Democrats are turning on the Clintons

[JaJae]

Los Angeles Times: Is the right right on the Clintons?
Is the right right on the Clintons?
Hillary's campaign tactics are causing some liberals to turn against the couple.
Jonathan Chait

January 26, 2008

Something strange happened the other day. All these different people -- friends, co-workers, relatives, people on a liberal e-mail list I read -- kept saying the same thing: They've suddenly developed a disdain for Bill and Hillary Clinton. Maybe this is just a coincidence, but I think we've reached an irrevocable turning point in liberal opinion of the Clintons.

The sentiment seems to be concentrated among Barack Obama supporters. Going into the campaign, most of us liked Hillary Clinton just fine, but the fact that tens of millions of Americans are seized with irrational loathing for her suggested that she might not be a good Democratic nominee. But now that loathing seems a lot less irrational. We're not frothing Clinton haters like ... well, name pretty much any conservative. We just really wish they'd go away.

The big turning point seems to be this week, when the Clintons slammed Obama for acknowledging that Ronald Reagan changed the country. Everyone knows Reagan changed the country. Bill and Hillary have said he changed the country. But they falsely claimed that Obama praised Reagan's ideas, saying he was a better president than Clinton -- something he didn't say and surely does not believe.

This might have been the most egregious case, but it wasn't the first. Before the New Hampshire primaries, Clinton supporters e-mailed pro-choice voters claiming that Obama was suspect on abortion rights because he had voted "present" instead of "no" on some votes. (In fact, the president of the Illinois chapter of Planned Parenthood said she had coordinated strategy with Obama and wanted him to vote "present.") Recently, there have been waves of robocalls in South Carolina repeatedly attacking "Barack Hussein Obama."

I crossed the Clinton Rubicon a couple of weeks ago when, in the course of introducing Hillary, Clinton supporter and Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson invoked Obama's youthful drug use. This was disgusting on its own terms, but worse still if you know anything about Johnson. I do -- I once wrote a long profile of him. He has a sleazy habit of appropriating the logic of civil rights for his own financial gain. He also has a habit of aiding conservative crusades to eliminate the estate tax and privatize Social Security by falsely claiming they redistribute wealth from African Americans to whites. The episode reminded me of the Clintons' habit of surrounding themselves with the most egregious characters: Dick Morris, Marc Rich and so on.

The Clinton campaign is trying to make it seem as if the complaint is about negativity, and it is pointing out that Obama has criticized Hillary as well. That's what politicians are supposed to do when they compete for votes. But criticism isn't the same thing as lying and sleaze-mongering.

Am I starting to sound like a Clinton hater? It's a scary thought. Of course, to conservatives, it's a delicious thought. The Wall Street Journal published a gloating editorial noting that liberals had suddenly learned "what everyone else already knows about the Clintons." (By "everyone," it means Republicans.)

It made me wonder: Were the conservatives right about Bill Clinton all along? Maybe not right to set up a perjury trap so they could impeach him, but right about the Clintons' essential nature? Fortunately, the Journal's attempt to convince us that the Clintons have always been unscrupulous liars seemed to prove the opposite. Its examples of Clintonian lies were their claims that Bob Dole wanted to cut Medicare, that there was a vast right-wing conspiracy, that Paula Jones was "trailer trash" and that Kenneth Starr was a partisan.

Except Dole did vote to cut Medicare, there was a vast right-wing conspiracy and Starr was and is a rabid partisan. ("Trailer trash" is, of course, a matter of opinion, and it's a cruel thing to say, but as far as whether it's a lie -- well, it's not like they called William F. Buckley "trailer trash.")

So maybe the answer is that the Clintons would have smeared their opponents in the 1990s, but lying is unnecessary when the other party is doing things such as voting to slash Medicare to pay for a big tax cut for the rich.

But the conservatives might have had a point about the Clintons' character. Bill's affair with Monica Lewinsky jeopardized the whole progressive project for momentary pleasure. The Clintons gleefully triangulated the Democrats in Congress to boost his approval rating. They do seem to have a feeling of entitlement to power.

