I have to concur with K-Lo’s assessment regarding tonight’s debate:
Hillary is the nominee. She won’t talk to Ahmadinejad and Assad? That puts her way Right of our Speaker of the House.
If I had to vote for a Democrat, I know who it would be.
Barack Obama, incidentally, would meet with all of those leaders, with Castro and Chavez included for good measure. Byron York is alarmed:
Sen. Barack Obama, the candidate who once neglected to mention that he would counterattack if al Qaeda destroyed two U.S. cities, tonight pledged to meet, one-on-one, in his first year as president, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashir Assad, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Kim Jong Il.
Sen. Hillary Clinton refused to make such a pledge. “I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year,” she said. “I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes.”
And so Hillary triangulates to the right. Told ya. J-Pod is equally impressed:
I don’t like her. I wrote an entire book on how to stop her. But in these debates, there’s Hillary in the lead…and then there’s everybody else.
Indeed. For what it’s worth, I thought Edwards’ charm and passion allowed him to stand out as well, but his southern populist act (supports universal health care; personally opposes gay marriage for religious reasons) doesn’t seem to play with today’s Democratic primary voter. That may have something to do with the movement of the Democratic base away from the south and into the former GOP bastion of the northeast (a century ago, Rhode Island was an ebullient red). Mike Gravel, of course, is indispensible to these debates. Gravel is an Alaskan, and a more seasoned fellow to boot, which of course makes him a political chimera in contemporary terms. All of that makes him interesting, a quality illuminated by his quick wit and wry temperment.
Biden continues to inject a certain dose of sanity into the field on foreign policy, a function served by Richardson in many domestic areas. But no one expects either of them, nor the equally flavorless Dodd, to actually garner the nod. Polls of Democratic primary voters continue to suggest that this is a Hillary/Obama race, with Ms. Clinton well ahead of the Illinois senator. This dearth of meaningful competition for the frontrunner combined with Obama’s seeming ability to project inexperience and/or naivete in nearly every debate allows Hillary to basically begin her general election campaign now, complete with classic Clintonian triangulation and the occasional non-answer. Watching Hillary mimic her husband’s strategy is fascinating; some of her lines were even pulled out of his old playbook. Anybody remember Bill talking about giving folks the “tools they need” to accomplish this goal or that? I do. Apparently, so does Hillary. She used the line tonight. If 1992 was “Ocean’s 11,” 2008 is shaping up to be “Ocean’s 13.” Different casino. Different heist. Same gang of thieves.
But back to the Democratic primary. Will some leftists be angry that Hillary Rodham — who opposes ground troops in Darfur and who defines liberalism as being the ideology of the individual — is not a wide-eyed idealist who will give peace a chance by forming a co-presidency with Hugo Chavez? Of course. But what are they to do? They obviously haven’t the numerical strength to deny Ms. Rodham the nomination in such a field as this. There simply does not exist an alternative to Hillary that can consolidate more Democratic primary voters than the woman who would be president. And the one Democrat who could do it — Al Gore — ain’t running. That means the Left is stuck with Hillary. Whether they like it or not. And that means Hillary can run for November instead of Super Tuesday. Whether we like it or not.
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:08 pm
thanks for the summary DaveG,
I think one of the reasons Edwards isn’t working is that FDT is the one playing the Southern populist act.
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Hillary not meeting Assad puts her to the right of a number of Republicans…
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Good assesment. I agree that Hillary has this thing locked up unless she makes an enormous blunder, which is very unlikely given her team of advisors and her experience in the limelight.
If anything her lead over Obama is getting larger and I have a feeling that once voters actually start looking past “The Audacity of Hope” and actually look at Obama’s record, he will fall even further behind.
I totally agree that given the viable Democratic candidates, Hillary is by far the least terrible. She would govern just like Bill, meaning she would stay in the center and far away from the MoveOn/DailyKos crowd. I don’t think the same can be said of Edwards, Obama and Gore.
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Dave,
I think this is a really lously summary of the issue – a phony concotion of faux division of the type that one expects from the “professional” bs-ers.
Hillary made clear that she has no problem with talking with our enemies. She just managed to seize the moment and actually give a thoughtful nuanced answer – I wont pledge to meet with them in the first year because in the real world a lot of background work needs to happen before heads of state actually meet. It was a smarter answer than Obamas, but it amounted to the same basic anwer. Obviously were Obama president, and he wanted to engage diplomatically, the wheels would have to start moving to lay the groundwork for presidential level discussions.
