When I see bumperstickers (on a neighbor’s truck) like this, it’s hard for me to imagine Republicans beating Hillary in 2016.
You can catch video of her campaign launch here.
by DougJ| 66 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
When I see bumperstickers (on a neighbor’s truck) like this, it’s hard for me to imagine Republicans beating Hillary in 2016.
You can catch video of her campaign launch here.
Comments are closed.
germy shoemangler
You fooled me! The video is from 2007. I thought I was watching a new one.
You’re right. 2007 (to me at least) seems like a million years ago)
Corner Stone
Atrios already beat you to it.
Davis X. Machina
Wait long enough, you’ll see a “Who promoted Peress?” one.
Mike J
I always thought Ben Gazzara was under appreciated. Just look at Anatomy of a Murder. I for one won’t forget him.
MattF
I’ll get excited about Benghazi when someone shoots a watermelon.
samiam
Totally serious question. Does the Republican idiot base actually believe these manufactured controversies or are they just going along with it with a wink and a nod.
I have to believe in this day and age with instant information from multiple sources that it must be the latter. I don’t have a lot of faith in human nature but I can’t believe semi-literate people are that dumb.
Bystander
Do repubs believe the baseless, disproven assertions of the grifters who are fleecing them? You only have to read about how the Earth is 4,000 years old to know the answer that question.
the Conster
@samiam:
They want it to be true so it is, and every debunking is from the liberal media.
Chris
@samiam:
I pretty much believe that they fall for their own cons. They spend far too much time in the right wing media bubble for it not to fuck with their judgment.
MattF
Yeah, it’s the grift, but there’s also the ‘dittohead’ mentality– if Rush says it, it’s true. And that’s that.
Big ole hound
@Bystander: That 27% actually believe this shit yet the GOP politicians must appease that group at all costs. Otherwise they stand no chance at any level. Stupid is as stupid does forever and ever and ever.
Chris
@samiam:
Also, in our false equivalence based world, I think a lot of them probably think “all right, we’re not sure there’s anything here, but it’s totally unjust that the liberal media isn’t checking it out like they did Watergate, so damn it we’re gonna keep beating that horse.”
Amir Khalid
@samiam:
Does it matter to the people whose job is to incite that base? They know it’s reliably partisan and inclined to repeat the worst things it hears about The Other Side, without pausing to evaluate their believability.
JPL
@germy shoemangler: I just came inside to check and he definitely got me also. Darn and it’s not April fools day.
JPL
For some reason my tv was replaying 9/11 images. Who was President then? Who sent the cia away after receiving a dire warning?
PaulW
We all know Benghazi is coming back to market for the Far Right’s Hate Hillary Book Tour.
We’ll also see articles about Hillary’s failure to (insert scandal from the 1990s here) or about her disastrous (insert trip overseas as Sec of State that actually went well among our allies) or about her (insert rumor involving sex because Republicans obsess more about it than Democrats do when you look at how the GOP f-cking treats it like an ongoing locker room joke).
That said, I’ll be voting for me. Because I have no national scandals, no international disasters to defend, and my platform of “good jobs at good wages” is a surefire winner. :)
Wartenberg 4 Work 2016!
Hal
If Hillary had said she absolutely was not running when she left the state department we would have never heard another word about benghazi. That this is one of the things republicans are pinning their hopes on is telling.
Also, I’m realizing this would be the first actual dem candidate, if she makes it, since I started voting in 92 that doesn’t need a vp to shore up her foreign policy credentials, which make me think HRC is probably going for the Hispanic/Latino voting block with her vp pick. Maybe?
jeffreyw
The controversies are ginned up for the same reason a cheerleading squad in highschool practices new routines: Shouting “Go team! and We’re number one!” gets old without an occasional change of lyric.
PaulW
@JPL:
Obama. Always Blame Obama. We have always blamed Obama.
Oh, wait. Obama is soooooooooo 2014. I guess now we gotta say:
Bill Clinton. Always Blame Bill Clinton. We have always blamed Bill Clinton.
Because, guess what, they did blame 9/11 on Bill Clinton. They blamed all of their fiascos on Bill Clinton right up to 2008… when they started blaming Obama.
