Hillary for President? It's Insane But How About a Poll on Democratic Preferences?

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‘We Told You So’

Dick Cheney heaps praise on Hillary Clinton Telegraph UK 9/5/11

In a week when Dick Cheney seems to me mad at just about everybody, he was quite effusive with his praise of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday on FOX News. When asked whether the Democrats would have been better off with Mrs Clinton as their 2012 candidate, Cheney replied:

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to discourage good primary contest on their side, but I don’t want to be the position of endorsing Hillary Clinton. That might be the kiss of death for her,” he said.

Cheney refused to say that Hillary Clinton would have been a better president than Barack Obama but he did say: “Perhaps she might have been easier for some of us who are critics of the president to work with.”

Calling Clinton one of the more competent members of the Obama Admistration — which he has little praise for — Dick Cheney is yet another voice in a not-so-quiet choir that sees a Hillary Clinton Democratic option as a serious one — and that’s before yet another thoughtless bit of incompetency with the president trying to prevent us from watching the Republican presidential debate on Sept. 7.

One and Done? Maureen Dowd NYTimes 9/4/11

Maureen Dowd uses a very stiff word to describe the lack of efficacy in the Obama Administration and the nonsense surrounding the President’s plan to give us yet another lecture next week: repugnant.

Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.

The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term.

The White House team is flailing — reacting, regrouping, retrenching. It’s repugnant.

After pushing and shoving and caving to get on TV, the president’s advisers immediately began warning that the long-yearned-for jobs speech wasn’t going to be that awe-inspiring.

“The issue isn’t the size or the newness of the ideas,” one said. “It’s less the substance than how he says it, whether he seizes the moment.”

The arc of justice is stuck at the top of a mountain. Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for.

She’s back! Hillary Clinton questions return to Obama White House LA Times 8/30/11

In the White House briefing room with Jay Carney, Hillary is a sensitive topic writes Andrew Malcom. She walloped him in Pennsylvania and Ohio, to states that he must win in 2012. And then there’s a small matter of Texas. Hillary beat Barack Obama there, too. 

In his infamous Katie Couric interview, Joe Biden said that Hillary would have been a better vice presidential candidate. Don’t kid yourself that President Obama isn’t thinking of putting her on the 2012 ticket. Could she be to BO what Cheney was to George W?

Last Tuesday’s briefing room question was:

Q: Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said — and this is a quote — “One of the reasons the president has moved so far to the right is there is no primary opposition to him.” And my question: Why is the president certain that Hillary won’t run against him?  (Laughter.)

MR. CARNEY: You win the award for originality today. 

Q: Thank you very much.

MR. CARNEY: The president is focused not on any election — he’s focused right now on doing his job to grow the economy, create jobs, ensure that Americans who are in the path of this hurricane are taken care of. That’s what he’s focused on. 

Q: I understand. You’re running away from this question. I mean, can you guarantee that — are you sure that —

MR. CARNEY: You’d have to ask —

Q: — Hillary is not going to run?

MR. CARNEY: You’d have to ask her. We’re fairly confident —

Q: That she won’t?

MR. CARNEY: — that we need to focus on the task at hand.

Previously

Hilllary Clinton 2012 Calls Grow With Anger at Obama Debt Capitulation The Daily Beast 8/8/11

AP PhotoAs women who totally supported Hillary Clinton for president — on the experience and exposure to top-level issues conversation — and as women who will not vote Republican in the next election, given the state of the party, it’s a bit hard to digest this article, saying that frustrated liberals want Hillary Clinton to mount a 2012 challenge to President Obama.

At a luncheon in the members’ dining room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday, a 64-year-old African-American from the Bronx was complaining about Obama’s ineffectiveness in dealing with the implacable hostility of congressional Republicans when an 80-year-old lawyer chimed in about the president’s unwillingness to stand up to his opponents. “I want to see blood on the floor,” she said grimly.

Looking as if she were about to cry, an 83-year-old Obama supporter shook her head. “I’m so disappointed in him,” she said. “It’s true: Hillary is tougher.”

A 61-year-old white woman at the table nodded. “He never understood about the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy,’” she said.

The people who abandoned Hillary for President Obama’s candidacy should mount a draft Hillary movement, not expect Hillary to do their dirty work, earning a disloyal tag in the process. Liberals can be spineless, too, especially in supporting strong women. 

Liberal men have pulled the rug out from liberal men since the 1970s, agreeing with pundits like Chris Matthews that politics is a man’s sport, for the guys.

Bill Maher asked his panel last week if Hillary would have been a better president.

“Yes,” replied astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, adding that Clinton would have been “a more effective negotiator in the halls of Congress.”

“She knows how to deal with difficult men,” Maher agreed.

Wanting to Cross the Race Divide

What Happened to Obama? NYTimes 8/7/11

“Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he occasionally, as a state senator in Illinois, voted ‘present’ on difficult issues.”

‘We promise there won’t be any debate about Hilllary’s, er, ‘man-package” are the words I read.

Among Clinton fans, particularly older women, the language was frequently far more caustic. “Obama has no spine and no balls,” said a 67-year-old New Yorker.

These are second-wave feminists talking. Our daughters support Obama in so many cases. Strong mommies don’t command respect with their daughters.

There’s plenty of time for Democrats to get their act together on the Hillary issue. It’s clear to us what the right decision would be — Noble Prize or not. Perhaps that quick-reflex decision was a bit starry-eyed as well.  Anne