Rand Paul’s already blabbing about Monica Lewinsky all the time (and the press is eating up), now the Washington Free Beacon is dredging up Hillary is a lesbian feminist bitch (via). Perhaps that perception was a concern 22 year ago:
On May 12, 1992, Stan Greenberg and Celinda Lake, top pollsters for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, issued a confidential memo. The memo’s subject was “Research on Hillary Clinton.”
Voters admired the strength of the Arkansas first couple, the pollsters wrote. However, “they also fear that only someone too politically ambitious, too strong, and too ruthless could survive such controversy so well.”
Their conclusion: “What voters find slick in Bill Clinton, they find ruthless in Hillary.”
Things have changed, though. On the sexism front, we’ve had the first woman Speaker of the House and the first woman to come close to getting a major party’s nomination (Hillary herself!). And on the fear of aggressive hippies front, the tyranny of the totebag is subsiding: plenty of voters want a hard, pipe-hitting liberal to go to work with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.
I didn’t vote for Hillary in the primary last time because Mark Penn and Iraq. And it’s true that Obama did benefit from the media idea that he could unite people whereas Hillary has “scores she still needs to settle“.
I don’t blame Obama for promoting this idea, it’s all in the game. Or was in the game. No one who’s not on the No Labels payroll believes anything about unifying the country anymore.
So “ruthless”? Fuck yeah. As long as “ruthless” doesn’t involve Larry Summers or V-chip/school uniform triangutardism.
ranchandsyrup
And then we say DougJ you’re ruthless.
BGinCHI
I hope Hilary wins and then a few years later the GOP begs for things to be more conciliatory “like when Obama was President.”
Let’s do that thing to them from Conan the Barbarian.
Elmo
That’s my concern. She is still the same person who thought hiring Mark Penn was a swell idea.
Not that I won’t work my ass off for her in the general, though, if it gets to that. But I can haz 21st century candidate plz?
Napoleon
And I will not vote for Hillary this time in the Primary because of Mark Penn and Iraq. She has all the wrong inclinations to be the Dem nominee. Now if she is the nominee, of course I will vote for her in the general, but no way in the primary.
mak
I was an O-bot from the moment of the 2004 convention speech, on through the 2008 primaries, but stated publicly during those primaries that I would switch allegiance to Hillary immediately if she would only promise to throw Dick Cheney and Dumbya in jail. Alas, she never did.
So, yeah, ruthless works for me.
Trollhattan
@BGinCHI:
Once elected, Tsaress Hillary will select her cabinet from her binderfull of angry dykes.
TaMara (BHF)
OT, except, it’s rightwing stupidity, so I guess it counts. The dumbing down of America, Fort Colins style. Parents are protesting with signs because a school insisted that instead of “Merica Day, today’s celebration be called “America Day”, proper English, go figure. Parents say rights are being violated, etc…because, “merica!”, that’s why. Embarrassing.
Elmo
@Trollhattan:
Me! Me! Pick me!
Cacti
@Napoleon:
This.
Obama showed the Dems how to build a winning coalition in the 21st century.
I’ve seen nothing from Hill and Bill that makes me think they aren’t still running like it’s 1992.
GregB
That little sleaze bag Rand Paul is going to make me knock on doors for Hillary this time around.
Someone needs to tell Rand that at the time Hillary was dealing with Bill’s affair his father was collecting a government check and writing racist newsletters to appeal to his cracker klaverns.
ranchandsyrup
Rand’s the type of glib that’s built to last.
If you mess with him he’ll end the fed on your ass.
He don’t give a fuck he’s self certifyin’
Where his dad failed he’ll keep tryin.
Bobby Thomson
Minus the crack cocaine, of course.
Punchy
They say god damn you roofless.
BGinCHI
@Trollhattan: I’d pay to see that.
Beats the Sorting Hat.
Amir Khalid
@Napoleon:
What if no better candidate shows up for the primaries?
BGinCHI
@ranchandsyrup: Are you +3 already?
kindness
That Rand Paul spouts bullshit does not surprise me. That members of the Serious Media actually speak of this in a manner other than pointing and laughing at Rand speaks more to our Medias suckitude more than anything else.
muricafukyea
Always know it’s a slow political news day when the usual suspects do another tired masturabation piece on “will she run and if so…blah blah yada yada snort mouth breath” for the thousandth time and will continue to go on and on thousands more times.
Betty Cracker
Same here. And I’ll sheepishly admit I bought into the idea that Obama could move us past tired political divisions too. I suspect HE even believed it.
AliceBlue
@TaMara (BHF):
WTF.
So everyone who refers to America as “America” is now an islamofascist free speech stomping commie?
Jesus.
Napoleon
@Amir Khalid:
Somebody better is bound to show up. If not I will skip that line on the ballot. I really, really do not like the idea of her as the nominee of the party.
