Zed!

Hey! No fair!

Hi Jane. Obamarama, huh?

Clinton needs to evaluate Penn’s loyalties. Is she his primary client, or does his work for others while in her campaign matter more to him? It’s a stupid arrangement, having him work for others while he works for her.

This is one of the things Hillary could do that would help convince some of us skeptics that she’s on the side of goodness and light. Mind you, she’ll get my vote if she’s the candidate, but she and Obama have significant room for improvement.

I hope the Clintons can do something to stop the bleeding.

I thought Clinton was smarter than this.

Its an Obamanation!

Bob in HI

The impression here is that in addition to getting rid of Penn, the Clinton folks ought to jettison the not so big dog. But at the end of the day the buck stops with the candidate.

In Nashua, Hillary skates on the edge of Iraq revisionism:

“After 9/11, I would never have taken us to war in Iraq,” she said. “I would have stayed focused on Afghanistan because the real threat was coming from there.”

Hillary Clinton may try to rewrite history, but it’s hard to believe she didn’t know what would happen after she voted for a resolution with the title ?A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq.? While Hillary Clinton continues to make the same kind of attacks that voters are rejecting, Barack Obama will continue telling voters about his consistent opposition to the war in Iraq from the start, and his plan to bring our troops home.

She could do something big. Habeas Corpus, have a chat with Sybal, name her VP/wish list cabinet, agree with McGovern that crimes in the administration need to be investigated. Something BIG, and there is plenty to go around.

Heh. I saw it as a picture of a train that had left the station.

The Clintons do not have what it takes to be positive. And it is time to end the Bush Clinton era and that includes Gore, Kerry, Tenet, Berger, Freeh and the other wanabees. When you look back on it, the Clintons, Gore, Kerry promoted their fossil fuel reliant economnic policies relying on what comes out of the ground in Saudi Arabia, they clearly provided the set up for the present Bush.

Mark Penn is the Clintons. They cannot get rid of him and the other petty ambitious types who permeate that campaign. Who wants to “retool” anything around or about the Clintons?

That’s so Clinton.

One of the things I found most annoying about the Bill Clinton Presidency was the way he seemed to use polling to form his opinions and inform his actions, not to see how people reacted to his opinions and decisions. This Mark Penn seems to be polling penguins or some unknown entity to have carved out her weird and super cautious candidacy.

Could be worse, Hillary could could repeat Ws (and now Mittster’s) tiny rant about wanting binladen dead OR alive.

In this house the view is that during the Demo debate last night, we may have finally have gotten a glimmer of the ‘real Hillary’.

Obamanation! Clever.

She must do something bold. Can she? Is it still in her? Was it ever?

HRC could do something really big. She could begin to behave like a statesperson.

I thought she did a good job in the debate last night. Actually, I was impressed with all except Richardson. Made the repubs look like the bunch of morons they are.

Who is supposed to be motivating and organizing and informing women

if this is the job of Emily’s List…they suck

Hi Jane. I’m still rooting for Edwards over here. My plan is for the voters to get fed up with both Obama and Clinton and then elevate Edwards.

Lahoma thinks that Obama and Clinton might be the perfect match (ticket). She likes neither of these politicians. And neither do I.

“After 9/11, I would never have taken us to war in Iraq,” she said.

McCain, otoh, said on MTP this morning that even if he’d known then (no WMD, etc) what he knows now, he still would have attacked Iraq.

35 years of change, and yet she can’t or won’t change her tactics when they aren’t working. Doesn’t bode well for a leadership role.

Hil is screwed. The “change” meme is the one axis where she can’t win. Or even compete. The statement “I’ve been doing change for 35 years” can only come across as simply an oxymoron, because if you’ve been doing something for 35 years in Washington (OK, OK, and Arkansas before that), then you’re part of the status quo, not a fresh challenge to it.

Sigh. I so wanted a woman US President…

Penn’s Blackwater connection is a dealbreaker. I thought HC understood/hoped the “business as usual” days in DC are ending.

