1. "Basic bargain" seems to be her key slogan:
[I]t is time to renew the promise of America. Our basic bargain that no matter who you are or where you live, if you work hard and play by the rules, you can build a good life for yourself and your family.The repetition of "basic" jumped out at me. The phrase "basic bargain" appears twice, and "basic" reappears, connected to women's rights and children's health care. The idea of a bargain repeats in the word "promise," which is used twice, and the phrases "make good on it" and "keep up our end." So what is going on here? I'm sure these words were very carefully chosen. I think the "bargain" idea is a way demonstrate a commitment to social welfare policies without appearing to support handouts. People have to "work hard and play by the rules" and they have to have the right goal: to "build a good life." These are middle-class values for Middle America, you're supposed to see, and you can trust her to bring them to you because she's from a "middle-class family in the middle of America," and she's worked hard herself for what is good. The word "basic" is important, because it makes you think that she's not going to go too far with lavish programs. Just the basics, and only because people work hard and deserve it. But when they deserve it, government owes it: There's a bargain to live up to.
I grew up in a middle-class family in the middle of America, and we believed in that promise.
I still do. I’ve spent my entire life trying to make good on it.
Whether it was fighting for women’s basic rights or childrens’ basic health care. Protecting our Social Security, or protecting our soldiers. It’s a kind of basic bargain, and we’ve got to keep up our end.
2. It's all about the dialogue, the chat, the conversation:
I’m not just starting a campaign, though, I’m beginning a conversation — with you, with America. Because we all need to be part of the discussion if we’re all going to be part of the solution. And all of us have to be part of the solution.You could say this is just... talk. It's pointless blather. Let's yammer and yak and jaw and babble. Let's chew the fat and confabulate. It'll be great. But if it's not nothing and it's something, I think it's a signal of openness — possibly as an antidote to the disease of calculation that everyone thinks she has and possibly to leave plenty of room to readjust any and all of her policies and proposals.
Let’s talk about....
And let’s definitely talk about...
So let’s talk. Let’s chat. Let’s start a dialogue about your ideas and mine.
Because the conversation in Washington has been just just a little one-sided lately, don’t you think? And we can all see how well that works.
And while I can’t visit everyone’s living room, I can try. And with a little help from modern technology, I’ll be holding live online video chats this week, starting Monday.
So let the conversation begin. I have a feeling it’s going to be very interesting.
And let me add that I think she looked fine. It's not easy to sit on a comfy couch and not sink into the cushions and look like a blob or to sit too upright and look like someone who's trying not to sink into the cushions and look like a blob. She had reasonably natural, appropriate hand gestures. And her voice was decently modulated with some midwestern edge to it. She did a nice job of injecting the feeling of a smile into her voice at times, which had a good humanizing effect.
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So, do you have an opinion on her candidacy or not? It's ok if you don't. It's still early.
Of course what she said and how she looked and moved was carefully crafted. Did something she said prick you in a particular way? Do you think of yourself as middle class? Do you think you owe this country something basic in return for your good luck?
Just askin'
Hmmm... conversation? As in "conversational media?" As in blogging?
Will Hillary govern the country as a blogger?
She really has no idea what she wants to do in the White House. So maybe she'll just blog her way through it, let her commenters propose ideas, and whichever ideas gain support, that's what she'll do.
I think you need to start doing more Vlogs and web appearences on a sofa.
There are some great couches out there, with very plump pillows. You don't turn into a blob.
I owe everything to my couch!
What's the difference between a couch and a sofa?
Peace, Maxine
One of her friends/aides was on British radio this evening smartly yet desperately trying to plug the great hole that will sink Hillary Clinton.
Something along the lines of - well yes she is New York, but if you knew the real State, not just the City, you'll understand that "parts of it are just like the real mid-West."
East coast and West coast - she could do it there. But in the heartlands of the homeland, never.
As for the real 'bargain' - buy me, get Bill too back again for free - that's not gonna happen. Bill Clinton back in the White House, though this time as 'First Lady'? No way. Tom Wolfe was right - you can never go home.
Oh no - said the friend/aide [female of course] - they didn't stick together for politics, it was the love that binds. Buy that?
