The Blue South was able to get a correspondant in to the gymnasium at Allen University to see Hillary Clinton deliver her stump speech on Monday, and boy was it anticlimactic. While we generally don't expect a whole lot of substance to speeches this early in the race, we do expect a lot of applause pauses and energy. And that wasn't the case on Monday. Maybe she was just having a bad day, but the speech was about as rousing as a Zanax washed down with a pint of Thunderbird. The town-meeting format wasn't particularly compelling either (and, while we generally oppose scripted questions at those sorts of things, a bit of screening wouldn't have been such a bad idea). Indeed, it was one of Sen. Clinton's questioners that received the loudest applause as he delivered his 10-minute "question" railing in the Iraq war from a Vietnam vet's perspective. In the end, Sen. Darrell Jackson had to cut the guy's mike to give Clinton a chance to speak up.
As far as the speech goes, she hit all the normal highlights. Universal healthcare, Iraq was a bad idea, George Bush sucks, all the standard Democratic stump-speech fare. She also insists on vowing to take the profits of the big mean oil companies (how she plans to do that short of a Nixon-esque "plumber" team, is beyond me). The fact is that Clinton simply isn't a compelling candidate at this point in the race.
Oh yeah, and while we're on the topic of Hillary, the Blue South would like to send a personal boot to the hindquarters of Clinton's operative, Howard Wolfson. This guy is dirty and vicious and about as blatant a liar as we've seen in a long time. We caught him last night on Hardball calling David Geffen Obama's "campaign finance coordinator." Come on, Wolfy, you know that's not true. The fact is that his tactic of spinning Geffen's anti-Clinton remarks (that were fairly meek) into an instance of the Obama campaign utilizing the slash and burn tactics that Obama himself vows to eliminate. Not a bad tactical move, but don't reach too far, or you'll lose any shred of credibility you have left.
4 comments:
Dang dude. Take down the pic. That thing jumps out at you. Scared the jinn outa me.
Her campaign appears to blow right now, but I wonder how much of that is due to the fact that she's the clear front runner not only for the dem. nomination but in the general at this point.
I understand your points, but how important is this kind of crap when it comes right down to it? How many primary races have extended beyond the first 5 or 6 states in the last 2 decades? Ermmm, none?
For all her weaknesses, Hillary was right about healthcare in 1993. She's played her hand as well as anyone in recent memory. Plus, lets not forget, she's a woman which means she's going to get millions of votes simply on that basis.
I do NOT believe males will vote against her on that basis. Does anyone?
She may be weak in these idiotic pep rallies but when it comes to the title match, she's fully capable of going to the distance.
Zanax and Thunderbird....mmmmm, goood.
Hillary is too polarizing. There isn't a whole lot of middle ground with her. People like her or they don't. Dems have a great chance to win the presidency, but they need someone who will win all the fence-rider votes and I don't think she can pull them in.
I don't think she's going to get any sympathy votes because she is a woman. If her sex does anything it will make it much more difficult to get votes. Obama will be the one getting the sympathy votes. Voters saying, "Let's prove to ourselves we aren't rascist anymore and put a black man in the White House."
Anon, I disagree. I think there are not only people who will vote against her because she is a woman, but also women who might vote against her. Her old "stay at home milk and cookies" swipe at stay at home mom's, those married to them and those raised by them, will be something that will come back to haunt her - esp. considering stay home mom's weren't attacking her, the press was, but in her attempt to "deck" her oppent she hit a group that wasn't swinging at her. Along with all of the scandal of her husband and her part in them, she has some serious baggage that Dems have not yet, or maybe won't bring out, but don't expect for Republican's to give her a pass on any of that.
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