2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIt's not her style to own a smear while she helps advance it.
Is Barack Obama a Christian? "As far as I know" Hillary replied.
That is her style. So while others in 2008 portrayed Obama as somehow alien and not American enough to be President, while literally disputing his self professed faith - no Hillary didn't go there - not exactly. But did she accept Obama's own word on his own faith, well no - not exactly. As far as Hillary knew Obama was a Christian but, you know, there just might be some other information out there that she didn't know about yet that could prove he was a secret Muslim. Feel free to look into it further if you want to, maybe Google "Obama Secret Muslim" for leads, but as far as Hilary knew just then, Obama was Christian. Other opinions may differ, but Hillary wasn't the one who flat out called him Muslim. Nope, not her style.
Is Bernie Sanders qualified to be President? Hillary couldn't even bring herself to say "As far as I know" this time when she was asked that question directly. Let the voters decide, she opined, but he's been talking for more than a year about doing things that he obviously hadn't really studied or understood, and that raises a lot of questions".
Questions about what? About whether Sanders is qualified to be President one has to imply because that is what she was asked to comment on. But did Hillary flat out call Bernie unqualified to be President? Nope, not her style.
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are both running to be the Democratic candidate for President. In so doing Sanders officially declared himself to be a Democrat, and he affirms that he is a Democrat now to anyone when asked. So is Bernie Sanders a Democrat? There's that nagging doubt again. Hillary just doesn't know:
Hes a relatively new Democrat, Clinton said. Im not even sure he is one. He's running as one. So I don't know quite how to characterize him. I'll leave that to him.
God forbid she take him at his word, or even accept the legal filings that now certify Sanders as a Democrat. Nope that's not her style, at least not when she thinks she can gain votes by sowing doubt. Of course if she thinks there might be votes to gain, she takes a different tack, like she did here:
Clinton to campaign for Crist
09/22/14 07:56 PM EDT
Hillary Clinton will headline a fundraising dinner for Florida Democratic gubernatorial Charlie Crist next month, putting her in a key presidential state in the midterms battle, according to an invitation.
Crist, a Republican turned Democrat running for his old job, is in one of the toughest gubernatorial races in the country.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-charlie-crist-campaign-florida-111229
Maybe Hillary was somehow unclear about Crist's full throttle Republican past when she fully embraced him as a Democrat. But then what about Arlan Specter, who Hillary Clinton served with in the United States Senate for eight years; she in the Democratic Caucus (alongside Bernie Sanders for part of that time), he in the Republican Caucus. Then one day in 2009 Specter declared himself a Democrat instead, and the entire Democratic Party Hillary Clinton included, rushed to embrace him as a Democrat with arms fully extended. One thing you did not hear Hillary Clinton say when Specter sought reelection to the Senate as a Democrat in 2011 was anything remotely akin to: Hes a relatively new Democrat. Im not even sure he is one. He's running as one. So I don't know quite how to characterize him. I'll leave that to him. No, that would not have served her interests, so that would not have been her style.
On the very night when Clinton suffered an electoral setback in Wisconsin, CNN broke with an anonymously sourced CNN report claiming her campaign was planning to "disqualify him, defeat him. Now that is more Hilary's style, no one heard her say that. No one heard Hillary repudiate that report either. True, Hillary Clinton did not technically call Bernie Sanders unqualified to be President, but she persistently refused to shoot down that meme after her own campaign injected the belief that Sanders will soon be disqualified into the political discussion. She didn't technically say it but that's what she wants people to believe.
Well, it's not Bernie's style to stand down before innuendos, or third party character assassins who ply their trade in acidic talking points from a Super PAC's short arms length away - to allow for plausible deniability. There is no real debate about who is literally qualified to be President, the United States Constitution settled that matter centuries ago, both Hillary and Bernie are qualified. The debate is over who Americans should entrust with that high position, and why. That is what this rhetorical argument is about except that Hillary, as usual, is being circumspect while Bernie, as usual, is straight forward.
