Obama/Clinton Fighting for Swing Liberals

by: Matt Stoller

Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 23:56


Pam Spaulding and John Aravosis both weigh in on the Caldwell/homophobia situation, and note that Obama has handled it much better than he did McLurkin.  Meanwhile, it appears Obama is not only walking back his Reagan remarks, he's getting explicitly ideological.

Today Senator Obama responded to their criticisms at his Columbia, South Carolina rally, saying his statements have been mischaracterized - just another Washinton "trick."

"I didn't' say I liked Ronald Reagan's policies," Obama explained. "What I said was that was the kind of working majority we need to form in order to move a progressive agenda forward.

That is not actually true, since Obama didn't say that a working majority is necessary to move a progressive agenda forward.  If he had said that he wouldn't have gotten the endorsement of the right-wing paper he was working to secure.  Still, this is a step forward.  Obama doesn't like ideology, so to hear him rebut claims about Reagan by appealing to it is something of a shift.  He probably gets that the Reagan stuff has cost him.  Jerome Armstrong points out that he is losing because swing liberals have moved from his camp in Iowa to Clinton's in Nevada (splitting in New Hampshire).  This, combined with the decline in percentage of the electorate comprised by the youth vote and his lack of appeal among voters who make up their mind at the last minute, were costly.

Meanwhile, Clinton let loose with a rip-roaring progressive economic discussion, arguing for a stronger government to regulate the economy, lower CEO pay, higher taxes on the wealthy, and massive public investment in a clean energy economy akin to the highway system of the 1950s.  Clinton's always had a coded populist streak that women hear very loudly and men do not, but it's coming out very clearly right now.

We'll see if this is a trend on either or both of their parts. 

Matt Stoller :: Obama/Clinton Fighting for Swing Liberals

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Obama/Clinton Fighting for Swing Liberals | 49 comments
Win or lose- Edwards and the times (4.00 / 4)
have changed both the nature of how these candidates are running, and how they will govern. She can't govern as Bill Clinton did, if she wins. Nor can Obama. I almost am starting to believe there really is something shifting int his country toward the left.
What's 'shifting' is not the people's political.... (4.00 / 2)
..........position on the left/right continum. Rather, it's their understanding of just how comprehensively they've been lied to about what their representatives have really been up to in D.C. JRE's words to that effect have penetrated, they've cracked the barrier the coproratist press has built to protect the CW that if your poor or you're sick it's your fault and you deserve what you get and we need to keep up that attack.

The people have always been far more progressive than the corporatist press will ever admit. That's why I wrote:

Why I am an Idiot!

And:

The American people know something is rotten....and they have for fifteen years.

The big change is that that part of the voting citizenry we classify as 'democrats' and 'independents' are starting to understand that the words 'Democratic Party' and 'Republican Party' are meaningless. They don't describe two different things rather they are two arms of the same organism: around here we say 'Versaille' but in time past it has other names....'The Establishment'...The Upper Tenth...The Oligarchy...The Bosses....and so on.

And yeah!

Change is fun when you can see it in Hillary or Obama's faces as they realize their pre-scripted bullshit ain't gonna work this time.

Thank you John Edwards! I still think you can win but even if you don't this time you will next.

Peace, Health and Prosperity for Everyone.

[ Parent ]
i have been anti-clinton (4.00 / 2)
really, anybody-but-clinton, this whole primary, but after reading that piece i could almost see myself voting for her.

end the blurring--vote steve novick for u.s. senate in oregon
me too (4.00 / 3)
I didn't expect to be pulled in that direction, and though I probably won't vote for her, I can for the first time realistically see myself pulling the lever.  But then I think about Iraq, and argh, it's so painful.
[ Parent ]
You mean in the Primary... (0.00 / 0)
I assume (and hope) you just mean in the primary... I assume you will support our Nom, whomever it may be.
[ Parent ]
Explain why Matt, or I, have to do that. (0.00 / 0)
Explain why we must validate Rahm Emmanuel's and the rest of the Dead Loser Caucus's cynical calculation that they need not do anything to address the nation's problems because we 'progressive' Dems and the Independents 'have no where else to go....'. They are betting that we will hold our noses and vote for their choice, that's who Obama and Clinton are after all, and they can continue to build their little kingdoms of corruption ala the Republicans while perhaps throwing us a bone or two. Maybe they'll pass the pathetic SCHIPS legislation.

I don't see that.

