GOP Nominee
Former Candidates
While eating dinner tonight — a hearty helping of Wendy’s signature chili (such is the blessing and/or curse of bachelorhood) — I just happened to catch a recent Bill Clinton speech to a crowd of Hillary supporters in Texas on C-Span. With my hands full due to my spoon, my chili, and the lack of a table anywhere in sight (see previous commentary re: bachelorhood), I resigned myself to watching the speech. Nearly thirty minutes later, I am convinced that Republicans have dodged a possibly fatal bullet thanks to the paper tiger that is Barack Obama.
Those of us who think the Clintons would be an easy kill, and I admit that I am often one of them, tend to forget how good the Clintons can be when it comes to convincing large numbers of Americans to see things their way. Hillary’s continued implosion has erased from our memories the cool, confident, non-ideological, practical, managerial Eisenhower Republican who took part in every Democratic presidential debate in 2007, back before Obamania seemed to be a threat. But while Hillary continues to jump from one personality to another in a quixotic effort to take down the media’s wonder boy, her husband continues to remind us just what we’ll face in the fall should Clinton manage to clinch the nomination.
In contrast to the tripe that usually emanates from the mouth of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton’s speech was heavy on policy and light on platitudes. Clintonian triangulation is alive and well at the Clinton policy shop, where each plan combines a liberal solution with a conservative temperament all packaged in dispassionate centrism and delivered with the aura of common sense. Example: according to the former president, we have to end the war in Iraq so that we can continue to fight Islamic terrorists in places like Afghanistan, though we can’t exit in a way that creates a bigger problem than the one we have now. Another example: free trade is good, but the folks we trade with are also our creditors, so let’s balance the budget so that we no longer need creditors and then we can demand fairer trade rules. Each policy consists of a touch of liberalism and a dash — just a dash — of conservatism. And all is framed in a pragmatic, technocratic, make-the-trains-run-on-time manner. There’s no revolution here. Just a couple running to be the country’s CEOs. Clinton even somehow managed to make the case to this Texas crowd that American indebtedness with mortgages and students loans is actually a good thing; these are investments in our future, you see, and a stronger economy will eviscerate the nation’s present angst. It’s a speech that could easily have been given by any centrist Democrat or Republican. And it’s exactly the sort of political animal that Hillary will become should she garner a majority of Democratic delegates in Denver. I’m not sure that even John McCain could beat the Clintons in full Eisenhower jacket. But thanks to Democratic primary voters, we’re about to face the latest incarnation of Adlai/McGovern/Dukakis instead. And we all know how that story ends.
Democrats are about to reject a candidate who knows how to win national elections against the Republicans, and one who is competitive in Florida and Ohio and who locks down the Northeast, in favor of a candidate who has won a single national election in his entire career, and who is not competitive in Florida, is weak in Ohio, and who makes the Northeast purple. They’ve got a choice between Gore in a pantsuit and an African-American George McGovern and they’re choosing the latter.
Let them.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:09 am
Dave,
I think someone has been drinking too much Clinton Kool-Aid.
If Bill and Hill are such masters of the game, how come they’re getting smoked in their own party? They had every possible advantage and they entered this primary season in the best shape of any favorite in the history of American politics.
Do you realize that Hillary has lost the delegate race to Obama on every single day there’s been an election. She hasn’t had one day yet where she’s beat him in delegates. Think about that. That’s astounding.
He beat her on 1/3 in IA. They tied in delegates in NH on 1/8 even though she won the pop vote. She beat him in MI but there weren’t any delegates at stake. She won in NV but he actually came out ahead +1 in delegates due to the districting. He clobbered her in SC. She won FL but again no delegates awarded. He won more delegates on Super Tuesday. And he’s smoked her ever since.
If she and Bill are such geniuses who we should fear in November, how come they can’t even win the nomination of their own party? This is a 2 term President who had connections everywhere, in every state. Obama’s blowing them away in fundraising.
