Make no mistake, I'll volunteer for the winner, but I'm no big fan of either.
They have nearly identical records in the Senate and that means both of them have been too chicken to even vote symbolically against the war in terms of budgets.
I've always seen the Clintons as way too DLC for my tastes but I'd like to see a woman president in my lifetime.
As for Obama: I don't need hope or inspiration. Call me a cynic. (Kennedy wasn't as good as "Kennedy.")
So to oversimplify and run wild with generalizations:
Dream or dud?
The Barack voters are hoping that their Mystery Date will be a dream and not a dud. Their hearts are all a flutter and they're betting on the guy without too long of a record (all the better to project your hopes and dreams on to).
Between Heaven and Hell
And Hillary? She's the woman with too long a record. YEARS of Republican smears that have taken a toll, especially in an election when people desperately want CHANGE. She's stuck on the ground between Heaven and Hell and can never hope to fly -- politically speaking -- with the angels that some in the public and the press have Obama circling.
But at least the Democrats are reaching for the stars, while the Republicans continue to bow down to Zombie Reagan.
.
23 comments:
I'm getting tired of the gross oversimplifications of Obama's message. Not yours ... mostly Chad's. But everyone in general.
First of all, people forget that we tagged Bill Clinton as the change change change, blah blah blah candidate back in 1992.
Secondly, if you listen deep into Obama's speeches and analyze the nuance, he is making statements. He is settting priorities, he is establishing thresholds, he is building consensus around some directions -- in regards to health care, taxes, the war, the budget.
He is not going out there and saying I have the plan, my plan, I know what to do. He knows A) that makes your plan a target and B) he doesn't even know who's going to be in his Congress yet, he doesn't know what events will transpire, he doesn't know how he'll have to get a plan for anything passed.
Joe Biden once said, on health care, "you need to build a dike around your plan" by taking some initial steps and working the electorate and your opponent. I think that's all Barack's doing.
And seriously, I'm not dreaming this, go back and YouTube the Iowa acceptance speech and zoom past the first five minutes. It's all in there.
Also -- he is intent on building a real coalition with red america and sensible conservatives. That is the right way to beat them.
The main point is that he and Clinton are fucking siamese twins when it comes to their voting records, their issues, working with Republicans, being DLC, etc., so it does come down to image/perceived image.
That's all I'm saying.
Maria, I must disagree. I'm not nuts about Obama, either, but he opposed the war from the start while Hillary voted for it. And don't tell me she didn't know what Bush was going to do with that mandate. Hell, I knew it, and I'm mentally deficient.
Obama never voted in favor of any bill to restrict free speech. Hillary introduced one.
Obama introduced a bill to limit the effects of Kyle-Lieberman. Hillary voted to give Bush the power to invade another country after Iraq.
The woman is a worm. No liberal in her or his right mind should vote for her in ANY election.
Who exactly does the far-left LIKE? Even the canddiates who agree with you on many issues, like Obama and Clinton, get attacked by you people.
Give me a break, reaching for the stars: Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton just like her husband are not democrats, they're corporatists. Billy boy sent our 15 dollar an hour jobs overseas and made a lot of 5 dollar an hour jobs to take their place. The Clinton era created jobs because the whole family had to find menial jobs to take the place of good manufacturing jobs this country used to have. The way republicans glorify Reagan is the same as democrats glorifying the Clintons.
You are correct, C.H. Unlike you folks over there on the bleeding edge of the right, many of us on the left have principles, meaning that we dislike murder and repression no matter what label you put on the murderer or despot.
OTOH, we might ask the same of many on your side. Your talk machine is is the process of eviscerating its probable nominee, with the lovely and talented Ann Coulter promising to campaign for Hillary if McCain is the nominee of your brethren.
But you keep calling us the "far-left" despite the fact that the hyphen in your expression is erroneous. Here's a question for you: If 60% of the country looks to you to be far to the left, where must you be standing?
Just got home from my UNA meeting...
The votes are still being counted, but it looks like mccain is going to win california (I hope)
He kicked Romney's ass everywhere else, so hopefully this won't be any different.
How do all you john k's and anne coulter's feel about that?
LOL LOL LMAO LOL!
