2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

She has said she'll release them in april anyway

-- Ed, Thursday, March 6, 2008 11:12 AM

Reason #25 Why Electing HRC Would be More of the Same:

the press has asked for tax returns to see where the clintons' $34 mil in income came from. think of bill's business dealings with that eastern european oil dude and how bill then got him on the opec-like board out of nowhere. see also: mark rich.

^^^^

a fishing expedition, in other words

when she had hoped to have the nomination locked up

-- deej, Thursday, March 6, 2008 12:13 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah but the GE campaign is going on then?

does she have a choice at that point?

i guess it IS possible that bill kept receipts for the money he paid to have vince foster killed, or for the bribes he paid to slavic oil barons

Everybody in the place repeat after me:

'EITHER HILLARY CLINTON OR BARACK OBAMA WILL BE BETTER THAN JOHN MCCAIN AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA'

i guess it IS possible that bill kept receipts for the money he paid to have vince foster killed, or for the bribes he paid to slavic oil barons

-- Tracer Hand, Thursday, March 6, 2008 11:18 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

has obama actually inferred any of this?

Isn't it pretty to think so?

(xpost)

look basically i think you guys (and howard wolfson) need to quit whinin about s.o.p. campaign tactics because politics is a blood sport and whoever the nominee is (i hope it's obama) is going to have to get down in the mud and the blood and the beer if they actually plan on winning - at which point you will find yourself in the position of either being a hypocrite or actively hoping the democrats lose

i guess it IS possible that bill kept receipts for the money he paid to have vince foster killed, or for the bribes he paid to slavic oil barons

-- Tracer Hand, Thursday, March 6, 2008 11:18 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

has obama actually inferred any of this?

Contract killing be highly deductable.

tracer, ok, we get it, campaign theatre is well and truly bullshit, but it is some bullshit whose consequences will make a huge impact on the entire planet.

look basically i think you guys (and howard wolfson) need to quit whinin about s.o.p. campaign tactics because politics is a blood sport and whoever the nominee is (i hope it's obama) is going to have to get down in the mud and the blood and the beer if they actually plan on winning - at which point you will find yourself in the position of either being a hypocrite or actively hoping the democrats lose

ok, so you can just forever hold your peace about any gender-based attacks on hillary, then

i actually believe that there is a substantial difference between the way Obama has conducted his campaign and the way Hillary has conducted hers. I also believe that so far McCain has conducted a campaign reflective of Obama's moreso than Hillary's, and I would rather that the political discourse take that high road than reveling in smears and tactics that entirely distort the truth.

there is no distortion involved in 'release the documents.'

you're presumably also fine about people attacking hillary on the basis that she's a nerd with a freakish body shape

the NYT ran a brief today reporting that the Canadian prime minister denies any such conversation happened.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, March 6, 2008 12:04 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Link?

here's why i am pissed, tracer: the clintons have been willing to burn any bridge they see fit to win the nomination. this is some last gasp bullshit, and sure we're naive but it would be nice to put policy/the party ahead of personal ambition so we can actually LEGISLATE. basically the whole clinton wing of the party has been unilateral -- whether it be burning dean or whatever else -- and it's clear (to me) that they view themselves as being above the party & the voters (the last part is definitely editorializing but there's truth there). the obama campaign has been much more issue-based and has focused way more on the voters/problems/legislation (yes SUBSTANCE) than the clintons have been, who seem eager instead to burn the best candidate we've had for president in years to the ground to ensure that they maintain control of the party. this is some fucking hubert humphrey shit.

'EITHER HILLARY CLINTON OR BARACK OBAMA WILL BE BETTER THAN JOHN MCCAIN AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA'

I'm not sure I agree with this, honestly. McCain and Clinton both horrible options.

oh susanna we agree!!

for the record, i have no problem with obama asking clinton for her tax returns, it's a classic dumb campaign jab that works, just like the rezco thing, just like anything else so far - this has actually been a very tame primary fight when you think about it

gabbneb i don't get with sexism or racism, regardless of whether they've been s.o.p. in the past, and although "character" attacks are also par for the course it's almost impossible (in this particular primary fight) for them not to veer off into one of these two areas - in this respect i think clinton and obama themselves, with their own words, have been extremely disciplined. they probably realize that "character" attacks in general have been used solely against democrats in the g.e., with disastrous consequences for the entire planet

also YGS OTM

wait, is Obama too nice or too egotistical, I can't figure it out

ygs i don't really know the history of the bridge burning that hillary's done but the way you describe it, it does sound very bad

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080305.wharpleak0305/BNStory/National/home

^^ if the times is saying that PM Harper is denying anything happened, that's... totally wrong

hmm i wonder why obama didn't point that out from the get-go...

oh wait a minute

WHO CARES

The (CTV) report (on Obama & NAFTA) wound up on YouTube and caused an uproar in the U.S. race — influencing the final days of the critical Ohio primary, with every indication it will also play a role in the upcoming Pennsylvania vote.

