That's a stretch.

It's not a stretch by any means.

a couple of elections so....not a really good comparison.

That being said, I'd like to see other candidates come forward but if she does run and win I'll do everything I can to get her elected. If for nothing else the number of veins that would pop on the hypertensive foreheads of the GOP would be totally awesome.

Hillary has won a statewide election, but at the national level she failed.

I still think it is a valid comparison, just at different scales.

which is a statewide office.

women to Governor and Senate and even Warren was in a tough race until scott brown started with the racism and other ugly attacks and revealed himself to be a piece of shit.

* not the gubernatorial nom per se, but the state party endorsement.

Hillary is a better candidate than Coakley, but I don't think Hillary will win the general.

I consider untrue memes statements like "Hillary is the only Democrat who can beat the Republicans" and, "If Hillary runs, she'll wipe the floor with them."

Nominate her at your peril, fellow Dems and give us no real choice at your peril, Dem Party PTB (assuming you really want to win in 2016).

He never could get a break, it seems. I remember him from his second try at Ike and as a primary opponent of JFK. I was still a kid for both, but remember both elections.

she'd be president hillary right now were it not for the absolutely amazing, once-in-a-century kind of candidate and campaign that obama ran *combined* with the foregone conclusion of a republican defeat, which pulled republican money into the democratic primaries.

and in all likelihood, it will be president hillary yet. i certainly don't see any democrat beating her this time around. if the economy doesn't go into an actual recession, i think we're still favorites to win.

It took Obama a long time to put that race away. Hillary lost by being overconfident at first, and by not building a campaign machine for the caucus states (related to over confidence) which is where Obama ran up his delegate totals, with far fewer Democrats participating in those contests.

And I think you have to give Obama credit for being a charismatic and inspirational candidate to millions. For starters, no other national Democrat has ever faced trying to win a presidential campaign running against a major (sitting Senator etc.) African American candidate. That scrmabled the picture.

I'm not saying Clinton is unbeatable this time, but no she did not get clobbered in any sense once she got past her disastrous campaign beginning.

Different mistakes, perhaps. I think she'll work much harder in Iowa, New Hampshire, and the other early states.

Obama got 2,285½ and Hillary got 1,973. She beat him in the popular vote 17,857,501 to 17, 584, 692. You may have a different definition of "clobbered" than most people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2008

from wiki you cited and bears repeating, again:

I don't believe the DNC has any business telling the states when they can have elections and when they can't. That is a direct assault on democracy. I am glad Clinton participated in those contests when the people in those states wanted to have elections. You may want a dictatorial top down Party, I don't.

The steering committee of the DNC made the rules, a committee btw on which sat a pro-Clinton 12-member majority. They made the rules of the contest which FFS are not "an assault on democracy." It was not until it was clear she could not win did she insist on changing the rules. The Clintons are ruthless poor sports who believe themselves above the rules of the contest that they held sway on establishing and everybody else followed.

And his lead was largely the delegates who are members of Congress, not the ones she got in the primaries...her post is really stupid...do you recall anything from 2008?

And imo there is no other Democrat that can win next time other than Hillary. Just my opinion.

There are some good alternatives who might just be able to rouse the entire Democratic base. We'll see in the primaries. Of course, Hillary may be able to do the same. I don't rule her out.

But she did not get clobbered.

Barack Obama being from Illinois also made folks in the Quad Cities area more familiar with him, and that helped him take Iowa.

If I could make one reform, it would be that everybody caucused or held primaries on the same day so that Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina ceased wielding disproportionate power.

Primaries allow more to participate.

2 years of these "What do you think" posts after bashing Hillary or any other Democrat they want to bludgeon.
Soon DU will be a place Repukes can come and feel right at home as they are moving into the neighborhood fast and furious.

Since I am neither a slug nor a troll, I take offense at your juvenile insult.

If you think this was a "bash", you have trouble with comprehension.

Hillary could win at the state level but can she win nationally? I don't know the answer, but I do know she's not as imposing a candidate as a lot of DU'ers want to believe.

Also, she was SecState for four years, which no other Dem candidate brings to the table.

My worry about any of the candidates is are they electable? Some people just don't seem to have the charisma (or whatever it is) that gets enough people fired up to vote for them.

Some people are able to do that even with those that have differences in policy.

It was a close race up to the bloody end when the math became impossible for her to win.

going up against a relatively unknown senator...

yAH, it was a clobber. A rout and a drubbing, a massacre.

with delegates? What percent?

When the opponent is a one term, unknown Senator and you are the prohibitive favorite going in.

Maybe you would prefer to call it a monumental upset?

at the Democratic Convention in 2004. Really unknown ...

