$100 Million Hillary rides out! (Or, like Annie Oakley in a duck blind...)
The most overblown "controversy" of the year -- Barack's "bitter" moment -- continues to roll along, as the mainstream media desperately casts about for something to talk about regarding the never-ending Democratic campaign. (Sigh.) I'd love to boycott the entire issue, because as I've said before, it's stupid. (I await David Plouffe's phonecall to the author of "What's the Matter With Kansas." Encourage him to do some TV. He'll tell you about bitter, lower income folk voting on guns, god and gays...)
However, I'll roll with it, if only to mock the whole silly thing. First, the news:
Hillary and Barack did the CNN "Compassion Forum" last night (McCain skipped it. Compassion. Phthewww! Johnny Boy likes WAR, WAR, BEAUTIFUL WAR!!!!!!! COMPASSION IS FOR SISSIES!!!!...) speaking separately with Campbell Brown and that creepy faith guy from Newsweek. Hillary used her time on the stage to berate Obama as an "elitist," and to ensure that Al Gore casts his super delegate vote for her opponent:
"We had two very good men and men of faith run for president in 2000 and 2004," Mrs. Clinton said at a forum on faith televised live on CNN last night. "But large segments of the electorate concluded that they did not really understand or relate to or frankly respect their ways of life."
Well at least she can't lose Kerry twice.
Hillary is also resorting to doing shots and pretending to be a hunter in order to solidify the "downscale Democrat" faithful. The notion that she, a wealthy lawyer and wife of the former president of the United States, who hasn't held a non-professional job ever in her life, is more the commoner than a kid from a single family whom whose family once got on food stamps, is fairly laughable but hell, the press is buying it...
The Obama campaign, however, is not, and Hillary was rightly ridiculed for her present line of attack by her rival yesterday:
“I expected this out of John McCain,” Obama said in Steelton, Pa., last night, striking a theme that we expect to hear more of.
“But I’ve gotta say, I’m a little disappointed when I start hearing the exact same talking points coming out of my Democratic colleague, Hillary Clinton,” he said, before getting downright derisive of the multimillionaire former First Lady for casting him as the elitist and herself as the in touch with regular folk.
“Shame on her. Shame on her,” Obama said to approval from his crowd. “She knows better. She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen. She, how she values the Second Amendment, she’s talking like she is Annie Oakley. Hillary Clinton is out there like she’s out in the duck blind every Sunday. She’s packing a six shooter. Come on. She knows better. That’s some politics being played by Hillary Clinton. I want to see that picture of her out there in the duck blind. You know, come on.”
Now Hil', you know you brought that one on yourself. Here's the video:
Why, ask many Democrats and media commentators, won’t Hillary Rodham Clinton see the long odds against her, put her own ambitions aside, and gracefully embrace Barack Obama as the inevitable Democratic nominee?
Here is why: She and Bill Clinton both devoutly believe that Obama’s likely victory is a disaster-in-waiting. Naive Democrats just don’t see it. And a timid, pro-Obama press corps, in their view, won’t tell the story.
But Hillary Clinton won’t tell it, either.
A lot of coverage of the Clinton campaign supposes them to be in kitchen-sink mode — hurling every pot and pan, no matter the damage this might do to Obama as the likely Democratic nominee in the fall.
In fact, the Democratic race has not been especially rough by historical standards. What’s more, our conversations with Democrats who speak to the Clintons make plain that their public comments are only the palest version of what they really believe: that if Obama is the nominee, a likely Democratic victory would turn to a near-certain defeat.
Far from a no-holds-barred affair, the Democratic contest has been an exercise in self-censorship.
Rip off the duct tape and here is what they would say: Obama has serious problems with Jewish voters (goodbye Florida), working-class whites (goodbye Ohio) and Hispanics (goodbye, New Mexico).
Republicans will also ruthlessly exploit openings that Clinton — in the genteel confines of an intraparty contest — never could. Top targets: Obama’s radioactive personal associations, his liberal ideology, his exotic life story, his coolly academic and elitist style.
This view has been an article of faith among Clinton advisers for months, but it got powerful new affirmation last week with Obama’s clumsy ruminations about why “bitter” small-town voters turn to guns and God.
There’s nothing to say that the Clintonites are right about Obama’s presumed vulnerabilities. But one argument seems indisputably true: Obama is on the brink of the Democratic nomination without having had to confront head-on the evidence about his general election challenges.
That is why some friends describe Clinton as seeing herself on a mission to save Democrats from themselves. Her candidacy may be a long shot, but no one should expect she will end it unless or until every last door has been shut.
The caveat there, of course, is that the Clintons also prognosticated that her victory in the Democratic primary was inevitable, and would be sealed after February 5th ...
Of course, Hillary's people do have one point: Barack Obama is a former college professor, and sometimes talks like one (though he can also get gully, as he did with the "Annie Oakley in a duck blind dis...) And his support is so heavily concentrated in upscale, suburban whites and African-Americans, that he does run the risk of being an ultra-blue state candidate.
But ... and this is the important part ... Barack Obama doesn't have to win the rural south or midwest in order to become president. He needs to win all of the states John Kerry won, and add one big one (Ohio or Florida) or a couple of smaller ones (New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada...) That's it. Winning the south may be a lovely idea, but it's not a necessity. That said, Barack will need to hold on to states like Pennsylvania, which I suspect that Hillary's ground crew, led by Ed Rendell, will work vigorously to help him do in the fall. In fact, the only things that could really hurt Barack's electability in the fall would be 1) a major gaffe, 2) a major, negative revelation late in the campaign, or 3) an ingrained impression formed among voters that he is Mike Dukakis, John Kerry or Al Gore -- and it is Hillary Clinton who is working to accomplish that at the moment.
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