Suffern ACE
@TaMara (BHF): I ain’t clickin’, but is there some kind of groundswell Anti-America movement? Maybe they don’t like the idea of being named after an Italian geographer?
ranchandsyrup
@BGinCHI: I’m +pho and +an unhealthy nostalgia for NWA.
Citizen_X
Doggedly!
“Arf! Arf!”
Ruthlessly!
“I wonder where Ruth is.”
Suddenly, he turned and walked into a brick building.
“Ow! My nose!”
Cassidy
@TaMara (BHF): Seems appropriate.
BGinCHI
@ranchandsyrup: OK, just checking. Carry on.
Comrade Jake
@Napoleon:
Really? I guess much depends on what you mean by “better” here, but let’s just assume you mean someone who is quite a bit more progressive. Who do you really think is out there who is going to run? Dennis Kucinich?
Cervantes
For a second there I thought you were talking about the Clipper Chip.
schrodinger's cat
Tired speculation about Hillary is tired. I don’t find her candidacy inspirational at all.
Bill E Pilgrim
Yeah, you know what, my sister who sometimes works in politics was a supporter of Hillary in 2008, and when Obama won the nomination I was slightly wary of the conversation she and I might have on my next visit. As it happened she was fine with it, just voiced some hesitation on the grounds that Hillary Clinton had been through this before with these creeps and knew what she was up against, whereas Obama with his focus on bipartisanship and there is no red and blue, just America and so on, it all made her nervous.
“I just hope he understands what he’s up against” was the way she put it.
I of course reassured her, being an Obama supporter, oh of course he does, I said, don’t worry.
I was wrong. On that particular point, I almost feel like apologizing to her. I don’t think Obama grasped just who he was up against, not sufficiently anyway, until very recently.
I have the Mark Penn problem also, and the baggage and all the rest of it, but there are some ways she measures up better, not worse.
Suffern ACE
@Cacti: Hell, according to NewsMax, Mary Matalin says Hillary isn’t running. (Probably because “hillary hasn’t returned my husband’s call asking for a job. Did I mention I was married to James Carville? They made a movie about us.”)
I so want to close the book on the first 40 years of my political life, but all of these people from the 1990s just won’t go away.
Cervantes
@GregB:
Give this man a microphone, now.
Paul in KY
@TaMara (BHF): Don’t they know that it is spelled ‘Murca’.
Duh!
SatanicPanic
@ranchandsyrup: Ruthless is the way to go they know, Rand says rhymes that fail to be original
BGinCHI
Why isn’t Al Franken running?
It’s like we are never going to get a president who was in Trading Places.
sigh
Paul in KY
@Napoleon: Would you like President Walker instead?
ranchandsyrup
@BGinCHI: Just dumb, not drunkkkk
Paul in KY
@BGinCHI: President Murphy would be miles better than any Republican.
BGinCHI
@Paul in KY: Jimmy Walker?
Dynomite!
BGinCHI
@Paul in KY: No way the Republicans would Jacuzzi him.
shelly
Firesign!!
**************
There was some pinhead on CNN today, parroting Paul’s “But Clinton got a blow job,so that totally negates the current Republican war on women, including all the contraceptive and abortion restrictions, low wages and insane rape comments.”
Hill Dweller
@Bill E Pilgrim: Let me preface by saying this is in no way snark. What do you think things would have looked liked if Obama did know what to expect?
FWIW, I think Obama’s biggest problems were with Dems not Republicans in his first two years.
Suffern ACE
@Bill E Pilgrim: I think he thought he could wear them out and win them over. I think the best he can hope for now is hoping that they’ll die unhappy after miserable lives trying to recapture the “majick” that was the Bush II permanent majority.
TaMara (BHF)
@Suffern ACE: I know right? The whole thing smacks of “we don’t like brown people’ anyway. This just cements it.
cleek
and yet those same people point to Hillary as the person who will do it. Hillary, who was soundly beaten by the person these people decry as a wimp. doesn’t speak to her toughness.
for those looking for a great liberal savior, she’ll be an even bigger disappointment than Obama.
Patrick
@Elmo:
She is also the same person who thought invading Iraq for no good reason in 2003 was a great idea. I would vote unenthusiastically for her in general in ’16. The USSC is that important.
Havins said that, does anybody understanding the logic behind blaming Hillary Clinton for her husband’s behavior with Monica Lewinsky?
Rand Paul’s already blabbing about Monica Lewinsky all the time (and the press is eating up)
Do they really think that this will appeal to the women’s vote or for that matter votes from men? This seems as stupid and absurd as the idiotic “We built this” slogans the GOP had during their convention. Did they really think that would appeal to the average American who works for somebody else?
Paul in KY
@Hill Dweller: I think at the least he would have canned all that airy ‘post partisanship’ stuff & hopefully used that extra time to ensure more Democrats were elected (in 2010).
ranchandsyrup
@SatanicPanic: Heh indeedy.
drkrick
@TaMara (BHF): I was sure you were joking about ‘Merica Day until I checked the link. Holy crap.
