting and we have months of it to look forward to. If only we could see a play by that new actor “Shakespeare?” next door when the spectacle is finished and the bear is drug away.
R
Reporters have been longing for the day when the gladiator fights begin. Perhaps they’ve spent the past year setting it up.
maybe.
ASre they thjat smart?
I don’t think so.
It’s organic. Part and parcel of the political scene as it now stands.
Thed last stand of the current PermaGov against whptever is coming ’round the bend.
And I do mean ” ’round the bend!!!”
Watch.
They are both headed for Fruitcake Land.
Watch.
Agree, they aren’t that smart. But some of those running the MSM are, and it only takes dropping a couple of crumbs to get the pack-journos moving in the direction they desire.
That’s what they used to think until they ran into the combination of a failing system and two people who were ready to speak some sort of truth to the American publlc, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. That tactic has worked very well since at least Ross Perot, but something has changed.
Large segments of the public have lost any and all belief in the Permanent Government and also in its media as well. Now? Now when the media mock a candidate, many, many people take it as a recommendation.
Thus the success of both the Sanders and Trump campaigns. Sanders has lost, both due to a certain lack of…charisma…and also the plain fact that he was running against the heavily financed PermaGov candidate. But he made it way, way further into the process than the PermaGov pundits were paid to predict. And Trump!!!??? He entered into competition with a bunch of losers and knocked them all off quite handily. He is all charisma.
Now when they “drop the crumbs,” no one can survive by promulgating them.
It’s a revolution, really.
We shall see how it comes out.
AG
Like Putin, all the charisma of a pile of dog crap. I could never understand American fascination with either.
I disagree.
She has a mind like a steel trap. She would have been successful in whatever she pursued,
But…as previous posters here have suggested, her shortcut to the top by way of Bill Clinton’s success (whether managed by her or not…I personally believe she was the driving force behind his success, myself) left her with an underdeveloped sensed of…of politicism, to coin a word. The ability to successfully shuck and jive her way through the multiple briar patches of a semi-democratic system. That was Bill’s job, and he had real, native talent for the act.
HRC? She would have had to develop that talent through constant practice, but she did not because Bill was so good at it.
And here she jolly well is, isn’t she?
Lacking charm, full of facts and figures but without the common sense to realize that facts and figures are simply not enough for success in a popular(
ized) (s)election.So it goes.
A tragic figure, actually, complete with hubris a’plenty.
Watch.
Trump by a goodly percentage.
Watch.
AG
Yes indeed!!!
I call it her “disapproving mother-in-law” look.
And I’m here to tell ya…it’s going to lose her this election if her opponent in Trump. He’ll be all over it like white on rice.
Watch.
AG
Arthur, you might want to be more cautious with your “I’m here to tell you” predictions since Rand Paul dropped out after his sterling 5% finish in Iowa.
He was saying a lot of good things, Marie. So was his father. They didn’t have the talent. So it goes. Trump is saying many of the same things. He’s got the gift. So that goes as well.
AG
I finally sympathize with Bill about other women. I’m just surprised they had ANY children! Artificial Insemination?
The face that froze a thousand ships.
Be nice! He chose to marry Hillary and it’s not for outsiders to wonder or criticize the marriages of others.
You are right, of course, but I look and shudder!
Hillary is exactly what Bill needed … as a young man a kick in the ass.
One has to admit, Hillary Rodham had an eye for political talent … he became her wheelbarrow in their political lives.
Wealth be upon them, whatever source. 😉 What A Foundation.
Traveling through life, roads have their occasional bumbs.
Disagree — all he needed was a woman with a similar or a bit lower level of ambitiousness for him to become POTUS as he had. He didn’t need a Nancy Reagan to kick his butt to the WH.
More ambitious than most recent prior First Ladies that seem to run the gamut from disinterest to whatever he wants to do.
Ya know, after all those years in Ill., campus politics, Bill, Little Rock, Washington, NY, the Senate, 2008 run ,State Dept. Her whole resume which is the justification for her qualifications as President; she still cannot accept public criticism or hard questioning of her motives and decisions. Most politicians if they get above County Commission, learn to deflect or roll with the punches.