Smoking is, for all I know, probably a capital offence in most States now, but all Republicans will need to do is to turn up at a few rallies handing out cheap cigars and the whole Clinton thing will dissolve in merriment.
Having said that I'd just love to see a Condi vs Hillary contest. Now that would be some mud wrestle.
Let’s talk about....
I was on the road most of the day, in my car. As usual, NPR was on in the background.
All they spoke about for a solid hour, was Hillary. Hillary, and more Hillary.
I also listened to her, and it's funny you know -- just like you got "basic bargain" to jump out at you, I picked out "conversation" as the key buzzword.
(Maybe it's like the Kennedy-Nixon debates -- it's always different, on the radio versus visual cues)
"Dialogue" is a common leftist notion, of course. If you go to France, the word juts out at a jaunty angle, whenever you listen to people speak -- communication, back-and-forth, is very important to such people.
And Hillary uses "dialogue", "listening tour", "beginning a conservation" more frequently than anyone in US politics.
And hokey as it maybe be, it works.
(Curiously, I find myself sounding rather upbeat about her, on Althouse.
I'm afraid that's not the case in real life, but this woman might be my president one day -- and I support whomsoever is the president.
Maybe that's what is at work here, with my charitable viewpoints...)
Cheers,
Victoria
In 2004, I was a die-hard conservative Republican. Hillary Clinton was the antithesis of everything I stood for, and I'd rather have been burned at the stake than vote for her. Today, she doesn't seem so bad, and if she doesn't swing too far left (like she has been portrayed in the past), I just might vote for her.
You hear that??? That's my grandfather rolling over in his grave.
She can 'talk' and have 'conversations' all she wants.
I don't trust her one bit. She's got too much baggage, besides Bill, and has always impressed me as having a 'I know what's better for you than you do' air about her.
I thought she came across really well. Not the demon witch that she is portrayed as.
Still wouldn't vote for her though.
As I posted earlier, Senator Clinton mischaracterizes her background.
"I grew up in a middle-class family in the middle of America, and we believed in that promise," the 59-year-old Chicago native said."
She, in fact, grew up in an upper-middle class suburb as the daughter of an executive. While not super wealthy, I am sure her father was either in or close to the two percent of wage earners that received a tax cut that she continually rails against as being tax cuts for the "rich".
It is inconsistent to claim that anyone who makes a six figure income is super wealthy and then to claim that her family was middle-class. Her father (in today's dollars) made a six figure income.
As Democrats demonstrated when they took issue with the AMT, they don't truly believe making a six figure salary makes a person ultra-wealthy but they find a rhetorical benefit (and it intellectually convenient) in using this argument to oppose the President's legislation.
If Senator Clinton wants to call her family "middle-class" than she should have the decency to apologize for calling earlier tax cuts, tax cuts for the wealthy.
Maxine: "I think you need to start doing more Vlogs and web appearences on a sofa."
Interesting implication: Hillary was vlogging! But you're right. I need more vlogs... and podcasts.
"What's the difference between a couch and a sofa?"
A couch is middle class. Sofa is snootier.
There is no doubt in my mind that Hillary Clinton will be the next President.
She did a nice job of injecting the feeling of a smile into her voice at times, which had a good humanizing effect.
Yes, but when right before she said "After six years of George Bush, it is time to renew the promise of America" I could have sworn that she swallowed extra hard, perhaps to prevent the alien that inhabits her body from bursting forth from her throat.
I'm kidding about the alien of course. But seriously, check out her saying that sentence and about five seconds before and after. I just got the feeling that she really had to practice that so as not to shriek.
"You could say this is just... talk. It's pointless blather."
You HAVE noticed that Hillary is a politician, right? Just making sure, since you seem shocked, SHOCKED, to find gambling going on here.
"She had reasonably natural, appropriate hand gestures. And her voice was decently modulated with some midwestern edge to it. She did a nice job of injecting the feeling of a smile into her voice at times, which had a good humanizing effect."
Yes, she was programmed by the same people who used to make Aibos. There's lots of software for politicians available on the 'net these days, although to date all attempts to circumvent their ass-covering chip has failed.
Did you see the piece on Lieberman in the WSJ this weekend? If he ran, I'd vote Democratic in a heartbeat.
