Hillary Clinton vs. Barack Obama: Of the two, who do you like?

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by HejiraNYC

The glare is from my halo, not my forehead.

Are you mocking my unnaturally wrinkle-free pate?

yes - and let me say it is rather wrinkle free even at 1:00 a.m. and after $5.00 margtaritas, bad vegan food, a fruity drink, and beer - and I am rather jealous.

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

yes - and let me say it is rather wrinkle free even at 1:00 a.m. and after $5.00 margtaritas, bad vegan food, a fruity drink, and beer - and I am rather jealous.

That was $3 margaritas! And don't forget the tequila shot and gin. Not that I remember very much from that evening, mind you...

[dontlookdown]

I'd like to think that there are bigger issues to debate than the ones you've been bringing up today.
For starters - watch what happens with the special election in Mississippi tonight.
It could very well be an indication of how the country goes in November.

Whatever one makes of the uneducated white voter vs. the urban liberal argument, I will promise you that the majority of the former group will go for McCain or they won't vote at all.



Has anyone heard anymore rumors of some Springsteen/Arcade Fire GOTV shows this summer?

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by HejiraNYC

. . . And don't forget the tequila shot . . . .

You broke into a sweat

Fortunately, I did like half of mine and then poured it into my alread potent $3.00 margarita I left my fukcing shirt in the rest. as well

[BombaySapphire3]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

He cannot and will not win the general election.

And did you not also say in regard to Obama becoming the Democratic nominee for President "it ain't gonna happen"? ..a rhetorical question I know..

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by BombaySapphire3

And did you not also say in regard to Obama becoming the Democratic nominee for President "it ain't gonna happen"? ..a rhetorical question I know..

With all due respect, it is not like Obama ran away with it and no one I know really though Hillary would run away with it

I think Obama is electable though - he must, however, find a way to negate the R's spin machine (read Sean Hannity) who is already doing the Hillary stealing the China thing by directly equating Obama to Rev. Wright's comments, which he is making even more inflammatory if that is possible I mean look at how inept Kerry was at the Swift Boat attack ads and those were mild in that there was no crazy minister still speaking and speaking loudly I do not think Rev. Wright will alienate any black voters for Obama, but he will white ones - and, mostly rightly so in that . So, Obama has to hit at it and hit at it hard. Interestingly, I do not think McCain will condone that type of attack and he likely will speak out against it as evidenced by his actions in North Carolina and the third party ads placed on his behalf. But, we'll see.

Again, I'll vote for Obama, but I think Hillary is the better candidate as far as the ability to get things done and being powerful enough in other circles.

[dontlookdown]

and i will enthusiastically vote for Hillary in November if she's the nominee.
But I'd rather punch the hole for Obama.

So - see...there's hope that we can unify as a party.

[strandinthewind]

^^^

I think the vast majority of D's will float over to the eventual nominee. I speculate though that many whites will find it hard to vote for Obama, though they eventually will. A slightly more interesting question is whether the blacks will vote for Hillary if she gets the nomination -- or will many of them see it as further oppression by the whites. If anything, this is a very groundbreaking election on many fronts.

And, McCain is an apparently decent man I might vote for in another election.

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

^^^

I think the vast majority of D's will float over to the eventual nominee. I speculate though that many whites will find it hard to vote for Obama, though they eventually will. A slightly more interesting question is whether the blacks will vote for Hillary if she gets the nomination -- or will many of them see it as further oppression by the whites. If anything, this is a very groundbreaking election on many fronts.

And, McCain is an apparently decent man I might vote for in another election.

In my opinion, if the impossible happens and somehow Hillary gets the nomination, she must have Obama as a running mate. And in many ways, I think it applies vice versa as well, but maybe not to the same extent. At least with a Clinton Obama ticket, Obama finally gets an opportunity to flex his muscles and to really prove that he can walk the walk. If successful, it virtually assures a Democrat White House for the next 16 years, especially since Obama has time on his side.

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

You broke into a sweat

Fortunately, I did like half of mine and then poured it into my alread potent $3.00 margarita I left my fukcing shirt in the rest. as well

Eh... it was merely a black mumu. You should stick to wearing something that accentuates your cleavage better.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by HejiraNYC

Eh... it was merely a black mumu. You should stick to wearing something that accentuates your cleavage better.

Ma decolletage

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by HejiraNYC

In my opinion, if the impossible happens and somehow Hillary gets the nomination, she must have Obama as a running mate. And in many ways, I think it applies vice versa as well, but maybe not to the same extent. At least with a Clinton Obama ticket, Obama finally gets an opportunity to flex his muscles and to really prove that he can walk the walk. If successful, it virtually assures a Democrat White House for the next 16 years, especially since Obama has time on his side.