Even Bill’s political skills are way overrated. He won in 92 because of Perot and a few other factors that he had nothing to do with. In 96 he faced one of the weakest candidates in US history and every poll showed that if the GOP was smart enough to have nominated Powell, Bill would have gone down as a 1 term disaster who lost the Congress to boot. He never got 50% of the vote. Just about every candidate he’s stumped for since leaving the WH has lost-Mondale in MN, Daschle in SD, Grey Davis in CA, Reno in FL, that woman Mel Martinez beat in FL, Kerry in 2004, Gore in 2000, Hillary in 2008, the list goes on.
You say Obama hasn’t won a single national election? How many has McCain won? That would be 0.
Obama will be very dangerous in November and the if the economy goes into recession the Dems are guaranteed to win, regardless of who they run. Even if it staves off recession, the rqace will be very close.
Bill and Hillary are old news and as much as I want to see her win on tuesday to takes this to the convention and increase the GOP’s chances of winning exponentially, I just don’t think it is going to happen. I think Obama wins both OH and TX and she’s out by Thursday.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 am
Barack Obama and the uses of doubt
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/print/019929.php
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:15 am
As the resident dem here, i wholeheartedly agree. I know a lot of web junkies will disagree with me, but obama will get killed against mccain. McCain will have a hard time attacking Hillary, when he said in fact “hillary would make a good president.”
There are very little things mccain can differentiate from hillary on. He can try, but its gonna be way easier if obama was facing him. Obama really will be exposed as the liberal that he is and nothing will galvanize more right wingers to mccain’s cause.
But that is the essential difference between bill and barack. barack’s speeches too me are nothing more than fluff. Lets get real here.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:20 am
You’re right Phanekim (first time I’ve ever said that to a Dem). Let us say the polls stay close until roughly late September then the voters will have their “get serious” phase and realize the vast gap in experience between McCain and Obama. Then McCain starts pulling ahead and never looks back. It could be a landslide.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:55 am
#3 Phanekim-
Welcome to the forum. It’s great to have non-Republicans here - they provide different perspectives and insights.
I disagree w/ DaveG, in that I think McCain would have a much better chance against HRC than O. (I speculate that McCain also thinks so, given that he trains all of his fire on O and leaves HRC alone- and I don’t think it’s solely b/c it looks like O is the opponent.) If McCain faces HRC, he becomes instantly competitive in Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Those five states, starting in 1988, have voted for one Republican since then in presidential races - Iowa went for GWB in 2004. Even if McCain can’t win them, Minnesota and Wisconsin also have been trending sharply GOP. HRC would have to defend all five and spend time and money doing so.
It also means that McCain would not have to worry about Colorado at all and being a Westerner, would probably not have too much trouble holding Nevada or New Mexico, either. I agree w/ Dave that HRC runs better in Ohio and Florida… but I think that she’s the easier candidate to beat.
Thoughts?
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:55 am
jim, DaveG’s argument about Clintonian triangulation applies to general elections, not to primaries.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:57 am
If you notice in gladwell’s tipping point, there are phases. I was enamored with obama in feb/mar of 07. I am probably in the top 1%-2% in terms of keeping up with political news. Most of those who did soon fell out of love with obama and soon went to clinton.
The next group of people are the IA NH voters…and so on…they experienced the same feeling I did. And if they go through the experiences i went through (as most attentive dems did), obama would soon lose his appeal.
and yes, i am the same guy who thought kerry would be a disaster..and he was.
I mean its just sad how politically illiterate people are in america. They can’t distinguish hillary and obama’s differences on health care. And obama bombing pakistan if he had intel? give me a break. Pak is not like afganistan where u can send a bunch of cruise missiles. There’s a good chance bin laden is hiding where any attack would cause several innocent civilian casualties.
