I have sat on this story for a couple of years now; waiting until it was close enough to the 2008 elections to have the relevance necessary for progressives to truly take notice. For some this may come as a shock but it is a necessary dialogue that must be had, before it is too late. The country has come too far in the 2006 elections to watch another four years be flushed away in the White House. Everybody needs to take a deep breath, sit down and realize right now that Hillary Clinton cannot win in 2008.
I started to think about this immediately following the 2004 elections. Fox News was in full celebratory mode, ignoring the blatant voter fraud, when I noticed that they had a segment to actually discuss the viability of a 2008 Hillary run. What ensued made me very curious. They proceeded to talk Hillary up. Newt Gingrich was brought in as an expert and he proceeded to fawn over Hillary and how credible a candidate she is; and remember, this is four years before 2008. I thought to myself, why would Fox News go to such great lengths to gush over a woman I knew they hated? The answer was simple, they knew she could not possibly win a general election, thus she made the perfect candidate for the GOP, and thus for Fox News.
I could talk about the fact that she has a horrible position on the number one topic for the 2008 election, the war in Iraq. It is becoming evident that she is trying to undo her votes and her previous positions. The more she tries to the more she simply sounds like she is not being forthcoming. I can hear the chants of flip flop already. But the cold hard truth is that the actual campaign topics are not really relevant in this case because most have made their minds up about Hillary already.
The truth is that there are portions of this country that are not ready to vote for a woman, let alone this woman. I say that despite the fact that I personally do not dislike Hillary Clinton. I think she has done a very credible job as my Senator and often catches too much grief she does not deserve. That aside, she is also the most polarizing woman in politics. Most people either love her or they hate her. But love her or hate her nearly everyone has already made their mind up about her. A candidate like Obama or Edwards, people still will give a chance to get to know. Not so with Hillary. Make no mistake, she can win the primaries, but in a general election, she would start the GOP with 200-230 electoral votes. Then the Republican Party can concentrate their vast efforts and fortunes on those small handful of swing states and overwhelm her.
Too much doom and gloom you think? Ask yourself in all seriousness what states will not elect a woman, and then move into those that have a natural anti-Hillary slant. What are you left with? Not too many my friends. More importantly, start paying close attention to what the corporate media says about her. Listen not only to Fox News pump life into her candidacy, but your typical shills like Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough. Ask yourself why people you know full well can't stand her are being so supportive of her candidacy? Start paying close attention to who is fueling the "Hillary is the front-runner" talk. Who is downplaying her competition? Obama gets "accidentally" called Osama, but Hillary is afforded the attention and credibility usually reserved for the other party. You watch as the primaries unfold. If there is someone stepping up to challenge Hillary, do not be surprised to see that person get the Howard Dean treatment from the corporate media. The machine is speaking very loudly about what they want and it is more important then ever to ask why, when the machine speaks so loudly and forcefully. There are reasons America; and there is too much at stake.
The past six years have been nothing short of horrific in this country. A GOP led executive branch has seen horrors untold, death and war without end, and an erosion of our civil liberties. The rich have become richer while the middle class have been squeezed into the working poor. Medical insurance has become a luxury millions upon millions of Americans simply can no longer afford. The environment has been raped and global warming is progressing rapidly. Education has been eroded as well and New Orleans remains in ruins. The war continues and if the GOP has anything to say about it, the war will go on for decades with Iran and Syria on deck. America finally woke up in 2006 and voted the party that has perpetrated this upon us out of office. Make no mistake about it America, the next goal for the GOP is to recapture the White House in 2008, by any means necessary. If they can, then the wars will continue and more importantly to republicans, the unfair tax cuts will continue as our country is plunged into further debt so the elite can pad their bank accounts. That is what is at stake for them. That is what is at stake for us.
