I am reaching out to former Clinton supporters who no longer support her and think they might have difficulty voting for her in the general election.   I want to understand how you got to this place of opposing her after being a supporter.   Most of us are not the “Hillary Haters” who have an irrational aversion to her that the Clinton supporters portray us to be.

I believe understanding how the Clintons lost us as supporters, could be the key to understanding them, understanding how to get some of them to see our point of view, and also help them better understand us.  So, I’m posting my story of how they lost me below, and I was hoping some of you could explain why you switched.

 I used to be a big Bill Clinton fan.  When I heard he was being interviewed on TV, I was there. While I didn’t feel warm and fuzzy about Hillary Clinton, I believed in their “vast right wing conspiracy” and felt her critics were being unfair.  The Ken Starr witch hunt made it easy to believe it. I ignorantly glossed through all the scandals and usually came to the conclusion that they all were all witch hunts with no basis in fact.  I did not take time to read and absorb the news stories or research the issues being discussed.   I also overlooked that other than Bush, no other administration had as many scandals, indictments, or convictions.  By 1999, all the controversies, trials, convictions, suicides and accidents of witnesses finally started to get to me, but I felt that all politicians were corrupt and continued to support them. 

 I assumed that when Clinton ran for office, that I would support her.  I thought having a Democrat in the office again would be good, and it would also be nice to have a female leader.  I did not love her, but I did admire her.  When she and other Democrats voted for the war, I was disappointed.  I realized that most voted that way out of fear of loosing their seat.  However, Hilary went further, she regularly promoted her position and aligned herself with other hawks.  She was not a reluctant co-conspirator like most Dems.  She also voted against the Levin Amendment, which would have tied Bush’s hands from acting unilaterally and became hawkish in general.  I understood that she was doing it to overcome potential resistance to her as president because of her gender, but felt she was selling out for her future run for the Presidency.  However, long after the war became unpopular she was still taking hawkish stances with regards to international issues, so I no longer believe she has taken these positions to appear strong, but is actually being true to herself.  I could no longer support her because I thought that once she got in office it would be likely that she would continue with her hawkish positions.

 That change in my perspective changed the way I saw the news about her.  Instead of glossing over stories assuming that they were part of the “conspiracy,” I would actually listen, read and watch with a more open mind, as well as do my own research.  At first, I still defended her, but not as vigorously.  The more I read and investigated, the more disturbed I got.  By the fall, I was at the point preferring all of the democratic candidates to her, but I still would have voted for her, and I still was a Bill Clinton fan.  When my candidate, Edwards dropped out, I went for Obama.  I do not agree with everything he does, but I do find him inspiring and believe he has a record of reaching out to would be foes, which is what our country needs right now.

Then came the plan to make Obama “the Black candidate.”  As a Black woman who had supported the Clinton’s for so many years, this devastated me.  They cravenly rejected their most loyal constituency, risking dividing the party for her to win.  I think she had a good chance of winning without doing that.  I started researching to find out how I could have missed this about them.  Without my “I love the Clintons” lenses on, they began to seem like monsters on corruption, attacking democrats other than Obama, human rights, the environment, telecommunications monopolies, Haliburton, poverty, cheating, manipulation, bold faced lies…. the list goes on.  I think I just chose to dismiss and excuse this stuff in the past. 

At first, I was angry with myself for being so easily fooled, but when I listen to people who still support Clinton, I see that they sound just like I did.  I understand that many of her supporters, see the Clintons as vilified by the press, republicans, independents,  and now democrats.  They do not really read the bad stuff about them with an open mind because they see all these controversies, not as pattern of behavior, but as more attacks by those who oppose them.   That is why I believe Obama supporters should cut them some slack.  We see her as dividing the party, pitting Black against White, women against men, Latino against Black, women against women, Blue collar against white collar, and Democrat against Democrat, all while motivating republicans to vote for her now to inspire their party to come out to vote for her in the general election.  Some of us believe having them back in the White House would not be better than having Mc Cain in office and that they could cost us the congress again..  They see her as David fighting off the mighty Goliath.

So my question to other former Clinton supporters is what event caused you to stop supporting Clinton?  How do you think current supporters see her current scorched earth tactics that appear to be taking the party down?  Do you think these supporters will wake up like we did or is the story they have been telling democrats too compelling?

As the Democratic primary drags onward, I hear weekly calls for a "Dream Ticket" of Obama and Clinton. Let me explain what a nightmare this dream ticket would be.

Who or what is she pointing at, and why does she feel the need to point so often?

When I sat down at the bar, Obama was ordering Bourbon.
“Two,” I told the bartender. “I’m buying.”
“I saw you in Ohio,” I told Obama. “You give a good speech.”
“Are you being cute?” he said.
“I don’t think anyone gives better speeches than I heard you give in Ohio,” I told him. “You got talent.”
“So what beat me?
“ Character.”
“Yeah, sure, sure.”
“You’re damn right I’m sure. Everybody’s got talent,” I said. “I got talent. You can’t campaign for months on talent. Clinton isn’t the best just because she’s got talent.”
“I got off message. Had some bad breaks. NAFTA”
“Yeah, ” I said. “Bad breaks.”
“What do I do now?” he said. “Lie down and die? What do I do? Go home?"
"That’s your problem,” I told him.
“So I stay. Hustle some more money. Take her on in Pennsylvania. Maybe by that time I’ll develop myself some character,” he said.
“Maybe by that time you’ll die of old age,” I said. “Fast Eddy, is it okay if I get personal?”
"What have you been so far?”
“You’re a born loser,” I told him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“First time in years I ever saw Hillary Clinton hooked, but you let her off.”
“I got a bad break on NAFTA. Some bad demographics in Ohio. Ignorant whites in Ohio. Hispanics in Texas.”
“Sure. You had the best excuses for losing. Winning can be heavy, too. Drop that load, too, when you got an excuse. Feeling sorry for yourself is a great indoor sport enjoyed by all, especially the born loser.”
“Thanks for the drink,” he said, moving away from the bar.
“Wait. Maybe I can help you,” I said.
“To do what?”
“Beat her in Pennsylvania.” I said. “Look. She knew Ohio was in the clutch. She played it smart.”
“In my head, I've played that Ohio campaign a hundred times,” Obama said.
“Play it again. Learn something. She took a beating in Wisconsin. Went into the john. Washed her face. Combed her hair. Came back to Ohio and Texas all ready to go. You were through. You saw how she looked. All set to start all over again. You know what you were doing? You were waiting to get beat. Flattened out on your butt. Swimming around in glory and dreams of winning the nomination. Probably deciding how you could lose.”
“Hey!” Some guy with a five o’clock shadow and glasses, sitting at the end of the bar said. “How do you know what Eddy was thinking?”
“I know,” I said, moving toward the door. “I’ve been there myself. We’ve all been there.”

