Category: The Clintons

A short history of “Whoops!”

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date March 3, 2008
1 Comment on A short history of “Whoops!”

The much vaunted Clinton campaign operation, billed as the biggest, baddest game in town, had no post-Super Tuesday strategy because its leaders apparently didn’t think one was needed. Whether that’s due to arrogance or ignorance, it’s the campaign equivalent of what President Bush did in invading Iraq without a post-Saddam plan. The primaries are in a very true sense a practice run for the White House, and if you emerge with high marks, as Obama has, it’s a pretty clear statement of the kind of government you would run. Obama has shown a steadiness in demeanor and message. Clinton has blown through $120 million dollars, and her persona is more confused than ever.

There was an article in The Onion from 2004 that I have been looking for, but am unable to find. The headline read: “Bush Reelection Campaign Better Planned Than Iraq War.”

You can’t extrapolate from a good campaign means that a candidate will govern well; but if you cannot run a good campaign – and you’ve never proved you can run anything – I think how the campaign is run becomes a major issue.

Election 2008 Politics The Clintons

Awkwardly phrased spin

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date March 3, 2008

“Hillary Clinton’s not going anywhere,” Mr. McAuliffe said. “Hillary’s going to one place. She’s going to Denver as the Democratic Party nominee.”

From the Times on Friday.

Domestic issues Election 2008 Obama Politics The Clintons

A Card-Carrying Civil Libertarian

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date March 1, 2008

Jeffrey Rosen, writing in The New York Times today, compares Ms. Clinton’s commitment to civil liberties and privacy to Mr. Obama’s:

[Ms. Clinton’s] speeches about privacy suggest that she has boundless faith in the power of experts, judges and ultimately herself to strike the correct balance between privacy and security.

Moreover, the core constituency that cares intensely about civil liberties is a distinct minority — some polls estimate it as around 20 percent of the electorate. A polarizing president, who played primarily to the Democratic base and refused to reach out to conservative libertarians, would have no hope of striking a sensible balance between privacy and security.

Mr. Obama, by contrast, is not a knee-jerk believer in the old-fashioned liberal view that courts should unilaterally impose civil liberties protections on unwilling majorities. His formative experiences have involved arguing for civil liberties in the legislatures rather than courts, and winning over skeptics on both sides of the political spectrum, as he won over the police and prosecutors in Chicago.

Domestic issues Election 2008 Obama Politics The Clintons

How Hillary’s Think Tank Went for Obama

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 28, 2008

Michelle Cottle of The New Republic writes in this week’s issue about how Ms. Clinton’s think tank went for Senator Barack Obama:

Still, it’s hard not to see Hillary’s loss of the unofficial CAP primary as a microcosm of her surprisingly tenuous claim on the party establishment. Maybe it loved her in the beginning, or at least felt loyalty to her. Yet the relationship was always a bit codependent for some people’s taste, and, along the way, more and more Dems came to see it as unwholesome and costly. Obama may have been an attractive suitor. But he swept into the midst of a marriage that was probably shakier than most people realized.

Election 2008 Liberalism Politics The Clintons

Pathological idiocy: Mark Steyn

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 28, 2008
1 Comment on Pathological idiocy: Mark Steyn

Mark Steyn of the National Review proves once and for all that he has no idea how liberals, Democrats, or non-ideologues think with this surreal observation:

With hindsight, the oral sex was a master stroke. Bill Clinton likes to tell anyone who’ll listen that he governed as an “Eisenhower Republican,” which is kind of true — NAFTA, welfare reform, etc. If you have to have a Democrat in the Oval Office, he was as good as it gets for Republicans — if you don’t mind the fact that he’s a draft-dodging non-inhaling sex fiend. Republicans did mind, of course, which is why Dems rallied round out of boomer culture-war solidarity. But, if he hadn’t been dropping his pants and appealing to so many of their social pathologies, his party wouldn’t have been half so enthusiastic for another chorus of “I Like Ike.”

