Posted on 01/30/2008 5:45:33 PM PST by Chi-townChief
Did the Clintons know what they were doing? I believe that they were unaware what they're doing to themselves by their vicious negative campaign against Sen. Barack Obama. They and their colleagues set out to destroy him by innuendo, distortion and smear. His brilliant victory in South Carolina over the weekend was too late. There is not enough time for him before next Tuesday to erase the images they have created -- a teller of fairy tales, a racial candidate, a friend of crooks. Sen. Hillary Clinton shouted him down in the debates, the former president exploded in temper tantrums.
Obama never really had a chance to fall back on his wit, his only possible defense to their waves of attack. What does a candidate say when the former president compares him to the Rev. Jesse Jackson?
Can anyone tell me why they resorted to an attack strategy? Why, in an election in which the public has made clear that they are fed up with partisan negativity, did they strive to wipe out Obama at the very beginning by treating him like they were Republicans? Did no one on their staff warn them that their tactics would only emphasize the old charges that Hillary Clinton is a polarizer?
How did they think that those who supported Obama because he offered a new kind of politics would react if their candidate was destroyed by the old politics? How did they think African-American voters, without whom they cannot hope to win an election, would feel after they had watched an African-American candidate ripped apart? How did they think the young people who had rallied to Obama (half of the white males under 30 in South Carolina) would vote in the presidential election? Were they not aware that the public might not be able endure another Clinton White House?
The attacks on Obama might have destroyed the Democratic coalition on which the Clintons are counting for an election victory. Did not they perceive that such a strategy was not only something that will defeat Obama next Tuesday, but also, to use President Clinton's phrase, "a roll of the dice"?
Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said that Democrats will rally around the winner of the primaries, no matter how rough the campaigns may have been. Democrats will kiss and make up. Maybe, but that is really a roll of the dice, a whistle in the dark as they walk by the cemetery in which they have buried the Democrats' hopes.
Why take the chance? Most states were solid for Hillary Clinton and probably still are. Why not be nice in the primaries?
Hillary Clinton's tears (authentic, I believe) in New Hampshire give us a hint. She was sad because, as she said, she feared the loss of 30 years of work. She and her husband were not only heirs of the Democratic legacy, they were the only heirs, the only ones who could save it.
Obama's victory in Iowa and the media babble about "a historic event" scared them. He had to be stopped because Hillary Clinton had a right to the nomination. Obama ought to have known better. He had to go.
If Hillary Clinton is nominated (as I still think is very likely), Sen. John McCain will be sitting pretty. Every straw poll matching him against Hillary Clinton shows him winning, even before this self-destructive primary. The Republicans will regain congressional control.
There will be eight more years of Republican misrule, and the war will continue. The Clintons will have snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory.
agreel@aol.com
It's pretty damn funny, actually, if it weren't that the public seems to be already set up for a Barak vs. McCain election next November.
By November, it’ll be obvious that the fracture between democrats is greater than that between republicans. Their SC fiasco left more than a bruise.
Republicans of all stripes (including white women, her strongest demographic, but especially, white men),many independents and some democrats are simply more determined to keep Mrs. Clinton out of the White House than a bitterly split democratic party is capable or even driven to keep a republican out. Republicans will grudgingly reconcile; Democrats are eating themselves.
“If anyone can get a disappointed true conservative off the couch to vote for a RINO like John McCain, it is Hillary Clinton.”
Which is precisely our best hope. I think we’d have more trouble with Obama than Hillary. She is absolutely toxic.
Funny how all these lefties have gotten religion this year.
Where were they when the Clintons did the same thing to the Bush family, all of his female accusers and their Republican enemies in Congress?
I hope you are right.
I hope you are right.
But I think it's more likely Hillary will manage to crush Obama, a lot of Democrats will be mad for a few weeks, and then they'll all come back to support her out of hatred for the Republican Party.
