2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

even beyond begging the resentment of all the states clinton's already lost, penn's really reinforcing the idea that democrats are solely the party of coastal, cultural elites.

xpost do you guys think voters are actually so dumb that they don't realize mark penn's talking about electoral strategy rather than any deeper significance

tracer, your willingness to suffer egregious morons is only matched by your overconfidence in the average voter's bullshit detector.

wonder how the rubes who are less sophisticated than "us" will react

yea i know he's talking about electoral strategy, but if i lived in a state like virginia (which is a big fucking state and could be up for contention in the g.e.) where i voted for obama and he won by a big margin, i would be a little disappointed in the fact that clinton's campaign is brushing the state off as insignificant, unnecessary or irrelevant in the contest

part of running a campaign is knowing how not to look like you're calling a bunch of states insignificant when you speak in public.

as for "machine politics", if a senator can get the money machine to spit out money for my state i don't see what's wrong with that

-- Tracer

Agree. There's nothing wrong with it. It's the way the system works, and Hillary is very good at manipulating it to her state's advangage. But it still bothers me. I think it speaks to the kind of politician she is: not a bad politician or an ineffective politician, but a cynical, professional and compromised politician. The votes bison mentions up above are telling.

Bill was in many respects a great president and in many respects a troubling one. I came out of the Clinton era with bad feelings about NAFTA, the compromises with China, Bill's military misadventures, his immediate about-face on gays in the military, and the administration's clear preference for tactical expediency over strategic vision.

Of course, Bush makes Clinton's sins look insignificant in hindsight But they aren't. And Hillary was a big part of that. She was major policy architect and behind-the-scenes player during her husband's administration and has made no effort to distance herself from it. That missing box of Whitewater papers that the Clintons "couldn't find" when subpoena'd later turned up in her office (to say nothing of her behavior throughout that entire investigation).

Similar things could be said of McCain. Obama, on the other hand, is new, and perhaps that gives him an unfair advantage: he hasn't even had the chance to compromise himself. Still, I find it easier to support someone who hasn't yet betrayed my trust.

ok i hear that

Might have been posted already but did anyone catch this from yesterday? Mentioned via Balloon Juice:

ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: On Wednesday, a top adviser to John McCain said more definitively than he has in the past that he will step down from the Arizona senator's presidential campaign if the presumed GOP nominee faces Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in the general election.

"I would simply be uncomfortable being in a campaign that would be inevitably attacking Barack Obama," said McCain adviser Mark McKinnon in an interview with NPR's "All Things Considered." "I think it would be uncomfortable for me, and I think it would be bad for the McCain campaign."

McKinnon, who was a Democrat before serving as President Bush's ad maker in 2000 and 2004, said that he plans to be behind McCain "100 percent" no matter who the Democratic nominee is. He explained, however, that if the Democrats nominate Obama, he will be supporting McCain "from the sidelines."

...huh.

he <3 obama

on the penn remarks -- on the other side, hypothetically, obama's advisors could have easily dismissed clinton's wins in new york and california by saying they are solid blue states that he'll carry them in the general election anyhow, but they haven't made that argument. instead they've said that NY and CA are vast states where he had less opportunity to meet with voters face to face, and where clinton enjoys high name recognition and a generally good reputation; they recognized that they have to make up those delegates elsewhere and worked hard to make up that deficit, and they did it without shitting on any state's value in a general election.

ned, that is indeed veddy veddy interestink!

Like I said upthread, it's not over yet. Now, mind you, I know Obama does better when he introduces himself to a state, but these polls were taken after HRC's recent losing streak, at a time when -- indirectly, if not directly -- Obama has been introducing himself to the Ohio/Texas/Penn. electorate. Despite all that, HRC seems to have leads that, if they hold, not only would be momentum-changing wins, but the kind of wins that could make this such a razon-thin race in terms of pledged delegates that the so-called Super Delegates could, in fact, swing the nomination one way or the other.

I hope it doesn't come to that. It would be an ugly fight that would show the party at its worst before a GE fight against a very tough GOP nominee.

Correction: These polls were taken before the Potomic primaries, so they were taken during (not at the end of) HRC's losing streak. My apologies.

lol her losing streaks not over yet

Close in Wisconsin, too.

19 days until OH / TX / VT / RI -- if the vote was today it would be a different story, but that's a long time! certainly long enough for voters to change their minds.

i got yer poll right here

Now that there's talk of an impending Edwards endorsement (probably of Clinton, apparently), it occurred to me that endorsements have probably been the non-story story of the campaign - Obama's success had less to do with Ted Kennedy's supposedly earth-shattering endorsement than his broad appeal and great speeches, and Clinton secured tons of state-level endorsements (as well as early endorsement from the NY Times) and those have had little to no effect.

Obama, on the other hand, is new, and perhaps that gives him an unfair advantage: he hasn't even had the chance to compromise himself

Oh, bullshit. From The Nation's endorsement of Obama, by Christopher Hayes:

Had you told me a few years ago that the left of the Democratic Party would be split between Obama and Clinton, I'd have dismissed you as crazy: Barack Obama has been a community organizer, a civil rights attorney, a loyal and reliable ally in the State Senate of progressive groups. For the Chicago left, his primary campaign and his subsequent election to the US Senate was a collective rallying cry. ...We thought we'd elected our own Paul Wellstone.