Mr. Steyn’s proof of this rather unusual point: “Hillary is what the Clintons look like with their pants up” – and she is losing. Therefore, most liberals supported Mr. Clinton because of his sexual escapades.

The logic used here is impeccable.

Election 2008 McCain Obama Politics The Clintons

How Barack Obama inspired the West Wing Finale

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 27, 2008

Domestic issues Election 2008 Foreign Policy Obama Politics The Clintons

The Obamanauts

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 27, 2008

From Noam Sheiber’s look at Mr. Obama’s policy team in The New Republic:

The Clintonites were moderates, but they were also ideological. They explicitly rejected the liberalism of the 1970s and ’80s. The Obamanauts are decidedly non-ideological.

It’s well worth reading the entire piece.

Election 2008 McCain Obama Politics The Clintons

The Governors’ Meeting

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 27, 2008

Dan Balz’s article in yesterday’s Washington Post headlines that “Democratic Governors See McCain as Formidable.” Damn right they do.

Reading the article, it was difficult to tell to what extent each interviewee was trying to ensure that the Democratic nominee would pick them, and to what extent they seriously considered their state in doubt.

Governor Edward Rendell said that Mr. McCain was “the ideal [Republican] candidate for Pennsylvania.” Mr. Rendell went on to describe a scenario that suggested Mr. McCain was the seemingly inevitable candidate for Pennsylvania.

Governor Jennifer Granholm said that Mr. McCain was “appealing in Michigan. He does appeal to independent thinkers – at least he did in the past – and we have a lot of those in Michigan. Whoever the Democrat is, Michigan is a state where we’re going to have to work.”

Governor Ted Strickland explained that, “I think John McCain could have an appeal to a lot of Ohioans.” Perhaps Mr. Strickland didn’t need to get all dramatic about his state because it decided the last Democratic election.

And those are just the Governor who support Ms. Clinton. Mr. Obama’s supporters at the governor’s meeting seemed to focus less on the likelihood that their specific states would go to Mr. McCain.

Just something interesting to note…

Election 2008 Politics The Clintons

If you injected Obama with sodium penathol…

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 27, 2008
6 Comments on If you injected Obama with sodium penathol…

Edward G. Rendell, interviewed by the Washington Post at the governors’ meeting, struck me as a “good ol’ boy” who would hurt as much as he would help a national ticket. Mr. Rendell suggests Senator Joe Biden as Vice President if Mr. Obama wins, and slyly and subtly, himself if Ms. Clinton wins the nomination. I’m not all that sure about either suggestion. In the next moment, Mr. Rendell suggests injecting Mr. Obama with sodium penathol!

Election 2008 Humor Politics The Clintons

Local color

Post author By Joe Campbell
Post date February 27, 2008

At this point, close followers of the Clinton-Obama race will have noticed that Ms. (“Texas has a primary and a caucus?”) Clinton doesn’t seem to have invested much in either of the states she is now counting upon to save her campaign on March 4 – Texas or Ohio. The New York Times plays into this with their headline “Pieces of Texas Turn Primary Into a Puzzle.” Certainly, Ms. Clinton, along with most pundits, has been heard to publicly puzzle over the Texas system in the past few weeks. While Senator Barack Obama’s campaign seems to have planned for this from the start. Presuming that I’ve already made the point about how arrogant and unprepared Ms. Clinton has been in this campaign, I direct your attention to this ~~juicy~~ bit of local color from the Times‘s piece on the Texas primary:

Ben Kerr, 66, a medical clinic administrator in Waco who was eating lunch there Friday at a venerable old diner that serves Tater Tots, shakes and dripping burgers but is incongruously called the Health Camp. Mr. Kerr described living for many years east of Houston in Port Arthur, which he said many people considered the true capital of Louisiana because of its Cajun population. But he now considers himself a man of Central Texas, and as part of a smaller area around Waco with a deeply independent bent.