Hillary Needs to take Barack down! Now!

[kennetha]

People say they don't like negative campaigning. But it works. Hillary has mostly run a positive campaign, except for that brief stint when Bill went on the attack. But she needs to go after Obama. Not unfairly or wih half truths or anything like that. But she needs to raise real questions about his readiness to be in office. She needs to do it directly and forcefully.

Think she can? She has to really win these next few by very convincing margins.

Plus she has to fight to get Florida and Michigan counted. That right there would show that she isn't afraid of a fight. Will stand up for real people. And it will make Obama look like he's trying to win on a "technical" and can't really stand up.

If he complains about the unfairness of counting Michigan and Florida, she can basically accuse him of "whining" and being more interested in his own self-interest than the right of the voters of Florida and MI to be heard.

[graywarrior]

1. Ya...sure...ok.

[TomInTib]

16. Damn!

I sure do miss that chicken, graywarrior...

But the other candidate's goose is pretty much cooked.

My man, Pat Paulsen, dropped out some time back.

[graywarrior]

22. Pat was a trip, wasn't he?

[grantcart]

2. Hillary runs the risk of looking, like this thread, pathetic and desperate nt

[L0oniX]

12. She already looked that way tonight speaking in Texas. n/t

[thunder rising]

3. Absolutely, it's worked soooo well for her in the past. More vitriol Hillary. Show us who's dirty.

[AX10]

4. Obama has the MSM behind him.

Not much that can be done about that.

[tridim]

23. Obama apparently has the entire country behind him as well. nt

[XemaSab]

27. Except New York and California.

:cry:

(Have I mentioned that Obama got 48% of the vote in Brooklyn? :shrug:)

[tridim]

35. NY and CA will give Obama landslide support in the general

No worries.

[XemaSab]

43. I think I missed the, uh

:sarcasm: :D

[tridim]

51. So did I..

Sorry, I've been a bit jumpy on DU as of late.

:toast:

[jackson_dem]

34. 52.5% is not the "entire country"

[CatnHat]

61. Deluded

statement (whole country behind him) Dream on. :rofl:

Clinton's needs to "fight" back. Clinton's supporters are behind her 100%. Its time to take the campaign up a notch, and keep the eye on the prize. Fight for the votes in Michigan and Florida, those people voted and deserve that their votes and delegates be counted.

Maybe you can over-rate your candidate; but never underestimate the Hillary camp.

[yourout]

5. Fighting to get Florida and Michigan counted will only re-inforce the .....

view that she is an unprincipaled, win at all cost, party killer.

[Rick Myers]

6. I think the worm has turned

The only thing that can save Hillary is the Superdelegates. It's not over, but it's not good.

[MonkeyFunk]

7. hrmm....

my buddy list is getting big, but I think I've got room for one more.

[yeswecan08]

8. Hillary is in a lose-lose position: Negative = she's a witch. Positive = she's spineless

[kennetha]

9. Politics is war, not bean bag!

If she doesn't fight back, she loses. If she does, she may win. If she really believes that she is better prepared than Obama -- which seems to me inarguably true -- then she owes it to the party to put a fight, a real fight.

Call it desperate. I call it determined. It's like a baseball game. You never give up an at bat, even when your down to your last one. I don't think Clinton should give up her last at bats.

[Flabbergasted]

72. She won't give up yet, but direcly attacking Obama will have consequences

and decrease her chances in the GE. Why win the primary just to lose the Election?

[CreekDog]

10. She ain't gonna get her needed 60%+ by attacking

it don't work that way. that's the key to 51%, maybe, and it's not enough for her.

[kennetha]

18. It's enough to make Obama look problematic to the Supers

Look, if he can withstand the assault he'll be a better candidate for it. Hillary owes it to the party to put Obama to the maximum test. She owes it to her supporters, like me, who believe that Obama is not even close to being ready for the presidency, to give it everything she fairly can.

I don't think she should lie or use half truths. But she needs to be direct and forceful about why she is better than him.

