One excellent indicator of how dems are stewing is our ever favorite Chris Matthews. He sees the dems chances in 2008 flapping off into space. Here's a segment from last night's show the reveals how the madness is taking hold.... Ahahahaahaaa!!
Katrina, the other—earlier in the show, I was talking to Mark Warner, the very impressive governor of Virginia, who is a Democrat and clearly thinking about running for president. He‘s term-limited with one term. And I referred, probably infelicitously, to Hillary Clinton as the 800-pound gorilla in his way.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: I probably should have used the term 800-pound gorilla more felicitously in reference to her husband, because there was a lot of talk over the last seven years or so—I‘ve been pushing it—that he wants to get a job, so that he can try again for success, because he really left the presidency rather badly.
Do you think that she can bring him back into the White House, unemployed, living there with him and not get him in the way of her policy-making?
VANDEN HEUVEL: God, if he can sit next to Bush‘s father, as he has in the last weeks, he can certainly come back into the White House.
They were a pair. The key thing to me, Chris, at this moment is, what Bill Clinton stood for was triangulation. And the problem with Democrats right now is, they don‘t seem to show strength of conviction or clarity of direction. Or at least there‘s a perception gap about that.
What the Democrats need to do in these next few years—and Hillary Clinton will be tested by this, I think—is stop the dismantling of the New Deal, the rollback of Social Security, expose this administration‘s extremist agenda, whether it‘s secret torture chambers or global warfare. And Clinton was never one, I feared, who stood that fast for core principles. There was a lot of caving in to corporate interests.
Power inside the Democratic Party is not where it used to be.
MATTHEWS: Well, yes or no, are you hedging here, Katrina? Is Hillary the real thing or is she a hedger?
VANDEN HEUVEL: A hedger in terms of bringing her husband back into the White House?
MATTHEWS: Is she a liberal? Is she what you call—is she a progressive?
VANDEN HEUVEL: You know, Chris, liberals—liberals and—is she a progressive? She is—on choice, it‘s interesting, where she has gotten all this attention in the last few weeks. She has a 100 percent choice record. And that needs to be defended by Democrats, choice.
On foreign policy, as I said earlier...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I don‘t know why you people keep talking about abortion rights when I simply ask you, as a party—as a person in American politics—skip abortion for at least two minutes..
VANDEN HEUVEL: I think that‘s an important...
MATTHEWS: Let‘s talk about economics, foreign policy.
VANDEN HEUVEL: Right.
MATTHEWS: And what kind of a country you want to live in. Is Hillary Clinton a progressive or not?
(CROSSTALK)
VANDEN HEUVEL: I want to live in a country which has reproductive rights for women.
But on economic choice, on economic rights...
MATTHEWS: I want to be in a country where you don‘t talk about it all the time.
***********************
This is your democrat base Chris. Rots o' ruck in '08!
Be nice, Chris. Hillary's been working out and cutting carbs, and I hear she's only a 765-pound gorilla these days.
Good catch! (I didn't see it so I went back and looked at the transcript). The exchange continued:
Pat Buchanan, let me ask you this. Is Hillary Clinton a liberal?
VANDEN HEUVEL: On economic rights, her president was too pro-corporate.
BUCHANAN: Hillary Clinton, in my judgment...
MATTHEWS: Is Hillary Clinton a liberal?
BUCHANAN: Yes, she‘s a liberal.
MATTHEWS: Is Hillary Clinton a liberal, Pat?
BUCHANAN: Yes.
Hillary Clinton is not only a liberal. She has got three problems Bill Clinton didn‘t have, or Clinton had three assets. One, he was from the South and Arkansas, perceived as a centrist. Secondly, Bill Clinton was a fine debater and a fine speaker. And Hillary Clinton gets too high and too shrill.
And, third, Bill Clinton had Ross Perot in the race, who siphoned off 40 percent, 40 percent of Bush‘s 1988 vote...
VANDEN HEUVEL: Yes, that‘s true.
MATTHEWS: That‘s true.
____________________________________
I don't agree with Pat on many things, and I really resent that MSNBC calls him a Republican.
But he's one heckuv a political analyst!
A wacko white supremacist (I know, that's redundant) who has been convicted of attempting to have the judge murdered, is the chief suspect, altho he's in jail awaiting sentencing (which comes later this month). I think the police know more than they're currently saying about evidence they found at the scene. Things are very tense here.
And that's the low-down from Second City.