Over and over again I see the left pot-shotting at Ms. Clinton’s campaign.
And you know what?
This effort may tbe the one and only successful thing that the leftiness blogosphere has ever managed to accomplish.
If Obama wins in Iowa…and the media do not “AAAARGH!!!” him into non-contention but rather gang up on Hillary/Billary instead…Barack Obama could very well be the next Dem nominee.
Something that I personally would be quite happy to see on a societal level, but also an occurrance that plays right into the hands of the “vast right wing conspiracy” of which Ms. Clinton so presciently spoke in 1999.
Why do I say that?
Read on for a couple of pieces of evidence. There will be more in the near future, I can almost guarantee.
Not only was there a vast right wing conspiracy in existence in 1999…a conspiracy that it is still very much in operation…but it presently wants Mr. Obama to win the Democratic nomination.
Why do I say this?
On the evidence, of course.
Karl Rove…who despite the best efforts of the spin-heads to make it seem otherwise is and has been a BIG winner in the election plotting department and is still up to his fat little neck in the ongoing attempt to win in 2008…recently offered THIS lovely missive to the undecideds in the coming primaries.
Are you ready?
Try to guess who he wants as Dem nominee.
Think of this as the 1/7th of the vast right-wing conspiracy iceberg that peeps up through the polluted media ocean. The other 6/7ths awaits Party Titanic as it blindly churns along…as usual…into uncharted and frigidly political waters.
Memo to Obama: win Iowa or lose the race
By Karl Rove
Published: December 2 2007 22:00
TO: Senator Barack Obama
FROM: Karl Rove
SUBJECT: How to Beat Hillary
Not that you have asked for advice, but here it is anyway: Iowa is your chance to best her. If you do not do it there, odds are you never will anywhere. You are way behind her in most national polls. The only way to change that is to beat her in Iowa so people around America take another look at you. You did a smart thing organising effectively in the early primary states. But you can take advantage of that only if you win Iowa and keep her from building an overwhelming sense of invincibility and inevitability.
The good news is you have again got “the buzz”. Polls are looking better for you in Iowa and the other early states. Your press is improving, with your performance at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson dinner a big help. Hillary Clinton has made unforced errors. But she is still the frontrunner and there are several things you need to do quickly to win.
First, stop acting like a vitamin-deficient Adlai Stevenson. Striking a pose of being high-minded and too pure will not work. Americans want to see you scrapping and fighting for the job, not in a mean or ugly way but in a forceful and straightforward way.
Hillary may come over as calculating and shifty but she looks in control. You, on the other hand, often come over as weak and ineffectual. In some debates, you do not even look at her when disagreeing with her, making it look as if you are afraid of her. She offers you openings time and again but you do not take advantage of them. Sharpen your attacks and make them more precise.
Take the exchange in the Philadelphia debate about Bill and Hillary keeping documents hidden about her role as first lady in his White House. She was evasive. You spoke next. You would have won a big victory if you had turned to her and said: “Senator, with all due respect, you and your husband could release those documents right now if you wanted to. Your failure to do so raises questions among a lot of Americans about what you’re hiding and those questions would hurt our party if you were our nominee.” But your response was weak as dirty dishwater. Do not let other great opportunities pass by.
Second, focus on the fact that many Democrats have real doubts about Hillary. They worry she cannot win, will be a drag on the ticket and that if she got to the White House it would be a disaster. You know better than most what they are worried about; they have told you their fears. It is why you have done so well raising money from Bill’s backers and gaining support from Clinton administration officials. Talk about those doubts. Put them in a bigger context than just the two of you. Remind primary voters that these shortcomings will hurt Democratic chances.
This goes on in the same manner for quite a while. You get the drift. Go read it at the link if you need more.
Meanwhile, ANOTHER member in good standing of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has this to say about Bill Clinton. Thus of course about Hillary Clinton as well.
Notice that he simultaneously volunteers to act as the Vice-Cheney of whichever dolt the Rats try to pass off as President in 2008.