Perhaps, but let’s not forget that the Clintons, as despicable as they are, have an uncanny knack at winning elections. By hook or crook, they haven’t lost one since 1980. They just might figure out a way to win this one, and McCain is probably their weakest possible adversary.
“They and their colleagues set out to destroy him by innuendo, distortion and smear.”
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Typical Clinton operating procedure....would be nice to see it backfired.
Yes, but all the people that Bill has campaigned for since they left the White House have lost.
I think McCain will win in a landslide.
Interesting sentence structure here. The Clintons invented and perfected the Politics of Personal Destruction - whether partisan or intra-party - they destroy anyone or anything in their way. Secondly, the Republicans have treated Obama with much more respect, so far, than the Clintons treat Obama. Is Greeley indicating that the Clintons were attacking Obama as if the Clintons were Republicans? Greeley's inhaling too much incense!
Is this the Roman Catholic priest who writes the trashy novels and lefty drivel?
Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said that Democrats will rally around the winner of the primaries, no matter how rough the campaigns may have been. Democrats will kiss and make up. Maybe, but that is really a roll of the dice, a whistle in the dark as they walk by the cemetery in which they have buried the Democrats' hopes.
Bill could have gotten away with it - SHE CAN'T.
Bill is a liar, a serial abuser and a backstabber, and always has been. But his aw-shucks personality and charisma made sheeple overlook his obvious faults. Everyone knew he did it with Monica in the oral office, but he bit his lip, he stuck out his thumb, and gave the ladies that crooked grin while he lied though his teeth, and they bought it!
That "halo" effect doesn't translate to other people. While one person's bad behavior makes him a "likable rogue", the same antics from his shrill harpy of a wife don't get the same reviews.
That's my explanation of how you can use the same campaign staff, the same plan, and the same methods and get nowhere near the same reaction from the public.
Below is an excerpt from a previous Greeley article reviewing Hillary’s book “Living History”.
My how Andy has turned on this “woman of deep religious faith”.
“Hence it would seem that the success of Sen. Clinton’s book is continued evidence that people are still fascinated and even charmed by the Clintons despite the ill will of the critics. They are not put off by a man whom the media dislike because he’s ‘’poor white trash’’ and is too smart for his own good, or by his wife, who is also too smart and should have stayed home to make cookies.
The biggest surprise of all for me when I began to read the book is that it is a love story and a story of religious faith. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton loves her husband. She has always loved him and still loves him. He retains his ability, as she says, to make her laugh. She has often been furious at him and with good reason. Yet she still loves him and still is ready to forgive him. The begrudgers of both genders who do not like that or scoff at it are not the majority—not the kind of women and men who rushed out to buy the book and collect her signature. Moreover, she is a woman of deep religious faith, an example of the socially concerned Methodism that has accomplished so much good in our country. “
This is the same Greeley who once wrote the following about this “deeply religious woman” in an article reviewing her book “Living History”:
“The biggest surprise of all for me when I began to read the book is that it is a love story and a story of religious faith. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton loves her husband. She has always loved him and still loves him. He retains his ability, as she says, to make her laugh. She has often been furious at him and with good reason. Yet she still loves him and still is ready to forgive him. The begrudgers of both genders who do not like that or scoff at it are not the majority—not the kind of women and men who rushed out to buy the book and collect her signature. Moreover, she is a woman of deep religious faith, an example of the socially concerned Methodism that has accomplished so much good in our country. “
Nice try, sonny. In fact, they were treating Obama as if he were a Republican. They've done it before and nobody turned a hair.
Chicago’s pornographer-priest displays all the insight of a sea cucumber. Something about selling out to the peckerwoods from Arkinsaw that snuffs out meaningful thought.
The Clintons know winning is the name of the game, not how you played.
Countering the conventional wisdom, Hillary will sign Obama on as V-P to bring the Obama supporters back into the fold, and the Dem sheep will follow because they want to win.
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