Clinton Vs Obama

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madisona

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what a fascinating contest this is turning out to be. Everybody thought that Hillary was finished after Iowa but she has fought back using every dirty trick in the book. First she played the gender card "It's not easy. I see whats happening. We have to reverse it. Some of us are ready.Some are not" I'm just a poor woman. whether planned or not the crying was a master stoke that won her New Hampshire and saved her canditaticy

then Bill turned Bad Cop and started attacking Obama "this whole thing is the biggest fairytale that I have ever seen". then the Clinton campaign started to focus again on Obamas drug use as a teenager "Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood - and I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in the book" said the guy introducing her at a rally, comments that Hillary is refusing to dissociate herself from.

But perhaps the riskiest move is the decision by the Clinton campaign to play the race card. By saying that Lyndon Johnson acccomplished things whereas Martin Luther King did not and then attributing responses from black leaders to that to the Obama campaign. The strategy seems to be to cede the black vote to Obama in the hope that by focusing on race they will win more white votes. [FONT=Verdana,Sans-serif]"Ain't no black people in Iowa" Michelle Obama said but if Clinton can paint Obama as the "black" canditate she will win. So far Obama is holding fire which may or may not be the the best strategy. His message of hope and reconcillation will be tarnished if he decides to go negative.

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madisona said:
then Bill turned Bad Cop and started attacking Obama "this whole thing is the biggest fairytale that I have ever seen". then the Clinton campaign started to focus again on Obamas drug use as a teenager "Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood - and I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in the book" said the guy introducing her at a rally, comments that Hillary is refusing to dissociate herself from.
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According to Hillary on Meet the Press yesterday, Bill was referring to Obama's anti-war stance and not his candidacy.

Hillary definitively rejected and disassociated herself and her campaign from the insinuations about Obama and drugs.

You seem to have a very rosy picture of Obama - no one gets to the position of running for US President without being well able to get down and dirty with the best of them - Obama and his supporters sure as hell ain't averse to playing dirty if they see the need/opportunity...
 
Sherman said:
Hillary definitively rejected and disassociated herself and her campaign from the insinuations about Obama and drugs.
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no she didn't. she magnanimously sacked a surrogate who raised the issue in December when she thought that the race was sewn up. When Robert L. Johnson a prominent and influential backer raised the issue a few days ago while introducing her, her campaign refused to disown the comments


“It's troubling that neither the campaign nor Sen. Clinton - is willing to condemn it, as they did when another prominent supporter recently said a similar thing," said Obama's campaign Manager.
 
Sherman said:
- Obama and his supporters sure as hell ain't averse to playing dirty if they see the need/opportunity...
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don't think he has so far. at least not to the level of personal attacks which I would consider the Clinton focus on his drug use to be. The equivalant would be Obama talking about Monica, although I accept that his not going negative so far is also a pragmatic decision. I also think that the Clintons have a point when they talk about his high faluting rhetoric about change, hope ect as being a bit to short on specifics.
 
ClubMan said:
Did she actually say that? If not are you referring to the fact that the became emotional/cried? Don't men do that too?
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eh no. That bit wasn't in quotes. yeah men cry. but it is a dangerous tactic as it can be seen as weakness. Hillary had built herself up as experienced and in control, so showing a bit of emotion worked. Of course I am assuming that it was a bit contrived. and to me it seemed that she was playing on her gender. All the boys are picking on me.

Obama said earlier "I am assuming that Sen Clinton wants to be treated as everyone else. I didn't come out and say I was being picked on because I looked different"
 
madisona said:
at least not to the level of personal attacks which I would consider the Clinton focus on his drug use to be. The equivalant would be Obama talking about Monica
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Having extra marital sexual relations with an intern is not illegal...
 
Gazza cried and created the Sky League, at least that's what RM would have us believe, maybe Hill's non-tears will create a new dawn for EL football!
 
almo said:
Gazza cried and created the Sky League, at least that's what RM would have us believe, and she cries and David Beckham has just founded/discovered soccer in the US and Canada, maybe Bertie's non-tears will create a new dawn for EL football!
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madisona said:
don't think he has so far. at least not to the level of personal attacks which I would consider the Clinton focus on his drug use to be. The equivalant would be Obama talking about Monica, although I accept that his not going negative so far is also a pragmatic decision.
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I don't think anyone has accused Hillary Clinton of having sex with an intern, so how is that an equivalent? He has admitted taking illegal drugs - IMHO, in a country which gets its knickers in a twist to the extent the US does about drugs, I think it's fair to remind voters of the truth. Oh, and did David Axelrod (Obama's top political aide) not insinuate that Hillary was in part responsible for Benazir Bhutto's assassination :eek: - if that isn't dirty tricks, I don't know what is... as an aside, Bill Clinton claims the Obama campaign has been responsible for 80 negative attacks on the Clinton campaign in the last 6 months. Of course Obama supporters will probably say that claim is evidence itself of Clintonian dirty tricks :rolleyes:
 
There is different reasons for crying . It is more acceptable to cry in relation to say, people killed in an earthquake or in a plane crash or starving people somewhere (Bill Clintons "I feel your pain") or the death of some one close, or most acceptable of all, the loss of a sporting competition by ones team. Hillarys (near) crying was self pity for herself ("It's not easy"). A man would never have gotten away with it (unacceptable weakness) and as it was imo contrived it was playing the gender card.

ok forget the Monica comparison which is inappropriate. However by focusing on Obamas admitted illegal past drug use, the Clinton campaign is focusing on the personal rather than policy differences which is the opposite of the way they had previously promised to conduct the campaign.