(Adapted from The Hustler, 1961, by Sidney Carrol and Robert Rossen, based on the book by Walter Tevis.)

Pretty entertaining <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTWumj6qpmI">video</a>.

The Clintons Sicilian Cajun errand boy James Carville thinks Clinton and Obama should raise cash for re-votes in MI and FLA.

First of all, the cost to actually open every precinct could easily be more than $20
mil for each state. Such a full scale re-vote would require the
cooperation of both state governments (would the legislatures have to
act?) who own the equipment and infrastructure (including personnel)
necessary to run the elections, count the votes and certify the
results. It's not as simple as writing a check. Would each state
advance all the costs and expenses and bill the DNC? I will predict
that they will not.

Mailing ballots would be much cheaper but
even so, the logistics are still significant. Someone has to canvas the
election records for the names and addresses of each Democrat. Do
people register in FL and MI by party? In MI, independents can vote in
primaries. How would this be handled and what measures could be used to
prevent tampering in each state?

The most particle solution would be to hold caucuses (as MI is rumored to
be planning) in each state but the Clintons would flip-shit at that
proposal. Add to this the fact that the Florida Democratic party has no interest in a re-vote in any form.

But
logistics aside, why would Obama want to burn some of his fund raising
dollars to pay for revotes? He has an insurmountable delegate lead
without either state.

The DNC's dispute with MI and FLA is all
about the rules that those states refused to follow. Not a day goes by
that the Clintons don't speak passionately of the rules of the DNC that
would allow them to loose the popular vote and delegate race and still
be the nominee. They are Bush-like in their passion to lead without the
support of the voters.

Über Clintonista Harold Ickes was on the Rules Committee of the DNC and in fact voted to strip both states of their delegates.

So
why now should Barack Obama use any of his ability to raise money to
pay for a second vote in two states when he has nothing to gain from
the process?

The Clintons are desperate for those delegates, let them raise the money.

For the econ nerds out there, I just found a classic video  of Peter Schiff debating Art Laffer circa August of 2006.  You'll notice that Laffer is quite confident that this whole hullabaloo about a housing bubble and debt-financed consumption having a finite limit is really just a lot of noise.  I wonder if he sent Peter Schiff the penny he owes him.

Both Hillary and Bill Clinton have suggested in the past few days the idea of a Hillary-Obama ticket. They are doing this for three reasons.

1. To lower the stature of Obama by getting people to picture him as a Vice-President rather than a President.

2. To lay the groundwork for a scenario a few months from now where Clinton has damaged Obama enough to make him less electable than she is but needs super-delegates to push her over the edge. This scenario is a guilt-reduced way for superdelegates to pick her over him in this case. "At least he'll be V.P. That's something. And if he doesn't want it, at least we offered."

3. To get him to reject the proposition in a way that makes him look bad. "He doesn't care about party unity either. He doesn't want to be her V.P."

So what's the best way to respond to this tactic? Here is my suggestion:

OBAMA: "Hillary keeps suggesting this because she's trying to get leverage so I'll pick her as my V.P. It's why she's staying in the race while she has almost no chance of catching my delegate lead. I wish she would call me instead of continue with the path she has chosen. If I'm elected, I would like to see her play a role in my administration, but I'm not sure that will be an option if she continues a divisive campaign that is hurting our chances in November."

What do you think?

(If you like the post, please recommend.)

While the Democratic elders wring their hands about what do about the Michigan and Florida delegations, as a fourth Grade teacher I have a much larger problem to deal with.  How do I explain to the enthusiastic bunch of fourth graders in my class, that everything I had taught them about the presidential election and political process was a big, fat lie?  

When Senator Obama’s picture appeared on the front page of the Washington Post the day after the Iowa caucuses, my class of predominately African American, high poverty level students were fascinated with the possibility of a “President Obama”.  They asked endless questions about what a caucus was, did all those white people really vote for Senator Obama, how do campaigns work, how long was the campaign going to take and who would decide who would be in the election in November.  My explanation, that each candidate had to campaign for people to vote for them in each state and then a certain number “delegates” would be awarded, was simple and straightforward enough for the class to understand.  However, I made the mistake of teaching them that when all the primaries and caucuses were over, the candidate with the most delegates would be nominated at the Democratic convention in Denver this summer.

My students have been avidly following the presidential election process, watching some of the debates, following the voting in each state and excitedly greeting me the morning after a primary with “Obama won, he got lots more delegates last night”.  When the term “Super delegate” began to be tossed about on the news programs, I explained who they were and what role they had played in previous conventions.  Now that Senator Clinton has decided continue her fight for the nomination with a strategy of convincing enough Super delegates into awarding her the nomination despite the fact that she will never have a majority of pledged delegates, I have a serious dilemma.  How do I explain that even if Senator Obama wins the most elected delegates, the most votes and the most states, he won’t be the Democratic nominee?  

Can any of the Democratic Party leadership give me some advice on how to respond to my students when they ask me why this is happening?  How about an explanation for why playing by the rules and winning fair and square isn’t enough?  Or more importantly, why should they ever bother voting when they’re old enough if their votes won’t make a hill of beans difference in the end?  Since Senator Clinton is in the “Solutions” business, maybe she can come up with some credible answers to those questions that a bunch of fourth graders might buy because I certainly can’t.   Great Un-Civics Lesson you‘re providing the next generation Senator Clinton!   

When the NYT broke the Iseman/McCain story, I mused on the nature of anonymous sources and their role in journalism.  Glenn Greenwald has a great take today on the Powers debacle over at Salon:

Just as Russert and Carlson said, rampant secrecy is the coin of their
realm, the fuel that greases their access. Nothing should ever be
disclosed unless everyone agrees to disclosure and it doesn't "hurt"
the person whose comments are being reported.

The assumption seems to be that Old Politics is about going negative on your opponent, and New Politics is about...staying neutral?  Going positive???

We need to clarify. 

Old Politics is about being selectively obtuse so as to distort your opponents position as much as possible.  New Politics is about intelligent, honest, and trenchant criticism.

Old politics is mendacious negativity.  New politics
is going negative on mendacity.

Barack, we are outraged.  And we need a champion.  We  are counting on you to fight the good fight.  Stop pretending to be above it all.  Stop coasting on your delegate lead, and stop talking about the math.  Clinton's behavior has been inexcusable, and we're counting on you to stand up and say that American democracy is better than this.  Stop playing defense.  Stop parrying.  Indict her.  You won't have to distort anything.

You'll get the nomination either way.  So why don't you start showing some leadership now?