[Dob Bole]

11. I'll pass on the message...

Yet another example of useless thread :(

[Thrill]

13. I expect them to get nasty

they already trotted Rendell out there to bring up race

[Elsylee]

14. Media, Obama, Clinton

The media is partially to blame with what is going on within the Democratic party. Hre wouldn’t have these results if it wasn’t for them. It is obvious they are pushing Obama no matter what. Isn't the media supposed to be somewhat objective? Aren’t we (the public) supposed to make up our minds by ourselves as to who is the best candidate? Why aren’t they reporting information such like:
http://thecityedition.com/Pages/Archive/Winter08/2008Election.html
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/08/09/pacs_and_lobbyists_aided_obamas_rise/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/us/politics/03exelon.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&hp&oref=slogin
http://obamatruth.org/
They throw trash at every other candidate while painting Obama as a saint.

BTW check out “Beating a Dead Donkey” on http://www.savagepolitics.com

[Laelth]

44. Obama has incredible teflon.

Moreso than Reagan, even. It's not that they don't want to attack him, it's that they can't. They're afraid to. It will just backfire on them if they do.

And welcome to DU! :hi:

:dem:

-Laelth

[high density]

56. Clinton benefited from the same media

and for a long while it was Clinton Clinton Clinton. Name recognition was making her skyrocket in the polls. Clinton leads this. Clinton leads that. Everybody else might as well drop out, because Clinton is 20 points ahead. Then comes January and voters actually start taking a good close look at the candidates, and the value of name recognition falls sharply.

[elixir]

15. I believe you have stated a very good strategy for HRC.

[Life Long Dem]

17. Otherwise what?

She is just going through the motions? I'd be suspicious if they didn't try anything. But hey.. maybe she feels she may be up against the wrong person and politely packs her bags and heads back to congress.

[bigtree]

19. bad move

She needs to convince more folks of why she should be president. She can't get there by tearing Obama down.

[kennetha]

25. You can always do that!

Politics is about making choices. Which do you want A or B? It's not about the non-comparative qualities of A and the non-comparative qualities of B. If you make B undesirable, you make A look more desirable. Of course, there's a cost to doing this. It raises everybody's negatives. But Hillary's are probably already topped out. Obama has been given a free ride, goes around giving Messiah like speeches and the press just sings his praises.

If I were Clinton, I would do everything in my power to put a stop to that.

Plus I would fight like heck to get Florida and MI seated. Cause with those delegates it's would still be nearly tied, even with OBama's recent sweep. (THat's because FLorida is a HUGE state)

[moosen]

20. I agree, it's time to go negative, fight dirty

[anamandujano]

21. I would like her to start asking him a long list of questions in her

rally. Maybe some voters would begin to think about reality instead of smooth talk.

Of course the ho media is behind Obama and will look for any sentence fragment to whip up a frenzy against her.

Obama cannot take any scrutiny at all. That is why his staff and the ho media needed to shut her up by calling racism unfairly.

Frank Rich's article about Hillary's town hall used the words "ghettoized" and "servile." He was more racist in that article than ever other Obama fantasy rolled into one.

I agree with you.

[XemaSab]

31. The original ghettos were Jewish

:hide:

[DesEtoiles]

24. Hillary needs to Barack down.

[ProSense]

26. Do you mean more negative than

this?

[AtomicKitten]

33. Wow, she'd really have to outdo herself to top that compilation.

Maybe they're out of ideas.

[JBoy]

28. She needs to "take Barack down"?

Who do you think she is, Chuck Norris?

[verges]

70. Hillary's backing MCCAIN?!

Now that's BIG!

[Cha]

29. "hilary has run mostly a positive campaign"...

Now I know your post is full on shit.. you're not paying attention but you support this warmonger..shame on you.

[RoadRage]

30. She already tried that.. it sort of backfired.. BIG.

The problem with attacking Obama, is that there really isn't much to attack him with. He is as open & honest as a politician has ever been. He has no skeletons in his closet that he hasn't vetted out himself (drugs as a kid).

That's Hillary's problem.. if this was any other candidate, she could beat him with 2 arms tied behind her back. But, she's not fighting a mainstream politician.. she's fighting a guy who plays by his own rules, and not the rules of politics.

And that is precisely why he's winning. There is no "book" on how to beat an Obama.

[Barack_America]

49. Very well said. And entirely true...n/t

[dailykoff]

32. She already tried, and failed,

Remember South Carolina?

[Moh96]

36. Ya sure she's got nothing to loose

if she doesn't win the nomination lets just destroy the party and hand it on a silver platter to the republicans

[libertee]

37. the republicans are chomping at the bit to get at Obama...