And your crack about a co-presidency with Chavez? Are you actually trying to make a caricature of yourself? Did Reagan establish a copresidency with Gorbachev, a man with 10,000 nuclear missiles pointed at America?
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Your writing confirms just what I’ve believed for some time. She is the establishment candidate and has been running as such for some time now. Triangulation is not lost on this woman, as I have posted before, any loss of the extreme left or lefties in general raises her viability with middle or swing voters.
She does act and is perceived as presidential.
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:39 pm
You guys are all underestimating Obama.
1. he’s gaining a lot of support from younger voters and independants. A lot of these people don’t typically vote in elections and probably aren’t included in the likely voter polls that predominate the RCP average. I wouldn’t be surprised if Hillary’s RCP lead of 12-13% isn’t really more like 7-8%
2. once edwards and the others drop out (could happen after iowa for all intensive purproses) 90% of people who don’t support Hillary are going to rally around the non-Hillary candidate (Obama)
3. Obama still isn’t known by some portion of the electorate. they might know his name, but they haven’t really gotten to know him fully. hillary’s lead is still partly due to name recognition.
That being said, I still think Hillary has a better chance then Obama. But the way everyone is talking here it’s like she has a 90% chance of winning the nomination – it’s more like 55-60% in my opinion.
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:50 pm
I didn’t watch most of the debate.
Besides Mike Gravel and Joe Biden, no one was a real person.
I disliked Bill Clinton so much during his reign because of his constant insincerity and lying.
When I looked at the stage I saw Democrats who tried to lie and distort like Bill Clinton but couldn’t pull it off as well.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Does the G stand for Gloom? You’ve pretty much conceded the WH to Hillary.
Keep in mind that come Nov 2008:
Hillary will still have the highest negatives of any candidate
She will still be a sitting Senator
She will still have no executive experience
She will still not be a Southerner
She will still be the 1st woman, possibly with the 1st black guy on her ticket(do you really think the country is ready for that?)
George W Bush will still not be on the ballot
Iran will still be in hot pursuit of nuclear weapons and AQ will still be threatening the US
She will still be associated will Bill Clinton and all that goes with him
I could go on
If you look at history, tickets with no executive experience are 1-4 since 1960, tickets with a sitting Senator are 1-4 since 1960, and tickets without a Southerner are 1-7 since 1960. The likely Clinton/Obama ticket would comine ALL 3 of the above. For acombined record of 3-15. Not a good outlook. The one ticket that beat all the trends was Kennedy/Johnson in 1960 but Johnson was a Southerner at least (and there’s strong evidence for huge cheating in IL and TX to give JFK his .2%/less than 1 vote per precinct win) and to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, Hillary is “no Jack Kennedy”
As long as the GOP has a guy at the top with esecutive experience and a Southerner on the ticket, they should be ok. Any combo of Rudy/Fred/Newt/Sanford/Mitt should be quite competitive.
If the surge works or Bush gets Bin Laden or takes out Iran’s nukes, we’ll have 8 of the 13 keys which should about guarantee a win. If it doesn’t we’ll have 7 which we’ll still lead to a very close election.
To quote James Carville, the bad news for Republicans is that it’s the Democrats election to lose, the good news is that they’re more than capapble of losing it”
July 24th, 2007 at 2:16 am
Great comment, Jim.
I’ve been thinking of who Mitt would pick and I keep going back to Jim DeMint.
I’ve also written here before that I wouldn’t totally rule out Hilary picking another woman.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:21 am
yes she has it locked up, thanks to Obama’s declaration to meet with Castro and Chavez, etc,…but, who cares?
July 24th, 2007 at 8:17 am
My guess is Clinton/Edwards. I think she won’t pick Obama for the exact reasons as stated above, it will be seen as too outside the norm.
July 24th, 2007 at 8:34 am
“She will still not be a Southerner”
The White House can be won without the South and if I were a Democratic adviser thats the direction I would go. There are too many fertile areas in this country for Democratic pickup in the Upper Midwest and Southwest to even worry about that South. So I think that point matters very little.
“She will still be associated will Bill Clinton and all that goes with him”
After 8 years of George W. Bush, rightly or wrongly a lot of Americans are nostalgic for the days of the Bill Clinton presidency. His approval numbers are much higher now, and do not quote me on this but I believe his name was second mentioned behind Reagan in a poll of who americans thought was the best president.