BGinCHI
@Patrick: They don’t care about average Americans except insofar as they can fool them into voting against their self-interest.
? Martin
Meh. Ask every Christie supporter who praises his ruthlessness if they would support Clinton and you’ll find out everything you need to know.
Nobody gives a shit if Clinton is ruthless or not. They think she’s a bitch, and know it’s impolite to say so, so they call her ruthless because everyone (at least watching Fox News) knows that strong women are bitches. From the perspective of running for office, Obama was significantly more ruthless than Clinton was – he was just really quiet about it. “Please proceed, governor” was pretty fucking ruthless. It could also have been expressed as “I’m going to allow you to hang yourself on national TV, and then embarrass you as soon as you stop talking.”
So Rand Paul is going after the Fox News demographic. Let him. The GOP obviously doesn’t need any voters under 45. Or with a uterus.
I also didn’t vote for Clinton in 2008, mostly because of Mark Penn, less because of Iraq. Votes don’t give you many options, so you have to put yourself into a given box, even if some of the attributes of that box don’t fit you. It was a bad vote from her, but I’m not willing to lay all of the blame for Iraq on her feet. It certainly didn’t help, though. But hiring isn’t like that. You can hire anyone, you have unlimited choice, and still she hired Mark Penn. She made a lot of bad decisions at the start of that campaign. I’ll be looking to see how she does this time around.
aimai
@Patrick: Why does Hillary come in for all this hate? Kerry voted to invade Iraq too–I wrote him an angry letter about it. None of the Democrats who could run have clean hands.
Ash Can
@TaMara (BHF): What you described made no sense to me, so I followed the link…and now it makes even less sense. We often say here “WTF are these people thinking” when we pretty much know exactly what they’re thinking. But this time, I mean it. No matter how many times I read that article, I can’t figure out WTF is going on in these people’s heads. WTF are they protesting??
Belafon
@Paul in KY: That wouldn’t have worked either. Too many Democrats run from the blah president when he tries to get near them, and there is no way to run away from the first term president of your party.
The only real speculation would be is if he could have actually passed the ACA if he’d been more partisan. I think it would have hurt his chances with those like Nelson and Lieberman.
Corner Stone
Larry Summers…Larry Summers…it’s strange but it seems like I should know this person’s name. Was he maybe in a WH administrative position recently, or something?
drkrick
@Patrick:
Probably. They have no idea how people outside their little bubble think.
? Martin
@Patrick:
A good woman keeps her husband happy, so he doesn’t have to cheat.
Women who cheat are sluts. Men who cheat have lazy or insufficiently servile wives.
You learn that lesson after about 15 minutes of Fox News or half a GOP primary debate.
Bobby Thomson
@TaMara (BHF): Holy crap, I honest to FSM thought that was the Onion.
Amir Khalid
@aimai:
I too wonder about this.
Geeno
@BGinCHI: To crush your enemies, drive them before you, and hear the lamentation of their whiny-ass titty-babies.
StringOnAStick
@TaMara (BHF): I used to live in Fort Collins, and Fort Collins High School is the one where the upper end of the social spectrum go, plus nearly all the kids of the University profs. It is safe to say the student body tends to be hipper and more liberal than you’d expect, with a strong dose of knowing irony (for kids; it is a high school after all). This is the student body that fought hard in the 1980’s to have their school mascot be the Lambkins, something the school administration fought tooth and nail, and the students fought right back and won. Given the history, I’ll bet the students were definitely poking fun at general derpitude with their proposed ‘Merica day, and the local winger contingent went nuts over it because they were about to be made fun of.
Fort Fun is an island of blue surrounded by some remarkably reactionary wingers.
? Martin
@Bobby Thomson: Remember, these are the people that want to secede and form their own state.
Patrick
@aimai:
Where did I say that I hate Hillary? Please show me.
BTW – I am completely the same with John Kerry. I did not vote for him the primary because of his idiotic Iraq vote. I unenthusiastically voted for him in the general. Just like I would with Hillary.
Paul in KY
@Belafon: Good points. Probably would have hurt Lieberman’s fee fees. Neson was suppsed to be a ‘D’, so he couldn’t be that pissed off at a Democratic president upping Democratic prinicples & calling out the opposition party’s shortcomings.
Corner Stone
“The HildaBeast Unleashed!”
Vote Hills 2016
BGinCHI
@Geeno: Exactamundo.
drkrick
@aimai:
Kerry paid a price that vote. I’m convinced it depressed Dem “enthusiasm” for him in 2008 and that without it he likely would have won in 2004.
