I was one of maybe five people who didn’t think Hillary Clinton was going to run for president in 2016. Looks like I was wrong (via the NYT):
The largest liberal “super PAC” in the country has begun raising money to elect Hillary Rodham Clinton president, formally aligning itself with Mrs. Clinton’s undeclared presidential ambitions more than two years away from the election.
The group, Priorities USA Action, which played a pivotal role in helping re-elect President Obama, also named new directors to steer the organization, appointments that will both cement the group’s pro-Clinton tilt and thrust veterans of Mr. Obama’s political and fund-raising operation into the center of the post-Obama Democratic Party.
Derp. There’s no way dialed-in folks like Jim Messina, et al, are out there shaking high-dollar donors down on behalf of HRC if she’s not running. So she’s running.
I’m not sure how to feel about that. I’ll definitely vote for her if she wins the nomination, and considering that the Republicans will hork up some psycho who will pledge to slash the social safety net and roll back rights for women, gays and minorities to disguise the party’s machinations on behalf of the plutocrat class, I’ll not only vote for her, I’ll donate to her campaign and work my ass off locally to get her elected.
But I’m far from convinced she’s the right candidate for all sorts of reasons. What do you guys think?
[X-posted at Rumproast]
dmsilev
Speaking of Clinton and her potential run for the Presidency, this is Just Plain Wrong.
Sir, step _away_ from the Photoshop controls. Hands off the mouse.
geg6
I’d crawl over a football field of broken glass to vote for her over whatever cretin the GOP thrusts into our faces.
That said, she’s never been my first choice for many reasons. But I think she’ll thump whatever mouthbreather the crazies nominate and that’s good enough for me right now. She has my enthusiastic support if she’s nominated. And I don’t think there is much question that she will be.
And one last thing…I expect that on Election Night 2016, if she wins, that I will be in the same position that my many Hilary-supporting friends were on Election Night 2008. That is, watching with tears running down my face at the enormity of a woman president. Several told me that they surprised themselves with the amount of emotion they felt that night at the election of a black man to the highest office in the land, despite the fact that they had never preferred him over Hillary.
MomSense
Same here. I am going to work my ass off for the Democratic Nominee because the Republican alternative is crazy. For proof, see the WaPo’s tweet yesterday with their poll on 2016 GOP potential candidates? No, I don’t think she is the best candidate and I’m not excited at all about the idea of her as President.
piratedan
not sure who I’d be supporting until I saw who was running and on what they hoped to run on… that said, she’s light years ahead of any R that comes to mind that has revealed any kind of presidential ambitions. If she’s nominated, I’ll vote for her.
Belafon
Remember when Clinton was the inevitable 2008 candidate? I do, and decided that Obama was a better candidate, but would not have had any trouble with Clinton as president.
In 2016, if Clinton runs, and no other candidate looks like a better one, then I will support Clinton in the primary, and Clinton for president.
And when she becomes president, I will push back against the misogyny that will occur, and call it the discussion this country needs to have about how women should be properly treated.
Ben Franklin
Sorry Betty…Ot.
Snowden to field Q&A live at 3 pm today.
http://www.freesnowden.is/asksnowden/
Brian R.
Pretty much what Betty said. Not my dream candidate, but light years ahead of the Republican.
Violet
Will definitely vote for her in the general if she’s the Dem nominee. Not sure about primaries. I like her but she’s not young. I think it keeps the Democratic party looking backwards (Vietnam, Boomer) rather than looking forward to younger candidates that move the party forward. She’s really talented and smart but I also don’t want the Clinton mess back in the WH.
Gravie
Not a fan of Hillary’s for a number of reasons, but that said — I too will support her enthusiastically if she’s the nominee. She is one tough lady and she knows how to get things done. But the ugly that will burst forth from the right-wing is going to be horrifying. They’ve hated her so much for so long.
bg
But …. Benghazi!!!!!!
Seriously, geg6, I came home after spending all day working at the polls in 2008 and just cried with joy.
Even though I knew that Obama was way less liberal than I am, the thought that I helped, in a small way, elect the first African American president just overwhelmed me. I cried again on inauguration day. And I cry now when I think about how hard it has been because there is a black guy in the white house, and so many dead-enders who just can’t get over it.
I expect the exact same thing will happen with Hillary Clinton. She’s way too “centrist” for me on a whole lot of issues and way too warlike on the middle east. But I have been waiting my whole life for a woman president. There is never going to be one who thinks exactly like I do. But at least there will be one who looks like me.
And she will be way, way better than whoever the other guys put up.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: Me too. There was a great discussion the other day in a thread about whether or not Obama is a transformative president (I say hell yeah!) and someone (Aji maybe?) said that for people of color, Obama’s election made what had formerly been a lie frequently told in this country — any kid can grow up to be president — the truth.
That is important and significant. But that line is still a lie for my daughter. I would love to see a woman president, and while HRC wouldn’t be my first choice necessarily, it would be an incredible advance by virtue of that fact alone.
muricafukyea
Waaay too much baggage. Right or wrong, manufactured or not. Makes no difference. Baggage is baggage. Obama had almost no baggage and look at how the Republican bullsheit factories went after him.
Besides, I was never much of a Hilary fan and if Jeb runs she would probably have no chance.
WaterGirl
I really didn’t think she would run, and I think this is terrible news. I think this moves us backward, not forward. So depressing. I will vote for her, but I definitely do not want her as president.
cleek
seems like she’s even more of a centrist that Obama, definitely more of a DC-insider, hawkish, and with little to show in the way of progressive bona-fides. plus, the whole dynasty thing bugs me.
i’ll vote for her, if that’s the choice. but, right now, she doesn’t excite me in any way.
Tom Levenson
Key for me: someone who can hire the right people to run a modern campaign. That’s how Obama kicked ass twice (improving greatly between already impressive 2008 and 2012. Whoever the Republican is will do better than Romney and McCain (low bar) — quite possibly much better — at the technical side of building a campaign apparatus. But there are some significant advantages we have, if we use them (again, all on the nuts and bolts here). If Hilary drops the clown car folks she had in 2008 and works with the Obama team, she’s the one.
I’m instrumental here. We need not just a new House, but a new Supreme Court. I don’t think any of the 5 conservative justices are going to retire in the next 2.5 years. I don’t see how Kennedy and perhaps Scalia make it for another 7. So we need a Democrat in 2016, big time. I’m going with the one who can win.
Also — this is one of a number of reasons why someone like Schweitzer seems a bad idea. I have no faith in his ability to create a national campaign at the level of technical competence needed this time round. Could be wrong — but for any Hilary challenger on the Dem side, that’s what I’ll be looking for long before I get to any question about their policy positions.
PaulW
I’d like to think time has tempered some of the harsher concerns I’d had about her back in 2008. Her ambition was genuine and palpable, and it worried me then. What’s impressed me was that she was able to work with Obama as Sec of State for 4 years and did so with skill (to the haters obsessing over BENGHAZI, that was a tragic failure across the board to be blamed on Congress as well as various other agencies). If the Clintons have “long memories” and an “enemies’ list”, you’d think Obama would be one of their hated considering he “stole” Hillary’s chance for 2008. But she worked with him, Bill worked with him (and gave him one of the best rousing speeches at a political convention since, oh lordy, maybe Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech), and that shows an adult pragmatism working within the political system.
I’d still worry Hillary is more Active-Negative than Active-Positive, but she’ll be tons better than whoever gets the 2016 GOP nomination (can you believe Gov. Walker in Wisconsin is under investigation as well? If I were Fox Not-News, I’d be screaming conspiracy to eliminate all the “electable” Republicant governors…)
Bill
She’s just another centrist Democrat. Not my first choice by a long shot.
She will undoubtedly be way way way better than the Republican nominee, so she will likely get my vote.
I’m kind of tired of this pattern playing out over and over again though.
eldorado
there are three existential issues facing the usa — financialization of the economy, the surveillance state and climate change. clinton for sure won’t help with the first, i have no idea about the second, and probably will support some small steps on the third. that’s pretty thin gruel. i will vote for her if she wins the nomination, but i won’t help her get it.
Lihtox
Depends on who the other options are. For instance, if it’s between Clinton and Cuomo, I’ll vote for Hillary in a heartbeat
peach flavored shampoo
Hill on the Hill?
That tremor you just felt was Armando’s orgasm. Hopefully the backsplash stayed within the state of FL.
FastEddie
I think she sees that she can walk away with the election. The GOP clown car is loaded with clowns and can be beaten easily, and there’s nobody on our side with her stature. What we need is to start working on 2014 elections, because without a decent congress we see nothing gets done.
I would rather a more progressive candidate, but she may well surprise us.
Poopyman
Wow. I was going to just type “opinions differ” and hit Enter. I’m a little surprised at the unanimity of responses, but maybe the usual suspects are napping. Or maybe all of those unicorn-seeking libtards have finally seen the light.
Like nearly everyone else above, I’m not excited, but I’ll pledge my time and money to make sure she wins … if she’s the nominee.
Jim Foolish Literalist
Lots of things I don’t like about HIllary Clinton, but I don’t see any likely or even rumored candidates on our side that I like better. Schweitzer’s an ass, Biden is older and arguably more hawkish and undisciplined as a candidate, Martin O’Malley strikes me as not ready for prime time. OTOH, Bubba is a complete fucking wild card; there are several different ways he could blow this up.
Stellours
Not my dream candidate by any measure, but I believe as a working President that she would be up to the position.
I also thought she had too much baggage but now I think being the Secretary of State and going on to become her own person has helped immensely.
I am also encouraged to think that most of us will support whoever they put up against any republican unless an independent like Bernie Sanders or Alan Greyson throws his hat in the ring might pull off votes from our side.
Anybodybuther2016
I don’t care if Jesus Christ is fundraising for her, she will never be president.
dmsilev
@Violet:
Agreed, on all counts. Whether she has my vote in the primary will depend on who else is running, what stands they take, etc. If she’s nominated, she has my vote in the general.
Omnes Omnibus
I was also among the five who figured she wasn’t running. If she is she starts out as the frontrunner, but I don’ t know that she inevitably wins the nomination.
Amir Khalid
I seem to sense a lack of enthusiasm for Hillary. I remember that she gave Obama a pretty good run for the nomination in 2008. Is she really that poor a candidate, or was she just outshone by Obama’s considerable star power?
And if, in the end, she were to decide not to run after all — hey, she hasn’t declared, and she’s not actually running until she does — who should? Elizabeth Warren is needed in the Senate, and it’s hard to think of anyone else who is high-profile enough.
gogiggs
I won’t vote for a Republican for any reason as long as they remain the party of ignorance, intolerance and just plain crazy.
Nonetheless, I don’t want Hilary. I’m tired of Bushes and Clintons and dynastic/nepotistic politics, in general. And I didn’t much care for the Clintons’ corporatist policies and centrism when Bill was president.
If I’d read all the comments first I probably would have just typed “what Eldorado said” because that sums up my feeling better than I did.
mai naem(mobile)
I am a little disappointed that other people won’t get into the race because the Hilary steamroller is just so huge. I don’t think she’s a liberal but she’s more liberal than Bill. I also think the current dems are going to force her to be more liberal than she is. I have to agree though that the Dems need a few younger people in their visible high up leadership. Hoyer/pelosi/Clinton/Reid/schumer/clyburn /biden
are all old. But I will absolutely vote for clinton. She’s incredibly accomplished.
Elizabelle
Long time ’til 2016.
An interesting development, to be sure.
Not of the “all eggs in one basket” contingent. I’d like to see who else might run, too.
slippytoad
@Betty Cracker:
It’s interesting that what Obama demonstrates is one of those things that wingers would like us to forget: equality. It’s not a value they seem to actually value.
Elizabelle
Also, isn’t this an early present to the “Shrillary! Oh noes!” fundraising crowd? Citizens United types?
And the Limbaugh Hannities of the world?
I’d prefer they were kept guessing a lot longer …
Omnes Omnibus
@PaulW: Walker has been under investigation more or less since he was elected. This time it is primarily over campaign finance violations during the recall.
Mnemosyne
I worry about her health more than anything else, especially that blood clot near her brain that she had. But I think she’s smart enough to run as the third Obama term rather than trying the Al Gore strategy of running against the popular previous president. Also, she hopefully learned a few things about hiring staff in the past 8 years.
icedfire
I still haven’t quite gotten over the several deplorable campaign tactics that were used in the 2008 primary once they realized that Obama was a candidate with both heft and staying power…in a lot of ways, they (or perhaps Mark Penn particularly) played to the lowest common denominator throughout the campaign.
