New Hampshire Primary Running Thread

Hillary thinks the nomination and presidency are owed to her.
And nothing will change her mind. When she doesn't get it, to her it's because others didn't allow it, not that she's just a shitty politician and a worse person.

 

Bingo.

Also, just saw this over on Andrew Sullivan's site...

"I find the manner in which they've been running their campaign sort of depressing, lately. It was interesting in the debate, Sen. Clinton saying 'don't feed the American people false hopes. Get a reality check, you know?' I mean, you can picture JFK saying, 'we can't go to the moon, it's a false hope. Let's get a reality check.' It's not, sort of, I think, what our tradition has been,"

- Barack Obama.

 

If Clinton doesn't win the nomination, where does it rank among the all-time greatest political upsets?

At the level of Tyson-Douglas? USSR-US at Lake Placid?

Personally, there's always been something that's made me say, "Obama will win the nomination." I don't know what it is, whether it's our country desperately hoping for another Jack Kennedy or something else. But since before he declared, there's been something there with Obama.

 

You think back on previous primary years and Dean was the upstart and Kerry the warhorse. I think Kerry's military experience was the reason he won. Gore was the establishment choice in 00, and Clinton emerged from the "seven dwarfs" in '92. Typically you see the "inside DC" choice challenged on the left, but since HRC faced some seven candidates running to her left, she miscalculated badly. She's not going to be able to go to the left of Obama and Edwards isn't going to go to the right of Obama.
I can only think of one person who might be able to save HRC's bacon and that would be an endorsement from Al Gore. But I doubt he'd do it. He's going to to be the consigliari of the environment for any Dem who wins and endorsing HRC would compromise him.
The "false hope" messaging is bad. She should be saying something simple like "this isn't like an Etch-A-Sketch where you can clean up the mistakes of the past eight years with a simple shake."

 

It's simple. The majority of this country wants drastic change and some hope after eight years of Dubya's reign of terror. Obama is charismatic, charming, ambitious, and appealing to political pundits and Oprah fans alike. I also think it really helps that he's a great speaker with a multicultural background -- compare that with President Bush, the bumbling Texan who has trouble coherently stringing sentences together.

Obama will take New Hampshire, the nomination, and more than likely, the presidency.

 

I read the Time piece on turmoil in the Clinton campaign and was stunned to find out she's relying on the same folks, Harold Ickes and Mandy Grunwald, among others to help her campaign. Yeah, she's chock full of new ideas. Why not hire Bob Shrum?

 

It also helps that when someone asks a specific question, he gives a specific answer, which doesn't always happen with these candidates in forums and debates. From what I've seen, he lays it out there, rather than giving a canned, generic answer that sounds great but lacks punch.

And yes, I'm in the Obama camp. The moment the threw his hat in the ring, I was hoping he would show well enough to merit nomination. After watching this past week, I'm sold on him at the moment.

 

Well, if Andrew (Fifth Column) Sullivan says it, I'm certainly on board.
Look, I don't like HRC either. I am less vaporous about her campaign tactics than my boy zeke is. I am driven to distraction by Obama's relentlessly optimistic notion that there are reasonable people in the GOP establishment any more and his ready adoption of certain rightist talking-points. But I don't think HRC thinks she's more or less "entitled" to the presidency than any of these guys do. You think McCain didn't come in believing he was owed something for the beating he took in 2000 and his subsequent ass-kissing? Rudy, because he was there when the buildings fell? Edwards, because he was the 2004 Veep nominee? Hell, Obama's running based on a couple of terms in the Illinois lege, one term in the Senate, and the ability to give a great speech, and his raison d'etre is the most sweepingly entitled of all -- a messianic appeal based on the notion that he and he alone can bring us together. Now that's some entitlement.

 

In the end with Obama - what's not to like? He is starting to look like the right canidate at the right time in the country.

Its almost time to que up that song from the Wizard of Oz that goes something like "Ding Dong the ........

 

So it's about her being a woman. Thanks for clearing that up, Boom.
You're right about the other stuff, though.

 

Watched the GOP debate last night (I have no idea why -- I missed their part of the ABC debate the night before). I thought that Mitt came off much better than the rest, but like Hillary, he has an intense unlikeability factor.

Rudy was surprisingly quiet, which actually was a good move, because Huck, Fred and (to a lesser extent), McCain, were not impressive at all.

How anyone can vote for Fred is beyond me.

 

Be better than that fenian . There are plenty of songs for the men also when they go down in flames. For example when I see Fred Thompson I can't help but think of Pink Floyd -- "hello hello is there anybody in there...."