The Clinton/Obama ticket was a shoe in and they were FOOLS not to do it. Obama almost cannot take Hillary now as he has said he is the candidate who cannot sotmach the past, which he then pinned on her. One of his many blunders IMO.

But, she sure slammed Obama hard in WV, which IMO does not bode well for Obama amongst the blue collar typical D's in the Fall

[Travis]

I’m no political expert by any means and I can’t recall the order of the states won by each Obama and Clinton in the past few months but I remember reading an article after Obama had won 10 or maybe it was 11 straight wins in a row. The article went on to say which states would be won by each candidate and that Clinton would ultimately get the nomination. Again, not an expert but the states that the article predicted that Clinton would win she has in fact won so … maybe there is hope for Clinton yet.

[strandinthewind]

Note -- she carefully attacks Obama, but then focuses on racism - the white version only.
___________________________________________________________

May 14, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Raspberry for Barry

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

In grim times, a bitter Hillary clings to bitter voters who in grim times supposedly cling to guns, religion and antipathy to people who aren’t like them.

Mining that antipathy, the New York senator has been working hard to get the hard-working white voters of hardscrabble Appalachia so she can show that a black man can’t yet be elected president.

Obama breezed through West Virginia, the state he couldn’t charm even wearing a flag pin and promising to invest in “clean coal.” Fast Barry shot some pool Monday afternoon at Schultzie’s Billiards in South Charleston, including prophetically sinking an eight-ball in the pocket, and then fled from Hillary territory to pursue white, blue-collar workers in battleground states and convince them not to vote for John McBush.

Obama is acting the diffident debutante, pretending not to care that he was given a raspberry by a state he will need in the fall. He was dismissed not only by the voters Hillary usually gets, but was also edged out in blocs that usually prefer him — the under-30 set, college graduates and affluent voters.

Interviews with West Virginians leaving the polls showed some profound weaknesses that could haunt the Illinois senator in the fall. More than half said they would be dissatisfied if Obama was the nominee. Half believe he shares the views of the Rev. Wright, and more than half said he does not share their values. More than half also said that he is not honest and trustworthy. Just under half of the Clinton voters said they would not support Obama in the fall.

Obama may have started the primary season with an inspiring win in 94-percent-white Iowa, but he is winding it up with a resounding loss in 94-percent-white West Virginia.

“As the song says, ‘Almost heaven,’ ” Hillary said at her Charleston victory party, hailing herself as “the strongest candidate,” the one who can win swing states, and urging again that Michigan and Florida votes be counted.

“You know I never give up,” she said, with a W.-strength denial of reality.

Two in 10 white voters said race was important in how they voted, and more than 8 of 10 of these went for Hillary. This echoes an article in The Washington Post on Tuesday that chronicled the racism that some Obama volunteers found in Indiana and Pennsylvania.

The story quoted Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, who could take only one night on an Obama phone bank in the nearly all-white Susquehanna County, Pa.: “One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: ‘Hang that darky from a tree!’ ”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote about complaints of racism after a bar in Marietta, Ga., began selling an Obama 2008 T-shirt with a picture of Curious George peeling a banana.

Charlie Peters, the legendary former editor of the liberal Washington Monthly who ran Jack Kennedy’s campaign in Kanawha County, W. Va., said Obama should study how J.F.K. managed to win there despite raging anti-Catholicism.

(My father, in West Virginia once on business, found his car had been flipped over by some locals furious about a sign on it supporting the first Catholic Democratic nominee, Al Smith.)

“The point of West Virginia in 1960 is that you can change attitudes,” Peters, an Obama supporter, said on Tuesday evening. “But if you don’t act to change them, he could lose West Virginia and I think he could lose the country.

“He has to change those perceptions of the people who think he could actually agree with the Rev. Wright.”

J.F.K. bought affection in West Virginia. “The boss of Logan County said 35,” Peters recalled. “He meant $3,500, but Kennedy thought it was $35,000, so he gave him $35,000. They put out all this money and they carried the precincts.” (Hillary has been using street money more than Obama, though it is unclear how much it has helped.)

West Virginia loved F.D.R. “because the Depression had been very tough for them and F.D.R. was kind to them,” Peters said. (On my father’s trip, he was threatened by a man who asked him about “rumors” that President Roosevelt was in a wheelchair and threatened to thrash any man who said so. My dad, a detective who served on protective details for F.D.R., assured the ruffian that Roosevelt was “a fine, athletic man.”)

So the campaign brought down F.D.R. Jr., Peters recounted, to “say it’s O.K. to vote for this Catholic.” Because West Virginia had a lot of veterans, they distributed a little tabloid emphasizing J.F.K.’s war record, including a Reader’s Digest piece about his heroism in the Pacific.