We'd do better to let the hand-picked tools of the mega-corps Hillary and her pal Barrack get their butts kicked in the GE while we work on electing real progressives to the Senate and House. Then when the Dem caucus turns on Miss Nancy and SellOut Reid folks like Tester and Edwards, just two examples, can tell their colleagues, 'You know there is a better way to go than continually getting your ass handed to you by following the 'leadership' of Emmanuel, Schumer, Reid and Pelosi. Let me tell you about it....'

That's one way for us to advance our agenda.

Remember it was Boss Tweed who set the tone for politics as we know it today when he said: 'I don't care who does the electing just so long as I do the nominating.'

After over a hundred years the citizenry are starting to, starting to, 'wise up' as the Boss would have said.

Shorter Form:  Failure is not a crime. The crime is not trying.

Peace, Health and Prosperity for Everyone.

[ Parent ]
You don't have to, but you'd be stupid not to. (0.00 / 0)
No, I really don't think that the best thing for progressives would be to allow 4-8 more years of Republican foreign policy if the nominee ends up not being your ideal. That's stupid. Hell, that's Naderite thinking. That's not a way to advance our agenda at all.

Although neither Clinton nor Obama are willing to go anywhere near those 5 structural issues that Matt identified a while back, either of them (and clearly Edwards as well) are dramatically better for the country than a McCain or Romney or Huckabee would ever be.

[ Parent ]
WTF? (0.00 / 0)
When you say Matt, I assume you mean Stoller... You can't TELL me you think Matt will Vote Republican or vote for a third party unless the DEM is way ahead.  NO ONE wants another thing like 2000.  While I dislike Hillary and passionately disagree with your insults about Obama (but will refrain from comment as I am not in the mood for a fight... if I was I'd go back over to MyDD), ANY of our candidates are better than a Republican.  I think your rationale is just ridiculous.  I know many people who said that in 2000... that Gore and Bush were the same... 8 years of HELL later, I don't want President Mitt or President McCain.
[ Parent ]
yes, iraq hurts (0.00 / 0)
but it is possible that the marginal differences between obama and hillary (sorry edwards) on iraq could be overcome by a federal program on energy/mass transit/urban redevelopment funded like the national interstate and defense highways act of 1956. that act was beyond transfomational--it basically set the stage for 50 years of development.

that is what got me excited, anyway, my primary is not until early may, so it probably will not matter anyway.

end the blurring--vote steve novick for u.s. senate in oregon

[ Parent ]
I think we on the left (0.00 / 0)
look at it differently than indies and pubs.  They see the Iraq vote as acceptable so soon after 9/11.  Not that they think Iraq was tied to 9/11, though some of them do.  But they see it as a vote to be sure we were protecting ourselves from potential enemies. And on the flip-side, Obama will be painted as weak on National Security because of his claim of opposition.  Hillary beats him on this by pointing out all the research she did, though that would be more convincing if she had read the NIE.  All Obama can say is that he knew even without reading the info that the war was a sham.  That plays well in Dem primaries but won't play as well in the general election.  Yes he seems to attract indies, but that appeal will go down when he gets hit as weak on national security by the mighty wurlitzer.
[ Parent ]
I started as an anybody but Clinton. (4.00 / 1)
I am pissed at Bill, NAFTA, and all of Hillary's votes for trade (which Obama sees and raises). The damage they are doing to our middle class is beyond belief. 

When her only opponent is a younger, slicker and more silvery-tongued clone of Bill, it puts me right back into Hillary's camp.  At least she isn't either of them.  Here is another example of why not Barack.

Why Barack Obama Lied Tonight in South Carolina 

They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  

[ Parent ]
Domestic (4.00 / 3)
I agree that Clinton's Iraq votes are disappointing and cause for concern.  Obama's early opposition makes him a bit better, but honestly he hasn't been a leader on Iraq either.  On this score, all three of the big candidates have been a disappointment.

Clinton's foreign policy hawkishness (I'm assuming her policies will match her rhetoric since I have to in an election) is bothersome.  And Obama's foreign policy frame is probably more to my liking than Clinton (if I can ignore some of his advisors like Susan Rice).

However, I believe Clinton will be much more progressive on domestic issues than Obama (I take him at his rhetoric as well).  She strikes me as more committed to universal healthcare and other progressive goals than Obama, who seems more like the incrementalist that Clinton is often accused of being.

That's why I support her even with my foreign policy reservations.  I think it's unlikely she'll do anything incredibly stupid in the foreign policy area (e.g. war with Iran) and will return us to a pre-Bush policy making process.  Not perfect, but not awful.

