2008 Primaries Thread

NYT endorses Hillary in primary - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/opinion/25fri1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin - arguing she's better prepared. I didn't realize that needed to be established. There is little discussion on the other hand of who's likelier to win.

ok just discovered superdelegates this shit be fucked up y'all wtf is up with superdelegates is this a democracy or not????

Barack Obama, the incandescent if still undefined senator from Illinois. .. we need more specifics to go with his amorphous promise of a new governing majority, a clearer sense of how he would govern.

See, now, I'm not the only one who thinks this..

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/24/clinton_pulls_negative_sc_ad.html

now she's copying huckabee. which candidate has she not tried on for size?

the choice was Kristol clear

which candidate has she not tried on for size?

RON PAUL.

just got back from trivia night and there was a question on how many delagates the front-runners have--but not counting pledged superdelegates. I got it wrong.

I do kinda like that the last few presidential elections have activated parts of the electoral process that everyone thought was outdated, like the electoral college and party conventions.

but I'm a nerd.

activated underscored parts of the electoral process that everyone thought was are outdated, like the electoral college and party conventions.

RON PAUL

he leapt immediately to mind, and then was crossed off just as quickly. you don't need to be reminded who the black candidate is again, do you?

Putting the ad on & yanking after team Obama came out with a really harsh response? Hey, not a bad idea. I'm sure Huck didn't invent it.

xpost If there's anything you shoulda revised there, it's "outdated."

NYT endorses HRC and McCain.

i wonder what happens if Hillary comes in 3rd in SC

It means I can vote for Edwards on Feb 5.

Obama's nonspecifics still slightly preferable to HRC's track record.

Morbs, how can you still prefer Edwards when he's the Dem's Mitt Romney?

blah!

blah blah blah!

YES!

NO WAY!

blah!

blah blah blah!

-- Tracer Hand, Friday, January 25, 2008 8:43 AM (0 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

Translation: yahhh trick yahhh!!!

Alfred, bcz Hil is the Dems' McCain?

Gary Younge on Obama and bipartisan pipedreams:

As a means to an end, bipartisanship makes sense. But as an end in itself, it is a hollow notion unless you define who you want to join forces with and why.

...the partisanship in Washington that has disillusioned people is in fact "partysanship"--the support not of one idea or program over another but of one party over another. Democrats backed the war and have refused to stop its funding, impeach Bush or protect civil liberties because they believe that to do otherwise would be bad for the party, regardless of the country's interests.

While the Democratic Party's interests may at times coincide with that of the American people, they are clearly not synonymous. The party's raison d'être is to win elections, not to change America. Depending on the time, place and candidate, it may well stand for office but little else. The right understands these limits of electoral politics only too well. Its victories have ended in Washington, but they didn't start there and were not sustained there. The terrible truth about the past seven years is not that the country has been divided but that the wrong side has been winning. The right has fought for its agenda and has never been in doubt about who its enemy is.

It's high time the left did the same (by) recognizing that divisions exist and that to resolve them we have to take sides and fight for our beliefs. Unity is not forged by fiat but by struggle.

Edwards is great in a lot of ways. I wish the other candidates were tackling the issues he is. There are aspects to his plan that I like as well. I am also totally accepting of the fact that his positions have shifted and strengthened, but ultimately, this guy is comes off as a dilettante.

I can't support anyone in the primaries who not only voted for the Iraq resolution, but who actively made the administration's case for the Iraqi threat in public. Edwards was on the same intelligence committee as Durbin!

I'll actively support whoever wins the nomination, but I have good reason not to trust Edwards and Clinton. I have no reason to expect Obama to leave us high and dry. That's something, at least. (and no, that is not the only reason I support Obama)

"The Democratic Party: We Have Different Interests Than the American People" might not be the best slogan ever.

the democrats' constant "little dog" inferiority complex is the real problem and i think it goes beyond strategy to something deeply psychological. in a fascist system, power is the only arbiter of validity, so if you're the party of the powerless -- in broad strokes -- you need to call on something pretty profound to not end up with a bad case of stockholme syndrome

Well, for 6 very important years there the dems were the minority in every single branch of government, and completely shut out from any decision-making, so there's a certain validity to it in context. (The fact that the GOP acting unilaterally led in no small part to its downfall could be brought up more.) Saying shit like "While the Democratic Party's interests may at times coincide with that of the American people, they are clearly not synonymous" is just getting behind the very successful GOP strategy of convincing Dems that the perceived majority of public opinion is virulently against them on certain issues, and that if they don't vote a certain way they'd be drawn and quartered. This wasn't true, and again, proceeding on assumptions like this screwed the GOP in a major, major way. It really needs to be re-emphasized the degree to which the GOP's seemingly successful tactics got it kicked out of Congress and, soon, the White House.

