Primaries

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I agree, but... after reading Obama's Web site I could see where Clinton was coming from. Most of Obama's positions are along the lines of "I'm going to fix things." What about Social Security? "Oh, I'm gonna fix that." What about border security? "Yep, I'll take care of that." And health care? "Don't worry. I'll fix that whole mess." Ooookay, senator. Who needs specifics when you've got "hope" and "change." ??

About the only thing he's really specific about is bringing US troops home from Iraq, everything else is kind of pie-in-the-sky "keep hope alive, brothers and sisters!" which just ain't cuttin' it for me.

 

Sir Fink, you didn't look closely enough. His health care proposal is actually quite detailed.

There's a Q&A link at the bottom that even goes into the particulars of how much his plan will cost (50-65 billion per year when fully phased in), how small businesses and the self employed will be affected, and what the expected employer contributions will look like. The FAQ is here.

His immigration position is here. Obama supports additional personnel, infrastructure and technology on the border and at our ports of entry, cracking down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants, and a system that allows undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.

His positions and proposals on social security and other senior issues are here. In a nutshell, Obama plans to ease the shortfall in social security by raising the cap on payroll taxes (currently only the first $97,500 is subject to social security taxes) rather than cutting benefits or raising the retirement age.

The irony, here, is that you are accusing Obama of exactly what every other democrat on the field is accusing Hilary Clinton of doing.

 

Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary last night. So that means that Romney has now won two states (although the other state is Wyoming which gets very few delegates). So we have 3 different winners in the 4 states that have so far voted. Next up for the Republicans is South Carolina on Saturday. (South Carolina is really odd - they set the Democratic and Republican primaries on different days. The Republicans go this Saturday, and the Democrats go next Saturday. Giuliani hasn't really started yet - he is focusing exclusively on Florida, which is later this month. So it is possible that we see 4 different Republican winners in the first six states that vote. This is the first presidential nomination process in nearly 100 years to happen this way.

However, I think the bigger story is that the Democratic Party primary pretty much didn't count. Both Michigan and Florida defied the wishes of the Democratic Party by moving their respective primaries up earlier in the year. As a result, the Democratic Party said that they would not seat the delegates from those two states at the Democratic National Convention in late summer where the party's nomination will be officially announced. So even though Hillary won the primary, she gets exactly zero delegates towards her nomination. The election on the democratic side was such a farce that Obama and Edwards didn't even bother getting thier name placed on the ballot.

While I think that any political party should have the right to decide how their nomination for president is selected, it seems that the Democratic Party's reaction to this is extreme. Essentially, millions of Democrats in both Michigan and Florida have been disenfranchised by their own party. The Republican Party is sitting the delegates from these states, so clearly it was up to the individual party to decide what to do with states that move their primary earlier in the year. By not seating the delegates on the Democratic side, it also defeated the entire purpose of moving the primary up in the first place - namely that by setting your primary earlier in the nomination process, the eventual nominee is still in doubt, and thus it provides incentive to go out and vote.

 

Thanks for the links, Drew. And you are right, there are a lot of good specifics in the plans. It goes back to the feeling that the Dems are just fielding a pretty good group of contenders this time around. There is a faint glimmer of hope that issues may just mean something again in an election.

 

It seems that Hillary has won Nevada while McCain, South Carolina; Mitt has won Nevada on the Republican side of things as well. I don't think today really changed things all that much, except that Thompson and Edwards have a couple more nails in their political coffins. They are both near the end of the road - at least this go-around.

 

Ironically, both Cinton and Obama are claiming a victory, here. Since the Edwards supporters overwhelmingly went to Obama in the districts where Edwards was unviable, Obama ended up with 13 delegates to Clinton's 12. Since delegates are what actually matters, Obama is still the front runner.

 

You may think he's the "front runner, Drew, but I can tell you this: If Obama keeps flapping his jaws about Bill Clinton, he may just find that a lot of us, who happen to admire Bill and have been supporters of the Clinton presidency for eight years, will just decide to vote the other way once the general election comes around. I understand that he's desparate to be prez and all, but as long as it's not Thompson or Mitt on the other side, some of us may defect. Or decide to stay home. The more he talks about being a "uniter," much like GWB did, the more he is starting to divide us. Funny how that works. Much, to my disappointment, Edwards seems to be headed down that same road.

 

Details, please. Offhand, the only quotes I can think of are "If he [Bill Clinton] was against the Iraq war from the start, that's the first I've heard of it", "He [Bill Clinton] continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts -- whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas. This has become a habit, and one of the things that we're going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's making statements that are not factually accurate."

