Letters to the Editor
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I don't think so.
Yeah, that dog's not gonna hunt.
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Florida & Michigan Delegates
The DNC should direct the two state committees to hold unassembled caucuses after the last scheduled election (or caucus). Hold it (them; there would have to be many sites) over the weekend -- Saturday and Sunday.
They ought to welcome the order. They might get exactly what they wanted in the first place -- the deciding vote.
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Poor sportsmanship.
They really sound like poor winners.
I don't understand why they get so much detailed press for these meta-strategic conference calls, which are really just a way to get reporters to tell everybody what Winners they are. I guess all the campaigns probably do this, but it seems bizarre. Do we have people who run Coke commercials doing conference calls with the press to discuss how well their strategy is working and how clearly consumers think Pepsi is the establishment beverage now?
Sheesh. What a lot of navel-gazing.
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Not happy with the Clintons over this...
The fact that the Clinton campaign is pushing to have the Florida and Michigan delgates seated is a huge turn-off for me.
Those states were essentially frozen when it was declared that no campaigning would be done in them...locking them up for the Clinton campaign way back when the DNC decided to "punish" these states. The Clinton group knew this, and knew that without being able to campaign in those states, there was no chance of an Obama or Edwards victory. The polls showed this, and without any campaigning, it wasn't going to change.
To now go back and reverse their promise has to be one of the most underhanded tactics I've seen from the Clintons. You can't tell me straight faced that if the positions had been reversed, the Clintons would not be screaming bloody murder.
The way the Clintons are running their campaign, I may stay home come November. I expected better than this from them. You can't change the rules mid-game, to your advantage, just because your side happens to control the DNC.
It's underhanded, it's deceitful, and it's, in essence, cheating.
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Wash, Rinse, and Spin
Too funny -- the establishment candidate's PR people declaring the insurgent's campaign the establishment campaign. Lovely mendacity, entirely emblematic of the Clintonian approach to politicking. Clinton, the famous, K Street-connected, insider-credentialed candidate is the insurgent, and Obama, the relatively unknown upstart is the establishment candidate? Clinton's wins in old-guard, establishment Democrat blue islands reflects her, uhhh, insurgent status? And Obama's wins in places where Democrats haven't won in generations reflects his establishment campaign? How stupid do Penn, Wolfson (great name, terribly apt), Clinton, and her supporters think everybody is? What a joke. Please, keep on spinning, Clintonians! Let's see what else comes out of the Clintonian Truthwashing Machine! And such a break with the past Bush Years, too! How about this for a follow-up PR line of attack: only by debating on Fox can the Democratic candidates attain full legitimacy, because Fox is so representative of Democratic values. Give Penn a quarter (of a million dollars) and he'll spin that one for you, Clintonites.
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"And Obama's wins in places where Democrats haven't won in generations reflects his establishment campaign?"
In a primary a democrat has to win in those places.
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I Was Wanting ObamaTo Be Our V.P.
But if he's scared of FOX to hell with him.
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*Sigh*
They're both establishment candidates. Anyone still chugging along as a viable candidate is clearly part of the establishment. Anyone who survives after John Edwards suffers the fate of a wild-eyed outsider is clearly deep on the inside of the political machinations.
Hillary has the legacy potential. Beleagured though the first two Clinton adminstrations were, they took place during a period of high prosperity, relative piece and impressive fiscal responsibility. Invoking those halcyon days can be a powerful tool if they can keep the conversation focused on Then(Clinton) -vs- Now(Bush/Neo-Cons).
At the same time Obama has the charisma. Party Bosses have had visions of JFK dancing in their heads ever since his keynote convention speech 4-years ago. He has the potential to be the most charismatic leader the Democratic Party has had in decades.
With this in mind, any notion of either of these candidates as outsiders or mavericks is blatant nonsense. Neither of these are the scrappy little candidate who could. These are groomed, rehearsed, packaged and marketed political machines.
If the Dems want a chance at winning this thing, they will stop trying to build images that don't stand up to scrutiny and should start building policy positions which will hold up under fire.
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Spinning on one's head
Man, it's really interesting listening or reading about the Clinton campaign. Now, Obama is the "establishment" candidate of an "establishment campaign."
If that were true, wouldn't that undercut HRC's argument that he doesn't have the requisite experience to be president? My understanding is that she has more endorsements than Obama, and that she actually has lobbyists bundling money for her, and that Mark Penn, her chief strategist, works for a major PR firm, Burson-Marsteller and its offshoot, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, which has been accused of labor busting.
The Clinton campaign is merely engaging in propaganda, in which it hopes that reporters will pick up and virally spread. Let's face it: if Obama is "establishment" that's because he's a member of the US Senate, as is Senator Clinton.
What Clinton's minions are trying to do is sully the enthusiasm of Obama's campaign by calling it "establishment" rather than what it is: insurgent. They can't discount him because he has established himself as a serious contender.
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The evil genius of it is
The only way Obama can fight back against this trick is to retort, "Oh yeah? Who was in the White House for 8 years?" (etc.) which points to her "experience". Damn, that's clever.
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Building a Bridge ... back to the old spin machine
This is the kind of crap that adds legitimacy to concerns that Hillary in the White House just means more of the same political garbage that's become common political practice over the past Bush-Clinton-Bush administrations. Spinning reality to such tortured heights to support a political point they want to make is right out of the Bush II play book. Casting the wife of a former president who likes to include her husband's eight years in the white house on her experience resume as the anti-establishment candidate is something akin to what Karl Rove would try to hoist upon us. I'm tired of politicians treating me like I'm an idiot. I don't particularly want eight more years of it.