“George W Bush will still not be on the ballot”
True, but so far most of the Republican candidates in my mind have not moved sufficiently enough away from GWB. Granted general election time is a long time away, and they are trying to get primary voters right now, but therein lies the problem…suck up to the 33% of the GOP that still approves and alienate the remaining 60%+. At this point I imagine Democratic strategist could come up with several ads tying anyone of the GOP candidates to Bush.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:39 am
[...] off, Rubin agrees with our own DaveG that Hillary is the right choice for the Dems, considering the field from which they have to [...]
July 24th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
DaveG and UGA Dawg,
Have you all checked out the latest gallup poll that shows Rudy BEATING Hillary 49-46 and BEATING Obama 49-45. Thompson loses to both by 3 and 10 respectively. Romney isn;t included so I think he’s probably worse than Thompson.
That makes 5 of the last 6 Gallup Polls that Rudy has beaten Hillary and 2 of the last 3 he’s beaten Obama.
At a time when Bush is at his worst ever approval, the GOP is at its worst ever brand ID, the war in Iraq is still hugely unpopular, Hillary has enjoyed frontrunner status and positive press, the media has been in the tank for the dems, etc… Rudy is still ahead of Hillary. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
And UGA, of course you “can” win the Presidency without the South. It just hasn’t been done in quite some time. Bush was a southerner, Clinton was, Reagan owned it and had a southerner on his ticket. The last ticket without without a southerner to win was Nixon in 1968/1972 and both times he faced a non-Southern ticket. History shows that a ticket with at least one southerner on it is virtually unbeatable if facing a ticket with no southerners as Clinton/Obama or Clinton/Bayh or Clinton/Richardson would be.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Oh Jim…no need for the attitude. Lesson #1: You cite Gallup, we’ll there are about 8 other polls in the past month and some show a similarly close race with opposite results for Clinton. You can’t cherry pick polls, especially Gallup. If you are going to cherry pick, at least go with Rasmussen.
Pulling polls since June 20, 2007 approximately a month earlier we have:
FOX News 07/17 – 07/18 Clinton 46 – Giuliani 41
Gallup 07/12 – 07/15 Giuliani 49 – Clinton 46
Zogby 07/12 – 07/14 Clinton 46 – Giuliani 41
Rasmussen 07/09 – 07/10 Clinton 44 – Giuliani 43
CNN 06/22 – 06/24 Giuliani 49 – Clinton 48
Gallup 06/04 – 06/24 Giuliani 49 – Clinton 47
Cook/RT Strat. 06/21 – 06/23 Clinton 45 – Giuliani 44
Newsweek 06/20 – 06/21 Clinton 51 – Giuliani 44
Rasmussen 06/20 – 06/21 Giuliani 46 – Clinton 45
Lesson #2: If you will follow the instructions in my post and go to the poll averages on RCP I won’t have to retype the results here to make my point. So Jim…that pipe you were so quick to tell me to smoke…I’ll pass it right back to ya.
July 24th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
UGA Dawg,
My point was simply to put a counterweight to Daves the sky is falling defeatism.
Even so, with all the polls you listed, they’re relatively close. You have Clinton in 5 polls by 5, 5, 1, 1, and 7 for avg lead of 3.8 pts and Rudy in 4 polls by 3, 1, 2 and 1 for an avg lead of 1.75 pts. Not quite some overwhelming advantage.
In any event, given all the advantages the dems have had lately, Iraq, the generic dem vs rep polls, Bush’s low ratings, etc… That Hillary has a lead within the MOE at this point isn’t exactly anything to write home about.
Also, the point about the south was in regards to the ticket, not states won. If you look the last ticket to win without a southerner on it was Nixon/Agnew in 1972. And he never faced an opponent with a southerner on the ticket.
When you add up a potential Clinton/Obama or Clinton/Bayh or Clinton/Richardson ticket
and find that it consists in various ways of:
Sitting Senators
No Southerners
A lack of executive experience
A lack of military experience
The 1st woman, the 1st black and the 1st hispanic
The history behind those isn’t good in terms of winning.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Bush is a New Englander. Don’t let the voice fool you. Ever been to Kennebunkport?
Dick Cheney is from Wyoming.