(And the Dems aren't the party of the powerless--they're supposed to be the party of the people, which in a democratic system means you're actually the party with power. To say nothing of their historical support of such powerful institutions as unions, the middle class, and government itself.)

Obama's couching bipartisanship in inclusive terms, but in practical political terms bipartisanship means there's someone to share the blame with. That's why the war has ultimately not been as bad for the GOP as it really should be, given public opinion.

La Noonan:

There are many serious and thoughtful liberals and Democrats who support Mr. Obama and John Edwards, and who are seeing Mr. Clinton in a new way and saying so. Here is William Greider in The Nation, the venerable left-liberal magazine. The Clintons are "high minded" on the surface but "smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard at the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package. The nation is at fair risk of getting them back in the White House for four years."

That, again, is from one of the premier liberal journals in the United States. It is exactly what conservatives have been saying for a decade. This may mark a certain coming together of the thoughtful on both sides. The Clintons, uniters at last.

Mr. Obama takes the pummeling and preaches the high road. It's all windup with him, like a great pitcher more comfortable preparing to throw than throwing. Something in him resists aggression. He tends to be indirect in his language, feinting, only suggestive. I used to think he was being careful not to tear the party apart, and endanger his own future.

But the Clintons are tearing the party apart. It will not be the same after this. It will not be the same after its most famous leader, and probable ultimate victor, treated a proud and accomplished black man who is a U.S. senator as if he were nothing, a mere impediment to their plans. And to do it in a way that signals, to his supporters, "How dare you have the temerity, the ingratitude, after all we've done for you?"

Those final Noonan paragraphs are a bit much, no? I mean, candidates have negative campaigned against each other during primaries for decades. Why will this particular instance "tear the party apart," and even if that's true, why should Obama respond in kind? Wouldn't that make the tear even more damaging and irreversible?

The far left (including its mouthpiece The Nation) has always disliked the Clintons - big surprise there. Noonan's overblown rhetoric is ridiculous. Oh those nasty Clintons! Who will think of the children?!

(I'm not condoning the Clintons' distorting Obama's words and record, mind you. I just don't draw the sweeping conclusions from it that Noonan does (but I also sort of hate Peggy Noonan, so maybe I'm bias)).

well, remember: Noonan agrees with Limbaugh that a McCain nom would destroy the Republican Party. These are not people who rest easy at night.

If both parties get torn apart: Best Election Ever.

And if McCain wins the GE? Does she think that will destroy the GOP?

that way a new Reagan can rise from the ashes.

(xpost)

Noonan is a hack.

"Hillary hits all the morning shows, gets hit with a surprise on NBC: An old photo of her and Bill next to disgraced Obama associate Tony Rezko. NBC's Matt Lauer says that the network "received" the photo and that its date is uncertain; the same pic also popped up on Drudge this morning."

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/hillary_on_the_morning_shows_surprised_by_photo_of_her_and_rezko.php

hahahaha oh that is good

Whatever Pegster, I'm annoyed at Bill right now but I'll totally tear up to see him in the White House again.

were you quoted on this week's Onion front page?

http://www.drudgereport.com/rez.jpg

i'm starting to think all of this "the clintons are dirty fighters" stuff is an attempt to defang hillary in advance so that any fightback of hers on any issue or accusation whatsoever can be painted as the actions of a vile gutter-brawler

"received" the photo

i've been wondering what role the O campaign had in the demise of its Senate opponents

It seems to me that anything that keeps the Rezko story in the headlines is good for the Clintons (as long as it doesn't turn out he's been a major supporter for years). Maybe the Clinton campaign sent the photo to NBC?

its just turning something she's promoted as a virtue (her "strength", "toughness", "ability to handle the Republican attack machine") into a liability - the flipside of what Obama's opponents are trying to do to him.

x-post

i'm starting to think all of this "the clintons are dirty fighters" stuff is an attempt to defang hillary in advance so that any fightback of hers on any issue or accusation whatsoever can be painted as the actions of a vile gutter-brawler

well, yeah!

it's a symbolic gesture broadcast to elites to convince them not to write obama off as weak/defensive/etc. people have already pretty much made their minds up as to whether the clintons are dirty dealers or not. (and most dem voters know they're not.)

the real weakness of the clinton strategy right now is that they're using bill to do it. it may be more effective in the short term, but in the long term hillary's usual strategy of using associates to put out slams is much more devestating.

people have already pretty much made their minds up as to whether the clintons are dirty dealers or not. (and most dem voters know they're not.)

Because they have short memories?

uh, whitewater?