Race for the White House: 2008 - Part 2

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[Gary Sisco]

Man, you have to listen to this. I got the link from Sullivan's:

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.c...ant_pause.html

Mark Penn is asked directly for examples of foreign policy crises Ms Clinton has had experience handling. *What* a line of bullshit follows. Endless chattering and clearing of throat but never an answer to the question.

Also at Sullivan's today, you can watch the Walter Mondale "red phone" campaign ad that Ms Clinton ripped off. She's absolutely shameless. I missed the Mondale at the time because in Nicaragua.

[Ron Thorne]

Thanks for the link, Gary.

What a load of crap! Man, I'd be more than embarrassed if I was a part of the Clinton team, listening to these non-answers and pregnant pauses.

Here's the simple scenario, one you'd think her advisers would have anticipated:

Slate's John Dickerson:

"What foreign policy moment would you point to in Hillary's career where she's been tested by crisis?" he said.

Silence on the call. You could've knit a sweater in the time it took the usually verbose team of Mark Penn, Howard Wolfson and Lee Feinstein, Clinton's national security director, to find a cogent answer. And what they came up with was weak -- that she's been endorsed by many high ranking members of the uniformed military.

[Gary Sisco]

I expect so little I get surprised when I get surprised, but that one did it. You'd think that with them chanting her experience and so forth all day as if mantra, they'd have answers to a question asking what experience. But no. I guess they think we'll think she has all kind of experience just because she says so. If you're going to have a party line, you have to at least be able to hold it. Duh.

Millions of dollars these guys get paid.

[Gary Sisco]

So, this morning I've read probably six pieces seeking to explain why women as a "bloc" (more than 50% of the population -- that's some "bloc") are fractured in several different ways supporting Obama or Clinton. All kinds of stereotypes about women (as if they are all alike) seeking to explain stereotypes about women.

What they are not looking at, apparently, is their own stereotypes about women. It's almost as if they've forgotten that individual women have brains and the ability to use them to make decisions, hey, just like men! Because there is one explanation for the divide that isn't discussed in these various "analyses": That there are a significant number of women who support Obama because they think he's the better candidate for the presidency, and also the one that could win versus McCain.

Nowhere is that simple notion explored.

In short, the one thing women with ready access to major media haven't attributed to their sistren is the capacity to think with their brains about who among the candidates would make the better candidate and president. In short, to *think* about things other than gender.

Now, that's sexist, so far as I'm concerned.

The other thing that is occasionally mentioned in passing is: Class. Ms Clinton, I'm sorry to say for people who think in terms of gender, simply doesn't represent any kind of oppressed social group in the US. A ruling class, professional political class, wealthy woman with a seat in the US Senate -- 100 of the most powerful people in the world, easily -- simply isn't a member of any oppressed group.

It is also a peculiarly American kind of "analysis." I can't imagine, even, these kinds of analyses of voting practices in the case of, say, Ms Merkel, in Germany. Did she get where she is because she's a woman and women put her there? I doubt this very much and thinking in these strange other ways actually reinforces sexist stereotypes about women.

The way I look at it is that women do actually have the intellectual ability to make choices about politics as *citizens.* And, also, the ability to recognize that other women with other positions than they hold *also* have this ability. They make different choices because they are different people with different views, hey. I know it's a strange idea these days, but there it is, and there isn't anything sexist about recognizing women as citizens with brains who can and do think for themselves.

[Tom Storer]

Argh! If polls are to be believed, Clinton has been reversing her downward trend, viz. www.electoral-vote.com. She's been going up point by point after going down point by point; still a dead heat in Texas, statistically speaking, but the Obama momentum seems to have gotten stuck instead of sweeping all in its path.

BUT, due to the oddities of the Texas system, he could still win more delegates even if she beats him in the statewide popular vote.

In Ohio, on the other hand, polls have her solidifying her lead, from anywhere from 6 to (gulp!) 14 points.

BUT, Obama has been consistently outperforming the polls.

SO WHO KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN??

Meanwhile, Rhode Island is expected to vote for Clinton (32 delegates) and Vermont for Obama (23 delegates).

The suspense is killing me. I won't be able to get to sleep tonight.

[Gary Sisco]

Nothing to do today but count the votes. Bronwyn and I voted this past Saturday with early ballots.

[Gary Sisco]

More shameless shamelessness:

It's true that Obama has convened no meetings of the subcommittee, but his camp counters that he became chair of the subcommittee early last year, just as he was starting his presidential campaign. Clinton is technically correct that Obama could have used the subcommittee to conduct oversight of actions and policies related to Afghanistan. But the full foreign relations committee, under the guidance of Senator Joe Biden, has held several hearings on Afghanistan that covered NATO's role there. It's not as if the foreign relations committee did nothing on Afghanistan because Obama did not take on the mission. Also, as happens with many committees, the chair of the full committee reserves the right to handle the big issues him- or herself, and Afghanistan counts as a big issue.