So that means obama is making a statement that he can never back up (same old washington politics) or if he is serious about backing it up…he’s a lunatic that shouldn’t be president.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:00 am
Hillary has the personality of Tom Ridge. Obama is a tougher general election opponent.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:17 am
The problem with this analysis is that its based on a speech that Bill gave. Bill is/was a very charismatic politician (I would say allmost as much as Barack) and political skills beyond charisma as you point out in your article. Both of my parents liked Bill, my mom voted for Bill, even though she ended up voting for Bush twice - she loved his charisma. Hillary is not Bill. If Hillary had half the charisma that Bill Clinton had she would have won this nomination. She comes off to people as a shrill power grabber. So basically if it was Bill Clinton running you would very well be right. But Bill’s not running and the people know that.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:30 am
Actually, I think DaveG is really spooked.
So many of his recent posts are kinda way out there.
I guess he feels the need to rally himself up for the onslaught to come.
I don’t think any rational person is gonna buy is vapid dismissal of Obama.
You guys are in big trouble, and I think you all know it.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 am
You all have some valid points, but let’s not kid ourselves into believing that the loser of the two candidates will simply disappear after the Dem convention. Assuming Obama wins, the Clintons aren’t going anywhere. I would bet good money that within a few weeks, days maybe, the Clintons and the Obamas will kiss and make up, at least publically, and join hands to march across this country together in the hopes of beating McCain. In fact, while it appears unlikely now, the possibility of an Obama/Clinton ticket, in either order, still exists. But even if they don’t join forces on the same ticket, they will most surely still campaign for each other. Neither one of them will go away quietly.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:07 am
Clinton will not be Obama’s veep. However, if obama wins, yes the clintons will “kiss and make up”.
The only reason why obama is even competitive is he picked up a lot of cheap caucuses in red states. This is why he’s a paper tiger.
another point is, texas’ primary/caucus is so …retarded…i don tknow what to say. As a democrat, you are gonna get huge amounts of spin of who won and who didn’t. This is just gonna get super ugly espeically if clinton wins the primary portion and obama takes overall with the caucus. The problem being that people can have literally two votes by voting in primary then attending the caucus…which is stupid.
btw, i have been posting here…you guys just argue over me though, thats why i dont get noticed :).
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:41 am
DaveG once again shows his naivete. Hillary is not Bill, no matter how hard she tries. Indeed, the more he is out front of her campaign the more voters doubt her abilities. If you want to know why Clinton is losing just watch her and Obama’s appearance on 60 Minutes. In that short time she was able to remind people why they dislike and don’t trust her.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:19 am
jim,
We’re in a rather unique situation here. It seems to me that the dynamics of the Democratic primary race are such that all of Hillary’s built-in advantages have been neutralized simply by the sort of candidate Obama is. Or, to put it more simply, Obama is the kind of candidate built to win Democratic nominations, without necessarily being the sort of candidate capable of winning general elections. If you went into a laboratory, examined Democratic demographics, tendencies, etc, a few things would stick out. First, black voters are the most reliable Democratic demographic. Young voters are more reliably Democratic. Extreme liberals and netroot activists tend to dominate the primary process, to much greater extent then conservatives and blogosphere types dominate the Republican process. The Democratic primary electorate is more educated. Add to this an increased interest among liberal leaning independents in the presidential race, and you have a host of factors that play precisely to Barack Obama’s strengths, and expose Hillary’s weaknesses.
But, this doesn’t necessarily speak to Barack Obama’s chances of winning a general election. If Huckabee had won South Carolina, which was a serious possibility, he might have been our nominee. But, almost everyone he would have been disastrous in a general election. He had so much success, precisely because he fit neatly into an identity politics niche that has disproportionate influence in Republican primaries (Southern Conservatives), but considerably less influence in national elections. It seems significant to me, for instance, that there’s typically a 15-20 swing away from Obama as we go from “college educated” voters to “non-college educated”. I.e, if Obama wins the former by 10 points, he’ll traditionally lose the latter by 5-10 points against Hillary. And it seems to me significant that, thus far, the primary electorate has been more then 50% college educated, while the general election electorate is typically 40% college educated. Conversely, it seems significant to me that, even in a two-man race with the populist Huckabee, McCain does well with uneducated voters, and in the past multi-candidate field, he cleaned up among this class of voters.