If Hillary wins the nomination, most of us will probably vote for her because the alternative is likely to be worse. But what happens if she's embroiled in another scandal? Will liberals rally behind her, or will they remember the Democratic primary?

Jonathan Chait, a contributing editor to Opinion and a senior editor at the New Republic, is the author of "The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics."

and

Op-Ed Columnist
Questions for the Clintons
By BOB HERBERT

Charleston, S.C.

Joseph P. Riley Jr. has been mayor of this historic and often tense city since the mid-1970s. He’s a Democrat, highly respected and has worked diligently to heal racial wounds that have festered in some cases for hundreds of years.

He has endorsed Barack Obama in today’s Democratic primary. But what struck me during an interview in his quiet office in an exquisitely restored City Hall was not the fact of the endorsement, but the manner in which the mayor expressed it.

He went out of his way to praise the Democratic field, including some of the candidates who have dropped out, like Senators Joseph Biden and Chris Dodd. He talked about his fondness for Bill and Hillary Clinton and said: “It’s tough when you have to choose between friends.”

The mayor’s thoughtful, respectful, generous assessment of the field echoed the tone that had prevailed until recently in the Democratic primary campaign. That welcome tone has been lost, undermined by a deliberate injection of ugliness, and it would be very difficult to make the case that the Clintons have not been primarily to blame.

Bill Clinton, in his over-the-top advocacy of his wife’s candidacy, has at times sounded like a man who’s gone off his medication. And some of the Clinton surrogates have been flat-out reprehensible.

Andrew Young, for instance.

This week, while making the remarkable accusation that the Obama camp was responsible for raising the race issue, Mr. Clinton mentioned Andrew Young as someone who would bear that out. It was an extremely unfortunate reference.

Here’s what Mr. Young, who is black and a former ambassador to the United Nations, had to say last month in an interview posted online: “Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack.”

He then went on to make disgusting comments about the way that Bill and Hillary Clinton defended themselves years ago against the fallout from the former president’s womanizing. That’s coming from the Clinton camp!

And then there was Bob Kerrey, the former senator and another Clinton supporter, who slimed up the campaign with the following comments:

“It’s probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There’s a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal.”

Pressing the point, Mr. Kerrey told CNN’s John King: “I’ve watched the blogs try to say that you can’t trust him because he spent a little bit of time in a secular madrassa. I feel quite the opposite.”

Get it?

Let’s start with the fact that Mr. Obama never attended a madrassa, and that there is no such thing as a secular madrassa. A madrassa is a religious school. Beyond that, the idea is to not-so-slyly feed the current frenzy, on the Internet and elsewhere, that Senator Obama is a Muslim, and thus potentially (in the eyes of many voters) an enemy of the United States.

Mr. Obama is not a Muslim. He’s a Christian. And if he were a Muslim, it would not be a legitimate reason for attacking his candidacy.

The Clinton camp knows what it’s doing, and its slimy maneuvers have been working. Bob Kerrey apologized and Andrew Young said at the time of his comment that he was just fooling around. But the damage to Senator Obama has been real, and so have the benefits to Senator Clinton of these and other lowlife tactics.

Consider, for example, the following Web posting (misspellings and all) from a mainstream news blog on Jan. 13:

“omg people get a grip. Can you imagine calling our president barak hussien obama ... I cant, I pray no one would be disrespectful enough to put this man in our whitehouse.”

Mr. Obama’s campaign was always going to be difficult, and the climb is even steeper now. There is no reason to feel sorry for him. He’s a politician out of Chicago who must have known that campaigns often degenerate into demolition derbies.

Still, it’s legitimate to ask, given the destructive developments of the last few weeks, whether the Clintons are capable of being anything but divisive. The electorate seems more polarized now than it was just a few weeks ago, and the Clintons have seemed positively gleeful in that atmosphere.

