Hillary Runs To Help McCain Defeat Obama in 2008

[Better Believe It]

CounterPunch
April 23, 2008
Straggling to Denver
Pennsylvania: the Worst of All Possible Worlds
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

One of Hillary Clinton’s big achievements has been to seriously, maybe fatally, wound Obama among her own supporters.

Since South Carolina, back at the start of March, the Clintons have deliberately fragmented the Democratic vote. Here’s where the mysterious resignation of John Edwards from the campaign race has been particularly significant. As the Clintons methodically widened the racial divide, Edwards would have been there to capture the white working class male voters who don’t particularly care for Hillary. With Edwards in the race she never would have been able to get away with her tricky footwork on NAFTA, and he would have savaged her on her campaign and familial ties to the anti-labor death squad regime in Colombia.

Hillary must know that she cannot possibly win the nomination by any rational standard.

In other words there’s no rational scenario here, except the one suggested here by St Clair a month ago that her real aim is to ensure a McCain victory this year and come back in 2012.

Please read the entire article at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn04232008.html

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March 24, 2008

Hillary's Berserker Campaign ... for 2012
Blonde Ambition
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

Hillary Clinton can not win the Democratic nomination for president.So why does Hillary persist? Because she hasn't abandoned her aspiration for the White House. Not in 2008, but for 2012. Here's the perverse logic at work.

In order to realize her vaulting ambition, Hillary must mortally wound Obama as candidate in the fall race against John McCain so that she can run against McCain in 2012.

McCain is at best a one term president. The signs of this are as clear as the scar jagging down his face. McCain, whose resemblance to Lon Chaney becomes eerier by the day, is already an old man, older than Reagan when he was first elected. He is plagued by a cancer he refuses to speak about, a war he refuses to end and an economy that is collapsing beyond the point of recovery. Add to this prospectus, the fact that McCain is prone to the most self-destructive impulses of any American politician since Aaron Burr. His political fate will be sealed before he even swears his oath.

Hillary is following the Reagan model. In 1976, Ronald Reagan bled Gerald Ford through the long winter and spring months, before bludgeoning him the late primary in Pennsylvania. As told in Adam Clymer's new book, Drawing the Line at the Big Ditch: the Panama Canal Treaties and the Rise of the Right, Reagan finally found a theme to his weird internecine challenge in the Panama Canal Treaty. Reagan fell short in the end, but he had hobbled Ford, who stumbled and fell against Carter in the fall election. Carter inherited a stagnant economy, soaring oil prices and a simmering crisis in the Middle East. Reagan easily unseated Carter in the 1980 election. The Clintons are shrewd enough to detect the striking historical parallels here and craven enough to exploit them for their own long-term advantage.


Please read the entire article at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair03242008.html

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. kos's latest pitch.

[Mags]

14. draging the bottom of the pond isn't he. It seems as though

these folk think it's against the law for Hillary to run against the Precious One.

[Pawel K]

2. As she did in 04 by not helping to get Kerry elected each day of that campaign

there is no other explaination for this. And Hillary supporters are perfectly happy with this. Remind me of Lieberman supporters

[Poll_Blind]

3. Read both of those pieces from end to end, agreed entirely with the first...

....and the second as well up until the "willing martyr" of Obama. I'm not even 100% sure what point he was making about Obama or what he supposes Obama's motivations are to act that way.

  Oh! And K&R!

PB

[DJ13]

4. I know the Clinton supporters dismiss these claims but they do so at their own risk

Theres a rising sentiment among Democrats that this really is what Clinton is trying to do, and that is NOT good for either Hillary or her supporters as it makes them out to be traitors to our party.

And Im starting to hear this repeated on more than just message boards or blogs, Im even hearing it now in the MSM.

You Clinton supporters (and Hillary herself) need to ask yourselves whats more important, your personal reputation or Hillary remaining in the race?

[kenny blankenship]

5. Working for McCain: something Democrats are proud of ????

[jobycom]

6. The Giants played the 2008 season to help the Patriots beat the Packers!

The Giants can't beat the Packers in the NFC Championship game. So why do they persist? Because they haven't abandoned their aspirations for the Super Bowl. Not in 2008, but for 2009. Here's how the perverse logic works...


The only logical perversity is in crap like these articles. Clinton has not wounded Obama for her supporters, but bullshit articles like these sure do. All us Clinton supporters is so gawdafull dumb we can't see Obama for ourselves? We is so fekkin stoopid we only believe what Clinton tells us to believe? Pleeeze. Obama is divisive, a bully and a fraud, and I make that judgment based on him, not on anything the Clintons have said. In fact, I voted for Clinton as much because I didn't like Obama as because I liked her.

And Ford didn't lose because Reagan bled him dry in the primary. Ford lost because he was a weak president who violated the rule of law by pardoning Nixon, and pissing off most Americans. He also lost because the economy was crap, his party was crap, and Carter ran a strong campaign based on wisdom and vision.

Besides, Obama is the one claiming he's modeled his campaign after Reagan's.

[Better Believe It]

7. Hillary Is Threatening Democratic Party Chances Of Winning 2008 Election

Why Hillary Makes My Wife Scream
Tom Hayden
The Nation
april 22, 2008

My wife Barbara has begun yelling at the television set every time she hears Hillary Clinton. This is abnormal behavior, since Barbara is a meditative practitioner of everything peaceful and organic, and is inspired by Barack Obama's transformational appeal.

For Barbara, Hillary has become the screech on the blackboard. From First Lady to Lady Macbeth.

It is abundantly clear that the Clintons, working with FOX News and manipulating old Clinton staffers like George Stephanopoulos, are trying, at least unconsciously, to so damage Barack Obama that he will be perceived as "unelectable" to Democratic superdelegates. It is also clear that the campaign of defamation against Obama has resulted in higher negative ratings for Hillary Clinton. She therefore is threatening the Democratic Party's chances for the White House, whether or not she is the nominee.

Since no one in the party leadership seems able or willing to intervene against this self-destructive downward spiral, perhaps progressives need to consider responding in the only way politicians sometimes understand. If they can't hear us screaming at the television sets, we can send a message that the Clintons are acting as if they prefer John McCain to Barack Obama. And follow it up with another message: if Clinton doesn't immediately cease her path of destruction, millions of young voters and black voters may not send checks, may not knock on doors, and may not even vote for her if she becomes the nominee. That's not a threat, that's the reality she is creating.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080505/hayden

[jobycom]

8. She's trying to win the nomination.

And my daughter gets furious every time Obama speaks. So what?

Claiming she's threatening our chances in 2008 is exactly as accurate as claiming Obama is. The rules are being followed, an election is being held. She can win, he can win. The only thing being damaged is the process of democracy when people call for her to drop out.

[Better Believe It]

9. Sure. So Am I

Hillary isn't trying to win the nomination this year. She would lose to McCain if she got it. So she is doing her best to see that McCain beats Obama so she can run in 2012.

I think that's rather obvious now.

[Catherina]

10. .

[Perry Logan]

11. She can fool the world. But Alexander is too clever for her.

[RamboLiberal]

12. Ron Reagan called that her Plan B last night on Larry King

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5635506

[depakid]

13. That's a load of crap

Worse than most conspiracy theories that get floated around here.

Though, like some of the others, there'll always be some suckers who buy into them.