Hillary had numerous institutional advantages, but Obama had every single identity advantage (he’s young, he’s black, he’s “inspiring”, he’s erudite, etc). Obama’s not a pushover, but I’m beginning to agree that it’s probably wrong-headed to view him as the tougher opponent. Looking back at the 2004 primary exit polls, Obama’s new coalition looks like nothing so much as Dean’s coalition, with considerably more black voters tacked on. So I’m not quite prepared to cower in fear.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:43 am
Clinton would never be Obama’s VP. One good thing is Obama has no
chance to win Florida. The older people here even many deomcrats say
they won’t vote for him. I think its due to his name.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:44 am
“Obama’s new coalition looks like nothing so much as Dean’s coalition, with considerably more black voters tacked on. So I’m not quite prepared to cower in fear.”
That’s key. And it’s also important to remember that states where black population is highest also tend to be crimson red. So the disproportionate support of blacks for Obama isn’t going to help if it’s focused in states that are probably not in play.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:50 am
Very good post DaveG, as usual.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:06 am
Another point on the Obama–Dean phenomenon in the Democratic party. While it is good for Republicans for Democrats to be tacking in this direction, I do feel kind of sorry for blue-collar, socially moderate, largely Catholic Democrats who kind of get left out in the cold in this new political alignment. They don’t have a whole lot in common with upper-class, secular liberals who Dean and Obama represent, but they also don’t have much in common with Bush and Cheney who they view as favoring wealthy Americans and who they disagree with on the war. McCain is actually a pretty good, though not perfect, match for these voters. It is an interesting phenomenon how Hillary Clinton connects a lot better with working class voters than Barack Obama does.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Clinton connects better because you and Bill are basically well-educated trash. And that fundamentally is her problem with Obama, he is so much classier. The problem in the general will be that McCain’s own blue blood will certainly be exposed. His mother and wife are heiresses. His father was an admiral. So while he certainly is a veteran and comes across as gritty his family is very patrician - like the Bushes. I think Obama wins that contrast.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:57 am
Axel,
Both Obama’s dad and stepdad were millionaires and he was educated at all sorts of elite institutions, including one of the most elite prep schools around. He’s no more blue collar then John McCain and he doesn’t have McCain’s military background to “blue-collar” him up.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:59 am
Obama Adviser Denies Trade Remarks
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jrFPkleRZmbmPtPxHBGNAPSzfUtwD8V5OLP00
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:00 am
Obama’s Problem #1
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjcyNDlkMTc0ZTNhMmExYTY3YTA5ZDk0MmYxNTU2YmQ=
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:02 am
NAFTA SHAFTA
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/03/nafta-shafta.html
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:18 am
Axel:
You think OBAMA relates better to blue-collar voters in a matchup with MCCAIN?!
Are you insane?
You remind me of every other “Washington insider” I’ve ever known — dismissive, haughty, and completely out of touch with the sentiments of Americans outside the Beltway.
(Incidentally, does “Washington insider” simply mean that you happen to attend grad school in DC, and that you once saw Andrew Sullivan jogging in Dupont?)