It makes one wonder whether they have any understanding or regard for the corrosive long-term effects — on their party and the nation — of pitting people bitterly and unnecessarily against one another.

What kind of people are the Clintons? What role will Bill Clinton play in a new Clinton White House? Can they look beyond winning to a wounded nation’s need for healing and unifying?

These are questions that need to be answered. Stay tuned.

More and more I'm reading from liberals that they're getting fed up with the Clintons. I think Bill was helping Hillary for a while, but it's finally crossed the line and is now hurting her. She needs to clean up her campaign and put her husband on a leash before she does any more damage.

[Thorgrim]

You weren't around in 2004 when liberals were absolutely disgusted with Kerry, it was even more vicious

And it ran all the way from the Fall of 2003 until February 2004

January was a really ugly, and I never heard so many people say they would not vote for a candidate than February of 2004...it was all liberals, and it was all saying "I just won't vote for Kerry"

The whole Ron Paul episode should teach you something: internet momentum means little to nothing

And since when do average voters value op-eds?

This all sounds very much like the night after Iowa...Hillary had been defeated, Obama was surging in NH...the rest of the states would follow...he was on the path to victory and only a seriousl self-inflicted wound could stop him

Well he never did such a thing, Hillary simply picked herself up and went back at it again and won NH

I'd imagine the same thing will happen in FL, she'll win a huge state and then up until super tuesday the arugment will be "Shouldn't FLs votes count?"

Now, Obama could still win, but it won't be for any of the reasons you outlined

[motivez]

The liberal wing of the Democratic party has NEVER liked Hillary, she's too calculating and centrist and hawkish on security issues, and they see her as someone who'll (aside from health care), avoid going after the core issues that true liberals (and not centrists) really care about and want to see taken on

If you've followed any of the progressive blogs out there (kos and others), she's pretty much always dead last in various polls they had.. they favor Edwards and Obama by far, so I'm not sure it's really anything new other than the fact that it's getting coverage

[motivez]

I think they'll vote for her come the general, for all her faults she's better than the Republican candidates on the issues they care about.. so while they may dislike her now and we'll see a repeat of statements about Kerry and whatnot.. if push comes to shove, they'll get behind her to see her elected IMO

We're still in primary category though and the partisans are going to be passionate about their candidate and passionate about dissing the ones they don't like

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by motivez

I think they'll vote for her come the general, for all her faults she's better than the Republican candidates on the issues they care about.. so while they may dislike her now and we'll see a repeat of statements about Kerry and whatnot.. if push comes to shove, they'll get behind her to see her elected IMO

We're still in primary category though and the partisans are going to be passionate about their candidate and passionate about dissing the ones they don't like

Kos and other blogs have been incredibly anti-hillary for the better part of a year, if she's nominated they'll change their tune very quickly...yes out of some 150,000 registered kossacks, you have a handful that "say" they won't vote for Clinton, maybe a few of them even mean it, but the vast majority know the Supreme Court hangs in the balance, and the most liberal victory in 2012 wouldn't make up for it if the Supreme Court has 6 young ultra-conservative justices on it

The New Deal was hit many times by a conservative supreme court, and they were trying not to be partisan, if this foreseen partisan supreme court comes to power, every liberal idea would never see the light of day, and we'd take 10 steps back to life in the 1910s

[Ironduke]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

You weren't around in 2004 when liberals were absolutely disgusted with Kerry, it was even more vicious

And it ran all the way from the Fall of 2003 until February 2004

January was a really ugly, and I never heard so many people say they would not vote for a candidate than February of 2004...it was all liberals, and it was all saying "I just won't vote for Kerry"

The whole Ron Paul episode should teach you something: internet momentum means little to nothing

And since when do average voters value op-eds?

This all sounds very much like the night after Iowa...Hillary had been defeated, Obama was surging in NH...the rest of the states would follow...he was on the path to victory and only a seriousl self-inflicted wound could stop him

Well he never did such a thing, Hillary simply picked herself up and went back at it again and won NH

I'd imagine the same thing will happen in FL, she'll win a huge state and then up until super tuesday the arugment will be "Shouldn't FLs votes count?"