Even if it was pure political pragmatism at the time, her comportment during the convention helped to mollify my ill-will at the time and I was impressed with her as SecState. I’ll never like her hawkishness, but overall we could do a lot worse for a candidate.
Also too, it’s the GOP. ‘Nuff said.
El Caganer
No love for Ted Cruz?
What? What’d I say?
cleek
@Amir Khalid:
she’s probably a great candidate. but on the issues, she’s not great.
sparrow
@WaterGirl: Agree. She is not the right person, for the same reasons that I preferred Obama 1000% over Hillary in 2008. She’s a warmonger and a corporate whore, she’s a 0.1% elitist, and TONS of baggage. Ugh. Not excited at ALL.
I’m not saying I won’t vote for her if she’s the nominee, but I think it will be such a step backwards.
Comrade Jake
What surprises me are the number of folks who think she might actually have a hard time getting elected. I think she’s probably going to have one of the bigger blowouts we’ve seen in some time.
Anybodybuther2016
@Amir Khalid:
both. ;)
Erin
I have mixed feelings. I like Hilary Clinton! But she’s a big business democrat, and I’m just so sick of business as usual. I would love to see a president who was committed to patent and IP reform, and serious-for-reals banking and financial reform.
But I’d vote for Hilary in a heartbeat, absolutely. I’d just be wishing in my heart I was voting for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. :P
gussie
How come we hear nothing about Gore running?
MattF
I recall there was some chart showing the ideologies of the Dem candidates in 2008, based on their announced positions. Clinton and Obama were basically identical. The only candidate that was more of a lefty was Richardson. I preferred Obama at that point because a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton sequence seemed just wrong to me, and Richardson wasn’t showing well.
All that said, Clinton is by far the best candidate in the field, and I’ll do a jig after voting for her.
p.a.
@WaterGirl: I agree. I will certainly vote for her in the general, but not my first choice in a primary. Concerns: age, DLC-ish, Wall St. $$$ influence, not much experience and not a very good campaigner. (1 or 2 term Senator? Outmanuevered by the Obama team in ’07-’08.) Lanny effing Davis etc.
Jim Foolish Literalist
@PaulW: That “enemies list”, the actual list with the numbers denoting how vile was their treason, was kept by a staffer, IIRC, and it would not surprise me a bit to learn that “staffer’s” middle name was Jefferson. I think Bill is the one far more likely to be vindictive.
Even Bill’s way of dealing with enemies reflects some pragmatism. His big showy rescue of Lieberman in ’06 was as much about watching his biggest Democratic scold grovel as it was about the Clintons’ shared delusion that Liebercrats and Broderists would rally under Hillary’s banner in ’08
SiubhanDuinne
This, word, ditto, seconded, and me too.
I would, and will, work for her and certainly vote for her if she’s the nominee. For all her flaws she’s light-years ahead of anyone the GOP manages to dredge up. But I’m concerned about her age, health, baggage, and the kind of people she has a history of bringing on as staffers and advisers.
My respect for her went up a lot, though, during her tenure as SoS, and of course I’d love to see a woman elected POTUS in my lifetime. So I guess, if she’s in then I’m in.
jayboat
my first thought when seeing that is, “see? Photosmack isn’t just for supermodels!”
But, nah- I went wit dat odder ting instead.
Citizen_X
@muricafukyea:
Ah ha haha haaaa. That’s amazingly stupid, even for you.
Like most, I wouldn’t be that thrilled. But she will crush any Rethug, and will sweep in a whole lot of Dems with her. (And Schweitzer? Shot his dick off already. Fuck that guy.)
It will take two more presidential terms to turn the American supertanker around. (Plus: SCOTUS nominations.) That’s what it will take to end the the rightwing revolution. In other words, to finally bury that fucker Reagan. I will help make that happen.
BGinCHI
The thing to keep in mind is that it’s the Administration you are really voting for.
Even if you didn’t think Hilary was great, she is going to bring in sane people for the judiciary, State, Ed (well, hopefully better than asshat Duncan), EPA, Labor, etc.
Not voting for her and even risking a GOP administration all the way down to these agencies and courts is so fucking stupid I can’t even believe anyone near the center left or left would do it.
This ain’t a fucking Prom King/Queen contest.
The Dangerman
I haven’t heard enough about Benghazi so I’m thrilled she’s running.
Anybodybuther2016
@sparrow:
huh?
Betty Cracker
@slippytoad: That’s right, and HRC, by virtue of who she is, will demonstrate equality as well. In a country that largely ignores policy, I think this is an enormously powerful advantage. I despise the GOP with every fiber of my being, but they do an incredible job with branding. The Dems, not so much. We need every edge we can get, and if HRC’s gender energizes women, that’s all to the good.
WereBear
I don’t mind Hillary running. She’s more liberal than Bill, if she can be her own woman. And she can win. I don’t see any other candidate with that kind of electoral heft, on either side.
I’m ready for a woman President. If there’s any heads unexploded on the Right Wing side, this should do it.
Gin & Tonic
Can someone please list for me her top two or three achievements as SecState?
Like most others, I’d have to have my kids held at gunpoint before I’d consider voting for any of the inevitable R morons, but the fact that she’s the best we can do depresses me considerably.
IowaOldLady
One of the reasons the Ds have wound up looking at an older candidate is the 2010 disaster. It put Rs in a huge number of governorships and that’s where candidates get visibility. I hope the 2014 election changes that some and the 2016 one changes it more.
coin operated
Do we have anyone with any name recognition on the bench? Seems like HRC has been a foregone conclusion since her appointment to Sec of State.
SiubhanDuinne
@FastEddie:
If we get a decent Congress in 2014, one that reflects progressive values, then I think the Democratic nominee in 2016 will, by default, have to be a more progressive candidate.
sparrow
@Anybodybuther2016: As someone else said, it’s the judicial appointments, and other things that come with a Dem president. Of course I would vote for her if she won the nomination, I’m not stupid.
Punchy
This. As “centric” as she is, she will almost certainly appoint a SC Justice or two. That alone may be enough to keep this country from circling the drain for another 50 years or so. If she’s the shoo-in that many think she would be, why the fuck would I not be excited?
What do Dems want….a sure-fire Hillary, or a nail-biter with Castro or the Montana guy that could tip to the R’s? I’ll take a milquetoast Hillary in a boatrace than sweat 4 years of R rule on election nite.
Betty Cracker
@BGinCHI:
Word.
askew
She’s going to be a huge step down from Obama. The Clintons have chaos follow them everywhere. I expect her presidency to be dysfunctional and producing almost zero important accomplishments. After all, that is what has happened her entire career. She’s all hype and zero results. She did nothing in the Senate beside name post offices. Kerry has managed to get more done as SoS in his short tenure compared to her 4 years in the job.
Oh, and she is a hawk so I expect Obama’s progress in the Middle East to be undone almost immediately upon Hillary’s election.
Cacti
On a policy level, she’s a bit too hawkish for my tastes, and her unrepentant support of the Iraq war still sticks in my craw.
On a political level, she is the Dems most formidable candidate on paper, but that was also true in 2008. She doesn’t have nearly the political chops of her husband, and her only electoral success was a legacy Senate seat in one of the bluest states. I’m skeptical of her ability to close the deal. As a general matter, her age is also a potential campaign issue, as she would be the second oldest person elected to a first term as POTUS, and she has had some well publicized health issues.
sparrow
@coin operated: Liz Warren, who is super popular with the kids.
Amir Khalid
@p.a.:
Hillary was first elected to the US Senate in 2000, her first and only elected office so far, and was serving her second term in 2008. If you count Obama’s time in the Illinois state Senate from 1997 to 2005, during which he was re-elected twice, he’d been in more campaigns than she.
Belafon
@IowaOldLady: Actually, right now, excluding non-fringe candidates (Fred the Barber is running for president), Clinton is about the only one we’re sure of. Warren isn’t running (and I prefer her in the Senate, hopefully in a leadership position soon), and there haven’t been a whole lot of other announcements. But it’s early.
I can’t choose a young candidate if none choose to run.
Calming Influence
She’s not my favorite candidate because:
a) I think she’s another triangulator
b) I think she carries too much of Bill’s baggage
c) Benghazi x 1 zillion
d) I thought this was a country where anyone could become president, not just former president’s family members.
e) Did I mention Benghazi?
f) Algore is fat.
WereBear
An excellent point and we should remember that!
balconesfault
The number of heart attacks that might occur on November 8, 2016 could all but wipe out the Tea Party.
askew
@Violet:
Yep, that is another knock against Clinton. She’s too old and it definitely moves the party backwards. The Republicans will be nominating a future leader for their party and we’ll be stuck with a 69-year old nominee who still thinks it is 1996. I worry it will end up like the 2008 election where McCain looked like a dottering old fool while Obama looked young, energetic and in touch with the country.
Anybodybuther2016
@Gin & Tonic:
You will be waiting a long time for that list. The only thing she accomplished as SOS was racking up miles on the taxpayers dime.
EconWatcher
Let the triangulation begin.
The PUMAs who somehow thought Hillary would be more liberal than Obama are going to be fun to watch as they’re force-fed with a giant reality sandwich.
KG
I was born in 1978, 2012 was the first presidential election in my lifetime when there wasn’t a Bush or a Clinton running in a presidential election. It was nice, I had hoped to do it again.
Honestly, I think she will once again make a bad candidate and probably make a bad president. I don’t understand the reason to vote for her in a primary… It’s her turn? That’s the GOP standard.
Jim Foolish Literalist
Yup, and while it may in the long term prove a pyrrhic victory, getting control of all those state houses for redistricting gave the R’s an edge they’ll have for a long time. I was looking last week at the 2012 results for a couple of states where the R’s won big (enough) in 2010. Obama won OH, WI, and PA by more than 5%. I find it mind-boggling, but some people just don’t give a fuck about their state gov’t, apparently. If OFA and the Clinton star power (to which I am immune but I can’t deny it exists) can make some change in that long-term pattern, we’ll have made a huge step forward.
catclub
“both cement the group’s pro-Clinton tilt and thrust veterans of Mr. Obama’s political and fund-raising operation into the center”
These two statements are somewhat self-contradictory.
TooManyJens
@Belafon: Martin O’Malley hasn’t announced (because it’s just now 2014, for the love of fuck), but he’s been positioning himself for a while.
Cacti
@sparrow:
Liz Warren, who is super popular with the kids.
I think Warren can do more long term good where she is. We need solid liberal voices in the Senate.
Davis X. Machina
I still don’t think she’ll run… health, mostly. I don’t have any other reservations, really.
So she’s not Rosa Luxemburg. Howard Dean wasn’t Karl Liebknech, either.
mike with a mic
Maybe it’s age but fuck boomers. I’m seriously sick of all them. No, the sixities were not special and unique and the music was not good. Nor did they ruin America. I don’t like the right wingers who never got over them, and I don’t like the self important blow hard liberals who place far too much value in the decade as a way of jerking off their own ego. All of them suck, none of them are special, and they all contributed heavily to fucking everything up. If I could lock everyone who thinks about that decade into a box and fire them into the sun I would.
I’d rate someone as not being a boomer and thus being free of boomer bullshit much more important than race, party, sex, or any other thing we use to define them.
Democrats need to get young voters out, and boomers are not the way to do that. It’s just boring olds with an over inflated sense of self importance arguing with other wrinkly olds. If it’s boomer vs boomer, sorry not voting.
Brian R.
@sparrow:
If Elizabeth Warren runs, all bets are off. She’s a real progressive, a great campaigner, and obviously makes the gender issue moot in a head-to-head with HRC.
jonas
Hillary’s biggest advantage is the fact that the GOP will nominate a complete boob — they’ve got nothing else. Ted Cruz? Rick Perry? Newt Gingrich? Last time around, Romney, who could play a pretty convincing moderate on TV, simply *bought* the nomination. The base wanted Santorum or Gingrich and he just steamrolled them with cash. Unless some other gazillionaire with good hair decides to do the same, the GOP is going to have run one of its current marquee names, all of whom stomp around in pretty big clown shoes, as we say around here.
