"Sources": "Alarmed" Bill Clinton, yelling at Mark Penn, to aid Hillary's campaign

NY Daily News: Bill Clinton to aid Hillary's campaign
BY KENNETH R. BAZINET and THOMAS M. DeFRANK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Wednesday, December 12th 2007

WASHINGTON - Bubba to the rescue!

Alarmed by his wife's slide in the polls and disarray within her backbiting campaign, a beside-himself Bill Clinton has leaped atop the barricades and is furiously plotting a cure - or coup. "She's in big trouble and he knows it," a top Democratic operative and Hillary Clinton booster told the Daily News.

Sources familiar with the ex-President's thinking say he doesn't believe his wife's situation is desperate. But he's unhappy with her operation - once hailed as a juggernaut - and concerned she could lose the Democratic nomination without major alterations in strategy and staffing. Bill Clinton is mulling "a lot of different ideas and a lot of different scenarios to fix this," an official who regularly speaks with him said. "He will come up with literally dozens of ideas. The trick will be to figure out the most important one or two to get her out of this downtrend."

Another Democrat with close connections to the Clinton campaign describes Bill Clinton as "very engaged and very agitated. He's yelling at (chief strategist) Mark Penn a lot." Penn laughed off the idea that he's on the hot seat. "That's funny," he said. "I've been working with Bill Clinton through thick and thin for 10 years, exchanging views." A source close to the former First Couple criticized recent campaign ads as lacking focus, faulting Penn the most for failing to fine-tune the message: "The key problem is not the spots, but what they're saying."

Sources close to the former President say he and the candidate are talking constantly but sharing very little of what they're discussing with subordinates. Several other Hillary Clinton partisans, however, aren't so shy about critiquing the performance of her campaign - and predict a major staff purge is inevitable....

***

Campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle is the biggest target, sources said. She recently took over personal command of the Iowa operation, and a Clinton defeat there could damage her future. As Barack Obama has steadily narrowed Hillary Clinton's once-impregnable lead, friction inside her headquarters has flared. One post-Thanksgiving meeting erupted into finger-pointing over the loss of her advantage. "They all want to kill each other," said a source aware of the closed-door meeting. The backstabbing involves several high-level people in the campaign, including Penn, Mandy Grunwald, Ann Lewis and Howard Wolfson, sources said....

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2007/12/12/2007-12-12_bill_clinton_to_aid_hillarys_campaign.html

Battle of the Deuling Swelled Heads, sounds like.

You all KNEW Bill Clinton wouldn't be able to keep himself out of this. Just like he wouldn't allow Hillary to forge her own Presidency.

"In '06, with Penn at the helm, the company gave 57% of Campaign Contrib to GOP"



Polling Czar



After the 1994 election, Democrats had just lost both houses of Congress, and President Clinton was floundering in the polls. At the urging of his wife, he turned to Dick Morris, a friend from their time in Arkansas. Morris brought in two pollsters from New York, Doug Schoen and his partner, Mark Penn, a portly, combative workaholic. Morris decided what to poll and Penn polled it. They immediately pushed Clinton to the right, enacting the now-infamous strategy of "triangulation," which co-opted Republican policies like welfare reform and tax cuts and emphasized small-bore issues that supposedly cut across the ideological divide. "They were the ones who said, 'Make the '96 election about nothing except V-chips and school uniforms,'" says a former adviser to Bill. When Morris got caught with a call girl, Penn became the most important adviser in Clinton's second term. "In a White House where polling is virtually a religion," the Washington Post reported in 1996, "Penn is the high priest."

Penn, who had previously worked in the business world for companies like Texaco and Eli Lilly, brought his corporate ideology to the White House. After moving to Washington he aggressively expanded his polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland (PSB). It was said that Penn was the only person who could get Bill Clinton and Bill Gates on the same line. Penn's largest client was Microsoft, and he saw no contradiction between working for both the plaintiff and the defense in what was at the time the country's largest antitrust case. A variety of controversial clients enlisted PSB. The firm defended Procter & Gamble's Olestra from charges that the food additive caused anal leakage, blamed Texaco's bankruptcy on greedy jurors and market-tested genetically modified foods for Monsanto. PSB introduced to consulting the concept of "inoculation": shielding corporations from scandal through clever advertising and marketing.

