The Obama Phenomenon and the 2008 Presidential Campaign

[Cerin]

The fact that Clinton needed to "loan" herself $5 million dollars (and possibly a lot more) is very telling (as is the fact that she CAN do so).

It's funny, liberals never seemed to hold the Kennedy's wealth against them, and I don't recall Kerry getting grief about it, but this season Edwards and if I understand your implication, Clinton are supposed to be suspect in some way because they have money?

One need not be poor to sincerely advocate for the less fortunate.

[solicitr]

Well, let's see...

As far back as Bill's first campaign, when it was Hillary who instructed the ruthless private investigator Jack Palladino* to "impeach [Gennifer] Flowers' character and veracity until she is destroyed beyond all recognition." (her memo). Or down to this December, when HRC had her good friend and former in-law Barbara Boxer blue-slip the judicial nomination of former Rep. James Rogan for his vote to impeach Bill (notwithstanding Boxer and Feinstein's agreement to abide by an independent commission's CA judicial nods); or last month, when HRC herself killed Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the bench, since he was once assistant to Ken Starr.

Then there was the Travel Office affair- here the outrage is not merely that she fired six people to make way for cronies, which is routine Washington sleaze, but that when they complained she sicced the FBI on them with trumped-up charges in order to ruin them.

Related to Brooks' piece on the healthcare debacle, here is Sen Bill Bradley's comment on Hillary's announcing to the assembled Senate Dem leadership that anyone who objected to her plan would be "demonized:" "You don't tell members of the Senate you are going to demonize them. It was obviously so basic to who she is. The arrogance. The assumption that people with questions are enemies. The disdain. The hypocrisy."

Overall- well, who knew her political MO better than Dick Morris, who met with her two to three times weekly during Bill's term to discuss political strategy?

Hillary emphatically comes from the us versus them school of American politics. Like Richard Nixon, the politician she so closely resembles, she sees the world in extraordinarily simple terms: there are those who agree with her and support her and then there's the rest of the world. Those who don't agree with her are bunched together and known collectively as "the enemy" that must be vilified, beaten, and destroyed, whatever it takes.

To Hillary, this easily quantifiable adversary is unquestionably the source of all evil. Therefore, any means of obliterating them is acceptable. She thrives on identifying, assailing, and defeating them. Her hatred for this ubiquitous enemy is actually a source of enormous strength- it motivates her, energizes her, keeps her going and reminds her of her superiority....She's not a warrior, she's a bully.

--Dick Morris, Rewriting History

Of course, Hillary can reward her friends as well as punish enemies- don't forget the flurry of outrageous pardons on Bill's last day in office.

*Palladino's question in response: "Is she [Flowers] the sort that can be driven to suicide?"

[solicitr]

Cerin:

I have no problem with wealth- some of our best presidents from Washington and Jefferson to the Roosevelts to JFK have been very rich men. In the Clintons' case it raises eyebrows because when Bill was in office they so often pleaded that they were poor as churchmice and apparently would have nothing but Bill's pension and Hill's salary to live on after they moved out of the White House (supplemented, in the event, with much of the White House furniture).

Edwards' money was an issue simply because the way he got it- a far more disreputable way of making a pile than, say, Papa Joe Kennedy's bootlegging money.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, soli. The Bill Bradley quote is particularly telling to me, because he is one of the politicians that I admire the most. (In large part because he never really was a politician.)

Eru, that was well said.

One need not be poor to sincerely advocate for the less fortunate.

No, you don't. But when you make a ton of money by working for (and helping to run) corporations that have a bad record of dealing with working people, it makes me suspicious of the genuineness of your advocacy for the less fortunate.

[River]

In light of this, I guess my biggest concern about Hillary (aside from her hawkishness and general Clinton baggage - do you really think that what happened in the '90's won't happen again and do you really want to have to live through that shit all over again??) is will she allow dissent within her administration or will she surround herself with yes-people like W? W's administration has been freakish in that regard. You can say what you want about Clinton, Bush Sr. and Reagan, but they all allowed dissent within their ranks and listened to their viewpoints. W doesn't and that led us straight into Iraq. Could this country take more of that?

[nerdanel]

No, you don't. But when you make a ton of money by working for (and helping to run) corporations that have a bad record of dealing with working people, it makes me suspicious of the genuineness of your advocacy for the less fortunate.

Are you differentiating between corporations here, V? Are you stating that HRC's specific clients were corporations with a bad record of dealing with working people? Or, are you assuming that all corporations (or all corporations that would need to contact a defense-side law firm) have a bad record of dealing with working people? And, are you assuming that every such attorney who is "helping to run" these corporations is actively causing or contributing to the problems you describe - or is there any possibility that those attorneys could be (in some cases) (for instance) counseling those corporations to IMPROVE their practices for dealing with working people - so as to avoid litigation, as one reason?

