According to Nancy Pelosi, we can forget about the so-called Dream Ticket and she tells us exactly who is to blame:
“I think that the Clinton administration (sic) [ed. note: I assume she meant to say “campaign”] has fairly ruled that out by proclaiming that Senator McCain would be a better Commander in Chief than Obama. I think that either way is impossible,” she said.
You know something Speaker Pelosi? I think you are absolutely correct. Obama has never expressed any indication that he would want Clinton as his running mate, and the recent racist smears by her surrogate, Geraldine Ferraro, is not likely to increase the odds of adding her to any ticket on which he holds downs the top slot. And I can’t see how Obama can accept the Veep slot if Clinton wins the nomination when it would just give McCain all the negative ad material necessary to attack the both of them. Obama for being “inexperienced” and Clinton for being a hypocrite and a political opportunist of the first order.
By the way, does Pelosi’s statement amount to a de facto endorsement of Obama? It sort of seems that way to me, frankly.
would be Clinton/McCain or McCain/Clinton.
Perhaps Pelosi could, just this once, stop being gutless and come out strongly for Obama.
She has said that her vote will reflect her constituents’, so she will be voting for Obama. Her recent statements suggest that she’ll be doing so with more than just a sense of duty, because she’s clearly pissed at Clinton.
without question she’s sending a message to team clinton to clean up their act and stop giving support to the opposition, etc. but l’m not quite as sanguine as you re: her superdelegate support. if she follows the actual vote in her district…CA-CD8, which was won by obama 93696 v. clinton 75577, then she will indeed be voting for him.
it’s also possible that she will find herself in the same position of barbara boxer:
l think it’s becoming increasing obvious that the cooler heads in the democratic party would like to see this ended sooner, rather than later; but given all indications, clinton intends to take it all the way to the convention barring a knock-out punch by obama in PA, which is very unlikely at this juncture.
we shall see.
There’s little doubt this will be seen as a tacit, conditional endorsement by many in both camps–and a clear signal. The question is what will she do with the opening she’s made for herself? Behind all the “unite the party: Hillary-Obama / Obama-Hillary ’08” talk there’s a real trainwreck in the offing for that pairing, for the reasons you’ve stated. Not to mention that dragging this thing out all the way to June is going to be a disaster, noting how quickly it’s all gotten uglier, since Wisconsin especially.
Hillary’s supporters are circling the wagon and digging in–this is “the fun part”, after all. Polling confirms they already see Obama much less favorably than vice versa, and resoundingly call for her NOT to choose Obama as VP (doesn’t look like she’ll get the chance). So is Pelosi’s recent series of remarks a heads up to the Obama “50” or some other group of fence-sitting superdelegates? I think it’s important we all find out, and soon.
Hillary was just okey-dokeying.
We ain’t so dumb… we got a whole lotta common sense; our forefathers were slaves and they passed down to us how to figure out the Anancy stories.
But Hill, Bill and Geraldine wouldn’t know.
It’s telling how low the Clintons will stoop. Bill Clinton appeared on the Rush Limbaugh show, right in time for the Texas Ohio primaries.
When I read it, thought how great it was to read Pelosi seem forceful on something, even if it just a contest between two Democrats. Then I watched the video and there seemed to be barely controlled anger there. “I just didn’t want to leave you with any ambiguity.” That was a clencher.
Yes, “‘I just didn’t want to leave you with any ambiguity.’ That was a clincher.”
Yes, also let there be no triangulation on the part of the Clintons: Bill, Obama, Hill; Hill, McCain, Bill; war, peace, compromise war, etc.! The Clintons are not used to saying either yes or no. In that respect they very much resemble the inimitable George 2 himself. You know, even if Nancy Pelosi publicly endorses Obama, the Clintons still won’t back off. They are evidently set on throwing half of the Democratic party under a bus. What could they care: she has her fancy job (with health insurance!) and they both have their millions, and there is always 2012 (how blind can you be?). I wonder how she will behave during the GE campaign and in the Senate after her defeat has completely crystallized.
* On Ferraro:
Geraldine Ferraro said she’s absolutely not sorry for her remarks.
thanks to Kos, we now know Ferraro has a long history of trading in this shit
And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his “radical” views, “if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race.”
Asked about this at a campaign stop in Buffalo, Jackson at first seemed ready to pounce fiercely on his critics. But then he stopped, took a breath, and said quietly, “Millions of Americans have a point of view different from” Ferraro’s.
It’s twenty years later and this woman still holds to her mindset. What is NOT hilarious is that Clinton keeps trotting out surrogates with this bigotry.