In 2000 Penn became the chief architect of Hillary's Senate victory in New York, persuading her, in a rerun of '96, to eschew big themes and relentlessly focus on poll-tested pothole politics, such as suburban transit lines and dairy farming upstate. Following that election, Penn became a very rich man--and an even more valued commodity in the business world (Hillary paid him $1 million for her re-election campaign in '06 and $277,000 in the first quarter of this year). The massive PR empire WPP Group acquired Penn's polling firm for an undisclosed sum in 2001 and four years later named him worldwide CEO of one of its most prized properties, the PR firm Burson-Marsteller (B-M). A key player in the decision to hire Penn was Howard Paster, President Clinton's chief lobbyist to Capitol Hill and an influential presence inside WPP. "Clients of stature come to Mark constantly for counsel," says Paster, who informally advises Hillary, explaining the hire. The press release announcing Penn's promotion noted his work "developing and implementing deregulation informational programs for the electric utilities industry and in the financial services sector." The release blithely ignored how utility deregulation contributed to the California electricity crisis manipulated by Enron and the blackout of 2003, which darkened much of the Northeast and upper Midwest.

Burson-Marsteller is hardly a natural fit for a prominent Democrat. The firm has represented everyone from the Argentine military junta to Union Carbide after the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, in which thousands were killed when toxic fumes were released by one of its plants, to Royal Dutch Shell, which has been accused of colluding with the Nigerian government in committing major human rights violations. B-M pioneered the use of pseudo-grassroots front groups, known as "astroturfing," to wage stealth corporate attacks against environmental and consumer groups. It set up the National Smokers Alliance on behalf of Philip Morris to fight tobacco regulation in the early 1990s. Its current clients include major players in the finance, pharmaceutical and energy industries. In 2006, with Penn at the helm, the company gave 57 percent of its campaign contributions to Republican candidates.

-snip
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070604/berman


I HEARD HANNITY CLIP ON STEPHANIE MILLER SAYING THEY NEED HILLARY TO GET BACK THE WH. JUST SAYING.....

While many of the things Hilary Clinton is so well practiced at are viable in the leadership skills necessary to be a president, she is also vehemently loathed by most Republicans, many insecure men, and lots of traditional women. The potential for the Democrats to win the presidency and other important positions is very very good, especially after years of what the Republicans have done to take the position to absolutely new lows. I think even many Republicans would vote for a good Democratic leader if given the choice between Romney, Guliani, or Edwards and Obama.

Unfortunately, if the Democrats choose Hilary Clinton as their candidate, they'll in effect guarantee that Republicans will rally to vote against her, as will some Democrats and many independents. Even if she manages to win the election her personality and history will further polarize the whole Washington scene and the gridlock we've had for the last 20 years will only escalate. She is so vulnerable to whatever opinions and polls tell her to do that she'll be virtually paralyzed by trying to please everyone. In the end, she'll please no one.

I lost so much respect for Hilary Clinton while Bill was in his second term. It wasn't because of his shenanigans and the foolish way he took his role as the President of the United States so casually, but for her lack of forthright condemnation of his actions. One can still love and support their loved one even when they do something stupid, but she in essence took American women back 50 years by assisting him in denying, covering up, and minimizing the act(s) that he committed. She enabled him, not just then, but possibly throughout their marriage by not making him accept responsibility for what he did. It is that lack of consequences that he understood as "license" to continue to fool around, to see his acts as so easy to dismiss. They stood and lied together to the American people.