Obama had clean hands in 2008 (no he wasn’t in the Senate then, but he’d publicly staked a position against the war when it was a pretty risky position to take in 2002) and it was one of the deciders for a lot of people between two fairly similar candidates in 2008. That and being sick of having the same two families on the Presidential/Vice Presidential ballot for decades at a time.
feebog
@Patrick:
I think we underestimate just how much electing the first woman President would mean to the 51% of Americans who vote. You know, women. If she is the candidate she widens the gap enormously with women while maintaining the African American and Latino gap that already exists for the Democrats. She brings states like Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky and Georgia into play while keeping at least all the states Obama won in 2012. I personally like Martin O’Malley and think he would be a fine candidate, but if Hillary takes the nomination she could carry close to 400 electoral votes and have huge coattails.
Redshift
@Cacti: Well, their best pal Terry McAuliffe certainly applied the lessons of the Obama campaign when he ran for governor of Virginia. That, combined with having been beaten by Obama the last time she was “inevitable” make me inclined to believe it won’t be the same old campaign.
Davis X. Machina
@ cleek:
If Hillary is worse than Obama, and Obama is worse than Bush, then who is Hillary worse than?
I need the answer fast, I have DemocraticUnderground.com open in the other tab.
Ash Can
@StringOnAStick: OK, now that would make sense, if it were people protesting against the school admin caving to right-wingers whose feelings were being hurt by the students’ slur on knuckle-draggers. It would also be hilarious, because it would entail the right wingers admitting that they’re a little lacking in the intelligence department.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m ready to support Hillary, I’m not a fanatic one way or the other, but I wish she were ruthless, I wish she had fought George W Bush with the energy and the anger she brought to the fight against Obama. I read in the Halperin gossip book that both Clintons were thrilled with Tina Fey’s “A bitch? Yeah, she is. Guess what? So am I. Bitches, get stuff done.” Even in real time I was thinking, this has nothing to do with Senator Hillary Clinton.
Suffern ACE
@Davis X. Machina: Hillary is worse than Kennedy on all fronts.
Belafon
@Paul in KY: I blame most of Obama’s first term troubles on northern Republicans. They decided that defeating a black Democratic president was more important than the usual coalitions of liberal Democrats and Republicans.
Shortstop
I for one am looking forward to all the ball-busting bitch c#nt talk as a refreshing break from the lazy uppity welfare-loving nigger chatter. Maybe in 2024 we can get an LGBT candidate and change it up again.
Patrick
@feebog:
I think you are overly optimistic. Our country is way too polarized for such a blow out that you are describing. But I do think Hillary would be the best Democratic candidate since fund raising is so important.
jl
I didn’t know Rand Paul’s crusade to shame the Democrats into giving up all that evil Bill Clinton money was getting lots of love from the media. I hope it does, since it so stupid. Might crowd out more damaging GOP BS.
I don’t think anyone is going to confuse adultery between consenting adults with legal discrimination against women, rape and sexual harassment.
And it might do some good. I see in the news that Hillary’s real time private reaction to Bill’s infidelity is being leaked from various sources. From what I have read so far, Hillary comes off looking better than Rand Paul. Granted, that is easy to do, but it’s something.
Davis X. Machina
@Trollhattan:
And Methodists. Don’t forget the Methodists.
? Martin
@Redshift: That’s what I’m hoping for as well. And I’ll credit 4 solid years as Sec State over that one vote.
TooManyJens
@TaMara (BHF): How the FUCK is that not an Onion article?
StringOnAStick
@drkrick: I’m still not thrilled with having the same two families on the POTUS/VPOTUS ticket, but I will vote for whatever person gets the nomination from the Democratic party. I’m finally old enough and realistic enough to realize it won’t be someone unabashedly liberal, and I sadly accept that our corporate media and corporate-captured government would never allow such a person to actually win the race. I will volunteer for whoever wins the nomination, because the next POTUS gets at least 2 noms to the USSC, and if we should have learned any lesson at all from Citizens United, this is the most critical thing for preserving any chance of survival of a functioning democracy by people other than just the 1%.
MikeJ
@feebog:
No. 2016 is not 1996. Ain’t no way, no how Hillary or any other Dem makes any of those states competitive.
Roger Moore
@Patrick:
It doesn’t have to make sense, just get the rubes riled up.
Shortstop
@MikeJ: This. She’ll make WV less of a GOP landslide. That’s the extent of it for that foursome.
StringOnAStick
Man, I need to get this soundly napping cat off my lap and go do errands before work tomorrow, but we were gone all day both days this weekend and there is a serious lap deficit to be addressed. Cat wins, for a few more minutes at least.
KG
@MikeJ: if Kentucky and Georgia can have competitive Senate races this year, then it is possible that they could be competitive in 2016. I don’t know that Hillary makes them competitive, but the right candidate (meaning, unfortunately, straight white male) could. Maybe.
