Ok, you know what political shibboleths are, right? And that "not giving a shit" doesn't mean that people won't think you have XYZ opinions if you say "school choice" when you mean "vouchers?" Using Democrat as an adjective instead of a noun (not "as a singular," Democrats use Democrat(s) as both a singular and plural noun) is a political shibboleth. You don't get to not care about basic issues of clarity vs. confusion if you want to be a politics nerd. Sorry.
Sorry, I should clarify because y'all are ball busters. I don't give a shit that Republicans have tried to turn the word "Democrat" into some sort of insult, especially as it was a typo on my part. I also call myself a "liberal" and don't care what connotation that brings up with your average FOX viewer. But Rock On Rockers, I'm sure this debate will aid you immeasurably in your future endeavors.
Ownership of liberal has little or nothing to do with the fact that Democrats, outside of a few regional enclaves, never used the form "Democrat" in place of the adjective "Democratic." Democratic is also used a bit less than Republican as an adjective, if you care about anything other than the argument at this point.
OH GOD NOBODY CARES. IF YOU DON"T LIKE THE WORD DON"T USE IT As that may have been mistaken for aggression with my beloved fellow travelers - let's look a the context in which I used this deadly word - God, what an obvious slap in the face. I also typed "IMOlf" what could that meeean? Further up I said Christie (who I also identified as "Christy" god I just cant help myself) was trying to establish his "bone fides" I'm ShameLESS. This is clearly worth taking up half the thread with.
Being familiar with your politics I didn't think or suggest that you were a secret Republican busting out Republican lingo. I'd have done the same thing if you'd said foilage instead of foliage, although in this case it's something that'd (ideally) save you from getting side-eye in some future political conversation with people who didn't know you. Thereafter I got gradually blunter because I had a ferocious splitting headache. In all honesty no offence man, but like I say, chance of misunderstandings/sideeye is there in future should you be speaking with people who don't know your politics.
Watching that first video when Johnson keeps asking about if a simple phone call would have cleared it up, I really wanted Hilary to say, "You know, if I had called them then we'd still be here but with charges of me interfering with the investigation. You can't win against people on a witch hunt looking for press and grasping at straws."
Less known than her, sure, but I would hardly call Obama little known. I don't think of myself as being particularly politically aware, but I was under the impression that there was a lot of excitement for Obama after his incredible performance at the 2004 DNC. The rerelease of his book after his huge victory in the Illinois senate primaries became a national best seller after his keynote address.
Hillary Clinton vs. mansplainers, GIF edition! http://feministing.com/2013/01/24/how-to-deal-with-a-mansplainer-starring-hillary-clinton-in-gifs/
Obama's personal popularity aside, Hillary lost the nomination because of strategic errors. Her position was so strong that nobody other than the very popular and strategically savvy Obama could have taken advantage of Clinton's lapses. My pointing towards her failed presidential run is shorthand for why I think she has bad political instincts. From voting for the Iraq war and never successfully distancing herself from that vote, to elevating Mark Penn and Lanny Davis, to holding on to her exaggeration about a hot landing in Bosnia. Her biggest lapse however was the failure to plan ahead.
Re: 2008, the belief in big state primaries as a strategy was baffling to me even before it failed. It really seemed like someone had built that strategy under the misapprehension that those big primaries were winner-takes-all - in which case it'd have made sense the way they were selling it. But with the actual proportional division of delegates there was never any prospect of a big-state blowout/firewall like the Clinton camp kept predicting. To some extent the image of blithe and increasingly unrealistic confidence may have been less about bubble-think than a need to keep superdelegates from bolting. Or at least, both.
If I recall correctly, key Clinton staffers literally did not know those big states were in fact not winner take all. It was just total staffing incompetence, from Penn down.
Is there a remake of "Tell me more" meme with that image yet? That's the first thing it made me think of, and it's awesome.
Her chief Strategist for some reason thought the Dems used the same primary system the GOP did, and phoned it in. This also caused the clusterfuck at the end of the primary process where they started making the argument that they should change how they tally votes in order to begin using the other method. Clinton bugged me a lot with her primary campaign style, and it was being run by some absolute dumb shits. I have a feeling most of my ill will towards her in the primary was due to her absolutely horrible campaign advisers.
The stuff at the end was a bit more subtle Kildorn. Florida and Michigan were stripped of their delegates because they tried to hold their primaries out of order (they jumped the gun and tried to be early states, ala Iowa/NH/Nevada). As a result, the Obama campaign basically ignored them, while the Clinton campaign went ahead and continued to invest resources. Clinton won quite a few of their delegates, which at the time added up to zero. At the end of the process when it became obvious that Clinton trailed Obama in delegates, she made two cases for the nomination: - Michigan and Florida's delegates should be fully reinstated, which of course would mean a massive haul for her. - The so-called superdelegates should flock to her en masse. With regards to the former, the end result was that they were stripped of half their delegates. Clinton netted a bunch, but it wasn't enough to put her over the top. With regards to the latter, it just didn't happen. The superdelegates - rightly fearing a massive party revolt that may have given the election to McCain - went for Obama. As far as her 2008 campaign goes: the Clinton campaign really seems to have been totally taken aback by the success of the Obama campaign. To me, it seemed as if they exhibited a rather off-putting sense of entitlement, as if she expected to be handed the 2008 nomination. They were subsequently blindsided by Obama winning in the Iowa caucus; it was pretty obvious they had no campaign strategy to speak of beyond "Democrats crown us queen." On the other hand, the Obama campaign had a fantastic strategy: rack up big wins in caucus states (which tend to disproportionately reward well-organized campaigns that can deliver lots of warm bodies to the caucuses) while keeping it close enough in primary states to ensure that Clinton never netted a large delegate count. I remember hanging out with McCullough at a bar watching the Ohio/Texas/some other state's primaries. Clinton won the three primaries, but actually netted a delegate loss for the night because Texas allocates half of its delegates via a caucus which Obama creamed her in. The media actually played along with the charade, they kept repeating that Clinton "won" that night, even though she actually lost ground relative to the Obama campaign. The fact that by the months of May and June the media were still reporting that Clinton had a chance tells you about everything you need to know about how well the media covers politics.