Due to the underwhelming response to our initial suggestions to the superdelegates on what criteria to apply when selecting the nominee, we and our friends in TV land have gone back to our jungle hideaway to tweak our eminently reasonable suggestions on resolving the coming impasse.  Forget "most pledged delegates," "popular vote winner," "winner of most states" and other tried formulations.  These suggestions apply time honored American techniques that are guaranteed to  produce a nominee with legitimacy and a healthy ratings boost.  Here they are:

1.  From now through the convention, the candidates will live together in isolation in a townhouse in Miami’s famous South Beach neighborhood where their every move will be will be recorded by video cameras and microphones. From a sociological perspective, this will demonstrate how the candidates react when brought into contact to and forced into close confinement with people who lie outside their "comfort zone," since they hold different opinions, express different ideals, and come from different backgrounds. The candidates will be required to do housework as they see fit, and will be periodically set tasks by the superdelegates themselves.  The tasks will be designed to test their team-working abilities and community spirit.  During the final two weeks before the convention, the candidates will be joined in the house by their spouses and offspring.  Viewers  will be able to watch a continuous 24-hour feed on the internet or tune in for updates every  evening through an exclusive arrangement with CNN.  On the final night of the convention, registered democrats can call in to an 800 number to express their preference.

2.  The candidates will be hooked up to a lie detector machine and asked a series of potentially embarrassing personal questions.  The subject matter of the questions will grow more difficult with each correct answer given and – with the candidates’ spouses watching from the studio audience – telling the truth becomes harder.  Imagine Hillary asked about Bill’s infidelities and Barack about the last time he smoked weed.  The possibilities are endless as we really get to know the candidates.

3.  Each candidate will be given an agency of the US government to run for one week.  At the end of the week, the candidates will meet in the boardroom with Donald Trump.  The Donald, his son, Donald Redux, and daughter, Ivanka, will review each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.  The Donald will then anoint one of them the nominee and inform the other that he/she has been fired.


4.  The candidates will compete in a series of physical and mental contests designed to test their abilities in the areas important to a potential POTUS.  The specific contests might include: the board game RISK (to determine who would make the best commander in chief), Texas hold-em (diplomatic skills), three-on-three pickup basketball with each candidate allowed to choose one professional and one celebrity teammate (judgment), and a spelling bee (grace under pressure).


5.  The candidates and select members of their staffs will be sent to a remote wilderness area in Alaska with nothing but tents, sleeping bags and spears.  There they will live on nuts, berries and whatever they can manage to hunt.  Each week there will be competitions – some of which will involve eating oversized indigenous insects – that will result in one side’s staff receiving immunity while the other side will have to send one person home.  This will continue until one candidate is left.  The convention will be re-named the Tribal Council and the arena will be decorated with torches and replicas of primitive masks.

6.  The candidates will go on a series of dates with internet/reality TV star and avowed bisexual Tila Tequila.  The one who wins her affections will be the nominee.  

Any other suggestions will be considered. 
   

I can't write as well as Hlzoy -  http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/03/hilary-clinton.html

But I think this is a pretty succinct summary of Hillary's claims.

"It's worth bearing this background in mind when you hear Hillary
Clinton claim that she advocated military intervention in Rwanda. If
you don't, you might think: well, it's perfectly comprehensible that
she might have argued for military intervention but failed to convince
her husband. After all, military intervention in another country is a
big deal, not to be undertaken lightly. And it's easy to imagine
Hillary Clinton being in favor of it, and her husband reluctantly
concluding that it just wasn't something he could do.

It's a lot harder to imagine that while Hillary Clinton was advocating military intervention, she not only failed to convince her husband to send troops, but also failed to convince him, for instance, not to advocate the withdrawal of most of the UN peacekeepers, or that he really ought to order the Pentagon to jam Radio Milles Collines. If she was doing her best behind the scenes, and failed to accomplish even this -- if, despite her best efforts, she couldn't persuade her husband not to advocate withdrawing UN peacekeepers just to provide cover for the Belgians -- then we really need to ask how effective an advocate she really is, especially since no one except her husband, in full campaign mode, seems to remember her efforts at all.

Of course, I think it's a lot more likely that she either didn't advocate action on Rwanda at all, or did so only in passing. If so, this would have to be the definitive example of her attempt to claim responsibility for everything good that happened during her husband's presidency, while disavowing all responsibility for his mistakes. This was, in my opinion, the most shameful moment of the Clinton administration. It ought, by rights, to have a place in Hillary Clinton's "thirty five years of experience working for change." Or perhaps she might claim that she wasn't that interested in foreign policy at the time, or that for whatever reason she just didn't pick up on the genocide in Rwanda until it was too late to act. That would at least be honest.

But if, in fact, Clinton missed the chance to urge her husband to help stop the Rwandan genocide, then she should not pretend that she was, in fact, right there on the side of the angels all along. That's just grotesque."

Bold is mine.

I'm starting to change my mind about the "Obama needs to get
tough and attack Hillary" meme. For one thing, this view is in response
to the "Hillary got a last minute surge of support because of negative
ads in Ohio and Texas" meme, and I'm not sure that's actually accurate.
When you look at focus group data on the red phone ad (sorry I can't
remember where I saw this) undecided voters actually had a strong
negative reaction to it. I have a different explanation for the sudden
Hillary surge in the days before Texas and Ohio: the media started
writing her obituary. People in the Democratic base have been rooting
for Hillary for almost 16 years now. For all that time, her successes
have been the successes of the party; Democrats have been identifying
with her accomplishments and failures, in the same way that we identify
with the accomplishments or failures of, say, David Ortiz. That
identification I think is strongest among people who don't pay that
close attention to politics, Democrats who look at politics through an
"our team" versus "their team" lens, and especially women, who on a
very personal level identify with Hillary's struggles as a woman trying
to be successfull in a man's world.

What's happening now is like
a bad breakup between Clintons and Democratic voters. You know the way
you can want to break up with a girl, think it's the right move, have
someone better lined up - and then all of a sudden, once you're
actually halfway through ending it, you start to think about how great
they were, how you had such great times together, etc. A solid
percentage - I think a majority - of Democrats want to move on past the
garbage of the Clinton years. But once it starts to seem like that is
actually happening, once Hillary starts to fade a bit from the public
spotlight, the story becomes "The End of Clinton" and voters
immediately sympathize with her and her support rises. That's what
happened in New Hampshire, and I think to a lesser degree that's what
happened in Ohio and Texas.

I know people are going to say that
I'm trying to explain away Hillary's support, and I suppose in part I
am, but I do have some respect for the value of loyalty. I don't
personally feel any, because I never liked the Clintons, but I respect
the fact that some people do.Another way of putting this I suppose is
"buyers remorse" or doubts about Obama. But I don't think the doubts
really are about Obama. I think the doubts are about leaving Hillary
behind.

If I'm right about this, then the last thing Obama
should do is go negative. In fact, Obama should do the reverse; he
should show respect and admiration for Hillary's time of service, which
is really showing respect and admiration for Hillary's supporters.
Maybe even take a shot at somebody for making sexist charges against
Hillary. I don't think he has anything to lose, because I don't
actually think Hillary has a shot at the nomination at this point - I
think superdelegates are ultimately going to decide this thing, and
they are going to decide it for Obama. They know he is in the interest
of the party.