It was Hillary Clinton who started on this path of playing with political fire. Even after that anonymously sourced CNN report became public she could easily have snuffed out almost all the resulting flames by simply answering that fellow Democrat Bernie Sanders, who millions of Democrats have supported over her, was indeed qualified to be President. That is not a significant point for Hillary to concede while reserving the right to argue that she is the more qualified of the two. But no, that's not her style. She somehow couldn't bring herself to say that, and so she invited this fire storm upon us.
Bernie now is cutting to the heart of the matter, he's not artfully hiding behind technicalities. The latter is the Clinton brand, not his. If Hillary wants to go beyond the constitutional requirements and debate what it takes for someone to qualify as a good President for the United States, the response Sanders gave her was 100% fair game.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)FlatBaroque
(3,160 posts)pdsimdars
(6,007 posts)TCJ70
(4,387 posts)...she never says anything straight forward. She has others to go on TV and say it for her. That way she can stay "above" it.
bbgrunt
(5,281 posts)Have you ever used that word to refer to a man?
I thought we had moved beyond this level of sexism.
pdsimdars
(6,007 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)while he sulks in Vermont.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)How long before he starts talking about indictments and the Clenis?
Armstead
(47,803 posts)I hope he stays with his natural instincts to stay on the high road, and leans more towards the approach of Obama 2008 than Clinton 2008
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)He may want to back off, Weaver wants this to be their closing argument. There is a lot at stake.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)In any event it's sure going to make for an, er, interesting debate on the 14th.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,917 posts)Hillary would still beat Trump, though if it's Ryan all bets are off. In my opinion, as expressed, Hillary brought this down on herself - she was being too cute by half, and THAT is what the electorate is sick and tired of. If Hillary plays her cards well from now on out, she will get Sanders to actively support her if she wins the nomination. A TV ad won't negate that. George Herbert Walker Bush called out Reagan's "Voo Doo economics and they ended up winning on a ticket together.
The danger is that cynical gamesmanship in politics may turn off several generations from the Democratic Party.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Tom Rinaldo
(22,917 posts)But Hillary's camp tied the word "disqualify to Sanders first - and then when she was given a chance to draw a safe line regarding that during her interview on Morning Jo - she was given THREE separate chances to state that Sanders was qualified to be President before moving on to be critical of him - she refused to do so every time.
The Clinton team escalated big time negative and signaled that there would be more of the same coming up. The Sanders campaign had to hit back hard. Whether they could have done so in some slightly more preferable way and still countered effectively, maybe. But they didn't start this round.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)that draws the foul or penalty flag.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,917 posts)But sometimes it's worth taking that foul or penalty flag for the overall flow of the game leading toward its ultimate outcome
fun n serious
(4,451 posts)He has been running negative for a long while now. He switches things around to make it look like he is the victim. It's a pattern of his.
polly7
(20,582 posts)GOOD for him for fighting back against the slime (finally, imo).
Uncle Joe
(58,459 posts)A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies. Alfred Lord Tennyson
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alfredlord118209.html
Thanks for the thread, Tom Rinaldo.
Bread and Circus
(9,454 posts)Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)The quibbling little bullshit they play of, oh she didn't say exactly those words herself -- isn't fooling anyone. Well yes, in fact she did, I'm sure she said exactly those words herself.
Where do we think that anonymous source on CNN came from, hmm? Well now, since Hilly didn't deny it, that means it came from HER. I don't think any of us believes the queen would put up with some underling speaking out of turn, without a directive from her. Wow, that was so hard to figure out!
This is why no one blieves her. She thinks she is so clever that she is fooling us with all of this crap, when in fact everyone sees right through it. Just stop, Hilly, you're embarrassing yourself, and boring us to distraction.
Damn, buy a new schtick. And a new personality.
me b zola
(19,053 posts)...expect to get rope-a-doped.