Hillary’s biggest disadvantage is that she has little cred with the progressive wing of the party. She’s going to have to do some serious outreach, tap Obama’s continuing popularity among the rank and file, and hopefully pick a solid progressive as a running mate.
Davis X. Machina
@SiubhanDuinne:
You’ll be lucky if we keep the Senate.
askew
@PaulW:
According to Double Down, Bill wasn’t going to do a thing for the re-election until Obama made sure Hillary’s 2008 debt was paid in full. So, Obama’s donors had to pay for Bill to do a damn thing. They are petty people who are fueled by the need to prove that Hillary should have won in 2008.
BruinKid
If she runs, I just hope her strategists tell her that she needs to hammer home the message to all those independent and even some Republican-leaning women that they need to vote Democratic (some for the first time ever) up and down the ballot in 2016. Hillary has to know that if she’s elected, but with a Tea Party controlled House of Representatives, she ain’t getting jack shit done. At least, nothing of the legacy-building sort. But if a significant number of generally Republican-leaning women vote Democratic in 2016, that could be enough to swing even some gerrymandered districts where the Republican Congressman won in 2012 with less than 55% of the vote.
Now, does the GOP realize that the Rush Limbaugh misogyny-cranked-to-11 playbook will only serve to drive those women into Hillary’s arms even faster?
Poopyman
As a Marylander I keep hearing about Marty O as the next Big Thing. I can’t say that I’m convinced myself, but I expect the rest of the country will start to hear more about him as 2016 approaches.
So a few days ago I got one of his State of the State emails, and I thought I’d just let you know what HE thinks his accomplishments are. You’ll hear more about them in the coming months, I’m sure:
hitchhiker
@BGinCHI:
This ain’t a fucking Prom King/Queen contest.
Thank you. My only concern is that she’s in her seventies. Good christ, to be that age and take on a job that taxing? And you know she ain’t going to be like Reagan or W, snoozing away contentedly every night and taking lots of rests at the ranch.
My 20-something daughters have both given me the Clinton again line . . . but she has that name by marriage, because in Arkansas in the 80s it was a thing to keep your name after the wedding. It meant you were some kind of uppity women’s libber.
Who’s her running mate?
catclub
@The Dangerman: I larfed.
coin operated
@sparrow: I don’t want Warren to run because I think she’s EXACTLY where we need her. Scary smart, and one of the few in the Senate who really understands banking.
John O
It is very unlikely that I’ll vote for HRC in the primary, but she’s a lock for my vote in the general if she runs and wins. Whom depends on who else bothers and what they’re talking about. I’d love it if Warren ran, even though she’s probably handier in the Senate for now.
I think Hillary would be fine as a President, too. I’m just natively uncomfortable with political dynasties. Like the kids, I’m tired of the Clinton’s and Bush’s.
Tractarian
Jim Messina raising money for a super-PAC is not evidence that Hillary has decided to run.
Just because “Priorities USA Action” is committed to Hillary if she runs does not mean the donors’ contributions will all be wasted if she doesn’t run. In that event, the money isn’t going to go in Hillary’s savings account, it’s going to go to elect whoever the Dem nominee is.
Davis X. Machina
@jonas:
If that’s her biggest disadvantage, she has no real disadvantages. Cred with the progressive wing of the party, plus $2.50, will get you a latte at Peet’s. Ask President Dean.
askew
@mai naem(mobile):
Could you name her accomplishments? As far as I can see, she’s been elected to the Senate twice and sat on her ass did nothing there. She was SoS and she flew around the world and gave speeches but accomplished almost nothing. It’s worth noting when she ran in 2008, she ran on Bill’s accomplishments and stole credit for other people’s hard work – FMLA, SCHIP, and Irish Peace Agreement were all things she claimed credit for but had almost nothing to do with getting accomplished.
Belafon
@Calming Influence:
But we haven’t elected the wife of a former president. It didn’t help her in 2008, and right now her title is former SoS, not former First Lady.
balconesfault
For those of us who are uberwonks and spend all our time paying attention to politics – HRC is a centrist politician who won’t do much to push a progressive agenda.
To those Americans who aren’t waist deep in this stuff all the time – their opinion of HRC is going to be framed by the media and the GOP attackers – who by and large are going to be arguing that she’s Stalin’s Spawn, so far to the left that she’ll be sending conservatives to re-education camps.
In short – the kids are going to still think she’s a liberal. And she’s therefore a liberal woman, which is going to get lot of young women involved in fighting for her election.
What’s the GOP candidate going to do against her – try to make the argument that Hillary really ISN’T that liberal, so the kids shouldn’t support her?
Rand Paul might make that pitch. Nobody else in the GOP could.
Gex
@balconesfault: All the assholes in the military that talked about how the near president wasn’t their CIC will lose their minds to have a woman for CIC.
catclub
@jonas: “biggest disadvantage is that she has little cred with the progressive wing of the party”
That sounds like a lot of hippie punching cred for the centrist pundits to enjoy. Not sure it will convert a lot of more conservative older women, but it might.
Cacti
@Davis X. Machina:
If that’s her biggest disadvantage, she has no real disadvantages. Cred with the progressive wing of the party, plus $2.50, will get you a latte at Peet’s. Ask President Dean.
Or President Kucinich. Or Congresswoman Burner. Or Senator Lamont.
Tractarian
@mike with a mic:
Epic rant. (So full of win that I had to re-post all of it.)
Calming Influence
Can we clone Elizabeth Warren so we can keep her in the senate and run a 35 year old version for president?
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: I clicked the link. Ick.
MattF
OT. Does it make me a bad person that I knew what was going to happen at the end?
http://www.boredpanda.org/how-dogs-and-cats-teach-their-little-ones-to-walk-down-the-stairs/
Elizabelle
The more I think about this, it’s too early, and I don’t like seeing the field cleared (if that happens). So much can happen in almost three years.
Is this Citizens United tipping the scales, and Dems decided to get out there early and get out there big?
This cat does not like getting herded so soon.
geg6
@mike with a mic:
Yeah, that Boomer Obama really sucked donkey balls.
You know who I’m sick of? GenX assholes.
Jim Foolish Literalist
How do you think your daughters will react to the sexism that is the one inevitable in a race she’s in? a la Mitch McConnell’s Golden Girls line. That’s a serious question, not passive aggressive trolling. I was late to the Obama party, but one of the things that pushed me in to Obotterie was the absurdity of the criticism and paranoia directed at him, first by Hillary and her followers, from Buffenbarger, the MyDD crowd and Hillary herself, later by the flat out racists and right wingers and simpering Broderists. I think the backlash against similar nuttiness directed at HIllary will backfire in an even bigger way.
As to her age, her mother lived well in to her nineties with all her marbles intact, I believe, and HRC belongs to a generation and a class that takes good care of itself and is well taken care of. Not a concern to me.
raven
@mike with a mic: you don’t know shit
Calming Influence
@Belafon:
Just in case you’re serious, it’s a distinction without a difference.
catclub
@balconesfault: “In short – the kids are going to still think she’s a liberal. And she’s therefore a liberal woman, which is going to get lot of young women involved in fighting for her election.”
That sounds encouraging. She could be pushed by her constituents.
geg6
@hitchhiker:
I’d love it if it was Martin O’Malley. Had a colleague who worked for him when he was mayor and he has nothing but good things to say about the guy, both personally and professionally.
Elizabelle
You know what else?
I am so thrilled we have two-term President Barack Obama.
I am going to revel in that for a while, rather than turn to the 2016 horse race this soon.
askew
@EconWatcher:
A lot of those PUMAs were racists who had problems with an AA president. Ferraro spoke to many of those people. Since Hillary isn’t black, they’ll love her regardless of what she does (or more likely doesn’t) accomplish. And she’s got a PR team. People have been repeating her campaign’s lies about how “accomplished” she is for years without ever stopping to examine what’s she has done.
Jim Foolish Literalist
@Davis X. Machina: @balconesfault: Hear, hear.
@geg6: and hear this too, and I’m a Gen-Xer (I think, ’67. I could never keep that shit straight. I know I used to be young. And least I’m pretty sure.)
J.D. Rhoades
Hilary is and always will be Republican Lite. But I don’t see anyone running against her, and Republican Lite is better than Republican Crazy, which is what we’ll get out of the GOP.
askew
@hitchhiker:
Someone who won’t outshine her because the Clintons don’t like to share the spotlight. I’d guess Mark Warner or Evan Bayh. Two of the most boring politicians on the planet.
Cervantes
@hitchhiker:
They were married in ’74 or ’75. She kept and used the name “Hillary Rodham” until her husband’s ’82 gubernatorial campaign.
RaflW
@muricafukyea:
I think the bullsheit is so deep from the GOP now that it doesn’t matter. Or maybe even helps. They look totally nutso to the non-27%ers and the more they bugg out about Hillary (or whomever dares to have a D after their candidate name), the more they look like they hate blacks, women, and everyone not them.
It’s just not a selling message. So I say “please proceed, sir…”
Amir Khalid
I see quite a few people here saying they won’t vote for Hillary in the ’16 primaries, but will do so in November if despite their opposition she wins the nomination. Doesn’t withholding your vote in the primary risk weakening her position in the election proper?
Also, I presume you intend to vote for some better candidate in the primary. Do you have someone in mind, or are you hoping that some dark-horse candidate will appear?
EconWatcher
Mark my words, if she really does run, the first thing she’ll do is start attacking Obama (and probably ObamaCare), while he’s still trying to get something done.
It’s the Clintons. It’s what they do.
Of course I’ll vote for her if she’s the nominee, but I don’t have to like it.
Cacti
@Jim Foolish Literalist:
As to her age, her mother lived well in to her nineties with all her marbles intact, I believe
That might be an apples to apples comparison if her mother had ever been POTUS.
chopper
@askew:
i’m not sure the teabaggers are gonna allow the GOP machine to run the nomination process again. the last two guys were jokes. there’s a really good chance they’ll end up coughing up some dude who still thinks it’s 1896. if that’s the future leader for their party, hills will destroy him.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
Same here.
catclub
@askew: “Two of the most boring politicians on the planet.”
BOTH of them? gaah
Hob
@Citizen_X: Of course, that’s the same idiot who likes to mock the posters here for being “gloom and doom” and for giving Republicans too much attention. Hard to say why he even bothers including any vaguely political content in his insults when he clearly has no actual opinion on such things.
Betty Cracker
@geg6:
Hey, now! But yeah, it was an incredibly stupid comment you were responding to…
catclub
@EconWatcher: “Mark my words, if she really does run, the first thing she’ll do is start attacking Obama (and probably ObamaCare), while he’s still trying to get something done.”
That sounds a lot more like you will be listening carefully for any hint of a wisp of a disagreement.
If you are looking to be insulted, you will find what you are looking for.
rikyrah
She is not my first choice and I’ll pretty much work for any alternative in the primary. I will not volunteer for her. I will not send her money. I will only vote.
J.D. Rhoades
@Brian R.:
If Warren runs, I will definitely back her 100%. But I don’t think she will.
OTOH, if Hilary runs and the party nominates any male candidate over her, it will seriously degrade most of the gains with women that the Republican Party has previously handed the Democrats on a long line of silver platters.
NobodySpecial
If it’s down to her and a winger in the General, I’ll vote for her. Not one dime, not one primary vote, not one phone call. She lost whatever help from me she could have gotten with her vote on the Iraq War and then doubling down on it. She’s gonna be great for jerkwad zillionaires, defense contractors, the security state, and Reagan Democrats. Yay.
shortstop
I dislike it when people comment without reading the whole thread, but I’m playing the Awful Horrible No-Good Plaguish Wish You Were Dead Flu card for not doing so now. My apologies.
It strikes me that our even having this conversation about whether we like Hillary enough is indicative of our privileged status. There are people homeless, starving, sick as hell and suffering from 100 other kinds of misery who can’t afford the luxury of this discussion. We don’t have a more progressive candidate who has a chance in hell of getting elected. She is a Democrat who will overwhelmingly support the same policies we do. Once in a while she won’t. She can win.
She can win.
I’m going to work my ass off for her, and I was Obama all the way in 2008. I was horrified by her campaign and the things that came out of it, not least her husband’s inability to shut his damn yap, but as far as I’m concerned, she’s proven herself ten times over the last few years. I’m impressed at what’s she’s accomplished and that she was able to achieve it while working for the guy who beat her when she thought she had a lock. And although he’s always going to be something of a loose cannon, I think Bill has calmed down quite a bit and he has indisputably supported this administration in ways that really count.