As demonstrated by my signature, I like Bill Clinton a lot, but Mr Clinton called Obama's demonstrable and obvious opposition to the war in Iraq a "fairy tale", and has accused Obama's campaign of using "strong arm tactics" in Nevada. Both of these statements are sadly ironic given the fact that Clinton, who has no demonstrable opposition to the war in Iraq, now claims to have opposed it from the start (which, at the very least, would mean he and his wife, who supported the war, were having some very tense dinner discussions during her early tenure as a New York senator), and the fact that his wife's campaign chose to sue the state -at the very last minute and right after Obama got a critical endorsement from a Union that would be caucusing at those very sites- over caucus locations that have been set in place and common knowledge for over a year. From where I'm sitting, Clinton is the one with the answering to do.

By the way, I actually caucused for Edwards, so this isn't bias talking. I'm just deeply offended by the disingenuous manner in which Clinton has been running her campaign and I'm disappointed in Bill Clinton for playing fast and loose with the facts.

 

Are you kidding? Dude, how can he not? Bill Clinton has been attacking him virtually non-stop in the past two months. The Clintons are acting like they're campaigning against a Republican. I could respect what they're doing if every critique of Bill's against Obama were accurate, but they're often incredibly disingenuous. Honestly - I would expect some of Bill's attacks to be coming from one of the Republicans (at least this current crop), for whom accuracy and intellectual honesty take a back seat to a digging soundbite. I wouldn't expect this from Bill and it's very disappointing. I'm by no means alone in thinking that.

Never mind the fact that a former President - particularly one held in such high regard with the general public - going on the attack in a Presidential campaign is almost unprecedented. But for him - the elder statesman of the party - to go on the attack as much as he has against a fellow Democrat? It's baffling to me. Not in the sense of strategy - I know WHY he's doing it - I just can't believe he's willing to divide the party so much to get back to the White House. So when you say this:

...I'm thinking the exact opposite. A few months ago I would have been okay with a Hillary presidency. But based on her (and Bill's) conduct during this campaign, there's no way I'm voting for them now. They've pissed off enough Obama supporters (who mostly lean to the center) that they've all but guaranteed a Republican win if a moderate like McCain gets the nod. No way will I vote for 8 more years of partisan vitriol, and if their conduct against an extremely popular, young, talented fellow Democrat is any indication, that's what we're in for. Sean Hannity, Rush, Boehner, McConnell and all the other pide pipers of partisanship are creaming in their pants right now at the prospect of a general election against the highly defeatable Clintons, and it's the Clinton partisans longing for the glory days of the 90's who're going to hand it to them.

If Hillary gets the nomination, I will definitely stay home. Handing the Republicans another White House isn't something I'm looking forward to speeding along.

 

I don't fully agree, here. Sure, Obama has proven quite attractive to moderates because of his record of getting things done in a bi-partisan manner and his outspoken efforts to increase the level of transparency in government, but look at the age of most of his supporters. Obama has more than his fair share of capital-L liberals supporting him, too.

 

Drew - I can remember right before the run-up to the war, and Bill had appeared on one of the late night tv shows, commenting that it would be a mistake to invade Iraq. He also commented that the invasion would only take a few weeks, but the long-term results could be more difficult. So, I know for a fact, since I heard it for myself, that Obama is lying about that much (which does not surprise me).

DR - Dude, thanks for proving my point about what a great "uniter" Obama has been thus far. The Democratic party may be fractured beyond repair for the foreseeable future, even enough for the Republicans to weasle their way back into power.

Well, you are really thinking the same thing, which is my point.

There are some striking similarities....

Spare me, DR. I know a "talented" salesman when I see one. There's no one harder to pitch than another salesman.

 

June 23, 2004 (CNN)
"I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over. That's why I supported the Iraq thing. There was a lot of stuff unaccounted for."

March 18, 2003 (Guardian)
"...if we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam."

"...Blair is in a position not of his own making, because Iraq and other nations were unwilling to follow the logic of 1441."

September 12, 2002 (Letterman)
"He is a threat. He's a murderer and a thug. There's no doubt we can do this. We're stronger; he's weaker. You're looking at a couple weeks of bombing and then I'd be astonished if this campaign took more than a week. Astonished."

February 17, 1998 (CNN)
"There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us. If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow."

Don't get me wrong, perhaps Clinton did oppose the war, but a even a very generous person would consider his messages mixed, at best. There really isn't any reason to doubt that Obama, like the rest of America, was unaware of Clinton's "opposition". You go too far in asserting that Barack Obama was lying. Barack Obama wasn't exactly the only democrat scratching his head when Clinton said he opposed the war, you know. The media was also scratching it's collective head. If Clinton's opposition to the war in Iraq were actually an accepted fact, why on earth would the media have asked Obama for a comment about his claim?

