When Hillary wins the Democratic nomination ...

[Tactical Progressive]

OK, *if* Hillary wins the Democratic nomination,

How much will her overcoming the 'charisma candidate' solidify her standing in terms of electability?

With the media?

With the electorate?

[BlueManDude]

1. she's not electable.

[fightindonkey]

2. LOL! Yes She IS!

[NEDem]

3. No she's not

[Cameron27]

4. Yes she is.

[Arugula Latte]

11. No she's not.

(I thought I'd keep this going, but I really do believe she's the only one a Republican could beat)

[Andromeda]

19. Yes, she is!

.

[TankLV]

26. ...damn...they broke the chain...

oh well...

[Xenotime]

25. Yes she is! She is the best candidate. It's her time.

[SharonAnn]

6. She's very, very electable. After listening to the various candidates I now know

that she "gets it". She understands what * has done to this country and knows how to undo the damage. It's not always obvious things. Replacing the political appointee in the EPA who is edited the scientific reports coming out of the EPA is one of the examples. She understands how quickly some of this stuff has to be undone, how deeply entrenched much of it has become over the last 7 years, and what a huge impact it will have when it's undone.

She understands what to look for in Cabinet Secretaries and other key appointees. It's a good thing to be a "policy wonk" when it's new policies that you have to develop and old policies that you have to exterminate.

Make no mistake, the * administration has gutted our government by replacing "civil service" types of employees with "loyal Bushies". The damge they will continue to do is incredible. They need to be uprooted and kicked out, and she knows it.

Senator Clinton is someone who I and many others will be proud to vote for.

[Anouka]

7. And the 50% of the US who know all those things and hate her anyway?

I haven't heard how Hillary Clinton is going to persuade all those Republicans -- who do make up half of the United States -- to forget their rancor against her and her husband, and join her team.

They don't care about the things you've listed above. They hate her. They hate her husband. They hate the Clinton years. They danced for joy that the Clintons couldn't run again.

The Contract with America resonated with them.

Has that hatred dissipated enough that Hillary can speak with them and touch them, and they will join her?

Or have they been written off already? If they have been written off, how do the Clintons expect to win without them?

Because trust: if the Clintons win with the current mood of half the country against them, you'd think the Democrat grassroots outcry against stolen elections was prayer hour in a monks' cellar.

[Tactical Progressive]

13. But Obama will, right?

Make them forget their rancor?
"Speak with them and touch them, and they will join (him)"?
Because they'll fall under his spell, just like us Hillary and Edwards supporters have?

You really seem to have forgotten that this is a war.
Or maybe you never understood that.

I don't want them to like Hillary.

[Anouka]

17. Those questions also apply to Obama and Edwards, yes.

No, I don't understand what this 'war' is about, if it's just going to be more of the same with a D after its name.

I believe Edwards stands for change.

I believe Obama stands for change.

I do not believe Clinton stands for change.

Where Obama has to worry about people saying they like him, but they're afraid of voting for him; or people saying they like him because what they really feel is no longer acceptable in polite company --

not very many people feel that sort of 'dance around the subject' about Hillary. People are not afraid to say they hate her. Period.

If Hillary comes at them with talk of 'THIS IS A WAR!' implying that they're about to be slain, destroyed, scorched, ground into dust and never seen or heard from again........those same people will rally like you won't believe to tell her to p*ss off, they're going to fight back.

So, I ask, how will Hillary gain their votes?

Obama tries to gain their votes and their support through involving them in the process and listening to them, and respecting them. He may not vote their way, but they'll feel as if he actually considered their opinions before doing what he was going to do.

Hillary? not so much.

Obama and Hillary have different problems, and they stem from Obama being likeable and Hillary being unlikeable. The race issue and gender issue are actually secondary to all this. A close secondary, but still secondary.

There are different ways to wage war. I like Obama's way. I'm a little creeped out by Edwards' way, but that's only because I don't know his intentions.

They're both preferable, to me, to Hillary and Bill's way.

If you're going to fight fire with fire, you have to realize that it is still fire you're fighting, after all. What you do, will come back to haunt you.

[Tactical Progressive]

24. You really haven't lived through the past 20 years politically

have you?

Publicans have two positions: my way or die.

They compromise only when they are powerless.

Your need for a fairy-tale American politics is something most of us Democrats outgrew fourteen years ago. Then again ten years ago, then again six years ago. Where have you been?

And what could possibly, possibly make you think Publicans will turn into Bama groupies when Democrats haven't, except for kids caught up in idol momentum? They won't.

And one last thing, Bill Clinton already did what you think Obama will do, only far better. And the response from progressives now: bitterness over the compromises of the 1990's. So even WITHIN your own belief system, falling for Obama's claim to bipartisanship is incoherent.

Oh, almost forgot: Obama isn't a "change" candidate. I didn't even need to turn my bullshit detector on to get that.

[Anouka]

28. My roommate is a republican, his family is republican.

A friend I respected from the past was a pro-choice republican (imagine that).

I no more like political profiling than I like racial profiling or gender profiling. I particularly don't think that simplistic profiling such as

"Publicans have two positions: my way or die."

are helpful are truthful, mostly because the same type of thinking is used by true believers on the Republican side to diss Democrats -- and I know that what those true believers say about Democrats, how they profile Democrats, is not true either.

