Stop Hillary

POSTED BY: ModerateDem
UPDATED: Monday, November 21, 2005 21:07
VIEWED: 4505
PAGE 2 of 3

Wow, an interesting and possibly even credible theory! There is definately something..... not quite right..... about the DLC. Either the Democrats have no serious Presidential material or Kerry was a dumb choice.

I dunno, Mongo just a pawn in game of life....

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DT: I gave it some thought and I can see a few problems with that theory. Since I know you love to elaborate give me some quick answers to some questions.

If the Neocon conspiracy starts in 1980 as you suggest then this implies Ronald Reagan was in on it. I can't see that, sorry, Ronnie always struck me as a straight guy and even if I disagreed with him I could see the reasons why he thought it was a good idea. That's pushing conspiracy theories too far in my book.

Problem number two is that Clinton was still extremely popular when he left office and the US had a small budget surplus. If the "plan" is to bankrupt the country and alternate Presidents that will end up being hated then it didn't work that time ..... of course this *does* explain Al Gore.....

Do you really think Jeb or Hillary stand a chance? I know the DLC will sabotage the Dem primaries to get their girl in the prime spot but the only way she could win is if the Republicans deliberately field a lame duck canidate. Can you see that happening?

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Fletch,

Yeah, I don't usually subscribe to conspiracy theories, so I thought before someone pull the tinfoil beenie defense, I have a few things to add about how this works.

There are several candidates each election, on one or the other or both sides. Many of these candidates are team players and connected to one of the power circles like skull and bones or something similar. This tells you a lot about them. They want to win, and they are willing to cut deals in order to win. But they aren't the conspiracy.

Conspiracies exist. Osama Bin Laden conspired with members of Al Qaeda to have terrorists fly planes into the world trade centers. I hope everyone is more or less with me on this. So conspiracies, of some sort, do exist. They seldom work the way they do in the movies or in people's heads.

The conspiracy here would be a large group of background figures with tremendous organizing skills. More than just money, but money is a part of it. They are not a tight knit circle of illuminati, they are a group of people with common interests, and some of them are likely to agree on one thing or another at any given time. So they sort through the candidates and approach them one by one with "Hey, we can make you win." They find someone who they think they can manipulate, who needs their help.

Everyone else is basically an amateur. The candidates may have been governors or senators before, but they've never run a presidential campaign before. It's a totally different kettle of fish. Instead of elections of a million voters, which would be posisble to address, in 200 speechs to audiences of 5,000 or so; instead you have 50 million voters, impossible to address, new strategies are needed. So they try, but they suck, they're all amateurs in this new game.

But the professionals come in. Here's a little story. In 2004 I was so upset with Bush that I supported John Buchanan against him. I tried to solicit some interest in his candidacy, but it was hopeless. It seems that the world has changed since Johnson lost his primary as an incumbent, and now incumbents are for some reason sacred. So I considered going over to the dark side, or well, many of you probably feel I'm on the dark side and would be going over to the light side, so it's all subjective, but I of course mean the democrats.

I went to several meetings and helped out to some extent, talked to a lot of democrats about various candidates locally, and online. I got a feeling for several things:

1. A lot of people liked Dennis Kucinnich. Many more than voted for him.
2. A lot of people liked Howard Dean, Wesley Clark. Some people like Al Sharpton, but again thought like Dennis that he was unelectable.
3. No one like Carol Mosely Braun at all. She had a reputation for being Illinois most corrupt politician.
4. Not a lot of people liked Dick Gephart. They pretty much thought he was a proven failure, he'd run in many primaries with little success.
5. No one like Joe Lieberman, well, just one person I talked to.
6. Only one person I talked to like John Kerry.

More people seemed to support Dean than anyone else. I went to a couple Dean meetings, to see who he was and if he would make a decent candidate. At the second meeting it became clear to me that the issue was moot. Regardless of the merits or pitfalls of Howard Dean as a potential president of the United States, vs. say George W. Bush or John F. Kerry, Dean had a problem.

His task force, albeit huge, was the army of annoyance. Everywhere it went it bred contempt and towards its candidate. As time went on, I watched the Dean people campaign, and through their extensive dilligent efforts, the hatred grew. They put in long hard hours, and annoyed countless people.

Other candidates embarked on their own flawed strategies, and then something remarkable happened.

Kerry came in with a machine. It was like watching the shire overrun with orcs. A massive army of automatons with a well thought out plan just annihilated the competition. It didn't have support, it didn't try to convince people of Kerr

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Quote:

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I like Bill Maher...He doesn't strike me as a left wing extremist...I think Governors in general have a better shot at the gold than Senators, though I think Senators may make better presidents if they can get elected.

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That's crazy. Bill Maher is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the left-wing. He's the perfect example of hitlerian-socialism. That lunatic has compared retarded children to dogs and believes that the disabled should be "put to sleep." He says that Mad Cow Disease is a good thing because it means less people will eat meat and that doctors shouldn't experiment on animals even if they know it will lead to cures for diseases. He has actually praised Janet Reno's murderous handling of the massacre at Waco. He often rants about how much he hates children. Bill Maher is evil, pure and simple. And that's not hyperbole.

As for senators being better presidents than governors, that's something only an elitist would think. Senators are the ultimate politicians and Washington-insiders. And that's exactly what the American voter hates. For good reason. A president should be apart from those bastards at Capitol Hill. They should represent real Americans and very few senators are real Americans, they're pandering crooks and liars. Especially career politicians.