Now, Obama could still win, but it won't be for any of the reasons you outlined

I think there's a few key differences between 2004 and 2008... the Democrats hosted a field of mediocre candidates (except perhaps pre-scream Dean), and in light of the strong anti-Bush sentiment among Democrats, memories were short and everybody made up.

This time, the Democrats have an inspirational candidate with starpower, Barack Obama. Lacking the anti-Bush sentiment to bring them together after all the vitriol and acrimony I don't thing the Democrats' memories in 2008 are going to be as short as they were in 2004. If McCain wins the nomination I see a significant portion of independents who support Obama and even a percentage of Democrats lining up behind him.

[kinggovernor]

From yesterday's Post:

Billary's Adventures in Primaryland

By Colbert I. King
Saturday, January 26, 2008; A17



"Be what you would seem to be -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."

-- The Duchess in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"



Which gets me to that superficially charming, self-absorbed couple Billary, ever so possessed with an outsize sense of entitlement. What else to call Bill and Hillary Clinton as they partner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, tag-teaming Barack Obama with alternating blows both above and below the belt? It's an act the twosome plans to take all the way to the White House.

If they make it there -- a big if -- the only unanswered question is where Bill will choose to hang his hat. Will it be in her old space in the East Wing, or will he set up shop in the West Wing?

Smart money is on Billary settling in the Oval Office with "his" and "hers" desks.

Who would have thought, eight years ago, that the country might get back Billary, two people reeking of self-pity and spoiling for fights with anyone who has the temerity to stand in their way?

As with the Queen in "Alice," it's all about them. Witness their attempts to devalue Obama.

But don't point that out to the Clintons. They are always right and see no reason to apologize or take back anything they have said or done. And, as we have seen, Billary will say and do anything to come out ahead.

Item: Hillary's claim to "35 years of experience." Subtract her years spent as first lady of Arkansas and in the White House, and her time working as a lawyer in the Rose Law Firm and in other jobs. As Reason Magazine's Steve Chapman reported in November, Hillary Clinton has "just under eight years of experience in elective office -- one more than John Edwards and four fewer than Obama." And, to boot, Hillary the Feminist has her man to fight her battles.

Item: Bill Clinton's jab at Obama's lack of experience. To elect Obama would be to "roll the dice," sniffed the former president. When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, he was governor of a small state, had no foreign policy experience and didn't know how to salute. He got his on-the-job experience in the White House.

Item: Hillary's complaint that it's hard to pin down Obama. Look who's talking. For a refresher, read Stuart Taylor's Dec. 11 column in the National Journal, " Honesty: Hillary's Glass House." Taylor carefully lays out Hillary's estranged relationship with the truth and her tendency to resort to lies and deceptions when caught in a tight spot. He takes us down memory lane, citing examples of her dishonesty in episodes such as Travelgate, cattle futures, the removal of the Vince Foster documents, Castle Grande, billing records and her husband's philandering.

Item: Her putdown of Obama's oratory and her suggestion that he's only interested in talking, while she's a "doer." "Dr. King's dream began to be realized," she said, "when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act. . . . It took a president to get it done."

Hillary grabbed the wrong talking points. It took more than a president to get it done. Without leaders of the civil rights movement working with Northern Democrats and their Republican allies in Congress, there would not have been civil rights or voting rights bills in the '60s.

Her remarks betray an ignorance of what happened back then. For a better understanding, pick up a copy of Nick Kotz's "Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America." Chapters 10 and 11 and the section "The President Under Fire" help shed light on all the people who actually did the heavy lifting.