(1) The phrase, "work hard and play by the rules" is one that Bill Clinton used over and over. It obviously still tests well.
(2) The "let's chat" motif comes right out of her first campaign for the Senate in New York. Before actually announcing, the then-First Lady went out on a "listening tour." It was a more low-key approach, designed to dispel the apprehensions that many felt about a carpetbagger from Illinois and Arkansas becoming their US Senator.
(3) I also think that the emphases on a "conversation" or "chat" and the cozy setting for her statement were designed to round off the edges of a figure often seen as strident or shrill. In a way, I think there was an attempt here to feminize Hillary, which may either be a tacit acknowledgement of what many suspect--that she will be a tough sell to women across America--or an attempt to pump up a base of support they assume is hers.
(4) It's interesting to compare and contrast the web-based announcements of Clinton, Barack Obama, and Sam Brownback. Clinton and Obama talked about national dialogues. Brownback seemed to be running for a fictional national pastor's slot rather than the presidency.
Mark Daniels
The New York Senator has moved her campaign west. She is now on another "listening tour", but now it is not Albany, Schenectady, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Jamestown, etc., etc. It is going to be Des Moines, and points center.
But while listening there, she'll be speaking like mad in Hollywood, The Hamptons, Palm Beach, Newport Beach, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and other centers of the Rich and Famous.
And the Press will positively love her.
Saint Hillary is on a quest for the little guy and the children.
Guys and gals like her dad and mom will be taking it in the shorts.
They pay the freight in HillaryWorld
I would have to agree with Ann that the basic bargain is the substance meme. The conversation meme is permission to triangulate and attack her enemies. I see problems with both.
1. The basic bargain sounds like a project to establish a floor of social welfare policies. The historical example of the New Deal should teach us that such long-run projects do not pay for themselves. Worse, cutting down long-run projects once constituents grow to depend on them becomes politically unpalatable for all involved. To the extent Hillary proposes new social welfare programs, she will have to answer questions about what are her plans for saving or reforming Social Security. That will not be easy. Especially because she must do so before the Iowa caucus and winning in Iowa requires being more lefty than Hillary wants to appear.
2. Being conversational and having a chat means stripping the competition of the means of waging war. If you're just chatting, then anyone who attacks you looks like a bully. Remember Rick Lazio? The problem with this approach is that no one thinks Hillary Clinton is a chatty Cathy or a shrinking violet just because she sports a yellow pantsuit. In her reelection campaign, John Spencer, who had no shot at a victory, pounded the bejesus out of her on foreign policy matters. When the former mayor of Yonkers can pound the bejesus out of you on foreign policy substance, it simply won't do to protest that you're just trying to chat. The question is why you, an allegedly top-tier candidate, don't have more substance to support your slogans.
3. Hillary's announcement is a rip-off of Obama's announcement. That Obama forced Hillary's hand says a lot. Sure, she's just stomped on his media surge, but now she's a wide open target for Dodd, for Biden, for Kerry, for Clark, for Vilsack, for Richardson, and, most importantly, for Edwards.
4. Hillary seems to be focusing on domestic policy. That's smart. It is domestic policy that Democratic primary voters care about. The only problem is that Democrat primary voters also care about Iraq, which is a foreign policy debacle. And Edwards needs to establish himself as a credible threat on foreign policy. Hillary can try to start up a chat about America's basic bargain all she wants, but my prediction is that Edwards will start consistently hammering home Iraq and foreign policy concerns in Iowa and New Hampshire. Lesser candidates with foreign policy credentials -- e.g., Biden, Richardson, Dodd, Kerry -- will follow suit. It's not going to be easy for Hillary if she tries to change the conversation to domestic policy because nearly the entire Senate Foreign Relations Committee is running for the Democratic nomination.
Sofa is snootier.
OK, I officially support cloning.
Sofa, so good.
It's hard not to like her in that clip.
She just Oprah-ized her campaign.
I keep waiting for her to peel off her face mask and let us see the real Hillary.
Ann said: I need more vlogs... and podcasts.
Yes, podcasts. You need more podcasts. We need more podcasts!
I will now expound extemporaneously and without preparation, she read.
Never mind sofa or couch. Call it a "Chesterfield," and people will know you're sumfin' sumfin'.
