SubscribeDoes this “most liberal” ranking actually mean anything? And the answer, once you look at the National Journal’s methodology, is not really.... So there you have it. Obama is more liberal than Clinton because he voted with John McCain, the most likely Republican nominee [on one vote where he differed from Clinton], and Tom Coburn, one of the Senate's most conservative members [on the second of two such votes]. Ain’t political rankings a wonderful thing.
This is the problem with Hillary Clinton. She is highly intelligent, has real experience and is an attractive candidate. But she is terrified to act on her beliefs. In fact, she seems so conditioned by what she sees as political constraints that one can barely tell where her beliefs begin and where those constraints end.also btw, fwiw, paul volcker has also endorsed BO...
Partly, this is a generational difference. Bill and Hillary Clinton grew up in an era of Republican dominance. For much of the last 30 years, the Republican Party has been the party of ideas (a point made repeatedly by Daniel Patrick Moynihan), and Ronald Reagan was seen by much of the country to have rescued America from malaise and retreat. The Clintons' careers have been shaped by the belief that for a Democrat to succeed, he or she had to work within this conservative ideological framework. Otherwise one would be pilloried for being weak on national security, partial to taxes and big government and out of touch with Middle America's social values.
For 30 years this has been the right bet. It's why Bill Clinton was the only successful national Democratic politician in that period. But is it still the right wager? Obama has grown up in a different landscape—with vastly different geopolitics, economics and culture. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have been the defining political figures of the recent past. Conservatism has lost its monopoly role. As a result, the new generation is not defensive about its beliefs, nor does it feel trapped into the old categories like hawks versus doves and markets versus taxes.
I think it’s fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time over the last 10 or 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.I don't see how you get an endorsement of those ideas from that quote.
Ugh, Paul Krugman has been relentless in bashing Obamaum, really? care to provide a single cite? that seems pretty fucking hyperbolic to me.
Maybe Mr. Obama was, as his supporters insist, simply praising Reagan’s political skills ... But where in his remarks was the clear declaration that Reaganomics failed?Well, I don't know, but I do know that later on in the interview when talking about republican ideas he did say that the republican approach was tired and played out.
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.
I'm getting tired of listening to rationales from people who know that Obama is a remarkable, even an extraordinary politician, the kind who comes along, in this era of snakes and empty smiles, no more than once a generation.hey, brad delong just voted for BO :P
Oh, sure, most of these people tell me they would like to see Obama become president. No question, he comes off as at once brilliant and sensible, vibrant and measured, engaged and engaging, talented, forthright, quick-witted, passionate, thoughtful and, as with all remarkable people whom experience has taught both the extent and the bitter limits of their gifts, reasonably humble. In a better world, people tell me, in theory, sure, having a president like Barack Obama sounds great. But not, you know, for real. Not in the base, corrupt, morally spent, toxic and reeling rats' nest that we like to call home. Things are so bad we just can't afford to waste our votes, people tell me, on some fantasy super-president with magical powers. We need someone electable, someone, as I have been told repeatedly in the past year, who can win.
Of course this misses the point; it misses all kinds of points. In a better world, if there were such a thing (and so far there never has been), we would not need a president like Obama as badly as we do. If there were less at stake, if our democracy had not been permitted, indeed encouraged, to sink to its present degraded and embattled condition not only by the present administration but by a fair number of those people now seeking to head up the next one, perhaps then we could afford to waste our votes on the candidate who knows best how to jigger, to manipulate and to conform to the vapid specifications of the debased electoral process it has been our unhappy fate to construct for ourselves.
Because ultimately, that is the point of Obama's candidacy -- of the hope, enthusiasm and sense of purpose it inspires, yes, but more crucially, of the very doubts and reservations expressed by those who pronounce, whether in tones of regret, certainty or skepticism, that America is not ready for Obama, or that Obama is not ready for the job, or that nobody of any worth or decency -- supposing there even to be such a person left on the American political scene -- can be expected to survive for a moment with his idealism and principle intact.
The point of Obama's candidacy is that the damaged state of American democracy is not the fault of George W. Bush and his minions, the corporate-controlled media, the insurance industry, the oil industry, lobbyists, terrorists, illegal immigrants or Satan. The point is that this mess is our fault. We let in the serpents and liars, we exchanged shining ideals for a handful of nails and some two-by-fours, and we did it by resorting to the simplest, deepest-seated and readiest method we possess as human beings for trying to make sense of the world: through our fear.
Been puttering around the internet today trying to think of things to write, and mainly what I see are endorsements for Barack Obama.... I really didn't foresee this unanimity. A couple months ago, Hillary Clinton had far more traction among this group, and Obama hadn't come anywhere near assuaging concerns abut his candidacy.cheers!