Mr. Obama has been pilloried by his opponents and faced the most aggressive questioning of his heretofore smooth-sailing campaign.

Clinton used the story to cast him as a double-talking hypocrite — winking and nudging at Canadians while making contrary promises to American voters.

Republican nominee John McCain — who proudly dubs himself a straight-talker — has also seized on the incident to paint the Democratic front-runner as anything but.

When Mr. Obama's campaign and the Canadian government denied the allegation, a leaked document was obtained by The Associated Press written by a Canadian diplomat. It chronicled a conversation between Obama economic adviser Austan Goulsbee and diplomats at Canada's Chicago consulate.

The Obama aide has challenged the wording of the memo and says it characterized the conversation unfairly. A government official said that memo was initially e-mailed to over 120 government employees.

Mr. Harper has rebuffed opposition requests to call in the RCMP and also investigate the source of the original tip that led to the CTV report that triggered the diplomatic tempest. But a team of internal security agents has begun an investigation that will see dozens of bureaucrats and political staff questioned about their knowledge of the leak.

"This kind of leaking of information is completely unacceptable. In fact, it may well be illegal," Mr. Harper told the House of Commons.

"It is not useful, it is not in the interests of the government of Canada — and the way the leak was executed was blatantly unfair to Senator Obama and his campaign.

"Based on what (investigators) find, and based on legal advice, we will take any action that is necessary to get to the bottom of this matter."

capn save a smear

and yes again i see the naivety there but i have been a political junkie since i was eight years old and obama really is a different candidate. i mean, it's the first time in my life that i feel like someone *like me* is running (and being an egotist, could there be a better type?), and despite the cliched calls to the carpet of lobbyists/special interests he has operated his campaign in a fundamentally different way. the clinton strategy has been to degrade the campaign so as to make him Just Another Politician by sullying him. they don't want a substantive campaign. they want an lbj campaign. a g.e. campaign w/ the gop will be different cuz there will be genuine differences at stake: it will be gay marriage, terry schivo bullshit, and that we know how to fight. and that we can unite on. it's this parse-and-slaughter that is so fucking degrading and makes us all look bad.

btw: everyone keeps talking about how bill didn't get the nod until june, but didn't the primary season start MUCH later then? like first primary in late feb???

xpost: when dean was a candidate in 2004, tracer, the clintons wanted him out because he represented a new direction of the party. they have constantly tried to undermine him and others who have wanted a different direction, whether it be the netroots or whoever.

tracer, you have officially usurped the cranky crown from dr morbius

^^ ok the "leaking of the document" and "the conversation" are two different events in play w/r/t to right-wing Ottawa possibly trying to tip an election here in the US, but yall should read that article!

yeah ygs, the main reason my dad said he voted for obama is that he thinks obama's going to sweep a lot of that 90s DLC crowd out. which sounds pretty good to me. but i don't know if you can say that a politician wanting to keep Her Gang in power is particularly egregious or different than anyone else is, or would be.

well, that 90s dlc crowd is so moderate! they are honestly the most conservative part of the democratic party, and i would definitely attribute the cowered nature of congress to that mentality. there's nothing wrong with being bold, especially when you are in the right!

btw: everyone keeps talking about how bill didn't get the nod until june, but didn't the primary season start MUCH later then? like first primary in late feb???

Early Feb., but you've got a point. Also, despite Jerry Brown staying in the race until June, Clinton seems to have held a pretty commanding lead by mid-March:

February 10, 1992: Iowa senator Tom Harkin wins his state's caucus. No surprise here. No candidate was challenging him.

February 18, 1992: Former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas wins New Hampshire. Clinton finishes second and brands himself the "comeback kid."

February 25, 1992: Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey wins South Dakota.

March 3, 1992: Mini-Super Tuesday. Clinton wins Georgia. Former California governor Jerry Brown wins Colorado. Tsongas wins Maryland. Harkin wins the Minnesota and Idaho caucuses.