From: Examiner.com:
Newt slams Clinton as “fundamentally dishonest,” leaves door open for VP slot
December 2, 8:20 PM
Speaking on C-SPAN’s “In Depth” Sunday, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich issued a strong condemnation of President Bill Clinton’s character, Clinton’s recent comments against Gingrich over the 1998 impeachment and the former president’s recent claim that he was always against the war in Iraq.
“He is fundamentally dishonest on a routine, regular basis,” said Gingrich. “It’s just his personality. He tells you the version he needs to be who he is to get through this week. And he just did it in Iowa over whether he used to be against the war in Iraq.”Clinton told a crowd gathered in Iowa on Tuesday that he that he “opposed Iraq from the beginning.” This statement doesn’t perfectly square with previous statements by Clinton, including one in 2003 when he said, “I supported the president when he asked for authority to stand up against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
Gingrich also took exception with Clinton’s recent characterization of the impeachment proceedings (Clinton told C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb earlier that Gingrich thought the impeachment of Clinton “was something where he could manipulate the press in the present and the historians in the future. And maybe spook the Democrats into running me off. And I think he knew me well enough by then to know that he couldn’t spook me and run me off.”).
“Clinton is a wonderful story teller and he’s a very charming man,” said Gingrich. “But he has the greatest ability to rewrite his own life of anybody I’ve ever seen. … Perjury was committed, perjury is a felony. … He should have been impeached for breaking the law. … Presidents should not be above the law. That’s a very dangerous precedent.”
Gingrich fielded a question about whether he’d accept an offer to serve as vice president of the United States. “Depending on the circumstances, I’d be honored to be considered and under some circumstances I’d probably feel compelled to say ‘yes.’ “
No more information is necessary.
The Rats are scared to DEATH of Hillary Clinton.
With good reason.
They figure that they can either:
1-Beat Obama by using his youth, inexperience and race against him.
or
2-Pull a Carter him if he does win and turn him into an almost instant lame duck because he does not really know the secret paths and byways of DC insider bullshit power politics.
Of which Ms. Hillary is a MASTER.
Not to get all sexist about this, but…you DO know that Hillary has a hardon for that “vast right-wing conspiracy” that she so publicly and accurately named way back in 1999, don’tcha?
They know it.
Bet on it.
And they fear for their lives if she is elected.
Bet on THAT as well.
Real politics is a blood sport at this level, and she is a fucking KILLER.
A smiling killer.
Meanwhile the weak, moody, overfed so-called “left” is out for HER blood.
Why?
Because she plays power politics.
And gets elected by rounding up a majority. EVEN IF THAT MAJORITY IS NOT A PURE-AS -THE-DRIVEN-SNOW LEFTIST MAJORITY..
Duh!!!
WHADDA BUNCHA MAROONS!!!
But the people who run the right ain’t maroons.
They may be evil-hearted. felonious criminals who will kill quite gladly kill tens or even hundreds of thousands in order to hang onto their privilege, wealth and power.
But morons?
Nope.
Smart like bloodied whips they are.
Which is why they do NOT want to face Hillary Clinton in the 2008 election.
Bet on that as well.
All ‘a you kneejerk anti-Clintonites?
Wake the fuck up.
Advice to Barack Obama?
From Karl Rove?
Please.
What the fuck else do you believe that he could be thinking?
Except:
“ANYBODY BUT HILLARY!!!”
Just like YOU fools.
Unbelievable.
Later…
AG
Feel free.
I got yer “landslide”.
Right THERE!!!
A potential 16 year landslide.
And most of y’all are so busy shooting yourselves in the foot that you can’t see the bad guys running for cover.
Lovely.
Later…
AG
So many hidden agendas, so little time.
Good to see you, AG. You’ve been missed.
I’ve been around…
Mostly in lurk mode.
So many gigs, so little time.
See ya somewhere…
AG
AG
“So many hidden agendas…”
I think that’s the question we need to be considering with Mr. Rove’s piece. To think that he’s trying to help Obama is to take his piece at face value, which is probably a grave error.