Her choice to not oppose the war, to give George Bush the money and support to start this war, to continue to fund it, and to never apologize or recognize her part in this mess is another reflection of her willingness to enable the very demons that we are all fighting to expel now. By not holding strong to the values that she should have represented as a Democrat and as an American, she in essence agrees with this war, if not by action, then by sins of omission.

In the past I've never been very interested in Politics. I always considered anyone who had risen through the ranks to be dirty, probably a corrupt player, and hardly worth giving my time or attention to. As our nation has reeled in the wake of Bush and his war and the horrible infringements on the Constitutional rights, the economical fiasco, and the heartbreaking loss of many of our best young people in Iraq I HAD to decide to care.

Three years ago I saw Barack Obama on some television interview, and then read more and more about him. I decided to do more research and inform myself so that if I chose to support someone, it was with all the information, all the history, and a balanced perspective into that persons choices. I did not choose to back him based on his appearance, his charisma, his popularity, or his rhetoric. I chose based on his leadership skills, his integrity, his compassion for the American people, and his intellect.

I had the good fortune to attend an event in Las Vegas and even to shake Barack Obama's hand. All the giddy little girl excitement was palpable as he approached, but it soon gave way to the deep respect and admiration for this Senator's strength, his commitment to stay on target of his purpose to lead our country.

After reading "Audacity of Hope" and his auto-biography "Dreams From My Father" I was even more interested in learning about the political endeavors of Barack Obama. His website provides some very clear and interesting points and is easy to read. For anyone curious about him I highly recommend browsing it.

Barack Obama not only opposed this "Dumb war" from the beginning, but he's been active and direct in his efforts to help us get out. He has encouraged his fellow Senators and political peers to engage in diplomacy, in holding George Bush accountable, and in doing all possible to stop and exit this terrible situation. He has not enabled, will not ignore or pacify, and is willing to strongly initiate and support the laws and political moves necessary to get us out. I'm so very proud of him. I hope others will see that his judgment, his strength of character, and his deep commitment to doing what's right whether it makes him popular or not is far more important than opinion polls.

Which I think would be a good thread of its own. I will take what you said a step further. I the politics of the 1990s, the politics of Bill and Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush, has failed us. It's apparent to nearly the entire country. It's the reason why Huckabee has shot to the lead in the Republican process. And it's the reason why people are wavering in the support of Clinton on the Democratic side. The Clinton campaign is based on this presumption, "We know you can't stand us, but we really have to win, so put your feelings aside and vote for me for the good of the country."

That probably would've worked in 2004. If she had run then, she may well have won. But she didn't. And in 2008, after torture that was enabled by leading Democrats and concocted by leading Republicans; after senior White House staffers are facing jail time; and the list goes on. After all that, there's a mood in the country for change. The first step is to ask what caused this? It's obvious, the politics of BS. The politics that put the big issues aside and focus on truly irrelevant issues like the V-Chip. A politics that started in 1996 at the behest of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Mark Penn. A politics that was later perfected by Karl Rove. And a politics that is currently being practiced by Hillary.

If we accept the politics of yesterday, then we accept the fact that politicians aren't going to give us a straight answer. We accept the fact that instead of talking about the future, and how to make things better, that our leaders will be talking about past "dirt" like kindergarten essays and the schools a person went to when they were 7 instead of talking about the real issues, like Iran. And we accept the fact that our leaders will never tell us that they made a mistake, and do the most Christian of things when they are wrong: ask for forgiveness/apologize.

In this moment, Hillary Clinton is exactly the wrong person to lead. Despite the best efforts of the Bush/Clinton dynasty, more still unites us than divides us. A leader like Bill Richardson, or Barack Obama, has the ability to talk to all sides, and bring us together to further the cause of our democracy, and of peace and freedom in the world. That is what is needed, and Democrats in the early states are waking up to that fact. I am happy about it, and pray that they will make the right choice next month.

Thanks so much for the compliments. I've been on DU for a while and no matter what good or flaming or exciting title I give my posts, they go right into oblivion the moment they're up. Sooo, I latch onto the others like a barnacle to a passing ship and in some parasitically gratifying way, get my two cents in.