Clinton ought to be careful about hurling stones in this area.
As she always tells campaign crowds, she is a member of the Senate armed services committee. In February the committee held two hearings on Afghanistan. On February 8, it focused on appropriations for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was a witness. Eight days later, the committee zeroed in on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, holding a two-part hearing examining recent reports on Afghanistan. Key witnesses included senior officials from the State Department and the Pentagon responsible for the administration's Afghanistan policy.

Clinton attended neither of these hearings. She was on the campaign trail.

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She's been absent on many more votes than she's been present. The lying and conniving so far ought to give people pause in itself.

[Gary Sisco]

For what it's worth --23 delegates -- 16 apportioned according to percentage of popular vote -- and seven superdelegates. The Sec of State here sent out 25% more ballots than usual because of the expected very high turnout today. Of the seven delegates, six say they are going with Obama, one says Clinton, one remains undecided.

[Scott Dolan]

Hopefully it's all over after today.

[Gary Sisco]

I hope so, too. I was tired of Clintonia in '92.

I notice some of the press is now saying "they" instead of "she."

[Gary Sisco]

Wash Times online, quoted by Sullivan:

The survey determined that a quarter of self-identified Republicans rated Mr. McCain most likable, but nearly as many — 23 percent — chose Mr. Obama as most likable. And among all adults surveyed, Mr. Obama was rated likable by more people than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mr. McCain combined, underscoring the Illinois senator's appeal to voters across the political spectrum.

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I think likeability does go a long way in elections. It's hard to vote for someone you really don't like, even if you largely agree. At least it has been for me. I never voted for Bernard Sanders, for example, (he really dislikes me and the feeling is mutual) until way later on in his career.

Thinking more about whether happy if it's over today, I won't mind if it goes to convention, actually. It used to be common, and this is the most open contest since 1928.

[Brian Olewnick]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Hopefully it's all over after today.

Don't think it will be.

[Root Doctor]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

Don't think it will be.

Same here. It's going to go on longer than a double live album by Foghat.

[Scott Dolan]

Hahahahahaha.............

[Gary Sisco]

Well, shit. I hope it doesn't go on *that* damn long.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

I think likeability does go a long way in elections. It's hard to vote for someone you really don't like, even if you largely agree.

I agree with this.

It's part of the reason why I choose Obama over Hillary. Their policies are not radically different from each other, with the exception of their healthcare plans (which I'm far more in favor of Obama's), but she just rubs me the wrong way for some reason.

Though I'm sure that has to do with the fact that I hate women.

[Gary Sisco]

I like women in general a great deal more than I like men in general.

But I don't like or trust Clinton.

The trust factor is the more important in this context, for me. I don't require friends for politics, nor politics for friends.

[Scott Dolan]

You're a blatant misogynist! Why try to hide behind lies?

[Gary Sisco]

I forgot.

Doubtless if I were a Clinton supporter, I'd be a racist.

I've been enjoying telling people, when someone tells me they want to vote for a woman, that I voted for one in 1972. What took them so long?

[Scott Dolan]

Geraldine Ferraro was on one of my podcasts last night carrying on about all the sexism that's just running wild through this campaign.

One of the callers on the show clearly illustrated the complete lunacy behind those who cry sexism in this election. I'm paraphrasing of course, but she said that the word "bitch" is commonplace and a perfectly acceptable word that is used on tv and radio and that it had become acceptable to use it when talking about Hillary as well. She then went on to say "can you imagine if people started referring to Obama as 'that nigger' how much outrage it would spawn?"

And no, I'm not kidding. She was playing these two words up as being equally offensive.

[Gary Sisco]

Does she think things would be gentler once elected? Duh?

I think they should all get real jobs for a change. Rich, white, American women with political power are not exactly among the downtrodden, let's face it.

[Jesse]

Me too, my first vote cast for Prez, having turned 18 that year.

[Scott Dolan]

One caller said she worked in heavy equipment and when others started crying and whining about sexism it made things uncomfortable for her at work.

Fair point I suppose, but Ferraro starts carrying on about how she and other women broke down the barriers that allowed this woman to get such a job. Then she essentially berated this broad for caring more about how her coworkers made her feel than the advancement of women in general.

Nuts.

[Gary Sisco]

I'm finding the bit about NAFTA absurd, too. Um, whose watch was that under? Wasn't it the one that granted her her vaunted experience and worldly knowledge? What?

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

I'm finding the bit about NAFTA absurd, too. Um, whose watch was that under? Wasn't it the one that granted her her vaunted experience and worldly knowledge? What?

Sure it did. Until she ran for Senator and suddenly saw the light.

[Gary Sisco]

I forgot. Again.

Jesse -- Do you still have that button or is it something you found on the web? I was in Albuquerque in '72 so voted there, in the primary. I didn't vote in the general.

[Scott Dolan]

Well then, how can you possibly have any credibility when it comes to political opinion?

[Gary Sisco]

I can't remember.

[Jesse]

Hey, Gary, the button is an internet capture.
While we're indulging in a bit of '72 nostalgia, I recall a button that appeared from McGovern's many detractors in Iowa (that's where my first vote was cast, I attended a small undergrad school there).
The button said, "McGovern, the triple AAA candidate-acid, abortion and amnesty!", hilarious.