Everyone who said they wanted to see a president whose honorific is “Madam” instead of “Mr.”? You’re getting one. It’s Hillary. And it’s going to be just fine.
RaflW
@slippytoad:
Well, for wingers, it doesn’t demonstrate that at all. Neither did elevating Sotomayor. These are just glaring examples, in their twisted hearts, of the insidious affirmative action. White guys shoulda got them there jerbs.
EconWatcher
@catclub:
You’re either very young or you haven’t been paying attention. If you were an adult in the 90s and witnessed how triangulation became a part of our lexicon, you’d know better.
askew
@Amir Khalid:
Martin O’Malley is who I am voting for if he runs. The guy has a huge record of accomplishments, not just PR “accomplishments” like Hillary, that are progressive and have been successful. Maryland’s economy is going strong, he raised taxes on the wealthy, he passed gun control, DREAM Act, gay marriage, ended the death penalty, etc.
If the 2016 is Walker, Sandoval or Martinez (who are my best guesses as to who gets the nomination right now), Hillary has nothing to run against them with. She can’t say she’s been an executive. She can’t take credit for ending the Iraq War or killing OBL which were two of Obama’s big foreign policies wins during Hillary’s SoS term. She can’t point to anything she did in the Senate.
O’Malley on the other hand, can go toe-to-toe against any of those governors. His state has a better economic record than their states do. He has a long list of popular legislation he can point to counter their arguments. He has executive experience, etc.
Plus, he’s not 69 years old. It’s a win-win for me.
Unfortunately, Hillary is sucking up all of the talent from the Obama operation. It’s too bad none of them are ballsy enough to work for another underdog.
WereBear
I live in NY and I’ve seen Senator Clinton push for rural broadband, stick up for first responders, and advocate for women’s issues all through the state.
I don’t like her war votes but she’s first wave feminism married to a Southern man, so I also cut her some slack on issues I don’t agree with.
She’s very smart and a hard worker. The first woman President MUST have some bona-fides.
It’s far more than liking someone’s stances on issues… remember when what’s his face with the hair said all the right things about two Americas, and he was a HORRIBLE candidate?
I’d love Bernie Sanders for Prez, but until the whole nation is Vermont, it’s not going to happen.
Anybodybuther2016
@mike with a mic: Exactomundo! These people just don’t get it. The American people have had it with these entitled assholes that think we owe them. We don’t owe Hillary or Bill shit. They’ve managed to feather their nest egg quite nicely maybe she should take some time off to enjoy all of that Marianas island cash. ;)
balconesfault
@RaflW:
This. The more the right wing looks like Newsmax, the easier it is to peel voters from the GOP ranks.
Poopyman
@J.D. Rhoades: See what O’Malley is running on @Poopyman:
NobodySpecial
@shortstop:
And what, pray tell, do you exactly expect Mrs. “Welfare Reform” Clinton to do about them? Besides push for more free trade agreements?
Just because her nameplate says D don’t mean a damn thing when it comes down to what she’s going to do.
Jay C
Me too: it’s just that given the realities of politics these days, Hillary may not be the right candidate, but she sure as hell isn’t the wrong one. And that, sadly enough, is about as much as one is likely to get…
FlyingToaster
@muricafukyea: @Citizen_X:
Like CitizenX says, this is stoopid, even for you.
The GOP KlownKar will start as: Santorum, Ryan, Pawlenty, Walker, Jindal, Perry, Barbour, and probably a couple other ex-governors like Pawlenty who aren’t making enough money in the private sector.
Huckabee, Gingrich and Palin won’t run because the grift is too good in the private sector. Bush and Haley won’t run because baggage.
Bush’s wife and daughter are just begging to have the spotlight on them. /snark
If Clinton avoids her husband’s old cronies this time (that means NO Dick Morris, NO Mark Penn, NO Joe Fucking Lieberman), and grabs as many Obama and OFA ex-staffers as will volunteer, she’ll have an organization in all 50 states about 16 minutes after she announces. If she doesn’t, then we have a big-ass problem.
Bill, while a pain-in-the-ass, is a net asset. He can fundraise out the wazoo, which will be needed. The Clinton name will draw out minorities, which will neutralize the Tehadis’ and FoxNoise GOTV.
askew
@J.D. Rhoades:
Maybe with older women, but not with younger women. I don’t think they’ll care that Hillary loses to a guy. They didn’t care in 2008 when most of them lined up behind Obama and not Hillary.
If I was a Republican, I’d be searching for the inevitable Bill affair stories to derail her campaign now. Because there is no way that guy isn’t still screwing around on Hillary.
Villago Delenda Est
@muricafukyea:
Jeb has the insurmountable problem of his last name.
Poopyman
@WereBear:
ROFL!
Anya
Let her run. When she’s the candidate, at least we won’t have to deal with the Clintonites’ constant undermining and back stabing of the Dem candidate or president.
scav
@Amir Khalid: This far in advance on the Internet on this blog as well? Lots of talk and arm-waving (which has its place too). Don’t mistake anything here for representative of the bulk of the nation let alone what actually will happen in a few years time. And, all sorts of things happen in the primaries that won’t matter for the general. Paying this close attention to politics is pretty much a minority hobby.
gogol's wife
@BGinCHI:
Yes, and the Supreme Court is a very important consideration as well.
But I wish I agreed that she would easily win the election.
And I’d rather see the first woman president be someone who got there by herself and not because of her husband.
daveNYC
@cleek: She managed to hire a whole bunch of morons to run her campaign, so as far as that goes, she’s a horrible candidate.
Like pretty much everyone else, I’d prefer someone more liberal, but I’ll vote early and often for whoever isn’t the Republican candidate. I’m only worried that all the Clinton baggage won’t make people think ‘it’s time for a change’, which would be great for The Onion, but total crap for everyone else.
Cervantes
@shortstop:
OK … What accomplishments are you thinking of?
RaflW
@askew:
@jonas:
Oh, I love Balloon Juice!
Tom Q
A few things:
1) I was actually IMPRESSED with Hllary as a candidate in ’08. I’d thought she was a paper tiger, and that after Obama ran off that string of primaries in late winter she’d fold quickly. That she held on right to the end, and made it so close, tells me she had a far stronger base than I’d thought.
2) I’m more impressed with her now than I was in ’08, because she’s held a real job that wasn’t just “we liked Bill so we’ll take you”-based. True Progressives I see are whining about her tenure at State (because, that’s what they do) but I think most people see her as having performed admirably.
3) Clinton in ’09 would probably have been disappointingly centrist/right-leaning, because at that point most political analysts thought that was the only way for a Democrat to successfully compete at the national level. Obama has proved otherwise, moving the needle significantly in a progressive direction, not just on a policy level, but electorally: no longer is it necessary for national Dems to suck up to the bubba vote — not with so many states in play and such a strong base among the young and minorities (with that base growing every day). I think Hillary is smart enough to catch this change in the wind. I don’t think her dream was ever to be Grover Cleveland; I think she’d like to be as liberal as she can get away with. And if Obama keeps up this focus on income inequality through the rest of his term, I’d not be surprised to see a strongly-elected Clinton push forward with it. (And, as others have mentioned, she’ll have a Congress that is also far more liberal than her husband had to deal with — complain all you want about McCaskill and Manchin; keep in mind that among Bill’s Democratic majority were virtual Republicans like Sam Nunn and Richard Shelby. That needle has moved some, too)
4) Because I so respect Lichtman’s Keys to the Presidency system, I take very seriously the succession issue — when incumbent parties have to select a non-incumbent candidate, it’s important that that candidate have an easy road to the nomination. The reason Bush the First won (and Gore won in an honest count), defying the supposed third term curse, is because they had an easy, unimpeded road to the nomination (unlike, say, Stevenson in ’52, Humphrey in ’68). Hillary’s likelihood of cruising to the nomination (not that there won’t be some opposition, but I’d guess of the easily-dispatched Bill Bradley variety) greatly increases her chances of winning the general election, which remains the greatest goal.
Joe Buck
She is more of a hawk than Obama, a big believer in imperialist “American exceptionalism”, and she’s close to Wall Street. An HRC administration would continue to favor the wealthy and we would see our troops dying abroad. That said, she’s tougher than Obama and wouldn’t let the Republicans push her around.
I’d much rather have Elizabeth Warren as our first female president, but that’s not going to happen, it seems.
If she wins the nomination I guess I have to hold my nose and vote for her. But she’s not a liberal, even if she once was when she was young.
At least one bright side: if she wins and the Dems can hold the Senate, the threat to abortion rights can be crushed. But I can’t see her taking on the people who made her rich, not after taking hundreds of thousands of dollars for telling a bunch of Wall Street billionaires that Obama was being too mean to them.
drkrick
I’ll vote for any conceivable 2016 Dem nominee over any conveivable 2016 GOP nominee, but I hope it won’t be HRC. I’d prefer not to vote for anyone who supported AUMF, particularly one who still claims to think it was the right decision. Crazy opposition for the rightwing deadenders is a given no matter who the Dems nominate, but I’d prefer to see their new material rather than a rehash of the ’90’s. It’s also telling that no one has offered an answer to the question of what she’s accomplished other than naming post offices.
On the other hand, I don’t yet have an answer to the question “if not her, who?” on the Dem side. Even if it’s too late to develop that bench between now and the end of next year, it ought to be a priority for somebody to get one in place soon after.
Frances Perkins
My concern would be that Hillary is too old for an incredibly strenuous job.
schrodinger's cat
Too early for speculation. She was inevitable in 2008 too. I don’t want to hear about Bill and his post Presidency bimbettes. Of course she will be better than President Cruz or any other crazy person that the GOP primaries throw up but that is a very low bar.
Suffern ACE
@IowaOldLady: Yep. We like to think that the Dems are the younger group, but the disaster in 2010 has created a bunch of youngish national republicans in their late 40 and early 50s and kind of thinned out our national bench.
I’ll vote for Hillary, but then I don’t think there is going to be someone nearly as exciting to play spoiler than there was in 2008.
And for those who think there’s a long time until 2016, it’s actually not if one is going to mount a serious campaign. I think Hillary is going to pay attention to Mitt Romney in one way – she is probably going to hire everyone so they won’t be available if, say, Sherrod Brown or Martin O’Malley throw their hats in the ring.
Belafon
@J.D. Rhoades: Why? The party nominated a man over a woman (yeah, the man was black, but still) and it hasn’t hurt the party with women. What would hurt the party is if the nomination of a man consisted of “well, she was Bill’s wife, and being the wife of a president should count against her.” Does it help her having the name recognition? Of course, but do you think Obama would have come out of nowhere if he had not been senator?
Just like in 2008, she’ll rise or fall on her own merits.
ETA: And the quality of her competition.
Cassidy
Not pure enough. Nothing less than Snowden and Greenwald.
Villago Delenda Est
@mike with a mic:
And you probably wonder why no one is very appreciative of your opinions around here, too.
Another fucking child of Reagan.
Chyron HR
@Villago Delenda Est:
I dunno, those Bluths make a mean frozen banana.
Cervantes
@Tom Q:
OK … can you (or “most people”) tell me about her admirable performance at State? Thanks.
askew
@Anya:
No, the Clintons will just do everything they can to claim Obama’s accomplishments as their own and torpedo the careers of any politician who dares to not support Hillary in 2016. They are petty, petty people.
askew
@Cervantes:
Notice not one supporter can name any concrete accomplishments she’s done. It’s all PR spin.
eric
why you should want her to run…because she will energize women voters to vote and they vote dem more than men, so the coattails could assure dems control all three branches, with the WH, sen&house, and the supremes.
that will make my lefty ass work for her because the BIG picture is to solidify the demographic shift earlier with the election of the first woman president after the first black president, and then we can work on the first liberal president ;)
jc
@Erin: What Erin said. Hillary is very intelligent. But I much prefer the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic party to the Wall St. wing. Please, not another four years of triangulated technocratic centrism.
celticdragonchick
@BGinCHI:
Exactly.
dmsilev
@Amir Khalid:
No, not really. Once the primary is over, nobody is really going to care whether the winner won in a close race or in a landslide.
(well, OK, various pundits will care, but they are by and large fools)
gogol's wife
@Cervantes:
You’re getting crickets on this question, I note.