March 7, 1992: Clinton wins South Carolina.

March 10, 1992: Super Tuesday. Clinton wins six southern states: Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas. Tsongas wins Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

March 17, 1992: Clinton essentially ends the contest with a win in Illinois (though Brown would briefly reemerge with a victory in Connecticut one week later).

xpostage

I think Team Obama would be wise to start the HRC: can dish out, can't take it thoughtworm swiveling along.

The press decided Obama had an ego (see 'cocky' meme) some time at the end of last week. Ergo, an 'ego' he must have ;-).

ygs i agree! it's totally on the basis of things like that that people should be choosing their candidates. have you noticed that the news media has failed to deliver even a SINGLE panel discussion examining in detail the legacy of the DLC, clinton's relation to it, obama's relation to it (or not?) the ny observer is the only organ i can recall that has even touched on the whole cadre of people behind hillary, and what direction an obama presidency would swing things.

one things that sort of complicates the picture is that goolsbee, obama's chief economist, is a fellow at the DLC's think tank.

suzy i think that line of attack against hillary would be very effective, because it sort of appears to be actually true.

a question for the heads out there: how the hell did howard dean become democratic party chairman if he was so out of favor with "the machine"? no doubt there's an article somewhere about that, but i never read it.

you'd have to search long and hard to find an academic economist of some prestige who wasn't a free trader, and thus, if a democrat at all, most probably in the DLC orbit

uh more garbled syntax there: my point is that economists are a conservative free-trade bunch, more or less.

it's interesting enough that obama has actual economists at the heart of his economics team, instead of public policy types like reich or finance types like rubin, like WJC had

it's sort of scary actually, although i guess if obama's ever short on can openers he'll know who to go to

/ oblique reference to a terrible joke about academic economists

love reich so much

http://www.callipygia600.com/callnugget/alljokes/econmist.htm

it's sort of scary actually, although i guess if obama's ever short on can openers he'll know who to go to

/ oblique reference to a terrible joke about academic economists

-- Tracer Hand, Thursday, March 6, 2008 11:51 AM (51 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

http://991.com/newGallery/Toni-Basil-Over-My-Head-364858.jpg

i seem to vaguely remember dean moving to head the dnc as a compromise to drop out of the race against kerry? there is an 82% chance i am making that up.

yeah that guy is the business (lol see wut i did)

xp abt reich

open secret is that reich is an obama man, btw

from wiki:

Dean was elected Chairman of the Democratic National Committee on February 12, 2005, after all his opponents dropped out of the race when it became apparent Dean had the votes to become Chair. Those opponents included former Congressman Martin Frost, former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, former Congressman and 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer, and strategists Donnie Fowler, David Leland, and Simon Rosenberg. Other prominent Democrats considered running but ultimately declined.

Many prominent Democrats opposed Dean's campaign; House Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid are rumored to be among them.

I though they appointed Dean to head the DNC because of his exemplary fundraising abilities as seen during his 2004 primary campaign?

who's "they"?

the 400-odd people who get to vote on the issue

I went and got the original footage from the Clinton ad, and then compared it to 3 different video clips of the same debate from 3 different sources. I did this so as to take into account any editing, or quality issues, that might have accounted for Obama having darker skin in any particular video. None of the 3 video sources I found showed Obama nearly as black as the Hillary ad does. Click the image above to see a larger version. Look at his lips. Look at his eyebrows. Look at how the red MSNBC background has turned more purple. Clearly the image was darkened. The question is "why."
»
Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 4:26:47pm

hillary is a bad person. this isn't news to anyone what remembers whitewater wasn't about a blow job.
»
Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 4:36:31pm

I won't vote for Hillary simply based on how much of a slimeball she's been. She's got so much desire that she's willing to put her ethics under a rug to get the presidency. We don't need another President with ethical issues.
»
Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 5:13:44pm

I support Clinton's politics but I don't support the fact she seems so cutthroat.
»
Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at 5:00:47pm

Don’t vote for cut-throat politicians!
»
Wednesday, March 5, 2008 at 10:57:09am

What I'm saying is... does Hillary's campaign really need to do this? She's said 4 times already that McCain would be better than Obama. What the Fuck is that? She should save the Bullshit for McCain. Look what happened to Kerry with all the swiftboat shit. Do we need Democrats doing the Karl Rove two step. Puhleeze.
»
Wednesday, March 5, 2008 at 9:30:15pm