Why would Karl Rove try to help any Democratic candidate? In order to hurt them seems like a logical reason. My take is that the party-machine Republicans are more afraid of Obama, who didn’t enter into their calculations, than they are of Hillary, who they’ve prepared a juggernaut of slime and hate to send her way.
Now the business wing (AG’s PERMAGOV) has already taken Obama into their calculations, or may be offering him as the palatable-to-progressives-and-moderate-independents alternative to both Hillary and the Republican offerings. I think these folks have decided that the hyperpartisanship has gotten to a place where it’s bad for business (unless you’re an oil company or defense contractor) as we have issues from health care to climate change that SERIOUSLY need to be addressed.
Both they and the public seem to be shifting to view Obama as the candidate to do just that. My take anyway.
…Or maybe Mr. Rove is just shilling for a few pounds to pay his rent, LOL.
I believe that most left wing Democrats now understand that Hillary is our right wing Republican candidate for the presidency. Bill went Republican Lite by stealing the Republican agenda in 1992. But Hillary is over the top, apparently on Bill’s sayso.
Perhaps with Obama’s surge in Iowa, Bill will reassess Hillary’s position. It is one thing to go Bush on Iraq, but quite another to go corporate medicine in defining our domestic agenda. Did she ever take in “Sicko” before this blunder?
I honestkly do not know WEHAT she really “thinks”.
In fact…I am not sure that SHE does.
She appears to me to be simply reacting to the ebb and flow of this partticular battle on some kind of gut level fighter’s instinct. And she is GOOD at it.
A great pol’s real tactical position regarding strategic goals?
First…you have to WIN.
Then…after you have won…then you deal with what options are left after you have compromised yourself up the yin-yang in order to get into popwer in the first place.
And…sorry but I think that you are wrong about Bill’s input here as well.
He is NOT the brains of the outfit.
He is its good looking, charming dick.
HILLARY has the brains.
And she is the fighter, too.
He would just as soon kick back and get his cock sucked as go out and make a real fight of it.
Hillary?
She thrives on battle.
AG
“But Hillary is over the top, apparently on Bill’s sayso.”
I thought, back in the mid-70s, we were past this sexist bullshit but obviously I was wrong. Why do people keep collapsing Hillary into Bill, or even worse make her out to be a Billarybot? Do we do this with the good ol’ boy candidates? Believe it or not she’s an independent human being despite her marriage and her female sex.
But yes, she’s just another right-wing pro-Israel corporate Democrat, I get that. And that makes her about the same as Obama, or Bill. But that doesn’t mean Barack is controlled by Michelle or that Hillary is a Bill-bot.
BTW, I agree with AG strategically that she has a better chance of winning than Obama. But he seems way off on the ‘secret leftist’ inside Hill, but the same for anyone who thinks there’s a ‘secret leftist’ inside Obama. C’mon, they’re attorneys working for clients; look at their money and you will know ‘their’ politics.
Sexist?
What does sex matter in this situation? Everyone is obviously aware that Bill, a male no less, is running Hillary’s campaign. Does that mean that Hillary’s campaign is a chauvanist effort and that the campaign is relying on the female vote? Not a word mentioned here that Hillary is female and that that somehow protects her from criticism.
Besides, who wouldn’t want Bill Clinton as a campaign manager? He is one of the most savvy politicians of the last few decades. But that’s not the point.
You’re saying Hillary’s politics are ‘on Bill’s sayso’. Only morons like Bush Jr. take their politics from their campaign advisors. What’s wrong with assuming that she’s about as under Bill’s political thumb as Barack is under Michelle’s? And no, I hadn’t heard that Bill was Hillary’s campaign manager. Where do you get your conspiracy theory? Here’s what wikipedia says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton_presidential_campaign,_2008
Nothing about Bill. I’m sure Michelle and Bill advise their spouses on all sorts of things. And that’s about as far as that goes, unless there’s evidence otherwise.
Why?
