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Ferociouskitty
Veteran Poster
Username: Ferociouskitty
Post Number: 178
Registered: 02-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 12:35 am: | 
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080423/us_time/aprimarywithnoend
By AMY SULLIVAN/WASHINGTON Wed Apr 23, 4:50 PM ET
A few months ago, the only people who talked about the possibility of a contested Democratic nomination fight extending all the way to the party's convention in August were hopeful pundits, desperate Republicans, and Chicken Little Democrats.
Most of the rational world looked at the political landscape and foresaw a smooth ride to victory for Democrats. They had, after all, the wind at their backs from the 2006 midterm elections, and a Republican President with record-high disapproval ratings thanks to an unpopular war and a tanking economy. The dueling landmark candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seemed an embarrassment of riches, fueling record-breaking fund raising and bringing a flood of new voters to the party.
If there were any true believers in such a rosy scenario still to be found within the Democratic party, they were likely disabused of that notion by the results of Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary. After six weeks of an increasingly negative contest, Clinton's solid, 10-point victory almost guarantees that the Democratic race will continue into June. The once-gleeful pundits now find themselves turning their rental cars toward Indiana while Republicans marvel at their luck and Democrats try to game out a resolution that doesn't involve a convention-floor battle in Denver.
Had Clinton's margin been slimmer, the end of the nomination battle might be in sight. Indeed, early in the night, some commentators speculated (perhaps hopefully) that she might use a Pennsylvania win as a chance to "go out on top." Any lingering thoughts along those lines evaporated when Clinton arrived at her victory rally in Philadelphia and triumphantly declared: "The tide is turning!"
Clinton could be excused for engaging in that bit of wishful thinking herself. The win capped off a final week of campaigning in which she was remarkably focused and upbeat, particularly during an endurance swing through Scranton, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia on Monday. She prevented Obama from running away with votes in upscale suburban counties like Bucks and Montgomery. The victory gives her one last chance to convince donors to invest in her cause - a cause that even with the victory is in dire need of new funding. And it provides more ammunition for the argument she and her supporters have been pressing with the superdelegates who will ultimately put one of the candidates over the top - that she is better positioned than Obama to win in November.
But while it was undoubtedly a good night for Clinton, her opponent could take comfort in the results as well. Six weeks ago, when both candidates turned their attention to this contest, Obama had just gotten thumped in Ohio, a state with an open primary and demographics that are actually somewhat friendlier (younger, more black) for him than Pennsylvania. Obama trailed Clinton by an average of 18 points in Pennsylvania polls at the time. And that was before the toughest six weeks he has endured thus far in the campaign, before Jeremiah Wright and the Tony Rezko trial, before "bitter" and flag pins and Charlie Gibson.
If an Obama collapse of the sort Clinton needs to gain the nomination was ever going to happen, it was in that month and a half between Ohio and Pennsylvania. Yet despite increased criticism and scrutiny, Obama has expanded his lead over Clinton in national polls. He cut her margin in Pennsylvania down to 10 points, and he actually improved his performance from Ohio in the demographic groups he needed to demonstrate he could win: voters with no college education or those over 65, white men, those making less than $50,000, and self-described conservatives.
Even so, the real winner of the Democratic race in Pennsylvania is John McCain. The most significant number coming out of Tuesday night wasn't Clinton's 10 point margin of victory, but 43. That's the percentage of Clinton voters who say they would stay home or vote for McCain if Obama is the party's nominee in November. It is no longer just the Chicken Littles within the party who openly worry about an outcome that leaves large blocks of women or African-Americans frustrated and alienated.
The extended race is also clearly getting to Obama, who is noticeably fatigued on the stump and lacks the energy that drew in so many new voters earlier in the primary season. The largely positive media coverage he previously enjoyed has been replaced by a tenser relationship. The candidate now limits his availability to the political press corps, and recently snapped at a reporter who tried to ask a question while he was eating breakfast at a Pennsylvania diner.