Item: Billary loves to whine about the "politics of personal destruction." But Billary's campaign has taken to the low road, running ads falsely accusing Obama of supporting federal deficits and private Social Security accounts, and distorting his position on hot-button issues such as abortion. Newark Mayor Corey Booker, who branded the attacks "outrageous" and "dishonest," told Newsweek's Jonathan Alter: "We're trying to offer an alternative to the Republicans' fear and smear campaigns, and now we're being dragged down to their level by the Clintons."

One thing's for sure: A Clinton administration will be a four-year co-presidency with all of the drama that Billary has managed to bring to every undertaking.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves and start worrying about tomorrow. Billary gives us enough to worry about today. kingc@washpost.com

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

And since when do average voters value op-eds?

any data to back that up?

[JaJae]

The Billary Road to Republican Victory
By FRANK RICH

IN the wake of George W. Bush, even a miracle might not be enough for the Republicans to hold on to the White House in 2008. But what about two miracles? The new year’s twin resurrections of Bill Clinton and John McCain, should they not evaporate, at last give the G.O.P. a highly plausible route to victory.

Amazingly, neither party seems to fully recognize the contours of the road map. In the Democrats’ case, the full-throttle emergence of Billary, the joint Clinton candidacy, is measured mainly within the narrow confines of the short-term horse race: Do Bill Clinton’s red-faced eruptions and fact-challenged rants enhance or diminish his wife as a woman and a candidate?

Absent from this debate is any sober recognition that a Hillary Clinton nomination, if it happens, will send the Democrats into the general election with a new and huge peril that may well dwarf the current wars over race, gender and who said what about Ronald Reagan.

What has gone unspoken is this: Up until this moment, Hillary has successfully deflected rough questions about Bill by saying, “I’m running on my own” or, as she snapped at Barack Obama in the last debate, “Well, I’m here; he’s not.” This sleight of hand became officially inoperative once her husband became a co-candidate, even to the point of taking over entirely when she vacated South Carolina last week. With “two for the price of one” back as the unabashed modus operandi, both Clintons are in play.

For the Republicans, that means not just a double dose of the one steroid, Clinton hatred, that might yet restore their party’s unity but also two fat targets. Mrs. Clinton repeatedly talks of how she’s been “vetted” and that “there are no surprises” left to be mined by her opponents. On the “Today” show Friday, she joked that the Republican attacks “are just so old.” So far. Now that Mr. Clinton is ubiquitous, not only is his past back on the table but his post-presidency must be vetted as well. To get a taste of what surprises may be in store, you need merely revisit the Bill Clinton questions that Hillary Clinton has avoided to date.

Asked by Tim Russert at a September debate whether the Clinton presidential library and foundation would disclose the identities of its donors during the campaign, Mrs. Clinton said it wasn’t up to her. “What’s your recommendation?” Mr. Russert countered. Mrs. Clinton replied: “Well, I don’t talk about my private conversations with my husband, but I’m sure he’d be happy to consider that.”

Not so happy, as it turns out. The names still have not been made public.

Just before the holidays, investigative reporters at both The Washington Post and The New York Times tried to find out why, with no help from the Clintons. The Post uncovered a plethora of foreign contributors, led by Saudi Arabia. The Times found an overlap between library benefactors and Hillary Clinton campaign donors, some of whom might have an agenda with a new Clinton administration. (Much as one early library supporter, Marc Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, had an agenda with the last one.) “The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,” said Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat whose legislation to force disclosure passed overwhelmingly in the House but remains stalled in the Senate.

The Post and Times reporters couldn’t unlock all the secrets. The unanswered questions could keep them and their competitors busy until Nov. 4. Mr. Clinton’s increased centrality to the campaign will also give The Wall Street Journal a greater news peg to continue its reportorial forays into the unraveling financial partnership between Mr. Clinton and the swashbuckling billionaire Ron Burkle.

At “Little Rock’s Fort Knox,” as the Clinton library has been nicknamed by frustrated researchers, it’s not merely the heavy-hitting contributors who are under wraps. Even by the glacial processing standards of the National Archives, the Clintons’ White House papers have emerged slowly, in part because Bill Clinton exercised his right to insist that all communications between him and his wife be “considered for withholding” until 2012.