Of course, if I'm right, then the last thing
Hillary should do is continue to go negative, which is the lesson that
she learned from those victories. 

By Lionel Beehner
Thank God Samantha Power has resigned from the Obama campaign. Her style of honest, brash, off-the-cuff statement-making has no place in presidential politics. Political operatives should not say anything other than the talking points handed down from the campaigns' higher-ups. That is what we the viewers and voters want--not unscripted asides of honesty and humanness, certainly not what one of Obama's chief advisors thinks about Ohio. Voters seek canned statements and platitudes like Hillary's "fool-me-once-shame-on-me" line, not outside-of-the-box thinking from Harvard folks like Power. Why? Because these statements have been vetted, battle-tested, and shoved through a focus-group blender and thus must convey to voters like me what the candidates really think.

In an ideal world, advisers and flacks would just read press
releases on the air but unfortunately television networks feel they
need to mask their operations as news-gathering. Whatever. Thankfully,
America is nearing a state of moral bliss when every pundit,
politician, and political operative is so straight-jacketed, so guarded
against gotcha-journalists with Scottish accents, that nobody would
dare use offensive, incendiary terms like "pimping" or "monster" ever
again. Phew! American voters are not stupid--naïve, easily offended,
yes--but they realize when they are being sold something that is honest
and unscripted (Wait, did I just call Americans naïve? Is that
offensive?? Should I resign??? Shit!! Wait, was that offensive, too????)

Note to presidential advisors: Please tell it from the memo, not from the heart. We Americans are too frail and easily offended to handle unscripted, candid comments.

Hillary’s campaign is always going after a two-fer.  First it was Hillary’n’Bill.  Now it’s Hillary’n’Obama.  Isn’t it possible to just sell Hillary on her own merits?

What ever happened to the outrage over the NAFTA story?  Oh, I forgot.  We are past the Ohio primary now.

Related:  how come we haven’t heard outrage over the WTO?  Even American Union leaders say it’s more relevant than NAFTA.

Has anyone noticed that oil is higher than $106/barrel?  OPEC can’t control the price any longer.  It’s up to the speculators now.  Watch as oil goes trading in terms of Euros rather than Dollars.  I wish one of the candidates would address this.

Jack Nicholson’s video for Hillary showing some of his cool clips conveniently forgot about one of his great scene-chewing performances from WITCHES OF EASTWICK:

Do you think God knew what He was doing when He created woman? Huh? No shit. I really wanna know. Or do you think it was another one of His minor mistakes like tidal waves, earthquakes, FLOODS? You think women are like that? S'matter? You don't think God makes mistakes? Of course He does. We ALL make mistakes. Of course, when WE make mistakes they call it evil. When GOD makes mistakes, they call it... nature. So whaddya think? Women... a mistake... or DID HE DO IT TO US ON PURPOSE?

This is really a great election to finally see how the Democratic Party Elders want to portray the Democratic Party ideals.  Voters take note.

You can’t pass legislation through Congress with a 50% +.01% strategy.  Unless you are on the GOP side.  That party has discipline.

April 15th would be a good day for Hillary to release all her tax returns. 

Barack Obama won 11 States straight

Hillary Clinton won 2 States (Texas doesn't count because she LOST Delegate count)

Barack Obama won Vermont and Texas

Barack Obama won Wyoming by 19pt.

He's predicted to win Mississippi by a wide margin

Exactly where is this SURGE or BUMP of Hillary's at?

What do we hear you in the media saying after Obama's WIN?

OBAMA HAS TO DO THIS.....  OBAMA NEEDS TO TRY THIS......  OBAMA NEEDS TO CHANGE HIS STRATEGY.....

WAKE UP MEDIA --- OBAMA IS WINNING EVEN THOUGH HE'S HAD HILLARY AND THE MEDIA DOWN HIS THROAT FOR THE PAST 2 WEEKS.

IT'S HILLARY THAT'S TRYING TO CHANGE THINGS.  SHE AND HER HUSBAND ARE TRYING TO MAKE IT APPEAR THAT 'SHE' IS WINNING BY OFFERING THE VP SLOT TO OBAMA.

PLEASE DON'T SWALLOW THIS NONSENCE.  PAY ATTENTION.

OBAMA HAS MORE DELEGATES -- SHE CANNOT MAKE THEM UP
OBAMA HAS MORE STATES 29 OUT OF 43
OBAMA HAS THE POPULAR VOTE

HE IS WINNING ---------NOT HILLARY

why the hell is the media giving a total pass on Karl Rove? on the Don Siegelman story?

Isnt there any way to get this off the ground? Mass emailing complaints to news sponsors? Congressmen, judges?

As far as I know, the only high level government official working on this is John Kerry from the FCC.

I mean Karl Rove is working for McCain now and is going to beat Obama the same way he beat John Kerry and Al Gore and Don Siegelman.

I mean...wouldn't it be better for Democrats to be keeping Karl Rove too busy to help McCain by pushing this story harder?

Since the Democratic Party decided to allow states to move primaries and caucuses up to February 5 to "nominate a candidate in a hurry," why doesn't every state just make Super Tuesday really super and have all 50 states, and both parties, have their primaries and caucuses all on the same day?  Wouldn't that make the process a lot easier, more cost effective?

In addendum:  Just remember that tonight we set the clocks forward one hour, unless your state/county doesn't participate.  That means one less hour before Mississippi and Pennsylvania primaries.  One less hour of ranting, raving, polling, guessing and arguing.

Ok, as a Democrat first, Clinton supporter second, I must admit that I am ok if Obama wins the nomination.  I'd much rather have Hillary Clinton, but if the nation wants Obama, so be it.

It's not the first time in US History that a Presidential candidate has had "rock star" appeal.  JFK, Bill Clinton did also.

I just need to interject one question here, and that is, would Obama supports vote for Clinton should she win?  Would you rather let the Republicans have the Presidency than elect a Democrat who isn't Barack Obama?

From Bob Herbert's column today:

"We have seen election after election in which candidates have won by fanning the anxieties of voters. Elect me, or something terrible will happen to you!

That is now the Clinton mantra, which is a measure of how grim our politics have become."

Okay, not exactly an unbiased source. But I don't think it's a novel concept that there is something wrong with what Hillary Clinton is doing.

Obama supporters are not guilt-free, but most of us will admit that the personal attacks from some posters are wrong. As much as Clinton's actions have bothered me, I think it is hypocritical and unproductive to attack other Democrats. 

What strikes me about different posts I've read is that Clinton supporters rarely if ever admit that what she is doing is wrong.  If you truly believe it is okay--just normal politics--than I submit that there is a serious rift in our party.