KG
@Roger Moore: in the demented wingnut mind, if she’d been pleasing her man by doing her wifely duties, he wouldn’t have strayed… that’s the only “logic” I can come up with, and it’s “logic” in that it’s internally consistent from a certain perspective, which is a version of the 1950s that didn’t actually exist except in the aforementioned demented wingnut mind.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
No, they aren’t. Fort Collins is in (actually county seat of) Larimer County, which was not one of the counties that even suggested seceding. It’s a moderately liberal place, and certainly not the major base of operation for Colorado’s wingnut contingent.
RobertB
@Patrick:
My take on this is that it’s not to blame Hilary, so much as to point out that the Clenis will be back at the controls. Even if it’s his wife that actually wins, you’ll get him in the bargain.
MikeJ
@KG: KY is having a teaparty v establishment fight. If the ’16 Republican nomination turns into a knock down drag out fight between their factions that could help Dems. It has nothing to do with any candidate we run though.
Frankly I can’t see even a nasty primary making a difference to republicans in the general. Dems fall in love, Republicans fall in line. The chumps will vote the way they’re told.
cckids
@? Martin:
Also, its another club to smack her with. Several Repub women I know say they’d respect Hillary more & maybe even vote for her if she’d “stood up for herself & left him”. This is certainly crap, they hate her.
But they see the fact that she stayed with him as opportunism & ambition, nothing more.
? Martin
@Roger Moore: I stand corrected. Weld is part of that movement – I thought Laramie was as well. My mistake.
jl
@MikeJ:
@Shortstop:
So, in the minds of the majority of these southern states voters, the Democratic Party went black once, so now it can never go back? If so, that is a very sad attitude on their part.
Now I’m beginning to worry that these voters will gouge their own eyes out, after they realize the enormity of looking at photos of a mixed race president, which would create a public health emergency.
p.a.
That’s really their go-to? In 2016 it will be a generation ago. And it barely had legs then.
aimai
@cckids: Heh. Because no Republican woman would ever stand by her man? They do know, or perhaps they don’t, that George Bush senior famously had a mistress. No one expected Barb to leave him.
IowaOldLady
I can’t think of anything that would alienate women voters more than saying a husband’s infidelity disqualifies the wife. I’m furious just sitting here thinking about it.
Patrick
@cckids:
Right. But like you said, these are Repub women. They were already going to vote against Hillary. So, if the purpose is to win the ’16 election I don’t understand their tactics.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
It’s Larimer, not Laramie. And as somebody who grew up in Larimer County (Loveland, not Fort Collins), it’s my duty to sneer at the rubes from Weld County whenever I’m given the faintest excuse. If you want to remember the difference, Fort Collins is the home to New Belgium Brewing company, a hippie-dippie, employee owned company. You won’t find that kind of thing in Greeley.
? Martin
@IowaOldLady: And this is why I’m kind of excited that the GOP is taking this tack. This is a winner. So also is the ‘people should work against their will’ angle they’re taking up. At some point a Dem is going to stand up and state the truth that the GOP is only against this because it’s bad for large corporations because it will spur entrepreneurship and small business creation.
Shortstop
@jl: That’s a big part of it, but it started before Obama (though his election exacerbated their resentment) and has to do with the larger shift toward total identification with their cultural tribe. The divisions have been cemented but good.
I’m hopeful that Georgia and Texas are trending bluer, but nothing’s going to happen for at least a few election cycles. Arkansas is gone forever. Kentucky was never ours and will never be.
Kay
@jl:
It’s too attenuated: “They have to give back the money Bill Clinton gave them because Hillary Clinton is married to Bill Clinton and therefore…”
Oh my God, wake me up when you get to the outrage part.
It’s a libertarian’s campaign attack. A slippery slope typa thing :)
Roger Moore
@IowaOldLady:
I’m sure the Republicans’ imagination is more fertile than yours, and they’ll manage to come up with something even more offensive before too long.
the Conster
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I got banned from Taylor Marsh’s site because I said that if she had fought against Bush’s policies as hard as she fought for those delegates her fucktard campaign director didn’t know counted, I would have voted for her. Instead she cravenly went along with everything, including sponsoring an anti-flag burning amendment. That, and “hard working white folks” really put me over the edge with her. I REALLY don’t think she’s what this country needs, at all.
jl
@IowaOldLady:
” I can’t think of anything that would alienate women voters more than saying a husband’s infidelity disqualifies the wife. I’m furious just sitting here thinking about it. ”
The current reactionary GOP crew has a real problem with subtext, doesn’t it? It just kind of jumps out and insults women (and pretty much every racial ethnic minority, and youth, and the unemployed, and elderly who can think well enough not to watch Fox News, and people who are hanging on to lousy jobs to keep health insurance, and… etc.).
It is so sad. I would suggest ways the GOP could overcome that, but I think the case is hopeless, so I won’t bother to try.
cleek
@Davis X. Machina:
she’s worse than all the strawmen in the world.
Betty Cracker
@feebog: I think you’re right about Hillary’s potential to galvanize the women’s vote. I don’t think she’d carry any additional states, but we’d win the turnout game again, which is everything.
