Hillary, Barack, and the Rest of Us
Posted on February 1st, 2008 in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »
So I watched the Democratic debate/lovefest last night, and my overwhelming impression is how impressive both these candidates are. I thought Hillary did a little better job than Barackâshe seemed to control the pace and tone, mostly, and her command of detail is remarkable. More than with Barack, you get the feeling that you could throw her a question about absolutely anything, and she’d have an answer.
But really, these are two highly intelligent, thoughtful people, both of whom are capable of actually listening to a question, thinking it over, and responding with a multi-layered answer.
When a questioner referred to them as a dream ticket, it was hard not to agree. But of course it’s virtually impossible to imagine Hillary running as the veep half of the ticket.
Regardless, I maintain my belief that either one of them beats any Republican. And in a strange way, both seem to have more gravitas than Mitt Romney or even John McCain, who really has been a Washington insider for too long…..
7 Responses
2/1/2024 8:28 am
Good thing McCain is up (against both) in several recent national polls - prior to that, we hadn’t seen any potential GOP candidate beating any potential Dem. People see McCain as a moderate, and he’ll:
A) Still get the hard right, b/c they’ll be too afraid of Obama or Hillary to stay home;
B) Get the moderate conservatives (and, against Hillary, he’ll steal a significant portion of the Dems just left of center - though, to be fair, Obama would likely steal a few Rep just right of center);
and
C) Get an overwhelming portion of the independents.
How can he lose against Clinton? Obama will be much closer methinks, because for reasons that still elude me, some conservatives are not averse to voting for Obama in certain situations - despite a very liberal policy stance. Perhaps they believe in his message of toning down the red vs. blue mentality (and, I admit, I want to believe him on that…but don’t quite yet).
2/1/2024 9:44 am
Egret, you’re crazy. The deciding factor in general is turnout. And motivating the evangelicals takes more than saying Oh No It’s a Black Man! Moreover, Independents hate the war McCain loves.
The more they know about Hundred-Years-in-Iraq the less most people will like him. Even his anti-torture stance was mostly fake, in terms of the results he settled for.
SE
2/1/2024 10:35 am
No offense, SE - your are the SITD Dean and all - but you’ve shown your weakness at electorate analysis a la Huckabee…
I’m an egret, I’ve got a better view than you (when standing, anyway).
2/1/2024 11:23 am
One of the paradoxes of Indecision ’08 is that “Independents who hate the war McCain loves” (and I’m one) are shown to prefer McCain (see SC exit polls). I guess we/they feel McCain is honorable, and Hillary not especially-regardless, he’s demonstrably neither a Bush nor a Clinton and that’s a stranglehold that desperately needs breaking.
This is a huge portion of the electorate likely to vote Mac rather than Hill: a reminder to Dems that they are foolish, irredeemably stupid, to nominate her rather than Obama, who God knows I’d love to vote for in a general election.
(One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers made the point well yesterday on his blog:
“In fact, we’re probably even more stupid than you can possibly imagine. After all, we’re too stupid to realize that when we worry that the Republicans say we’re weak, we are being weak; too stupid to realize that when you consent to an Attorney General who won’t say whether waterboarding is torture, you get an AG who says later that waterboarding is not torture if it’s done to the right people; too stupid to realize that people want us to confront Bush more, not less; too stupid to realize that Hillary voted for the war with Iraq and another possible war with Iran; too stupid to realize that the Clintons both supported limited torture until the polls said otherwise; too stupid to realize that the Clintons are totally unethical (and why? because Bill is so damned charming!); too stupid to recognize that Bill Clinton sold us all out (I’m sorry, but gays and lesbians were not the only ones to give hand over fist only to be disappointed); too stupid to realize that 50% of the country will never vote for Hillary; too stupid to realize that we’ve got our Reagan, the reincarnate of JFK, staring us in the face; and too stupid to realize that, for the first time that I can think of, the most liberal candidate is the one that is most acceptable to independents and Republicans.
We don’t deserve to win this election if we don’t nominate Obama. And you’ll see a lot of Democrats like me abandon the party if we don’t. Just watch. It’s hard to keep associating yourself with this kind of ineptitude.”)
2/1/2024 11:59 am
eadw and Sullivan’s reader right on this one. Hillary (cheerfully, since she thought she had the nomination wrapped up and needed to look tough for Nov.) long since neutralized herself on Iraq, and she will get the wingnuts and evangelicals out as surely as Huck would have.
2/1/2024 12:45 pm
Re McCain, watched him on Leno. Gotta say, I could live with him if I had to, but though he’s a pretty feisty 70 yearold, he IS old. Weirder still, when Rudy G came out as a surprise guest, the contrast was kind of scary. Guiliani looked like a lion and McCain looked like a pipsqueak accountant sitting with his hands in his lap. Since when did Guiliani acquired a “star” look — and who knew McCain was Tom Cruise small?
***
In other news, would Obama accept VP under Hillary? Should he?
2/1/2024 1:28 pm
Spot on, eadw. And Obama would never take VP and attach his fate to Hillary’s, he’s too young to go for that. Even if he loses this nomination, he will have it down the road, no question. If he chooses VP with Hillary and then she flounders or - heaven forbid! - there’s (another) Clinton scandal-ridden White House, he will be tainted forever.
It’s simple and indisputable: Hillary as nominee is disaster. I’m a right-leaning independent, and even I see that the “reader” nailed it, for once in a lifetime you have the most left-leaning candidate appealing to independents and even some Republicans.