I too believe that if the Dem's are pressured to choose Hillary, they'll in effect split the vote so bitterly that the chances for the Repugs would increase to a very very dangerous level. Like you, if we choose Obama,Edwards, or Richardson, or even some of the others we have a much better chance of gleaning not only a majority of the Democrats but even a good share of the Republicans who can't help but be disillusioned and disappointed in the desperately stupid choices they have in candidates.

Perhaps it's something that comes with experience and personal knowledge of certain authority figures but I and many others get a very strong instinctual feeling that Hillary is very calculating, very deceitful, and overall, untrustworthy. I do believe she has good intentions toward the American people but I also believe she would sell her soul to get what she wants and in essence, has done so with her campaign financial history and the corporate crooks that buy such politicians. I don't think it's a sign of some fear of a woman leader, but a mistrust of a dishonest leader that repels me so much from Hillary.

maybe people don't read long posts as much?

I think so many of the internet trawlers have the attention span of a flea. They'll read the headline and if it doesn't confirm what they already believe or have a sexual innuendo in the title, it gets passed by. I should preface all my posts with BOOBS. I could come up with a cure for cancer, recipe for cold fusion, or plan for world peace and if it didn't have BOOBS in the title, it would disappear into the fray faster than one of Mitt Romney's convenient platitudes. Thanks for the compliments though. I'll keep writing and rambling and eventually I'll learn what works.

for example, I have a brief amount of time per visit so sometimes I bookmark for later reading

You are a gifted writer. Although I don't care that Hillary Clinton enabled Bill so much - he's a big boy, after all, and it's their marriage, I care about the decisions she made while they were in the WH, the impact she had on his decision-making, as well as her stupid, miscalculated vote for Kyl-Lieberman, and Iraq. I care that she seems to be almost as secretive and calulating as the current administration - I want a return to open government, by and for the people. She is as hated by the right as bush is on the left, although she really doesn't deserve that - it's fact. No one would get the vote out for the repugs like Hillary.

I like Obama for many of the same reasons you stated, I've read both of his books, I believe an administration led by him would be OPEN, and not run behind closed doors. He is intelligent enough to know what he doesn't know, and I believe he would fill his administration with the best people possible to get our country back as quickly as possible. In all honesty, there is one person I'd prefer, and that would be Joe Biden, but perhaps Obama will find a place for him in his administration.

Obama's history, and what he's chosen to do with his life, impress me. Instead of going for the money, he chose to help people, he chose public service over high-paying lawyer. His character and priorities impress me. Hopefully he will be the one who will remove the queen from her throne.

P.R. firm provides the "Big Lies" for.....

Texaco
Eli Lilly
Bill Gates-Microsoft
Procter & Gamble
Texaco
Monsanto
the Argentine military junta
Union Carbide
Royal Dutch Shell (& the Nigerian government)
Philip Morris/the National Smokers Alliance
electrical utilities industry (de-reg for Enron)
financial services sector

And more...

Add the Bush Junta to that client list. Penn & Schoen did a FALSE poll, saying that Hugo Chavez lost the '06 presidential election in 2006 (he won with 63% of the vote in a highly transparent election system), which was to be used as a ploy in another violent rightwing coup attempt. The poll would agitate the rightwing rioters and thugs, who would cry 'election fraud' (with no justification), then the military would be called in the take over the government (as in 2002). This plot may have been coordinated with rightwing paramilitary death squads in Colombia, with close ties to the Uribe government (Bush's pals), whose plot to assassinate Hugo Chavez had been recently exposed. The rightwing's presidential candidate felt obliged to publicly disavow this plot, probably because elements of it became known.