Shortstop
Remember when Wendy Vitter sneered that Hillary Clinton was a pathetic doormat for standing by her man? Mrs. Vitter further avowed that she’d pull a Lorena Bobbitt on David if he ever cheated on her. Y’all will recall what happened next.
jl
@Kay:
‘ It’s too attenuated: “They have to give back the money Bill Clinton gave them because Hillary Clinton is married to Bill Clinton and therefore…” ‘
Libertarians and glibertarians are drawn to lengthy convoluted counterintuitive double think logic like moths to a flame. They think everyone will be absolutely fascinated and convinced.
The only question is whether they will cry that they are persecuted when people laugh or feel insulted.
Edit: or pout that they are dismissed when people have had enough of the nonsense and ignore them.
TaMara (BHF)
@StringOnAStick: I live not far from there and this whole story has just confused the hell out of me. According to the reports, those are the kids parents protesting. I have no idea why or what they are thinking. The city has become pretty polarized, but still…this just sounds like they’ve been hitting the Mead and microbrew a little too hard.
ETA: Also, two local school boards (Loveland and Jefferson County) have had right wing conservative outsiders take over. It’s getting heated here…
Shortstop
@Betty Cracker: Yes, exactly. No extra states, lots of extra votes in states that are actually in play.
The Ancient Randonneur
A little NWA, then some Pulp Fiction. My man DougJ will Eff you up in a minute.
Roger Moore
@jl:
And I had always assumed it was because ordinary, straight forward logic didn’t get the answers they wanted. Libertarians : logic :: drunk : lamppost.
Shortstop
@TaMara (BHF): I blame Woodward Governor. It’s usually a safe choice.
Kay
@jl:
Rand Paul’s droning, lectur-y voice. Ugh. Why is he telling women what should be offensive to women, anyway? Now there’s a slippery slope.
“You’re all HYPOCRITES!” Libertarians could put that on their official seal as it is. No need to hammer it home.
Betty Cracker
@the Conster: I’m in that club (Taylor Marsh ban-ees), LOL. God, the PUMA wars of aught-eight…good times!
boatboy_srq
@BGinCHI: Aren’t they saying that about WJC now that BHO is President? We’ll hear that whinge until they have to go all the way back to Jackson looking for a “bipartisan” Democratic POTUS.
Turgidson
@MikeJ:
Georgia had some purple in its vote tallies in both of Obama’s elections – it wasn’t that close, but he got 46-47% IIRC. Granted, Hillary’s candidacy probably won’t mobilize the AA vote to the same degree Obama’s did, but her gains among women, and frankly, probably some of those “hard working whites” she talked about last time, might make that state gettable. Unlikely, but not unfathomable if Hillary is winning in a walk nationally.
I think Appalachia moves at least a couple points back towards the Dems if she’s the nominee, but not sure she’d flip any states. Maybe we’d get North Carolina again. The state GOP is working hard to make everyone with a pulse hate their guts, from what I’ve read.
Patrick
@boatboy_srq:
I remember back in 2008 how Republicans were cheering for her and respected her for keeping up the fight against Obama (especially when it was already over). Hell, in numerous primaries one reason Hillary got as many votes as she did was thanks to Rush Limbaugh’s push to stop the black guy. It is funny how quickly they turn…
AxelFoley
@BGinCHI:
Crush them, drive them before us, and hear their women lament?
the Conster
@Betty Cracker:
The idea of being in the same boat with those ridiculous people makes me want to gouge my own eyes out with a spoon.
Ash Can
@Kay: I’m not even sure what Paul’s endgame is here. Women, even conservative ones, tend not to be libertarian, so they’re not really paying attention to him. Conservative women are all going after Huckabee and Santorum and Ryan and Cruz. Liberal women all think he’s a fuckwit. So that leaves the vast, low-info but non-crazy center who would theoretically be open to his messaging, and he’s telling them that they shouldn’t vote for Hillary because she couldn’t keep her husband in line? Rand, the dark ages called; they want their gender talking points back.
jl
@Kay: Paul already chickened out from full brass balls bamboozle attack mode by explicitly exempting Hillary from his bizarre logic. Probably because he realized most sane people would recognize that as too transparently offensive and absurd, and obviously self-interested, coming from Rand Paul.
But now Hillary is going to say, ‘OK then, I, the aggrieved wife, who Paul has graciously granted the ability and right to decide what to do about Bill’s marital BS, have decided to advise others what to do.”
And who, pray tell, will have more authority in that argument?