"You look divine on that divan" will work, too.
Sofa, so good.
Groan. So young, so good.
I keep waiting for her to peel off her face mask and let us see the real Hillary.
You mean, the 60 Minutes Hillary with the "in your face hair-scrunchies and 24.99 frosted highlights" dissing stay-at-home moms baking cookies, standing by their men?
Nah, babe.
Like the lizards in "V", she is there all right, but ripping out the human mask and revealing the lizardess underneath is going to take a lot more coaxing this time.
There's conquering left to do.
Cheers,
Victoria
Most Americans see themselves as middle class, including those who are upper middle class. And they are right. They are middle class with money (or educational pedigree).
Hillary is upper middle class through and through. Wellesley College, check. Park Ridge, check (actually a surprisingly modest house). Yale Law, check (the high achiever's Valhalla). White trash husband... oops, OK that's an outlier.
But the accent remains. And the choice of presidential vacation spots was always quite telling. And then there's the daughter's name (ouch).
So cut her some slack. If she wants to pretend to be proud of being middle class, let her. The joke's on her.
I think "listening" is Hillary's way of trying to indicate that she is open to fresh ideas and is not rigidly what people think she is.
That's her particular political gimmick, the listening thing. Every politician develops a set of phrases and visual imagery to try to shorthand a message of who they want you to think they are. Bill quivered his lip a lot inside black churches. Hillary listens, like the mom you wished you had, that is, when you were not wishing you had your best friend's mom with the cleavage who made the nicest boloney sandwiches at lunch and who smelled like flowers.
I don't fault her for the tactic, but neither do I think it's particularly meaningful. I was never too thrilled with her or Bill, despite any good qualities.
Hillary is not an empty pantsuit without a vision, however. You don't run for president without some idea of what you want to accomplish, and we can assume health care reform of some sort will reappear.
And while she is not likely to get my vote, I actually think she would be quite fine on Iraq, as I think she will pay close attention to the details.
The slogan "basic bargain" sounds a bit tawdry, as if she will turn the nation into some kind of K-mart filled with low prices, cheaply made goods, and non-existent service.
Let's chat. Hillary doesn't give a damn what we have to say. Maybe that's her way of saying she'll see which way the wind is blowing and hop on board. Worked for her husband, but its not leadership.
Triangulate is just a menage a trois, somebody's gonna get screwed and it ain't her.
To me, it'll be about integrity, and four words will kill her:
Rose Law Firm Records.
Hillary will never be president.
Not because she's a woman. Not because she's a Democrat. Not because she's a Senator.
Because she is Hillary Clinton, and there isn't a more polarizing figure in American politics today.
If Hillary wins the nomination, you will have a Republican turnout that will dwarf that in 2004... just to vote against her.
Yes, the Dems are infatuated with her, but the infatuation is fading as their new object of desire, Obama, sucks up all of the air in the room. Hillary is old; Obama is young. Hillary is a white woman; Obama is a black, er, African-American man. Hillary is married to Bill... and despite what they say no one wants that man anywhere near the levers of power. We don't even want to risk another Monica.
Hillary's time has come and gone. She'll run, but she won't get the nomination; heirs apparent seldom do. She'll retire from the Senate in 2012, then divorce Bill a year or two later.
LOL.
They're positioning Hillary as the new Margaret Thatcher!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2558085,00.html
Oh, please blog on this, Ann...
"vnjagvet said...
The New York Senator has moved her campaign west. She is now on another "listening tour", but now it is not Albany, Schenectady, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Jamestown, etc., etc. It is going to be Des Moines, and points center.
But while listening there, she'll be speaking like mad in Hollywood, The Hamptons, Palm Beach, Newport Beach, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and other centers of the Rich and Famous."
I sat through one of those-and damn near the only one--listening tour whistlestops when she blew through Staten Island.
She yakked canned crap, and then her hosts laud her... and ask everyone to break out their checkbook.
The host kept eyeballing me, waiting for me to erupt. At the end, he admired that I didn't go ballistic.
"Davy," I said, "What the devil was just said? She's yet to tell me why I should vote for her."
And here we go again.
Just one question, when do men get "basic rights" too?