The Nation says that Burson-Marsteller (Penn-Schoen) "pioneered the use of pseudo-grassroots front groups, known as 'astroturfing,' to wage stealth corporate attacks against environmental and consumer groups." They mention these scumbags' creation of the National Smokers Alliance on behalf of Philip Morris. But I'm thinking of the rightwing student front groups in Venezuela in the recent referendum on a package of constitutional amendments that the Chavez government proposed to Venezuelan voters, which lost by a hair last week (50.7% to 49.3%), with the rightwing creating just enough confusion among the voters (with ads telling people the government was going to take 'children from their mothers'--i.e., the equal rights amendment that was proposed), to cut into Chavez's huge personal approval rating (72%), with 3 million voters abstaining on the proposed amendments.

The rightwing opposition (advised by Penn & Schoen) is so scurrilous in Venezuela (they are a lot like Bushites) that they had to change their image. So the student groups were created (recruited from Catholic colleges, strongholds of the rightwing and the privileged). These student groups staged non-violent and violent protests, including one in which they corralled a group of Chavista students in a building, wielding guns and threatening to lynch them. A U.S. Embassy memo was exposed just before the election, which basically threatened destabilization and coup, if the referendum--which also would have allowed Chavez to run again in 2012, and would have given him control of the central bank and stronger emergency powers--had won, and in which creation of the student front groups is mentioned.

Why the Chavistas would want Chavez to run again, and have more power, can be plainly seen in Donald Rumsfeld's op-ed in the Washington Post, the day before the referendum (12/1/07), virtually declaring war on Venezuela--threatening U.S military support of a coup, and economic warfare (with the Colombian "free trade" deal--not yet approved by Congress--as the opening shot).*

I'm not a "Beltway" person, just an ordinary American citizen. So I had never heard of Penn & Schoen before I became interested in the Bolivarian Revolution in South America, and read of their name associated with Bush Junta USAID-NED budgets--millions of our tax dollars being poured into rightwing political activity in Venezuela. (For instance, our tax dollars helped fund the recall election against Chavez in '04--which Chavez also easily won.) (Interesting, isn't it--how Chavez "the dictator," can be recalled in transparent elections, and how he can lose a constitutional referendum, despite his popularity, and how they put everything to a vote in Venezuela, even the constitution. Some "dictatorship." And was THAT a Penn & Schoen meme--that Chavez is a "dictator"?)

The American people--and, indeed, the people of the third world who are impoverished and brutalized by our corporate predators--need a champion. We need someone to stand up for "the little guy, the way some of our leaders in the past--such as FDR--have done. We need someone who HATES BIG BUSINESS, or, in any case, champions the rights and interests of the workers, the poor and the lower middle class--the MAJORITY--against the super-rich and their organized thieveries and oppression.

Hillary Clinton is not that person. Nor was Bill, who inflicted "free trade" (global corporate predation) upon us, and corporate news monopolies, and "welfare reform."

It is no wonder to me that Edwards and Obama are making headway against H. Clinton, since she does not represent the majority, and cannot even project hope, the way Bill could, false as it was, for the poor and middle classes. She is nakedly pro-rich and pro-corporate. Scratch her and see the dollar signs in her bloodstream.

With a P.R. firm with a client list like the above, her candidacy sums up just about everything that is wrong with this country. P.R. firms that fuck the public's minds over, on behalf of cruel, conscienceless, predatory capitalism and its globalized destruction of labor rights, and of the very planet we live on.

I don't know if Edwards or Obama IS that person. Our new era "FDR." Edwards has the rhetoric. Obama has the charisma. And, while Kucinich has the steel spine and the long term commitment to the interests of the majority of Americans, he has been almost completely black-holed by the corporate news monopolies, and "doesn't have chance," as they say.

But, whoever Edwards and Obama may really be, and whatever they may really do as president, this in an era--more than any other I have seen in my lifetime, or in history--in which we cannot trust what politicians say. We don't really know what they would do, especially in this totally fucked up government and fascist, militaristic, thieving cauldron of global corporate predator corruption in Washington DC.

