Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - Hillary Clinton is unelectable

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- - Hillary Clinton is unelectable (https://thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-politics/130156-hillary-clinton-unelectable.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ngdawg

I think what just drives me nuts about this whole thing is this country's penchant for the two-party system that virtually locks out anyone not a Dem or GOP.
Last election, I voted for Ralph Nader. This year I just might vote for whatever is the furthest name to the right in the columns....

Hillary is too green. She's still considered a "junior senator", as is her Dem opposition. And they spend too much time knocking each other, skirting some serious issues and changing their minds, according to some op-eds I've read lately. HIllary would not be where she is now if not for hubby.
McCain? Anti-choice, anti-gay and a former POW...which just makes me think he's gonna have some serious PTSD and go hiding under the presidential desk at some point. Plus his age is a factor. Reagan was old enough and his dying with Alzheimer's makes me suspect he was showing some signs of it in office.
Truth be told, I'd have probably gone with Giuliani had he not quit....if nothing else but a viable choice to keep Hillary out of office.

His myspace page used to say he supported gay marriage, esp. if it were between two hot females. But I think that was just a little Mike in the ointment.

http://mike.newsvine.com/_news/2007/...ng-john-mccain

Actually, if you think this election will change things other than at the margins, you probably are unduly optimistic. Consider this essay in today's NY Times, which is actually pretty perceptive:

Quote:

This election is certainly important. But based on the historical record, it isn’t likely to result in a major swing in economic policy. Fundamentally, democracy is not a finely tuned mechanism that can be used to direct economic policy as a lever might lift a pulley. The connection between what voters want, or think they want, and what ultimately happens in the economy, is far less direct.

* * *

To put it simply, the public this year will probably not vote itself into a much better or even much different economic policy. To be sure, the next president — whoever he or she may be — may well extend health care coverage to more Americans. But most of the country’s economic problems won’t be solved at the voting booth. It is already too late to stop an economic downturn. Health care costs will keep rising, no matter who becomes president or which party controls Congress. China is now a bigger carbon polluter than the United States, so don’t expect a tax or cap-and-trade rules to solve global warming, even if American measures are very stringent — and they probably won’t be, because higher home heating bills are not a vote winner. A Democratic president may propose more spending on social services, but most of the federal budget is on automatic pilot. Furthermore, even if a Republican president wanted to cut back on such mandates, the bulk of them are here to stay.

Yes, the election does matter. Even small differences on economic issues affect millions of Americans. But the record of the Bush administration should prove sobering to all those who expect the American political economy to turn around in the next four years.

Many conservative and libertarian economists supported President Bush, thinking they would be getting policy drawn from the work of Milton Friedman and Martin Feldstein, two respected market-oriented economists. Instead, in economics, the Bush years have brought an increase in domestic government spending, and some poorly-thought-out privatization plans. For all the talk of an extreme right-wing revolution, government transfer programs like Social Security and Medicare have continued to grow.

The US is not a revolutionary society. Our country tends to prefer to change incrementally, not spasmodically.

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

The US is not a revolutionary society. Our country tends to prefer to change incrementally, not spasmodically.

Yeah sure. That's why Americans patiently waited until Britain decided it was in it's best interests to grant their colonies independence. And civil war? That would be unthinkable in these united states. American workers would never press for a better deal or use tactics like the sit-down strike. Moreover, the wave of rapid social change which brought social welfare systems and made consumer societies possible missed our shores.

Right?

Quote:

Moreover, the wave of rapid social change which brought social welfare systems

Actually, that's not entirely true. Social Security was implemented in 1935 by FDR in response to the Great Depression-hardly a rapid social change. The Depression itself was a result of investors buying into stock with stock-as investors wished to cash in their options, lo and behold, there wasn't any money to be had and the stock market crashed.(short version).
SS itself was modeled after the Civil War Pension program, which paid to soldiers from that war.
To help the families left destitute by the Crash, Roosevelt implemented Walfare, also in 1935. Before then, families depended on local government, along with private charities, to help, but with over 13,000,000 people left penniless, it behooved Roosevelt to step in and create national programs. His first priority was, of course, to create jobs, but for those who could not work(children, the elderly or handicapped), these two social programs were a godsend.
I guess if you called the Crash of 1929 "social change", then the reasons for our government assistance programs would apply.

We aren't a nation of rapid social change. We are a stewing pot on medium heat that when left to heat a bit too long, boils over. Vietnam went on for almost 20 years before several years of protesting, the enormity of lives lost and the futility of it forced Washington to rethink it. Civil Rights came to a boil in the early 60's but was stewing for over 100 years before that.

guyy, the us tends to prefer incremental change, as I wrote. There has to be a crisis before more drastic change will be tolerated. That's what the Great Depression was. It's what the Civil War was.

Surprise, surprise, 3 more wins for Clinton... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/campaign_rdp

As I said, she's not unelectable.
She has been my senator for 8 years, and I think she did a pretty good job: she worked hard, kept herself informed, did constituent service, etc etc. I was happy to vote for her last time around. I think she gets a bum rap from people who call her the dragon lady and other such lovely terms of endearment. She is far from ideal in terms of what a president should be, but most candidates are. Maybe I feel this way because I saw her on a non-national stage, as my Senator, and didn't view her only through the prism of the predatory press in the Capitol. Could be. But it seems to me she certainly is not unelectable by any means.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

...the press forgets who's side they are on...

The press isn't likely to forget that it is owned by the rich. If it does forget and fails to act in the best interests of the board, the CEO and the stockholders, the employee will get fired.

That is how capitalism works, silly.

Interesting how the Democratic race is viewed from abroad. Here is an excerpt from an analysis in the The Economist which confirms my view that Hillary Clinton is not at all unelectable:

Quote:

The battle for the Democratic Party is so bitter because it is a battle over culture. Mrs Clinton's supporters look at Mr Obama's and see latte-drinking elitists. Mr Obama's supporters look at Mrs Clinton's and smell all sorts of ancestral sins, not least racism. The two groups neither like nor respect each other.

There are actually good reasons for irritation on both sides. The Obamaites are not just otherworldly. They are also weirdly cultish. All the vague talk of “hope” and “change” is grating enough. But many Obamamaniacs want something even vaguer than this—they want political redemption.

It is certainly impressive to see 20,000 people queuing for hours to see a politician. But should they worship their man with such wide-eyed intensity? And should they shout “Yes we can” with such unbridled enthusiasm? The slogan, after all, reminds any parent of “Bob the Builder”, a cartoon for toddlers, and Mr Obama himself rejected it as naff when it was first suggested to him. His supporters are rather like high-school nerds who surround the coolest kid in the class in the hope of looking cool themselves.

But there are also good reasons to be irritated with Mrs Clinton's beer-track Democrats. Blue-collar workers have certainly had a hard time of it. The Cleveland rustbelt is a decaying monument to good jobs that have been shipped abroad or mechanised out of existence. But one of the tragedies of this campaign is that both Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton have decided to ignore Bill Clinton's message—that the only way that America can remain competitive is to prepare people for new jobs rather than cling on to old ones—and instead engage in a silly competition to see who can bash NAFTA hardest.

To my eyes this looks accurate. There has always (well, for at least fifty years) been a fissure in the Democratic party that broke basically as populists vs social democrats. And it's still happening. I have no clue what will happen.

Someone with photoshop skillz HAS to start work immediately on that "Bob the Builder" referrence.

Well, I missed a lot of this.

I can only say again what I originally said.

If the Democrats elect Hillary, they are voting for four more years of the Republicans.

I hope they make their choice wisely.