Hillary voted for war, never served in the military, and used her sex to dodge the draft. Yet she's not hooted down with cries of "chickenhawk!"
Hillary votes to keep funding for women-specific federal health programs and research at levels ten to 100 times higher than the meagre funds for men-specific health. Yet a man's life expectancy is shorter than a woman's. (Yeah I know, feminists call that "equality".)
Inequalities of all sorts continue to keep men down. Yet Hillary and others drunk on feminacentrism keep calling for more rights (read: privileges) for women and their chattels, children, and demand that taxes (mostly taken from men's earnings) pay for it all.
Masculism is simply the idea that men are people too. ;-)
it isn't often i agree with the professor but her summations seem pretty spot on.
after an election cycle that saw a president of the united states simply exclude half the country when he or mr. cheney deemed it necessary to appear in public (remember the IDs and the oaths necessary to see our president) this is refreshing
The reason for Hillary Clinton's conversational "listening tour" rhetoric is because we're too distant from the Democratic primary season. If Hillary Clinton takes too concrete a position on the issues now, the other Democratic presidential candidates will have enough time to "triangulate" the issues between now and the primaries.
I was in New York when Hillary first ran for the Senate. I thought she would NEVER make it, but she was voted in by a landslide. She's smart, competent, determined, tough as nails and works her ass off. I can't stand her political record, but I'm willing to admire a politician who can actually play the game well. She has the Clinton political machine behind her, as well as a rather long list of IOU's to call in on her husband (he'll be well leashed). I suspect, if she can get the nomination, she'll do very, very well in a national election.
What I find curious is that people who lean right (like myself) think she could win the general election, whereas people who lean left thing she doesn't stand a chance. To any leftish poster: do you feel that way, and why?
One problem with her "Bargain" is that we really don't need a new one. If you play by the rules, you will get ahead here, more so than any time in our history, and more so than in almost any other country in the world or through history.
The problem is that the rules have changed, and this country has become ever more an intellectual meritocracy. So, hard physical labor is no longer the ticket to the best future. Rather, that is acquired through education, the more the better.
So, to be more honest, she should be saying, do like she and her husband did: work hard, get advanced degrees, and you too can live in multi-million dollar houses.
But of course she won't, because she is trying to attract the lower middle class, the traditional bulwark of the Democratic Party, through pandering to their conceits.
The problem is that the most realistic way to implement the new bargain is to redistribute wealth from those who did get those graduate degrees to those who didn't finish college. The adverse economic ramifications of that should be obvious. But, then again, the New Deal gave us another six or eight years of Depression, and the Great Society gave us Carter's Malaise and stagflation. So, what is new?
Messrs. Peschel and Brezny have it right - Basic Bargain = New Deal. Translation: "I don't have anything worthwhile to offer, but I'll rip off the past for 'new' ideas."
And jeannebab covers the other point quite well. Leaders are not primarily listeners, they are primarily doers. Why would someone who has been in public life for her entire adult life and a member of the most exclusive debating society in the world for the last six years need to now embark on a listening exercise if she had been doing her job? The answer is, she has nothing to say, no agenda to offer.
This seems to be the political season for female socialist candidates to go on listening tours. First French candidate Royal avoids offering specifics, now it's Hillary's turn.
I'm still bemused that Obama and Clinton can talk and talk and talk and say absolutely nothing.
As far as I can tell, Senators Clinton and Obama both like rainbows and kittens and warm woollen mittens. Which is all perfectly nice, but when are they going to be told to get their spines out of hock and stop dishing out fudge and candy floss like Willy Wonka on crack?
Remember her "listening tour" thru NY before winning in '00?
It's all crapola, but she's a politician and we should expect as much.
What was the line from "The Hunt for Red October"? "I'm a politician, which means when I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops."
She'll be interesting to watch, however. There's a formidable machine behind her, yet the candidate has all the light touch of a Samsonite gorilla. And when Bill appears on the scene, it will be like a ballerina skipping thru a B-52 strike.
Gonna be big fun.
"ripping out the human mask and revealing the lizardess underneath is going to take a lot more coaxing."
Love the image, Victoria. But what if beneath the human mask there is nothing at all?
Mortimer Brezny said; "LOL. They're positioning Hillary as the new Margaret Thatcher!"