I work with a woman who has some of the same trouble and people jerk her chain just to see the reaction. The same is going to happen with Hillary. Sure, she can shrug off the blather from the Right Wing Media; but when her friends and supposed allies (the Charlie Rose types) stop fawning and start getting a little tough, just to show their “impartiality”, that’s when we’ll see the pissed off MiL look. And the more she does it, the more it will happen. Then it will become a blood sport. The bear chained to a post with a pack of dogs nipping at its flanks. If she can’t control herself, well I don’t expect a Captain Queeg moment, but it won’t be pretty.
After multiple instances, even her media surrogates will stop trying to genuinely justify her reactions. Then she will be even more of a caricature than she is now.
R
That’s what I’m seeing, too.
Plus…Trump won’t just be “nipping at her flanks;” he’ll be ripping at her connection to the big banks.
Plus some really nasty personal shit.
He’ll find a “little Marco”/weak Jeb” handle to hang on her. Watch. It’s one of his main talents.
AG
Bill would deflate Trump like a birthday balloon. he would be talking to the immigrant construction workers at the hotels, smirk and say, ” I understand women” then joke about Trumps hair. He had FDR’s gift to make his enemies look foolish, or give them enough rope to make themselves look foolish.
Plus he had the personality to play the “lovable southern scoundrel” type; people laughed with him. Trump is the loud mouth city dweller. The boor at the party which everyone laughs at (not with) but will do business with because of his connections. And as a boor, he is not hindered by shame or social convention. Say or do anything.
Hillary? We could go on about her flaws as a politician. But at this stage in the game, she should be as polished as a diamond. Know herself and her message and comfortable in communicating both. That she is deficient in that ability is troubling and potiential fatal in the General.
R
Most politicians if they get above County Commission, learn to deflect or roll with the punches.
That’s a reason why the experience of starting low on the political ladder and moving up is invaluable. Those that start on the five yard line and think they’ve run the other ninety-five yards retain a glass jaw.
I thought about this earlier. And also had some less than charitable thoughts as well.
Hillary has a truck load of talent, but her current position is based on being married to Bill. She certainly would not have been Sen from NY without the Clinton name. And from that the 2008 run and Sec of State. In each step she has used His and Her own network of political operatives.
Could she have run for office without Bill? Yes, and could probably risen as high, but she would have come up the hard way, as you mentioned. She would have honed her public personae. She would have been able to curb her natural …impatience… with those less gifted. Corp. law position in Little Rock as the Gov.’s wife. “Co-President” (for a short while) in DC, Sen Mrs. President, then the 2008 run. In each position she showed her talents and her deficits.
The word is, Bill was willing to compromise with the proposed health bill, she would not and it failed (think of health, lives and money lost). As Sen she took the disastrous vote for war. I. sitting in Va at the time, knew it was a mess before it started; that she couldn’t or wouldn’t means she lost her moment for a Profile in Courage. More lives and money lost. The 2008 campaign saw her appeal to a seemingly forgotten segment of the Democratic Party, but her organizational skills, talent spotting, and misunderstanding of the primary process means she failed. Then as Sec of State, she represented the Country and Admin well, but argued for war and conflict when prudence was the watch word.
So in all, a mix, like any other human. But would she have achieved those positions on her own without the necessary humbling and compromise each step up the ladder would have required? A necessary questioning of one’s own judgement that long time political experience imparts? And if she didn’t acquire those qualities, would she have gotten up the ladder? Probably not. It takes immense personal and political skills to bull your way from county chairmanship to Presidential candidate without paying your dues along the way. Skills she has yet to show.
I guess the skill she does show is the ability to engender loyalty. That is valuable.
R
What’s the old line to the how to get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.
There aren’t many great politicians because the skill set required is so broad. Yet, when a politician is labeled as talented, all that’s generally meant is that they’re a natural at selling themselves.