When Mrs. Clinton was asked by Mr. Russert at an October debate if she would lift that restriction, she again escaped by passing the buck to her husband: “Well, that’s not my decision to make.” Well, if her candidacy is to be as completely vetted as she guarantees, the time for the other half of Billary to make that decision is here.

The credibility of a major Clinton campaign plank, health care, depends on it. In that same debate, Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Russert that “all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care” are “already available.” As Michael Isikoff of Newsweek reported weeks later, this is a bit off; he found that 3,022,030 health care documents were still held hostage. Whatever the pace of the processing, the gatekeeper charged with approving each document’s release is the longtime Clinton loyalist Bruce Lindsey.

People don’t change. Bill Clinton, having always lived on the edge, is back on the precipice. When he repeatedly complains that the press has given Mr. Obama a free ride and over-investigated the Clintons, he seems to be tempting the fates, given all the reporting still to be done on his post-presidential business. When he says, as he did on Monday, that “whatever I do should be totally transparent,” it’s almost as if he’s setting himself up for a fall. There’s little more transparency at “Little Rock’s Fort Knox” than there is at Giuliani Partners.

“The Republicans are not going to have any compunctions about asking anybody anything,” Mrs. Clinton lectured Mr. Obama. Maybe so, but Republicans are smart enough not to start asking until after she has secured the nomination.

Not all Republicans are smart enough, however, to recognize the value of John McCain should Mrs. Clinton emerge as the nominee. He’s a bazooka aimed at most every rationale she’s offered for her candidacy.

In a McCain vs. Billary race, the Democrats will sacrifice the most highly desired commodity by the entire electorate, change; the party will be mired in déjà 1990s all over again. Mrs. Clinton’s spiel about being “tested” by her “35 years of experience” won’t fly either. The moment she attempts it, Mr. McCain will run an ad about how he was being tested when those 35 years began, in 1973. It was that spring when he emerged from five-plus years of incarceration at the Hanoi Hilton while Billary was still bivouacked at Yale Law School. And can Mrs. Clinton presume to sell herself as best equipped to be commander in chief “on Day One” when opposing an actual commander and war hero? I don’t think so.

Foreign policy issue No. 1, withdrawal from Iraq, should be a slam-dunk for any Democrat. Even the audience at Thursday’s G.O.P. debate in Boca Raton cheered Ron Paul’s antiwar sentiments. But Mrs. Clinton’s case is undermined by her record. She voted for the war, just as Mr. McCain did, in 2002 and was still defending it in February 2005, when she announced from the Green Zone that much of Iraq was “functioning quite well. ” Only in November 2005 did she express the serious misgivings long pervasive in her own party. When Mr. McCain accuses her of now advocating “surrender” out of political expediency, her flip-flopping will back him up.

Billary can’t even run against the vast right-wing conspiracy if Mr. McCain is the opponent. Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay hate Mr. McCain as much as they hate the Clintons. And they hate him for the same reasons Mr. McCain wins over independents and occasional Democrats: his sporadic (and often mild) departures from conservative orthodoxy on immigration and campaign finance reform, torture, tax cuts, climate change and the godliness of Pat Robertson. Since Mr. McCain doesn’t kick reporters like dogs, as the Clintons do, he will no doubt continue to enjoy an advantage, however unfair, with the press pack on the Straight Talk Express.

Even so, Mr. McCain hasn’t yet won a clear majority of Republican voters in any G.O.P. contest. He’s depended on the kindness of independent voters. Tuesday’s Florida primary, which is open exclusively to Republicans, is his crucial test. If he fails, his party remains in chaos and Mitt Romney could still inherit the earth.

That would be a miracle for the Democrats, but they can hardly count on it. If Mr. Obama has not met an unexpected Waterloo in South Carolina — this column went to press before Saturday’s vote — the party needs him to stop whining about the Clintons’ attacks, regain his wit and return to playing offense. Unlike Mrs. Clinton, he would unambiguously represent change in a race with any Republican. If he vanquishes Billary, he’ll have an even stronger argument to take into battle against a warrior like Mr. McCain.