John K. says: In the future, when referring to Ronald Reagan, use the term Renaldo Magnus. It is an appropriate expression of his greatness. Also, begin to refer to Bush as Bushus Maximus, conquerer of Afghanistan and Iraq, scourge of the liberals. Ahh why do I care what Ann Coulter thinks. Unlike you I can think for myself.
"I'm getting tired of the gross oversimplifications of Obama's message. Not yours ... mostly Chad's."
I don't speak for Chad, but note that his silence on this thread is likely due to the fact that he's out of town on business until later today. But I'm sure he'll find the comment interesting.
Can't we all just be happy that Ron Paul didn't get a state?
;-)
In the future, when referring to Ronald Reagan, use the term Renaldo Magnus. It is an appropriate expression of his greatness.
Greatness???? Gimme a break! Reagan peaked in "Kings Row" and went down after that. His Presidency was a monumental disaster for the country.
Hillary Clinton just like her husband are not democrats, they're corporatists. Billy boy sent our 15 dollar an hour jobs overseas and made a lot of 5 dollar an hour jobs to take their place.
This is a valid point. While Clinton did a number of good things, he also championed NAFTA--a deal which has been great for multi-national corporations and disastrous for ordinary Americans who have seen good paying jobs disappear.
As bad as NAFTA is for the US, it's been even worse for Mexico. When NAFTA was passed, big agribusinesses like ADM flooded the Mexican market with low-cost produce and forced literally millions of Mexican farmers out of business. IMO, NAFTA is the chief reason there are so many undocumented Mexican workers in the US--they don't come here to piss off Lou Dobbs and give the Rethugs another bogeyman, they come here because decent paying jobs are non-existent in Mexico.
Judge ... I sent Mr. Hermann an email pointing him in the direction of said comment ... would have responded more directly but his blog outlets don't take comments so i'm sort of piggybacking is all.
couple things...one, Reagan won by landslide margins..ridicule him all you want you can't take that away from him..if hillary and Obama can get elected for two terms,then we can debate the merits of their presidencies vs.RR
second,I find myself in agreement with Bram for the second consecutive day...for all the "feel good" politics played by liberals,to finally have a bonafide "feel good"candidate, and then to refute him,reminds me that liberal dems seem to always eat their young
Bush won twice too and Reagan was bad for the average American.
I'm not apologizing for the fact that Obama doesn't give me goosebumps.
That said, we need a Democratic President, House and Senate to even begin to undue the damage that Bush has done.
I can make a case for Barack as I can for Hillary. I can make cases against both of them, but I won't because there's one thing I can't do and that's make a case for any of the Republicans running against any of the Democrats running.
So for now I'm for Hillarack and Clinbama.
K?
(Not saying that any of you can't or shouldn't argue for your preference either.)
Hilarac would be an excellent Klingon name.
Thanks, Smitty. I'd like to think I'm reliable at least two-out-of-three.
Hilarac also sounds like a new kind of winter root vegetable.
Oh, and C.H., it's warm here in the Northeast when it should be quite chilly. Must mean the global warming deniers are wrong -- and that we're running out of time to get any hilarac.
That's funny because my contacts in new england (I used to live there) tell me that december was one of the coldest on record, with very heavy snowfall. January too, got a lot of snow.
China and central asia are currently experiencing there worst snow storms in decades.
...and its been a bit chilly out here in the ol' norcal these least few weeks (its warm today, but I'm not complaining). The sierra nevada has been slammed with foot after foot of snow and frigid temps.
Snow also fell in Baghdad and Jerusalem. mmmmm...isn't that interesting.
Nature is unpredictable. The anti-Mccain kook right will succeed in deporting the 12-20 million illegal immigrants before Al Gore succeeds in altering the climate of a planet that has undergone dramtic shifts in temperature over millions of years.
You guys after all, are supposed to be proud members of the reality based community...you should be agreeing with me on this one.
C.H., it's good of you to help make our point for us. Global warming, as you point out, is screwing up weather patterns all over the world, but the world-wide average keeps climbing at alarming rates.
Another good point you make is that in the past climate has changed over thousands and tens of thousands of years, but now it's changing while we watch.
Your children will curse you. But I'm guessing you don't have any children, do you?
