I just wish more democrats would realize that Bill is an Ex-President and not the messiah.
If he's nailed to a cross right now he put himself there.
Salon has some sort of "premium content" crap that keeps the page from viewing. Too bad; I'd have liked to find out what Greenwald is talking about.
demkat620, too many Dems are influenced to too great a degree by the career of Jimmy Carter, who put "ex presidents" on the map in a major way. So they give Big Dog credence he hasn't necessarily earned.
Stormcrow:
Just wait till you see Enter Salon, which will appear shortly at the top / top right of the screen.
Click that and you're in.
Yea you right, that is cold. Unfortunately, it may well be accurate. The last thing we need is for the primary to be about the other candidate's deficiencies. That is just giving ammunition to the criminals on the other side. Dems want this election. We need house and senate seats and we need the executive. That needs to be the primary thought that drives Bill's actions and words. If he does that and Hillary takes it, fine she will get my vote. If Obama gets it, he should feel comfortable taking counsel from Bill and Hillary and, they should be comfortable offering it.
That ain't happening right now.
CAFKIA
If Obama gets it, he should feel comfortable taking counsel from Bill and Hillary and, they should be comfortable offering it.
With all due respect CAFKIA, why on earth would Obama ask those two for advice when they just got done nearly tearing the party into shreds?
I used to think that Hillary was a strong candidate. Even though I would have to hold my nose to vote for her I thought that she would be formidable in the Democratic race and in November.
Now I have to rethink that idea. Either she and Bill know that she isn't all that great thus the racial bullshit or she is a strong candidate and they have both lost their minds.
Either way it's poisonous to the party, giving the GOP all the ammo they need for the general election, may result in a fracturing of the party and deeply, incredibly and obviously stupid.
If Obama looks to them for counsel he's an idiot too.
Baltogeek, Bill Clinton had a successful presidency. Not a perfect liberal presidency but a successful one. He is acknowledged by his foes to be the most consummate politician of our time. I certainly believe that one could learn something from the Clinton's experience in office. But more than that, we have recently seen what happens when all of the president's "advisors" are in the amen chorus. Obama would never hear from me that he should do whatever the Clintons tell him to. But to not listen to them doesn't make any sense to me at all. The president, whoever it is, will have pressures and information that anyone who is not currently the prez simply doesn't have. Because of that, they have to make decisions that sometimes make no sense to us. Obama would be no different. I should think he would seek and consider the counsel of the 4 or 5 rethugs not under indictment as well as senior dems.
Nose. face. spite. cut? I think not.
CAFKIA, I hear what you are saying but I really do think the hate runs too deep for that relationship to develop.
Let me ask, do you think an Obama/Clinton ticket or vice versa is a real possibility because in terms of giving advice you couldn't get any closer than that.
I personally think it wouldn't happen but I'm open to hear a compelling case as to why.
Hey folks, it's a contested election. That means people take differing positions and say things about each other.
But don't listen to me, take a look at a great post on Digby's site. http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/
2...atulations.html
The author does a great job with the article. It's especially telling to relive what Kerry and others did to Dean during the 2004 campaign.
This won't change the mind the professional Clinton haters. But it should give everyone else some perspective. That includes the Obama supporters who think the Clintons are going to be the "worst" they have to endure.
Let me ask, do you think an Obama/Clinton ticket or vice versa is a real possibility because in terms of giving advice you couldn't get any closer than that.
I could conceive of a Clinton/Obama ticket. Obama is young and would have the inside track in 2012. His talents would be well suited to the VP office. It would be a formidable ticket.
But I cannot conceive of a Obama/Clinton ticket. Obama would be muddling his message of change by bringing in Hillary and then you'd have the whole Billary factor. What would you do with Bill? Besides, I think Hillary is actually a better Senator and would be a good bet for Majority Leader down the road. Her talents are really legislative. I don't see her sitting in waiting for 8 more years of VP. She is 60 now. She's be 69 by the end of an Obama presidency.
Personally I think Obama would be best served by finding a charismatic younger Latino candidate. Preferably a vet. Someone like the Jimmy Smitts/Matthew Santos character in the final episodes of the West Wing. I think this election will be won in the southwest. Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, maybe even Texas (don't laugh) and Florida. Someone who highlights the change message and augments Obama's weakness which is lack of foreign/policy military experience.
@ Kent, the reason I don't see Clinton/Obama is for a number of reasons one of which you already mentioned.
Any connection with her hurts him and given the way many of his supporters feel he has been treated by the Clintons accepting the VP slot would be selling out.
Besides in 2012 he could run again. He can shore up some of the holes in his resume in that time.
@ Cath, I respect your opinion but I can't help but think that you have a sort of blindspot about just what many people feel and fear about the Clintons.
You are right that there are manty people who hate them irratonally.
There are others of us, including myself who hate her because of their coziness with the GOP, their dissembling and their arrogance.