I know personally Lanny Davis and Sid Blumenthal convinced me that Hillary needed very much not to be the primary victor; they were both morally void to the point of, near the end, indulging in Republican-style dog-whistle racism to try to stem the tide of losses. I do think Clinton went a LONG way to repairing that - I never would have imagined the Clinton of the 2008 campaign would have been the kind of SecState Clinton has been.
This is definitely something that put me off Clinton in 2008. I didn't like the sense of entitlement up front, and by the time they started in with the "any rule that says I don't win is a bad rule, give it to meeeeeeeeee" I was absolutely disgusted. I honestly would have had a hard time voting for her in the general if those tactics paid off, not because I found Clinton really that odious but because there's something seriously wrong with a political party that does that and I don't think it should be rewarded. Thankfully it didn't come to that. Yeah, effing d-bag fearstream media. It was infuriating, especially once I read whatever writeup (Nate Silver very possibly but it might have been Slate) about just how impossible it really was for Clinton to win. Of course that's just how they do it, because close campaigns are good for ratings. They did the same thing in last year's general election but probably even worse.
Yeah, the 08 primary and general were close in the eyes of the media only. Everyone who followed politics closely were debating how wide the margin would be, not the actual winner well before the news started running the same stories.
She had one response that did sit wrong with me in the first video. It's at the end where she says it's more important today looking back to get these guys and bring them to justice than figure out why they did it. From a criminal justice viewpoint, maybe that's literally true, since you want to prevent the same persons from doing it again. From a foreign policy, diplomatic, and intelligence viewpoint, it seems too narrow and potentially counterproductive, like she's advocating shoot first and ask questions later.
Out of context, yes. But we're not talking about a situation where they aren't figuring out why it happened in the narrow sense or what can be done to better deal with it. The hearings are about the degree to which there was incompetence (some), an underfunded state department infrastructure (obvious), and conspiracy to lie to or mislead the American people (none). The Republicans are batting around the first any way it will go while shrouding it in the third. I would expect the who and the why in and of itself (as opposed to being a component in that non-conspiracy) have an expansive place in the closed door hearings, because that's where (for once) they belong.
By no means am I defending the charade and concern by republicans. That's something that's seemed ridiculous from beginning. If you mean she's trying to appeal to a tough on terrorism stance to deflate their circus tent over a non-issue (as far as conspiracy or cover up), then sure. But we are also the government that went to war in Iraq with flimsy evidence because the top officials knew in their heart of hearts that Saddam still had and was developing WMDs.* In that context and the discussion of Hillary as president, it bugs me. That's all. *That's if you take them at their word. Edit: And yes, I'm sure they are handling this behind closed doors and that they are trying to figure out what happened as well as who did it. But we had the same thing during the lead up to Iraq. Her statement had enough echoes of the mentality that took us to war that it makes me question what she learned from it and whether I would want her to be the Democratic nominee.
He was the origin of so many conspiracy theories around Camp Hillary that he actually picked up the nickname "Grassy Knoll".
My favorite was when she used Robert Kennedy's assassination as a reason to stay in the primary when it was clear she had lost.
Poking around it looks like he acquired that nickname back in the 1990s. I'd say he was pretty much right in that time period. What specifically did he do for Hillary recently? I hadn't heard of anything. I ask because I really think his books are interesting, and he was basically right about everything in the 1980s and 1990s. Edit: This?
I really disliked Hillary 08 during her campaign against Obama. But she seems to be working in her SecState role with the freedom of someone who doesn't give a shit about future political runs, and I mean that in a good way.
I heard her in her interview, side by side with Obama, say she'd never try to predict the future when asked about a future presidential run. But, just IMO, I'd be really surprised if she decided she wanted to go through all of that again; the previous time was hardly enjoyable for her, and she seems to be at a high point in terms of public opinion and stature. While that may seem to be the best time to run, I suspect she is politically savvy enough to know being dragged through the mud of another presidential campaign (and likely losing the party nomination) would be more pain than it is worth. I.e. better to well enough thought of that people want you to run, and decline, than to run and lose again (at this point in her life.)
To whom would she lose the party nomination? I hope you don't mean Biden. I don't think he's a good candidate. His greatest accomplishment in two runs is finishing 5th in Iowa in 2008, withdrew early in 1988. He might get Obama's machine, but he's got a looong legislative history that is just more fuel for opponents to paint "he was for it before he was against" crap all over him. If he and Clinton both start to run, it will be a competition to see who gets the best of the Obama machine. I don't see Biden winning that.