Guess not.

tell you what though, I am STILL pissed off how little play edwards is getting

it’s hillary lost, oboma won, and edwards wasn’t even there

edwards made quite a push, the ohio caucus is more about movement then placement, hillary had to win, everyone else just had to have movement

I think edwards takes this pretty far forward

The Clinton campaign needs to learn from the election of Governor Jesse Ventura here in Minnesota. Ventura won for a number of reasons, but one big one was that the two other candidates, Tool Norm Coleman and Heir “Skip” Humphrey. Each of the mainstream candidates suffered from the same misapprehension that Clinton seems to be exhibiting: the belief that they are entitled to the job.

Skip Humphrey believed that because his father was Vice President that he was entitled to be governor. Norm Coleman believed that because he’d serviced all the Republican bigwigs that HE was entitled to the role.

Hilary Clinton quite clearly believes that after 35 years in politics, including eight as First lady, her involvement with the Democratic Party Machine, and her time as Senator, that the world owes her the Presidency.

She’s wrong. The world owes nobody anything, it must be earned. And if she doesn’t change her attitude, she will lose – just like Skip Humphrey and Norm Coleman. And the problem is, if she’s already the candidate at that point, we’ll all lose too.

Even if Clinton did something BIG, I feel she would only be doing it to get elected.

Me too and I heard him say that he didn’t plan on quitting right up to the convention. I hope that is true

TPM notes:

But some knowledgeable campaign watchers have now confirmed me in my impression that virtually every Democratic primary campaign Penn has run going back to 2000 or earlier has lost — Checchi, Blanchard, Cuomo, Lieberman, Deutsch. The guy has an absolutely terrible record.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062815.php

Time to hit the showers before The Wire comes on.

Later taters!

Obama’s got the edge at the moment, but Hillary is far from defeated. Polls in New Hampshire show a tie game- and a loss doesn’t kill her chances. We should know who it will be after super duper tuesday.

She’s a Republicrat. No way is she dumping him.

I’m going to be fascinated to see what happens if Super Tuesday comes into play. Where will the resources be focused and perhaps for the first time in a long time, a lot of Democrats will have their say in the choice.

Hillary Clinton is a democrat with strong ratings from most progressive organizations.

My point is… as usual it’s the same old HRC. No change. Status quo. I’m really not much concerned with what McCain, or for that matter what any of the Republicans say. They are quite a predictible bunch. I am however very interested in what “leaders” of my party say. ;0)

I agree with a few exceptions. Do something about upholding her oath as a sitting Senator now! Work with Dodd on FISA.. Investigate something, ANYTHING, with gusto. Crack a few neo con heads together, crush a few robber baron maneuvers, demand an end to our occupations..and call me in the morning.

Oh I won’t count her down and out yet. Have you ever seen any more unbridled desire to be President–ok, John McCain on the other side of the aisle comes to mind. But she is very intelligent. Perhaps even intelligent enough to do what John Kerry could not…tell her handlers to go for a long walk off a short pier.

There’s still some fight in her, I’d make bank on it. And, even though I have always viewed her as a republican in sheeps clothing, the fact remains that she is still a MUCH better choice than any of the Republican candidates. I have said in the past that I would vote for her if she were the Democratic choice. I wouldn’t like it, but it would be better than voting a ticket with Joe Lieberman on it (and there’s no Nader bail out, this time around).

i didn’t see it. what did you see about her from the debate?

I want all the Democratic front-runners on the record about Rape Gurney Joe.

Exactly what role will he play in your Administration, sirs and madame? Please be specific.

“None at all” is the preferred response. Is that yours?

http://politicalticker.blogs.c…..onvention/

Edwards vows to stay in race to convention

“compost”

In our view last night’s performance by Sen. Clinton may indicate HRC does not work well under pressure.

Jane is spot on. (and smarter)
I hate to say that I hope her campaign remains too ignorant to make a changes. I don’t think she is electable and hope the truth comes out at the gate, (now) rather than in November.

In response to bobschacht @ 8

“Obamanation! Clever.”

Unfortunately, I cannot take credit for thinking it up.
Still more unfortunately, I don’t remember who I should be giving credit to.

Bob in HI

Penn may be wrong but then so are those who are jumping on the cult of celebrity bandwagaon that is propelling Obama to lead in the polls. He has many admirable qualities but it’s naive to think he can sit down at the table with those who are intent on destroying America’s middle class.

“Hillary Clinton is a democrat with strong ratings from most progressive organizations.”