Cervantes
@Villago Delenda Est:
Oh, I don’t know … what he said about putting certain people in a box and firing them into the sun … that sort of sounded like tumbrels.
rb
@shortstop: We don’t have a more progressive candidate who has a chance in hell of getting elected
It’s early; we don’t know that yet (though I suspect you’ll be proven correct in time.) I am anxious to see if O’Malley would really run if Hillary declares, and how he stacks up. On this score I tend to think a long primary actually helps, as it did in 2008.
But cosign everything else you wrote. We all have the tendency to invest our vote with personal feelings about the (media projected and manufactured) personal qualities of the candidate. On this score I can understand why people dislike Hillary Clinton, though personally I think she comes across as competent, pretty in touch with reality compared to her peers, and reasonably funny). But love her or hate her, I think that’s the wrong way to go about evaluating the situation.
Obviously there’s a minimal bar of competence and experience that she clearly meets (anyone who would have voted for Edwards or would today vote for, say, Grayson has to admit this).
Beyond that: stipulate that our current trajectory is unimaginably complex and resistant to change, so much so that true insurgent candidates for POTUS are essentially impossible. As such, the act of voting should a coldblooded calculation centered on the question: which of these individuals – and the huge number of people they will appoint – will hinder our goals the least?
Sadly, that’s not the way we tend to think, and so the candidates capacity to inspire voters is of critical importance. HC has this built in to a degree and, as others point out above, the absolute avalanche of hate she will inspire will, I tend to think, end up being a net benefit.
But for me, I’ll gladly pull the lever for HC in the primary if she is the answer to the question above. It’s almost unimaginable that I wouldn’t do the same in the general. She’d have to about have a heart attack while murdering a puppy on camera for me to vote for the other guy – and it will be a guy – or stay home.
WereBear
But that’s the exact thing that gives a great many women, especially her age, a leg up on a political career. So it’s a catch 22.
She was born in 1947. When she was 20, women couldn’t:
-Have a credit cards in their own names.
-Legally terminate a pregnancy.
-Purchase the Pill.
-Become an astronaut.
-Become a supreme court justice.
eric
@jc: yes, but if the warren wing controls what legislation gets passed then it wont get veoted by hillary or any other dem president. hillary’s coattails would make more warren progressives possible
gogol's wife
@WereBear:
I have three words for you:
Margaret Chase Smith.
ETA: Okay, looks as if her husband helped her get started, but he was no Bill Clinton.
Mike in NC
The local wingnuts are already complaining “If you liked Obama, just wait until Hillary gets in!”
The BENGHAZI shit has already been amped up to 11
srv
Hillary has the machine, Warren can’t take over Obama’s progressive wing, because it doesn’t really exist anymore. She’d have to rebuild it. Biden has as much baggage as Hitlary.
Hillary will be the next President unless she’s too sick to campaign.
Cervantes
@gogol’s wife: What’s curious is that, for the most part, only males stridulate.
Anyhow, I love the sound of crickets.
MikeJ
@Mike in NC:
I like Obama.
schrodinger's cat
There seems to be this assumption that there is going to be groundswell of support for Hillary from female portion of the electorate. I would like to know what that is based on.
Cervantes
@Suffern ACE:
Yes, and it’s even less time until 2014.
scav
Honestly, I’m not sure I want a lot of flashy ‘accomplishments’ out of the State Department with its head’s personal fingerprints all over them. Furthermore, there was likely a hell of a lot that needed to be done and fixed below the waterline with any number of depts after the W misadmin. Not all accomplishments come with ticker tape parades and gold stars on Hollywood sidewalks. If she learned anything from her tenure there about the importance of the team underneath her, well, that should show up in how she manages her run. Time will tell.
SiubhanDuinne
@Davis X. Machina:
Not luck so much as hard work. And I, for one, am working to keep the Senate (and actually turn a red seat blue). Would rather do that than wallow in defeatism ten months out.
WereBear
@gogol’s wife:
See? Without money and connections, what’s a girl to do?
Sure, now things are better. But my point is, back then, they flat out sucked.
Original Lee
@WaterGirl: Pretty much. If elected, she would be older than Reagan at the start of her term of office. She seems to be in pretty good shape, and maybe age is just a number, but IIRC part of the reason she resigned from her post of Secretary of State was that the pace was exhausting. Look at many of the photos of her in the year before she resigned – she looks drained and tired in so many of them. I think she would make an excellent VP. I don’t think she would make a very good President, although she would certainly be light years better than Santorum or Rand or Christie.
rb
@schrodinger’s cat: Of course she will be better than President Cruz or any other crazy person that the GOP primaries throw up but that is a very low bar.
I agree it’s low, but it’s the only bar that matters.
Gorgon Zola
@dmsilev: ¡ZOMG! That is in fact the actual upcoming NYT Mag cover, according to the Times’ DC Editor…Start warming up the Death Star.
eric
@schrodinger’s cat: women vote dem far more than men and i think marginal women voters will vote for a woman rather than not vote. i think she puts certain portions of appalachia in play (for reasons i dont fully understand). I think the level of misogyny and agism you will hear will motivate women for a eff you vote for her in a way they would not were she a man.
Cervantes
@J.D. Rhoades:
Curious about something: [Q] How do you reconcile the above with the fact that, if we look at voters who self-identify as “white women,” more of them supported Romney than Obama in 2012?
@Belafon:
Same question [Q] as above.
(Not saying either of you is wrong.)
askew
@schrodinger’s cat:
Her PR team. She’s pushing the inevitable nonsense again. Hopefully, Martin O’Malley can prove her wrong.
So far it seems clear that O’Malley, Schweitzer, and Hillary are running. All of them along with Biden are making all the moves a presidential candidate would make this early. Speeches in Iowa and NH, etc. I think we’ll end up with O’Malley, Schweitzer and one of Hillary/Biden running. Biden won’t run if Hillary does. The only thing that will stop Hillary is another Bill sex scandal or a corruption scandal through his charity or a serious health problem for Bill or Hillary. I still think it would be smart for the Republicans to dig into Bill’s sexcapades now and torpedo Hillary’s campaign.
Belafon
@rb: Yeah, the choice for president is not: Person A, Person B, or no one.
J.D. Rhoades
@Belafon:
I know plenty of women who were PISSED that Obama won, but backed him anyway, because of (1) the fact that Obama was an equally historic choice and (2) who he was running against, so I agree with you that quality (or lack of same) in the GOP slate makes a difference. But I don’t know how those same people will take having what they think is a historic first snatched away from them two times in a row.
mai naem
Make fun of the GOP all you want but they have Rubio, Martinez and Sandoval(I would add Cruz in there but, even for me, he’s too much of a whackjob for a national election.) The Dems currently have the Castro brothers(not ready) and Bob Menendez(NJ!.) I know about the comparison of HRC to Palin but I don’t like the thought of the GOP getting the first national Hispanic candidate.
eric
@gogol’s wife: she did not get there becausue of her husband. she got to the senate, bu then served in the senate and served as secretary of state. so, the door was opened by her husband but she did more than her share to rise as a politician. were she an empty suit she would still be sitting in the senate authoring no bills and flying on congressional junkets. plus, she has suffered the arrows of sexism in the right wing media with dignity. not my cup of liberal tea, but i cannot take the chance that my daughter grows up in a world where the next president is a republican. to steal from edwin edwards, vote for the centrist, it’s important
Cervantes
@eric:
You, sir, are a true pragmatist.
eric
@Cervantes: were this FDL, those would be fighting words ;)
Betty Cracker
@scav: Great point — my sense is that HRC did a lot to salvage America’s relationship with the rest of the world after the disastrous GWB administration. I saw an interview with Obama in which he said he chose her for the SoS position because she was already a world figure and would be a great global ambassador as we dug our way out of the many Bush-related nightmares. She carried out Obama’s foreign policy initiatives, just as Kerry is doing now.
rb
@WereBear:
Hear hear. Hell, when she was born, a woman couldn’t even be on a jury here in Taxachusetts, land o’ libs. So “did it on her own,” a crummy standard to begin with, isn’t going to help any time in the near future.
Belafon
@Cervantes: Those white women, for the most part, would have voted Republican even if Clinton were the nominee.
askew
@scav:
Yet, Kerry has a list of flashy accomplishments already – Syria chemical weapons deal, Iran nuclear deal, progress on Israel-Palestine talks. He had prominent roles in all of them. Hillary did a lot of traveling and looked exhausted. Not in the same sphere.
As for the team underneath her, she had problems at State back in 2009 due to her team not performing well causing friction with the Obama WH. So, she didn’t learn her lesson from 2008. But, she’s not one to learn from her mistakes.
Tom Q
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, I was trying to figure out the best way to respond to our “What accomplishmets? Huh? Name one!” crowd, and came to this same conclusion. Hillary took over State at a moment when the US’ image around the world was uglier than it had been in my lifetime (and I’m no youngster). Through careful diplomacy, and with emphasis on many areas outside of military action, she helped bring things back in balance. She did all this under the direction of/in tandem with her president — which is how the job works — so she doesn’t have tote-board accomplishments to be trotted out resume-style. But she’s run this huge bureaucracy successfully, with positive results. That, to me, is a job well done.
rb
@askew: Yet, Kerry has a list of flashy accomplishments already – Syria chemical weapons deal, Iran nuclear deal, progress on Israel-Palestine talks. He had prominent roles in all of them.
Soooo…. we should nominate Kerry again?
I’m not saying he’s not doing a good job, but I’m not sure ‘flash’ is the standard we should be looking for.
Betty Cracker
@askew: I wouldn’t count chickens in Syria, Iran or Israel/Palestine just yet.
askew
@mai naem:
I’d guess we are going to see Martinez or Sandoval as the nominee. Rubio is too dumb to make it through the primary season.
It is a problem that there hasn’t been enough minority recruitment on the Dem side, but I am hopeful that will change as we have a huge # of older Senators who will be retiring in the next few cycles. As such, we could be looking at Senator Hilda Solis and Senator Kamala Harris soon.
Cervantes
@Belafon:
Perhaps — and in 2016, what will they do?
askew
@Betty Cracker:
Even if they fail in the end, it is still more than what Hillary has done. And the CW deal in Syria was unprecedented and their CW were already destroyed without any military intervention. All of the informed foreign policy experts already consider that alone a win.
Hillary’s fans argue that she is one of the most accomplished SoS yet they can’t name anything she has managed to do but she is a “hard worker”. Same shit in the Senate. She got no major bills passed, but she is a “hard worker”. That makes her a great bureaucrat, but I am not seeing any leadership ability here. Leaders can get point to real world results. Not just “hard work”.
Chris
@shortstop:
I think the point is a lot of people aren’t sold on that. Critics seem to think she can’t energize the new Democratic base (young people and minorities), supporters seem to think her appeal in what someone on this page called “the bubba demographic” can bring back some voters that would otherwise go GOP.
Conventional logic tells me it’s more sensible to piss off the “nominate someone we like or we’ll stay home” demographic than the “nominate someone we like or we’ll vote Republican” demographic (McCain and Romney would’ve done better if they’d honestly played for moderate voters instead of trying to burnish their teabagger credentials – these people might not turn out for them, but at least they wouldn’t go over and increase the other party’s numbers). At the same time, jettisoning the bubba demographic strikes me as a worthwhile goal in itself, because God damn am I tired of watching politicians pander to every insecurity of white people who don’t think they’re being respected enough. And Obama’s proven that we can win without the bubba demographic. Then again, Obama was an unusually compelling candidate, and I’m skeptical that there’s anyone else around the corner who can draw out the base in the kind of numbers he saw…
I’m not an election specialist. I’m not particularly on either side of this argument, I don’t know enough to be. But I can see both sides. Bottom line; it’s not at all a given to me (or many people here) that “she can win.”
scav
@askew: But are those ”Kerry’s” accomplishment’s or the teams’, or the administration’s and how much do they build upon past accomplishments? I find it an open question and dislike showboaters, esp. as heads of dept. So, I’m not sure the question is an appropriate one for her tenure there. It would be a more appropriate one for her Senate career — there however, a longer time frame would have helped. I’m an agnostic here personally, but found the evaluation of her tenure at state as without merit a bit of overkill. Ok, you don’t like her, fine, but you’ve already decided “she doesn’t learn’– time will tell on that subject.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris:
I also doubt that she is going to get more of a share of women’s vote than the average Democratic candidate.
ETA: Not being a Bubba from the Appalachia I can’t speak to her appeal there.
