Our President Bush gets happy feet on his visit to Liberia in Africa. Hey, what's he got to lose? I wish our Democratic candidates could also get happy feet going. Tonight's debate was interesting. Hillary, at one point, totally blew it, and at a later point hit at least a three-bagger that would have been a home run if she hadn't blown it so badly with her Xerox comment earlier...(this ought to smoke Kev out of the woodwork!). And she ended the debate on an incredibly moving grace note. But a zinger here and a tear there don't turn around the kind of explosive juggernaut we are seeing with Barack Obama. I'm getting excited about Obama. But I've talked myself into being excited before, as you've read, for even hopeless causes like Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. I guess what I really want is for Obama or Clinton to have a Bulworth Moment, or a Peter Gibbons moment, or an American Beauty moment...where they throw caution to the wind, and let the freak flag of truth fly and damn the consequences.
I could just about personally guarantee to deliver Obama or Hillary five million votes if they would just get up on stage in a beer-stained Grateful Dead t-shirt, fire up a bong and then deliver a torched version of a state of the union address, at the end of which the audience would be rolling in the aisles, convulsed with insane laughing fits! Wouldn't it be nice?
A bittersweet note on Hillary Clinton's likely departure is that there will be no Clinton-McCain tilt, which by all reports (due to their friendship and great mutual respect) would have probably been the cleanest Presidential and most civilized campaign in the history of the United States. . .
It's just about the end of the line for Hillary, but you never know what happens next. Two days ago, John McCain stepped into it with the New York Times' revelations about the lobbyist--they imply he was "making the beast with two backs with her. Political wonks remember this story from nine years ago. It seems like old old news. But the press drumbeat seems to just be beginning. And the New York Times seems to be standing fast on their story.
---o0o---
5 comments:
Out of respect to No Politics Thursday I kept my debate opinions to myself. I agree that it appears to be the end of the line for Hillary. Obama was solid most of the debate and great a couple of times. I loved how he turned her campaign's new "Let's get real" riff on its ear. I thought the most substantive comparisons between the two occurred in their responses to the question of taking on "a decorated war hero" for the presidency. Clinton was defensive and simply unresponsive while Obama distinguished himself. I thought he was shrewd when he argued that his judgment proved his readiness and experience. He was persuasive in showing how the invasion had had immense consequences for the region and the world. He stuck both McCain and Clinton with the mess in his forceful argument that culminated with "Iran is the single biggest strategic beneficiary of us having invaded Iraq"
It's funny to me that the pundits always give her the substantive nod when mostly I hear something like "I will be ready on Day 1 to be prez, I will be comfortable to take on the problems of America and get the economy back on track."
While Obama was visibly pissed about the plagiarism flap and especially the "xerox" crack he didn't go tit for tat and that was probably wise. And even as most are raving about the grace of her closing remarks others are pointing out how they so very closely echoed remarks given by Bill and more recently by John Edwards.
You're right that she didn't turn the game and unless something really damaging to him arises it's over. It's pretty clear from here that she lost this thing in January. If her campaign could have spent their way to a victory in Wisconsin they would have but she conceded it because they're broke. His organization is out performing hers in every state and it shows no signs of letting up. If many Super Tuesday states were voting now I'd bet that he would do much much better in almost all. Her punches had been thrown months and months ago. He may do well in TX and if he loses in OH it will probably be close enough so won't matter.
Edwards won't endorse her after every union has moved to Obama and he doesn't need John's backing.
He needs John's backing. He needs everyone's. You Obamanites need to remember the general election may not be the cakewalk the primary/caucus season has turned out to be for your boy.
Yeah, for Hill, I think it's all over. It was also so explicit last night when she delivered her Xerox line...you could tell she didn't have her heart in it, but it was for he handlers...
I honestly haven't paid a lot of attention to the plagarism flap. I've never been one to rail against an honest pinch or two...
I just hoipe you hold Obama to the same standards you tar everyone else with. He's going to need it.
Yeah, I thought she nearly choked to get that line out. If he needs Edwards now than she will probably pull this thing out, yes in the general, all hands on deck.
Jack, I'm not quite sure what you mean by calling me an Obamamite but I don't think my standards are impossibly high. That said, I do have a threshold "don't get caught outright lying especially under oath"
Small Vendors Feel Pinch of Clinton’s Money Troubles NYT 02/23/2008
“We do our best to pay our vendors in a timely fashion.”
Kev - I just about laughed myself to the floor when I reads your ethical threshhold "don't get caught outright lying especially under oath." This so describes my take on everything in politics. And it's a big tent--sweeping in both the good and the bad among us...
In the end, it all comes back to that slogan I use on this blog: "a friend wil help you move. A good friend will help you move a body." In many cases, you may be your only good friend. It's a question of who do you trust and how much do you trust them?
The question of why people would lie when there was even the whiff of a possibility of being discovered...it's really unfathomable. And yet we saw master politicans like Dick Nixon and Bill Clinton take a fall for just that.
If Obama can restore even a fraction of what we have lost, then this fight for the White House becomes almost a holy war.
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