In their pursuit of continuing their American nightmare, the GOP has had a two-pronged attack since as far back as the moment George W. Bush stole another election in 2004. One, they needed to sort out their own candidate issues, and they have plenty. McCain continues to shoot himself in the foot over this war and Rudy's stance on social wedge issues would fracture the party's base. The second angle though has been to try and assist the Democratic Party with picking their candidate. They wisely decided early on to push Hillary. They have offered no resistance to her candidacy through the primary process and if anything have tried to assist her. Why America? Because they know that she cannot win. It gives me no joy to say it but it is better now to recognize the game before we get to November 2008 and hear about how the democrats elected an unelectable candidate. To hear about how Hillary is so polarizing and how there are parts of the country that are just not ready to elect a woman, let alone that woman. To hear about how the country is going to look after another four years of republican rule.
Anthony Wade, a contributing writer to opednews.com, is dedicated to educating the populace to the lies and abuses of the government. He is a 40-year-old independent writer from New York with political commentary articles seen on multiple websites. A Christian progressive and professional Rehabilitation Counselor working with the poor and disabled, Mr. Wade believes that you can have faith and hold elected officials accountable for lies and excess.
I said all along that Hillary was a predictably losing candidate but even I could not point out the GOP machine part. Anthony, I surrender to the better man!
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Mark Sashine (44 articles, 19 quicklinks, 228 diaries, 3268 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 9:37:31 AM
Anthony Wade may be on the money but again what appears to be a lead pipe cinch today is often laughed at tomorrow because it was so far off base. The thug party was beside itself in '92 when a hick governor from a hick state secured the stupid party's nomination. The same thing happened in '76 with the peanut farmer. No sane person thought Nixon had any chance when he ran in '68. If we were so damn good at prediction we would be getting Bush's big tax breaks from the accrued wealth we made betting on Sunday's games.
The real question is this: if Hillary does win what will we have? Will she swing to the left or will she,like her husband, become another Ronald Reagan clone?
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irwin wingo (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 13 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 10:37:29 AM
Based on her history so far, she'll lean way right. As much as the Republicans try to villify the Clintons as if they were super-liberal, neither of them is actually very progressive, at least not in practice. Truth be told, I don't know whether this nation is still too sexist to elect a woman or not. What I do know is that real progressives should do everything they can to prevent Hillary Clinton from being the Democratic candidate if we care about using this opportunity to turn 30 years of conservatism around.
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D. L. Corvin (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 11:09:19 AM
Ms. Clinton is far from a moderate. She supported this awful war, she has accepted the friendship and assistance of Rupert Murdoch, one not very likely to associate with a real liberal, or even a moderate.
I do not believe that Mr. Wade is entirely correct in his assumption that this nation is not ready to accept a woman President, nor do I believe that Hillary Clinton is not capable of speaking as well as her husband could, she can certainly make a race of it. I do think, as the article suggests, that the right would love a Clinton nomination however, believing that all the old Bill Clinton stuff could be easily restated to good effect.
I , personally, will never vote for Hillary for President, but I would not be very surprised to see her do well against the right in what would be a very messy campaign.
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ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 7:38:06 PM
The only reason it wasn't a clean sweep last November is because the election machines that HAVA foisted off on us did what they were designed to do. Any candidate who understands this threat and circumvents it by enlightening others will do us all a huge favor. Presumably, this same candidate would also be aware of the coming cataclysm of disastrous climate change, the collapse of the oil economies of the world (ours will be the first and biggest to fall)and be able to communicate all this to the voters without scaring us into doing something stupid. Like nominating Hillary R. Clinton. I suggest we take a closer look at Rocky Anderson, Salt Lake City's Mayor.
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Chuck Garner (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 118 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 11:27:02 AM
A Republican by any other name, is still a Republican.
"The real question is this: if Hillary does win what will we have? Will she swing to the left or will she, like her husband, become another Ronald Reagan clone?"
Ask yourself: Why is the Republican Owned Media pushing Hillary so hard?
Anyone who still believes in the Myth of Liberal Media is brain dead.
Republicans denounced her husband as "liberal," but he governed like a Republican.
Whether she wins or loses the national election is immaterial. We'll still end up with a Republican president.
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rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 11:27:56 AM
We can't let that darned "thug party" keep picking our candidates. Fox news is a cable news channel, they must reach hundreds of thousands of conservative viewers, maybe even MILLIONS of conservative viewers. Then those "thugs" go out an pick our nominee for president. They must be stopped! It's time we Democrats picked our own candidates. The crushing power of Fox news and the thug party must be stopped.