And finally, there was the beguiling Kennedy wit and smile. “Kennedy turned out to be this engaging person,” Peters said, “especially with young people, and children talked to their parents.”

Peters says Obama needs imagination and a “tremendous effort” to dispel bias in West Virginia, and quickly, “because once it’s set in concrete, you’ll have a hell of a time.”

www.nytimes.com

[strandinthewind]

May 14, 2008
Democrat Wins House Seat in Mississippi
By ADAM NOSSITER
COFFEEVILLE, Miss. — Democrats scored a remarkable upset victory on Tuesday in a special Congressional election in this conservative Southern district, sending a clear signal of national problems ahead for Republicans in the fall.

The Democrat, Travis Childers, a local courthouse official, pulled together a coalition of blacks, who turned out heavily, and old-line “yellow dog” Democrats, to beat his Republican opponent, Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, a Memphis suburb. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, the vote was 54 percent for Mr. Childers to 46 percent for Mr. Davis.

The seat had been in Republican hands since 1995, and the district, largely rural and stretching across the northern top of Mississippi, had been considered one of the safest in the country for President Bush’s party, as he won here with 62 percent of the vote in 2004.

Having lost a similar Congressional race this month in Louisiana, Republicans had worked desperately to win this contest, sending Vice President Dick Cheney to campaign for Mr. Davis, along with Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas; President Bush and Senator John McCain recorded telephone messages that were sent to voters throughout the district.

Merle Black, a Southern politics expert at Emory University, called a Democratic victory potentially “a huge upset, and an indication of a terrible year ahead for the Republicans.” He added, “In theory, this should be an easy win for them.”

Mimicking a strategy that proved successful in 2006, Democrats ran staunch conservatives in both this and the Louisiana race, forcing their Republican opponents to attack national party figures as surrogates.

Mr. Davis had been hoping for a large turnout in his home of DeSoto County, where roughly 15 percent of the district’s voters live, and which is solidly Republican and mostly white. But a last-minute appearance for him by Mr. Cheney on Monday apparently failed to rally his base sufficiently; indeed a modest room at a local convention center was hardly packed.

“There are indications that the normal Republican turnout is just not there,” Mr. Black said. “If they can’t win up there, where are you going to win?”

Both Mississippi candidates depicted themselves as down-the-line conservatives on social issues, and there was little difference between them on abortion and gun rights: staunchly against the first, and for the second.

But the Republican strategy of trying to link Mr. Childers to more liberal national Democratic figures fell short, as it did in Louisiana. Indeed, voters here were bombarded by advertisements equating Mr. Childers with Senator Barack Obama, a tactic intended to turn conservative whites away from Mr. Childers and which some politicians said played on white racial resentments. Mr. Childers, for his part, fiercely resisted the connection, calling himself over and over a “Mississippi Democrat.”

The defeat is certain to put a damper on plans by Congressional Republican plans to roll out their new policy agenda this week in an effort to turn around their fortunes.

Several House Republicans, who were already scheduled to meet on Wednesday, have said privately they do not see a wholesale leadership shake-up or an overhaul of their campaign operation as a strong option, given that the election is just six months away. But they are likely to consider some changes in response to the Mississippi defeat. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich warned last week that Republicans need a major shift to forestall heavy losses in November.

When Mr. Childers is sworn in, the House will have 236 Democrats to 199 Republicans. The seat was vacated when Representative Roger Wicker, a Republican, was appointed to succeed former Senator Trent Lott.

In the end, tying the white Democrat to the black presidential candidate may have helped Mr. Childers more than it hurt him, as campaign aides reported heavy black turnout, heavier than in a vote three weeks ago when he came within 400 votes of winning.

“I like what Childers was saying: he was more truthful and down to earth,” said Mary Shelton, an African-American who had just voted for him at the Yalobusha County courthouse here.

And Mr. Childers’s association with the party that might nominate Mr. Obama didn’t hurt either. “We need a change, we really do,” Ms. Shelton said.

Mr. Childers won Yalobusha, having lost it in the April vote.

And even in this district, it is not difficult to find conservative voters dissatisfied with the administration in Washington. “There’s a lot of people that are mad at Bush,” said Jim Jennings, a retired businessman, sitting at a table with Republican voters at a barbecue restaurant in DeSoto County.

Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the party was disappointed and needed to be better prepared to deal with conservative Democratic candidates, but he warned that time is short.

“Voters remain pessimistic about the direction of the country and the Republican Party in general,” Mr. Cole said. “Republicans must undertake bold efforts to define a forward-looking agenda that offers the kind of positive change voters are looking for.”

Carl Hulse contributed reporting from Washington.

www.nytimes.com