Barack is hardly DLC.
It absolutely amazes me - for years, progressives/liberals whined that Democrats didn't have a vision.
Now, they have a candidate that inspires, that brings new people to the party AND has a sweeping vision of America...but that's just not good enough for some people.
More and more, I wonder why I'm a Democrat. I keep thinking of that old Will Rogers saying: "I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat." Something like that...
The more this campaign goes on, the more it occurs to me that while the Republicans are the party of selfishness, the Democrats are the party of Dumb.
They have the chance for the first time in a generation to build a governing majority; but half of them are in love with the divisive, DLC, pro-corporate Clintons.
I'll make a bet right now: If Hillary gets the nomination, it's President John McCain.
Democrats might like her, but Americans don't. Well, half of them anyway.
Her negatives are atrocious. She won't win Independents and has no appeal to moderate Republicans, many of whom, believe it or not, are willing to give the Democrats a good look.
If she were to get the nomination and win, she'll have no coattails. The Republican party will rally around "Stop Hillary" and they'll turn out to vote.
Seriously, do you think the party of hate will sit on their hands and just let her have the keys to the White House?
Chances are, Democrats lose some of the Red State seats they picked up in '06 and maybe even some of the seats they picked up in swing states. Her nomination would probably also hurt a couple of Senate races, meaning instead of winning say 8-9 seats, Dems only get 4-5.
Too many Democrats don't see that. There lost in the fairy tale that was the 1990's.
Yes, it was better than now, but so where the '80s. Bill Clinton's two terms in office are the pinnacle of modern Presidential mediocrity; whereas his successor has set a new standard for incompetence.
Of course, it was largely the triangulating calculations of Clinton era politics that sought to blur the differences between Republicans and Democrats, which led to a Republican-lite Democratic Party that one only 1 national election between 1994 and 2004. It's no great leap to suggest that the Clinton's and their brand of politics weakened the party.
Ask Al Gore how much help they were for him in 2000.
Democrats only started winning when they started to stand up and made very clear distinctions as to who they were.
I'll admit it - I'm an Obama supporter. I think he's the best chance for the Democrats this fall to forge a new governing center-left majority.
But it's funny. For 7 1/2 years, liberals/progressives cringed every time Bush spoke.
Now that we have a candidate who has a command of the language and a touch of the poet to boot, some liberals still find a reason to complain.
Honestly, I'm a liberal, but I think some of us are so used to being angry and beaten that they're too cynical to believe in hope.
I think that's a shame. The Democratic Party IS the party of hope. After all, hope is the opposite of fear. And after nearly 8 years of GOP fear-mongering, it's refreshing that some people still believe in lifting hopes instead of crushing them.
The Democratic Party IS the party of hope.
Used to be. Now it's the party of capitulation and appeasement. What a revoltin' development this is.
Why isn't anyone asking where Obama is really getting his money?
Why isn't anyone really verifying his voting record? Personally, I find him to be boring. He is just another MAN that will do anything and say anything to get elected. He has alot of nerve to introduce a bill to limit Kyle-Lieberman when he did not even show up to vote for it!!!!
Oh for God's sake, it's apparently not enough to say that you'll not only support Obama if he's nominated but you'll volunteer for him because you're just a stupid miserable little fuck if you don't LOVE the guy.
Really, you're cause would go a lot better if you'd all just lighten up a little.
One of the good things about Democrats is that we like to see ourselves as individuals and not like lemming/sheep Republicans. It used to be OK to have different opinions.
But Jesus Christ I haven't even endorsed Hillary but God forbid there should be ANY criticism of Obama.
You really think the Republicans are gonna get behind that?
Yes, they'll say Hillary is simultaneously a lesbian who killed her lover Vince Foster while being a man-hating, feminazi ball-crusher who is also is a weak crybaby female. And, damn, did you know she is (gasp) a WOMAN?
But, reality check: they'll say (and already are saying) that Barack Hussein Obama is an undercover Muslim terrorist who swears on the Koran and refuses to pledge allegiance to the flag. And, damn, did you know he is (gasp) BLACK?
Really, the Obamans would do their candidate better and get more votes if they weren't so damn self righteous about him.
Sorry, folks but this IS funny.
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