Barack Obama's "Hillary" Problem
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Hillary Clinton | It's Not Easy To Love Another — Comments (32) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Because of the very same crass, power-hungry behavior we have come to expect from the Clintons, Barack Obama is presented with a fair amount of trouble. Despite Hillary Clinton's endorsement of Obama in today's speech announcing the suspension of her campaign, some of Clinton's supporters are not quite yet willing to come on board:
Cynthia Ubaldo, 44, a Clinton supporter in Columbus, Ohio, just switched her registration from Democratic to independent and donated $10 to Mr. McCain. The endorsement on Saturday is a mandatory, empty gesture, Ms. Ubaldo said.
"I'm sure Hillary's cussing Obama out to Bill and Chelsea as we speak," she said.
[. . .]
If he does not offer the vice-presidential position to Mrs. Clinton, "I'm going to be really angry," said Alida Black, another longtime Clinton supporter.
"Hillary is not interchangeable," Ms. Black added, warning Mr. Obama not to select, say, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas as a gesture to please women.
[. . .]
For Ms. Ubaldo, the Clinton supporter who switched registration and donated to Mr. McCain, the Republican nominee is not so much a protest choice as an appealing alternative.
"This guy is not a conservative," said Ms. Ubaldo, who does not have health insurance but does have a subprime mortgage.
I imagine that there are a fair amount of people like Ms. Ubaldo. Some of them are discussed here. They could have potentially transferred their loyalties long ago, but Hillary Clinton decided to drag out the campaign to the point that her supporters became quite embittered indeed. Oh sure, most of these people will go back to supporting Senator Obama. But some may not. And in a close election, that may make all of the difference in the world.
Barack Obama may have lots and lots of reasons to dislike Hillary Clinton at the end of all of this. She has done everything within her power to prevent Democrats from being able to come together earlier and united their party against John McCain. Maybe Obama can patch the party back together soon enough. But if he can't, and if more people like Ms. Ubaldo either sit on their hands or end up supporting John McCain, Obama will know who to thank.
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Barack Obama's "Hillary" Problem 32 Comments (0 topical, 32 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I think it comes down to "Does Obama want to be President so bad that he's willing to risk his Presidency being sabotaged?"
Because I do think that picking Clinton would probably help him get elected. The problem is, he'd spend his entire Presidency attempting to dodge land-mines planted by her and Bill. They wouldn't intentionally try to destroy him if Hillary were VP, it wouldn't help them much if he was destroyed, but they WOULD try to bend him to their will, and they could make it very difficult for him to ever defy them if they wanted to.
So, does he want to be president so bad he's willing to risk being a proxy president? Or does he actually have a purpose in wanting to be president? That's the question, I think.
"I will look for people in the cast of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and my friend the late William Rehnquist – jurists of the highest caliber who know their own minds, and know the law, and know the difference." - John McCain
I think it comes down to "Does Obama want to be President so bad that he's willing to risk his Presidency being sabotaged?"
He wants it bad enough to throw family, spiritual mentors, supporters whatever he has to under the bus. I doubt he even understands what dealing with the Clintons in positions he can't remove them from entails.
So the Real Questions are does he feel he needs to, to get elected ? Will she and Bill actually be a benefit during the campaign ? Is it going to cost him 20-30 million to pay off her campaign debts ?
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I would be inclined to believe that Obama has become blinded by his own popularity. Certainly anyone with such ambition could, easily, if they were to accept the media and blogospheres fawning. Hence he certainly wants it bad enough, but likely believes Clinton is not needed. Because if he did want Clinton it would have been prudent to do in early Feb.
_____________________________
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
Although Hillary as VP would certainly give her the incumbent position in 2016. But at 69? Eh, not so good a position to be.
_____________________________
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
Obama will try to find anyone else to blame if he loses in November. All he should do is look at how his campaign has been run. Obama's campaign began this year with a win in Iowa. Jesse Jackson, Jr., Obama's National Campaign Co-Chair, made the following statement to the Washington Post:
"The natural reminder here is O.J. [Simpson] -- how does an African American candidate attack a white woman?"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/04/AR200801...