[Whisp]

38. Obama has proven to be quite sharp...

and a smooth fighter.

if she starts on the real dirty, he has an arsenal of material to blow back at her.
I don't think she'll get too nasty for that reason.

[Renew Deal]

39. Considering she's losing, she's the whiner.

"She's hurting the nominee" will be said a lot.

[quakerboy]

40. You and Buchannon(sp) Agree. n/t

[Wizard777]

41. If Hillary starts slinging mud. She's done. n/t

[Meshuga]

42. It would be terrible for her

I think that the reason why she is in the position she is in right now is because of the negative stuff Bill started. Otherwise I think Hillary would be doing better. At least with me. The negative stuff turns people off and it is bad for the party right now. We don't need a bitter war. If Hillary can show her strengths I think she will be okay. Negative campaigning will be her downfall.

[kennetha]

45. Time to Stand and Fight or Run and Fold

I just don't see much point in her continuing unless she's willing to take it to Obama.

[NeedleCast]

46. With a choke slam

followed up by the Tombstone pile driver.

Oh wait...you were being serious.

[goodgd_yall]

47. I think she should continue running a positive campaign

I think going negative hurt her. She had enough name recognition that she didn't have to take on a negative campaign.

[kennetha]

48. But how does she change the dynamic?

Obama walks on water right now. He's not a politician anymore, he's sort of a messianic movement figure that transcends politics. How do you run against that? You can't. You've got to turn him back into a politician again somehow. Again, I don't think she should use falsehoods or innuendo or lies or distortions. But she's got to raise pointed questions directly and without fear.

[high density]

52. She's the one that started out as "inevitable"

And that was still the case a month and a half ago. How do you run against that?

It's almost feeling like a slow motion replay of Dean, where the crash is taking place over weeks instead of days. It all started with her negative campaigning against Obama in January and is continuing through this past week of losses. Whether or not she can rebound from this, I don't know. I think she and Bill spent all of their political capital back in January when they started attacking Obama.

[kennetha]

57. That was then, this is now.

If she isn't willing to fight and fight hard, she should stop this now. If she doesn't fight, she's a sure loser. Period.

[high density]

62. Weren't you around for South Carolina?

Clinton did the "fight" thing for a couple of weeks. It didn't work, she lost the state's delegate count 2:1.

[verges]

71. If she'd promise to actually go after Bush,

she would be a lot more likely to get my uncommitted Ohio vote!

[lancer78]

50. Pfft.

How stupid. Any attack on obama by the clinton's will be perceived as racist.

[JeanGrey]

53. HIS own self interest, if Hilllary tries to cheat with Michigan

and Florida?? Oh yeah.................

[kennetha]

54. How is it cheating?

I don' t get the cheating argument.

MI. Obama chose to take his name off the ballot. Urged voters to vote for uncommitted as did others then still in the race. There was no requirement to get name taken off ballot.


FLA. Voters in florida came out in record numbers, responding to the same national news and coverage that many others responded to. Obama even ran national ads that ran in Florida. Clinton had no particular advantage.

THe voters of Florida and MI spoke. Period. WHy do you not want their voices to be heard? IN the name of democracy? In the name of Obama? Truth? Justice? The American way?

[JeanGrey]

76. It would be cheating and you know it. Florida and Michigan were not supposed

to be counted NOR was anyone to campaign there. If Hillary tries to break these rules she will do herself a world of hurt.

[pampango]

78. The DNC set the rules for this campaign before it ever started.

These rules included the schedule for the primaries and caucuses, the role of superdelegates, proportional awarding of delegates not winner-take-all, and the sanctioning of the Michigan and Florida primaries.

AFAIK, all of our candidates agreed to these rules prior to the start of campaigning. If some did not, their expressed disagreement prior to the start of the campaign would have to be pointed out to me. If one of more of them went to war with the DNC last year to keep the voters Michigan and Florida from being "disenfranchised", it is news to me.

IF Hillary/Michigan/Florida get the delegates seated based on the sanctioned primaries, it will be apparent that the Democratic party has no ability to set rules for a nomination process and enforce them. The candidates and states can change any rules they wish with impunity. (Illinois' Democratic party could, after the fact, decide that they are going to award all their delegates to Obama in a winner-take-all format even though that was not the "rule" that was in force at the time of their primary. What can the DNC do to them? "Disenfranchise" all of their voters by not allowing the delegates to be seated at the convention. )

That does not auger well for our 2012 nomination process. It will be a real free-for-all with no rules (or at least no ability to enforce whatever rules the party came up with).

