2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

I caught some of McCain on Larry King last night. You can tell already that national security, the "War on Terrorism", and not letting the terrorists defeat us in Iraq are going to be the great themes of this campaign. I think if Clinton were smart, she would play up the fact that voters trust her more than Obama on national security issues, and point out that McCain is going to run on that.

enemies list: tracer hand

honestly, i don't think that's an option for her. as soon as she mentions iraq and national security, she would be pressed by team obama to give another unconvincing explanation about why she authorized the war in the first place. it may be someone spun into a strength for use against mccain, but even then she comes up extremely short -- does any of her vaunted 35 years contain any military experience? -- and it's a huge vulnerability for obama to exploit.

basically she's going to continue running on the economy and healthcare and hope to god that nothing horrible happens in iraq in the next 3 weeks.

Whereas McCain has to hope nothing horrible happens in Iraq by November.

Bets?

No way to know, at this point, who benefits politically from further deterioration in Iraq. It depends (a point that you've made, more broadly, to me on this thread).

Precisely.

lol @ Michael Reagan:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25026

Is that what the let’s-stay-home-on-election-day conservatives want? Do they want the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama, as their president? Do they want the pseudo-Marist Barack Obama -- who reportedly has a photo of the murderous Castroite thug Che Guevara hanging in his Houston, Texas campaign headquarters -- hanging that photo in the Oval Office?

Do they want Hillary Clinton, the duplicitous former first lady, back in the White House enjoying all those furnishings she and her husband tried to swipe from the mansion?

Do they want a Democrat spending even more money that the government doesn’t have on scores of programs right out of Karl Marx’s playbook?

That’s exactly what they’ll get if they sit out the election and stay home on Election Day. That’s called biting off your nose to spite your face. Or even more to the point, political suicide.

The furniture thief story is still circulating?

"scores of programs right out of karl marx's playbook"

"enjoying all those furnishings she and her husband tried to swipe from the mansion"

"a photo of the murderous Castroite thug Che Guevara hanging in his Houston, Texas campaign headquarters -- hanging that photo in the Oval Office"

lol

the elephant never forgets, kenan.

does any of her vaunted 35 years contain any military experience?

Not sure what you mean by "military experience" - she was never in the military, but she is on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

I'm about to go hear some reps from the Clinton campaign speak about health care at my work. Will report back.

(I think the Obama campaign is coming to speak on another day, hopefully)

And Obama's on Foreign Relations, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs committees -- that doesn't mean he's got any military experience either.

But the idea the HRC is 'stronger on national security' than obama seems to have come from nowhere. Is there any evidence to suggest that she'd be a better commander in cheif, apart from public perception?

she appears to enjoy cluster-bombing little children, that should count for something

pseudo-Marist?

http://www.marists.org/

http://www.maristsociety.org/

HRC's Iraq/Iran votes were supposed to bolster her hawkish bona fides, FWIW.

But the idea the HRC is 'stronger on national security' than obama seems to have come from nowhere. Is there any evidence to suggest that she'd be a better commander in cheif, apart from public perception?

It's the public perception that I'm talking about - a public perception which she seems to be unable (or unwilling) to capitalize on - despite the fact that McCain is bound to make it a major issue in the fall. It just seems unusually clumsy for someone who's considered to be such a smart campaigner. Perhaps Obama has really got her terrified to bring it up by constantly bashing her with the Iraq vote.

she's a hawk?

NY Times Editorial sez: Show Us The Money

HRC's Iraq/Iran votes were supposed to bolster her hawkish bona fides, FWIW.

so you think getting on the wrong side of the most important issues of the day was a "strategy"?

yall realize that hillary has been making speeches critical of the war, of the bush admin's approach to it, of the execution of it, and the rebuilding "efforts" for years right??

There's a difference between words and actions there, unfortunately.

do you not remember 2003 and the immense popular support for the war, both in congress and in the general public? of course she voted for it. xxpost

Nicole i agree -- it was a terrible vote

guess what: the clinton banner flies whichever way the wind is blowing.

yall realize that hillary has been making speeches critical of the war, of the bush admin's approach to it, of the execution of it, and the rebuilding "efforts" for years right??

uh while this might be technically true its more accurate to say that hillarys stances on the war have followed behind public popular public opinion by abt 6 months

or what elmo said

George H.W. Bush (41) set to endsorse McCain.

Well, yeah. What th' fuck else is he gonna do?

cry in his beer

Pegs Noonan on the zing:

The race is about "speeches versus solutions." Her unnamed opponent stands for the first, she for the second. He is all "words," she is "action." "Words are cheap," she said.

If they were so cheap, her inability to marshal them would not have cost her so dearly.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120302279226969393.html

boo-ya

hahaha

hil v mathews round 1m http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/02/unrepentent_mat.php

so you think getting on the wrong side of the most important issues of the day was a "strategy"?

Yes, I do. A strategy that may have backfired.

"may have"

why anyone would want to vote for someone who makes such unprincipled AND totally stupid strategic decisions continues to elude me

I say "may have," Shakey, because the nomination is still undecided.

Obama, at a presser this morning, makes a pretty good parry of Clinton's "solutions" attack:

"Yesterday, Senator Clinton unveiled her latest in a long line of slogans, which argues that she’s proposed solutions while others have not. Now, all of us have proposed plenty of solutions in this race. On some we differ. On many, we agree. The problem we have is not a lack of good ideas. It’s that Washington today is a place where good ideas go to die. They’re the victim of petty, partisan politics, point-scoring, and special interest influence that’s out of control."

http://thepage.time.com/obama-remarks-from-friday-press-conference/

It’s that Washington today is a place where good ideas go to die.

again with the zings

maybe hill would have preferred to keep troops off the ground and go back to bombing the shit out iraq by plane?

oh and sanctions - can't forget those.

cool: bob kerrey, who endorsed hillary, calls the campaign out on the florida bullshit:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0208/Kerrey_Sorry_Florida.html

(not that he has any say in the matter, it's just cool that someone who even endorsed hillary sees that it's kind of a b.s. move)

Yeah, the call by the Clinton campaign to seat Florida & Michigan delegates is I think the least defensible move they've made in the campaign so far.

again with the zings

But they're still better zings.

The health care talk was alright. Tammy Baldwin & Ann Lewis talking up Hilary and the universal health care plan. It was interesting to get some details on the plan, which does sound appealing on paper - if you like the health care plan you've got, stick with it, and if you don't like it or don't have health care you can choose from a federal menu of private and public plans (like government employees get now?). Paid for by tax subsidies and hopefully made cheap by low administrative overhead (comparisons with social security) and reliance on IT. They got some tough questions but there wasn't a whole lot of time for Q&A.