NO ONE WON & Hillary booed over "plagiarism" redux

Clinton also raised Obama's use in his campaign speeches of words first uttered by his friend, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

"If your candidacy is going to be about words then they should be your own words," she said. "...Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox."

The debate audience booed.

Obama said the entire controversy was evidence of a "silly season" that the public finds dispiriting.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton accused Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama of political plagiarism Thursday night and said he represented "change you can Xerox."

Obama dismissed the charge out of hand, adding in a campaign debate, "What we shouldn't be doing is tearing each other down, we should be lifting the country up."

They disagreed on the proper response to a change in government in Cuba in the wake of Fidel Castro's resignation. Clinton said she would refuse to sit down with incoming President Raul Castro until he implements political and economic reforms. Obama said he would meet "without preconditions," but added the U.S. agenda for such a session would include human rights in the Communist island nation.

Clinton largely sidestepped a question about so-called superdelegates, members of Congress, governors and party leaders who were not picked in primaries and caucuses. She said the issue would sort itself out, and "we'll have a united Democratic party" for the fall campaign.

But Obama, who has won more primaries and caucuses said the contests must "count for something ... that the will of the voters ... is what ultimately will determine who our next nominee is going to be."

Obama agreed with that, then noted that Clinton lately had been urging voters to turn against him by saying, "let's get real."

"And the implication is that the people who've been voting for me or are involved in my campaign are somehow delusional," Obama said.

02.21.08 -- 10:37PM That Line

...Hillary's powerful concluding remarks came from Bill Clinton's 92 campaign. Clinton had various permutations to it back then. But TPM Reader CG found one example in this November 1992 article by Anna Quindlen ...

Clinton, 92: "The hits that I took in this election are nothing compared to the hits the people of this state and this country have been taking for a long time."

Hillary Clinton, tonight: "You know, the hits I’ve taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country

Primary Endorsement: Barack Obama

Although Hillary Clinton might be the natural choice for Yalies,
Obama—wise, brilliant and innovative in his conception of the presidency—is the natural choice for the nation

Friday, February 1, 2008

But the time has come to abdicate Yalie rule over America, at least for now. The past three United States presidents — George H. W. Bush ’48, Bill Cinton LAW ’73 and George W. Bush ’68 — had their strengths. But in the end, they were good presidents (if that) — and not great ones.
Too often, they behaved like politicians — and not leaders.

Hillary Clinton LAW ’73 is of the same breed. To endorse her would be to endorse intelligence and preparedness, but also divisiveness and the politics of manipulation. And, as it seems of late, it would be to endorse Bill Clinton, with his own baggage and questionable campaign tactics to boot.

So we turn instead to an honest, and brilliant, man who represents his actual home state in the U.S. Senate, has more years of elected experience than Clinton and gave so many of us chills with his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. His Harvard Law degree notwithstanding, Democrats across Connecticut and the nation should embrace Barack Obama as the next president of the United States on Tuesday.

So many at Yale have done just that....

Still lingering, though, is the question of substance. Too often asserted is the notion that one should run for the presidency
with a crystal-clear, unchanging slate of party-line policy initiatives. With Obama’s candidacy, however, comes an opportunity to
correct this flawed conception of the chief executive as a glorified policy wonk.
Our legislative system, after all, is designed to encourage compromise and cooperation.
Overwhelming majorities for a single party are rare enough that a combative, polarizing politics that insists on a fixed agenda
is self-defeating. Solid policy planks, then, are only half of the battle.
What we must know — and do know in Obama’s case — is which philosophy a candidate would bring to the West Wing.
And we are impressed by his deep-rooted belief in one nation, not two.