Either Paul cannot think two steps ahead, or he cannot come up with a better opening attack against Hillary, or both, which may come down the same thing, namely, Rand is kind of dim, so who cares which it is anyway?
feebog
@Betty Cracker:
Putting states in play is not the same as winning them. Regardless, I think a lot of us (read white, middle aged) underestimate just how many votes were lost in certain states because our candidate was blah. Let’s remember that WV, KY and AR all have Democratic Governors. It is not impossible for the right Democratic candidate to win one or more of those states. I want to see a wipeout in 2016, a wave election that carries not only the White House but both houses of Congress. And even more importantly, I want to see Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy all replaced with liberal judges who will make the Roberts/Alito wing of the court a minority for the rest of their lives.
askew
The only time I saw Hillary fight hard from her election to the Senate in 2000 until now was her fight against Obama in 2008. Her PR team keeps saying she’s a fighter but she did nothing to prove that in the Senate.
I have to say that I am so sick of reading that of course Hillary will do better in the electoral college than Obama did. If she is such an awesome candidate, why did Obama clean her clock in 2008? Take away those pity delegates Obama gave Hillary from MI and FL and it was a rout. But, in 2016 when she is 69 years old, watch out she is going to kick everyone’s ass.
As to the Monica nonsense, it is just one more reason that I want the Clintons to exit stage left already. I am so damn sick of them and their stupid crap from the 1990s. I don’t want to have to defend Bill and his inability to keep his pants on again. Let them both stay retired and have Bill keep screwing everything that moves. Just leave us alone already.
AxelFoley
@Betty Cracker:
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I don’t understand why do some libs/progessives/whatever think that President Obama didn’t know what he was up against or expect that he’d change the political climate in D.C. He’s been black in the country his whole life. I guaran-damn-tee you his black supporters had no such thoughts. The First of us ALWAYS has to deal with this kind of shit. See Robinson, Jackie
Again, why do you guys think the man was/is naive? Seriously.
askew
@AxelFoley:
They are just gearing up for the great white hope campaign from Hillary in 2016. Too many have fallen for the media’s spin that Hillary will be a better president than Obama.
AxelFoley
@Paul in KY:
Oh, help the same Dems who ran away from him in 2010? Who didn’t even want to be seen with him?
Nah, Hill Dweller had it right–Dems were President Obama’s biggest obstacles his first few years in office.
the Conster
@askew:
Exactly. Our lazy ass media is already licking their chops in anticipation of running their story macros from 20 years ago and auto replacing the date. Fucking kill me right now.
bemused
Rand Paul just sounds stupid. He seems to think he’s got a winner topic but the longer he goes on and on with this, I think will get old and people will get bored. But I’m not a rightwinger so who knows. He doesn’t seem to be worried about his aqua buddha story resurfacing which was definitely disrespectful to a woman and weird.
Cygil
If “Scores she still needs to settle” is coded “Hillary is a bitch” rhetoric, it’s still a whole lot more subtle than Hillary’s blatant racist dogwhistling during that primary campaign. Of course Hillary is a manipulative bitch, because all politicians are nasty manipulative bitches, Rand Paul included.
Shortstop
Rand Paul has a history of opening his mouth and saying things he hasn’t thought through. It comes of having spent his smug life surrounded by people who thought like him, didn’t think his father was a whack job and weren’t telling Rand he wasn’t all that. I think it’s a mistake to attribute some sort of grand strategy to his Lewinsky tirades beyond his own prejudices and some vague feeling that he can rev up the right’s visceral old anti-Clinton feeling with this stuff.
Cassidy
Are we starting this now? Well, hell. Piss off purity twats. I’ll votes for the Democrat that can win because anything is better than a Republican. And something, something about a pony and…
Baud
@AxelFoley:
I agree.
g
“ruthlessness” may be a quality people don’t want in their First Lady, but she’s running for President. People want a tough President.
schrodinger's cat
@askew: The media will have long knives out, as soon as she announces her candidacy.
Crouchback
I will vote for Hillary Clinton in the general if she wins the nomination – there’s simply too much at stake to do otherwise. That said, there are a number of reasons I’m nervous about her candidacy. It’s possible the stars will align so that any Democrat can win but in a close election I don’t trust Hillary Clinton to win it.
Bill Clinton is much too friendly with the 1% – if he dropped dead tomorrow I’d be more confident in his widow. I can see him reassuring Wall Street the Clintons will be nicer to them then Obama was. Running as neoliberals strikes me as a great way to lose but I don’t know if Clinton gets that.
In addition, I’m worried the Clinton campaign will be too proud to take help from Obama. One of the reasons McAuliffe is governor of Virginia is that he was perfectly happy to let Obama’s campaign team help him out. I could see Clinton trying to run a 90s style campaign and prove she can win on her own and losing a close election.
I also don’t buy the whole notion she’ll swing a lot of female voters. Who exactly are these female voters who would be enthused about electing a Democratic woman to the White House but either don’t vote or vote Republican? Don’t tell me about how enthused your niece/daughter/wife etc is about voting for Hillary if they’d be likely to vote for the Democrat anyway. You’re either assuming Clinton will simply by being female swing white, affluent Republican women to voting for a Democrat or that she will succeed in turning out poor and heavily minority women that Obama failed to motivate. The former block I suspect will find a reason to keep voting their wallets and you can ask Christine Quinn how well the latter strategy works.
