Posted on 09/21/2007 7:57:52 AM PDT by ZGuy
With over 400 days till the 2008 election, I am always amazed by the confidence and passion that everyday citizens express as they state their opinions on politics and the multiple candidates running for President. The two favorite opinions I hear expressed at New York and Washington dinner parties (certainly not representative of the country at large) is that Rudy Gulliani can't be the Republican nominee and there is no way the country is going to elect Hillary Clinton President. The facts that Rudy leads all national polls among Republican primary voters and that Hillary nearly laps her closest Democratic rival (and beats all potential Republicans in a general head to head match up) means nothing to those who believe so passionately. Facts and evidence to the contrary cannot convince those who are so convinced otherwise.
As a participant in national politics for over four decades, and as the manager for Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign in 1984, I just smile and think back to the 70’s when I was first living in Washington, DC working in the Nixon administration. My Rockefeller friends would invite me to dinner, ply me with wine, and then expect me to entertain them and the other dinner guests by explaining how Ronald Reagan was going to be elected president.
I then had passion, and no facts. My friends would chuckle and argue back “No way!” That Reagan was elected in 1980 and went on to become one of this country’s greatest Presidents was not something that could be argued with the certainty that I presented in the mid 70’s.
But I am still amazed when some very smart person says; “There is no way that person can be elected President!”
In my life time the only man who was a lock to be president was Dwight David Eisenhower, war hero extraordinaire, who won two landslides in the 50’s. Every president who followed was belittled, laugh at, and at some point ran with no real expectations to win.
John Kennedy was an inexperienced playboy who didn't work hard enough. No way he could beat the experienced Vice president Richard Nixon. He did.
There was no way Nixon could be elected president after losing in 1960 and then getting clobbered 2 years latter in losing the governorship of his home state, California. But Nixon was elected in 68 and reelected in a landslide in 72.
Jimmy Carter in 1976 was viewed by many in his own party as a joke who couldn't have been re elected Governor in Georgia if they allowed a second term. He went on to win and become one of the nation’s worst Presidents. Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford became president by extraordinary events. Neither man could have won the office or even the nominations of their parties without those events. Even Ronald Reagan and the two Bush’s were unexpected winners and all three began as underdogs. And the last guy any one expected to be president was William Jefferson Clinton., attacked as a draft dodger and womanizer in the middle of the primary season by his democract opponents. He survived, with a major assist by Hillary on 60 mins, and went on to win election and re election and was impeached for again being a womanizer. So let’s not use the term He or in this case “She can't win the Presidency.”
I won't deal with who is going to be the Rep nominee. It is a race that is extremely close and a few capable candidates have real chances of being the nominee. But in view of the history Hillary Clinton is the strongest candidate in years and is not only going to be the democratic nominee; she can be elected President. I am not happy about that, but those are the facts.
And Republicans and conservatives better wake up to those facts. Underestimating her appeal or her campaign team and over focusing on her negatives, is not smart. I repeat she can win and we better start working on ways to beat her. The first Republican President, I worked for instructed me on all that matters in Presidential elections, the Electoral College. That man, Richard Nixon, always kept a yellow pad somewhere in or on his desk with two columns listed on it. In one column were states he thought he could win. The other column listed states he thought he could lose. He looked at it daily and discussed it with whoever was around him. No domestic decision was ever made that he didn't look at those states and figure out which ones might be affected by his presidential actions. He would move them around from time to time but he always made sure at least 270 electoral votes were in his win column.
I am sure Bill Clinton -- the next “Strategist in Chief” -- has a similar system. And it’s not the national polls or the Iowa or New Hampshire polls that worry me. It’s putting those states on one side or the other of a yellow pad that bothers me. We are now a divided nation ideologically and geographically. Republicans are now a southern party and that is our base. Hillary is not going to erode that base no matter who we nominate. But on the other side, Hillary is not going to lose a state Al Gore carried or John Kerry won.
Gore carried 21 states and Kerry 20 .
That gives her more than 250 electoral votes and within striking distance of the magic 270.We all know that a change of 537 votes in Florida in 2000, and Texans wouldn't be raising money for a George W. Bush Library. Less than 60,000 votes in Ohio kept John Kerry from being Commander in Chief, a frightening thought. What you might not know is that 18,777 vote shift in 3 states Iowa, New Mexico, and Nevada and a electoral college tie would have occurred and the House would have decided the election. Florida, Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico, and Nevada are in play again along with some other states like Virginia, Colorado and many of the swing states of the last 2 elections.