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Big Pete (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 11:31:21 AM
1. If Hillary gets the nomination, she will benefit from the anti-Bush, anti-Republican wave manifest in the 06 elections. She can win.
2. Republicans, many of them, promote her now, because her administration would pose no more of a threat to them than her husband's did.
3. The only person who can stop her now is Al Gore.
4. A 'Christian progressive' with a capital C seems an odd formulation. I suppose Jesus was a progressive, one might say, but a capital C Christian would seem to embrace Jesus as the exclusive vehicle to salvation, denying same to competing faiths.
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Kuzminski (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 73 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 12:38:59 PM
I don't care for Hillary, nor do I trust her. She lost all credibility with me when she pulled a Slick Dick before he did with his energy meetings by making her health care reform unbelievably secretive. I've never been able to figure out why. Not only that, when details of her plan finally emerged, it was unacceptably complex.
Hillary is my last choice, but if in November of 2008 it's between her or a Pub, I must unwillingly go with her.
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Sandy Sand (130 articles, 0 quicklinks, 153 diaries, 1174 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 1:52:05 PM
That's the problem, so many Dems won't vote for HRC at all
Not only is she the last choice of countless Democrats, there's a large percentage that won't vote for her in the general election either-- they'll stay home, vote for a non D/R party, or (gasp) even cross over to vote for Giuliani, I guess the logic being something like, we could probably win with a non-DLC progressive in 2012, when disgust with the GOP would be inestimable.
Hillary has angered the base far too much, she's basically opened up a Gatling gun on the progressive causes Democrats hold most dear-- not only on the Iraq War, and on Iran for that matter where she's if anything even more hawkish than Bush. Hillary's economic stands are revolting-- supporting laws to make outsourcing even easier, when Americans professional and middle class workers are already being squeezed hard? Changing Chap. 11 so that Americans in a bind are screwed over even worse by big corporations, making it easier to foreclose their homes?
I personally am not fully decided, but I'd say that a good 1/3 of my neighbors (and I'm in a very, very Democratic neighborhood) will not vote for Hillary, at all. And they're not Netroots types, either, they're middle Americans who are appalled at Hillary's very anti-Democratic stands.
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Jim Lasker (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 6:21:19 PM
I would work for Gore if he let me. I believe that he has turned himself around and realized just what's up. Hillary is not my idea of a progressive Democrat. I would vote for her before a Republican but thats not saying much. I liked this article and it does make a lot of sense. So does Gore. Hillary would make a fine Vice President or Secretary of State. She is exceptionaly smart, but a little too ready to "prove" she can be as tough as the men. The nation needs that like a hole in the head.
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Timothy V. Gatto (348 articles, 177 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 575 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 2:21:29 PM
He would win, period. He would be teflon. All the lies they told about him have been debunked, and most feel he was jobbed in 2000. I think he would be more comfortable within himself and would steamroll whoever the GOP put forth because he isnot ebholden to anyone anymore.
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Anthony Wade (135 articles, 2 quicklinks, 44 diaries, 440 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 4:10:13 PM
...would be James Webb--I wish he'd consider running.
I totally agree with this article, I expressed that idea--Hillary Clinton, best Democratic candidate... for the Republicans--some time ago on this site.
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francine (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 201 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 4:23:42 PM
all the more reason why I said I will hunt, cook, eat a crow and upload the video if Hillary "The Bitch" Clinton serves a single day as president. If the dummicraps are stoopid enought to nominate Hillary they are guaranteeing a REPUKE victory. Also don't be surprised when Obama becomes her V.P. candidate as I am quite sure they have already made the deal under the table and are merely letting him 'establish his own identity' so they can late 'come together for the greater good of the country'....well don't fall for that crap when they pull it bc they will still LOSE!
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BenMarbleMD (18 articles, 0 quicklinks, 172 diaries, 259 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 4:35:42 PM
I can't support Hillary or Obama. Edward's was looking good until he fired people because some prominant Catholic said that they said something bad about Catholics. I'm not gonna support someone who is so beholding to any religion. I guess Kucinich is the only one left for me to support.