On the domestic front, I honestly do think she has the potential to be a game changer.  That her commitment to progressive goals in this area has the potential to build a sustainable progressive coalition in ways that, quite frankly, I'm not at all sure Obama is committed to. 

[ Parent ]
Freezing Subprime (0.00 / 0)
Hillary has a couple of what some (some like me) might characterize as heavy handed proposals for dealing with the real estate market slide. Capping interest rates and freezing foreclosures. I am interested to see how that plays. I'm an ardent Edwards supporter, and favor almost all his economic policy positions, but these particular kinds of interventions floated by Clinton are even too much for me. My limited sense of swing/independent votes is that this would not play well for them. But it may not even be on their radar.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
Obama called the Democratic Accomplishments "Excesses" (4.00 / 6)

"I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing." 

The excesses and growth of the government were what the Democrats did. It was Medicare, Civil Rights, Progressive taxation, Government Regulation of the economy. Calling them excesses is  Republican language. Most Democrats didn't think they went far enough. And the Clarity was against the honest soul searching that Americans had after Vietnam and Watergate of our place in the world. And lets not forget that Reagan's rose colored glasses made those suffering from aids invisible.

This Obama Unity stuff doesn't sound like a Democrat.

what is wrong with you people? (0.00 / 0)
Obama repeats many of the same criticisms that Ted Kennedy made of proto-DLC President Jimmy Carter.

[ Parent ]
What? (4.00 / 1)
He did?  If so it doesn't matter since he's not running, Obama is.

While I'm glad Obama distanced himself from his own statements I just don't know if I can trust that he won't pander to the right as blatantly as he did with that editorial board?  I still don't know what he was thinking (Maybe he didn't know they were filming?).  It was a kind of behind-the-curtains type moment.

[ Parent ]
At least (4.00 / 1)
None of the other candidates can be said to have pandered to the right.
[ Parent ]
so you define Ted Kennedy, 1980 as on the right? (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Repeat Lies Does Not Make Them True, rootless2 (4.00 / 3)
rootless2:

what is wrong with you people?

Obama repeats many of the same criticisms that Ted Kennedy made of proto-DLC President Jimmy Carter.

What's wrong with us is that we're not dittoheads!

As I've said before:

Nonesense!

Kennedy's critique wasn't at all what Obama characterized Reagan's as.

Reagan attacked Carter as a symbol of the 60s.

Kennedy attacked him for betraying the 60s.

The fact that you can confuse and conflate the two is indicative of the bluriness and incoherence of Obama's position(s), and how they are being defended.

and:

Repeating Lies Does Not Make Them True

It's a common dittohead misperception, but it's just not true.

It doesn't matter how many times you claim "what Obama said was TRUE."  It's still a lie.

What Obama said was false.  And your defense of him is false.

And the more lies you tell, the less credibility you have.

I take it as a given that all politicians lie.  This is not a great revelation to me. (I am no longer 8. Or 10. Whatever.) The important questions are how they lie, why they lie, what they lie about.

Come back when you're 12.  Maybe then we can have a productive conversation.  If not about politics, well, maybe, girls.



"Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition"
[ Parent ]
His clarification on what he meant about Reagan... (0.00 / 0)
I want some Obama Republicans! 'Obamacans!'"Obama said, as the crowd roared in laughter at his new coined phrase. 

They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  
[ Parent ]
hmm... (0.00 / 0)
Just looked for that quote (excitedly). http://www.cnn.com/2...
">here's the link Found this.

OBAMA: We've got to appeal to Independents and Republicans in order to build a working majority to move an agenda forward. That is what I said.

Anyone have a video clip of him saying progressive?

the link (0.00 / 0)
not sure why link broke, but here it is
http://www.cnn.com/2...
[ Parent ]
He did say that a working majority is necessary to move progressive agenda. (0.00 / 0)
From their Endorsement

"Obama embodies the political and ideological perspectives that the party projects. He represents the platform of political unity and workable populist economics that he and party members believe will reinvigorate the economy and solve many of the other problems the nation is facing, such as questions regarding health care, immigration, war, energy independence, the tax structure and particularly the mortgage crisis. Fixing the housing market is critical to restoring our economic health."

http://news.rgj.com/...

hmmm again (0.00 / 0)
The quote in Matt's post is about the debate. That's what we're discussing here.
[ Parent ]
umm... (4.00 / 3)
Are we sure that "working majority" is supposed to be a Democratic one rather than a bipartisan one?