Hillary is not just a contender, I rate her a favorite. But she can be beaten by the right candidate with a unified party.
It’s like a game of “Texas Hold Em.” Your pair of two’s don't look like much but it beats one of a kind in the other players hand. Today I would say Hillary’s got 3 of a kind with aces and we need to draw to an inside straight.
The good news is there is a long ways to go. And Hillary is a Clinton. And as we know with the Clinton’s anything can happen and usually does.
No, she cant.
Fred ‘08
“And the last guy any one expected to be president was William Jefferson Clinton., attacked as a draft dodger and womanizer in the middle of the primary season by his democract opponents. He survived, with a major assist by Hillary on 60 mins,” ..................... And the 19 million votes that went to Perot had nothing to do with it?
What, no Barf alert?
I agree that she probably can’t win. Two of the last three democrat nominees who were governors (Clinton & Carter) won. The exception was Dukakis who only won 10 states. The last five democrat nominees who had ever been U.S. senators lost. They were Kerry, Gore, Mondale, McGovern, and Humphrey. Two of them won one state each, and two of them lost their homestates. If the Democrats nominate Sen. Clinton, Sen. Obama, or ex-Sen. Edwards, the Democrat will probably lose, especially if the Republican is someone who was a governor, Huckabee (my favorite) or Romney.
Mega hurl; rolling on the floor and spattering the ceiling projectile vomit alert!
I give him credit. He’s not saying who OUGHT to win, or whom he prefers. He’s saying that anything can happen.
The voters elected Jimmy Carter, arguably the worst president in history. They did so because Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon, and they were obsessed with Watergate. The press told the biggest lie in American history, and they believed it.
The voters re-elected bill clinton, despite his obvious incompetence and criminality. Sure, Bob Dole was a lousy opponent, but he surely would have been better than clinton.
Given that record, the Republicans could easily, as Rollins suggests, be stupid enough to nominate Giuliani, maybe with some crossover help from the big city Dem machines. It wouldn’t be the first time the Republican party did something stupid. Far from it.
We need to make sure that doesn’t happen, because it would be a gigantic mistake, impossible to recover from. The Republican pros and handlers think they can nominate whomever they like, and the base will have to vote for him. I think Bob Dole proved them wrong, and the last election also proved them wrong. We saw the party go from strong and confident to weak and discouraged in two short years, from 2004 to 2006, and if we don’t look out that bad trend could continue.
Most of the charities I contribute to—conservative Catholic, pro-life, and the like—have been sending out mailings saying that they are in deep financial trouble, because donations are way off and recruitment campaigns aren’t turning up new members. I think that’s another sign of discouragement.
American voters have sometimes risen to the occasion, and they have sometimes listened to the wrong advice and badly screwed up. I think we are at such a turning point right now.
Not to beat a dead horse, nominating Giuliani would kill the conservative coalition. I would NEVER vote for him. That doesn’t matter, it’s only one vote, but I am sure that there are tens of millions of Evangelicals and other pro-lifers who would stay home too. We need to understand that clearly, now, before the primaries and before the national convention, or it could be too late to avoid disaster.
The conservative coalition is made up of various factions, with various priorities. They need to understand what each other’s priorities are, and respect them, because that’s the only way we can win.
My biggest fear is voter fraud. She wants it so bad that she will stoop to anything.
She can win, she is by far the favorite, and she will win in a LANDSLIDE if more people do not stop thinking just like you.
Kerry damn near beat an incumbent president in a time of both war and unparalleled prosperity, and that president was beloved by the base and kerry was a nobody from the uber liberal NE.
True liberal trash, and he came within one state of taking the country away from us.
Now Ohio is way more blue and is most likely to vote hillary in, along with a state of two in the SW that she will garner with the correct selection of a running mate.
We are in trouble and we had best understand it. - Stop standing there chanting:
“Hillary can’t win.”
She can win and we are the electoral underdogs now. Plan accordingly and do something constructive to win.
In order to win, she would need to get 80% of the 60% who don't hate her guts.
That ain't gonna happen unless another Ross Perot shows up to split the conservative vote.