But if you have a problem with it--as a Democrat--say so. Here, I'll even give you a template:

"It bothers me that she has chosen this type of destructive politics. I don't condone it. But [insert poster's name] is naive, cultish, [insert further recycled descriptors]. Obamabots are all selfish, need to grow up......[continue with whatever you want]"

I will repeat: there are a number of Obama supporters who are just as guilty when it comes to blind insults.  I think it is obvious, reading various posts, that most of us don't do this (we may not post as often, but we're here). 

However, despite the many sane Hillary supporters I've seen, none address her current strategy other than to say it's "normal politics".

So, if just one of you--ONE--will denounce, reject, hesitantly suggest--whatever-- that the kitchen sink approach is wrong, hurts the party, or is counterproductive, it will restore my faith in the party.

Please. For my own peace of mind.

A lot has been said over the course of this primary about different age groups and their voting tendencies. Exit polls are consistently reported, but rarely analyzed, by the TV personalities who dutifully read lines from teleprompters while standing in bizarre rooms or on ledges overlooking the news room. The exit poll data provide a wealth of information that has generally been ignored. Here I present analyses on the pooled exit poll results of the 27 states that are available on MSNBC’s website. Exit polls, as we all know, are not perfect, but the tremendous sample size obtained by pooling all of the exit polls provides some assurance that biases are minimized.

Watching the reports, one may go away with the idea that Obama is supported by young, “naïve” voters, whereas Hilary has the support of old, “mature” voters. I have heard otherwise rational people suggest that Obama’s supporters, being young and unpredictable, will not show up for the election (despite the fact that they did show up for a primary). Exit polls provide the opportunity to test whether there are differences between the % of votes cast for each candidate within each age group, and to see just how big these differences are. We can see whether, as suggested, Obama’s support is limited to the youth, or if he garnishes support from older voters as well.

Data Analysis

We aren’t merely interested in how each age group favors a candidate. We also need to know how much of the vote each voter group makes up. The exit polls, however, are published to highlight only the differences between the candidates, by showing what percentage of each voter bloc the candidates earned. To correct for this, I reverse-calculated the percentage of the vote for each category by multiplying the percent of each voter bloc earned by the candidate by the percent of the vote that particular voter bloc made up. For example, 17-24 year olds made up 17% of the vote in Iowa. Obama won 57% of that age group. So, the actual % of the vote for Obama was: 57 * .17 = 9.69%. The same rational was used to convert all of the statistics provided by exit polls for this analysis. So, what we are looking at is how the total vote (100%) has been made up in terms of age groups, and how these groups have split between Hillary and Obama (votes for other candidates were removed from the analyses).

Results

The graph of this breakdown shows the percent of votes for Hillary in orange and the percent of votes for Obama in blue. The error bars represent 1 standard error of the mean. The asterisks show where there are statistically significant differences (alpha = .05) between the amount of the vote that went for each candidate.

TPM doesn’t allow “bloggers” to insert images, but be sure to follow the link to the Figure.

According to these analyses, Obama received a higher percentage of the vote than Hillary among voters under the age of 40. These voters made up almost a third (28.5%) of the primary vote. Voters aged 40 – 64 broke evenly for Obama and Hillary (not statistically different), and this voter bloc made up half (50.8%) of the primary vote. Obama received a lower percentage of votes among voters who are older than 65, and this voter bloc made up 17% of the total primary vote.

I emphasized the differences between the percent of the vote for Hillary
and Obama and how it significantly differs across age groups here.

Conclusions

Obama wins or ties among every age group except those 65 and older. The voter groups that favor or break evenly for Obama make up 79.3% of the primary vote, whereas the voter groups that favor or break evenly for Hillary make up 67.5% of the vote. It is true, as suspected, that voters under 40 years old favored Obama, and it is also true that voters over 65 years old favored Hillary. The under-40 vote has outnumbered the over-65 vote by 11%, and seem to be the age group that has carried Obama to his lead in the primary.

It is not for me to decide what these numbers mean for the election. I merely provide them so that we have a better description of what has taken place. As we understand what has happened, we may better understand what will happen in the future.

 -stYMied

If you found this analysis useful, please click the “Recommend
This” link below so that others have a chance to read it. Thanks.

In reply to the Obama is a war monger thread...

While much attention has been given to Senator Hillary Clinton's
support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, her foreign policy record
regarding other international conflicts and her apparent eagerness to
accept the use of force appears to indicate that her fateful vote
authorizing the invasion and

her subsequent support for the occupation and counter-insurgency war was no aberration.



Indeed, there's every indication that, as president, her foreign policy
agenda would closely parallel that of the Bush administration. Despite
efforts by some conservative Republicans to portray her as being on the
left wing of the Democratic Party, in reality her foreign policy
positions bear a far closer resemblance to those of Ronald Reagan than
they do of George McGovern.



For example, rather than challenge President George W. Bush's dramatic
increases in military spending, Senator Clinton argues that they are
not enough and the United States needs to spend even more in subsequent
years. At the end of the Cold War, many Democrats were claiming that
the American public would be able to benefit from a "peace dividend"
resulting from dramatically-reduced military spending following the
demise of the Soviet Union.



Clinton, however, has called for dramatic increases in the military
budget, even though the United States, despite being surrounded by two
oceans and weak friendly neighbors, already spends as much on its
military as all the rest of the world combined.



Her presidential campaign has received far more money from defense
contractors than any other candidate - Democrat or Republican - and her
close ties to the defense industry has led the Village Voice to refer
to her as "Mama Warbucks." She has

even fought the Bush administration in restoring funding for some of
the very few weapons systems the Bush administration has sought to cut
in recent years. Pentagon officials and defense contractors have given
Senator Clinton high marks for listening to their concerns, promoting
their products and leveraging her ties to the Pentagon,

comparing her favorably to the hawkish former

Washington Senator "Scoop" Jackson and other pro-military Democrats of earlier eras.



Clinton has also demonstrated a marked preference for military
confrontation over negotiation. In a speech before the Council on
Foreign Relations, she called for a "tough-minded, muscular foreign and
defense policy." Similarly, when her rival for the Democratic
presidential nomination Senator Barack Obama expressed his willingness

to meet with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro or other foreign leaders with
whom the United States has differences, she denounced him for being
"irresponsible and frankly naive."



Senator Clinton appears to have a history of advocating the blunt
instrument of military force to deal with complex international
problems. For example, she was one of the chief advocates in her
husband's inner circle for the 11-week bombing campaign against
Yugoslavia in 1999 to attempt to

resolve the Kosovo crisis.