Amir Khalid
@PaulW:
You have my endorsement, even though I’ve never voted in an American election and never will.
Lee
OT: The wingnuts on FB are still freaking out over the Iran deal. When I ask what their alternative is, they never answer.
Kay
This is more on the “issues primary” thing we were talking about below- if liberal Democrats don’t have a primary field they’ll push issues in the primary rather than a candidate- that’s my sense of how it could shape up, anyway.
Bloomberg calls it a “movement of movements” which is sort of unfortunate. Might need a better name :)
Lee
@Hal: Yep maybe one of the brothers?
Amir Khalid
@Lee:
No answer? How can that be? John McCain laid out their alternative years ago: Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran …
Baud
@Kay:
I’m surprised they didn’t call it a meta-movement.
piratedan
@Lee: they don’t have to have a plan, it’s like the Monty Python argument sketch, they simply have to oppose any ideas or policies put forth by the other side. That’s the GOP in a nutshell these days….
freedom to the GOP somehow means the freedom to discriminate and be a bigot
foreign policy is comprised of having disdain for anyone who is perceived as being a foreigner
being poor is a lifestyle choice
JPL
Maybe she changed her mind.
Davis X. Machina
@Kay: This is a further move in the US evolution to a quasi-parliamentary politics.
David Cameron, or Ed Milliband, represent the safest seats their party can find for them.
The politics is over the platform on which they run, and is conducted almost entirely in constituency-committee meetings, annual party meetings, Westminster lounges, and the press. And that’s not about the ‘who’ any more.
In other words, an issues-primary.
Tree With Water
I’ll remember the Maine, Pearl Harbor, the San Francisco Giants losing the 1962 World Series to the New York Yankees. But when I recall Benghazi, I’ll recall only the tragic end of the brave people who died in service of their country. Well, that, and Mitt Romney’s evil, shit-eating grin at his press conference the next day, when he embraced and championed the twisted fiction of a great Benghazi betrayal.
Bystander
Here’s a thought about silencing any further I Love Israel the Mostest pissing contests: Name Chuck Schumer your VP.
PaulW
@Hal:
I doubt it. As long as the Republicans campaign hard against immigration reform – and they are – the Hispanic voting bloc is likely voting for the Democratic ticket I would wager along the 68-75 percentile. Which should be more than enough to keep a lot of large-population states like Florida (yes, to hell with Jeb or Marco) and Colorado Blue. It could also tip Texas and Arizona Blue.
If Hillary wins the nomination, expect her Veep candidate to be relatively younger and rather new to politics (maybe a freshman Senator or less-than-three-terms Congressman). But he (it’s unlikely Hillary will choose a woman Veep… it’d be amazing if she did, but an all-woman ticket would attract the WORST vitriol to what will be an already muddy campaign) needs to come from a well-populated swing state in the Midwest or South in order to help rebuild a thinning Democratic leadership (the losses of the 2010 and 2014 midterms have been killing off local Democratic banner-carriers).
It’s possible Joaquin Castro (TX) fits the bill as a Congressman from a very key state that can turn Blue. But I’d look to a Veep from Ohio or Virginia, possibly Florida (Grayson would be interesting but he’s too much a wild card and a hardcore candidate to stay calm in the spotlight). What’s the word on guys like Tim Ryan (OH) or Ron Kind (WI)?
Kay
@Baud:
I’m an “embrace the herding cats” nature of the thing person rather than a “try to change the herding cats” nature of the thing person, but “movement of movements” is too much even for me.
It makes it harder for Clinton because she has to be like 7 different candidates rolled into one, but she said she loves a challenge! :)
Baud
@Kay:
This should be her campaign song.
Kay
@Davis X. Machina:
You know liberals have been saying they would do this for 20 years, but never really did. That’s what happens to the people who get fed up- they go to issues. I just spoke with one last week- he worked for Ted Strickland’s campaign but won’t be working on his Senate campaign because he’s getting a job with a union campaign. That’s his issue. He’ll be happier. It is nice because there should be some other avenue outside straight D or R- that is a need that should be filled.
The Dangerman
@germy shoemangler:
Not for me; I recall the PUMA’s, some of whom haven’t gotten over it.