 

I am no longer suprised when any democratic candidate lies through his or her teeth. Mind you, I was really hoping Obama would turn out differently, but it does seem to be a rather common party tactic. Actually, it doesn't seem to be that uncommon among the republicans. I vote for a new rule, all statements made by candidates or those directly associated with candidates (campaign managers, spouses, etc.) count as being made under oath, so you can go to jail if someone can prove you knowingly lied.

Anyway, my primary support is for Huckabee all the way (no suprise there I guess, but listen). He is a right-wing conservative on the social issues (abortion, gay marriage, etc.), but he's very moderate, even liberal on his economic policies, which is a nice change of pace. Beyond it all, however, he seems to me to be just about the only one I would dare to call 'honest' at the moment. After that, McCain seems pretty similar onthe major issues, though I'm a little iffy about him. Until recently I was going to say that Obama would be my #3, but now...

 

NOG, first of all, "supporter" is a very broad term. Your suggestion simply will not work. Regarding Obama and his "lies"...what lies? I still haven't seen any examples of this. Sure, some of his supporters may have gone too far, but that is true of every candidate running. Any parent can tell you that it's literally impossible to control the words coming out of someone else's mouth.

Even your much vaunted Mike Huckabee has actually been caught in lies or blatant factual errors by the media multiple times. First he lied about supporting Bush's surge, despite coming out against it January 24th of 2007 on MSNBC, he wrongly stated that Pakistani's are the largest immigrant bloc in our country (they aren't even close), he wrongly asserted that he wasn't crossing a picket line going on Conan O'brien's show because O'brien "had a special deal", and he's even been caught lying about his own record and the records of his opponents during presidential debates. Huckabee is far from perfect.

 

You should not be, since you may be a Republican. I'm sure you are quite used to it.

Drew - Eveyone knows there was no love lost between Clinton and Saddam. You can even find old quotes, which are very similar, made by Al Gore. I would like to see more from the quotes that you cite.

Regarding the actual primary: I'm still very disappointed that Edwards has not had a better showing. I thought he did very well in the last debate, the little I managed to see of it, in SC.

And it appears that Fred Thompson is giving up his latest acting role as a candidate.

 

Are you looking for actual full transcripts of the interviews from which I pulled the quotes (which I'd be happy to track down for you), or are you saying that a quote of Bill Clinton in 2004 in which he states that, despite reservations, he did support the war is insufficient evidence of mixed messages?

 

Drew - What I'm saying is that Bill often qualifies his statements very carefully. I would like to look at his larger thoughts regarding the comments, rather than just the sound bytes you quoted. Think of it like this: Your guy says he opposses the War in Iraq, and he DID vote against it. Still, he keeps funding the same war he voted against - over and over. That seems a strange thing on the outside. But it's fairer to say that these things occur within a particular context. Yet, that is generally ignored in all the media hype. Within the media context it's almost always a game of "GOTCHA!" It's not very fair, nor is it really an acurate test of reality. But that's how the game is played - unfortunately.

 

Here.

The first Clinton quote is really all you need. I attributed it to CNN (which is where I got it), but it actually came from a Time Magazine interview he did back in July of '04 which is available online (and linked above). The whole interview is quite good and worth reading, but his Iraq war comments start on page 7. While he states that he disagreed with GW's timing of the invasion, he very clearly states that he nevertheless supported it.

 

Thanks for the link, Drew. It contains exactly what I had already known: Bill believes, at least publicly, that Bush acted on the suspicion that Saddam had WMDs. He says that he also suspected as much, and after 9/11 it is understandalbe that the prez would want an "accounting" of what Saddam may either have in the way of WMD, or may be planning. Note: Bill neither believes that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11, or that Saddam was planning on using WMD against the US.

That's important - There IS the token line that he says, "I supported the War." That is what you would expect an ex-prez to say while the nation was at war. Please also note what a lot of folks have to say about Jimmy Carter, who broke with the tradtion of being a good "token" ex-prez. Let Bill say the same things and watch even the conservatives light up this board with how "unpatriotic" Bill is and how he won't go along with the long tradtion of our beloved "tokenism."

The other important thing to keep in mind is that it would have been unlikely that Bill would have invaded Iraq had he been prez at the time, based upon his own comments. He would have waited for the inspectors to have finished looking for WMD. They obviously would have never found any, as is already widely known. As I commented, Bill frames and qualifies his comments very carefully. So, we can say that at least in Bill's mind, the invasion was really unecessary. Also note that GWB never waited for the inspectors to finish the job of looking for WMDs.

 

I believe that statement is true of ANY other leader except Bush and, possibly, Cheney. Had anyone other than Bush been President, we would not have gone to war.