Obama has race baited and used sexist terms during the campaign. Obama never objected the above hateful statement. Hillary and the DNP may call for unity but people with conscious will never get behind a racist, sexist and hateful candidate no matter how well his campaign tried to transform his image.
Stop blaming Hillary; put the blame for a lose at Obama's feet, where it belongs. No doubt he will run the same hateful campaign again Senator McCain. Just read his supporters' statements on any blog.
Our country comes before any political party. And, our country does not need another racist or sexist individual sitting in the White House.
What is really turning off Hillary's middle-aged female supporters, is the arrogance of Obama's youthful supporters.
I've been surfing the left-wing blogs like Huffington Post to gauge reactions. From what I've seen, the obviously young "netroots" activists who supported Obama aren't being gracious victors at all. Go see for yourself.
They're telling the Hillary supporters, "You lost, get over it, and don't let the door hit you on the way out."
It's the exact same attitude that McGovern's youthful supporters had toward middle-aged Democrats in 1972: "McGovern is OUR candidate, the Democratic Party is OUR party now, and we don't need to share them with you."
If you think about it, that is the flip side of Obama's slogan "We are the ones we have been waiting for": Namely, that everybody else is passé. Welcome to "Logan's Run."
Sincz52,
Thank you for going to the Obama left wing supporting sites and reading the vile comments. If anyone doubts the type of people Obama has attracted, visit the left wing sites (e.g., Daily Ko, MyDD, etc.) and read the comments. Go to Youtube and read the comments on videos that do not support Obama. These are not, "Let's unite across party line and work together" people. Their attitude is, if you don't support Obama, then leave (e.g., the Party, the country).
These comments are not only made on Hillary, but on Senator McCain. They mock his age. The Democratic Party leadership and Obama have done nothing to discourage or condemn the race baiting and sexist comments. It is important for Americans to see this side of Obama supporters and Obama because the MSM is hiding it.
The DNP has become the party of racism, sexism and ageism. Please, go read their blogs and see for yourself before the Obama campaign cleans up the sites.
Perhaps the "Wayback Machine" feature on www.archive.org can help stop webpages from being flushed down the memory hole.
The "Wayback Machine" is an archive of old versions of websites. They cache versions every week or so, and you can browse those versions by date. Very useful to drill down to find out what used to be on a website before they got publicly embarrassed. :-)
Tried this last week on some sites and it doesn't always copy Forums or member pages. The best thing we can do is if we see these pages then do a screen grab. Package all the photos in a zip and store them for when you need to remind these people how hateful they are. Dems are their own worst enemy, they open their mouths and dig their holes deeper.
Voting for the Sexy(Pres) - Sexy(VP) Dream Ticket
Jindal/Palin 2012
I finally got around to watching Will Ferrell's Anchorman Friday night. Funny movie, but it also brought back memories that weren't so funny for many women of my generation. It made watching Hillary's speech on Saturday all the more bittersweet -- and being called hags and crones by Obama supporters all the more infuriating.
> "I'm sure Hillary's cussing Obama out to Bill and Chelsea as we speak," she [Cynthia Abaldo] said.
Actually, I'd wager that Hillary was streaming cursewords concerning Obama and Bill to Chelsea as you spoke.
Look he's a big enough snob to think he doesn't need her. Nor does he want her on the ticket but will welcome her help at a distance. Right now he's on a high he hasn't had since his drug days. When he's had a few days off and is rested you can expect an explosion of speeches in the states he needs and lots of visits to the poor side of every major city. After all he wants to be everybodys president.
Remember he said this is his party and he is going to strut around like he is #1 of the land. His speeches will be loaded with "my party" and general fluff to boost the party energy.He cannot let this "movement,rock-star,surge in the polls drop off.He won't do the townhall meetings and give some cheesy reason. If he does do them it won't be ten.And he'll want to make changes to the format.Enough to make it more his show and maybe thinking he can rattle McCain a little bit.
Nothing this man says comes from his own thoughts unless it's from left field and he doesn't have prepared answer. You can bet they have practised about scenario by now.