I think three things turned the tide decisively against Clinton:
The first was her post-Iowa campaign, where Bill Clinton was comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson and an endless procession of hacks were being paraded out... it's a type of politics few want to support.... The second was that Obama simply got more specific, particularly on foreign policy... speaking about ending the "politics of fear" and attacking the mindset" that led us into Iraq.... [T]he third force was simply that his victories in Iowa and South Carolina made it look like his movement might be real....
Now, elites don't actually matter much, and I still think Hillary will win the primary. My basic belief is that Obama is more progressive on foreign policy, she's more liberal on social policy, but he's more likely to lead towards a more progressive moment... almost in site of his own policy shop...
Hillary, we just had the tape. You just said that I complimented the Republican ideas. That is not true. What I said - and I will provide you with a quote - what I said was is that Ronald Reagan was a transformative political figure because he was able to get Democrats to vote against their economic interests to form a majority to push through their agenda, an agenda that I objected to.
Because while I was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart.
I was fighting these fights. I was fighting these fights. So I want to be clear. What I said had nothing to do with their policies. I spent a lifetime fighting a lifetime against Ronald Reagan's policies.
Is that good enough for you?
Brokaw writes that Clinton “believes that modern conservatives such as Karl Rove are ‘obsessed’ with defeating her.”Try again.
“She prefers the godfather of the modern conservative movement, Ronald Reagan,” Brokaw writes on Page 404. “He was, she says, 'a child of the Depression, so he understood it [economic pressures on the working and middle class]. When he had those big tax cuts and they went too far, he oversaw the largest tax increase. He could call the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and then negotiate arms-control agreements. He played the balance and the music beautifully.
Her list of favorite presidents - Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Truman, George H.W. Bush and Reagan - demonstrates how she thinks.also
“She prefers the godfather of the modern conservative movement, Ronald Reagan,” Brokaw writes on Page 404. “He was, she says, 'a child of the Depression, so he understood it [economic pressures on the working and middle class]. When he had those big tax cuts and they went too far, he oversaw the largest tax increase. He could call the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and then negotiate arms-control agreements. He played the balance and the music beautifully.So seriously, she is praising Reagan just as much as Obama ever did. Do you just choose to ignore this just because you prefer her? Because the rest of us choose to ignore it despite the fact that we prefer Obama. The only reason her opinion on Reagan matters to anyone is because she's trying to use Obama's weak praise of Reagan's political skills as a bludgeon against him.
“In 1969, who would have imagined that the Hillary Rodham on the Wellesley commencement stage would find herself 38 years later paying tribute to Ronald Reagan?"
The Obama campaign released a memo laying out their official delegate tally of Feb. 5th's results this morning, claiming that they won 845 delegates to Hillary's 836, a margin of nine points.
The Obama camp's total of pledged delegates for the race thus far: Obama, 908, Hillary 884.
I’d rather say a joyful Hello to all the glorious young women who do identifywith Hillary, and all the brave, smart men—of all ethnicities and any age—who get that it’s in their self-interest, too. She’s better qualified. (D’uh.) She’s a high-profile candidate with an enormous grasp of foreign- and domestic-policy nuance, dedication to detail, ability to absorb staggering insult and personal pain while retaining dignity, resolve, even humor, and keep on keeping on. (Also, yes, dammit, let’s hear it for her connections and funding and party-building background, too. Obama was awfully glad about those when she raised dough and campaigned for him to get to the Senate in the first place.)That isn't much in a piece that long. (My disclosure is that I'm really not sold on Obama, but I really don't like Hillary's conservatism and I think we need a break from Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton.)
Where Morgan says:The antipathy in many circles toward HRC comes not from her being a woman, but from her being a Clinton. For instance, the chorus of critiques against her adaptation of "Rovean tactics" during the early primaries (such as the New Hampshire "Obama is weak on choice" smear) has little to do with her adopting "traditionally male techniques": it was her relapsing into the Clintonian technique of aggressive hyperpartisanship, a survival-by-any-means strategy the Clintons adopted during their embattled White House years, and a technique that Rove has cribbed to devastating effect. She would've earned a ton of feminist cred with me if she had renounced Bill's controversial and counterproductive comments (especially the South Carolina ones, but even before then) and sent him to the bench, as should happen with any misbehaving campaign subordinate. Instead, her nonresponse demonstrated that she aims to enjoy both the feminist "breaking the greatest glass ceiling" sentiment and the patriarchal "those boys have been getting tough on her lately" ploy, which I find wholly disingenuous. That's not a woman issue; that's a Clintonian triangulating-rhetoric issue, and an all-too-common style of politicking that's impossible to conscientiously endorse.
It was the women’s movement that quipped, “We are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” She heard us, and she has.
She agrees with me that her generation of leaders had to adopt the political attitudes and strategies of the men around them to succeed. They became not only the men they wanted to marry, but the men they wanted to elect. And to some degree, Hillary is punished, tby becoming a target for irrational dislike and vitriol, for adopting the traditionally male techniques that helped her and a generation of women leaders get ahead (for a recent instance, adopting the 'Rovean tactics'). So I do believe misogyny is in play, and I think it's a shame.