At the same time, Tuesday night's results may require Clinton to alter her case against Obama in ways that could do real damage if he becomes the nominee. His ability to improve his standing among key constituencies while withstanding intense scrutiny makes it more difficult for her to argue that he could not win in November. (Clinton admitted as much in their 21st debate, answering "yes, yes, yes" when asked if Obama could beat McCain.) That means she'll have to instead argue that he should not be President. And that's music to Republican ears. View this article on Time.com |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6667
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 11:03 am: |
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If it goes all the way through to the convention Obama is toast.
If they don't destroy Hillary, make it three blown chances in a row for Democrats in the Presidential elections.
I don't know. Maybe divided government (Congress with the Democrats, White House with the Republicans), has something to say for i |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12154
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 12:56 pm: |
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The whole solution is so simple. Obama and Clinton should run together. Whoever gets the nod should negotiate and choose the other for vice president. Once they get elected they can divide up the spoils of victory. Anything is better than 4 more years of Republican rule. Send John McClause up to the nouth pole along with that overgrown elf, George W. Bush. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6674
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 02:19 pm: |
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Obama and Clinton should run together. Whoever gets the nod should negotiate and choose the other for vice president
(If they didn't hate each other so bad it would make sense. Will not happen)
Anything is better than 4 more years of Republican rule
(I say let them back in again and let them run it all the WAY in the ground.
No pain. No gain. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12158
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 04:58 pm: |
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Down through history it has not been unusual for a president and vice president to not care for each other. LBJ and JFK certainly didn't like one other or did Nixon and Agnew, or Eisenhower and Nixon. Politics do, indeed, make strange bedfellows. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6678
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 05:21 pm: |
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LBJ and JFK certainly didn't like one other
(Which not only led to lots of friction, but possibly to JFK getting set up to get his brains blown out)
did Nixon and Agnew
(Which led to Agnew getting thrown to the dogs when he had his trouble--Nixon didn't even help or pardon him)
Eisenhower and Nixon
(Eisenhower didn't care for Nixon but certainly didn't hate him like these two do.
All this stuff is easy for you to say sitting in Mayberry "Why don't THEY just get along?"
Since I know you feel this way I'll be showing up at your crib tomorrow. I like my eggs sunnyside up. Two things I can't stand is cold soup and lying niggers. We ought to get along fine
snicker
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12159
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 10:52 am: |
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I don't think that Hillary and Obama actually hate each other. And the point I was making is that liking each other is not a prerequisite for 2 candidates to run on the same ticket.
And just stay put, crissy. Contrary to what you think, you haven't started to grow on me. I steer clear of poison ivy.  |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 2852
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008 - 11:24 am: |
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I don't think that Hillary and Obama actually hate each other.
Agree. They are both consummate politicians, which means they are strategic with their "feelings" for others of their kind.
Now, some (many?) of their supporters? That is a different story! LOL |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6685
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 26, 2008 - 10:18 am: |
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I don't think that Hillary and Obama actually hate each other
(At first I was going to call you two a couple of knuckleheads but let me try this--
Think of something you have wanted really bad all your life. Now think that somebody else is keeping you from getting it.
You two clowns probably start screaming when somebody beats you into a parking space. Now you are saying that two people, who are human, who are vying for the most powerful post in THE WORLD, don't hate each other.
Let me tell you, if they DON'T hate each other, they probably lack the fire to gain the office. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6686
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 26, 2008 - 10:59 am: |
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HATE!
February 3, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
There Will Be Blood
By MAUREEN DOWD
LOS ANGELES
Suddenly, everyone was in the mood for love. Would the scream team turn into the dream team?
After Thursday’s Democratic debate, CNN’s Carol Costello said there were “heart palpitations” and “ripples of joy” in the glittery Kodak Theater audience at the idea of a Hillary-Obama or Obama-Hillary ticket, after he was gallant with her and she laughed gaily with him.
How could Hollywood not fall in love with Hollywood’s favorite plot? After lots of sparking and sparring, the couple falls into each other’s arms in the last scene.
The would-be matchmakers didn’t seem to know that in Hollywood, couples who have chemistry on screen often don’t like each other off screen, and ones who are involved off screen often don’t have any chemistry on screen.