“What’s wrong with assuming that she’s about as under Bill’s political thumb as Barack is under Michelle’s?”
That’s the easiest question of all: like bill, Hillary is pure DLC politics, meaning Republican Lite. Furthermore, she is more DLC-AIPAC than Bill ever was, at least openly. Who in the world would not listen to the best political strategist of our age?
The reverse question is: what makes you think she is not following Bill’s advise? Where has she deviated from standard Clinton Republican Lite?
Where has Obama deviated from the standard DLC Republicanism? DLC Republicanism is the only flavor corporate money buys, so all the candidates with a lot of corporate money have those politics. Duh-h-h! Like virtually all politicians Hillary takes her politics from her support, which in 2007 is overwhelmingly DLC Republican. Bill is irrelevant on her politics, but of course she should listen to him as a campaign strategist.
I’m not buying your personality-ism take on the 2008 race. We have an across-the-board problem, corporate money controlling who we voters will pretend to ‘choose’ next year. Hillary is just one of our corporate ‘choices’, nothing about her in particular to be upset about.
Don’t tell me you’re an Obama believer? Cruise missiles over Iran, Social Security everything-on-the-table Obama? Again, not that he’s any worse (or better) than Hill.
It’s called hedging. Being obscure, leaving open a line to traditional liberal socialism and diplomatic foreign policy, like resuming our advocacy for the UN.
GEEZ!!!
I didn’t know that!!!
Thanks fer tellin’ me!!!
I always thought that it wuz the other way around.
AG
Cynical or funny, you will always be AG.
That may have been funny, shergald, but it was in NO way cynical.
That has always been my impression of their relationship. She takes care of the business end, he does the glad-handing.
This does not belittle either in my opinion, nor is it a cynical look at their relationship OR politics in general.
From each according to their abilities…
AG
Then I agree with you. What else can I say since I believe it as well. Bill runs Hillary. Case closed.
Actually, I think AG makes more of a case that Bill was Hillary’s ‘bot:
Well, you have a point of view it may have some validity. But I still believe that Hillary is the New England snob school’s entry into presidential politics, to date a male endeavor. I would love to see a female president, someone who would feminize the presidency, and make it a more compassionate role attending to typical liberal issues. Instead, what we seem to be getting is a female version of Patton.
Foreign policy is Hillary’s weakness, and for that reason alone, she needs to beaten in the primaries. She is the wrong woman to be running for president.
I just said the same thing to Dr./Mrs. K.P. this morning: “I’d love to see a woman president. Unfortunately, Hillary isn’t the woman (or person, for that matter) I’d like to have the job.”
land, I can tell you that the republicans DO NOT fear Hillary. They hate, loathe, and despise her. This is why the planners in the republican party would love to see her as the democratic nominee.
No one stirs the fundamentalists up more than Hillary. If she wins the nomination, they will be out in force campaigning against her. They will be out in force on election day. If by some chance, she manages to win anyway, they will tie her presidency up so tight with nonsense allegations that she will not be able to do anything.
#1-The numbnuts religious right is going to vote against ANY Dem. No more will vote against Hillary than will vote against Obama. Probably LESS, because in their secret heart of hearts many of the corn-battered women who are part of that culture would LOVE to be as heavy as is Ms. Clinton but none of want to be a fine walking advertisement for the violation of miscegenation laws like Barack Obama.
#2-The numbnuts religious right is fading. It is getting older and it is dying from too many cigarettes, too much bad beer, too many chemicals in their food and prescriptions and too much fat.
#3-The The numbnuts religious right has been SO shamed by the sexual peccadillos and financial hustles of the peckerwood dildos who run and represent it that they cannot “tie up” anything but their paid little boyfriends and girlfriends. And of course their Depens. ANYTHING to get ’em through the night, don’tcha know.
#4-The “Southern Strategy”…code for getting nasty old white racists to vote for so-called “progressive” Dems by throwing those ofay motherfuckers a southern-bred, cornpone-fed hambone on the ticket…died an ignominious death in ’04 when the last piece of tired and teased cornpone (John “Ah’m one ‘a YOU all!!!” Edwards in case you missed it.) couldn’t even carry his own state
Please.