As a student, I find many of the Obama folk I run into are avowedly anti-partisan types, who believe Obama's working majority will be formed across party lines, and wouldn't have it any other way.  Just anecdotal, but that's my experience.

[ Parent ]
I too have seen this usually in younger folk.. (4.00 / 1)

.....who have a pre-concieved antipathy to my 'boomerness'. Frankly one of the biggest reason's the idea that Obama is not any sort of answer to our problems is that the younger cohort of his followers are just plain scary in the ignorant assumptions they make about politics and what motivates people.

This assumption that Obama will create a 'working majority across party lines..' is just not going to happen in my opinion, an opinion based on history and the stated postition of the opposition, and, in person, I am always careful to append that qualification. Something I don't do online since it should be understood...heh...yeah, right.

This contrary opinion is alway treated with a dismissiveness worthy of Trent Lott. If  you get my drift.

So..you will understand....

I don't use the word 'cultist' by accident.

Peace, Health and Prosperity for Everyone.

[ Parent ]
The Times article is great (4.00 / 1)
One exception. She will never do it. I get the feeling that article is geared to her northeast "AUDIENCE". The polls in the NE are shifting especially in NJ and some in Conn. She actually will have a big problem in rural NJ. Obama is getting alot of rural endorsements of very popular activists especially in NJ. Sorry to be so cynical. It just doesn't sound like her, she will be closer to bigdog than you think.
Hillary was a 1960's liberal....and back then liberal was liberal. (4.00 / 11)
An anecdote from my life back then....George McGovern was in Mass. starting to run for the 1972 nomination. My husband and I arranged to interview him at Logan airport for a film we were doing in which the issue of childcare played a role. In 1971 Congress passed an extensive childcare bill...Nixon vetoed it.  He had though signed  the Clean Air Act and Medicaid....

Can you imagine even now a childcare bill passing Congress? Is there anyone even talking about? No. The late 60's was the tail end of a lenthy Liberal era in American politics....from FDR to the beginning of the Right wing reaction. What Krugman in his book, The Conscience of a Liberal, called The Great Compression which created a healthy middle class democracy until the the early 70's. Actually she echoes many of the ideas in Krugman's book.

So the measures you see her talking about are no surprise to me in terms of this is how she thinks. She is in her heart a liberal and a progressive....but the era in which they began their political career was beginning to turn to the right. She and he would rather have governed then and done something than to have stayed pure. 

Cong. Jerry Nadler was from Brooklyn, but he made a decision to run for poltical office on the very liberal Upper West Side of Mahattan instead...because he said that he knew there would come a time he would have to make a choice between his liberal conscience and his constituents if he stayed in Brooklyn. Arkansas is not Brooklyn.

I was a radical (non violent tho) back then, she was a liberal.  My main political outlet was marching, hers was always electoral.  I have always lived in liberal enclaves...Cambridge, Mass and NYC.  She moved to Arkansas. When you read Bernstein's book you see the liberal in her in Bill's early campaigns.  Losing though makes one more.... pragmatic.

Barack Obama is right, Bill Clinton was not a transformational president. He won in the middle of the grip of the right wing conservative dominance.  But even then it was clear if you looked at her and listened (and back then Democratic fundraisers were more intimate than they are now) it was clear that some things, especially the economic ones, or ones dealing with women or particularly children, like the 1996 Welfare bill, were not where her head and heart was at. She is more progressive than her husband, she is more partisan than her husband.

Now I don't kid myself that she won't compromise, she will....if she has to.  But the progressive, populist era that is unfolding is giving her the room to do what, if she had her druthers, she would really like to do.

There is now a progressive infrastructure which blogs have helped to create.  And a more Democratic, mre progressive  House and Senate will allow her to be who she once was. Folks like this blog will push her to be what she once was.  That is our job. Could my sense of her be more wish fulfullment that clearsightedness?....maybe but I think the NY Times article makes it pretty clear that I have support in that realm. 

As to Iraq, I agree with Paul Krugman as to why to make the choice based on domestic policy.  None of them, if president, would have started the war in Iraq, all of the will bring the troops home, and none of them will start another war. Make the choice based on domestic policy, attitudinal stances on the best way to achieve progressive change and the best way to keep the government actually accomplishing progressive change.


