Posted on 11/13/2007 3:14:13 PM PST by Hillary4Penetentiary
If the 2008 presidential election were held today, Hillary Rodham Clinton would win.
Hillary’s minor stumbles in last week’s debate notwithstanding, she is simply running the most disciplined and effective campaign. She’s one of the most able politicians in America, and no one should underestimate her desire to be President and her calculating focus.
What you need to understand is that Hillary Clinton is, quite simply, craftier and more aggressive than the rest of the field. I know this firsthand, having battled with the Clinton Administration throughout the 1990’s while serving as a leader in Congress.
She’s only gotten tougher since then.
Early on, there were many fights, but one of the most important was over Hillary Clinton’s 1993 plan to expand government control of the health-care system. We were lucky to stop it, and we did so by standing our ground on the principle of putting patients ahead of bureaucracies. But now she’s back, and the health-care issue is a perfect example of the way she’s learned on the job and evolved her tactics.
Her latest health-care plan is more of the same stuff—greater federal control of our lives—but this time she’s presenting it in a way that is far more politically savvy. She leaves open questions of funding and enforcement, and is actively working to buy off the groups who opposed her plan in 1993.
Hillary Clinton and her agenda are not going to fade away. She is relentless and determined. Once she resolves a course of action in her mind, she is not going to be wishy-washy. The other candidates, and the rest of the world, will quickly learn that Hillary Clinton means business.
No doubt, Hillary Clinton has the Democrat primary all wrapped up. A couple of one-term senators are simply no match for the political machine she and her husband have built. I won’t go so far as to say that it’s not possible for a Republican to defeat her in the general election. But as things stand today, the GOP has a very real set of problems that are larger than any of the party’s candidates.
First and foremost, the Republican brand as effective stewards of the taxpayer dollar is in tatters, and the shredding doesn’t look to stop any time soon. Just yesterday, 138 House Republicans joined the Democrats in voting to override the president’s veto of a wasteful and pork-ridden Water Resources bill. That vote was a shameful display of personal politics over the national interest, and it contains the seeds of destruction of whatever conservative principles remain in the Republican party.
The callow accommodation to big-spending Democrats in Congress is one of the ways the Republican party will return itself to the days of serving as a compliant, permanent minority. Happy for table scraps, elected Republicans will simply abandon the ideas of their party in order to “get along”.
No wonder Americans prefer Democrats on the economy, taxes, and spending issues, according to recent polling data. When the choice is between Democrats, and the Democrat-lite ideas the GOP has become so comfortable offering, the Democrats will win every time.
The only way the Republican party will beat Hillary Clinton is to return to its limited-government roots. That’s the only way to rebuild a majority coalition.
For example, today religious conservatives are confused, disillusioned, and somewhat fractured. Too many of the current crop of self-appointed social conservative leaders have embraced an agenda that splits the GOP coalition. Big government ideas— runaway spending on “conservative” social programs, social engineering in the tax code, and greater government intervention into Americans’ personal lives—are the wrong path. This pandering has hurt the GOP in swing states, especially in the Mountain West and Great Lakes states.
To counter Hillary Clinton’s perfectly oiled political machine, Republicans need to return to their Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan roots. They need to present an alternative vision for America—a positive vision that limits government and trusts individuals and leaves families, churches, and businesses free to make their own decisions, and not have bureaucrats and politicians calling the shots.
Right now, the country is headed toward a date with Hillary Clinton, and big government is on the agenda. The only way to change that rendezvous is for candidates to offer a clear, principled, limited government alternative.
I didn’t ask for a wake-up call from Dick Armey. I don’t want a wak....
ROFLOL!!!!
You owe me a keyboard.......
Baloney.
So you believe a Hillary presidency would be a great thing for the country? I mean, since you refuse to believe there’s anything we should fear from Hillary controlling the White House and Pelosi and Reid controlling the Congress and rubber stamping one another’s far left wing agendas, the only alternative is you must be okay with this scenario. Enjoy!
She might be smart but to label her as one of the most able politicians in America? I think not. Her husband maybe, simply because he has that snake like charm that suckered in too many people.
Hillary practically waltzed into that US Senate seat from one of the most Demo leaning states in the country, and a state which has gotten progressively more “blue” in the intervening 7 years. It was an open seat, and many would agree the GOP could have run a stronger candidate and a better campaign against her in 2000.
I have never been able to bear to listen to her give a full speech, but from sound bites she does not sound particularly effective, or charismatic at all. I will concede she is a favorite in the general election now. But if she wins it will not be because of her own personality or political skills. It will be organization, media bias, and apathy on the part of millions of voters.