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)Tom Rinaldo
(22,917 posts)Clinton keeps brushing up against the line where a discussion about real tragedy crosses over into political exploitation. It hasn't reached the point of Rudy and 9/11, but the fact that that comparison even occurred to me is troubling.
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)It's related to what you said in the excellent original post, her surrogates do it. Hillary keeps a plausible deniability. She has a lot of high profile hatchet wielders and attack dogs. That's part of the institutional advantage she has by being the establishment. She has the corporate media on her side.
Media was reporting it like this:
Link
And there were quotes from Clinton campaign sources saying they were getting ready to go that direction. And the media was running with that. That was the clear message they were sending, and Hillary stoked that fire when she was on Morning Joe.
Bernie was responding to their message. And was right that was their message. The Clinton campaign did the same thing to Obama in 2008. They tried to paint him as a foreigner and they said he was not qualified.
Bernie had to respond in a very strong way and I really think he was angry after Hillary's allies tried to pin Sandy Hook on him. That was a very low blow.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,917 posts)Maybe it is a result of all those years of Republican attacks, when I feel charitable sometimes I think so, but Hillary has developed a style that often filters out spontaneity and authenticity, her words too frequently are carefully crafted - both targeted and armored at the same time. After defending herself for so long against the Republican attack machine I think she's also been desensitized to how some more watered down versions of negative politics messaging has seeped into her own campaign style. It probably seems mild to her - just some selective editing of reality or whatever, but it stands out like a sore thumb, particularly to many younger votes.
azmom
(5,208 posts)The political anthesis of Bernie.
Yurovsky
(2,064 posts)she comes off as the kind that would call the pound if your dog was in her yard...
FourScore
(9,704 posts)slipslidingaway
(21,210 posts)DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)I detest people that bully others, and then hide behind something or someone good, using that good entity as both a cudgel and a shield. For the discerning, I just described about half of Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Yurovsky
(2,064 posts)that was the most disturbing gun violence tragedy in recent memory. But it didn't stop her from trying to score cheap political points on it.
Thoroughly disgusting, but sadly it's what I'm coming to expect.
pdsimdars
(6,007 posts)But they are only playing to themselves and the clever inside the beltway crowd. Most working Americans with 2 jobs just to make ends meet, don't really quibble with those cutsie nuances. They know that's what she was putting out and they know that SHE is the liar. That is why her "trustworthy" rating is at the bottom and Bernie's is at the top.
The American voters aren't buying her cutsie little games.
So, in conclusion, PROCEED !
Mike__M
(1,052 posts)with her "shouting" bullshit the day after the first debate. The rest is all too predictable.
On the bright side, watching the contortions of her jot-and-tittle legalistic defenders here on DU is more fun than the Star Wars Christmas Special set on endless loop. Maybe Hillary will sing a song at the end!
slipslidingaway
(21,210 posts)why not?
The Clinton campaign began their strategy of disqualify and defeat, which is exactly what Jeff Zeleny repoted, but once Sanders fought back they decided to hide and say 'we never said that.'
And CNN pretends appears to have totally forgotten that report.
Published on Apr 6, 2016
AUDIO: "The Clinton Campaign has been watching these Wisconsin results come in and the delegate race of course is tight there, but the reality is they're running out of patience . so they're going to begin deploying a new strategy it's going to be called 'DISQUALIFY HIM - DEFEAT HIM' and then they can unify the party later.
For the last several months, the Clinton Campaign has been first ignoring Bernie Sanders, then dismissing him -- now they are going to go head-long into him, I'm told, beginning here in the New York Primary in two weeks on his gun record, on other things. So Party-unity aside for now, one aide told me that will come later. They're going to start trying and defeating Bernie Sanders so that scenario you saw play out there on John's wall, does not come true. The Clinton Campaign is running out of patience. They want to stop Bernie Sanders, and move on to the Fall Campaign."