Now, it’s the return of the PUMA, except now it is against Hillary (who is using a line roughly “isn’t it time for a Woman President”, followed by her supporters decrying Hillary getting special attention because she’s a Woman; this is destined to be a strange campaign).
Kay
@Baud:
I would hate to be her. I feel sorry for Democrats who run for things like”the lower chamber in the statehouse”: “my GOD, the DEMANDS!” I can’t even contemplate how horrible it will be for her. That’s why there aren’t more candidates. It’s a horrible process.
liberal
@Lee: what do you mean, “wingnuts”? At least in Congress there are plenty of Dems, some pretty liberal, who seem pretty opposed to the deal.
Bystander
HRC just named an openly gay man to be campaign manager. He managed McAuliffe’s campaign in Va.
Roger Moore
@PaulW:
Another interesting move would be to pick an Asian American. Asian Americans have been trending Democratic recently, but they’re not as solidly blue as blacks or Latinos. Nominating an Asian American VP might help with that. If she doesn’t get the Senate nomination, Tammy Duckworth might be a very interesting choice.
liberal
@Hal: Though of course, like many in the establishment, her take on foreign policy had been disastrous. See e.g. Libya. OTOH there were lots of retards on these very comment threads who thought our involvement in Libya was a swell idea.
Tree With Water
@Bystander: Won’t work, they’re both New Yorkers. Not that that law stopped Dick Cheney in 2000, who ala-kazzammed his way from being a registered Texas voter into a Wyoming voter in the blink of an eye.
Davis X. Machina
@Kay: It’s hard to staff those farm teams.
Our state reps make less than the substitute teachers in our district do.
Lee
@liberal: You missed the part of it being on FB. Since they are not on my FB feed, they are not really relevant to the comment.
Tree With Water
This is cheering:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_04/an_example_of_how_doddfrank_is055055.php
Hal
@Roger Moore:
Duckworth’s declaration to run encouraged Mark Kirk to support Loretta Lynch’s nomination and criticize Indiana’s religious freedom law all of a sudden, which would seem to be a good indicator that she has a pretty good shot of winning the primary, and I’m guessing more than a passing chance of winning the Senate. I guess Kirk will have to draw more comparisons to the Iran deal to Nazi appeasement.
Frankensteinbeck
@liberal:
I continue to think it was a swell idea. Libya was a mess then and is a mess now, but a major city wasn’t genocided, and we lived up to the requests made by NATO and the Arab League, then got out. It sure didn’t make things worse for the Libyans, and it made the point internationally that Bush’s contempt for all other countries and international agreements was over.
LWA (Liberal With Attitude)
@samiam:
“Does the Republican idiot base actually believe these manufactured controversies”
Its like the eternal meme about how 80% of our tax dollars go to shiftless blah welfare mothers, while the military is starved into being a hollowed out paper tiger.
It doesn’t matter how many charts and graphs you can pull out- they WANT it to be true, so they believe it.
The alternative requires not a shift in policy preferences, but a total reconfiguration of their world.
Mike J
@Baud:
More like a Metamucil.
Nicole
The title to this post made me think of that horribly sad and hilarious video from 2008 of Meatloaf endorsing Romney.
JPL
According to the Guardian, Podesta sent out an email to announce Hillary was running. If that’s all there is, blah, blah, blah.
Matt McIrvin
@PaulW:
Yeah, but turnout? My impression is that that’s much more elastic.
Matt McIrvin
@The Dangerman: The anti-Obama PUMAs were completely insignificant in the actual 2008 general-election vote, though, and I suspect that will be the case again.
dogwood
@PaulW:
You’re’ correct about the percentage of the Hispanic vote likely to vote democratic, but that won’t effect the outcome in Texas or Arizona. There are just not enough Hispanic voters to tip the scale. Way too many Hispanics don’t vote at all.
Kay
@Davis X. Machina:
I’m a little more encouraged about Clinton than I was because base Republicans are under-estimating her, in exactly the same way they under-estimated Obama in 2012.
They’re announcing she’s “toast” to me here, because Obama has been such a huge failure which everyone knows…it’s exactly what they said about Obama in spring of 2012.