I would have to listen to Gore before I could consider someone who used White House phones to collect campaign contributions from China. I can't forget that. I think it demonstrates some screwed up priorities.
Dennis has been right since day one and he hasn't changed his stance on any issue. I guess thats just to straight forward to be viable in the U.S.
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Sleeper (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 264 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 5:10:52 PM
It's true that Gore has a lot to answer for. He helped ditch Kyoto, had a lot to do with pollution in Tennessee, went back on his word about a polluting project in Ohio (an election pledge, I think about a power plant), and generally toed the Clinton line in the old days. Al's going to have to address some of his baggage, but if he does so, he would be invincible. Who really wants Hillary, or rather Billary? Who was to replay all that stuff? She's just too much. Rush Limbaugh keeps replaying that tape of her screaming, practically, at some event, and she sounds awful. Still, if she were the nominee I think she'd win.
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Kuzminski (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 73 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 6:23:02 PM
I appreciate your obeservation about the right wing machine pumping Hillary up so much so far. I think you are on the money and will be watching closely to see this in practice.
It makes sense because she has more baggage then anyone else between all her husband's detractions, filegate, travelgate, Whitewater and Vince Foster. I can see them using GOP money and influences to build her up as a clay pidgeon that they can blast apart later.
Now that you mention it, it's strange that of all the criticism of Hillary they do it's all current stuff, as if they are holding back the heavy ammo for later - surely Whitewater and I think I remember a fishy last minute $100,000 stock dump too.
Remember they spent big bucks getting Ralph Nader on the ballot before, so they are prone to use any and all underhanded tactics to run interference on the candidates they truly fear.
Regarding Gore, I would vote for him above the others and relish a ticket with he and Kucinish or Obama. His one big scandal was the fundraising with the Buddhist monks, though it seemed like he took one for the team on that one and tried to de-sully his image later and "integrity-up" by distancing himself from Bubba, even if it meant a loss.
Perhaps if Al doesn't run because of what he calls such a "toxic environment" in DC, he would still accept the top position at the EPA?
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Gustav Wynn (47 articles, 33 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 224 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 6:30:14 PM
Hillary Rodham Clinton is the dream candidate for the Republicans-- disliked and even despised by millions of rank-and-file Democrats, abhorred by Republicans who'd turn out in unprecedented numbers to vote against her, reviled by Independents who are furious at her about Iraq and now her push to war in Iran, in addition to her economic stands.
Hillary Clinton is a blessing for the Republicans, and a disaster for the Democrats.
You're right, the GOP is holding back, though they're preparing. The Republicans are already putting together a massive hit campaign and even farming out some hit work to some very slimy, shadowy publicity organizations who will get their squirmy tentacles around and all over Hillary Clinton if she is nominated. If you thought Swift Boat was bad, it'll seem like an awards party in Kerry's honor compared to what the Republicans will do to Hillary if she is nominated.
The problem is, Hillary in many ways has been hoisted by her own petard in this respect, and Democrats won't be anxious to come to her defense. She plunged a knife right into Kerry's back last year when his comments were twisted by Republican smear artists, and she continues to obviously and stupidly pander so much that she has permanently alienated an extremely large fraction of her own base. She would push so many Democrats into the arms of 3rd parties that such parties would have enough strength to hit Democrats harder than Republicans. It would be an electoral disaster of the highest proportions.
The Democrats have so many top-notch candidates that this gathering debacle has no excuse. Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson-- the Democrats have an all-star list. Yet we're willing to squander it in favor of choosing a disastrous candidate that the Republican media is encouraging upon us, to their tremendous benefit.
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Jim Lasker (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 7:22:13 PM
It's even worse for Hillary than Anthony notes here
It's not just Hillary's polarization for the country as a whole and the fact that she would be the best unifier for the Republicans in decades-- much of the most profound anti-Hillary anger is coming from Democrats, a big and growing number of whom won't vote for her, period. The war stands are a big factor, and Hillary for almost 5 years has been one of the biggest Iraq War supporters in either party, only recently backing off a bit when it was already obvious to everyone else (for years before that) how much of fiasco it had become.