More important than anything, though, is that we cannot trust any vote count conducted in highly insecure and insider riggable electronic voting machines, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations--the privatized, non-transparent election theft system that was fast-tracked across the country in the 2002 to 2004 period. Voting has been transformed from a PUBLIC process--our most important one--into a PRIVATE CORPORATE activity, concerning which two courts of law (or is it courts of lawlessness?), in Florida, have now said that we, the people, have no right of review.

So, if Hillary Clinton is the choice of these rightwing "TRADE SECRET" voting corporations, there is nothing we can do about it. She may lose Iowa, because Iowa is a caucus state. In almost all remaining states, Diebold/ES&S or comparable PRIVATE rightwing entities will decide. (Sequoia is the other big election theft player. Diebold/ES&S 'counted' 80% of the nation's votes in 2004.)

In the Democratic Party of the 1930s, Hillary Clinton would be laughed off the stage. That was a party that knew who its constituency was, and FELT BEHOLDEN TO THE PEOPLE. Hillary does NOT feel beholden to the people, and is not as good at faking it, as Bill was. That is why she needs Mark Penn of Penn & Schoen and Burson-Marsteller, who are known for the P.R. "concept of 'inoculation': shielding corporations from scandal through clever advertising and marketing," and who pioneered the "use of pseudo-grassroots front groups, known as 'astroturfing,' to wage stealth corporate attacks against environmental and consumer groups."

She needs the "high priest" of these tactics to create the "Big Lie" for her. She is the global corporate predators' "bought and paid for" candidate (one of them anyway). And I don't think she's even genuine on women's rights--because one of the chief burdens on women is poverty, and that's what global corporate predators do--they create poverty for most people. Sweatshop labor abroad and no decent jobs here. Families needing two, three and four shit-pay jobs to support their children. War profiteers stealing TRILLIONS of dollars from our treasury, draining and destroying every social justice program. Predatory banks killing the poor with usurious credit cards and other loans, for basic needs--housing, health care. Abortion rights are certainly important, but there is nothing that curtails anyone's rights more than poverty and the thievery of the rich.

Hillary is a Bushite. That's what I'm saying. And Mark Penn is tasked with giving her "sheep's clothing." Like Bill, I think, she will run a more efficient war on the poor, less bald-faced than the Bush Junta (maybe), but no less ruinous. Bill Clinton was, in fact, the "wolf" who laid out the territory for the Bush pack. And Hillary is the cleanup crew.

I'm not even sure if an FDR, a Teddy Roosevelt, a Bobby Kennedy, a Thomas Jefferson and a King Arthur, all rolled into one, could solve the crisis that Clintonism followed by Bushism has created. It is a crisis that INCLUDES the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced--global warming and the death of our planet. But I am sure of this: more Clintonism is not the solution. And nothing much is going to change until we restore vote counting that everyone can see and understand.




----------------------------------------------

*The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez, By Donald Rumsfeld
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html
Discussion:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x323889

they're all connected at the hip.

All that stuff about torture, invasions and the loss of constitutional rights had some people worried, you know?

feel it
embrace it
the DC media already has the stories written

Obama will Win...not in a million years. We're sending the dilettante packing back to Oprah.. boo-hoo!

Truly, she is the chosen one.

no, really, bow down.

(just as in Al Gore Campaign) manage to keep Democratic Candidates
in a strait jacket, or so protected the candidate becomes wooden
and overly cautious.

When Bill Clinton was camdidate, he could swork around the Consultants
and disconnect from DLC when it was to his advantage.

However after saying this HRC is still way ahead. C. Matthews,
Morning Joe. She can lose Iowa and still win the nomination.

Who'd a thunk it?


Surely the attacks on 5-year-old Obama will work - they just need to keep at it and give it some time.

n/t

~

Tamping down the establishment machine, front-running candidate is not easy. It's a miracle she hasn't run away with this thing already.

If (heaven forbid) Hillary does win, I hope to be in the state of mind where I can put aside any differences, congratulate her and her supporters, and get on board to fuck up the Repugs in November. Of course, I would hope for the same from you if "my guy" wins...