There are plenty of good reasons to despise the two of them. They have been demonstrating just why that is over the last few months.
That's why they got the crap kicked out of them last night and that's why they will have a hell of the hard time puting a voting coalition together to win in November.
I don't see them on the same ticket, that ship has sailed. But I don't see either of them getting out of politics or leaving the national scene. In my perfect world, Bill is ambassador at large, Hillary is senate majority leader, Edwards is AG and perhaps later a supreme.
They're tenacious as hell but not strong candidates. Strong candidates don't lose as sitting Governor. Strong candidates don't get elected with 43% in a three-way, get re-elected under 50% and lose both houses along the way(interesting parallels to Wilson).
~, I don't know if your slip was intended (or even if you are responding to my post) but I was talking about Hillary as a strong candidate not Bill.
But I understand your confusion. Bill seems to think he's running for a 3rd term so why shouldn't the rest of us.
"Bill Clinton: The Chris Matthews of South Carolina."?
You are right - that is pretty harsh...
Since we're discussing how with the Clintons it's all politics all the time, I'll give a personal anecdote.
From 1989 to 2005 I worked as a fisheries management biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service which is part of NOAA and is the agency responsible for managing marine resources and marine endangered species off the coasts of the US. Most of my time was spend working in Seattle and Alaska but from 1995-2000 I spent a good bit of time on rotational assignments to various NOAA HQ offices in Washington DC and Maryland.
For the first 7 years of the Clinton Admin they basically completely ignored marine resource management. There were all sorts of critical environmental issues happening at the time (bycatch, international whaling, habitat protection, sea turtle & shark preservation, privatization of fisheries resources, etc. etc.) Yet marine environmental policy was completely ignored by the Clinton Admin. This meant marine policy became the personal playground of senior coastal state senators such as Ted Stevens, Slade Gorton, Fritz Hollings, Olympia Snow etc. Most of the legislation coming out of Congress at that time was incredibly parochial because there was absolutely no leadership from the Administration on the national level. The agency heads during Clinton were a series of barely competent bureaucrats that showed no real national leadership on any marine environmental issue in the manner that say Bruce Babbitt did with the Interior Dept. In fact, during my time working for NMFS in DC during the Clinton Admin it was clear that Sen. Ted Stevens was really running the agency, not Bill Clinton.
Then came the 2000 elections. A whole bunch of top level agency personnel in the Commerce Dept (NMFS is in the commerce dept) went on leave to campaign for Gore and not much got done until Bush's somewhat surprise win. Suddenly in December 2000 there were top level Clinton people all over NOAA attempting to get us to ram a long list of last-minute environmental regulations and policies through the system to leave in place as many political land mines a possible for the incoming Bush Admin. Some of it was decent stuff that they should have been doing 7 years earlier. Some of it was just silly stuff intended to make Bush look bad when/if he repealed it. It was all really depressing from the career environmental policy view. The Clintons were leaving but the rest of us were staying. And frankly things really didn't change much under the Bush Admin. Sen. Stevens still ran the agency and there wasn't much difference at all from Clinton.
Point being. Everything was political. They didn't bother fighting any of the hard battles when they needed to be fought. But when there were political points to be scored the urgency level skyrocketed.
Would Hillary be any different? I really don't know. But what I do see with Hillary is a whole bunch of aging Clintonistas who are eager to get back into their old jobs and re-do the 90s without making so many mistakes as the last time. They are well-intentioned. But I really think we need to start in a new direction.
Baltogeek:
You wrote "Cath, I respect your opinion but I can't help but think that you have a sort of blindspot about just what many people feel and fear about the Clintons."
Okay, I'll cop to part of that statement because frankly my defense of the Clintons shocks me as well. I flat out told former coworkers - and strong Clinton supporters - that Hilary would flatline on Iraq. But instead my guy Edwards went down.
It's probably driven by two things. (1) My instinctive protection of the underdog (which Hilary really is in the blogosphere). (2) I can't really see Obama as a greater progressive than Hilary. (I'm reminded of that scene from Zoolander -- "am I on crazy pills, it's the same damm look."
In other words, we won't get the anti-Hilary with Obama. He comes from the same centrist, DLC crowd as other establishment dems. I'm simply choosing the one with more experience and willingness to fight the Republicans.
But now I'm moving away from the keyboard to go outside to talk to non-politicos. That means the crankiness meter on this site just dropped about a hundred notches. Enjoy :>
It's a terrible mistake to consider the Clintons as Democrats. They only play for themselves and their only goal is to be elected. They're on the Clinton side, not on the Dem, the GOP or the American people side.
look at who the clinton's support: rahm, lieberman, hoyer... carville.
They, and those like them, only have one bargain with the voters: give ME your VOTE, and I'll be elected. I send letters to you from time to time from washington. when I remember to. and before elections. then you'll be seeing A LOT of me.