One of many, many very strange things about this election cycle is how large a chunk of each parties base just loathes their presidential candidate. Should be interesting.
-exits
My in-laws (parents and adult children) are Los Angeles Hispanics who vote Democrat and believe every negative thing they hear about Bush. They weren't thrilled about Hillary, but they planned to vote for her. Now they vow to vote for McCain over Obama.
These are mostly non-political folks who get their news from Spanish language TV. They know all about Michelle Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Phleger, Tony Rezko, Obama's many gaffes, his liberalism, and the Obama-as-messiah phenomenon.
Call it old-fashioned black vs. Hispanic bad blood. Undoubtedly, that is a factor. But don't underestimate the impact of the critical reporting of Obama on Spanish language TV.
I'm not Hispanic but I speak Spanish and watch a lot of Spanish language news. I had definitely noticed a very strong pro Clinton bias in the primary coverage. It will be interesting to see how much of the anti Obama stuff carries over to the general election.
-exits
with my Spanish but, for me, it wouldn't be Saturday night without Don Francisco's "Sabado Gigante," and I think I can summarize the appeal of other programming by simply stating that I'm not married.
I thought I noticed Univision being more pro-Hillary, too, but I wasn't sure because of my lack of fluency. I haven't really seen much news coverage from the other Spanish-language networks.
but this post is nonsense. Obama is to blame for his own problems. Hillary didn't make him to go to TUCC. Hillary didn't make him have Pfleger campaign for him in IA. Obama his going to have to take responsibility and quit trying to shift the blame elsewhere. I'm really tired of the "Obama is a poor little victim" storyline.
I agree completely, Caroline. Seriously Pejman, this is a little ridiculous. Let me get this straight, it's Hillary's fault if Obama loses in November? Oh, give me a break. First of all, Hillary is not the first candidate to stay in the race until June. Ronald Reagan stayed in the race in 1976 until the convention, and didn't even campaign for Gerald Ford--unlike Hillary who already started out with a lovely endorsement of Obama today. Not to mention, in 1980 Kennedy also stayed in the race against Carter until the convention. Furthermore, Kennedy even refused to shake Carter's hand at the convention. I never realized that Ford and Carter were such great candidates, and that it was Reagan's and Kennedy's fault that they lost--and Ford and Carter were actually SITTING presidents, unlike Obama.
Second of all, I really fail to see how demonizing Hillary like this will do us any good--we are going to need her voters come November in order to win. No, if Obama loses, it's because patriotic Americans from both parties can't abide his uber-liberal voting record, his resume the size of a postage stamp, and his long list of unsavory friends. It won't be because he is the victim of some "evil" plot hatched by Hillary to stay in the race while she's still winning primaries and getting 18 million votes.
hopes against such a media onslaught. Trouble is that demonetizing either Clinton or Obama will not work this year. Consequently, our family of 5 will not be voting this year. I expect that his is not an unusual situation. Too bad though...
Formally known as Deagle... "Golf is a way of life..."
Historically, the party that has settled on its Presidential nominee first, has won the election 80% of the time.
Settling on the nominee relatively quickly has obvious strategic advantages.
A nominee that is chosen by a divided convention has only 2 months to unify the party and soothe ruffled feathers and put a national campaign organization together for the general.
Before the age of television, that may not have been so bad. But today, when you need zillions of dollars to campaign, you can't start raising money for the first time on Labor Day. So much for "dark horse" candidates nominated at the convention out of nowhere. Not gonna happen anymore, in the age of TV.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
According to rezkowatch.com (http://rezkowatch.blogspot.com),
"Attorney, law professor, and labor union expert Dr Stephen F. Diamond will guest on the WABC-77 portion of John Batchelor's radio show this Sunday. They will discuss when Barack Obama and former Weatherman William Ayers met, and Obama's chairmanship of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Ayers set up in the mid-1990s.
The interview is scheduled for 8:35 PM Eastern Time and will be streamed via the WABC website.
Batchelor will be interviewing other guests about Obama's associations. Visit RezkoWatch for the complete schedule for the WABC and KFI-640 Batchelor show broadcasts."