Very few career politicians make it to the upper rungs of political ladders all on their own, but even then those that do develop many skills along the way. Bernie and to a lesser extent Barbara Boxer are two that come to mind that made it on their own. Neither won in their first run for office (Bernie ran several times). Boxer started lower on the ladder than Bernie did at the county Bd of Supervisor level. Neither started their careers when their respective electorates were all that liberal. The Marin Co. commission and the House seat were practically permanent GOP positions. The electorate shift for Boxer happened more quickly than it did for Bernie. That House seat flipped about the same time as Boxer won her first election. (Some redistricting had a role in that flip.)
The next rung for both was the House, but Bernie lost his first attempt. The untimely (age 57) death of Phil Burton opened that door for Boxer. She was also fortunate that the “liberal” CA Senate seat opened up when she was ready to make such a move in ’72. Up through her 2010 re-election, Republicans always had her on the list of Senators that they could defeat. They always discounted the number of tough elections she had won during her career.
Bernie truly came up the hard way. No local or state party paving the way for him and no untimely deaths or scandals creating an opening for him. As a House Rep, he did have an advantage over most House Reps because the VT House seat is statewide. But Jeffords could have run for one or more additional terms like other current Senators; so, that was fortunate for Sanders.
Another common theme about these two politicians is that they managed their offices without glitches or scandals. And haven’t surrounded themselves with sycophants. I have far more respect for politicians that build their own political resumes and careers than those gifted a political office. I’m not keen on legacy and/or novice candidates above a local office or perhaps a House seat if it’s not a direct legacy position. Wish more voters had more respect for those that do a good job in office and promote them when they seek a higher office.
If she had been just Hillary Rodham, never married, she wouldn’t be nobody, but her name would be synonymous with Carly Fiorina.
Be nice! Like Fiorina, she may be a lot of hype but she’s at least right on a few issues and Carly is wrong on everything.
FYI — listing elected officials and 2016 candidates in the Sanders’ camp. More in SC than in IL which was probably a reason for his campaign to think SC wouldn’t be a blowout.
Here’s the thing, without criticising Hillary’s personality, her relationship with Goldman Sachs, for example, is a weakness which plays into the emerging economic narrative of the campaign. The media will happily amplify this narrative out of preference for a horse-race. Hillary’s relationship with established power and money is strategic, not casual. Under the right circumstances it could be immensely burdensome to her campaign.
That her ‘populist’ opponent is a notorious, billionaire, bad-boy, big-mouth just insures that the media will hang on his every utterance.
Having said that I could see Hillary landing a knock-out in a debate, a format in which she is not to be underestimated. When it comes to righteous indignation I think she is in the superhero leagues. Whereas Trump has a mouth like a sharp sword. So, yeah… Potentially quite ugly to watch; protective clothing and welder’s goggles.
Your point is well taken, but I have trouble seeing a “knock out” on Trump during a debate. Such a thing is predicated on him having shame or publically displayed self doubt. None of which has been apparent so far. What’s she going to say? He’s a bankrupt? That he can’t be trusted? That he isn’t a conservative? That he’s crazy or dangerous? Unless she has a bombshell, there isn’t anything she can say that hasn’t been said about him over the last 30 years. That isn’t part of the public narrative already.
Where as he can deliver a knock out.
“Look, I’ve been at those meetings and get togethers. I’ve paid the $5000 for a mediocre lunch to hear talks from politicians or govt types. I know what they say and what’s asked of them. I’m a businessman like Dimon and other CEOs. You don’t hand out hundreds of thousands of dollars without expecting something in return. I know I sure as hell wouldn’t nor would any real American. To think otherwise is stupid and if Hillary says that, she is lying and thinks you are stupid. And just to show what she is lying, here is a recording my good friend X made at the Goldman Sachs Phoenix meeting.” Which would be a boring overview of world conditions plus rah rah comments about how swell bankers are and what a shame Wall Street is hindered by the Obama Admin.
Like Romney’s tax returns, Hillary can’t release the transcripts of those talks or it would sink the campaign. Trump knows this and there must be recordings floating around.
R
He’s a bombast; so there’s always room for a take-down. But I tend to agree with you we are “whistling past the graveyard” in discussing the risks of running Hillary against Trump.