This is all about people of privilege, who have what they have because they DESERVE IT, it BELONGS TO THEM, and THEM ONLY. We're in - you're out.
Hilary and her friends are no big fans of the Dean 50-state campaign, even when it's pretty clear that the Dem gains all across the board in the last 2 years is the result of the DNP reaching out to the local groups in every state to get more people involved - look at the numbers! Record turnouts in every state so far!
Increasing the voter base, and GOTV are not things that Hilary and her crew are really interested in. If Hilary wins, watch how they try to dismantle all the progress grass-roots groups have done so far.
My $0.02.
"If Obama gets it, he should feel comfortable taking counsel from Bill and Hillary and, they should be comfortable offering it."
-Bullshit.
This ain't the Nancy & Harry show.
Obama/Clinton ticket victory = 4 years of Clintons trying to upstage Obama. Take not the vipers to your bosom.
Clinton/Obama ticket victory = 4 years of marginalizing and disappearing Obama. Support not the vipers not even for "the good of the party." Comes the year that Obama thinks it is "his turn" he will get Gored. Whoever that years equivalent of a Lieberman is will be foisted upon him to guarantee his defeat.
The Bush family already has an heir presumptive, George calls him Bush 44, and I notice an nice increase of Chelsea exposure from the house next door to the Bushes.
I don't have a dog in the dem fight, I think I am looking at it as basically a strategic and tactical situation. Obama looks to have a whole bunch of intangibles that make him very attractive but not very full of specific policies to dissect. Clinton has much more "media history" but not a whole lot to show for herself as a senator. Edwards has policies but no traction. I think that his lack of traction is in many ways a repudiation of the "Southern White Male" is the only dem who can win nationwide theory that had such a grip on the dems going back to Carter.
All that said, I am probably wrong, there is still a lot of water to flow under the bridge before the conventions; and even more to flow before the elections.
In my sadder moments, I think the USA will get a choice between TweedleDee warmonger McCain and TweedleDum warmonger Clinton and will get 4 or 8 more years of SOS. But then I look at the economic news pertaining to the US dollar, the US inflation, the US unemployment, the US debt levels and foreign trade imbalances and figure it won't matter who the USA elects.
McCain has his keating 5 economic skillz
Hillary has her superb commodity market skillz
Romney has his Bain Capital Pirate Skillz
Edwards has his contingency fee defense attorney economic skills
Obama has his slumlord real estate economic skillz.
And these are considered to be "serious" candidates.
Oy vey iz mir.
"if he's nailed to a cross right now, he put himself there."
Balto: Hammer-nail-bang.
Only, I was thinking more like drowned in the sewer.
For Hillary and her staff to sic him on Obama was an act of the purest political idiocy. I'm a cackalacker, and She and Bill HAD a lot of black support down here. Not so much, now.
I get tired of pointing out that talking about Hillary's "political savvy" is very much like talking about George Bush's political savvy. It too, is worthy of hoots of derision.
As for a "Clinton/Obama" ticket, Barak Obama did NOT shellack Hillary Clinton's ass in South Carolina to become her house ------.
And this morning, Ted Kennedy seconded that motion, rather clearly. :o)
We now have the possibility of an exquisite payback for one Al Gore, the man from whom the 2000 election was stolen, in that he can, with one press-conference, and with a fair degree of probability, put finis to the Clinton campaign, and pick the next president of the United States.
Al??? :o)
"This aint the Nancy and Harry show."
:o) :o) :o)
Admiral Komack gets in a good shot across the bow.
What advice is she going to give Obama?
"Barak; you be sure to plant lots of warm, wet, kisses on George Bush's ass now, y'hear?"
And don't forget to attend that 11th Anniversary FauxNews bash in NYC to sing "Happy Birthday" to Rupert Murdoch and Bill O'Reilly!"
That advice?
(Dammit, where's my angryface...)
"My 2c"
Ceabaird, that's 24K au.
ceabaird you stated my views on hillary a lot better then I ever have...thanks...we saw that crap for 8 years. no mas.
I still can't get a hillary support to tell me what her "experiance is in" getting cheated on by bill? sitting on the board of walmart? shady realistate? what exactly is this experiance that would make her a great president?
"I just wish more democrats would realize that Bill is an Ex-President and not the messiah."
reading some blog comments you would think Obama is the Second Coming
"The last thing we need is for the primary to be about the other candidate's deficiencies. That is just giving ammunition to the criminals on the other side."
ROFLOL, yeah, if Obama can't fight back against Hillary then how the hell is he going to fight about against the ReThug candidate? Or does he expect the ReThugs to nominate Alan Keyes???
"Edwards has policies but no traction. I think that his lack of traction is in many ways a repudiation of the "Southern White Male" is the only dem who can win nationwide theory that had such a grip on the dems going back to Carter."
uh, more like the korporate media refuses to cover him, Edwards' economic populism gives their bosses heartburn
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