[link] "I'm ok with either of the two major Dem candidates at this point - they're the best I can hope for from the modern Democratic Party, that's for sure - but have to say I think this "Obama's a new kind of politics!" kool-aid is fucking hilarious. Here's a fun test: ask your favorite Dem primary nut how Obama voted on the resolution authorizing force in Iraq. See how many remember that he didn't get sworn in until January 2005. It won't be many.[nickyskye, I bet they just had a few tokes. 1970 I believe.]
Obama's really been working that "I didn't vote for the Iraq war" thing in debates with Hillary, as if he'd been in the Senate in 2003 and voted against it. Does anyone really believe an ambitious young centrist like him would have stood up to the Cheney machine's rush to war if he'd actually been there? *snort* Tell me another one.
I think Obama's skin color is working in his favor with a lot of Racist-In-The-Right-Way liberals, who assume he's more progressive than he is because...well, you know, he's black. But there's been nothing - that's spelled N-O-T-H-I-N-G - to demonstrate that he's less conservative than Hillary. Like I said, I'm ok with either one. But Obama's bullshit is grating on me more as it goes on."
Senate Amendment No. 4882, an amendment to a Pentagon appropriations bill that would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.So, it's not just Iraq. It's a pattern with Clinton that makes me wonder how committed she really is to pulling troops out of Iraq -- particularly as the political winds shift as they certainly will once we actually start withdrawing.
Senator Obama of Illinois voted IN FAVOR of the ban.
Senator Clinton of New York voted AGAINST the ban.
Analysts say Clinton did not want to risk appearing "soft on terror," as it would have harmed her electibility.
I'm not a single-issue voter. But as Obama and Clinton share many policy positions, this vote was revelatory for me. After all, Amendment No. 4882 was an easy one to vote against: Who'd want to risk accusation of "tying the hands of the Pentagon" during a never-ending, global War on Terror? As is so often the case, there was no political cost to doing the wrong thing. And there was no political reward for doing the right thing.
The fact that people have what is euphemistically called cognitive-processing limitations—most cannot or will not learn about and remember candidates' records or positions—means voters must substitute something else for that missing knowledge. What that something is has become a heated topic among scientists who study decision-making, and, of course, campaign strategists and pollsters. Some answers are clear, however. In general elections, a large fraction of voters use political party as that substitute, says psychologist Drew Westen of Emory University; some 60 percent typically choose a candidate solely or largely by party affiliation. The next criterion is candidates' positions on issues; single-issue voters in particular will never even consider a candidate they disagree with. In a primary, however, party affiliation is no help, since all of the choices belong to the same one. And parsing positions doesn't help much this year, especially in the Democratic race, where the policy differences between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are minute. "When voting your party doesn't apply, and when the candidates don't differ much on the issues, you have to choose on some other basis," says political scientist Richard Lau of Rutgers University, coauthor of the 2006 book "How Voters Decide." "That's when you get people voting by heuristics [cognitive shortcuts] and going with their gut, with who they most identify with, or with how the candidates make them feel." What has emerged from the volatile and unpredictable primary season so far is that the candidates who can make voters feel enthusiasm and empathy—and, perhaps paradoxically, anxiety—are going to make it to November and maybe beyond.
But McCain has liabilities: His steadfast support for victory in Iraq may have helped him in the primaries, but it could hurt him in the general election, especially if casualties spike.
His past collaborations with Democratic lawmakers turn off many in his own party. McCain's support of an immigration-reform bill, despised by many conservatives, denies the Republican ticket a wedge issue and could keep border-security activists home on Election Day.
However, a Clinton candidacy could inspire many Republicans to "hold their noses" and overlook their disgust with McCain, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
"The red-state Democrats are rooting for Obama," Sabato said. "McCain needs Hillary Clinton to restore his conservative base. I doubt McCain can bring them in on his own. It's got to be the fear of a Hillary Clinton presidency."
When pollsters offer voters hypothetical matchups, Mr. Obama does better than Mrs. Clinton against Mr. McCain. For example, a Cook Political Report poll of registered voters released this week found Mr. McCain beats Mrs. Clinton, 45 percent to 41 percent. But Mr. Obama beats Mr. McCain, 45 percent to 43 percent. The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll found similar results.When the response to Hillary starts looking like that, I'll be convinced she's viable as a next President.
Mr. Obama also has the highest approval rating of any major candidate among independents, 62 percent, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll. He also has unusually low negatives, which gives him upside potential.
Mr. Obama does surprisingly well among evangelical Christians, an important constituency in swing states. For example, Relevant magazine, which caters to young evangelicals, asked its readers: “Who would Jesus vote for?” Mr. Obama was the winner and came out 27 percentage points ahead of Mrs. Clinton.
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