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:21 am
Obama does not relate better to blue-collar voters. Obama’s core constituency is blacks and latte liberals. I suspect Obama would win VT in a landslide. PA and OH - not so much.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:22 am
Axel G., I agree that Bill Clinton is well-educated trash. I would not categorize Hillary that way though.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:29 am
I think it has less to do with Hillary being “well-educated trash”. I also question how classy Obama is. He took time out to blow his nose during a speech. Could you picture Mitt Romney doing that in his wildest dreams? Or John McCain for that matter. I think Obama fails to connect because he lacks specifics. If you are out of a job, you don’t really care about “changing the tone in Washington” which is the type of thing Obama talks about. Hillary talks more about bread and butter issues that traditional Democrats care about. Health care, education, etc. Obama talks about those too but in a less specific way.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 am
I think Obama’s going to have trouble with voters who even have blue collar backgrounds (i.e, their parents were blue collar). My dad’s a middle class, black, former major in the US Army, who grew up in legitimate poverty, who voted for Kerry in 04′, Bush in 00′, and Clinton in 96′. He’s someone Obama should have absolutely locked up. Instead, he thinks Obama comes across as an arrogant old school politician. Incredibly, he’s giving McCain a serious look (without any encouragement from me). To be sure he’s an odd demographic, and one that has little chance of tipping to McCain in general, and anecdotes are only so useful anyway, but when a product of blue-collar upbringing who now makes 150k a year thinks you seem haughty and out of touch, you probably have deeper problems brewing with legitimately blue collar voters.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:32 am
(Incidentally, does “Washington insider� simply mean that you happen to attend grad school in DC, and that you once saw Andrew Sullivan jogging in Dupont?)
No. I attended boarding school with kids of cabinet members, diplomats, foreign heads of state and elected officials. I attended grad school with, among others, a number of Bush appointees. I myself was offered but turned down a job in the white house. If we were to play three degrees of separation (instead of six) I can reach President Bush, every supreme court justice, Obama, Clinton, Reagan, the Kennedys, etc. That is what I mean by insider - a nobody who knows a lot of people.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:37 am
Clinton just can’t seem to go after Obama on his weakest points- big government,
and brining the troops home, because the base is all for these things. Once
McCain goes after him on these points, I don’t think it will be much of a contest.
Except for the war, McCain is perceived as different from the current administration
and with the war going so well, I don’t see the American people backing a loser (ie
Obama). I guess it could happen, but it doesn’t seem that the critical mass of pie in
the sky voters has been reached yet.
Tuesday could still be a surprise and Hillary might make a comeback. That also
seems unlikely. But I agree with Dave G that Hillary would be more of a problem
because she is more like McCain. Obama makes a much better contrast but Hillary
can’t take advantage of this weakness because it would offend her party who wants
bigger government and retreat (surrender, in the face of victory- unbelievable)
in Iraq.
The only thing that worries me about Obama is his freakish ability to raise money.
But McCain has a freakish ability to win without much money.
Although Hillary would be a tougher opponent in the general, just becuase it would
be harder to make a distinction between her and McCain, it should be kept in mind
that the main reason Bill Clinton won two elections is because of one Ross Perot. I
don’t see a Ross Perot on the horizon this time around.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:43 am
Great point on the Obama-Dean congruity, Clarence. It appears to me that Obama’s leftism is the “new” young leftism that I always associate with academia and Hollywood, and I had almost forgotten the Dean association. If I recall correctly, ol’ Howie has no love lost on the Clintons and their broader reach into the political center.
The new leftism is less blue collar than superficial and dopey. It’s the type of thinking of the high-income “knowledge workers” with graduate degrees in arcane and fluffy liberal arts fields. As their mark of membership in today’s Veblenesque leisure class, they are all touchy-feely about politics — especially the type of politics drilled into them in their college years. They can recite condemnations of all things American from the heart on any subject, relying on each and any foreign adversary for insight, no matter how despotic the foreign critic’s government may be.
Unfortunately, our media elites are also in this gullible Obaman crowd, easily bamboozled by seeing the North Korean regime invite the NY Philharmonic to play in Pyong-Yang. The coverage of that event was the stupidest thing I’ve seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union — gushing over the idea of peace with NK while Kim has untold thousands working themselves to death in concentration camps and the rest of the populace held as prisoners of their own country.
If Obama is all about hope, then so am I — hope for a world in which his brand of modern, stupid leftism is resoundingly rejected by a vast majority of the voting public.
