The three big Hillary questions:

Out of all the people who support Hillary none of them have answered this one question: Name a single state Hillary will pick up that Gore or Kerry did not in a General Election.

Also, can Hillary ensure that she'll keep other states where the vote was relatively close?

All of the hoopla surrounding Hillary ignores the fact that, even if she won a Democratic Primary, she has only a chance slightly above nil to win in a General Election.

Also, how would Hillary fair against a Giuliani Republican Nominee? Both are New Yorkers, both are pretty much ideologically the same. A Hillary Nomination would galvanize the right, ostracize the left, and push the hard right out to vote for a Giuliani.

The three big questions:
1. Which state will Hillary pick up that Gore or Kerry could not?
2. Is it possible for Hillary to ensure that she won't lose other states that Gore or Kerry managed to get?
3. How would Hillary do up against a moderate to a left leaning Republican Nominee like Giuliani?

She's been "Teddied" -- turned into a surrogate of Teddy Kennedy. When he dies, she'll still have 20 years left ahead of her.

I think she's positioned herself as the national Republican wrecker. She's far from the caricature that the hard Right has painted her as being, and she can stymie nearly any non-psycho conservative politician in New York state. And she has succeeded in New York where "Joementum" has failed in Connecticut.

In fact, I don't know why we're not using her as a new kind of bogeyman to hold up to the conservatives -- "Look! Hillary is one of YOU!" (Add bwa-ha's ad lib.)

I am not convinced that Hillary will run, unless it is as an early "Jupiter Candidate". You know -- like the planet Jupiter, sweeping up all the debris that threatens to hit the Earth. A few months of Hillary as the early front-runner would burn out the Republican hate machine and allow Gore/Kerry/Feingold/Whoever a much clearer path. In other words, it would sweep up the Republican debris. (The beer-company approved football metaphor is "Running Interference".)

I understand that many, if not most, of us here consider ourselves to be beyond party politics. However, this is an opportunity use the party organization to destroy what will remain of the flying-monkey Right in 2008 -- if we're smart enough and audacious enough to seize the moment.

--p!

...then she'd have my respect.

However, I don't think she'll do that, unfortunately. If that is what she is doing, then certainly she has my support in that, but I honestly and sincerely think she has every intention of running for President, damn the consequences to the Party or the Country. (More or less the Ralph Nader of the Democratic Party.)

Of course, my opposition to her isn't simply based on the fact that she would ostracize the left. I'd vote for Mark Warner for President, even if he is to the ideological right of Hillary. I wouldn't be happy with it, and wouldn't support him in the Primaries, but I'd vote for him in the General Election. I just honestly don't think I could force myself to vote for Hillary. Maybe not even at gun point.

When you have that much power in a clubby organization like the US Senate, you use it as well as you can. Remember, she's not playing for our approval, she's playing for the approval of the voters of New York State, Democrats and Republicans alike. And there's an inordinately powerful entity called the Conservative Party of New York that has been a kingmaker there for some time.

So it makes the question of Hillary's political future kind of like the idea of figuring out where the electron is, and where it's going. According to physics, you can know one of those things, or the other, but not both.

I personally doubt that Hillary is going to turn into some kind of eeevil warmonger; she's already warmongered enough to establish her Defense bona fides. If anything, she is much more likely to re-affirm her liberal/progressive identity. But the moment she commits to a course of action, she'd better be sure she'll succeed at it, because she will have lost the advantage of making people try to predict what she'll do. Which leads me to suspect that an early presidential run would be to sweep away the flak, and that all this present-day talk of her running for President is itself a ploy of some kind. If she doesn't make a late presidential run, it won't happen. But if she can sweep away the political flak early in the campaign and emerge unbloodied, she will then become the second most powerful politician in the USA, whether the Democrat wins, or the Republican.

Sure, I could be wrong about all this. But the Clintons have been the most astute politicians we've had in America since the 1960s. I would indeed be surprised if she took such a powerful political advantage and just threw it away. If it's to her advantage to stay in the Senate, or even just to wait until 2012 or 2016, she will do it.