Axelrod did kinda insinuate that Hillary was in part responsible for Benazir Bhutto's assassination, by what may be called the butterfly effect (what he said was that she supported the invasion of Iraq, which diverted resourses from Afganistan, which allowed Al-Quida to flourish and they may have been responsible for Bhutto assassination ) He withdrew the remarks and Obama kinda apologised.

Another tactic of the Clinton camp which they used effectively to bring race into it is to make a remark (i.e the MLK\ Lyndon Johnson comments) and then attribute the predictable responses from black leaders to the "Obama campaign", even though Obama deliberately held back from responding as the last thing he needs is for race to come to the forfront as an issue. I am surprised that Bill and Hill have not attributed the "Iron my Shirt" incident to the "Obama campaign" although I sure Bill counted it as part of his 80 negative attacks
 
there's no proof that the show of emotion by Hillary in NH was a factor in people voting for her...in fact exit polls didn't point to that at all.

The pollsters got that one wrong for whatever reason...people wanting to go with the young unproven candidate but in uncertain times changing to the older more experienced one, people overestimating their liklihood to vote for a minority candidate, or as a lot of people seem to believe the pollsters themselves getting it wrong on who will turn out.

After all the white, male, middleaged, middle class protestants that have made up the list of presidents to date (Think JFK was the only exception) it would be great to have a change. I would go for the woman in this instance. Really think the US needs to distance itself from the macho rhetoric of recent times.
 
When the biography of President McCain comes out no doubtthere will be a chapter about how the in fighting democrats helped him win the white house...:(.
Personally I have been an admirer of Hillary C for years and hopes she gets the nomination as Obama is a little too slick with his MLK like "Yes we can" speeches for my liking. I think the more time goes by the sheen will come off...I would rather a somewhat charisma lacking but experienced and tough president than a novice who talks the talk and may or may not be able to walk the walk in the white house.
I would like to see one or other of them in the White House before any of the Republicans,but as a woman I would put the fact that Hillary is a woman on my list of reasons for wishing her to win but its actually pretty far down the list.In fact if truth be told I believe the best democrat nominees was Richardson.
It is I think at least equally ground breaking to have a woman as president as an african american ,the difference being that overt racism is an absolute no no(and rightly so) but overt gender bashing is not such a problem.
IMHO btw Hillary won the NH primary because (a) Nh voters dont like being ignored(i.e the total media consensus that before any of them voted Hillary had already lost by a landslide,(b) the totally OTT reaction of the media both print but especially tv to this landslide loss and (c) the other face of obama appearing ever so fleetingly in the debate on the previous saturday night with his rather snide"youre likeable enough Hillary" in response to a question about her likeability factor and this after she had quite cleverly said that he was very likeable but that she wasnt so bad. It apparently went down very badly and while a very small thing the fact that he had been elevated to almost god like status previously meant this little chink in the armour had greater significance than otherwise it would have had.(d)after the non crying episode and the way the media dealt with that there was a groundswell of opinion that she was damned if she did and damned if she didnt and the abuse being meted out crossed a line of fairness.
Having said all that her remarks about LBJ were crass and incredibly stupid at best.It may be very difficult to fight a charismatic african american without being accused of playing the race card but one way not to behave is to be seen to be denigrating in any way the great african american hero MLK. I happen to think( whatever about other accusations of the race issue being raised) this was a very badly put attempt to play the experience card. I think it will defintely lose her NC and it remains to be seen how much damage has been done to her campaign.
 
I think its early days to be predicting the next President.

Remember that the Clinton v Obama battle is just one political party chosing which of its members should go forward for election.

It annoys me a bit when people start comparing the so called policies of candidates for a particular parties nomination. It escapes them that the people they are comparing are all members of the same party and all will be running on the same policies which will be those of the party, not the individual.

The real election has still to come.
 
csirl said:
I think its early days to be predicting the next President.

Remember that the Clinton v Obama battle is just one political party chosing which of its members should go forward for election.

It annoys me a bit when people start comparing the so called policies of candidates for a particular parties nomination. It escapes them that the people they are comparing are all members of the same party and all will be running on the same policies which will be those of the party, not the individual.

The real election has still to come.
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I agree with almost all of what you say. It is however hard to know what the policies of each party in the usa are.Their party system is very different, certainly at the level of President whatever about at congress level. In most other countries, for example,Huckabee would be in a very different party to say Giuliani or McCain.

Anyway its a marathon not a sprint and as a politics nerd I am enjoying the spectacle!!!
 
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looks like its now more or less over. Obama with victories the last eight contests, an increasing lead in opinion polls and now ahead on delegates too. More Superdelegates now declaring for Obama. Clinton camp in turmoil and even victories in Texas and Ohio unlikely to make much difference given that delegates will be assigned proportionally.
So it's Obama Vs McCain in November
 
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