Chris
@Tom Q:
That’s always a problem when evaluating politicians – how much they’re shaped by what they want and how much they’re shaped by circumstances. If FDR or LBJ had been around in the nineties or in the original Gilded Age, my guess is either we’d never have heard of them or they’d have had to make so many compromises with the crooks that they’d be much more Bourbon Democrats than the people we know. But give them the political environment to be something better, and we got, well, FDR and LBJ. The question is if you believe Hillary would be more liberal in a more favorable environment (which you think she will be and I hope it’s true).
gogol's wife
@rb:
I find it distasteful that the first woman president will (I’ll say “will” for the sake of argument, although I’m not sure she can win) be the wife of a previous president. I just do. And I’m heartily sick of both Clintons.
But I’ll vote for her. I won’t forget “white working people,” though. Or Bill’s record as president.
Jim Foolish Literalist
@askew: I thought Martinez has let it be known she’s not interested in national office, something to do with her family situation? I think Rubio could be somebody’s Veep, but I don’t think he could survive the primary on his own, he’s a light weight. Sandoval I don’t know at all. Cruz, I was very surprised to see, is at the bottom of most polls of Rs, down there with Santorum, below Jebbie.
Kamala Harris… that’s interesting. She’s already won statewide office, no? I don’ know much about her personally, but it’s hard to imagine she wouldn’t be a big step up from DiFi
geg6
@EconWatcher:
Oh, jeebus. She’s not Bill and she wasn’t the one who made policy in his administration. And it’s a decade past. I have never been one of her shills, but how about we give her a chance to see what kind of president she thinks she should be in the actual here and now?
TooManyJens
@WereBear:
The face with the hair said all the right things, but didn’t have a record to match.
dogwood
I’m always amazed that on a blog where the conventional wisdom of the MSM is so effectively and justifiably mocked you find a comment thread like this which is so full of ” conventional ‘ wisdom about HRC. In 2008 the Clinton and Obama campaigns were the class of the field, a country mile ahead of anyone else on either side of the aisle. What has always amazed me is the way democrats have latched on to the meme that she ran a terrible race and lost because she and her staff were sooooo awful. That’s a whole lotta horseshit. She lost because Obama was simply better. One of the clowns at the National Review summed it up nicely after the Clinton/Obama debate before Super Tuesday. Something to the effect of – “the democrats are trying to decide which candidate is “super” and which one is “super-duper”.
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: Don’t forget her courage under fire in Bosnia. Her behavior during that primary battle was deplorable.
Cacti
@askew:
I’d guess we are going to see Martinez or Sandoval as the nominee.
Sandoval has been my darkhorse pick for GOP nominee for a while.
geg6
@NobodySpecial:
And just because she was married to the guy who championed welfare reform doesn’t mean she thought it was a good idea or still does. What you said, attaching her husband’s policy to her, is incredibly sexist.
Fuck. I expect this shit from wingers, not my own team.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I think it’ll be too bad if she runs, since she’s likely to win the nomination. She’ll be astronomically better than anybody the Republicans end up farting out, but still…
I read Chris Hayes’s book, Twilight of the Elite, a few months ago, and it rang true with me. We have a “meritocracy” of clowns who have pretty much fucked up everything they’ve gotten near in the last thirty years. The Democratic clowns mostly fucked things up more slowly, and in some bright spots, made things slightly better; but overall, they haven’t done a bang-up job here. And the trouble with Hillary Clinton, to my mind, is that she’s one of them. She identifies with them. And she’ll hire and appoint them.
I think that that, more than anything else, has been President Obama’s big weakness, his instinct to trust the zeros that our “meritocracy” churns out so efficiently. That Lawrence Summers was his first choice to run the Federal Reserve points that out starkly.
Obama has made things better, to be sure, but I feel like he missed his big shot at dramatically changing the country in 2009. Things were so bad then, and Bush and his pals had done so much harm, and so many Americans had come to understand that, that I think he could have shaken things up and set us heading down another, better, path. But his instinct was to not shake things up, not to upend things, not to call for dramatic changes and fight for them, but rather to try to work with the opposition, or at least try, and to trust the “experts”.
That was why I backed John Edwards at first in 2008. I felt like he, more than anybody else, understood that our system wasn’t working, and it needed a radical overhaul, or that it needed scrapping altogether. I saw both Clinton and Obama as more likely to try to tune up our system and make it work better. I couldn’t have put all that into words back then, not before I read Hayes’s book, with his talk of “institutionalists” and “insurrectionists”, but that was what I somehow understood in my gut.
I should say that when I speak of “overhauliing the system” or “scrapping” it, I don’t mean our political institutions; rather the economic and social system that has arisen over the last 30 or 40 years. The people who rise to the top in these, I don’t know, I hate the word “milieu” but it seems to fit, really can’t do much of anything right, and I think we could use a new New Deal or something. With a president Clinton, we won’t get that.
Cervantes
@rb:
No one asked for flash. We were told that HRC managed all these accomplishments at State — even unto ten of them over the last few years! — but now it seems they’re all invisible, more of a Zen thing, and it’s not really fair to ask for a list.
Note that I’m not saying she’s unaccomplished. In a recent thread I listed a few of her accomplishments myself — but none of them were during her tenure at State, which is what I’m asking about here.
Betty Cracker
@askew: Reaching an accord on chemical weapons is a huge deal, I agree, but Syria remains a clusterfuck. That’s not Kerry’s fault, of course, and I’m sure he’s working his ass off to make progress in Syria, Iran and Israel/Palestine, but it’s not like peace is at hand. I’m not a big HRC supporter; I’m just saying the argument that Kerry = sterling leader and HRC = unaccomplished bureaucrat is maybe a bit simplistic.
LanceThruster
Maybe Joltin’ Joe Lieberman would consider another stab at the VP slot.
brantl
If it’s Clinton or a Repub, I won’t have any great difficulty voting for Clinton, but that bullshit about “being shot at in Serbia” is always going to grind my ass. She’s a triangulating, moral weakling, much like Bill, and she still stands head and shoulders taller than any Republican they will actually let run.
rb
@gogol’s wife: the wife of a previous president
I hear you (sincerely). I just think the culture is still soaked in misogyny, and the first woman president is going to have to overcome that by having been a player and a known quantity for a long time, thereby almost certainly violating the ‘did it on her own’ non-standard standard. I would very much love to be proven wrong.
geg6
@schrodinger’s cat:
Acknowledging that anecdotes are not data, I’d have to say that in my case, it’s the fact that every woman I know (even a few Republicans) is giddy at the though of Madame President Clinton. As I said, I was an Obama supporter from the start, but I, too, get a little heart flutter at the thought of a Madame President.
Phil Perspective
@askew: Yet O’Malley can’t get a minimum wage hike through the MD legislature. And he’s a drug warrior and loves him some private prisons.
brantl
@geg6: She keeps tongue-washing BIll, saying his policies are wonderful, why wouldn’t we tie her to Bill? We couldn’t cut the ropes fast enough to get her untied from Bill as fast as SHE keeps tying them.
Chris
@dogwood:
I must be the only Democrat who really didn’t have a dog in the 2008 primary fight. As far as I could tell they were very close on most issues, and either one would’ve been a welcome relief for someone who came to awareness early in the Bush years.
Anoniminous
@askew:
Martinez. No way she gets through the GOP primary and wins. We know the GOP primary voters. They won’t vote for a Latino with lady parts.
Phil Perspective
@dogwood: What don’t you understand? Mark Penn is awful!!! Also, too, mark my words. If Hillary becomes President in January 2017 she’ll only end up serving one term. Why? She’s a centrist-establishment type. And things will not get appreciably better. And people will want something else come November 2020.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Every now and then some of us mock the Republicans’ deep bench. The Bride of Clinton ain’t exactly a deep bench either.
The youth vote was crucial to Obama’s re-election. Nothing like running another Boomer to fire up youthful voters, eh?
rb
@dogwood: What has always amazed me is the way democrats have latched on to the meme that she ran a terrible race and lost because she and her staff were sooooo awful
This. I’d say the same about Al Gore. As if running against a white southern governor son of a president – not to mention a seemingly legit third party option and an unbelievably hostile press – was just a cakewalk that he somehow screwed up.
Betty Cracker
@Chris: They WERE really close on most issues. I backed Obama mostly because he was right about Iraq, and she was catastrophically wrong.
I also bought into the notion that post-Boomer Obama could help put the stupid hippies vs. squares dynamic that has driven politics since I was born to rest. But as it turns out, it was naive of me to think so.
Elie
@Violet:
Got that right. I am also not convinced that SHE can control him enough to not have two foci of power in the WH. She also has struck me more as a tribalist in her selection of staff than pragmatic rationalist… every President has a bubble to some extent but I worry that hers, combined with her husband’s melodrama, may make her leadership much more difficult. While I will vote for her IF she is the candidate, I worry that we would spend her time in office chasing scandals rather than taking on the very real challenges we face. Again, I would vote for her, but truly hope that we can see some other talent during the primary process (without hurting her chances per se).
Mark me as ambivalent I guess…
geg6
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well, considering that my part of PA is considered Appalachia, I can tell you that the Clintons have as much cachet among the redneck set as the Kennedys or Roosevelts. And that’s a LOT.
rb
@Phil Perspective: And he’s a drug warrior and loves him some private prisons.
Biggest strike against him. And it’s a big one in my book.
With developments in CO, WA etc. it’ll be interesting to see how long it takes before being pro-prison for tiny offenses is not necessarily a net win for a national candidate. Sadly that day still seems a long way off.
Elizabelle
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Are you back from Honduras? Hola.
LanceThruster
@brantl:
That’s what came to mind when I kept hearing the attacks against the Wendy Davis bio. Some things are clearly within the realm of factual accounts, and some are pure fabrications.
geg6
@brantl:
So she’s supposed to trash her husband’s administration? Seriously?
I’m seeing a lot of sexist shit in this thread and it’s pissing me off mightily. Gonna have to say sayonara before I go postal on one the sexist assholes in this bunch.
PaulW
@BruinKid:
If Hillary wants to plan ahead, she could come out swinging hard for the fences this midterm election to get the 2014 elections to switch the House Dem and keep the Senate Dem. It might get the party more indebted to her and her organization for 2016 and afterword…
mai naem
@LanceThruster: You mean for the Republicans right? I say the GOP run. McCain/Lieberman. The Grandpa Walnut Loser Dream Team.
rb
@Elie: She also has struck me more as a tribalist in her selection of staff than pragmatic rationalist
Interestingly, this is also a common criticism leveled at President Obama – that he wants his people, not necessarily the best people. Difficult to evaluate when it’s the ‘best’ people leveling the criticism.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
Oh, I agree. But who’s making that argument? What we’re asking about is the assertion that HRC at State was accomplished..
I do agree that State was a mess when HRC took over. She deserves some credit for fixing some of that mess while being stymied by the House Republicans.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Probably because Obama isn’t a post-boomer. He’s a boomer. He was born before 1964, the generally recognized end of the Baby Boom.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@geg6:
Criticizing Clinton’s policies, performance and practices is light years away from sexism. Maybe you’d be happier at hillaryis44.org.
mai naem
@Phil Perspective: I look at it a different way. I think she’ll serve one term because she’s going to be too freaking old for the second term. Its perfectly possible we may see a one term Hillary who does what she really wants instead of all these presidents who don’t go too far out in the first term because they’re eyeing the second term.
Chris
@rb:
Whether it’s Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren or someone else altogether, “the first woman president” is definitely going to bring all the misogyny crawling out of the woodwork and crank it up to eleven the same way “the first black president” has for the last five years.
bemused
I don’t who male geezer wingnuts hate more than Hilary other than Obama. I can’t think of another woman they hate as much, probably Jane Fonda. If Hilary runs and becomes president, we know they are going to totally freak out. I don’t think old folks’ bodies can handle that level of rage and foresee a lot of them kicking off and depleting the Fox fan base.
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: IMO many of State’s accomplishments under Kerry are built on groundwork done under Clinton. Not a knock on Kerry – it’s just that most diplomatic breakthroughs are built upon years of effort.