On the other hand, she sure knows how to stay in people's hearts and minds ...

;)

--p!

a lot lately. It's pretty obvious to me she's going to run.

And if alls you really want to do is retain a seat in New York a jump to the right sure isn't required.

Are our fellow Americans, many of whom have shown themselves to be racists, bigots and chauvinists, going to elect any woman at this point in time? Espcially, in the south, I think the answer is no. It disgusts me that gender, skin color, sexual orientation and a number of other non-issues continue to make otherwise qualified candidates unelectable, but to believe otherwise would be to choose not to live in the Reality Based Community (tm).

That said, I haven't liked the newer, more pandering Hillary, but even if she was the greatest thing since sliced bread, she lacks the dangly that she needs to be elected.

Femaphobia, homophobia, xenophobia........Man, we are a chickenshit and mentally ill nation. And childish, so childish. We want our big strong daddy man. (caveat, the we I speak of is the royal we, of which most on DU are not a part)

"Femaphobia, homophobia, xenophobia........Man, we are a chickenshit and mentally ill nation. And childish, so childish. We want our big strong daddy man."

It's the "Daddy" type of Government that I hate. I believe Government has five important roles:
1. To ensure the health of its citizens.
2. To protect its citizens from domestic and foreign threats.
3. To ensure that its citizens are educated and informed.
4. To ensure the personal freedom and liberty of its citizens.
5. To ensure a strong economy that will create jobs and economic prosperity.

Anything outside of those five roles is a government overstepping it's bounds. The first role is accomplished by ensuring affordable healthcare is available to all of it's citizens. The second is accomplished by having adequate police, firemen, emergency workers and a military. The third is accomplished through public schools and fairness in the media, the forth is accomplished by upholding the constitution, and the fifth is accomplished by spending tax dollars wisely and creating economic incentives to keep companies from moving overseas and for new companies to develop and grow.

Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party seem to want to ignore most if not all of those roles.

So how is Russ Feingold going to pick up a state that Kerry and Gore could not?

"All of the hoopla surrounding Hillary ignores the fact that, even if she won a Democratic Primary, she has only a chance slightly above nil to win in a General Election."
Sez you, based entirely on moonshine and buttercups.

But then you think that the right wing will vote for Giuliani. Nuff said.

You know as well as I do that Hillary is a polarizing candidate for the Democratic Party. She is loathed both on the left and on the right. You also know just as well as I do, that she has no hope in winning in a general election.

I don't care who we pick, as long as it isn't Hillary. Go with Mark Warner if you *HAVE* to, but I'd much prefer Feingold, Kerry or Gore. I am ABH (Anybody But Hillary), and so is anyone else who actually wants to have a Democratic Presidency. (And those of us on the left have even more to fear from Hillary than her failing to get elected: If hell manages to freeze over and she is actually elected we will be marginalized, and once again spend the next 15 to 20 years at the back of the party bus. No thanks, I'm sick of riding in the back of the bus.)

Under Mrs. Clinton ( I giver her respect, she is a former first lady & a damn good one at that!) I Feel if she were to run Which she isn't (at least in 08) She would put us at the front of the bus.

...she isn't planning to run in 08? I've only seen evidence to the contrary. PM me if you can't post it on the open forum.

Until I see some type of evidence showing that she plans to do otherwise, then I am going to have to assume that is exactly what she intends to do. (To the detriment of the party and the country.)

:)

:thumbsup:

Gotta say, with every silly mewling thread by the Hillary-haters, she looks better and better to me.

"we will be marginalized"
Hell, the far left is marginalized now...and nothing but an encumbrance to the Democratic party.

March 2006 Quinnipiac:

"Giuliani slams Clinton in New Jersey 53 to 39 percent and McCain wallops her by 54 to 39 percent in the Quinnipiac University poll.