You really think as many people that recognized the Clinton name from so many years back, knew who that Senator was in 2004?

No. Obama was a relative unknown even up to the primaries. People were watching Storage Wars, not the Dem convention. He stood in the background and gradually came up front during the finals because his words gained recognition, not his surname. He had to actually campaign while Hillary was renting helicopters and following inept advice from Penn and Bill and could only attack Obama's message because she didn't have one of her own. She was very disrespectful, she and Bill and the team will not be forgiven by a lot of people for the desperate moves they made when they discovered they were sunk.

Hillary Clinton got her arse handed to her by an unknown, in fact she was so damn sure of her easy win she and her crack team didn't even look beyond Super Tuesday for planning.

Routed, and drubbed.

Out of 4100 delegate she lost by 300. Hardly a "rout" or a "drubbing".

She isn't my preferred Candidate.

But she is capable of running a really tough election campaign.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html

In the popular vote in the primary (17,535,458 48.1% 17,493,836 48.0%) he only received 32,000 more votes that Hillary Clinton, and only one by one tenth of a percent.

It was along primary, hard fought, and the closeness of the election in number votes shows that she was in no way clobbered.

Winning the nomination is like winning the general election: delegates in one, electoral votes in the other.

Obama started as a virtual unknown, with far less resources, and without the ability to fully organize in every state at least early on. He had to pick where to put his resources. So, yes Clinton did get a lot of votes, but a lot of that had to do with Obama not fully contesting every state and not having the money to run ads.

In delegates, it was a crushing defeat for Hillary.

Considering that he is not going to run in 2016, we should compare Clinton to other primary challengers.

The only Democratic candidates at the moment are Jeff Boss, Vermin Supreme, and Robby Wells.

Assuming that she decides to run in the primary, I think she will defeat all of them soundly, though I admit there a dark humorous side to me that would like to see a President named Vermin Supreme.

Obama gave the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention. You have a funny definition for "clobbered in delegates" and "unknown".

the MA gubernatorial race. He doesn't have a sense of the dynamic or the competing elements at play in either case. He also thinks that "clobbered" is a synonym for "hair-thin margin."

Go figure!

The margin was razor thin. Boo Hoo Charley does NOT have a mandate.

Had Falchuk not run, Coakley would have been governor elect.


I'm not going to wave the sexist card, but your definitions of 'failed miserably' 'clobbered' and 'numerous problems' stink on ice to me.

Here's what's ACCURATE:

"Charlie eaked out a win...." Charlie BARELY squaked by" and "Almost too close to call."

But hey, this is MA, where we've never elected a woman governor. They have to work ten times as hard to get one tenth the credit.

You need to work on your "thesis" there. It's bogus.

But you did. That's one of the oldest rhetorical gimmicks in the book.

Nothing sexist in my post. I was actually thinking of using Crist as an example, but he was a republican and he won the governorship. Coakley just stands out because she failed twice in a highly Democratic state when running for a high position with an open seat. I remember when she lost to Brown most people here felt she failed miserably. The fact that she is a woman isn't the issue.

Name all of the women elected to the corner office in years past, why don't you?

Yeah, no problem with sexism in MA, nothing to see here, move along.

Ask Shannon O'Brien--she'll tell ya.

Maybe in your world. In mine she almost got the same popular vote number, but Obama did manage to be ahead by 114 pledged delegates due to the caucus states. She won most if the big state primaries. Neither one had enough delegates to win the nomination out right, enter the super delegates. That's not "clobbering", that's barely eking a win.

not seeing that... "clobbered" by Obama? She got more votes and the contest was good for both.

I have no position whatsoever on the 2016 campaign and am likely not to have any for at least a year. I am not necessarily a big fan of Hillary Clinton.

But this is a despicable post. It is a clear attempt to poison the well, two years before an election which she has not yet announced as a candidate. In fact, nobody has.

Give it a rest, my friend.

Does Hillary Clinton have the charisma, sales ability, likeability, personality (or whatever that special "it" is) to fire up the Democratic base and close the deal in a national election?

Obama has "it", obviously. It is possible Hillary does to, but if so that hasn't been apparent.

I'm not pushing any other candidate and right now Hillary is the frontrunner for the nomination by a long shot. It is very important to ask questions about electability for all our candidates, whomever they may be.

BTW, if she wins the nomination I will fully support her candidacy.

In politics, there is no rest.

Enough said?

I hope so.

Let us not descend into permanent presidential campaign Hell.

Your OP reads almost word for word exactly what RP has said about Hillary. But, don't let that stop you from bashing her. Carry on.

No one could be THAT bad at campaigning!