Tweety pushes Hillary for Prez, but Maureen Dowd has doubts

So did anybody watch Hardball last night? Tweety interviewed Maureen Dowd, who was promoting her deliberately controversial book "Are Men Necessary?" Tweety immediately plunged into the question of Hillary's viability for the Presidency in '08, painting her candidacy as a done deal-- as we have seen so many conservative pundits do in recent months. (Whenever the Right is promoting a 'liberal' candidate so relentlessly, you have to ask WHY?)

Maureen responded that women often view female candidates negatively. She argues in her book that many women are put off by women in power, just as men are often put off by women in power--citing the case of Geraldine Ferraro. And therefore she doubts that Hillary will be the candidate.

I'm NOT proposing to discuss here again whether Hillary is or is not a viable candidate, or whether a woman could win. It's much too early in the game to single out anyone and we have several potential Dem candidates at this point in addition to Hillary. I'm interested in WHY Hillary is being so heavily promoted by the Right at this point --3 years before the election? It smacks of Repuglican scare tactics, the worst possible scenario for the fundy/neocon base being a Hillary presidency (with the underlying threat of two Clintons back in White House, the real bottom line). Ironically the Repugs seem to be USING this ingrained fear of a woman president (which crosses party lines)--and fear of the dreaded Hillary in particular--to shore up their crumbling empire.

SO WHAT CAN WE DO? ...to poke holes in this scary "Hillary IS THE Candidate" kool-aid that the Repuglican snake oil sellers are so relentlessly shoving down our throats? How can we squelch this while not making Hillary any more of a punching bag than she already is? The RW spin machine obviously thinks they've got the Dems in a Catch-22. Comments?

Let them froth at the mouth over Hillary. When we nominate someone else it will catch them completely off guard.

will waste in trashing her, only to have us nominate someone totally not on the radar?

:rofl:

I know they are capable of it, and if they really want her as our candidate, well . . . .

esp since primaries are much smaller elections it might be relatively easy to pull off. :scared:

yeah the way they've been shooting themselves in the foot lately, maybe we don't have to angst over Hillary being set up for swiftboating in '08. It won't happen as the Dems aren't that stupid. (Nobody can froth at the mouth better than Tweety).

But what I'm worried about is... can they USE Hillary Fear and Loathing (and Bill Clinton fear implied) to consolidate the base for a big push in '06? They are obviously using this in anticipation of '06. That's my worry--what does it mean NOW?

They've been trying to tear her & her husband down since 1992. That is the best advantage that she has over other Dems (except Kerry & Gore) in that she's already been through the meatgrinder...

If it's a "done deal," Rove can devote all of his time and energy to a Hillary Swift Boat campaign and have it ready to roll out the minute her candidacy is announced.

So yeah, let that fat sack of pig excrement drool over the prospect of performing a character assassination on Ms. Clinton. It keeps him from devoting his time and energy to other things.

yesterday afternoon as i was walking over to TEB I went through University Square--some people were playing drums and reading off all the names of the dead troops--one by one-with a slow hollow drum beat following each one. I listened till my toes got cold (it was cold and windy there---guess my sacrifice was not much).
Then later I took the bus home. It goes around the Capitol square-it was dark. But I looked out over Martin Luther King Blvd and there was a Candlelight vigil going on so I got off the bus and someone handed me a candle. The vigil was for the fallen troops. Beautiful.
I was reminded how wonderful it is to live in Madison.

that they have plenty of ammunition to shoot her with. They will vomit ALL their lies we heard in the 90's. They will have not just one film creaming her - they will have a dozen.

She is a perfect target. And they are desperate to control the Houses so that they may have perpetual war, perpetual profits for a few, and a way to hang on to their insane born-agains. They are hell bent on a theocratic, imperialistic, war mongering, slavery existence - shoved in our face by their privatized vote ownership.

when the time comes.

in 04.

I wonder if this is the same thing.

....are those inside the beltway. We in the REAL world know better. Hillary doesn't have a ghost of a chance.

I think Hillary is creepy. Always have. I'd vote for her if I had too, but I will not vote for her in the primary, even if she tells me exactly what I want to hear. Period.

over a Hilary run -- ratings for MSM with all the vicious gossipy stories and easy win for rethugs - McCain is saying she would be "formidable" candidate lying through his teeth hoping he runs against her, Babs Sr. says similar things - along with Tweety and the rest of the crowd. All sure signs they want the attention she will draw - and won't have to cover any actual issues. I REALLY hope she takes a pass, but I suspect she is driven enough to go for it and fracture our party just as we are gaining steam.

And Dowd's had the same hardon for both Clintons. Set-up?

Many of my acquaintences are gun-totin', hard-conservative, Cajun red-neck men. (who, incidentally, like debating politics with me, call me their liberal kook, and would give me the shirt off their backs), but the word "Hillary" turns them livid and positively hateful. It is like raising a red flag in front of a bull...they have no rational reason for hating her so much, but that very word invokes being under "female-liberal domination" (or some such silly idea) to them. Every time we discuss any political issue at all, Hillary's name comes up. Now, personally, I would love to have Hillary for Pres, but there is no moderate repuke in the South who will vote for her. I never know what to say when they start kidding me about "Hillary" as president. How in the world to answer their blind hatred? "Hillary" and "Democrats" mean the same thing to them. I have started talking about Mark Warner a lot to them, and some of them grudgingly agree that he is a "pretty reasonable" alternative. All of that being said, I know that Fox and every other RW organization that feeds them their talking points is using Hillary to keep moderate repukes from "crossing lines" and voting for an alternative to the corrupt/insane RWers. (The only reason I would love to see a Hillary/Condi match-up is to watch them go ape-shit and watch their heads explode. They will not vote for a woman, and they will not vote for an African American....ooooh, the quandry!)

you underline what appears to be the case--that RW spin doctors are using this irrational Hillary Hate to scare people away from voting Democratic in '06 and '08. "Hillary (the Destroyer)" in reality is a mass-marketed abstract notion, but people often vote based on simplistic characterizations that reach mythical proportions. This has nothing to do with whether a woman could/should be president and EVRYTHING to do with whether a DEMOCRAT will be president.

I think this idea of Hillary as the candidate in 2008 is being used to consolidate the base --so what you are doing--ie. actively promoting alternatives such as Warner RIGHT NOW makes sense to me. We may need to talk up Democratic candidates earlier than we might otherwise. Congratulations on getting an admission that Warner could be a 'reasonable alternative.'

It's the Republican's "Please-Don't-Throw-Me-In-That-Briar-Patch" ploy. That is exactly what it is. They are trying to choose our candidate (Hillary) for us, because they already know how she will be smeared. Please...please...please..nominate Hillary (they say). They KNOW Hillary CAN'T carry the "macho" vote that is supposedly the foundation of the Republican party.

It is just their same ol' over-used, deceptive tactics....as though no one will notice.

...and they are relying on the Democrats to fall for it.