PaulW
@mai naem:
I honestly doubt given the OPEN hostility the GOP base has towards immigration reform that any Hispanic candidate (even Rubio making “Let’s Kill Castro” ads 24/7) will win the 2016 nomination. The only way something like that happens is if 2014 turns into a debacle for the Republicans (losing some governorships and/or state houses, losing control of the GOP House, losing more seats in the Senate) and the party base finally concedes that they’ll need to attract Hispanic voters after all by 2016…
Cervantes
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Not to worry. I read it four times so we’re even.
catclub
@gogol’s wife: “Yes, and the Supreme Court is a very important consideration as well.”
Now Barack Obama as a Supreme Court Justice. That would be neat.
Christine
I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be the nominee. At all. I think the Democratic Party is finally coming into a time of standing for some clear values, and translating that into policy, and I would hate to see the DLC era bigwigs come back into power. It’s a big step backwards. I dislike Clinton’s hawkishness, another step backward. And she is a terrible campaigner when things get tough, which they do. Her 2008 campaign was just depressing: the people she hired, the decisions they made, it was ugly and incompetent. I would love to see a woman president, but that is secondary to me – my priority is a president that will govern well. Also, I”m not alone in this view and I’m a solid, non-granola Democrat – it ain’t just the DFHs that have a problem with Hillary Clinton. (This may show up twice, been in moderation for over an hour…)
askew
@Jim Foolish Literalist:
Harris would be a huge step up from DiFi but I expect both Boxer and Feinstein to retire at the end of their terms so we could end up with 2 new progressive Senators. I like Boxer but I’d like to have someone in the Senate who can be part of our party’s future and right now that is a small bench of politicians to choose from.
I think Martiinez’s child has a medical issue, but that I could see her changing her mind if the 2016 GOP candidates end up being Rubio, Cruz and Paul. She’d win the nomination in a walk against that bunch.
LanceThruster
@mai naem:
You’re right. I forgot which way his fierce independence leaned.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: Yeah, but he’s not a REAL Boomer, in the sense that he was not politically aware during the Vietnam War, Nixon resignation and social changes that roiled that era. I know the cut-off date for who qualifies as a Boomer varies, but as a cultural signifier, I think the term describes people like my parents, i.e., those who came of age in the 60s and were shaped by the controversies and social upheavals of that time. Obama wasn’t.
PaulW
@Chris:
Agreed. Even if it’s a Republican woman President, there will be this disparaging tone from the Far Right. The Far Left will rail against a GOP woman Prez more about policies, but they’ll start relying on the “bitch” insult pretty quickly. If it’s a Democratic woman President the Far Right will be threatening her with rape and worse…
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes:
The person to whom I was responding was making that argument.
Calming Influence
I’d nominate Richard Sherman, but he’s only 25. (And don’t laugh; think WAY smarter Schwarzenegger, then think WAY smarter Ronald Reagan…)
Tom Q
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree with this. Things like the Iran deal don’t spring up in months (which is all Kerry had been in office when it was announced). The groundwork had obviously been done on this and other matters during Clinton’s time as SOS. Thinking Kerry made it all happen in under a year is like believing George HW Bush single-handedly brought down the Soviet bloc.
Elie
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Unfortunately, revolutions are always from the ground up, not top down and the people aren’t there yet, though I see hope in the increasing push to increase wages for low wage workers and a little more interest (tiny), in supporting unions. Indeed, we get the government we deserve… That said, we are still way too generally comfortable to upend the current winners and losers frame and it IS too much to ask to have some elected office holder to get that going for us. WE are the change — if there is ever to be that change. It would take way more courage than we have demonstrated recently, but I know that if we actually want that change, I believe that our people will do as we have seen the Ukrainians and many others take on with bravery and honor…
WaterGirl
@schrodinger’s cat:
Many, many things Hillary Clinton and her team did during the primary demonstrated that her character is sorely lacking. Bosnia lies and the outright racism are the ones that still leave me burning mad when I think of them.
NobodySpecial
@geg6: She voted several times while in office to extend free trade agreements, and she said to TIME that she endorsed the general prinicples of NAFTA. So that’s that one.
As far as welfare reform, this is from her fucking book. Page 368.
So take your blather and go ram it sideways with a rusty farm implement. She can run on what she said rather than you pretend that I’m treating her as a glorified housewife.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker: OK, I’ll buy that, more or less, if you’re referring to the statement that “Kerry has a list of flashy accomplishments already” (with some examples provided).
askew
@geg6:
But, in 2008 she ran on Bill’s record as she took credit for Irish Peace Settlement, etc. So, we are supposed to give her credit for Bill’s positive accomplishments and not blame her for any of Bill’s negative accomplishments. That’s how it works?
I guess we are also supposed to be more impressed that Hillary and her fans can’t point to 1 accomplishment while she was in the Senate or as SoS. Because having accomplishments of your own doesn’t make you a leader, it makes you a showboat.
This is the kind of stuff that made me nuts in 2008. We are supposed to take at face value how awesome and accomplished Hillary is and any questioning of that makes you a hater or sexist.
No one is making that argument. People are just bent out of shape at the idea that you can already see that Kerry is getting more done at State than Hillary did in 4 years. But, that makes him a showboat and her a “hard worker” whose work is so top secret that there is no evidence of it happening.
Yes, she cleaned up a mess and repaired some relationships. But, I am not sure that is all that impressive. I think any Dem SoS could have done the same thing. That’s the thing with Hillary. She’s just hopelessly adequate. I am surprised how good Kerry has been at State. He’s really made serious progress on issues that no one thought there would be progress on. But, Hillary gets credit for that too I guess.
WaterGirl
@geg6: We can balance that out with my not knowing not even one woman who wants to see Clinton as president.
Edit: I started volunteering for Obama in 2007 and I thought from the first time I met him while he was running for Senate in Illinois I thought he would be president someday, just maybe not in my lifetime.
The fact that Barack Obama is african american had nothing to do with wanting him as our next president. Was I thrilled that the most talented candidate I had ever seen was african american? Sure, but that was the bonus.
We have this calm, intelligent, brilliant, charismatic man as the first black president. That’s awesome. But if the first black president had been “the best we can do”, then it wouldn’t have had the same impact at all.
Our first female president needs to be an incredible candidate, regardless of gender.
Cervantes
@Tom Q: That word “obviously” … it may not mean what you think it means.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: Oh goody! I had so hoped to make that sale! ;-)
Calming Influence
Jesus, I thought it was January 2014. Who am I, Rip Van Fucking Winkle?!?
gelfling545
She’d not have been my first choice except that I haven’t been able to identify another choice who is likely to win over whatever the Republicans toss out there and it is imperative that we keep the presidency in the hands of a Democrat. Any other and less well known candidate has the danger of producing a “meh” attitude among voters.
Yatsuno
@Cacti: No way in Hades do the Repubs put up either Sandoval or Martinez. Martinez is sitting in a minor scandal that could blow up any second now anyway. But both are browns. The teatards will NEVER accept anything but a straight white male. So keep looking for the white guys, cause those are the only one with any chance,
rb
@Chris: We agree, except I don’t think misogyny is currently hiding nor crawling any more than racism is. It’s already walking tall; it’ll just get even louder and more blatant.
Could a relative newcomer overcome that? Sure, never say never. To take a far-fetched example, I think that if she stayed in public life, in a few years Michelle Obama could make a credible run, now that she’s a known quantity. But she obviously fails the ‘on her own’ test too. More realistically, someone like Kirsten Gillibrand is widely respected and one could see making a run down the road. Does having at first appointed rather than elected disqualify her also?
My point isn’t that younger women can’t win or shouldn’t run. It’s that ‘on her own’ seems like a dubious standard that disqualifies most people (and specifically most women) by cutting against critical things: having a network of support, and having some name recognition. The ocean of misogyny a female candidate has to deal with seems to make these factors more, not less, important.
nastybrutishntall
Short of her eating an infant live on TV and dressing in blackface, there are zero qualms in this lifetime Democrat working my ass off to elect 1) another Democrat, and 2) our first female President. If all she does in office is eat Cheetos and sign bills naming airports, she’ll be doing a 100000% better job than any Republican, and she’ll be a frikkin’ woman in the Oval office. All the haters, I give you my pre-emptive STFU right now. I will brook no quarter. You have been warned.
askew
@WaterGirl:
It’s hard for me to buy that Hillary suffers from a double standard when I see the pass she gets in the media for this. Biden is still being torn apart for his plagerism and deemed not POTUS material when the Bosnia lie that Hillary repeated multiple times is way, way worse.
Elie
@rb:
No disagreement that Obama has a tight team and that could be considered “tribal”. Maybe every President has that and maybe its not a completely bad thing. Clearly, you need people with very strong loyalty and shared vision of the goal, I think. Its such a snake pit in DC, you need that loyalty or you will be thrown to the wolves in tell all books and leaks of damaging information — almost impossible to avoid even in the best of circumstances. I guess it just depends on whether the tribe she might pick will jibe with the tribe Bill would pick and/or if there would be more than one tribe and how they would work together — or not.
bemused
Hilary has been the spouse of a president, Senator and Sec of State. She’s been in this game most of her life. She’s wealthy. She’s in her late 60’s, an age at which many people say it’s time to do things differently. Maybe her political legacy will be at the top of her bucket list. If she became president, she could surprise those of us with trepidations and decide to really push hard for very progressive changes and become another top transformational Democratic president. Thinking positive here but what would she have to lose at this stage in her life.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, but now (“No one is making that argument”) it may be null and void, again.
taylormattd
I ended up really disliking her by the end of the 2007-08 primary and in many ways would rather see a more overtly liberal candidate.
But I have to say this: she would beat the GOP nominee for sure, and the thought of wingnut heads exploding after Hillary follows the black guy in office, while at the same time, emoprog firebaggers lose their shit makes me want her to win.
Jim Foolish Literalist
@Calming Influence: Nope, you’re somebody reading and commenting on a political blog full of political obsessives talking about something that happened that will affect something that’s going to happen. I’d bet there are a bunch of sports blogs where people are talking with passion and urgency about what the Bears and the Bengals an the 49ers need to do next year, and on other blogs people are saying similar things about cars that were just designed and movies that haven’t started filming yet.
brantl
@RaflW: Same thing, actually.
askew
@Cervantes:
Betty Cracker has a habit of twisting my words. Not surprised by her comments.
Cervantes
@askew: I’m sure it was not intentional. It certainly was not convincing.
Cacti
@Yatsuno:
No way in Hades do the Repubs put up either Sandoval or Martinez. Martinez is sitting in a minor scandal that could blow up any second now anyway. But both are browns. The teatards will NEVER accept anything but a straight white male. So keep looking for the white guys, cause those are the only one with any chance,
I guess my thought about Sandoval is, he’d make a pretty formidable 21st century Republican candidate if they were smart enough to nominate him. The same was true for Huntsman in 2012, and we all saw how far he got.
rb
@askew: The argument you’re making is seriously undercut by this sort of thing:
Like it or lump it, this is the kind of butthurt and resentful strawmanning that does attend the standard #notsexist rhetoric. You seem very exercised that no one is proving – to your specific satisfaction, here, right now – that Clinton is sufficiently accomplished for people to say she is accomplished. One rarely hears the same argument concerning Kerry or (Christ help us) Baker or Haig.
Fine. We get it: Clinton pisses you off, she’s getting soooo much credit she doesn’t deserve, John Kerry’s already better, etc.
So beat her in a primary. If she sucks that badly on top of being so personally repugnant, it oughta be easy.
Prior to his becoming President, my understanding was that one of the most impressive accomplishments on BO’s resume is the fact that he ran OFA and beat the Clinton brand. I guess I should have realized that was just a layup.
Betty Cracker
@askew: How am I twisting your words? Is it no longer your view that Kerry is an accomplished leader and HRC is just a bureaucrat? I think that’s a fair summary of what you said up-thread.
brantl
@eric: She waa an empty suit in the Senate, to the degree that she voted for the AUMF, when, knowing Bush, she knew he’d go in, and she should have known, if she had anybody reading any good papers, that the Mushroom Cloud bullshit was pure bullshit, not additives. When she claims that was the right vote, she’s a lying sack of shit.
askew
@rb:
Actually, no one has given ANY list of accomplishments for Hillary from either her Senate career or State except she worked behind the scenes very hard and repaired relationships. Surely, there should be something concrete that can be pointed to that she lead on and accomplished. Something.
As for Obama, he was only in the Senate 4 years and he managed to get 2 major and 1 minor law passed which is 3 more than Hillary got in 8 years. And that isn’t including his IL State House work where he also has a list of concrete accomplishments. I realize the media and Clintons’s spin was he’s done nothing but give a good speech, but that just wasn’t true in 2008.