You are the one that dumped on her campaign... (I) merely responded and I am the (bad) guy...

That's marvelous tactics...

tho there was an actual discussion about aspects of the subject in this one..

I'm not at all anti-Hillary. I just post what's out there, so supporters and detractors of all the candidates can see it. If I wish Hillary well -- and, although I'm an Obama supporter, I do -- I hope Bill can use his considerable political talent to help her campaign!

and that the article appeared in the tabloid newspaper NY Daily News (although it was in the news section, and not in the gossip section) -- so people can make their own judgment, as you did.

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I, too, deplore the hatred and venom expressed so often here.

because of the Oprah show.

it was deplorable.

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a lot of people just don't find her likeable. Admirable in many ways, but not likeable. Many people judge the candidates on this factor. Gore would have made his win a landslide had he been likeable. Bill is likeable. In fact likeability is lacking in all the top candidates in my opinion. Biden has some personality because he often shoots from the hip, so he is likeable, but I ask you, who really has any personality on our side besides Biden?

~

They do love him though.

"Daily News"? :rofl:

Bill's a genius, but I have a feeling he's too personally close to this campaign. He's overreacting to stuff.

k&r

Go,"O", Go!:bounce:

As someone who gave Clinton-Gore the maximum donations allowed by Federal Law in 1992 & 1996...I think it's time that both Clintons
left the national political stage.

The man is untouchable...

A Presidential Campaign that gets oodles of money from lobbyists

A Presidential Candidate who thinks she is Inevitable

A Presidential Candidate whose husband is now trying to micro-manage the campaign before it implodes

Priceless.

I'm sitting here shaking my head. You see, it doesn't matter if this article is true or not. (I went to the link and read the whole thing)

The average american LOVES drama. Why do you think reality shows, soap operas, american idol, talk shows, and the courtroom shows are so popular?

People will eat this up, especially the ones who can't stand the Clintons. It's no secret that I don't support HRC, however this article is below the belt.

Where does it focus on her political history? Where does it highlight the good, bad and otherwise of her political stand? What POSSIBLE use could an article like this have besides to stir the "chit"?

I'm a gamer, I play on-line games in the evening after the kids go to bed. Many different people from around the country get into a program called "Ventrilo" and talk as we game.

Last night, just out of curiosity, I asked "Ok...I know this is taboo...but I really want to know what you all think of the primary races this year?"

I was answered by laughter, terms like "Watching a train wreck in action" "Stooges" "Puppets" I sat back and listened as they discussed. This is a group of right around 27 people.

One woman, who is from Iowa, stated she is a normal caucus goer but refuses to go this year. When I asked her why, she replied that although she used to be politically active the gov is so screwed up she knows she won't live to see the day where we as Americans have self respect again.

It about broke my heart.

This article is just a "warm up" of what we can expect to see over the next year for whoever the nom is. Am I frustrated, yes. Articles like this one do nothing but cause angst and disharmony.

I hope this, and other stories, including today's front page NY Times article on her campaign's performance in Iowa, help to finally dispel the myth that Clinton has some super-professional, unbeatable campaign organization. That has often been cited as one of the reasons for supporting her - that she got the best team. That, like her inevitability, is a myth.

IF true (and only IF), it presents a troubling side of the campaign.
It feeds into the charge that Bill would be running things after election.
I would hope this isn't true, because that would be a huge step back for women's rights.

I don't want HRC as our nominee, but this is not a good thing for her campaign if true.

And the truth is that the more people see of Hillary, the less they like her.

In other words - it's not the advertising campaign, but the product they are trying to sell.

I thought Hillary was supposed to have like a 20-point lead in the national polls.

Why is she worried about little out of the way places like Iowa and New Hampshire? :eyes:

just guessing.

He is the best politician of his generation and he'll come up with something to revive the campaign, not that I think that it's as much in trouble as the media pretends it to be. Only time will tell.....

'nuff said.