They can’t seem to get her right, you know? They either think she’s unstoppable (2008- wrong) or unelectable (2015-wrong). There’s nothing in between.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Matt McIrvin: there was a brilliant, plaintive quote from one of them, I think when their national convention wasn’t big enough to fill the small ballroom at an airport Ramada somewhere in the DC metro area: “Are we really that small a sliver of the party?”
D58826
Well if we have to remember Benghazi tghen maybe we should remember the Bushes sleep walking trtu the summer of 2001 and 9/11
dogwood
@Kay:
Republicans are masters of begging the question.
It’s so much easier to campaign and govern as a republican. Their constituency groups are loyal, but more importantly, an impressively high percentage of them vote in every election at every level of government. Thus, republicans can get away with screwing the rest of the country. Republicans aren’t going to propose an alternative to Obamacare because there are no votes for that for them. Same story with immigration reform. Legislating to protect underserved, underprotected and economically fragile communities does not translate to higher voter turnout among those people. Voting is a class-based activity.
Bill Arnold
@samiam:
They believe.
That’s my experience from political discussions with the Fox News-consuming subset of the base, at least.
(Do not underestimate the power of Fox News. Remember the discussions a while back initiated by this salon article? : I Lost My Dad To Fox News)
The base is only a fraction of people who vote Republican though. I don’t know how people who do not believe these manufactured controversies allow themselves to vote for the manufacturers. Maybe they believe that the Democrats manufacture controversies too, because the media (including Fox News) says so.
Bloix
Yes, well, if her campaign treats progressives like its treating deblasio today maybe she’ll beat herself, like she did last time. I swear, she is a god-awful campaigner.
Bill D.
So Benghazi (surprise attack not anticipated, 4 American dead) is the fault of the Obama administration, but Beirut (danger of possible surprise attack discussed at the highest levels month in advance, nothing done in response, 241 American dead) is not the fault of the Reagan administration. Got it.
We have got to pound the Republicans with this daily for the next 18 months. They should have zero credibility on protecting us from terrorism, because they don’t know how to and are not interested in doing anything that works, only in grandstanding on the issue.
Davis X. Machina
@Bill D.: They have absolutely zero credibility on being the party of fiscal probity, and that’s going to last till the last person who remembers EIsenhower is dead.
“Better on defense” — add twenty years to that.
Bill D.
@Davis X. Machina: Yeah, but the problem with the fiscal issue is that the truth (in terms of the actual budget numbers) is that we’re bad and they’re worse- hardly a winning slogan.
As long as any money anywhere is being spent on aid to the poor, and some welfare recipient somewhere gets one dollar they didn’t deserve, that will totally outweigh welfare for defense contractors that wastes immense amounts of taxpayer dollars. And pointing this waste out makes on soft on defense and in favor of a weak America.
And against our soldiers.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
@samiam:
They absolutely believe them. I was informed that the embassy staff was sodomized to death and drug through the streets of Benghazi.
J R in WV
Last year in Arizona we saw lots of Dodge trucks. Many of them had unbelievable bumper stickers about Obummer causing the Auto industry to go bankrupt!!
While in fact Obama and Bush both worked to fund Chrysler and GM to protect both companies from failure. I wanted to etch into the windshield of each truck “You should kneel and thank President Obama for saving Dodge [or GMC] every time you need a factory part for your truck! Without him you would be scouring junkyards or eBay for Chinese parts!”
Of course none of them would understand the connection between saving the auto industry and getting new parts for their ageing truck – nor believe that President Obama was pretty much single-handed in saving America from total fiscal collapse, the end of social Security, the end of all health care, the end of the American Democracy.
john fremont
@samiam: Yes they believe this stuff. I know this from family and coworkers. Even if you manage to debunk some of these stories and nontraversies there is another they’ll jump right into. They never question their sources whether it’s El Rushbo, Fox News or one of those chain letter/email forwards, they’be got to have something to hate Obama or the Democrats over. To admit they may have been wrong about public policy, economic issues or what have you is too much for some of these guys so they double down on Obama! Worst President Ever!
liberal
@Frankensteinbeck: you’re an idiot.