LET them “come out in force”. Most of ’em can’t work for more than 15 minutes at a time before their larded asses and tobacco-caused nascent emphysema make them sit down and breathe hard for an hour or two, and their presence will most likely cause voters to vote the other way no matter how hard they work or how many of them there are.
Yer dreamin’, hen’s teeth.
Dreamin’
AG
No need to insult me, or imply that I am an idiot. I’m just letting you know the kinds of opinions I hear around here.
They will never vote Democrat as long as you call them numbnuts. The question isn’t which way they will vote, it’s will they bother to vote?
Something about your reply sounded very familiar. It sounded just like the talk Southerners had before the Civil War started. One southerner could beat ten yankees, you know. That bunch of over-hyped snobbery worked out real good didn’t it.
Let me know when you are ready to stop sputtering random insults, and maybe we can have a semi-intelligent discussion.
I AM insulting the dregs of the old, white, racist, southern working class culture.
And not NEARLY at random.
The code word for that old, white, racist, southern working class culture nowadays is the one that you used.
“Fundamentalists”.
You say:
Maybe we are having a…failure to communicate here. To exactly which “they” and “them” are you referring?
YOU used the word “fundamentalist”. Did you not mean it to refer to “religious” fundamentalists?
And I replied with the phrase “the numbnuts religious right “. I do not include all southerners in that category. Not by any means. That’s why I suggested that the fundies could come out and work all they wanted, because they would have little or no effect on the votes of righteous southerners of EVERY race and might indeed actually get the ANTI-fudamentalist out vote instead of what they really wanted.
Did you mean some OTHER kind of fundamentalist?
Maybe more like the “fundamentalism” of white racists ?
The fundamental belief of whom is that they are white and therefore better than other races?
And that they know this one holy fact and are therefore better than other whites who do NOT seem so aware of how things really are?
Hmmmm….
And it is YOU who are feeling insulted?
Hmmmm…
Look to yourself, hen’s teeth.
Look to yourself.
The New South will rise this year.
Watch.
AG
P.S. I actually DO believe that one non-racist is worth ten racists. North, south, east OR% west. Of ANY stripe. Because racism is a sign of lack of perceptive abilities in today’s culture; lack of those abilities is a sign of lack of intelligence, and lack of intelligence means that one is weak in ANY competition.
Look to yourself, hen’s teeth.
There is NOTHING scacer than someone who knows oneself.
Not even hen’s teeth.
Do you actually think that ALL “southerners” are those who belong to that class of OH so over people?
Hmmmm…
Look to yourself.
You really shouldn’t go lecturing people about their home when you don’t know what you’re talking about. It makes you sound like an idiot. I am more than familiar with the past and present problems of the South.
Know-it-all, elitist, busy body, bigots like you certainly make it harder for us to convince our neighbors that Democrats are any better than Republicans. Now run along and find someone who cares enough about your opinion to be insulted by it.
Still you cannot deny that there is split in the South that is racially motivated, as Sen. Hollings often commented about.
White-Republicans versus Black-Democrats is a major division in souther politics, still, today, over forty years after the Civil Rights/Voting Rights Acts were passed. And AG is perfectly correct about the “southern strategy” of Nixon that Reagan perfected in the 1980 presidential campaign, and Republicans have been liv9ing off ever since. It got Reagan the presidency. In fact, we had northern bigots who became the Reagan Democrats, and pushed majorities over the line even in traditionally liberal Democratic states like Michigan. There it was White-Suburbans versus Black-Urbans.
Shergald,
I’m surprised at you. The last thing this fool needs is encouragement.
I just pointed out that my observations disagreed with his pretty little theory. That earned me a torrent of foul-mouthed insults.
As someone who follows the Palestinian situation, you should be able to recognize bigots. AG is a bigot toward southeners, or maybe it’s some imaginary subgroup of white southerners. Either way, he doesn’t seem to much care which way he spews his venom.
