Yes. Running For President Is Hard.
January 7, 2008
There was that bright, shining moment in 2004 when Howard Dean got up on a platform in Iowa, listed the primaries in order as though he’d been putting himself to sleep at night with their names disguised as a mantra, and then proceeded to issue a blood-curdling scream while punching the air with his fist, thus ending all of his shining hopes of becoming President?
Yeah, something tells us that this is kinda like that, only more scripted.
It was bound to happen sooner or later, but we’d imagined that Hillary would break down into tears, thus melting the mythological Glacier — and our hearts — at precisely the moment that we were called to the polls on Super Tuesday. Just when you thought you’d seen all of her woman-as-warrior, woman-as mother act run out into the wilds, there was this last little effort, this last proof that she is, indeed human or human-like in her programming and more talented of an actress than Jennifer Aniston. We just didn’t know it would be this soon.
Most likely, her tears are a response to this poorly-crafted news update from the front, via the Drudge Report.
Facing a double-digit defeat in New Hampshire, a sudden collapse in national polls and an expected fund-raising drought, Senator Hillary Clinton is preparing for a tough decision: Does she get out of the race? And when?!
“She can’t take multiple double-digit losses in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada,” laments one top campaign insider to the DRUDGE REPORT. “If she gets too badly embarrassed, it will really harm her. She doesn’t want the Clinton brand to be damaged with back-to-back-to-back defeats.”
Meanwhile, Democrat hopeful John Edwards has confided to senior staff that he is staying in the race because Hillary “could soon be out.”
Hogwash. A story that she’s pulling out based on one thing that Edwards –paragon of Truth that he is — mentioned to his staff, and the word of a low-level staffer who clearly has never heard of the machinations of the Presidential primary? Of course someone can suffer back-to-back defeats in irrelevant states. Super Tuesday is over a month away, and at least one state in that bunch in New York where she’s currently leading by a wide margin. If Hillary drops out before at least taking her home state, she’s either insane or clearly not worth the time and effort everyone has expended over the last decade hating her.
Personally, this could work out alright. Nominate Obama. We dare you.
Posted in Uncategorized
January 7th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Hillary has a home state? I hope you’re not referring to my home state.
And Hillary is almost as good at showing emotions as the android Data. She just lacks his honesty and integrity.
I don’t think she’ll drop out if she loses NH. I think she’ll unleash the Clinton/KGB Wet Op’s department.
regards,
January 7th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
She forgot to go on and on about how the hard times she faced in the White House and she really is just a wife and mother and would prefer to be home with her kids but she talked to them about it and they said, “Go for it mamma” because they know that she has so much to give to her country and her country needs her. - sung to the tune of “My Mamma had Her Cross and I Got Mine” while Bill softly strums, “I Got My Thrill on White House Hill” in the background.
Well, if you can’t get the Black vote, Hispanic vote, Women’s vote, or any other vote, you might as well go after the trailer park vote. They do speak the same language.
January 8th, 2008 at 1:34 am
Keep daring us about Obama. Please. You’ll regret it come November when he picks up all the votes outside of your base. He’s already pulling in strong independent support in New Hampshire, with only McCain ahead of him.
Republicans suckered us into nominating Kerry, something that we’re still trying to forget. We’re not buying this time. Keep knocking Obama, and see what happens. The polls are showing on both sides a strong desire for change candidates, and he brings that. On your side, the “change” candidate is Huckabee. Put Huckabee against Obama and he’ll get creamed.
See, here’s the thing you don’t get. This isn’t the 2004 race again, and Obama isn’t a typical candidate. Mike Murphy said this on Meet the Press on Sunday. He said that Obama, instead of trying to build support on a collection of single issues, is building support on tearing down the partisan political structure and starting all over again. Obama speaks the evangelical language, while supporting a progressive agenda. He doesn’t play the 51% game that Karl Rove designed for Bush. He aims for broad-based support, not caring about the letter in front of the person’s name, just so long as the results are there.
He’s “vague” on the issues because his true issue is the nature of our system itself, and his desire to completely change the way business is done. During the ethics reform debate in the Senate, he reached out to McCain to craft a bipartisan package. He joined with Sam Brownback at Rick Warren’s church in Orange County to speak about stopping the spread of AIDS in Africa. His whole story, from college on, shows a consistent desire to work with people from all sides to achieve common goals.
This is what you don’t get. You think he’s a straw man, but the Republican field is short on experience, too. Romney is a one-term governor. Thompson has good experience, but he’s been inconsistent. McCain is up there, but he’s short on cash, and his likely win in New Hampshire will be hard to maintain. Giuliani was mayor of New York for eight years, but no higher office. Huckabee is too populist, too evangelical for the party. So, who are you going to put up?
Obama is well-funded, very well-liked, high positive ratings, and he is bringing something that Hillary, grounded in the partisan wars of the 1990’s, never understood, and that is a completely new strategy. This is the first time that I’ve seen since Bill Clinton’s 1992 run that a Democrat is using a platform in their primaries that is geared towards all of America, not the base. I mean, if you go look at dKos polls, for instance, they are strongly geared towards Edwards, with Obama consistently lagging 10-20 points back, so he’s not running that hard left towards the base, but yet he’s getting the base’s votes.
You don’t want to believe me? Fine. We’ll see in November.
January 8th, 2008 at 5:59 am
Thad, I think it’s nice that your all fired up about Obama, but we don’t even have the results of the first actual primary yet. Nobody knows at this point what will happen in November.
I also recall that your last big political prediction here was the Ned Lamont was going to take Joe Lieberman’s senate seat, and we all know how that worked out.
regards,
January 8th, 2008 at 7:13 am
I like Greg Gutfeld’s take on the Obamamania. Hillary is like your wife — you know everything about her, what to expect, all of the good and all of the bad and very, very bad. Obama is like a stripper you go see to escape your wife. He’s pretty, but in the end, he probably eats his own hair, and keeps a box of ears in his closet. In other words, what seems like a fabulous idea of which you and everyone else knows nothing (okay, yeah, thats the EIGHT MILLIONTH TIME we’ve heard that he’s funny and nice and different and wants “change”) but which is going to seem mighty crappy when you realize he’s been a Senator for like, fifteen minutes and has spent most of that running for President to the detriment of, oh, work.
January 8th, 2008 at 8:20 am
“Republicans suckered us into nominating Kerry…”
That says it all, EstrogenBoy. “When we screw up, it isn’t our fault, it’s the fault of conservatives.”
And as far as anyone not believing you, it’s not that we don’t want to, it’s just that your credibility is, um–well, okay, you’ve got slightly more credibility than Web Smith, who’ll probably be endorsing Lyndon LaRouche any day now. (HOT TIP: Being told you’re more believable than an elitist flake doesn’t exactly put you in the same club as Abe Lincoln or Atticus Finch.) But you go ahead and make your predictions–it’s kind of like watching Charlie Brown come running up to kick the football, but hey, maybe this time you’ll kick it to the moon!
Or not.
January 8th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Thad…dude, come on, give the Obama-love a rest for a bit man, you keep this up you’re gonna go blind.
January 8th, 2008 at 10:07 am
OMG that was funny! I haven’t laughed that hard in ages. Thanks, ZP
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a distinct possibility too.
regards,