That's not, alas, how things turned out. Almost immediately Obama--likely with an eye on national office--shaded himself toward the center. His rhetoric was cool, often timid, not the zealous advocacy on behalf of peace, justice and the dispossessed that had characterized Wellstone's tenure. His record places him squarely in the middle of Democratic senators, just slightly to Clinton's left on domestic issues (he voted against the bankruptcy bill, for example). As a presidential candidate, his domestic policy (with some notable exceptions on voting rights and technology policy) has been very close to that of his chief rivals, though sometimes, notably on healthcare, marginally less progressive.

And before Tracer and everyone comes in with natural-moving-to-the-center-blahblah -- it's still compromising yourself.

Edwards endorsing HRC would be significant. More than anything else, it would make the endorsements of the remaining players who haven't yet endorsed -- especially Al Gore -- even more significant. If Obama can get Gore's endorsement, that trumps Edwards endorsing HRC.

i got yer poll right here

O Rly?

dr morbius, sorry but bullshit.

under the morbius administration, legislation will be passed via gladitorial combat. no bill passed without partisan bloodshed!

I don't think Gore will endorse.

Edwards endorsing HRC just proves what a fake-ass faux populist liberal he is

Lincoln Chafee endorses obama btw

where are we getting this edwards leaning hillary info? seems like v strange timing.

I was gonna ask about that...

the edwards endorsement murmurings are just rumor-mill grist right now, take it with a cellar of salt plz

inference could be drawn from him meeting w/ hillary but canceling w/ barack? I haven't read it anywhere explicitly

yah thats all ive heard seems pretty tenuous

i think this was what sparked the most recent rumors, via ben smith:

Edwards' aide Jonathan Prince made a previously unreported appearance at Hillary Clinton's Virginia headquarters last week, which has stoked a bit of chatter along the Edwards-Clinton lines ABC explores today.

Prince confirmed he was there, and said he was stopping by for lunch with his old friend Howard Wolfson, with whom he also dined on New Years Eve.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4281404&page=1

under the ILX administration, REFORM THRU EATING OUT CREDIT-CARD COMPANIES

waiting til hillarys behind to endorse her seems pretty clueless - but i guess edwards hasnt proven himself to be the master strategist so far

honestly edwards endorsement of hillz is gonna have a marginal impact i think, edwards supporters were the more-left and more-anti-hillary wing of the party weren't they?

Morbius I have no idea what you're talking about. Thanks for the actually realistic peek at Obama though.

http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/AP_EDWARDS_080213_ms.jpg
a v silly man^^^^

Tracer i know you like to play the cynic here but what 'evidence' is actually contained in that paragraph Morbs posted??? All it says is "Obama isn't actually as left as Wellstone!!!" which is like, well, yeah and? Who is? The only evidence is his voting on a single bankruptcy bill and the fact that his health care plan might be, you know, pragmatic rather than extreme left.

Obama's always argued - and as an Illinoisian I can tell you this has been his thing from day one - in a practical approach rather than a bomb-throwing leftist approach - yet he still has a very left-of-center voting record. He may not have been the 'most liberal senator' in the last year due to his campaigning keeping him from key votes, but it was a year or two ago that he actually had a record to the left of Dennis Kucinich.

Edwards is a frauuuuud
You guys read that story about him telling Kerry the exact same "i've never told anyone this story before" story twice in two years, right?

Obama

-- Morbs

Granted. I should have said "compromise himself so thoroughly." But I don't think what you posted compares in any way to the gyrations and betrayals of the Clintons.

Tracer, Obama voted to allow credit card companies to raise interest rates to over 30%.

Your own damn fault for having a credit card.

deej take it easy, hard-charger

i just thanked morbs for a perspective on obama that wasn't omg-want-to-have-his-babies, that's all

I mean, Morbs, that I'll grant your point only to the extent that politics always tempers the rhetoric that gets you in the public eye with the compromises that make cooperative action possible. I just don't see any kind of trust-breaking betrayal in Obama's tactical compromises.

wellstone moved to the center in hopes of a prez run too

oh there is plenty to critique about obama, i think we've all been critical of several things e.g. his debate performances, and I'm sure there's no way his presidency could possibly live up to expectations (lol heres hoping) but mis characterizing him as on par w/ the Clintons in terms of compromising his values is utterly misleading

contenderizer, in Morbiusrhetoric, compromise = betrayal. I don't know how long you've been reading his posts but it's becomes apparent pretty quickly.

hahahaha deej you're basically repeating the greatet ever political chestnut, i.e. "my greatest failing? well.." (candidate appears to think deeply for a moment) "it's probably that i'm too honest"

??? saying that he's given way below par debate performances = "i'm too honest"?

hes a politician and a politician is gonna be a politician but the whole "wahhh why are no politicians honest" morbs game is way misleading, you need to set your expectations within the realm of reality

BREAKING NEWS: ALL POLITICIANS LIE.