Look at the electoral votes. She damn near has every single state that she needs right now.
Were I in Bill Clinton’s shoes, I would be making arrangements to move back to DC, and challenging you to beat me.
I have had the pleasure of working with Ed Rollins. He’s one of the smartest people in the business. But this piece is full of bad assumptions.
For starters, it is no longer true that “Rudy leads all national polls among Republican primary voters.”
And that's why we will never beat her with Rudy. If he's the nominee, the party will NOT be unified.
The only way Hillary can win is if Rudy is the nominee.
She can win, but given the crop of Republican front-runners, she may not need to resort to dirty tricks. Her husband didn't need dirty tricks to beat Bob Dole. Unless, of course, you count simply being a Democrat a dirty trick.
‘Gore carried 21 states and Kerry 20 .
That gives her more than 250 electoral votes and within striking distance of the magic 270’
Rollins chides people for making in effect ‘assumptions’ then goes on to make a HUGE assumption here.
Since when did it become normal for men and women to be viewed exactly the same on any topic, let alone for a job thats never had a women hired to it? Especially one thats a seated Senator (historically not a very good omen for the Presidency no matter gener), has the highest, continual ‘negative rating’ every recorded in American politics for an elected official, the overall track record of Northeast liberals running for President, and a significant portion of the general population that think she’s either a professional cuckold, or a pathetic hanger on who routinely attacked other women because her husband was having sex with them, or trying to using coercion and in at least one instances document, violence?
Next up....Ed Rollins should remember Eisenhower was in fact ‘mocked’ and ‘ridiculed’ constantly. He was called ‘lazy’ and ‘stupid’ and ‘dumb’ throughout his Presidency.
Jimmy Carter was simply a historical accident that resulted from Nixon’s insanity, and the fact Jerry Ford would never have been President under any circumstances other than those unique to the Nixon administrations stunning implosion across the board.
Nobody with any common sense should hire Rollins for a future campaign, in short.
People, stop being dramaqueens.
There is not a man in the south that’ll vote for that twit. Not to mention how many ladies would laugh at her.
Stop being silly.
That lady running for President is the guarantee that a conservative winning.
1. She has an established, veteran team many members of which have already run two successful Presidential campaigns.
2. She has not only funding, but funding machinery, and it's fifteen years old. That means not only established contact lists but plenty of cash stashed in locations invisible to the IRS (and the media as well).
3. She has the New York party machinery fully in hand, and that's nearly the same as running unopposed in one of the largest Electoral states.
4. She has synergistic relationships with the sundry media, longstanding arrangements that trade accessibility and influence for an enormous megaphone that can drown out opponents and has drowned out the truth on enough occasions to make conservatives powder their molars.
5. She has name recognition to match any candidate in the race on either side.
6. She has the insuperable advantage that she is a symbolic, token Woman who is able to play feminist resentment like a Stradivarius. Otherwise uncommitted, vaguely liberal females will vote for her not because she is a woman, but because she is a Woman. That's a sizeable contingent.
There are, to be sure, negatives, including a fairly wide perception that she is dictatorial, arrogant, ruthless, violent, and holds a set of principles that are a relic of 60's radical leftism, including the primary principle that accession to power trumps all the other principles. That has already disappointed the moonbat wing of her party but put to it they'll vote for her anyway. "Unelectable"? Not on your life!
Sure you go for the most conservative person you want in the primary, then in the major election you vote for the Republican.
Anything done (including not voting, third party waste voting and voting for Democrats) are all in the end voting for Democrats.
Stupid is as stupid does sometimes.
Will conservatives have a large block of stupid people voting third party or not voting this next election? That is the whole issue in 2008 IMO!
Maybe the answer for the Republican Party is to put Thompson and Paul in as running mates. I haven’t really decided which would be President yet. I do however wonder if Ron Paul is electable for the general public.
Only if we allow it...
People I know in D.C are concerned that a 60 member Dem majority in the Senate is a real possibility.
One thing we know about Dems, they aren’t afraid to implement their left wing programs and with Hillary at the helm they will easily approve 2 EXTREMIST Liberal judges to SCOTUS.
To be honest, Mickey Mouse would be a better President thatn Hillary with 60 Dem senators.
The GOP conservative base is going to have to be 1000% energized or our country will be in trouble for decades if Hillary wins.