And so it is with Barack and Hillary. Thursday night was not the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Just a beautiful, dare we say, fairy tale.
Hillary is done with playing a supporting role to a political natural. And why would Obama want to follow in the frustrated footsteps of Al Gore, who became Bill Clinton’s vice president only to find that the job was already taken by Hillary? Think about being third banana to Billary? There won’t be any Dick Cheney-style coup in Hillary’s White House.
“Can you imagine being in that position?” a member of Team Obama said tartly. “Well, neither can he. It’s just part of their campaign to marginalize him. I think they’re pushing every freaking button they can right now.”
Team Obama refers to the Clinton campaign as “Jaws” because “just when things are quiet, they keep trying to come back and capsize the boat.”
A more accurate snapshot of the frosty Clinton-Obama relationship came on a frosty December day in a scorching encounter that is now known simply as “the tarmac moment.” On Dec. 13, the two senators were preparing to board their private planes, parked next to each other at Reagan National Airport, to go back to Iowa for a debate. Hillary sent word to Obama that she wanted to talk to him. Obama’s aides figured that she wanted to make a pro forma apology for the comments of Billy Shaheen, the Clinton co-chairman in New Hampshire, who had told The Washington Post that Republicans would pounce on Obama’s confessions of cocaine and marijuana use in his late teens. Shaheen would step down the next day, but Camp Obama did not think the slam was a mere slip of the tongue.
In front of her plane, Hillary apologized to her rival about Shaheen. Obama replied that he was concerned at the pattern of insinuations and attacks from her supporters and that a message needed to be sent from the top that sharp attacks were not, as Hillary had put it, “the fun part.” He brought up another recent example: the Clinton volunteer in Iowa who had been asked to leave after forwarding sleazy e-mail falsely claiming that Obama was a Muslim.
Then, according to witnesses from the Obama camp, Hillary got very agitated and was “flapping her arms.” All her simmering grievances spilled out during the 10-minute talk. She was still furious about David Geffen’s searing interview with me the previous February, charging that she and Bill lie with such ease “it’s troubling.” While Geffen’s fund-raiser for Obama spurred the column, Obama knew nothing about the interview until it appeared. Hillary was also angry that Obama had called her “disingenuous,” telling Newsweek that it was a contradiction for her to claim that her tenure as first lady gave her more experience but then refuse to release her first lady papers from Bill’s library, saying she had no control over them.
At some point, an Obama intimate recalled, he “gently put his hand on her arm to chill her out.” The tall senator often leans down to put a friendly hand on the shoulder of his fellow senators — male and female — on the Senate floor, and they seem charmed by the gesture.
But Senator Clinton and her circle were not. They had been surprised and troubled by what they saw as his attempt to grab her arm and hold her in place while they talked, an unpleasant flashback to Rick Lazio getting in her space. As Queen Bee of the Clinton hive, Hillary has created a regal force field that can be breached only with permission, so something that wasn’t even a jostle was perceived as a joust.
The encounter seemed to have steeled them both. Hillary, to knock back the upstart who had unexpectedly gotten in her way, and Obama, who came away feeling that, for all of Hillary’s outer strength, she was afraid of him in some ways, and for all of her supposed poise, she had a more spiky temperament than he had realized.
But on Thursday, when he leaned down to whisper and put his hand on her shoulder, she looked up at him with a glowing smile. They really should have taken home gold statuettes.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 12166
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 26, 2008 - 02:35 pm: |
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You judge everybody by yourself, chrishayden. Everybody is not an over the top hater like you. Me, I don't waste my energy on hating people. I get more gratification out of ridiculing them. I love them for providing me grist for my cynicism.
And you also think all of these white women like Maureen Dodd and Ariana Huffington and Peggy Noonan are speakers of the gospel who are infallible in their opinions.
Anybody who enters the race for president is going to encounter opponents who give them a run for their money. If they can't take the heat they should stay out of the furnace of such competition. When you lose, the person you should hate is yourself because - you're a loser. (You ought to know about this things, crissy) Everybody loves a winner.
I think that Hillary and Barak begrudgingly respect each other, and I truly don't think that they actually hate each other.
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