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:59 am
MarkG, another thing that gets to me about someone like Dean is their attitude toward conservatives. Dean for example said, “They look like the 1950s and talk like the 1850s.” To an educated person like Dean (in his mind), anyone that opposes abortion rights, opposes gay marriage, or thought you shouldn’t pull the plug on Terri Schiavo, is someone who thinks like a mid-19th century person. He doesn’t think, “The conservatives disagree with us.” He thinks, “The conservatives are backwards.” Naturally any intelligent, modern person would be pro-choice and pro-gay. You wouldn’t even have to think about it. The whole thing wreaks of elitism. I am sure Obama feels the same way. He wouldn’t come out and say it because he’s a nicer guy than Dean is, but I doubt he feels any differently, and Hillary probably doesn’t either for that matter. That is the future of the Democratic party, to say nothing of their foreign policy views.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
32, Funny thing is, you just described the attitude of some of the people on this site. Particularly of those who supported a certain candidate from NY.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
John Mark, many Republicans, Christie Whitman being the top example, think exactly the same way. So do some of the Giuliani supporters on this site. I wouldn’t say all of them because there are some who might be socially conservative on paper but supported Rudy for electability or other reasons, but the attitude I mentioned exists among Republicans too, in fact it used to be that everyone in that category was Republican. I’ll bet a few generations ago, the Dean family, like almost all of Vermont, was solidly Republican.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Yep, Its one of things that really drove me nuts about Rudy was his supporters. They acted like SoCons were neanderthals who should be ignored, but then for some reason should fall in line and vote for their candidate at the end of the day.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Everyone please ignore everything Axel G (Washington Insider) says.
He’s a clown.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Let me defend Rudy for a second here too. One of the reasons he was able to get some Republican support in the polls (before he collapsed) was because even though he does not have very conservative tendencies on social issues himself, he did not look down on so-cons as being backwards the way a person like Howard Dean or Barack Obama would. You could tell he respected people like Huckabee or Pat Robertson even though he disagreed with them. Someone like Dean would just categorize people like that as backwards.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Obama lacks class because he had the sniffles? I guess you haven’t seen the pic of Bush farting. There are natural bodily functions that even kings and queens endure.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
John Mark, I’m not sure that Rudy looked at so-cons as Neanderthals. I think he just disagreed with them. Maybe privately he did think they were Neanderthals. I would have no way of knowing. It could also be that his supporters figured so-cons would fall in line because they think so little of the intelligence of so-cons and think of them as easily manipulated.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Axel, I meant because he stopped a speech and announced it to everyone and then they all applauded. Could you picture Mitt Romney doing that?
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:25 pm
37, Yeah I’m not so much talking about Rudy as about his supporters. Of course basing your vote on a candidate’s supporters isn’t a good idea. However, it always seemed a little alarming when the Rudy supporters seemed to be celebrating the death of social conservatism. FTR, at the end I was leaning to voting for Rudy in the general, people like Metro though wouldn’t have made the decision any easier though.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
36, True, but the clowns are what make the site interesting.
He should have been banned, but I guess since he wasn’t we can get some entertainment from him.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I might be willing to debate SoCons on the issues passionately, but I don’t question their ability to reason. Our underlying premises are different, and I’m open to their arguments. A good friend of mine is more of a full-range conservative than I would claim to be, and he has consistently convinced me of the value of his pro-life positions.
It’s clear that we all approach these things differently. I would agree that the modern leftists, many of whom describe themselves as progressives, are condescending towards SoCons and religious conservatives: values voters and the like. My gripe is mostly with this elite’s myopic worldview that is heavy on socialist theories and social justice bluster, but blissfully ignorant of the specific details of history as well as non-leftist thinking about the world.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Yes you are correct MarkG, they do have a worldview heavy on socialist theories.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
There’s definitely a brand of leftism with a lot of arrogance to it. I think Howard Dean comes from that branch. If Obama is exposed as coming from that brand he will be in serious trouble. Nothing will destroy his cred as a uniter than being exposed as looking down on the American people.
