Over the last 8 years there has been no end to the lists of stupid things President George W. Bush has said. They range from comments on Iraq to comments on campaigning to comments on his personal life. Suffice it to say it makes Dan Quayle’s inability to spell the name of everybody’s favorite tuber look like small potatoes.
And yet, not even the best of the Bushisms can rival Hillary Clinton’s response to being asked by the Sioux Argus Leader editorial board why she is not listening to the calls for her to drop out of the race, "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don't understand it."
That’s right, she isn’t dropping out because there’s always that possibility that Obama will be assassinated and then, won’t we be glad she stayed in?
Of course, she has apologized. Her exact words were, "I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and in particular the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever."
So, the only question I am left with is, what exactly was her intention? How is it that one can non-offensively use the assassination of a past Presidential Candidate to point out that a current Presidential Candidate may suffer a similar fate?
The fact of the matter is that if Hillary Clinton was simply trying to reference past primaries that have come down to the last couple of months then she could have talked about Carter or Roosevelt. To have had the thoughtlessness and bad taste to talk about Bobby Kennedy’s assassination as anything other then a horrible moment in American history is so despicable and offensive as to be the final point in proving that Hillary Clinton is neither mature enough nor enough in touch with the American people to make her at all a viable candidate for President.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
THE FALLOUT FROM WEST VIRGINIA
This past Tuesday Hillary Clinton won a resounding victory in West Virginia where she beat Obama by a margin of 2 to 1. The race was billed by the Clinton camp as proof that Obama could not carry working-class whites and as a result could not hope to beat Senator McCain in a General Election.
Obama’s loss begs two questions: Does it make sense for him to be at the top of a Democratic ticket? And, if he is at the top, would it make sense for Hillary to be the second name on the ticket as she clearly can carry the blue collar vote?
The first question is easy to answer. And the answer is, yes, it absolutely makes sense. Yes, Obama lost West Virginia by 41 points. However, West Virginia is the only state or common wealth to vote where that has been the case. Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania was, by most counts, less then 10 points and, more recently, her win in Indiana was by less then 6 points. Obama has carried Massachusettes, Georgia, and North Carolina (to name a few) by at least 15 points a piece, and he carried Illinois by more then 50 points.*
As far as whether or not he is as capable of carrying the blue collar vote as she is, I think, again, that is a yes. Before the race was down to Obama and Clinton, John Edwards was carrying a large percentage of the working class and, Edwards has just endorsed Obama.
Suffice it to say Hillary’s victory in West Virginia is by no means reason to think Obama is not the stronger of the two candidates.
Then, there is the question of whether an Obama-Clinton ticket makes sense?
The day after Obama’s victory in North Carolina he went on Anderson Cooper’s show and he said that he thinks that Clinton would be a very capable Vice-President and it would be a mistake for any Democratic Candidate to not have her on their short list of possible V.Ps. However, with the primary not being over it does not make sense for him to answer that question.
Having said that (and it is an important point) I go back to the fact that Edwards has endorsed Obama. But there is more, an average of the Susquehanna, Rasmussen, and Quinipiac polls show that Obama would beat McCain by 5 points in Pennsylvania, one of the states that Hillary claimed victory in because of her ability to carry the working class.
5 points, this long before the General by no means gaurantees Obama the state. However, it does give him some room in choosing a VP. Hillary could very well bring in a percentage of the blue collar voters who otherwise might stay home. But Edwards might bring in that same population. And then, there are people like Biden who bring a great deal of experience on foreign relations issues to the ticket.
I think it is to early to say that a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton would be either a plus or a minus. However, if it is going to be an issue which continues to be discussed, and it will undoubtedly be then it is important that we look at more then the issue of who can bring in the working class.
Obama’s loss begs two questions: Does it make sense for him to be at the top of a Democratic ticket? And, if he is at the top, would it make sense for Hillary to be the second name on the ticket as she clearly can carry the blue collar vote?
The first question is easy to answer. And the answer is, yes, it absolutely makes sense. Yes, Obama lost West Virginia by 41 points. However, West Virginia is the only state or common wealth to vote where that has been the case. Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania was, by most counts, less then 10 points and, more recently, her win in Indiana was by less then 6 points. Obama has carried Massachusettes, Georgia, and North Carolina (to name a few) by at least 15 points a piece, and he carried Illinois by more then 50 points.*
As far as whether or not he is as capable of carrying the blue collar vote as she is, I think, again, that is a yes. Before the race was down to Obama and Clinton, John Edwards was carrying a large percentage of the working class and, Edwards has just endorsed Obama.
Suffice it to say Hillary’s victory in West Virginia is by no means reason to think Obama is not the stronger of the two candidates.
Then, there is the question of whether an Obama-Clinton ticket makes sense?
The day after Obama’s victory in North Carolina he went on Anderson Cooper’s show and he said that he thinks that Clinton would be a very capable Vice-President and it would be a mistake for any Democratic Candidate to not have her on their short list of possible V.Ps. However, with the primary not being over it does not make sense for him to answer that question.