Though she had not indicated any support for the Kosovar Albanians'
nonviolent campaign against Serbian oppression which had been ongoing
since she had first moved into the White House six years earlier, she
was quite eager for the United States to go to war on behalf of the
militant Kosovo

Liberation Army which had just recently come to prominence. Gail
Sheehy's book Hillary's Choice reveals how, when President Bill Clinton
and others correctly expressed concerns that bombing Serbia would
likely lead to a dramatic worsening of the human rights situation by
provoking the Serbs into engaging in full-scale ethnic

cleansing in Kosovo, Hillary Clinton successfully

pushed her husband to bomb that country anyway.

She has also defended the 1998 U.S. bombing of a pharmaceutical plant
in Sudan which had provided that impoverished African country with more
than half of its antibiotics and vaccines, falsely claiming it was a
chemical weapons factory controlled by Osama bin Laden.



Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, Clinton went well beyond the
broad consensus that the United States should go after al-Qaeda cells
and their leadership to declare that any country providing any "aid and
comfort" to al-Qaeda "will now face the wrath of our country." When
Bush echoed these words the following week in his nationally-televised
speech, she declared "I'll stand behind Bush for a long time to come."



She certainly did. Clinton voted to authorize the president with
wide-ranging authority to attack Afghanistan and was a strong supporter
of the bombing campaign against that country, which resulted in more
civilian deaths than the 9/11 attacks against the United States that
had prompted them.



Despite recent pleas by the democratically elected Afghan president
Harmid Karzai that the ongoing U.S. bombing and the overemphasis on
aggressive counter-insurgency operations was harming efforts to deal
with the resurgence of violence by the Taliban and other radical
groups, Clinton argues that our "overriding immediate objective of our
foreign policy" toward Afghanistan "must be to significantly step up
our military engagement."



Particularly disturbing has been Senator Clinton's attitudes regarding
nuclear issues. For example, when Senator Obama noted in August that
the use of nuclear weapons -traditionally seen as a deterrent against
other nuclear states - was not appropriate for use against terrorists,
Clinton rebuked

his logic by claiming that "I don't believe that any president should
make any blanket statements with respect to the use or nonuse of
nuclear weapons."



Senator Clinton has also shown little regard for the danger from the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries,

opposing the enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions challenging
the nuclear weapons programs of such U.S allies as Israel, Pakistan and
India. Not only does

she support unconditional military aid - including nuclear-capable
missiles and jet fighters - to these countries, she even voted to end
restrictions on U.S. nuclear cooperation with countries that violate
the Non-Proliferation Treaty.



She has a very different attitude, however, regarding even the possibility of a country the United States does not support

obtaining nuclear weapons some time in the future. For example, Senator
Clinton insists that the prospect of Iran joining its three Southwest
Asian neighbors in developing

nuclear weapons "must be unacceptable to the entire world" since
challenging the nuclear monopoly of the United States and its allies
would somehow "shake the foundation of global security to its very
core."



She refuses to support the proposed nuclear weapons-free zone for the
Middle East, as called for in UN Security Council resolution 687, nor
does she support a no-first use

nuclear policy, both of which could help resolve the nuclear standoff.
Indeed, she has refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against
such non-nuclear countries as Iran, even though such unilateral use of
nuclear weapons directly contradicts the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the
same

treaty she claims the United States must unilaterally and rigorously
enforce when it involves Iran and other countries our government
doesn't like.



Senator Clinton also criticized the Bush administration's decision to
include China, Japan and South Korea in talks regarding North Korea's
nuclear program and to allow

France, Britain and Germany to play a major role in negotiations with
Iran, claiming that instead of taking "leadership to keep deadly
weapons out of the hands of rogue states and terrorists … we have
outsourced over

the last five years our policies." In essence, as president, Hillary
Clinton would be more unilateralist and less prone to work with other
nations than the Bush administration

on such critical issues as non-proliferation.



In Latin America, Senator Clinton argues that the Bush administration
should take a more aggressive stance against the rise of left-leaning
governments in the hemisphere.

Regarding Israel, Senator Clinton has taken a consistently right-wing
position, undermining the efforts of Israeli and Palestinian moderates
seeking a just peace. She’s spoken freely about military action against
Syria and Iran, often repeating Bush administration talking points that
have been proven false. I could go on and on, but I’m nearly out of
space.



Hillary Clinton is no progressive. She’s a war mongering cash cow for the military industrial complex. Don’t let her fool you.

This is in reply to the Obama is a Warmonger thread:

While much attention has been given to Senator Hillary Clinton's support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, her foreign policy record regarding other international conflicts and her apparent eagerness to accept the use of force appears to indicate that her fateful vote authorizing the invasion and
her subsequent support for the occupation and counter-insurgency war was no aberration.

Indeed, there's every indication that, as president, her foreign policy agenda would closely parallel that of the Bush administration. Despite efforts by some conservative Republicans to portray her as being on the left wing of the Democratic Party, in reality her foreign policy positions bear a far closer resemblance to those of Ronald Reagan than they do of George McGovern.

For example, rather than challenge President George W. Bush's dramatic increases in military spending, Senator Clinton argues that they are not enough and the United States needs to spend even more in subsequent years. At the end of the Cold War, many Democrats were claiming that the American public would be able to benefit from a "peace dividend" resulting from dramatically-reduced military spending following the demise of the Soviet Union.

Clinton, however, has called for dramatic increases in the military budget, even though the United States, despite being surrounded by two oceans and weak friendly neighbors, already spends as much on its military as all the rest of the world combined.

Her presidential campaign has received far more money from defense contractors than any other candidate - Democrat or Republican - and her close ties to the defense industry has led the Village Voice to refer to her as "Mama Warbucks." She has
even fought the Bush administration in restoring funding for some of the very few weapons systems the Bush administration has sought to cut in recent years. Pentagon officials and defense contractors have given Senator Clinton high marks for listening to their concerns, promoting their products and leveraging her ties to the Pentagon,
comparing her favorably to the hawkish former
Washington Senator "Scoop" Jackson and other pro-military Democrats of earlier eras.

Clinton has also demonstrated a marked preference for military confrontation over negotiation. In a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, she called for a "tough-minded, muscular foreign and defense policy." Similarly, when her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination Senator Barack Obama expressed his willingness
to meet with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro or other foreign leaders with whom the United States has differences, she denounced him for being "irresponsible and frankly naive."

Senator Clinton appears to have a history of advocating the blunt instrument of military force to deal with complex international problems. For example, she was one of the chief advocates in her husband's inner circle for the 11-week bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 to attempt to
resolve the Kosovo crisis.