The fact of the matter is, that Hillary is going to need people to want to vote for her, before she steps foot in the White House again, as President instead of First Spouse.

She's going to need to convert people to her side.

As for "And one last thing, Bill Clinton already did what you think Obama will do, only far better. And the response from progressives now: bitterness over the compromises of the 1990's."

You have a point about Bill Clinton already doing it -- which makes the desire to nominate his wife, with him as tagalong, all the more strange. What exactly are the Clintons going to do differently, from how they governed in the 90s?

I don't see it; what I do see is insincerity from Hillary. The compromises and reaching across the aisle came from Bill, not from Hillary.

Hillary wasn't able to compromise on anything, unlike Bill. And because she was not open to compromise she failed. She didn't get anything she wanted; whereas, Bill got some of what he wanted.

Bill is not running for president (that we know of, and if he really is trying to subvert the constitution, we need to be wary; a bad precedent is still a precedent and one doesn't want to be on the wrong end when 'the other side' tries it in the future).

Hillary is running for president. This is her show. At least, it's supposed to be her show. How is Hillary going to convert votes?

Are people dissatisfied enough with Bush, to say 'it's better to embrace the couple we loathed so deeply in the 90s'? particularly if they steel themselves to vote for whomever their party nominates?

Or is Hillary counting on Obama to do the grunt work for her, to bring more people into the party and then vote for the party whomever is nominated, after all? That would be interesting, to me.

[Arugula Latte]

29. "I don't want them to like HIllary."

A portion of them have to like her, she's going to lose us the presidency. Period.

I do not want to take a chance on a candidate that is polarizing and hated by great chunks of left and right.

[Anouka]

32. "A portion of them have to like her"

exactly. i'm weirded out by some folks refusal to see that the Clintons are going to need folks joining their team, not jumping their ship.

[bellasgrams]

15. If you really hate Hill that much I guess you'll have to vote for some

immature, less knowledgeable person that won't be able to handle all the problems on the plate.

[Anouka]

21. Immaturity is dissing an entire state for not voting for you.

If Obama places second tonight, I'll be willing to wager you -- you won't hear any talk about how New Hampshire sucks, or New Hampshire can't tell it's *ss from a hole in the ground..... or this

A Candidate Spurned (New York Times caucus blog)

“Iowa is so small, it’s like a mayor’s race in a medium-sized city,” Jay Carson, the campaign’s press secretary, scoffed to the Wall Street Journal. “It wouldn’t be wise to put too much emphasis on it.”

or this

The Journal piece also quoted the campaign’s chief strategist, Mark Penn, as saying: “The worst thing would be to over count Iowa and its importance. Iowa doesn’t have a record of picking presidents.”

or this, courtesy of

Ben Smith's politico blog

"This is a new day, this is a new state, this is a primary election," she said at a Manchester diner just now. "You're not disenfranchised if you work at night. You're not disenfranchised if you're not in the state."

You'll hear grace. Hillary lost all cred she gained, to me, from the graciousness of her post-Iowa speech because of how she insulted Iowa. There are ways to talk about bouncing back up from defeat. There are ways to talk about going forward and fighting back. Blaming everybody else but yourself for not reaching the goal you wanted, is not the way to do it. Blame is not the way to do it.

Let the underlings and supporters do that. It's unseemly for a candidate to go there, unless actually calling for a call to recount because of bonafide disenfranchisement or caucus fraud.

Is she?

Edwards may have been uncouth in his own post-Iowa speech, but he didn't go out and trash the state for the results just because he didn't like them, either.

[emilyg]

8. Oh yes she is.

[Tactical Progressive]

14. Oh no she isn't.

Oh wait, yes she is.

[TankLV]

27. what was the question again?....

she is too!

no she's not!

there - I did my part...

[truebrit71]

5. I will make travel plans to leave the country, because I will NOT live under another GOP president..

...which is what an HRC nomination means....

...HRC is unelectable...

[emilyg]

9. 'Bye.

[truebrit71]

10. But she won't be the nominee so it's all good...hell she hasn't even won a primary yet...

....

[bellasgrams]

16. Dear True: that is absollutely assinine. The one most like

Bush is Obama. No experience, not much knowledge, only diff. he's a smooth talker. wonder who he'll choose to lead him around by the nose.

[emilyg]

22. Oprah?

[bigwillq]

30. See ya!

:hi: Buh-bye!


It just makes me giggle when people say what you just said. Clinton, Obama, Edwards are not my first choice. I believe they each have some serious flaws. But as president and with a Democratic majority, hopefully a larger one come Nov., I think we are going to be just fine.

[ShadowLiberal]

12. Unless she completely changes strategy she can't win the general election

Her strategy for most of the primaries has done nothing to make her more electable, around 50% of the nation still says they'd never vote for her in the general election.

The only hope she has in a general election is changing her strategy around in a big way that doesn't make her look 'cold', 'calculating' and all of that other negative stuff people associate with her.

[BootinUp]

18. This kind of race strengthens the eventual winner

There will be more media coverage, more chances for the candidates to shine. Good stuff!

[gdaerin]

20. When Hillary wins the nomination . . .

will she stop crying Then?

[emilyg]

23. You're too young to be sexist.

[gdaerin]

31. Clinton is sexist

Clinton expected that display to affect my opinion of her, because I'm a woman, which makes her sexist. She wouldn't expect that from a man.

When you base your opinions on people's sex, that's what sexism is.