Having said that (and it is an important point) I go back to the fact that Edwards has endorsed Obama. But there is more, an average of the Susquehanna, Rasmussen, and Quinipiac polls show that Obama would beat McCain by 5 points in Pennsylvania, one of the states that Hillary claimed victory in because of her ability to carry the working class.
5 points, this long before the General by no means gaurantees Obama the state. However, it does give him some room in choosing a VP. Hillary could very well bring in a percentage of the blue collar voters who otherwise might stay home. But Edwards might bring in that same population. And then, there are people like Biden who bring a great deal of experience on foreign relations issues to the ticket.
I think it is to early to say that a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton would be either a plus or a minus. However, if it is going to be an issue which continues to be discussed, and it will undoubtedly be then it is important that we look at more then the issue of who can bring in the working class.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Pledged Delegates, Super Delegates, and Time Magazine
On Tuesday we saw Hillary Clinton get trounced by Obama in North Carolina and then win by an incredibly narrow margin in Indiana.
At the end of the day the delegate count was: Obama 1866 (1591 Pledged Delegates and 275 Super Delegates) and Clinton 1697 (1426 Pledged Delegates and 271 Super Delegates.)
We, and more importantly the candidates and their campaigns, can take several lessons from this. The first, and perhaps the most important, is that Rev. Wright’s constant appearances in the media did not hurt Obama. To the contrary, Obama reacting in an honest manner seemed to have helped him. Therefore if the Wright connection was something that either Clinton or McCain planned on making any further use of they will need to find some other negative point. Or, God forbid, run on their own merits.
Also, the primary showed how the voters, or at least a large percentage of them, react to Clinton’s purposed Gas Tax Holiday. Indeed it does not take a Rocket Scientist or, for that matter, a High School Teacher to recognize the real risk in her plan. Leading up to the “Holiday” gas companies would raise the prices of gas. So, there is a strong possibility that the Holiday would end up costing the average consumer, not helping them.
And so Obama’s campaign marches on in much the same style as it has for the past 15 months. Hillary, however, is looking at some changes to her camp. She needs to stop running negative ads, again, they don’t work. She needs to concentrate twice as hard on getting her constituents to the polls, she needs to keep those Super Delegates who support her advocating in Congress for her. She has a long road ahead.
Yes, it is a long road but it is not an impossible one to traverse (need I remind you that many thought she should drop out before New Hampshire and she certainly proved them wrong there). What makes this road even more passable is a media that has already given the Primary to Obama.
Time Magazine is the biggest offender having published a cover story announcing, And The Winner Is…with a big picture of Obama. Obama is winning, he is not the winner. He recognizes this fact but if his supporters do not then Hillary may yet pull out the nomination. If Obama’s supporters put so much faith in Time Magazine that they don’t show up at the polls for these last few contests then the tides could change.
Perhaps, I am preaching to the choir but still, it is worth mentioning, the media can be overly presumptuous and they can end up doing far more harm then good in there false assurance that this primary is over.
See you at the polls.
At the end of the day the delegate count was: Obama 1866 (1591 Pledged Delegates and 275 Super Delegates) and Clinton 1697 (1426 Pledged Delegates and 271 Super Delegates.)
We, and more importantly the candidates and their campaigns, can take several lessons from this. The first, and perhaps the most important, is that Rev. Wright’s constant appearances in the media did not hurt Obama. To the contrary, Obama reacting in an honest manner seemed to have helped him. Therefore if the Wright connection was something that either Clinton or McCain planned on making any further use of they will need to find some other negative point. Or, God forbid, run on their own merits.
Also, the primary showed how the voters, or at least a large percentage of them, react to Clinton’s purposed Gas Tax Holiday. Indeed it does not take a Rocket Scientist or, for that matter, a High School Teacher to recognize the real risk in her plan. Leading up to the “Holiday” gas companies would raise the prices of gas. So, there is a strong possibility that the Holiday would end up costing the average consumer, not helping them.
And so Obama’s campaign marches on in much the same style as it has for the past 15 months. Hillary, however, is looking at some changes to her camp. She needs to stop running negative ads, again, they don’t work. She needs to concentrate twice as hard on getting her constituents to the polls, she needs to keep those Super Delegates who support her advocating in Congress for her. She has a long road ahead.
Yes, it is a long road but it is not an impossible one to traverse (need I remind you that many thought she should drop out before New Hampshire and she certainly proved them wrong there). What makes this road even more passable is a media that has already given the Primary to Obama.
Time Magazine is the biggest offender having published a cover story announcing, And The Winner Is…with a big picture of Obama. Obama is winning, he is not the winner. He recognizes this fact but if his supporters do not then Hillary may yet pull out the nomination. If Obama’s supporters put so much faith in Time Magazine that they don’t show up at the polls for these last few contests then the tides could change.
Perhaps, I am preaching to the choir but still, it is worth mentioning, the media can be overly presumptuous and they can end up doing far more harm then good in there false assurance that this primary is over.
See you at the polls.
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