Though she had not indicated any support for the Kosovar Albanians' nonviolent campaign against Serbian oppression which had been ongoing since she had first moved into the White House six years earlier, she was quite eager for the United States to go to war on behalf of the militant Kosovo
Liberation Army which had just recently come to prominence. Gail Sheehy's book Hillary's Choice reveals how, when President Bill Clinton and others correctly expressed concerns that bombing Serbia would likely lead to a dramatic worsening of the human rights situation by provoking the Serbs into engaging in full-scale ethnic
cleansing in Kosovo, Hillary Clinton successfully
pushed her husband to bomb that country anyway.
She has also defended the 1998 U.S. bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan which had provided that impoverished African country with more than half of its antibiotics and vaccines, falsely claiming it was a chemical weapons factory controlled by Osama bin Laden.

Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, Clinton went well beyond the broad consensus that the United States should go after al-Qaeda cells and their leadership to declare that any country providing any "aid and comfort" to al-Qaeda "will now face the wrath of our country." When Bush echoed these words the following week in his nationally-televised speech, she declared "I'll stand behind Bush for a long time to come."

She certainly did. Clinton voted to authorize the president with wide-ranging authority to attack Afghanistan and was a strong supporter of the bombing campaign against that country, which resulted in more civilian deaths than the 9/11 attacks against the United States that had prompted them.

Despite recent pleas by the democratically elected Afghan president Harmid Karzai that the ongoing U.S. bombing and the overemphasis on aggressive counter-insurgency operations was harming efforts to deal with the resurgence of violence by the Taliban and other radical groups, Clinton argues that our "overriding immediate objective of our foreign policy" toward Afghanistan "must be to significantly step up our military engagement."

Particularly disturbing has been Senator Clinton's attitudes regarding nuclear issues. For example, when Senator Obama noted in August that the use of nuclear weapons -traditionally seen as a deterrent against other nuclear states - was not appropriate for use against terrorists, Clinton rebuked
his logic by claiming that "I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons."

Senator Clinton has also shown little regard for the danger from the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries,
opposing the enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions challenging the nuclear weapons programs of such U.S allies as Israel, Pakistan and India. Not only does
she support unconditional military aid - including nuclear-capable missiles and jet fighters - to these countries, she even voted to end restrictions on U.S. nuclear cooperation with countries that violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

She has a very different attitude, however, regarding even the possibility of a country the United States does not support
obtaining nuclear weapons some time in the future. For example, Senator Clinton insists that the prospect of Iran joining its three Southwest Asian neighbors in developing
nuclear weapons "must be unacceptable to the entire world" since challenging the nuclear monopoly of the United States and its allies would somehow "shake the foundation of global security to its very core."

She refuses to support the proposed nuclear weapons-free zone for the Middle East, as called for in UN Security Council resolution 687, nor does she support a no-first use
nuclear policy, both of which could help resolve the nuclear standoff. Indeed, she has refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against such non-nuclear countries as Iran, even though such unilateral use of nuclear weapons directly contradicts the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the same
treaty she claims the United States must unilaterally and rigorously enforce when it involves Iran and other countries our government doesn't like.

Senator Clinton also criticized the Bush administration's decision to include China, Japan and South Korea in talks regarding North Korea's nuclear program and to allow
France, Britain and Germany to play a major role in negotiations with Iran, claiming that instead of taking "leadership to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of rogue states and terrorists … we have outsourced over
the last five years our policies." In essence, as president, Hillary Clinton would be more unilateralist and less prone to work with other nations than the Bush administration
on such critical issues as non-proliferation.

In Latin America, Senator Clinton argues that the Bush administration should take a more aggressive stance against the rise of left-leaning governments in the hemisphere.
Regarding Israel, Senator Clinton has taken a consistently right-wing position, undermining the efforts of Israeli and Palestinian moderates seeking a just peace. She’s spoken freely about military action against Syria and Iran, often repeating Bush administration talking points that have been proven false. I could go on and on, but I’m nearly out of space.

Hillary Clinton is no progressive. She’s a war mongering cash cow for the military industrial complex. Don’t let her fool you.

This is in reply to the Obama is a Warmonger thread:

While much attention has been given to Senator Hillary Clinton's support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, her foreign policy record regarding other international conflicts and her apparent eagerness to accept the use of force appears to indicate that her fateful vote authorizing the invasion and
her subsequent support for the occupation and counter-insurgency war was no aberration.

Indeed, there's every indication that, as president, her foreign policy agenda would closely parallel that of the Bush administration. Despite efforts by some conservative Republicans to portray her as being on the left wing of the Democratic Party, in reality her foreign policy positions bear a far closer resemblance to those of Ronald Reagan than they do of George McGovern.

For example, rather than challenge President George W. Bush's dramatic increases in military spending, Senator Clinton argues that they are not enough and the United States needs to spend even more in subsequent years. At the end of the Cold War, many Democrats were claiming that the American public would be able to benefit from a "peace dividend" resulting from dramatically-reduced military spending following the demise of the Soviet Union.

Clinton, however, has called for dramatic increases in the military budget, even though the United States, despite being surrounded by two oceans and weak friendly neighbors, already spends as much on its military as all the rest of the world combined.

Her presidential campaign has received far more money from defense contractors than any other candidate - Democrat or Republican - and her close ties to the defense industry has led the Village Voice to refer to her as "Mama Warbucks." She has
even fought the Bush administration in restoring funding for some of the very few weapons systems the Bush administration has sought to cut in recent years. Pentagon officials and defense contractors have given Senator Clinton high marks for listening to their concerns, promoting their products and leveraging her ties to the Pentagon,
comparing her favorably to the hawkish former
Washington Senator "Scoop" Jackson and other pro-military Democrats of earlier eras.

Clinton has also demonstrated a marked preference for military confrontation over negotiation. In a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, she called for a "tough-minded, muscular foreign and defense policy." Similarly, when her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination Senator Barack Obama expressed his willingness
to meet with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro or other foreign leaders with whom the United States has differences, she denounced him for being "irresponsible and frankly naive."

Senator Clinton appears to have a history of advocating the blunt instrument of military force to deal with complex international problems. For example, she was one of the chief advocates in her husband's inner circle for the 11-week bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 to attempt to
resolve the Kosovo crisis.

Though she had not indicated any support for the Kosovar Albanians' nonviolent campaign against Serbian oppression which had been ongoing since she had first moved into the White House six years earlier, she was quite eager for the United States to go to war on behalf of the militant Kosovo
Liberation Army which had just recently come to prominence. Gail Sheehy's book Hillary's Choice reveals how, when President Bill Clinton and others correctly expressed concerns that bombing Serbia would likely lead to a dramatic worsening of the human rights situation by provoking the Serbs into engaging in full-scale ethnic
cleansing in Kosovo, Hillary Clinton successfully
pushed her husband to bomb that country anyway.
She has also defended the 1998 U.S. bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan which had provided that impoverished African country with more than half of its antibiotics and vaccines, falsely claiming it was a chemical weapons factory controlled by Osama bin Laden.

Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, Clinton went well beyond the broad consensus that the United States should go after al-Qaeda cells and their leadership to declare that any country providing any "aid and comfort" to al-Qaeda "will now face the wrath of our country." When Bush echoed these words the following week in his nationally-televised speech, she declared "I'll stand behind Bush for a long time to come."

She certainly did. Clinton voted to authorize the president with wide-ranging authority to attack Afghanistan and was a strong supporter of the bombing campaign against that country, which resulted in more civilian deaths than the 9/11 attacks against the United States that had prompted them.

Despite recent pleas by the democratically elected Afghan president Harmid Karzai that the ongoing U.S. bombing and the overemphasis on aggressive counter-insurgency operations was harming efforts to deal with the resurgence of violence by the Taliban and other radical groups, Clinton argues that our "overriding immediate objective of our foreign policy" toward Afghanistan "must be to significantly step up our military engagement."

Particularly disturbing has been Senator Clinton's attitudes regarding nuclear issues. For example, when Senator Obama noted in August that the use of nuclear weapons -traditionally seen as a deterrent against other nuclear states - was not appropriate for use against terrorists, Clinton rebuked
his logic by claiming that "I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons."

Senator Clinton has also shown little regard for the danger from the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries,
opposing the enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions challenging the nuclear weapons programs of such U.S allies as Israel, Pakistan and India. Not only does
she support unconditional military aid - including nuclear-capable missiles and jet fighters - to these countries, she even voted to end restrictions on U.S. nuclear cooperation with countries that violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

She has a very different attitude, however, regarding even the possibility of a country the United States does not support
obtaining nuclear weapons some time in the future. For example, Senator Clinton insists that the prospect of Iran joining its three Southwest Asian neighbors in developing
nuclear weapons "must be unacceptable to the entire world" since challenging the nuclear monopoly of the United States and its allies would somehow "shake the foundation of global security to its very core."

She refuses to support the proposed nuclear weapons-free zone for the Middle East, as called for in UN Security Council resolution 687, nor does she support a no-first use
nuclear policy, both of which could help resolve the nuclear standoff. Indeed, she has refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against such non-nuclear countries as Iran, even though such unilateral use of nuclear weapons directly contradicts the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the same
treaty she claims the United States must unilaterally and rigorously enforce when it involves Iran and other countries our government doesn't like.

Senator Clinton also criticized the Bush administration's decision to include China, Japan and South Korea in talks regarding North Korea's nuclear program and to allow
France, Britain and Germany to play a major role in negotiations with Iran, claiming that instead of taking "leadership to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of rogue states and terrorists … we have outsourced over
the last five years our policies." In essence, as president, Hillary Clinton would be more unilateralist and less prone to work with other nations than the Bush administration
on such critical issues as non-proliferation.

In Latin America, Senator Clinton argues that the Bush administration should take a more aggressive stance against the rise of left-leaning governments in the hemisphere.
Regarding Israel, Senator Clinton has taken a consistently right-wing position, undermining the efforts of Israeli and Palestinian moderates seeking a just peace. She’s spoken freely about military action against Syria and Iran, often repeating Bush administration talking points that have been proven false. I could go on and on, but I’m nearly out of space.

Hillary Clinton is no progressive. She’s a war mongering cash cow for the military industrial complex. Don’t let her fool you.

Being an old, gay feminist, I have found pleasure in the desk-top placards of my female colleagues over the years:  The best man for the job is a woman.  However, I have decided to move on beyond the 1960s.   In 2008, the best man for the job happens to be an African-American man and the worst, a white woman.  Hillary had her chance in 2004 to defeat the GOP and she didn't have the balls to do it.  If she didn't have the balls in 2004, she certainly doesn't have the balls for 2008.

Everyone knows that Hillary was a Goldwater Girl in 1964.  That fact must be taken into consideration when evaulating her refusal to run against GWB in 2004 and her efforts to destroy Barack Obama in 2008.  The conclusion is clear: she has always been a Goldwater Girl.  If she were to be illegitamately nominated (the only way she can be the nominee), she will destroy the Democratic Party, she will drive African-Americans from the Democratic Party, she would drive the under-40 voters out of the Democratic Party, and she will hand the WH and the House of Representatives to the GOP. In other words, she is the perfect Manchurin-like candidate... she remains a Goldwater Girl in sheep's clothing.

A TPM reader DF made this interesting point.  If Hillary claims that being first lady gave her executive branch experience on national security, then so can Laura Bush.  
And if you follow that logic, Laura Bush's proximity to power during her 8 years as first lady makes her eminently more qualified than Hillary to answer that phone at 3am.   
Laura was there during  9/11 and has been there for 8 years of fighting terrorists, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the threat of a nuclear-empowered Iran.

I just received a link to this article and thought that TPM would be a good place to paste it.


Obama as a warmonger?

by JonJayRay

People have mostly dismissed his desire to invade Pakistan as just ignorance but the Paleocon writer excerpted below notes that there is much more of the same thinking that seems to have been airbrushed out of commentary on Obama. It is certainly true that it is mainly Democrats who have in the past got America involved in foreign wars

President Obama would be a warmonger. He would be a wide-eyed, zealous interventionist who would not think twice about using America’s “military muscle” (his words) to overthrow “rogue states” and to suppress America’s enemies, real and imagined. He would go farther even than President Bush in transforming the globe into America’s backyard and staffing it with spies and soldiers. He would relish the “American mission” to police the world and topple tyrannical regimes.

Two myths must be exploded: first, that Barack Obama was a principled and passionate opponent of the war in Iraq; second, that if he were installed in the White House he would resist the temptation to launch new wars and would instead usher in an era of peace.

Iraq is the Obamabots’ favorite faultline in the clash of the two Democrat contenders: Clinton supported the invasion and Obama opposed it. An open-and-shut case of one candidate being “for the war” and the other being “against the war,” right? Not quite. Obama’s position over the past five years has been strikingly similar to Clinton’s. And that ought to be an issue of serious concern for Obama’s army of acolytes and the peace protesters who have latched on to his campaign because, as Jeff Taylor pointed out in Counterpunch, “Clinton herself provides no substantive alternative to the neoconservative philosophy of the Bush administration.” Obama is little different from Clinton, and Clinton is little different from Bush.

Obama’s campaign frequently invokes his 2002 “speech against the war,” but very rarely quotes directly from it. Why? Because this mysterious speech-which has become the stuff of legend in Obamaphilic circles, talked about but rarely read-is a pro-war tirade. Yes, Obama described the planned invasion of Iraq as “dumb” and “rash,” but his overriding concern-expressed repetitively throughout the speech-was that the Bush administration was damaging the legitimate case for American-made wars of intervention and potentially making it harder for future administrations (Democratic, for example) to send soldiers around the world to depose unfriendly regimes.

Obama gave the speech at an antiwar rally in Chicago in October 2002. Perhaps nervous about being seen at a gathering of critics of American military intervention, he straight away outli