Yep, I'll take a governor from Texas (G.W. Bush) or Arkansas (Clinton) or California (Reagan) or Georgia (Carter) or New York (F. Roosevelt) or New Jersey (Wilson) any day over a slimy senator.

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I'm pretty solidly right wing, so I don't spend hours glued to the TV watching Bill Maher. Hell, I don't even have a TV. But I have seen Bill Maher snippets here and there enough to think he's okay. I've even seen him say some things that were pretty deplorable.

But then I've seen Ann Coulter say we should nuke Korea. I think that's a truly deplorable idea in the extreme. But she's not coming off of my favorite people list because of it. But also I'm not taking her seriously. These people are flare, half of what they say is for effect.

I'm sure Bill Maher has said countless things that I would wholeheartedly disagree with. But he didn't slaughter those American Citizens in Waco. Bill Clinton, Janet Reno and Co did. THEY are evil.

People who speak out in favor of Bush's war in Iraq now aren't evil. People who actually pulled the fingers off of Iraqi children are evil.

Okay, next point.

Senators would make better presidents, of course they would. Did I ever say I wasn't an elitist?

Yay to the Washington insiders!

I'm serious. This anti-insider thing is among the stupidest things I've ever heard. Truly.

A Washington insider is by definition a person of experience. Do I want a preference for someone without experience? Hell no. This would be like asking for someone from outside the field of pilots to fly a plane.

Also, the next thought there was just totally offensive.

Quote:

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A president should be apart from those bastards at Capitol Hill.

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This is the part where I just when to thinking maybe you were stone stupid. The idea that congress is evil is something forwarded by every administration because the executive would be much happier if this were a dictatorship.

Congress IS the govt. of the US of A. If you hate them, collectively, you hate America. Have you ever watched C-Span? These guys are sharp, and they're good, and they're actually trying. Do they f^&k up, collectively, sure, but individually a lot of them are great people.

The flaw in my theory is that LBJ was a senator. And he was an evil dude. But I'm not saying all governors suck, just that they are more electable, but less experienced, and so probably less talented. For instance at the moment we have a chimpanzee from new england disguised as a cowboy from texas.

I don't know whether you're a democrat or a republican, but I think that kind of attitude towards the US Senate is truly reprehensible. I would take any experienced Senator with the possible exception of Ted Stevens, but any republican with 10 years or more in the Senate, and a fair number with less experience over what we have now, or over Clinton or Reagan.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
But I have seen Bill Maher snippets here and there enough to think he's okay.

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That lunatic compares retarded children to dogs, wants to murder the disabled, and cares more about lab rats than suffering people. If you don't think that's evil, then maybe you have your own issues on the good/evil index.

By the way, here's an article written in June of 2002 from David S. Broder:

Quote:

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WASHINGTON -- Once again, the Senate is full of presidential wannabes. Three Democrats, John Edwards of North Carolina, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, are out most weekends, cultivating friends in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and wooing contributors everywhere. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut reportedly are weighing the possibility of joining the chase. And the boss man, Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, has carefully left the door open for himself.

All this, despite the fact -- and it is a fact -- that senators just don't make it.

In all of American history, only two men -- Warren Harding and John Kennedy -- have gone straight from the Senate to the White House. Bob Dole in 1996 was the last sitting senator to win a party nomination (though he resigned his Senate seat a few months before the convention) and, like most of his predecessors, he was whomped in the election.

In 2000, two men who had spent most or all of their public careers as senators, Al Gore and Bill Bradley, and a sitting senator, John McCain, were in the race -- and all three lost.

The statistics show that vice presidents (many of them, like Gore, former senators) and governors and former governors (such as George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter) have far greater success in winning nominations and in making it to the White House than do senators.

Between 1960 and 1996, senators were the largest group of presidential contenders, providing almost 37 percent of those who ran in at least one primary outside their home states, as compared with 23 percent who were governors. But only one out of 10 senators won nomination and only one out of 50 (Kennedy), the election. Governors did better in both regards.

These figures come from an article in the current Political Science Quarterly, written by Barry Burden, a professor of government at Harvard. Burden speculates about why so many senators try -- and why so few succeed.

On paper, at least, senators are plausible presidential candidates. They are usually mature, experienced, conversant with national and international issues and, thanks to TV interview shows, often fairly well-known. They also have the advantage of six-year terms, with no term limits, as compared to governors, most of whom run every four years and often must step aside after one or two terms.

Senators ought to have the edge, Burden says. So why don't they? Burden considers and rejects several possibilities. Senators have to vote on more issues, but rarely are they defeated as a result of some past roll call. As legislators, they rarely can claim sole credit for any big achievement. But governors' victories hardly ever are noted outside their home states -- and not always there.

But there are differences between senators and governors that may well explain the pattern. Because the Senate, by design, treats each state, regardless of population, the same, small-state senators are as likely to have their presidential ambitions fueled as those from larger states. The average senatorial contender has come from a state with 13 electoral votes; the average governor seeking the presidency, from a state with 23 electoral votes.

The larger your base, the better your chance of winning. Bill Clinton is the exception here; Ronald Reagan and Bush, more typical. Other differences also show: Senatorial aspirants are typically older than governors and, in the past four decades, fewer of them have come from the South, the most advantageous base for recent presidential contenders (Johnson, Carter, Bush, Clinton and, once again,

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