Yes, I know I spelled it wrong. I actually know how to spell Penitentiary, but typed it wrong when I joined up. I have been asking the webmaster to fix it, but to no avail.
Dick Armey nails it. If the GOP doesn't reach out to fiscal conservatives and libertarians, they're buttered French toast.
Scare tactics involve outright hypothesizing over somethoing with no grounds for existence.
Realism involves a candid look at people’s actions and words. Hillary’s STATED GOALS are universal heathcare, government-run preschools, amnesty for illegals, free college education for government employees, higher income taxes, tougher gun laws, and drastic cuts in military spending.
Hillary’s PAST ACTIONS dictate that she is a student and a follower of socialism. Those actions also dictate that she will do ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING to get power and keep it... be it take any amount of illegal campaign money, tell any lie, break any promise, and commit practically any illegal act.
Are you beginning to pull your head from the sand?
“...need to present an alternative vision for America—a positive vision that limits government and trusts individuals and leaves families, churches, and businesses free to make their own decisions, and not have bureaucrats and politicians calling the shots.”
Fred could have written this.
Like I said, scare tactics don’t work on me.
That’s a reeeeeeeeeeeeaaaally great comeback. /s
I think one reason why it seems like Hillary will win is because she was chosen by the Democratic Party Leadership to run for President even before she won the Senate. No other candidate on either side has that advantage. She has been annointed by those who do not have the best interests of the United States in mind. That’s just so sad. So many Democratic voters will be tricked into voting for her, believing the propoganda that she is a harmless girl scout. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A vote for her is a vote to return Bill Clinton to Power. This woman, crafty politician though she may be, is nothing but an appendage of Mr. Bill Clinton, who runs her show even as we speak.
The Republicans battling each other for the honor and privilege of battling her haven't a clue and if they don't "man up" and get tough, we haven't a chance.
An almost entirely media-created perception. As is becoming apparent to more and more voters.
Part I interview with Ron Paul: The Bulletin
FF: Since the debates don't allow for direct exchanges, if you could ask your opponents a direct question, what would it be?
RP: Why do you act like Democrats? You do everything the Democrats did. You're doing all the things we accuse the Democrats of doing. You're big spenders and champions of welfare programs, even though you condemned President Clinton for nation-building. And now you're losing your shirt, you lost last year, you're running up the deficit, you're in the entitlement business, you don't care about personal liberties, and you've taken up Bill Clinton's foreign policy [of nation-building]. It doesn't make any sense. Why would you do it if you know it's hurting the party?
“Settling for a candidate that is damn near as liberal as Hillary is not acceptable to me either.”
None of our candidates are as liberal or nearly liberal as Hillary. None other than Ron Paul would retreat from Iraq. None would end the Patriot Act (other than Paul) or NSA wiretaps. None would raise taxes, none would fight for big new government programs, none would demand government healthcare. None would burden the economy with even more regulation or go chasing after the global warming fantasy and fight for ratification of the Kyoto Treaty (McCain may be the exception on that one). None of the GOP candidates would rubber stamp what comes out of the Pelosi/Reid Congress. None would appoint far left wing judges. None would tip the Supreme Court to the left for 50 years or more (no, not even Giuliani who will have Ted Olsen advising him on judges) and none would defang our military to fund their social spending schemes instead. So let’s do away with the silly conceits that any of our candidates are like or almost like Hillary and operate within the realm of reality instead of within the realm of propaganda. Claiming any of our candidates is a Hillary clone is just a lame justification for not voting in 2008, or wasting a vote on a 3rd party nobody with no chances.
While four years of Hillary or God forbid eight, will probably turn the country against liberalism, the damage to the US will be horrendous. With the Dems in Congress and Hillary in the White House the economy will take the biggest dive since the Great Depression. Taxes ranging from income tax, gasoline tax, carbon tax, cigarette taxes etc. will bleed the country while the Dems go on an orgy of domestic spending.
Worse yet will be our safety. A hasty retreat in Iraq, Iran getting nuclear weapons, the fall of Pakistan to radical Muslims and Hillary's willingness to appease any dictator or terrorist will mean great danger in the US. The IEDs will be exploding in US streets, not in Baghdad and I would expect at least one 9-11 sized attack witha a "dirty " Bomb.
Ping for later...
I'm telling you and everyone here this woman is too unlikeable. I'm still not even sure she'll get the nomination. There isn't enough woman in this country to vote for her, "Just because she's a strong woman." In fact many woman see her as "weak and fallible." Think about this, the ones she has to convience are independents and there is no way in hades she going to win the majority of their votes!
In politics anything is possible, but she is worse than finger nails on a chalk board and everyone know it. If anyone votes for Hillary they are actually voting for Bill, but I think he was done a long time ago.
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