Thats interesting. I've been wondering if part of the thinking behind some party loyalists backing Guiliani is to abandon the pro-life movement. I live in the pacific northwest and it appears not very many people here are pro-life. I get the feeling for some they might vote Republican for issues like national defense but are scared of the strong pro-life positions.
Its sort of interesting this primary. The 3 front runners to me are analagous to the Republican party struggling to determine which direction to take. Fred is to keep the same positions as teh party has now.. the potential problem is what happened in congress, winning big in the south, but losing almost everywhere else and being a minority party.
Romney who I'm supporting seems to be going hes on every side of the controversial issues. Just enough pro-life to carry the south while coming across moderate to northerners seems to be the plan. Guiliani is the full abandonment of the christian conservative vote, and just go for the low taxes, pro-business, strong defense republican planks.
The thing that scares me is that America gets more dumb by the day. The red states are the least populated states. If Hillary wins the same states that Kerry and Algore won, then only takes Ohio or Florida, maybe Virginia who is sliding to the left, she is right there for the electoral votes. And the states that Kerrygore won were true blue states. I very, very seriously doubt any republican can survive if they lose Ohio and/or Florida. Both of those are key.
Ed must be going to different dinner parties than I am.
I live in Alexandria, VA, and ALL I hear, from Republicans no less, is that Hillary wins. Period.
Poll results shouldn’t be used this far before the general election. In Sept. 2003, many polls said that Howard Dean would be the Democrats’ nominee, and some of them said that he would win the general election. However, he won about five primaries.
We need to make sure that doesn’t happen, because it would be a gigantic mistake, impossible to recover from. The Republican pros and handlers think they can nominate whomever they like, and the base will have to vote for him. I think Bob Dole proved them wrong, and the last election also proved them wrong. We saw the party go from strong and confident to weak and discouraged in two short years, from 2004 to 2006, and if we don’t look out that bad trend could continue...Not to beat a dead horse, nominating Giuliani would kill the conservative coalition. I would NEVER vote for him. That doesn’t matter, it’s only one vote, but I am sure that there are tens of millions of Evangelicals and other pro-lifers who would stay home too. We need to understand that clearly, now, before the primaries and before the national convention, or it could be too late to avoid disaster.
****************
Agreed. There's good reason to believe Hillary can win if we nominate the wrong candidate. Giuliani is that wrong candidate.
I happen to believe Fred Thompson can beat Hillary, and I sincerely hope he will be our nominee.
I agree with that.
A lot of people I know who can’t stand Hillary are already throwing their hands up in the air saying that she’ll probably win. The theory is that only a small percentage actually pay attention to politics and will go by name recognition. The thought scares me!!
Yes she can.
She completely controls the Dead, Felon, and Illegal Alien votes. Add in the “Single Female Idiot” vote, the Black vote and the “Yellow Dog” Democrat vote and she may have a lock.
HillBilly is unelectable. I just don’t see it happening.
However, the capacity of modern America for idiocy is stunning as well.
I hope Fred takes care of her. ;-)
Fred Thompson ‘08!
“She completely controls the Dead, Felon, and Illegal Alien votes. Add in the “Single Female Idiot” vote, the Black vote and the “Yellow Dog” Democrat vote and she may have a lock.”
Exactly. I have friends (unfortunately liberals) who are dying for vote for Hillary. I have another friend who is totatally apolitical and thinks is would be “cool” to have a woman president. Combine that with the aforementioned and Hillary (God save us all) wins.
Yes, but we have to nominate one first!
She has already won, win most of the Freepers back Thompson, who stands for nothing, has no energy, no vision, you know it’s lost.
‘We won’t vote for a “Rudy McRomney” just to keep Hillary from winning the Presidency.’
I will vote for ANYONE to keep Hillary from winning the Presidency.
Bzzzt! Awww! We're sorry Ed, but that answer is simply NOT correct!
...and has only two weeks to live.
in the general election.
John Francois Kerry won 14,902,000 votes in the eleven states of the Old Confederacy.
Some of them were cast by men, I suppose.
She can win if she puts her best face on:
< “ http://www.all4humor.com/images/files/Scary%20Hillary%20Clinton.jpg “ >
Should’nt we have a primary first?
Should’nt we have a primary first?
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