Tag: 2008 elections

For better or worse, Hillary Clinton's political image is largely dominated by her tenure as First Lady. It seems fairly clear that Hillary was a key, if not the key, advisor to President Clinton on many many issues. And while Tim Russert's questions on documents from the period is not really an attempt to shed light on this, it is rather more of the same gotcha nonsense, it does inadvertently get to a lot of questions about Hillary.

In today's WaPo, Michael Kinsley writes:

[First ladies] must have a better understanding of how the presidency works than all but half a dozen people in the world. One of those half a dozen is Hillary Clinton, who saw it all — well, she apparently missed one key moment — and shared in all the big decisions. Every first lady is promoted as her husband's key adviser, closest confidant, blah, blah, blah, but in the case of the Clintons, it seems to be true.

That seems true to me. But here's the thing – my recollection of the Clinton years had Hillary supposedly playing the liberal in the lion's den of Centrists role in the Clinton Administration. I'll never forget the reaction of Peter and Marian Wright Edelman to welfare reform. Peter resigned his post and Marian Wright Edelman made sure everyone understood how she felt personally betrayed by HILLARY, not Bill. Hillary was to be the liberal conscience of the Clinton Administration. How time changes images. Now Hillary's supposed liberal past is long forgotten. For those who favor DLCism, this is a sign of Hillary's good sense. For those who disfavor it, it proves hillary is a corporatist sellout DLCer. This is a central question about Hillary Clinton. Who could best answer this question? I believe Bill Clinton would be that person. I think it would help us all, and probably mostly Hillary Clinton, if he and Hillary were to discuss her role and views on the Clinton Administration and the issues faced at the time. Release of documents to add to this telling would be even better. I think it is time to tell the story – not of the personal lives of the clintons – but the public policy lives of the the Clintons. Tell us what Hillary did, said, advised and thought. To me it is the most interesting and relevant question of the entire campaign.

Here it is.  It comes in three parts:

1) a “reality-based” political agenda for the future.

2) a discussion of the pragmatics (relation of discourse to hearers/readers) of political agendas

3) a critique of a successful politician’s agenda.

(crossposted on ecosocialism)

Dennis Kucinich, continuing his campaign in New Hampshire and having received the endorsement of New Hampshire State Representative Betty Hall, has announced that he will include George W. Bush in his impeachment resolution!

YAY!

At a press conference today, where Dennis will be endorsed by Betty Hall (New Hampshire State Representative), Dennis will add President George W. Bush to his impeachment call!

Meteor Blades comments in response to my post on Edwards:

In my view, Armando will probably disagree, the shifting about of the poll numbers has nothing to do with THE ISSUES that we all want the focus to be on, it has to do with the personalities, exactly what we DON’T WANT. One sentence pounced on by one chorus of boos turns around the megamedia narrative – even when the candidate’s narrative has not budged. Senator Clinton “stumbled” and was losing it before the last debate was the narrative, coupled with the “the boys ganged up on her.” After Las Vegas – the 13th debate in this interminable pre-game action – she’s on top again. Why? Because she’s changed on the issues? And Edwards is now the blackheart? Why? Because he changed on the issues?

Like everyone who has dealt with him, my respect and affection for MB knows no bounds. But you gotta be kidding me. Unless questioning someone’s honesty and integrity is now not a personal attack, how can anyone seriously say Edwards is not engaged in GOP style character attacks on Clinton? Parsing, corrupt, corporate Dems, etc. This is what Edwards has treated us to now for a month. Frankly, it is simply ridiculous to deny the obvious.

And it should ALSO be obvious that it is not Clinton who is avoiding a debate on the issues at this point – it is Edwards.

If issues were at the heart of the attacks on Hillary Clinton, how can you explain attacking her for NOT buying into the GOP frame on Social Security? Are the blogs REALLY supporting the Edwards and Obama nonsense on this? Are they REALLY focused on the issue here? Hell no, they are not. They are focused on Hillary Hate.