What's so funny about that? No one is going to think Hillary is sweet and gushy, so you may as well play to her strengths, and the first female President (and I suspect, any female President, Americans don't vote for doves, generally) is going to have to come off as a tough character, more Golda Meir than Suzy Homemaker. Here's a nice quote from politicalinsider.com: "Hillary's chief competitors (Obama and Edwards) are touchy feely. They're women's men, and they sound all pandery most of the time. Hillary's best opening is to be a man's woman, running as a responsible, hard-as-nails executive."
Mark my words, she will win the Democratic nomination, and unless Rudy Giuliani wins the GOP nomination, she will win the White House. The GOP needs someone with blue-state cultural appeal who isn't very old and overly linked to the debacle in Iraq (i.e.: John McCain), and unless they come up with such a person, the natural tendency to change parties after 8 years coupled with Hillary's own talents (and that of her team) will lead to her victory.
Also (and here's one for Ann to comment on), I suspect there will be a lot of sub rosa Hillary support amon white females in culturally red areas of the country. They won't tell their husbands, pollsters or people in church that they'll vote for Hillary, but they will, and that'll make a difference in places like Ohio and Iowa.
Bill Richardson's just thrown his hat into the ring.
To me, the personable, well-spoken Richardson has always been one to watch.
He's the obvious VP to Hillary's P. Hispanic, with a long, healthy resumé in office, ex-Governor, sued the gov't on illegals in NM, etc.
Heck, he might even be a good P to Hillary's VP.
Obama is the dream, but if I were you Democrats, I'd open my eyes and look at reality. That's Richardson.
Cheers,
Victoria
As First Gentleman will Bill take the opportunity to say:
"I'm not going to have *some reporters pawing through our papers (insert the scandal de jour)*. We are the president"
'Basic bargain.' 'Contract with America.' Same spinning bs
To me, it'll be about integrity, and four words will kill her:
Rose Law Firm Records .
Questionable ethics is her (only?) Achilles heel. Were her cattle futures trading adventures satisfactorily addressed? And this ongoing allegation of campaign finance fraud must be causing anxiety.
Bill Richardson has the right resume, but he can't be anything more than VP. Sorry.
Hillary is not Margaret Thatcher in any sense. She isn't tough as nails and men don't like her. Men, generally, hate her. The first thing men say about her, when polled, is "She's ugly." She will not have an easy time AND SHE KNOWS IT. And she does not even come close to Margaret Thatcher. That is a loud laugh.
Never mind sofa or couch. Call it a "Chesterfield," and people will know you're sumfin' sumfin'.
Well, Sippi, Ann Althouse IS after all the Conservative Divan.
Cheers,
Victoria
Love the image, Victoria. But what if beneath the human mask there is nothing at all?
Close your eyes. Imagine Hillary as a character in the Wizard of Oz.
The White House is Oz, the yellow brick road is the campaign trail, and she's Burt Lahr, looking for a heart.
Not that she needs any more votes from the gay bloc.
Cheers,
Victoria
Golda Meir than Suzy Homemaker
Of course!
There's a reason Angela Merkel is the new Chancillière (as Chirac hilariously emphasised it).
Let me say, though, Somefeller, that Hillary appearing tough is one thing. As hateable as she is to many, she's still electable on a national platform.
But Bella Abzug could bend steel with her tongue alone, and she wouldn't have gotten elected to National Dog-Catcher.
There's tough. And then, there's...well, it ain't pretty.
Cheers,
Victoria
As stated earlier, the Rose Law firm records, which turned up much later in the White House basement, will prove problematic. The sweetheart Whitewater land deal in Arkansas will resurface, and we can talk about the 50 odd people who died under strange cicumstances during those years after entering the Clinton orbit.
Hmmmp. No links. I'm shocked. This is pillow talk? National Enquirer? After hundreds of millions of dollars, thousands of subpoenas, and mountains of documents -- you have nothing. A consensual blowjob. True, Bill likes women, but obviously they like him too. And that's what bothers you, doesn't it? Any of the women could have told him to zip his zipper. But they didn't. What will amaze a simple mind...