And I admit this is Lisa Mundy and the Washington Post but by one account the Clintons response to Hillary’s primary defeat was to write up a spreadsheet rating the loyalty and disloyalty of Democrats to the Clintons. They made a point of not helping anyone deemed disloyal. Claire McCaskill was noted for particular Clinton hostility. McCaskill’s from Missouri and her seat is up in 2018. I don’t like the idea that President Hillary Clinton will abandon McCaskill because of a decade old grudge. And the Democrats do not have the luxury of holding intraparty grudges if they want to win Congress back. Needless to say the Clintons don’t seem to maintain similar hostility to Republicans.
karen
@AxelFoley:
I don’t think he was naive. I think that he was quite idealistic. He believed that he could change things by consensus and thought that bipartisanship would trump racism. He was wrong.
the Conster
@Crouchback:
Obama built the 21st century campaign prototype, and there’s no going back to the Clintons and their 20th century infrastructure and all of that drama. There just isn’t. Hillary against Rand Paul worries me because although he’s a total fraud and stupid, he’s fresher and white. With Christie out of his way, he’s got some open field running to go on record with non-crazy talk about DROOOONNNZ and drugs and start appealing to independents who are just itching to happily vote Republican again. Everyone already is hardened into their positions about Hillary. We’ve got to do better than her. I like the idea of Sherrod Brown more and more. Brown/Warren 2016.
rikyrah
Often said that the reasons I’m against Hillary are:
1. The company she keeps. Look who’s funding her SuperPac.
2. The air that she should be ‘coronated’. Just fucking run and win.
3. The NON-Apology over her vote for Iraq. She hasn’t once, after 1 TRILLION dollars, thousands of dead American soldiers, thousands more maimed permanently – said I’M SORRY for that vote.
4. What we wouldn’t have vs. what we would have had from a President Hillary:
a) never ever would have gotten healthcare
b) would have been in Libya
c) would have been in Syria
d) Bin Laden would still be breathing
e) no fucking way would we be turning back mandatory minimums with regards to drugs.
rikyrah
@karen:
Let’s be honest…who among us thought, in the midst of the worst economic position this country has seen since the Great Depression, that the GOP would decide to commit ECONOMIC TREASON against this country beginning January 20, 2009?
If the President gets any kind of a bad rap, it’s that he’s a true patriot…and failed to understand that the other side were nothing but traitorous sociopaths.
Ian
@cleek:
Not 100% sure the closest primary I’ve ever seen in my life counts as soundly beaten. Obama won because he and his team understood the system better, but they were about dead even on total votes.
Geeno
Did none of these idiots watch what happened to Rick Lazio (and Tim Russert) when this shit was dug up in her 2000 senatorial campaign? Oh yeah, assholes getting on a wife fighting to save her marriage? – that played REAL well with female voters. Good job – you guys go with that.
Corner Stone
@rikyrah:
Everyone but you and President Obama, apparently.
danielx
@Corner Stone:
Maybe not everyone, but a hell of a lot of people were full well aware that having one of Those People (not to mention an islamofascistsoshulist) would drive the GOP base right over the edge of sanity. It was (or should have been) evident by mid-2009 that Republicans were never ever going to go for anything Obama proposed, and never mind whether what he proposed was good for the country as a whole or not. B. Barry Bamz could have used a little ruthlessness at that point, and why not? Is there a better adjective to describe Dick Cheney, or Tom DeLay, or Newt Gingrich, or Rick Perry, or for that matter that paragon of bipartisanship Chris Christie?
It wasn’t for nothing that Bobby Kennedy’s campaign train was called the Ruthless Cannonball and by god we could use some ruthlessness.
Crouchback
@danielx: Could you give me an example of Clinton being ruthless to a Republican? The evidence is the Clinton hold grudges and are prepared to be ruthless with Democrats. Republicans, not so much. Am I the only one who remembers that back in the 90s the Clintons failed to pass health care? That the big policy accomplishments were NAFTA and deficit reduction? That in 1996 they hired Dick Morris and deliberately distanced themselves from their own party? Their great accomplishments were appointing liberals to the Supreme Court and mitigating the damage done by the Republicans. Obama got through a crucial (if too small stimulus) and passed the Affordable Care Act. That’s more than any Democrat’s done since LBJ.
As for ruthlessness, you could ask bin Laden or Gaddafi about that. But you’ll need to hold a seance.
Paul in KY
@Belafon: Those 2 POS senators from Maine (plus a few others).
Paul in KY
@AxelFoley: he sorta acted that way for awhile (IMO).
Paul in KY
@AxelFoley: They might have ‘ran away from him’, but they still would have voted for Nancy for Speaker & that is what matters in the House.