If Mr. Obama doesn’t fight, no one else will. Few national Democratic leaders have the courage to stand up to the Clintons. Even in defeat, Mr. Obama may at least help wake up a party slipping into denial. Any Democrat who seriously thinks that Bill will fade away if Hillary wins the nomination — let alone that the Clintons will escape being fully vetted — is a Democrat who, as the man said, believes in fairy tales.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinio...inline=nyt-per

From the NY Times today...

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by motivez

The liberal wing of the Democratic party has NEVER liked Hillary, she's too calculating and centrist and hawkish on security issues, and they see her as someone who'll (aside from health care), avoid going after the core issues that true liberals (and not centrists) really care about and want to see taken on

If you've followed any of the progressive blogs out there (kos and others), she's pretty much always dead last in various polls they had.. they favor Edwards and Obama by far, so I'm not sure it's really anything new other than the fact that it's getting coverage

I think it fair to say she is to the right of Obama/Edwards on National Security. Hawkish is not a word I would use but I guess it is a matter of perspective. To the Daily Kos/DU/Nutroots bunch she may well be considered and out of control Neocon for all I know? And I agree she will be far less a progressive lefty that some want. Bill Clinton tried that on poor advice and we all know what happened in 1994!

[RMNIXON]

Also from the LA Times:

Joel Stein:
A black president? Seen a few

Hollywood has warmed us up already, namely with Morgan Freeman in 'Deep Impact' and Dennis Haysbert in '24.'
January 11, 2008


Alot of liberals say they're not supporting Barack Obama in the primaries because an African American can't carry the South in the general election -- which is a liberal's clever way of saying that he won't vote for a black person. But, it seems, they're wrong. Because while Iowa and New Hampshire aren't technically in the South, they are full of hicks, which is what rich liberals actually mean when they refer to "the South." You have to live among rich liberals to understand what they're saying. You'll never believe what they mean by "middle class." They mean themselves.




A black president? Seen a few - Los Angeles Times

[JaJae]

There's a lot of racial politics. If Obama were Republican there'd be a lot of "Uncle Tom" rhetoric spewed around, even among our own forum. He gets a bit of a pass for being a Democrat, but they're definitely working the race angle against him. You would think the Democrats would be more willing to support a minority president. But instead, they're resorting to a race campaign.

[motivez]

I don't think they are at all really, I think much of what has been said has been taken interpreted in extreme ways simply because Obama is black

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

I don't think they are at all really, I think much of what has been said has been taken interpreted in extreme ways simply because Obama is black

If SC is such a black primary state how come we aren't talking about how well or how bad white politicians do in SC? Because Obama isn't making this about race.

[JaJae]

Former Clinton adviser says it is calculated.

THERE'S A METHOD TO CRAFTY BILL'S MADNESS

By challenging Obama for the black vote - by promising to go door to door in South Carolina in minority neighborhoods, for example - Bill is highlighting the question: Will Obama carry the black vote? Of course, he will. He leads, 4 to 1, among African-Americans now.

But by making that the central question, Obama's South Carolina victory will be hailed as proof that he won the African-American vote. Such block voting will trigger the white backlash Sen. Clinton needs to win.

Once whites see blacks voting en masse for a black man, they will figure that it is a racial game and line up for Hillary. Already, she carries white voters by 2 to 1.

The Clintons can well afford to lose South Carolina as long as the election is not seen as a bellwether of how the South will vote but as an indication of how African-Americans will go. It's a small price to pay for the racial polarization they need to win.

This is why the Democratic party is so annoyed with the Clintons and why Obama is saying they'll say and do anything to win at all costs. They're quietly making this an election based on race, polarizing America and the party all for their own interests. Even a guy who drives women off bridges and lets them drown for his political career is saying enough is enough.