Progressive Punch rates her as 16 out of 100 (91.3%) on progressive issues. Her strongest (most progressive) issues are Housing, and Corporate subsidies (!)– which surprised me– and her worst issues are War & Peace (39th) — surprise!!!— and Human Rights and Civil Liberties (30th). Those last two areas are very important to me.

Bob in HI

If she had actually delivered on universal health care, she would have achieved something and would be worth voting for.

She gave up. Did not build any consensus. Achieved nothing and folded like a cheap suit.

As for her claim that she has 35 years delivering change, that means she enterd public life in 1972 – I call bullshit on this.

Obama has consistently funded the war…And he stated that if he had been in the Senate at the time, he might have voted for authorization as well. Are you just unaware of facts or devoid of the ability to reason? If you just have faith in your candidate, I have no bones about it. But don’t employ empty talking points fed to you by the campaign…BE LOGICAL. Obama’s voting record indicates he funded the war repeatedly. Further,Obama voted yes on an Energy Bills that was full of pork and tax breaks to oil companies. Obama’s co chair in New Hampshire is a registered lobbyist. Hillary voted no on the Energy Bill. Maybe none of that matters to you. But it’s boring to read hypocrites who can’t support their arguments. Again, you don’t need arguments. You can be like the majority of Americans, and vote for someone because you just like them and trust them. That is how we ended up with Bush, who was so much more likeable than Gore. And he was going to lead as a uniter not a divider. And he was going to clean up Washington…because he was an outsider. I get it. So if its a guy reaction, fine…Just don’t be a hypocrite.

Maybe you don’t realize she had a Democratic Congress. Democrats abandoned her on universal health care. They were wimps. So as long as you know Democrats could have made it happen. They caved. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Unbridled desire to be President? Is this just unusual in a female? Because real women are not like that? What sort of sexist crap are you peddling? Anyone running for the Presidency is very ambitious. Period. You may have noticed the obstacle course to getting there…

And why is this not the standard for Obama? Is there some special standard for him? Do you not see the hypocrisy? It’s embarrassing.

I really wish we could look at our candidates strictly in terms of their positions and their records and not have to factor in the idiot political advisors they hire.

I know they have to campaign in the world as it is, but their advisors really do seem to do their bit to make sure the world as it is stays that way.

I suppose it’s a place they know they can get hired.

reposted from comments elsewhere but I thought it was excellent

correct me if I’m wrong, but Mark Penn isn’t running the show…Terry McAculiffe is the person, who as Chairman of the DNC, first compressed the nomination schedule (2000), IMHO, with the understanding that Clinton would run this year if Kerry lost. He has also been the main strategist for the campaign (until WJC apparently got involved on the flight to New Hampshire).

As best I can surmise, the strategy was this…Win Iowa, make it so challengers don’t have enough time to recover before New Hampshire, and take that momentum into February 5th. McAculiffe has been saying all along that the nominee would be decided by then. I can almost hear him saying “It’ll be a slam-dunk!”

Three strategic mistakes with this….

1) I’m not sure they took Obama seriously enough until it was too late. They could have gotten Chris Lehane busy and gotten a lot of bad stuff lined up and begun leaking it on a regular basis much earlier.

2) When they did realize Obama was going to be a problem, they didn’t wait to get into the race in August or September. Instead of letting Obama get vetted all summer by himself, they got scared and jumped into the race in the spring, and ended up spending all summer and fall being compared to Obama and defending themselves. If they had waited, they could have got in and changed the dynamic of the race when people were just starting to pay attention..

3) By compressing the schedule, in the event they didn’t win Iowa, they didn’t leave themselves enough time to recover. As a result, they are paying the price for their own over-confidence.

“No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” — Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard von Moltke

With his burgeoning popularity we may gain enough seats in both chambers to thwart any resistance to health care reform, addressing global warming, etc. What people seem to forget is that the GOP didn’t used to have this power. After Hillary’s health care plan failed, the people voted the Repubs in and things got worse (they weren’t close to perfect before) from ‘94 on. It hasn’t always been as bad as its been these last several years. Its just been bad so long people forgot.