The poll could fuel Democratic doubts about Clinton because Democrats have been winning there. In his losing 2004 bid, John Kerry comfortably beat President Bush in New Jersey 53 to 46 percent.

Clinton gets clobbered despite the fact Bush is now very unpopular in New Jersey, with 65 percent of Garden Staters turning thumbs-down on the president.

Both McCain and Giuliani beat Clinton among women as well as men but she's weakest with men, losing to McCain by nearly 2-1 among men.

The March 8-14 poll surveyed 1,147 registered voters and has a 2.9-point error margin."

...is not just ahead of the others, she's WAY ahead. She makes mistakes, says silly things, supports the war, panders to the right...all good reasons to be against her. Yet, it doesn't have much effect on her numbers and her war chest keeps growing.

To understand Hillary's popularity, you have to look beyond the borders of the U.S.A. and our issues. George Bush has destroyed us. Our reputation as a country is in the toilet. Yet, the Clintons are loved, respected and trusted all over the world. They have international credibility, which might be the only credibility we have. If you think that people don't care how the rest of the world views us...you're wrong. People care...people who travel care, business people who operate internationally care, intelligent republicans care...I bet Rupert Murdock cares. Americans don't like being hated, being thought of as stupid and pathetic. Americans have huge egos, they want to live in the greatest country on the planet. We "elected" George Bush not once but TWICE. Do you think the world is going to trust us with our next selection even if it's a democrat? The world does not trust us...they trust the Clintons. Hillary can restore our standing and respect in the world.

Hillary's political capital is to be spent on Hillary period.

I don't trust Hillary. But you are correct: the nomination has been awarded to Hillary, the Dem. insiders ($$$) and the corporate media.

None of them care about what is happening to the middle class.

1) How about we wait til primary season to hash this out and focus on the 2006 elections?
2) Why the incessant urge to purge Hillary?
3) Who gives a crap?

For a race she couldn't loose if she clubbed a baby seal to death on live television while snorting cocaine off a burning American flag.

Her seat is a safe seat - - doubly so because there is no credible Republican to run against her. What does she need to keep raising all that money for? Almost certainly for the same reason John Kerry needed to raise all that money to run for re-election in 2002, even though his seat was in no danger either. Potential Presidential candidates raise obscene amounts of money during re-election campaigns because they can roll it over into a Presidential campaign.

If you have a strong feelings about who should be our 2008 nominee - - whether those feelings are positive or negative - - 2008 is too late to start voicing them.

and the far left has nothing to offer but hate.

(especially being an Al Gore devotee myself) that I cringe when I hear Democrats talk about "stopping" other Democrats simply because they perceive their success as threatening. That is so not democratic nor is it Democratic.

Short of swift-boating HRC with stories about her clubbing a baby seal to death while snorting cocaine off a burning American flag, I would like to think one would instead choose to work their ass off for their candidate of choice.

You are echoing the puerile ravings of a handful of people that are nowhere in the ballpark of democratic. I say let the voters sort it out and leave the Democrat-bashing to the Republicans.

Many times....

1. Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa..good possibility of Florida, and a chance in Ohio and Arizona.
2. Hillary will win (if she is the nominee), all of the states carried by Kerry.
3. There isn't a chance in hell Guiliani is going to get the nod, but if he did it would be a tough race, no matter who the nominee is, but I believe Guilian is a one trick pony (911), and once he is forced to talk about other issues his true nature will come out.

I know the "I live in {fill in the blank} and everyone I know here hates Hillary" posts are forthcoming...all useless anecdotes, as are mine in which I know and run into many Democrats where I live who would be very happy if Hillary ran!!

1) There's a possibility she'd pick up all of them, there's a possibility she'd pick up some, and there's a possibility she'd pick up none.

2) There isn't the possibility ANY DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE could ensure that. If there is, name him or her.

3) She'd clobber Giuliani, that's how. The repukes would never run him if they thought Hillary was going to be the Dem nominee.