I just find it baffling that it is considered an affront to ask what’s she has done. How are you going to sell potential voters on her record when you can’t point to anything besides her various titles? If a potential voter asked why are you supporting her or what has she done, I don’t know what you could say besides listing off titles. With every other candidate except Kucinich, you can give a concrete set of accomplishments. In some cases, the accomplishments sucked but at least they have something to show for being in office. What does Hillary have?
Xantar
Come on, people. Focus on the real issue: Congress.
If we have a majority in the House in 2016 under Nancy Pelosi and a strong majority in the Senate under Harry Reid (and maybe he even nukes the filibuster), just think of the bills that will get passed.
Immigration Reform
Some kind of gun safety legislation (at least background checks)
Some kind of cut to carbon pollution
Probably infrastructure spending
Tweaks to make the ACA better
Any Democratic president will easily sign those into law, no matter who she or he is. So the question is which candidate is most likely to have strong coattails that will drive turnout and get more of our people elected to Congress? Right now, that seems to be Hillary. I have my problems with her, but we have President Hillary Clinton, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, we will enter a period of progressive accomplishment just as good as Obama’s first two years. That’s pretty much guaranteed no matter what Hillary’s personal political preferences are.
WaterGirl
I am still holding out hope that Hillary won’t run.
During the 2008 campaign, I watched campaigning breathe life into Barack Obama – he seemed to get energy from the crowds. And I watched campaigning suck the life out of Hillary Clinton – she just seemed more and more exhausted as time went on.
Now that she’s 8 years older, and a critical 8 years, I just don’t see how she could choose to do that to herself over again.
Bill in Section 147
I will vote for the Democratic candidate regardless but in the primary I will vote for the most f***ing crazy Democratic Candidate. If someone named Load D. Tumbrels or Gui O. Teen runs, that is my candidate. Oh…and I support anything that pisses conservatives off. So yes… Hillary has a whole lot of that going for her.
askew
@Betty Cracker:
Because that isn’t what you said originally. You said:
Which was snide and not what I was saying. I said that Kerry has been SoS for a short time and can point to a list of accomplishments (which to some just makes him flashy) and Hillary can’t. She can just say that she’s a hard worker and she did stuff behind-the-scenes which is fine, but that makes her more of a bureaucrat than a leader. I think she’s an accomplished bureaucrat, but not a leader. And I wouldn’t consider Kerry sterling but anyone who is paying attention should be pleasantly surprised by how much progress he’s gotten so far.
I will continue to find it baffling how her supporters and the media take it on face value that she has been one of the best SoS ever and she has nothing to show for it.
Jim Foolish Literalist
@Xantar: Having Bill and Hillary Clinton out on the campaign trail, getting media attention, building a network and collecting chits is not the worst thing in the world for 2014. Right or wrong (and IMO it’s wrong), for a whole lot of people, Bill Clinton is the guy who was president when things didn’t suck.
askew
@Jim Foolish Literalist:
If the Clintons are serious about running in 2016, they should be busting their asses in 2014 to get turnout for the midterms. We’ll see if they do or if they are too busy on book tours and giving speeches to Wall Street.
rb
@askew: Surely, there should be something concrete that can be pointed to that she lead on and accomplished. Something.
Surely there must. But again, this is not a question one often hears raised with respect to Kerry or Haig or Baker or any of the male SoS.
You are vigorously pounding the metaphorical table to assert that Hillary Clinton (but not the others) did “nothing” in the Senate and “almost nothing” at State because no one on this blog is providing you with a CV matching your specific requirements (presumably the test for not “taking it at face value”). Possibly that she sucks worse, so to speak, is sufficiently self-evident that the others’ resumes need not be queried.
But you also express significant resentment that your commitment to this line of argument around HC specifically has made some unnamed people wonder if you’re “a hater or sexist.”
I’m just saying, sometimes behavior A leads unnamed people to wonder about trait B, you know? It HC’s that bad, why does it bother you so what her misguided supporters think about you on the internet?
cckids
@Citizen_X:
Thank you. I’m in as well, whoever the Dems nominate. Just for this.
Cervantes
@rb:
You’re hearing the question from me because some folks took it upon themselves to make questionable assertions, which I then proceeded to question.
If there were in this thread people making questionable assertions about “Kerry or Haig or Baker or any of the male SoS,” I’d ask about that, too.
Betty Cracker
@askew: Whatever — I still say my summary was reasonable given your original comment. It’s not like I have this big ax to grind on HRC’s behalf since I’m not even her supporter. (Unless she wins the nomination, in which case any Democrat who’s not a moron should be her supporter.)
It puzzles me that you think I have a history of twisting your words. I don’t think I do, but I’ll try to remember to avoid engaging you in conversation so as to ensure I don’t unintentionally misrepresent you.
rb
@Cervantes:
Thanks, that observation wasn’t directed at you, unless you are also askew.
Of course. How could you not?
I’m just telling you how it reads.
askew
@rb:
It’s not raised with these male SoS because they aren’t running for president based on their awesomeness as SoS. Hillary and her backers have been pushing the idea that she’s one of the best SoS in our country’s history for years now to set-up her run for president. It’s worth asking why they believe this to be true and what accomplishments Hillary can point to to prove their point. If Kerry was going to run for president again and pointed to his SoS tenure, I’d ask the same question. Of course, Kerry has the benefit of actual accomplishments from his Senate career to point to as well. Hillary doesn’t seem to have done anything at all besides show up to vote and raise money for her presidential run during her 8 years in the Senate.
Hillary’s being a woman has nothing to do with voters expecting to hear her explain why we should vote for her for president. All the male candidates have had to do that. Obama certainly did while Hillary and her supporters sneered at his “thin record of accomplishments”.
But, for some reason everytime someone asks for a list of Hillary’s accomplishments, that person gets branded a sexist or hater. It gets old.
Cervantes
@rb:
No problem. Just wanted to call attention to what you were apparently missing — that questions were asked about X in response to statements about X.
In that context, an objection of the form “It’s unfair, sexist, not nice, etc., that you’re not asking the same questions about Y and Z” is pretty silly.
Ditto.
rb
@askew: It’s worth asking why they believe this to be true
Not the same as stating outright that she has done “nothing but sit on her ass.” Really, it’s not the same at all.
Johnnybuck
@rb:
“B” for both?
Calming Influence
@Jim Foolish Literalist:
Jeeze, Jim, thanks for explaining the internets for me. Way to display your chops.
Cervantes
@Calming Influence: He missed the reference to Rip van Winkle, that’s all.
Johnnybuck
@askew: and sometimes the brand fits
Calming Influence
@Cervantes: Yup, I’m guessing…
Calming Influence
Maybe I shouldn’t have capitalized the V in van.
geg6
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Go fuck yourself. And just FYI, men rarely can see the sexism they hand out.
Calming Influence
And in the Seattle Richard Sherman tradition, nobody better give me no shit about not working my zone even when the prospects look bleak; two-time Darcy Burner volunteer, yo.
[I’m smart and I’ve got my tongue sticking way out]
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Neither was I. Obama and I are almost the same age (I’ve got a year or two on him). I’ll bet he remembers the 60s exactly the same way I do. And nobody here considers me anything other than a Boomer, although I don’t see myself that way (I consider myself the same as you consider Obama). But I was politically aware during Vietnam and all of the turmoil of the 60s. In fact, you could say that it was the 60s and the aftermath of Nixon and Watergate that made me politically aware. I can’t imagine Obama wasn’t affected in much the same way.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
Do you live in what is essentially Appalachia and did any of those women vote for McCain because Palin was on the ticket? If not, then your experience is nothing at all like my experience with the women around me.
brantl
@nastybrutishntall: Seriously can you be that stupid?
WaterGirl
@geg6: No, I live in Illinois in a university town, Champaign-Urbana. And every woman I know was offended that McCain was stupid enough to think that Hillary voters would vote for Palin because she had a vagina.
You are in a university town, too, I think. Maybe it’s the difference between PA and IL.
askew
@rb: You keep changing the argument but that’s fine. My argument stays the same. What can Hillary and her supporters say when asked by voters about her record and accomplishments? Don’t just list her job titles. What has she gotten accomplished? Not one supporter in 2007-8 could answer this question and I see in this thread not 1 supporter in this thread has answered the question.
I could answer that question for just about any Democratic female Senator based on their Senate career and careers prior to the Senate. I can’t answer that question about Hillary because I can’t find 1 thing she did while in the Senate. Not one. Surely there must have been something.
Jim Foolish Literalist
@Calming Influence: No problem, you seemed a little unclear on the concept, so I thought I’d help.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@geg6:
What a witty and elegant riposte! And just FYI, no one deserves to be elected, or not elected, solely because of their gender.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
No, I live in small town Western PA in which a branch campus of our flagship university happens to have been built. My campus has a grand total of 800 students. This is ground zero for the Reagan Democrats.
geg6
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I never said such a thing, so I don’t even know who the hell you’re talking to. But if you want to have that argument, I’d just mention that history seems to prove you wrong. Unless there has been a president that was not a man somewhere in the 200+ years of the republic that I somehow missed.
AdamK
The Dems could nominate a dish mop and I’d vote for the dish mop. As a matter of fact, I’d be pumping my fist in the air yelling “Dish! Mop! Dish! Mop!” all through the campaign. Because the Republicans are monstrously wrong and just as stupid.
But I think Hillary is way better than a dish mop, so I’d vote for her over a dish mop in the primaries. I think. Unless the dish mop was anywhere to the left of Hillary, in that wide open space where good ideas come from.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@geg6:
You are such a geg6. What has not electing a female president, yet, have to do with excluding gender from one’s evaluation of a candidate? We haven’t elected a blind president, or a quadriplegic president, yet, either. Does that mean that we’re biased against the blind and the quadriplegic as well?
Get a grip.
Cervantes
@geg6:
Ground Zero was Macomb County, Michigan, actually — but I know what you mean.
Profb
I feel much better voting for her this time than last time. The Sec State gig did her a ton of good, before she was a single term Senator with and there was just waaaaay too much Nepotism.
She did good at State, the only issue that concerns me is age, but as long as she’s working with the best doctors, nutrionists, and personal trainers, she should do it.
PST
@hitchhiker: “My only concern is that she’s in her seventies.” Age is a concern for me too, I admit it, but Clinton is only 66 now, which doesn’t look too bad from where I’m sitting. And even though she doesn’t have too many enthusiasts in this crowd here, she has a huge following that isn’t just spillover from Bill. There will be plenty of people putting energy (and cash) into the campaign. She only needs the rest of us to conclude (correctly) that the alternative is unthinkable.
ralphb
@geg6: Sexist assholes are sexist assholes, whether Left or Right.
Johnnybuck
@askew:
That they’re not interested in getting into a dick-measuring contest with an asshole?
Ah, but you did, you said she “sat on her ass”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
I’m posting to yet another dead thread, but them’s the breaks…
I think people are reading way too much into this announcement. Their About Us page says:
They also say:
It’s not a Hillary PAC.
Yeah, some of the people there may want Hillary to run. But this isn’t evidence to me that she will (I still think she won’t). It is evidence, to me, that they want to help set and protect a progressive agenda and protect the gains they helped Obama achieve in 2012 (when they spent $65,166,859 against Rmoney).
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
mai naem
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:Answering in a dead thread…. It is a big deal. They didn’t say they’re raising money for Clinton/Biden/Omalley and Schweitzer. They said they’re just raising money for Clinton. And Jim Messina was Obama’s campaign manager.
Also, Askew, the Clintons have been working on the Ky Senate candidate and one of the Ark races. Say what you want about the Clintons but Bill’s done a shitload of work for the Dems in 2012 and I’m pretty sure HRC would have too except that she SOS.
Betty Cracker
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Maybe, but this is a very high profile organization with top operatives that target the big money donors, and they switched from a candidate-neutral position to a specifically pro-HRC stance. I don’t think they’d do that unless they were sure HRC was running. I guess we’ll see.
LosGatosCA
Too old.
Too Clinton.
She may run. She won’t win the nomination.
Death Panel Truck
Hillary equals Bill. I do not want that triangulating sonofabitch anywhere near the WH again.
Seriously, is she the best the Democratic Party can do? Is there absolutely no one else? I’d vote for her, but only with a clothespin over my nose.