Isn’t it possible that people just don’t like the candidate and that it has nothing to do with the advisors. Nobody was bitchin’ about Penn last week. The voters remember that Hillary’s experience includes failing at health care in the early 90’s and that her husband’s agenda was stalled by impeachment. Obama will got a bigger victory then she ever could so the possibility of reform is much greater anyway.

He stood up when it counted before the war and said it was a bad idea. Few Democrats had the courage to do so. Funding the war now is a different story. Troops are in harm’s way. If defunding them makes them any less safe than they already are its inadvisable. Provide proof we could maintain their “relative” safety after defunding and I’ll change my mind. The info I’ve had is that, without funding, other appropriations could be diverted to get some, but not all, of the troops home. The time to stop the war was beforehand. HRC’s judgment was flawed and, in my opinon, politically motivated because she’s smart enough to realize what Bush planned to do.

It’s possible. Considering the advisors all of the frontrunners have hired, if I were a partisan of theirs, I’d very much like to believe it was true.

but, that said –

if you’re a regular read of this site, I’m not sure how you managed to miss anyone taking issue with Mark Penn before this week

Obama’s smooth, cool, and soothing — and maybe that’s what America wants. But he is not a great agent of “change”. That’s John Edwards and his truly populist message. Edwards is the only one of the Democratic leaders (not including Kucinich) who is really fighting for “change” for the poor and the middle class in America.

the problem is not strategy. It is the Clintons. Phoney baloney.

Obama has consistently funded the war…And he stated that if he had been in the Senate at the time, he might have voted for authorization as well.

… don’t employ empty talking points fed to you by the campaign…BE LOGICAL. Obama’s voting record indicates he funded the war repeatedly.

Further,Obama voted yes on an Energy Bills that was full of pork and tax breaks to oil companies.

Obama’s co chair in New Hampshire is a registered lobbyist.

Fantastic post!

Three strategic mistakes with this….

1) I’m not sure they took Obama seriously enough until it was too late. …

2) When they did realize Obama was going to be a problem, they didn’t wait to get into the race in August or September. Instead of letting Obama get vetted all summer by himself, they got scared and jumped into the race in the spring, and ended up spending all summer and fall being compared to Obama and defending themselves. …

I think if you look at the polls during the last several months and then again for the last few days before the Iowa caucuses you’ll notice several interesting things.

Hillary’s numbers began to drop and Obama’s increase at the same time. There was some kind of consensus arrived at by voters that Hillary wasn’t the choice and they (some percent of Hillary’s support) moved to the next big-name candidate. That didn’t go on forever. It leveled off.

Near the end of the campaign I seem to remember a poll which showed 1-Clinton, 2-Edwards, 3-Obama in a tight race with a lot of volatility and some movement within a narrow range. Then, suddenly, Obama’s numbers moved about 9 freakin’ percentage points as reported in the Des Moines Register paper.

What caused the change? The paper said they just asked people and that was the result. People talked about an increase of new voters coming into the process.

I think everyone was surprised and we still don’t know what happened. Nobody is to fault, Penn or anybody else.

Still, the Clinton & McAuliffe strategy to take the early states and be inevitable was tossed out the window. Now she pays a heavy price.

Unfortunately, Edwards is paying a price for that strategy too.

Nevertheless, I am wary of the bandwagon/clusterfuck/gang bang mentality that is developing here. I wish there were more time to let it dissipate. Because of 2004, when we nominated a dud who had early momentum.

Jane, I was really surprised to learn at Taylor Marsh that you thought HIllary should have had a smile on her face when she shot off her zingers into Edwards and Obama during the debate. Perhaps she should have rolled her eyes and whispered sweet nothings as well. Interesting that it took the TWO of them to gang up on the ONE of her. I would have thought you might have been more outraged by the patronizing attitude John Edwards showed towards her of, “Little lady, now don’t get yourself in a sweat. You made good points, but darlin’, you’re gettin’ yourself all riled.” But frankly, I thought John Edwards, was too busy sucking up to Obama for the VP slot. I thought for sure he was gonna hump his leg for a minute and say, “Pick me, pick me, PLEASE pick me.” I hope that’s not how he’s gonna fight Republicans and big corporations. And by the way, Obama got his pick-up from Oprah. That will fade, given time. But by then we’ll be stuck, and McCain or Rudy will have won from “experience”. —Because that’s who I intend to vote for if Hillary doesn’t make it.