If drivers licenses for undocumented aliens was an issue that people cared about, would they have joined the MSM/GOP style attacks on Clinton’s answer? Would Edwards’ base flip flop on the issue have been given a free pass? If straight talk was the standard, would everyone have given a pass to Obama’s awful answer? To Edwards’ utter double talk on the issue? Hell no.

If issues do not resonate for Edwards, does that excuse personal attacks? Only if you are an Edwards fan or a Hillary Hater in my estimation. Just consider this:

While Clinton leads the pack on key issues such as health care, the war in Iraq and the economy, she stumbles on what seems to have solidified as her achilles heel in the race. But she placed fourth, behind Obama, Edwards and Richardson, when Democrats ranked the candidates they considered most honest and trustworthy. Obama topped that category with 27 percent, while Edwards followed with 18 percent; Richardson, 14; and Clinton, 13.

Excuse me Meteor Blades, if you want a campaign on the issues, then you best demand it from all the candidates, but especially from the Hillary challengers.  Excusing Edwards’ despicable campaign of personal attacks does NOTHING to promote issues. It is why he is easily my least favorite candidate in the race right now.  

Yesterday, I wrote about John Edwards' slippage in Iowa. Normally, I do not take great stock in polls this far out (yes, it is still too far out to take polls too seriously), especially the famously difficult to poll Iowa Caucus. My reasons for thinking the latest Iowa poll was not so much the numbers, as the fact that Edwards has dropped while Obama has risen since the end of July. Edwards now lacks a POSITIVE narrative for his candidacy for the critical last phases of the campaign. He has become the “attack Hillary” candidate (as opposed to being the Not Hillary candidate, the position he has now ceded without a shot to Barack Obama.)

At MYDD, Jerome Armstrong sees it differently:

Chiming in, it's great that the pollsters are now adding whether the voters attended the 2004 caucuses or not . . . I would tend to bank more on those that caucused in '04 . . .

With due respect to Jerome, I think he misses a very important point here, on the night of the caucus, the differences between previous caucus goers and first timers is simply not that great – both in choices and participation. For example, in 2004, the entrance polling showed:

Kerry won the initial preference of first-time caucus-goers, while Edwards and Dean roughly tied for second in this group. (First-timers made up 55 percent of participants, up from 46 percent in 2000.) . . .

Here's my point, the John Edwards campaign is looking more and more like the Gephardt campaign of 2004. He is supposed to have union support,  experienced caucus goers, etc. He has gone strongly negative against the perceived frontrunner. He is not a new face for Iowa, thus the change argument is difficult for him in terms of actually being a new candidate.

Most importantly, in my opinion, his dominant narrative now is one of a candidate whose campaign is dominated by personal attacks against the perceived frontrunner. Like Gephardt.

Unlike Kerry in 2004, or Edwards 2004 for that matter, there is no positive narrative for the Edwards campaign now. There is no doubt he can hurt Hillary (or Obama if he chooses to shoot in that direction), but he now has reached the point where he can not help his own campaign.

And this campaign choice by Edwards is utterly perplexing. He was very viable in Iowa. He had a positive agenda. He was NOT in a two person race, the only ones where negative attacks can work (driving up your own negatives is a necessary part of a campaign of attacks, the hope is you drive up your opponents' negatives even further.)

I think it is clear now that the Presidential race is a two person race in that only two people can win now. I think Edwards can not. And he did it to himself. The most baffling campaign decision I can remember.

Sure, he’s not popular with our Great Orange Overlod.  Good for Kos.  No, really!  He has set up a ‘progressive’ community, and we have the right to ignore his dissmissive ‘Ughs.’  Why should we ignore those ‘Ughs?’

Dennis, who won the Democratic Underground Fun Run fundraiser, is coming off a striking performance at the Las Vegas Democratic debate.  What else is Dennis up to?

We’ll be live blogging the Town Hall meeting at 9 PM EST (6 Pacific).