Having reviewed HRC’s debate tactics, I think you’re wrong. Trump won’t roll over and take a pummeling. OTOH, while he’s capable of delivering knock-out punches to HRC, he’s not demonstrated any interest in putting in the work required to know stuff and prepping his deliveries. His improv debate style works well against third string (D level) opponents, but HRC has developed to B level and only in Trump’s mind is he A level.
We’ll see. They are both bullies.
Brilliant! Now we only need to decide which one is the bigger bully.
Several commenters on this thread suggest that Hillary Clinton is where she is today only because of her husbands’s success. Fair enough. Some of them say that she could also have found great success if she worked herself up independently. Maybe, I have no idea, life isn’t an experiment and no situation can be repeated or modified.
I agrees she campaigns for the presidency on the prestige and support of her husband and his and her political circle. But I would suggest that she has the Monica Lewinsky affair to thank specifically, if I’m be allowed to bring up that sordid piece of political quackery from nearly 20 years ago.
I remember Hillary Clinton sort of went into seclusion after the whole thing had settled down. When she reemerged she had found her composure and attitude as a devoted protecter of her family and expressed her unlimited determination to make it succeed in a television interview, an obviously staged PR stunt to relaunch her. I’ve long wondered how she got to be chosen as the candidate for the senate seat from New York when she and her family apparantly moved to NY State to make her campaign legally possible. She was/is as about as un-New York as you can get. Anyway, NYC especially is a big and varied place.
Now I take a wicked jump to find an explanation: Bill arranged for her to get the nomination as recompense for his wicked ways. She, instead, had accepted the role of the wronged woman with a warm, generous heart for what is good and American. It was inevitable—in this instance definitely—that she’d be elected. Ever since then she has been demanding only what she sees as her right. Obama’s selection of her as SoS must also have a parallel background: compensation for what she saw as his wronging her by winning the nomination.
Now of course it’s her ‘for the asking’, only it’s not. Jane Sander’s firm determination expressed over the weekend that Sander’s campaign isn’t going away must gall her right down to her very ‘soul’. Maybe her girlfriend Madelaine Albright will do a pop-up appearance relegating Jane Sanders to the special place in hell for women who appear not to automatically support other women. That won’t happen, though, the first time it didn’t go down well at all.
Her facial scold, which Arthur Gilroy? rather unfairly associates with a mother in law (in a fairy tale), is the expression of her indignation at being contradicted and, as a result wronged, by whoever and for whatever. The email hairball keeps on gathering depth and weight and it still has to be resolved. It epitomizes her arrogant, pigheaded way of demanding her proud of flesh:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/03/hillary-clintons-email-hairball-summarized-11-points-a-test-o
f-presidential-character.html
One way or the other the coming party conventions and the presidential campaign are not going to be pretty site. Everyday Hillary Clinton gets another bitter pill to swallow: her inevitability is fading fast.
“One way or the other the coming party conventions and the presidential campaign are not going to be pretty site. Everyday Hillary Clinton gets another bitter pill to swallow: her inevitability is fading fast. “
I think its hilarious the way the media and smart politicos keep saying, she can’t lose the nomination, that the delegate count proves she has it in the bag, then Sander’s wins another contest. Yes, with proportional dispersment of delegates, his “winning” has little effect, but he keeps rolling up the independents, young and first time or rare voters. Everyone has poo-poohed a contested convention, but HRC is one harball or one poor TV appearance/meltdown away from one. She must know how tenuous her posistion is. Or maybe she doesn’t. Perhaps she is in her own sheltered bubble like Mitt and will be stunned when she has to be told the bad news.
Per your supposistion of Bill’s pennence and the nomination. there may be some of that. She has bulit her own power base but certainly she inherited Bill’s. How active he has been in promoting her? I don’t know. The biographies will be fascinating in another generation.
R
C’mon, man.
Jump in.
The water in the reality pool is plenty warm.
If you’re talking to me, I never succeeded in learning swimming. So I’ll exchange the pool for the shower.
(because I can’t find another active thread where the following is more O/T)
The Guardian – Carly Fiorina falls off stage at Ted Cruz event – video
Even though falling down or off a stage isn’t a laughing matter, it’s when Carly does so and that it doesn’t look as if she fell off a stage that make this funny.