[ZinZen]

55. I say sure, let her get even more negative

It did not work in SC and it will not work now. She has got some baggage of her own, you do know that right? I think Obama is highly underestimated in handling attacks.

[kennetha]

58. When has he ever had to handle an attack?

Running against the carpet-bagging Alan Keyes?

[ShortnFiery]

59. Those are the exact words of MSNBC's Pat Buchanan. Are you channeling each other via ESP?

:shrug:

[Cha]

69. Their great minds

think alike..;)

[Mz Pip]

60. Good luck with that

I'm sure she would have done so already if she could have.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[abburdlen]

63. whatever she is going to do

she pretty much needs to have done it yesterday.

[kennetha]

67. Agreed

This is game 7 of the World Series time, with your back against the wall in the bottom of the 9th, your last at bat, down a couple of runs. It's time to lay it all on the line. Period.

[TexasObserver]

64. I hope she does go negative. None of her stratagems work because the problem is the product.

People like Obama and think he's far better. They find her marginally acceptable.

[zulchzulu]

65. Believe me. Obama has the cannons ready and loaded if she wants to play nasty

Not only would she lose more, but she would also turn off any chance of getting the Democratic base to vote for her if she went dirtier than she has already done.

[TheDeathadder]

66. well she needs to take a risk

I'm not about destroying Clinton or Obama's character, but, I do think she can't wait for March 4th and if there was ever a time for risk it's now. She can't worry now if a risk will bump her out. It's all or nothing. It's step it up or step out time.

[MagickMuffin]

68. If Hillary can't get those delegates seated then she could be accused of "whining"

Swings both ways, Baby.....

[Forkboy]

73. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

:eyes:

[musicblind]

74. Hmm Your advice is very SOUND advice (as in it might achieve the means)

but I do not think that you advice is very GOOD advice (because sometimes the ends do not justify the means). She might win if she went all out dirty, but the damage to the party, to the American people, to the black community, and to the progressive community would be too great to justify doing so.

I understand where you are coming from and it is very Machiavellian, but it is also very dangerous.

We need to be healing the democratic party instead of tearing it apart. Obama is not my first choice, and Edwards and Hillary were my first choice, but Obama is an excellent choice none the less.

Hillary should stay on message, she should remain determined and filled with the integrity that she has kept thus far. AND, yes, she should stay in until after Texas and Ohio. If Texas and Ohio look to go her way, she should stay in longer, if Texas and Ohio go the way of the Titanic then she should pull out and endorse Obama for the good of the party.

Your suggestions might work, but it would not be worth the damage it would cause to enact them. She is more experienced than Obama and that is a big part of why I am voting for her. However, Obama's experience can be supplemented by a great cabinet of advisers. Obama's inexperience, because of the cabinet system, will not cause nearly the damage that Hillary would if she were to go dirty. Obama will make a wonderful president, and will do many great things. He will get the ball rolling on health care (and then Hillary can try and push it into a mandated plan when she runs in 8 years), he will make good choices about the environment, he will make sound choices about education, he will make good decisions regarding Iraq, and above all he will beat MCCAIN! As a result, there wouldn't be much damage AT ALL if he were to be the nominee.

SO you have to weigh the negative of one action (Obama becoming the nominee) verses the negative of the other action (Hillary going negative.)

Obama as the nominee (Just like Hillary as the nominee) = few if any negatives
Hillary going negative = damage to the party, possible loss in Nov, damage of the American image, damage to the feelings of African American communities, etc.

[workinclasszero]

75. Right, the american people are absolutely lusting

for more Rove style dirt from Hillary!:eyes:

I mean after all, playin the race card worked so well, eh?:puke:

If she tries to get MI and FL seated she will burn the party to the ground and hand the GE over to the thug party.

It ain't gonna happen.

[Independent-Voter]

77. If she pulls some contrived lawyer shit to "win" - Kiss the GE goodbye

Moderates hate her as it is. Do you honestly think she's going to swing the middle by pulling some horseshit to get the nomination?

[Thrill]

79. She has already started going negative

My guess is it will backfire