It’s quite divisive. Imho, what is not considered is this:
Obama’s campaign is a revolution and every time he is attacked it’s also attacking his supporters who OWN and finance the campaign.
Clinton and Ferraro types are on a destructive path.
If Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro were not both Yankees, I’d have a label ready for them: Dixiecrats. It would certainly fit Bill.
About the only thing missing now are Clinton surrogates handing out “Who Would Strom Vote For?” buttons in South Carolina.
This is quite calculated. At the end of the day, they are so contemptuous of the white working class, they really are. They know how to play ’em, and that’s exactly what they are doing w/ Ferraro’s comments. Her campaign is betting they’ll fall for it. In their li’l minds, by the time she gets her entitled position, they can’t do anything about her championing NAFTA and anything else she wants to do. She doesn’t give a shit.
I just hope folks don’t fall for it. Scapegoating Black and Brown and whatever gender or color of folks will not get their jobs back.
But you know, after noting the ease of Billary with racist language and the ease w/ which Bill was able to go on the Drug Rush Limpbaugh show, it just occurred to me–Clintons and the wingnuts are the ultimate example of a rotten symbiotic relationship. They NEED each other.
Billary “fights” the right wing because they need an excuse for their existence. They couldn’t possibly want to change the conversation or grow the party, because then the reason for their being is gone. What else would they do? They can pretend to “fight” the right wing while instilling their policies.
We’ve got to stop this sick, symbiotic relationship. Our country can’t take much more.
Bingo. We have a winner.
You know it. The fantasy that these folks are peddling is that if the immigrants left (or Affirmative Action didn’t exist, or whatever), that the jobs would come back.
The jobs won’t come back. If there wasn’t a supply of cheap labor in the US, the jobs would migrate to where there is cheap labor, most likely Asia and other parts of the third world. Anti-immigrant sentiment is just the latest red herring to divert attention to the real source of the problem, which is globalism and free trade.
In the eyes of the elite, the white/black/brown divide is just a way of keeping the working class fighting amongst itself instead of fighting the elite. At the end of the day, a poor white man, a poor black man, and a poor brown man are all the same thing: ordinary people fighting to wrest a living for themselves and their families from the crumbs that fall from the tables of the rich.
The usual Establishment response to this is to dismiss such talk as the rhetoric of class warfare. But that’s only half of the truth. There is a class war going on, and the rich are waging it ruthlessly and very, very successfully against everyone else. Opportunistic parasites like the Clintons have simply thrown their lot in with what they see as the winning side. The rest of us, those of us with ethical standards, are obliged to stand with the side that ought to win and, I hope, eventually will win if we don’t allow ourselves to be divided against our fellow men and women by the cynical, manipulative rhetoric of the elite.
Our top priority, then, is to decline the invitation of the rich to yet another round of “let’s you and him fight”. We should always be wary when people sitting at a feast try to tell us that our plates are empty because our brothers are hungry.
It really reminds me of the rightwing strategy of using abortion as an issue to rally against; they can’t outright outlaw it, because then they would lose their tool for getting votes. So, they just keep chipping away at it a little at a time.
The masters of political forethought at MSNBC last night talked up the idea that Ferraro’s mission was to interject the race vs sexism mark for the PA race and thus solidify HRC’s base.
I’d like to see Obama start out one of his stump speeches by asking the crowd, ‘do you want me to talk about which is more important sexism or racism because I’m here to tell you I think they’re both important to us all, or would you like me to talk about what we need to do to get our children educated, our skies clear, our men and women home from Iraq….your choice today.’
Hopefully, cameras would be rolling.
Yeah, because I’ve already seen pieces in the media (ABC, I think) that amount to stuff like, “The Clinton campaign has already made sure Obama can no longer claim the mantle of the post-racial candidate”.
He really does need to yank the narrative away from all that and get it back on the issues–the problem is, to a degree, people are drawn to the ugliness, and none moreso than the media.
You are not going to see a Pelosi endorsement (cuz she’s chair of the convention) — but all the signals do point to a Pelosi preference for Obama. I don’t much like my Congressperson, but she’s a political realist. Obama gives her a better chance of enlarging her majority.
Good then. Because if she’s chairing the convention maybe she can put a stop to any chicanery Team Clinton has in mind.
speaking of looking to leaders to move this campaign season off the small mindedness, looks like KO over at Countdown is putting a Special Comment on tonight, with Hillary’s tactics the focus.
Pelosi has been subtle with her message. KO will be courageous with the same message.
Finally a positive, straight forward response.