Now to be fair not all liberals have this arrogance. In my college classes it seems all of my teachers are liberals. However, some are nice and repectful. One ( a German who focuses on teaching world history) has a definte arrogance to his liberalism. The funny thing is, he doesn’t like Obama, because he thinks he’s not far left enough. He liked Kuccinich and Edwards.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Howard Dean continues to be all mouth and nothing behind it. He said today, “John McCain is running on his integrity, but he doesn’t seem to have any.” He doesn’t seem to have ANY? So John McCain is a sociopath then? Dean doesn’t think before he talks which is why he was unable to win a single state in 2004 other than his own (Vermont) despite the Democratic electorate being very liberal.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
That’s one reason I wanted Mitt Romney. Arrogant liberals generally like to call Republican nominees “dumb”. They did it masterfully with Bush. If Romney had been the nominee, they could have called him a of things, but could they say he had a low IQ (and keep a straight face)? They’ll have a hard time using the “dumb” label with McCain as well.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
47, That’s why I’m warming up to the idea of Romney as VP, it seems like it would be harder find anybody with better executive and fiscal experience, along with the fact that he’s very educated. McCain’s got great foreign policy, and military experience, with Mitt we would get great domestic experience. It would hard to beat such a ticket of combined experience.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Hard to beat in the sense that it would be hard for the Dems to field a nearly equivalent ticket.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
John Mark, in my experience, nothing quite compares to German neo-Marxist academics when it comes to arrogance, hierarchical thinking, and slavish devotion to dogma. If they were college students back in the ’60s, they once adored Lenin, Castro, “Che,” Mao, and Pol Pot. They are proselytizing atheists who hate the very idea of religion. That’s why I love to accuse them of being dogmatic religious fanatics who have simply thrown God out of their church — making authoritarian central government (cf: dictatorship of the proletariat) into the omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent Supreme Being.
Most of these folks have an earnest disdain for the unwashed masses and particularly the blue collar workers who rejected their politics back in Eurpe’s ‘68 revolution. Back then these neo-Marxists tried to “organize” (cf: Obama’s credentials as a “community organizer”) factory workers into armed insurrection against the upper class by holding long-winded “teach ins.” Those workers organized fast — to kick the tar outta those mouthy do-nothing student agitators.
Hmm. Maybe there really is such a thing as social justice after all.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
#36: “Everyone please ignore everything Axel G (Washington Insider) says. He’s a clown.”
And a bigot.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Well to be fair I don’t think he’s quite that bad. He’s a Christian. I don’t really know a whole lot about his politics, except that he’s ashamed of the direction America has gone in, because we don’t because we don’t have universal health care and basically that our progressive enough, though he hasn’t given too many specifics on what he thinks the solutions are. He thinks McGovern ( I think it was McGovern) was one of the better candidates that has been put up. One of his favorite candidates was Kuccinich, so I suppose that probably about makes him a socialist. He describes himself as a Social Democrat.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Tano: I predicted what you would say before you even said it. Basically you’re saying that Dave is trying to rationalize his fear of Obama by claiming that the party dodged a bullet with the Clintons.
Let’s turn it around. Tano is a pansy lily-livered Obama lover. I think a journalist said it correct when he said that the Obama campaign is about how great the Obama campaign is. Basically your argument is, “This guy is wonderful! No one can stop him! Everyone loves him! The Democrats will win a 50-state landslide in November!”
You need help, Tano. I suggest a book on how to get out of cults. What happens if Obama loses in November? You’ll probably commit suicide. But then again, you’ve probably never even considered the possibility of a loss because you’re so damn arrogant, like Obama himself. And they said that Hillary had an inevitability complex …
Talk about hubris.
March 4th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Dave
I totally agree. Bill gives great speeches and is good at policy formulation. Very persuasive.