"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller

Hillary was a 1960's liberal....and back then liberal was liberal. (4.00 / 1)
From what I've read -- back in the mid 60's Hillary was president of the Young Republicans!!! and before that helping Nixon get into power...  that some liberal there...

http://www.counterpu...

[ Parent ]
read Bernstein's book (4.00 / 2)
And you'll see that her transformation began as soon as she got to college.

I haven't said she was as liberal as me.....but even I almost registerd as a Republican.  I grew up in small New England town with a Town Meeting form of govt....everyone who came to a town mtg got to vote on what the town was supposed to do...the town then was Republican....liberal New England Republican....so for a moment was I.m So was she.

Now I didn't register as one and I have never voted for a Republican...but I though of it.  It was as Krugman explains in his book as less partisan era.

"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller

[ Parent ]
Me... well (0.00 / 0)
...I could never really call her a liberal -- neoliberal maybe, scoop jackson liberal... but even then I don't feel comfortable putting liberal on the end especially with her deafening silence over wiretapping americans etc etc...  I would put her as moderate republican (definitely a pro-choice republican), but I don't think a liberal or that matter a progressive.  Even in 1992 her health plan was a ultimately a 'corporate' controlled plan.  When I see her, I see a opportunitist corporate, war hawk moderate republican -- not a liberal.  But then again, I don't class myself totally as a liberal - having a strong stance on immigration, and not having corporate liberals enforcing it.

Also, I've found there are so many books out there on Hillary, it's difficult to really know, really trust who is she and what she truly stands for.

[ Parent ]
Bella Abzug now that was a liberal-check chilidcare bill (4.00 / 2)
http://www.womensmed...

Does Hillary Have an Inner Bella?

  "Her background suggests a certain Bella-like commitment-her undergraduate activism against the war in Vietnam (Bella was one of the founders of Women Strike for Peace) and her work with the Children's Defense Fund (Bella, along with Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, introduced a major child care bill in 1971, which Nixon vetoed).  Even Hillary's health care fiasco was built of a brave and radical vision for change. (Bella once said, "I've spent a lifetime in challenge. There's no way you can create any meaningful change unless you do that")

"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller

[ Parent ]
Bella Abzug (0.00 / 0)
good woman -- but hardly impartial when accessing Hillary's political skills...

Also, Hillary made some major major 'political' enemies during that health care fiasco time... I believe that was explored in Bernstein's book (as well as other sources). 

Hillary has shown to have v. little finesse, which I believe Bella had?  Hillary sits back and does nothing at all (e.g. during the last seven years), or hits things with a sledgehammer when the political and legislative fallout affects her.

[ Parent ]
hmm "impartial accessment" was out of context... scrub that. (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
FYI (4.00 / 1)
Bella Abzug was a warrior. Finesse, no.
[ Parent ]
I guess not... (0.00 / 0)
http://en.wikipedia....

She was before my time -- lucky I put a question mark...  But she's always had positive celebrity status in the fem circles I've been in.  Interesting that she never introducted any legislation -- wondering how many friends and enemies she created in her day?  I'm still not sure how the two women can be compared tho'...

OK, one a 'warrior' for women and gay rights == and the other a warrior -- yes --- but one that has a p/t interest in women's rights -- but whose first priority really is to remain in politics, to remain in power?


[ Parent ]
Plus -- remember fems (0.00 / 0)
Hillary as the leader of the DLC chose to 'fully' support Bob Casey... you can't get more anti-women, pro-Alito than that... would Abzug supported him?
[ Parent ]
Abzug is best-known and praised for being blunt (0.00 / 0)
She was also known in the Congress for being extremely outspoken. This became a problem during her legislative career - a report by Ralph Nader in 1972 estimated that her sponsorship of any bill would cost it 20 to 30 votes.


Banned for posting five straight diaries.
[ Parent ]
When H Clinton lists Reagan among her favorite Presidents (0.00 / 1)
as she does on her very own web-site:

http://www.hillarycl...

Does that not undercut her critizing of Obama for expressing some positive thoughts about Mr. Reagan?

Its like a kettle calling the pot black - no?


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
In the UK press (0.00 / 0)
...she said she was quite fond of Thatcher too...

This gotcha stuff on is getting silly... They are both at the same level:

Hsu
http://www.boston.co...

I think it's more important to look at their 'advisors'... gauge their frame of mind now, their grasp of the current economic conditions now.

Some of Obama's aren't my favorites -- but they sure look better than Hillary's/// for progressives anyways... esp. when I look at her budget plans for the military.

