Some dude on the internet is making sense:
By being a ‘fighter’ and playing to the lowest kind of populism (and wow do we hate it), Hillary is showing that if she were somehow to get nominated, she’ll run exactly the kind of stay-on-the-offensive campaign that will force mistakes from McCain and make it more likely that she’ll win in November. She’s also making it clear that Obama will never run that kind of campaign. [...]
The upshot: I’ll happily support Hillary if she ‘steals’ the nomination. Aside from the benefits of not having a crop of incompetent government-haters running government, one of the benefits of a winning Hillary campaign would be to relieve a blight on our
country: the Atwater/Rove school of Republican campaign mudslinging. It’s not about fighting back. It’s about taking the first shot. She won’t let them get their Swift Boats in the water to start with. If both sides are Atwatering it, yes, it’ll be very very ugly, cue the
‘Unity12′ theme music and hand-wringing by the delicate. But I think we’re in for ugly no matter what, because they’re not going to stop. We may as well engage or get used to losing.
Amen. However, there is a point past which this kind of pluckiness turns pathological, and it seems that point has been reached. My main concern with choosing a nominee was that the winner be someone who was able to win in a fight. Clinton gave a hell of a fight, but she couldn’t win it. So it’s over. If her campaign can’t figure this out on their own, it might be time for folks in the party to let her know it’s time to stay down.
May 7, 2008 at 10:33 am
I blame Bill. And if Obama loses in November, I blame Hillary.
May 7, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I blame Uli. I blame Pumpkinhead.
Now that we’ve determined blame, can we fix the countries problems?
May 7, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Yeah, I propose we make just one. Easier to keep track that way.
But then, I’m one of them liberals that is secretly plotting to install a liberal totalitarian UN headed something or other, proving Jonah’s point, etc.
May 7, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Hillary, It’s time to stay down.
May 7, 2008 at 4:04 pm
The problem with the last two Dem nominees was that their idea of a “positive” campaign was to not hit back. Republicans would call them effete cowards, and they’d nobly stay above the fray, more or less as effete cowards would have.
But Obama has a talent for political jujitsu and landing punches when he needs to.
Example. In 2007, former Australian Prime Minister John Howard made a snide comment about al-Queda in Iraq looking forward to Obama being the Democratic nominee. Our old-school Dems would have issued an uptight press release about the inappropriate nature of foreign leaders interfering in domestic US politics.
Obama replied that if Howard cared about Iraq, he was free to send more Australian troops than the token force already there.
That was a bell-ringer. Howard didn’t try that again.
May 7, 2008 at 4:15 pm
This post has me imagining George Kennedy beating the shit out of Hillary Clinton. Nice image, that one.
May 7, 2008 at 4:29 pm
“Ever been in a room where the air is so full of dope smoke that there’s a green haze over everything and you can see swirls on of it lit up in the shafts of light poking through the window panes, and as you stare into those swirls, you see faces, laughing at you? That’s the overall impression you get with this mother of a political campaign. This is one heavy election. Slow. Grinding. The sound is gloriously muddy. Not in the sense that issues are lost within it, but rather its presence is vague, like it’s between worlds, this one, and somewhere else. In some respects this political campaign is not unlike an early Clinton campaign: serious doom and not for the faint-hearted.”
– GWAR
May 7, 2008 at 4:32 pm
The Times should fire Maureen Dowd and hire GWAR.
May 7, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Your buried link is to the wrong TPM entry. The one you want is at http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/193250.php
Amusingly, the one you’ve linked to is somebody talking about how he’s a Democratic fundraiser and he’s still finding Hillary’s campaign tactics to be so craven he isn’t sure he can vote for her if she’s the nominee.
May 7, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Without, it appears, understanding the meaning of “craven.”
May 7, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Fixt.
May 7, 2008 at 5:53 pm
“To me what makes Hillary so great is the mantra-like repetetiveness of their campaign. What they do, as in Sleep (esp. Dopesmoker), comes close to ‘holy’ music. What the lyrics are about to me is not important at all, they could be singing about chocolate puffcakes for chrissakes! What IS important is the way of delivery. Their rhythm section is totally brutal.”
– Jesus Faced
May 7, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Stoners can’t stop raving about Hillary Clinton.
“What we’ve got here is everything that’s always been typical for Hillary Clinton – apocalyptic soundscapes, tribal drums, lyrical mood, gloom… Clinton 2008 is emotionally diverse, but not colorful… more like gray, embracing the whole black-and-white spectrum. This is maybe one of the most varied presidential campaigns ever released, shrouding all of the genre’s faces in 17 months. The louder you listen to this campaign, the deeper it takes you. And, believe me, there is definitely some depth in there.”
Lemmy Polticalshitmonkey@Stonerrock.com
May 8, 2008 at 3:29 am
Stay on the offensive, never quit, play to the lowest kind of populism…..that sounds so familiar. Let’s see…stay on the offensive (Karl Rove), never quit (Florida 2000), play to the lowest kind of populism (brush clearing) – hey, I think I got it! You’re describing George W. Bush.
See, these aren’t just character flaws or strengths, and I guess I’m being overly delicate for pointing this out but the last thing we need is another egomaniac unmoored by any ideology other than winning – not your party winning not your values winning but you winning. Yes, I’d like to see more fight in Obama, but let me point out something that seems obvious to me yet seems to have eluded an awful lot of Clinton supporters: in a nearly year long primary season extended over almost all 50 states as of today Obama, not Clinton, has the clear lead in delegates and popular vote. So please explain to me how that makes her the stronger candidate and him the weaker.
She started with every advantage possible and lost to a first term senator with black skin, a foreign sounding name, a madrassa in his background, and a 20 year friendship with a minister that has him explaining that no he isn’t a Black Panther mole out to snuff whitey. She lost. To him. The guy carrying all that baggage. She lost. And that proves that she’s the better candidate?
I just don’t understand this crazy mixed up world anymore.
May 8, 2008 at 8:30 am
What Bob said. Unless your position is that no black can win–and, again, he beat Hillary–why do you think Obama can’t beat a tired old man ignorant of economics, ignorant of Middle East politics and culture, tied to Mr. 28%’s war, with anger management issues and a crumbling base? It seems to me a majority of Dems are saying they’ve had enough of this shit–we don’t want a candidate who can out-slime the repub slime.
May 8, 2008 at 9:14 am
It seems we’ve been saying that for 2 elections now. How’s that working out?
May 8, 2008 at 2:46 pm
The editors: “It seems we’ve been saying that for 2 elections now. How’s that working out?”
Again, Clinton has run a slimy campaign and Obama has ducked, dodged, weaved and generally made her look bad for doing so. In other words, yes, when the big bad bully calls you a name you call names back. Or, you can subvert. Or, you can do end runs. Or, you can point out the absurdity of the name calling.
The mistake you make is framing this as an either/or. It’s not. There are numerous ways to respond to mudslinging. Imagine Kerry trying to deal with the Rev. Wright controversy. He’s have failed miserably by being meek, weak and passive. So the only possible alternative is the Clinton alternative – strap on the gloves and slug away. Did you not pay attention to Obama’s handling of this? He did neither of the above and although I can’t say in the end it’s a wash, he certainly hasn’t been knocked off stride or crippled by it.
It’s not a choice between fight or cower.
There are a thousand ways to deal with such attacks. Slime vs. slime does no one any good. If you win by such you will govern as such.