See below. There is no question that there are white southerners who are decent people, who detest the bigotry of the past, and we wrong not recognizing them and their contributions.
It perhaps in talking about the statistical summaries that we then decend to whitewashing everyone with the same brush. That is our mistake, for one thing because younger southern whites are becoming more tolerant and what we all need, really, is more time.
Mea culpa. No one want to be bigoted on either side of these conflicts.
You write:
Yes. I am sure that you are.
In fact, it appears to me that you may well BE one of the past and present problems of the South.
So it goes…
AG
For what it’s worth, as a fellow denizen of the South, I think your comment is spot-on. Maybe you have to live here to really appreciate it. It really is a foaming-at-the-mouth kind of thing, far beyond the reaction I see to the possibility of an Obama candidacy. That’s why I think the Republican party machine fears Obama more than Hillary. They have rabid bats to release if Hillary gets the nomination.
Yup. Like the saying is, I like the Mets and anyone who’s playing the Yankees. I’ve talked to a bunch of wingers who don’t like any of their guys, and would therefore stay home – except if the Democrat is Hillary, in which case they like ANYONE on the R line. In my part of the world, Hillary’s a good 20% extra Republican turnout – pro-nobody but foaming-rabid anti Hillary.
Not to be alarmist, but if the D’s put up Hillary, the D netroots will stay out of it and the R grassroots will come in in a big way, and we’ll be in a serious world of hurt… the R’s might not even NEED to cheat. (They will anyway, of course, but…)
What you seem to be saying is the the southern block of states is lost again to Democrats, and we just have to live with it.
Back to Ohio again. Ugh!
Not exactly. It’s not necessarily lost to the Democrats, but I think it may be lost to Hillary, specifically. Barack or Edwards might have a shot at picking it up, I dunno. It seems to me that the D’s should be taking that into some consideration when considering their nominee and campaign strategy – and at a lot of levels, because she’s also going to carry negative coattails. If people who were going to stay home turn out to block Hillary, they’re going to go straight ticket, and that’s going to hit a lot of downballot stuff as well.
I have no idea whether there’s a way to change that this time around. My sense is that it’s a longer-term project; the backlash from the angry WASP male contingent is pretty strong at the moment. They’ve thought since Reagan that they were going to get to be back in complete control of everything, and I think they’re finally figuring out that that’s not going to happen ever, and they’re passing pissed off about that. I’m frankly not optimistic that they’ll ever change their viewpoint; getting the south back in the good column is going to involve simply outnumbering them via immigration (or making lots of progressive babies…)
I think your immigration point is well taken. However, I do recall a study several years ago, which contended that younger white southeners were becoming more tolerant than their parents. Perhaps it has something to do with Black football players at the ‘Ol Miss and other southern college teams.
This is a slow process. I think it was Dean who stated that the Democrats need to court everyone, but then implied that the to-be-courted included racist whites, everyone. I don’t know that notion landed him.
The real reason the Right fears Hillary Clinton is because all the mad power grabbing that Bush has done in building the “unitary executive” would then be wielded in 2009 by somebody like…Hillary Clinton.
It’s something the Left, Center, and everyone else should be deathly afraid of too.
Why?
Because given her voting record, I don’t exactly see her rolling BACK the unitary executive express.
To be fair to her however, what politician actually limits the power they have on purpose and says “I have too much, I need to spread this around”?
but not “deathly afraid” of Obama?
Or, specificially, and responding to your comment, what in her voting record makes you “deathly afraid” of Hillary? Tell me about her voting record on Presidential power, give me some specifics on what exactly is different about Hillary and Obama. I’d love some of that, but all I ever get is this whispy, impressionistic fear. I think that fear is based on the long-time distortion of Hillary’s image in the right-wing ‘mainstream’ misogynistic press. But maybe I’m wrong, give me some specifics.
Nice to see you back, Mr. Gilroy.
Never a dull moment & all that.