Damn, Hillary's good

Genius, I tell you. We are in the presence of genius.

 

She has a 22-point lead on Obama in the latest USA Today poll. That scares me.

 

Waiting on the inevitable Hillary! scandal that will halt the campaign.

Something that loses her the prejudiced women's vote. (women will vote for her because she's a woman. 66 percent of her support is from women. Men still see through her.).

I wonder if the photo of her in this week's Newsweek with several gay guys in "Hill" Tshirts will go over? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

While drunk in 2006, i made a bet with a friend: Hillary would be the next President. I got my friend to give me 3:1 odds. I took Clinton ... i gave him the field. He happily obliged. The bet was $100.

Right now it looks like it'll be Hillary vs. Rudy ... can't be Romney, can it?

 

Hillary might be a one-termer, but she wins the general election against any of the Republicans up or thinking about it:
Romney - Mormom
Rudy - Thrice-married cross-dresser
Thompson - Multiple married Hollywood actor with no substance
Brownback - Scary
Huckabee - Moron
Who else?
Oh wait, I forgot about McCain, very telling.
McCain - Delusional wannabe
Against that field, she's the odds on favorite.

 

I was at Soldiers Field (as Da Mare calls it) tonight, thanks to some connections I didn't know I had, and I will file this list of random thoughts:

Every debate should be held in front of 15,000 union members. Or at least in front of 15,000 people at a football stadium. It was a rare chance for candidates to get a real, visceral response to what they said. I'm glad Olbermann gave up on asking for no crowd noise -- that made the debate far more interesting. It would have even more interesting had Soldier Field sold beer. The concession stands were fully stocked with brews, and they sold beer for about two minutes -- until someone informed them they couldn't. Don't know if it's because the AFL-CIO needed to procure a liquor license, or the candidates were afraid of what 15,000 drunk union members would do. I settled for a brat and a coke, my wife pizza and a diet.

If one thing was clear -- other than Dennis Kucinich being the candidate the crowd would love to vote for, but just can't bring itself to do so -- it's that you would earn the biggest boos for NOT ANSWERING THE FREAKIN' QUESTION. Actually, it wasn't so much for not answering the question -- every candidate was clumsily proficient at spinning. It was for bringing up a previous question when asked another one. Dodd got booed for it, and so did Clinton. But the biggest and most deserving boos were for Biden. A poor miner's widow asks a sincere question about mine safety, and Biden decides he has to start yammering about Pakistan. Sorry for your loss, but this is about me, hon. Biden is the Rob Deer or Dave Kingman of politics. He hits some real home runs, but in between he's ghastly at the plate.

That Indiana steel guy -- oh yeah, the whole house was getting misty on that one. I don't care what your political persuasion is. The guy gives 34 years of life in the mills, gets hurt on the job, and gets tossed aside like slag. And to top it, he's not worried about himself -- he's worried about his wife.

Edwards didn't exactly nail his answer to that guy, but then again, nobody did. Everybody sounds like a Mr. (or Ms.) Talking Points doll. They're so worried about getting out The Message, they're not listening to the question, or catching the crowd vibe (like the aforementioned Biden). Clinton probably "wins" the debate because she sounded the most presidential, and because nobody had a special moment that would allow them to cut into her lead.

Which brings me to Barack Obama. Man, he got home field (literally) and blew it. He did nothing to allay any fears that he's too green. He's spinning like crazy trying to get on some solid ground, and it's not working. Maybe the debate format doesn't work for him. But I'm not seeing how he stands out. The Barry Bonds question seemed trite, but my wife and I agreed his response said a lot about him. Rather than say: A) I don't want cheaters in the White House, B) He has not been convicted of anything, so I reserve my judgment, or C) I don't know, Keith -- I've been thinking about more important things than baseball, he D) hems and haws about how Bonds hasn't hit his homer yet. It was a distillation of his whole night -- his inability to take a stand, to try to appease everyone.

Also interesting was Obama's answer to the question about whether it was a good idea to pay public money for stadiums when bridges were falling apart, given Obama's vote as a state senator. Clearly, the correct answer is "no," but Obama was not going to say to an audience of people who built the stadium he was standing in that he shouldn't have voted for money to build it.

Oh, and it was as fucking hot as Olbermann alluded to. It was about 90 degrees at kickoff, and everyone had been sitting for almost two hours. So no one was going to be told to stop cheering after sitting around baking.

Speaking of kickoff, the start of the debate was a lot like an NFL game. The players run out to cheers, then everybody has to wait five minutes til the ref gets word that TV is ready.

 

Excellent work, Bob, although isn't "connections I didn't know I had" pretty much the living definition of "Chicagoan"?
I thought Obama spun his way out of the Pakistan question well by throwing the AUMF question in the face of the people who voted for it but, otherwise, your perception in the stadium is pretty much the same as mine. The TV spinners said Edwards had a bad night but, to me, he was the favorite in the building outside of Little Dennis, whom I thought some pipefitter was going to lift up and carry into the endzone.
Biden's just a hopeless blowhard at this point. Of course, given the fact that he cratered in '88 by pinching a speech by Neil Kinnock about coal miners, he probably should just avoid the topic altogether.

 

If you make less than $200,000, you have nothing to worry about.

What you are "saving" in federal taxes now you are paying back in increased local taxes (or decreased local services) because municipalities are getting less of the federal pie.

And let's not even start on the deficit . . .

 

Pretty condescending post, there, Second Thoughts. I can raise your "women will vote for her because she's a woman," with "Men don't like strong, aggressive women."

I don't know if I'll vote for Hillary or not, but quite frankly, looking at who women have been voting for and who men have been voting for in recent elections, the women are much, MUCH smarter.

 

No way Hillary wins. It's very difficult (not impossible, however) to win when about 45 percent of the population will not vote for you under any circumstance.

Just because Hillary won't win doesn't mean a woman can't win. She's just not the right woman.

 

Isn't that already the case?

 

Where is the love for Chris Dodd?