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Following is AN OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR OBAMA. You are welcome to distribute it for the good it may bring. This is an issue that is moving forward in a stealth mode and unless the American public becomes aware of the seriousness accompanying it, they will be blind sided in the years following the 2010 "lock in" target date.
= = = = = =
Conway Chester
1682 Langley Ave.
Irvine, CA 92614 - USA
Friday, June 6, 2008
Senator Barack Obama
John C. Kluczynski Federal Office Building
230 South Dearborn St., Suite 3900 (39th floor)
Chicago, Illinois 60604
RE: A campaign issue that could win the presidency
Dear Senator Obama,
In your bid to be President, YOU HAVE SAID NOTHING about the North American Union (SPP.GOV) . Perhaps you are aware that this is a “deal” put into place by President Bush in concert with his close friend and confidant, former president of Mexico , Vicente Fox. It was agreed to with much less enthusiasm by former Canadian prime minister Paul Martin, Jr.
Finalization of this clandestinely undertaken business deal was orally solidified at the Bush ranch in 2005. It was never debated before the legislature or made known to the American citizens. Subsequently, we learned of plans to construct a Super Highway project, in which thousands of privately owned acres of tax payer property will be confiscated (under the cleverly initiated Kelo vs New London Supreme Court ruling - also in 2005) through eminent domain proceedings. Private property is central to the freedom we enjoy as Americans and the North American Union - Trans Texas Corridor “NAFTA Super Highway” deal negates this fundamental and traditional American right to own, retain, safeguard and preserve property that has been in families for, in many cases, generations.
The NAU springs from a process, (quietly - indeed surreptitiously) set in motion by President Bush in 2005, with NO debate or vetting considerations by the legislature thereby completely disenfranchising the American citizens from having any knowledge of or say in the matter. It is tantamount to a virtual coup in surrendering of U.S. sovereignty to a trilateral entity that, in the form of a North American Union, could emulate the European Union that now dictates to the citizens of 27 European states.
Senator Obama, you need to bring a bright light on this matter and alert the American people of your position on preserving U.S. Sovereignty. The N.A.U. is an issue that, if actively denounced in forthcoming campaign messages, could win you the presidency. Your opponents have never brought up this vital issue - - meanwhile the Bush administration is proceeding as thought this privately crafted scheme is a “done deal”.
The American people and I will be watching, listening and waiting to see how you stand on this critical matter.
Sincerely,
Conway Chester
P.S. Congressman Ron Paul is a co-sponsor of House Concurrent Resolution 40 expressing Congressional disapproval of the NAFTA Superhighway and any moves toward a North American Union. So far, Senator Obama, you are NOT listed among the 48 who are COSPONSORS of this bill. Why not? Advocating could win the election for you! Congressman Paul has also introduced H.R. 5191, which would prohibit the use of federal funds to carry out these highway projects. This is added legislation you could back, Senator, to show your unabated support for the sovereignty, independence and freedom of America.
cc: The Honorable Ron Paul, Congressman
cc: The Honorable Virgil Goode, Jr., U.S. Representative
It's only ever existed as some think tank paper and, as a political issue, it exists only to enrich people like Jerome Corsi.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
The Honorable Ron Paul
_____________________________
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
Why are you still bashing Sen. Clinton? Do you hate women THAT much?
Obama will do everything to himself. He is attracting rude, insulting young robots to support him. The DNC has pushed away thousands of members; even saying they don't need us unless we are an elite group of highly educated citizens.
Don't you have anything else to say about the election, other than the fact that Clinton is a power hungry politician. I will have you know that millions votes for her and love her. In fact she is my hero. She won the popular vote, for pete's sake.
It seems obvious that you want to bash a democrat but can't actually bash Obama because then you might be called racist. But it's ok to be sexist. I mean, really.
Why should Hillary Clinton have backed out of her campaign sooner? Because she is a woman and should do what she is told? I think not.
As for Obama making her his running mate: would you trust her (and Bill) to watch YOUR back?
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Vote McCain....and give the bad guys nightmares.