Wow, Hillary is playing the bigotry card. Classy.
And I truly don’t understand. What happened to the canny, street-smart, politically wise Hillary that we expected? To allow this from her campaign does NOTHING but hurt her, in the public eye, in the eyes of Democrats, across the board. Surely not even she thinks this is going to turn the tide and get her the nomination?
If I’d been her advisor, after the stinging loss in Wisconsin, I would have had her say in the recent debate something along this line:
"I recently took a break, got away from everyone, and just took some time to contemplate this campaign, and the state of American politics. And I kinda laughed, and said to myself, Hillary, you’ve allowed yourself to get sucked in. My fellow candidate here is obviously an outstanding man, a candidate of great potential. He is a man of obvious integrity and vision. I’m so proud that he represents the kind of vision and ideals that our party stands for.
Now, obviously, I think I’m the better candidate in terms of the Presidency - today. But not because of any deficiencies in my opponent, other than experience, which I do feel is important for the Presidency, more now than ever. And we do have some honest differences in some of our policies, on solving some of America’s problems, but both of our approaches are far better for America than anything coming from the Republicans.
So I want to apologize - something I’m admittedly not real good at! - for some of the silly things we’ve done in my campaign. Even I have to roll my eyes at my campaign pulling out kindergrarden teacher quotes! There are other things we’ve done that I wish I could take back. We as a party need to set the bar higher than that. But I just want to pledge that, from this moment on, there will never be another personal attack on Senator Obama, no one in my campaign will say another word that could be interpreted as a personal smear. I will point out why I think my health care plan has advantages, I will point out the specifics of my policies, and I will explain why I think my experience gives me an advantage. But I want to make it clear that Senator Obama and I both believe in the core values of the Democrat party, and it says a lot about us that this is your choice in this party vs. what our TRUE opponents have to offer."
And then NOT follow that up the next morning distributing a picture of Obama in a turban while calling him a slime-bucket and spreading rumors about his 12 year old boy sex partner that he sold drugs to.
I’m sure that McCain would love to get as many ‘spite votes’ as he can.
If she said that, I would actually consider voting for her in the General if it came to that.
Hillary’s greatest campaign failing in 2008 is that she’s assumed her problem was Barack Obama.
Barack isn’t her problem.
Hillary is Hillary’s problem.
She has these huge built-in negatives, and while her campaign has to be aware of them, they’ve decided that those negatives don’t matter, and so they just continue to reinforce them. What made Clinton such a landslide winner in her Senate campaigns was that she was willing to let down her guard, and show real feeling and passion to the doubters in upstate New York and charm many of them enough to get her senate seat. She needed to do that with national voters this year. I figured after her success in New Hampshire that she’d figured that out…then I figured with her conciliatory and pleasant debate demeanor last Thursday that she’d figure it out.
Instead, she keeps letting her demons shout down her better angels, and continues to reinforce and built on the unfavorables she starter out with. Believe me when I say her actions over the last two days have horrified many fence-sitting democrats; she may now be doing some real damage to her political career past this primary season. (In other words, “Senate Majority Leader” might’ve been in the hunt for future discussion a week ago; from what I’m hearing, her colleagues in the Senate are so angry with her actions since the debate that that is no longer on the table.)
I’d say Bill was a pretty huge problem too. At this point it looks like her campaign pretty much permanently fell off the rails when they started trotting him out to do the red faced shouting and anti-Obama attacks bordering on race baiting.
(sneaking into P&R)
This looks like it really could hurt BOTH of the democratic candidacies, really. Hillary’s more than Obama’s, really, because that’s just tacky…but damn, this looks like a good thing for the republicans, more than anything.
Now, I’m outta here…I don’t belong in with this crowd.
ding ding ding ding…
we have a winner
So he’s “Lightning Blessed.” Dude. He’s so gonna get the Thor vote! I’m “Crowned Judgment of God”, which is no small thing, but I’d take “Blessed Lightning” in a flash. </pun mode>
Git im! Don’t let anyone post and run! Your…your…not all the way right. Yeah, take that smart guy.
I don’t think it will hurt Obama much. She is flailing and everyone knows it. The GOP 527’s will look as desperate when they photoshop Bin Laudin into the same picture.
Duh! Americans are white, middle-class and Christian! Didn’t you get the memo?
edit: As for what it means or shows? It demonstrates that the Clinton camp think the political audience are a bunch of slack-jawed retards. How utterly stupid of her lot.
If only Bartlett was running.
I’m surprised this thread isn’t generating more outrage, instead of lots of snarky comments. Is everyone already so accustomed to the idea that Hillary is a backstabbing, lying opportunist that “Ho hum, more dirty tricks” is the default response?
Pretty much.
Yep…
If the last poll that somebody posted was any indication, nearly everyone here that is voting democrat is already voting for Obama anyway. I mean, yeah–it’s pretty outrageous. But there’s little point in stewing about it here, where you are mostly just preaching to the choir.
So what’s the evidence it’s the Clinton campaign pushing the photo again?