This Reagan stuff is stupid... Same as the real estate stuff == I mean they 'both' have dirt ==

[ Parent ]
I wasn't trying to play gotcha (0.00 / 0)
really, I wasn't.  I'm trying to figure out why this whole "Obama likes Reagan" thing upset Clinton so much.

I guess its just politics - but its the kind of politics that will make a non-aligned voter such as myself sit out the election. 

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
The type of thing that makes a Democrat want to sit out, too (0.00 / 0)
In fact it is even worse when you have spent the last 27 years feeling like you are defending your party against a bunch of raving, poo-flinging chimps, to then see your two front runners praising one of the founding prophets of said chimps.

Why is it when we have our best shot at regaining the White House we get two crappy candidates.  Why couldn't Dukakis or Mondale be running this year?

I am back to blaming Hillary for this mess.  Everyone knew she was going to run this year and that set the name-recognition bar too high.  In fact, I can't think of a higher profile non-incumbent in recent history. There just wasn't room for a lot of new faces to make in-roads either with voters or with the media.  I am not saying the outcome would have been better, but this primary and the prospects for the whole year has taken on a depressing tone.

[ Parent ]
Hsu & Thatcher (0.00 / 0)
Didn't Hsu also donate to Obama?

And on Thatcher: I believe she liked her leadership (She used her leadership on global warming as an example; I believe that was mentioned in The Daily Telegraph, a Tory paper).  I don't know when she ever said she liked her policies.

[ Parent ]
Stop Lying (0.00 / 1)
God, enough with this damn lie.  She said she praised his communication skills.

Here: http://www.dailykos....

[ Parent ]
Its on her web-site, son (0.00 / 0)
Why would she post a lie about her on her own web-site?

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
I can see that possibility (4.00 / 3)
*I'm not counting on it--at all--so if she somehow wins the election I'll hold her damn feet to the fire.*

However, it's clear she's got a liberal core, unlike her husband, which was most evident on the campaign trail and during the SC debate.  She's much more at ease and passionate with progressive policies/issues (i.e. she comes out swinging and connects; see: health care discussion during SC debate); she's more typical Hillary when she discusses DLC-type principles (i.e. she sounds like she's just going through the motions).

And I definitely agree on her being more partisan--and a fighter.  She just lights up.  I heard her speak in front of state Democrats several years ago and she ripped into the opposition.  But what was most telling was how much she enjoyed it; her personality, humor, and wit just shone through.

We'll see if she's smart and brave enough to see the opportunity before her.  If she taps into the seething anger on the left--embraces progressivism and dismisses conservatism--which she needs to do to inspire support and get people to go out and vote for her, she'll have a solid chance of succeeding.  Eh, maybe she'll duck and hide like usual.  But if she does, I don't see her winning the presidency; she still might not even win the nomination.  Again, we'll see.

With Obama...I just don't sense that liberal core or fire.  He comes off as detached, unless it's about him.

[ Parent ]
Coded populist dog whistle, didja mean? (0.00 / 0)
"Clinton's always had a coded populist streak that women hear very loudly and men do not, but it's coming out very clearly right now."

Interesting. Matt can you (or anyone else) elaborate on this a bit? What's the evidence and what does it mean?

(For my small money, you could reasonably argue that Clinton has always adopted populist positions on women's issues, and that the sub-prime crisis becomes a women's issue insofar as foreclosures disproportionately affect families with female heads-of-households.)

Back where I started (0.00 / 0)
I must admit I'm basically back where I was before the Iowa caucus: I somewhat prefer Obama but I'm resolved that Clinton will win. 
Mark, (0.00 / 0)
I think you're on to something since Chris is now putting the odds at 9 to 1 that Hillary wins.  Take a look at the polling numbers at pollster.  Some of the polls are out of date, but in the Feb. 5th states that have been polled Obama only leads in Illinois, Georgia, and Idaho.  In fairly recent polls Clinton has double digit leads in NY, NJ, Conn, OK, and Arkansas.  The closest Obama has ever come to Clinton in California is 5 points down and most polls put him farther down than that.  Then there's the after South Carolina but before Feb. 5th primary in Florida which doesn't count but will eventually count and there Clinton leads by more that 20.  So, while all the debate sparks and messages are fun to talk about, at the end of the day we're looking at Hillary at the head of the ticket, which ain't all bad although I would have rather had Obama. 
[ Parent ]
Obama/Clinton Fighting for Swing Liberals | 49 comments
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