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I’m not sure that’s true. I think the rejection could just as easily be that people don’t want Bill in the White House for another 4 years - there’s a fear that it would be the “First Couple” as co-presidents.</p>
<p>In any event, it’ll hurt.</p>
<p>"I’m not sure that’s true. I think the rejection could just as easily be that people don’t want Bill in the White House for another 4 years - there’s a fear that it would be the “First Couple” as co-presidents.</p>
<p>In any event, it’ll hurt."</p>
<p>True, but that’s also a reason in the realm of personal, as opposed to policy/experience, if that makes any sense at all.</p>
<p>HOwever, if there is something “Swiftboatable” by virtue of being true, then who knows?</p>
<p>The Republicans have never let the truth be a consideration in their Swiftboating.</p>
<p>Oh they will use all the dirt they can find to fling at him. It just won’t be from the opponent himself. It will be from the other groups. His race, his middle name, his roots in foreign countries, attendance at an “islamic” school, etc etc. Questions will be raised about his patriotism. He will be painted as a possible enemy agent, unfit to be given the job of CIC. Just you watch.</p>
<p>v-parent:
Shame on us as an electorate if we allow ^^^ to sway our votes.</p>
<p>“Emeraldkity, you vastly overestimate the integrity of the American right wing - and the clever deniability with which they brew their slime.”</p>
<p>“The Republicans have never let the truth be a consideration in their “Swiftboating.””</p>
<p>“Oh they will use all the dirt they can find to fling at him. It just won’t be from the opponent himself.”</p>
<p>Oh, you mean like the “Black churches will burn if Republicans are elected” pamphlet in Missouri or the James Byrd add tearfully narrated by his daughter implying George Bush was somehow complcit in or condoned the death of her father?</p>
<p>Never put anything pass a Republican.
Remember what Rove and Bush did to Ann Richards in Texas? And McCain?
Further back, Bush 41 and Lee Atwater using Willie Horton to smear Dukakis.</p>
<p>Nothing is too low for republicans to smear.</p>
<p>fundingfather: I never said the democrats are not capable of smear tactics. I am merely stating my concern that much as I like Obama, he is perhaps more vulnerable than Hillary or Edwards to smear tactics.</p>
<p>Ann Richards was a drunk and a druggie who said some very nasty things about Bush. They just gave it back.
Horton summed up Dukakis’s weakness on crime which also came through when he stammered over a question in the debates. Nobody misses Duke.</p>
<p>“fundingfather: I never said the democrats are not capable of smear tactics. I am merely stating my concern that much as I like Obama, he is perhaps more vulnerable than Hillary or Edwards to smear tactics.”</p>
<p>OK, but once again, I disagree. Obama is generally liked by most people, whereas Hillary is not. An attack on Obama could easily backfire and gain him more votes.</p>
<p>^^and probably a lot more money. As an Obama supporter, I receive emails from his campaign. When Clinton started to go negative on him in Iowa, Obama’s campaign manager sent out an email for donations. Every time she went negative on him, people donated more money to combat it (and Obama did not go negative, and I doubt he will in the future.)</p>
<p>[Hillary</a> Clinton chokes up in appearance – Newsday.com](<a href=“http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-uscry0108,0,4386340.story]Hillary”>Newsday | Long Island's & NYC's News Source - Newsday)</p>
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<p>You gotta give her credit though. She was told Saturday night (during the debate) in front of millions of television viewers that she really wasn’t likeable.</p>
<p>Her response: “that hurts my feelings”, and then she smirked and cackled. After that performance, her ratings continued to sink even lower…</p>
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<p>Were Bill allowed to run for a third term, would there be any discussions about the Democrats’ nominee? Right or wrong, he probably would win in a landslide without even campaigning. Heck, he may even with Gore!</p>
<p>HRH Clinton’s rejection is the result of being both the most admired and the most despised woman in the country, depending if one falls for the crocodile tears, the talks of vast right-wing conspiracies, and having to bake cookies at home … or pegging qualifications and records correctly.</p>
<p>A lot of progressive Democrats wouldn’t want to see Bill Clinton back in the White House, Xiggi. I’d say the majority. The 90s are over. Time to look forward.</p>
<p>Oh, Momof2inca, rest assured that the feelings about Bill are not mine. </p>
<p>As far as progressive democrats isn’t that quite an oxymoron? The 90s are indeed over, but it seems that for the ones basking in the “Clinton Nostalgia” --especially on College Confidential-- we should actually rewind the history clock even farther back.</p>
<p>No worries, Xiggi, I know you don’t lean that way. </p>
<p>I think the appeal of Obama is there is no reason to look back. I’ve never basked in Clinton Nostalgia, as you call it, and was might ****ed off at his personal escapades and some of the legal troubles he passed on to the nation. (Try explaining the Monica ordeal to your politically-minded 11-year-old!). I did like some of his achievements but they are not hearkening me back to that era, and Obama is not a some kind of surrogate (for Clinton or JFK, for that matter). So, no, progressive Democrat is not an oxymoron.</p>
<p>I am amazed by the anti-Clinton hostility out there. I truly do not understand it. It did not seem that the Clintons were extremists in terms of governance. Bill was actually pretty centrist and got a lot done by co-opting Republican positions. Hillary has been pretty centrist as a senator. </p>
<p>What is it then? Is it just anger at the fact that Bill was and is so popular? Is it the “immorality”? OK, I know for a few people it is the Serbian/Bosnian bombings. But so many people?</p>
<p>v-parent,
I think there is a difference between what people feel towards Bill and what they feel towards Hillary. Any discussion would have to start by distinguishing between the two. They’re a couple, but they are individual politicians who attract and offend people in different ways.</p>
<p>I think with Hillary, some people feel hostile towards her because she sometimes gives the impression of arrogance, of having a shield up, of being smarter than everyone in the room, of not really listening, of not being able to relax or take a joke, of bristling at suggestions that she should not be perceived as inevitably the next Great Thing. And she’s polarizing. She just can’t help herself. Her entire adult life has been spent on one side of a nasty binary system and that has become her paradigm. During her speech after Iowa’s results she thanked the Democrats, Indpendents and “those Republicans who have seen the light.” She was trying to use humor, I assume, but it came across as condescending to me, and I’m not a Republican. It was unnecessary to throw in “who have seen the light.” I’m sick of it, frankly. The attitude that the people in the Republican party are twits who need an awakening. (And vice versa). And I don’t want to see, if Dems are lucky enough to win the Executive Office, the next 4 or 8 years as a freaking ****ing match. I actually respect and believe in our system of government, including Congress, and I’d like to see some problem-solving occur rather than the same old partisan dicking around. We need a fresh start for that to happen. Time to move on. A Clinton cannot get us there. Not Bill. Not Hillary.</p>
<p>I agree that Hillary turned me off with that Iowa speech and with that “who have seen the light” line. Very ill-advised.</p>