"if you work hard and play by the rules," Echoes of Bill Clinton, and that ain't good in my book. It's a introduction to saying that Cradle to Grave welfare is justice, that we've earned it.
We should know by now that these folk care more about spending money than on follow up, fraud protection, efficiency and the morality/wisdom of encouraging people to become dependent on the government.
This has "New, New, New, New Deal" written all over it along with the PC accretions that have encrusted the bureaucracies through the years.
She wants to be another Margaret Thatcher. Yeah, right. Margaret Thatcher helped destroy the Soviet Union. She smacked down the Argentines when they tried to take the Falklands. She denationalized industries and rolled back the welfare state. What does Hillary offer to give us the slightest confidence that she would emulate Mrs. T, other than make steely, tough pronouncements against her political enemies?
"Basic bargain" sounds like something women with fat ankles say to one another in suburban "Thrifty Acres" stores to make themselves sound smart and authoritarian on the issues. Hillary may have the ankles, but the rest of the image is *so* not her!
As for Bill Richardson, bring it on. At last, a Democratic candidate who doesn't seem to be either a lefty shill or prisoner of his own preening self-regard. As Guv of NM, he's been a dealmaker trying to get business to come to his state, and I really doubt he's the kind of person who'd make an issue out of who has "better hair" on the campaign trail. The only problem for him, Edwards and the other rabble-candidates is that Obamania has sucked the air out of the lower atmosphere, leaving the media focussed on him and Hillary alone on the Dem side.
I could see Hillary getting elected in the general. First, all the Republican candidates have pretty exploitable soft-spots -- especially in their personal lives, which is the preferred field of play for the Clinton oppo machine. Also, if the raging anti-immigrant wing of the party splits off and someone like Tancredo pulls a Perot '92, Hillary will win with 40-odd percent, just like Bill did back then. Think it can't happen? I don't.
Finally, she's got a name that resonates (apart from what we know about her, it's the sound of the name); so did George Bush, "William Jefferson Clinton", etc. The names all sound presidential. Barack Obama's name is ethnically different but it resonates strongly in a manner "Michael Dukakis" and "Robert Dole" do not. Which brings me to "Sam Brownback". Locals only for him. And would anyone be surprised if his middle name were "Skidmore" (or was that "Skidmark")?
Why not Richardson? The Dems could do far worse. Pragmatic centrist, Hispanic, great resume, diplomatic experience, well-liked governor of a red/purplish state -- and best of all, the left will hate him, but for PC reasons won't dare say so.
Extra bonus: hot New Mexico green chile wins nationwide popularity.,
After hundreds of millions of dollars, thousands of subpoenas, and mountains of documents -- you have nothing. A consensual blowjob. True, Bill likes women, but obviously they like him too. And that's what bothers you, doesn't it? Any of the women could have told him to zip his zipper.
A perfect summary of the case for electing Hillary president. This is by far her strongest issue. Obama can't touch her on this. As long as she is able to keep shifting the debate back to this issue, she will retain her front-runner status. There is nothing that inspires the Democratic base more than this.
After hundreds of millions of dollars, thousands of subpoenas, and mountains of documents -- you have nothing. A consensual blowjob.
Four points:
First, From a legal perspective, what the investigation came up with was two perjury charges, and obstruction of justice charge, and an abuse of power charge. From a personal perspective, the investigation and the various lawsuits against Clinton uncovered numerous adulterous affairs. In neither case is the statement that the investigation only came up with "a blowjob" either honest or accurate.
Secondly, the above is what the investigation came up with on *Clinton*. The investigation also resulted in the prosecution and conviction of a number of corrupt politicians and businessmen, including the governor of Arkansas.
Thirdly... "hundreds of millions of dollars"? The entire investigation cost $80 million.
Finally, if you think the way Hillary tolerated her husband repeatedly cheating on her is going to impress the electorate, you're crazy -- especially since she repeatedly and publically claimed that he wasn't doing so. This makes her look gullible for falling for his lies and weak for staying with him afterwards. It is not the way a strong, independent woman is supposed to act.
So let’s talk. Let’s chat. Let’s start a dialogue
http://www.rense.com/general13/walmart.htm
Q. Since when is a series of lectures and videos a chat?
A. Since a blowjob was not sex.
God Bless George Orwell.
Trey
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