Because, to tell you the truth, the bulk of the money in this country's legal market is in the corporations - in running them, founding them, working with them, counseling them, etc. (and only in relatively rare plaintiffs'-side cases, suing them with a high contingency recovery without actually representing another corporate entity.) It's not generally available from the Peace Corps or the ACLU, unfortunately. So, for you to say that (in essence) that attorneys who made their money through taking advantage of corporate business opportunities are de facto suspect if they advocate for the less fortunate - seems essentially to say that attorneys, indeed, cannot be wealthy (at least on the basis of their legal practice) and sincerely advocate for the less fortunate at all. Which, at the least, seems far too black-and-white to me - but my bias in this matter is as obvious as yours, if not more so.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm thinking as much about her long service on the board of Walmart (a corporation with an abysmal labor record) and other corporations as I am her work with the Rose Law Firm. But generally speaking, I am suspicious of attorneys that have made many millions of dollars representing corporations. As you well know. Does that mean that i think that all corporate attorneys are bad people. Of course not.

As you well know.

[River]

Apropos of nothing, here's a useful resource I heard about on NPR a few days ago: the Politifact Truth-o-meter.

[Primula Baggins]

Soli, do you have a link for that story about the White House furniture? I just spent a fair amount of time on Google and can't find any news report about it, just right-wing columnists who all seem to be repeating each other.

It does appear that the famous "trashing" of the White House and Air Force One never happened; even Tony Snow is quoted as having said so.

I'm not arguing for the sainthood of the Clintons, but I think there are some pretty strong myths about them that people want to believe and have fun retelling, but that don't have any truth to back them.

[solicitr]

I guess my biggest concern about Hillary ...... is will she allow dissent within her administration or will she surround herself with yes-people like W?

Hmm! There are parallels, almost opposite signs of a coin. The arrogance, the self-righteousness, the unwillingness even to consider another viewpoint, the shameless use of spin, the eagerness to play political lowball (you don't think Carl Rove invented it, do you?)...

Again, for sixteen years the American people have had to put up with this sort of crap. Christ, let's elect someone decent and honorable for a change.

[solicitr]

The White House China:

There are two parts to the story. One, which broke almost immediately after Inauguration Day, involves 'spontaneous' gifts of china and silver from supporters (including the soon-to-be-pardoned Mark Rich):

Former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, have made an ethically correct and politically necessary decision to pay for the gifts showered on them by supporters as they left the White House. ......The Clintons said they would repay $85,966 to cover the furniture, china and silver bought by wealthy donors to furnish their new houses. ...... The $85,966 is supposed to be the value of the housing items that came in a distasteful glut near the end of Mr. Clinton's last year in office. Senate rules would have prevented Mrs. Clinton from taking the gifts after she was sworn in to her new office. Her unseemly rush to grab such items as $2,400 dining chairs before having to comply with tighter ethics rules was what did such terrific damage to her public support.

--The New York Times, 2/3/2001

The other story, which broke rather later, involved items of White House furniture and artwork which the Clintons were forced to return after having shipped it to Chappaqua, some almost a year before Bill left office. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A9649C8B63

A third somewhat related story broke in 2002 when it was reported that the Clintons had received a further $1M in undisclosed gifts- disclosure rules were skirted by the simple expedient of calling them gifts to the Clinton Library. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A9679C8B63

And then there's all the fundraising hijinx- besides renting out the Lincoln bedroom, and long before Dennis Hsiu, there was Charlie Trie and John Huang and...

Well:

[Rep. Dan] Burton: Mr. Freeh, over 65 people have invoked the 5th Amendment or fled the country in the course of the Committee s investigation [into Clinton fundraising]. Have you ever experienced so many unavailable witnesses in any matter in which you ve prosecuted or in which you ve been involved?

[FBI Director Louis] Freeh: Actually, I have.

Burton: You have? Give me, give me a rundown on that real quickly.

Freeh: I spent about 16 years doing organized crime cases in New York City.

[axordil]

Bill at least had some free agents in the cabinet. Janet Reno, whatever else one thinks of her, wasn't exactly a "team player". Robert Reich had some significant differences on economic and labor policies with his boss towards the end of the administration, I believe.

Now were they LISTENED to? Different question, of course.

Anyway--

I've been mulling this whole thing over, and have come to the conclusion that it is often very, very hard to make a decision of which candidate to support solely on issues, not only this time around but in general. Let's face it--most of the Democratic candidates had pretty much the same goals, as did (apart from immigration issues) most of the GOP on their side. The bell curve on positions is not all that broad, although there are always outliers. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, one may be a perfect match in one area and off-base in another, while by any particular individual's standards.

The result is that they (and we) have to either:

1) Focus on problems with a rival's past record as predictor of the future
2) Inflate minor distinctions into major campaign issues, whether they deserve it or not
or
3) Get into intangibles, from electability to ethics "vison stuff" to the trivial crap.

The media doesn't force them to do this when the positions are so close. They have to come up with some way to contrast themselves--for us.

[yovargas]

sol's posts about Clinton are awfully distressing. :| I'm sure there's other sides to the story ect ect, but even in my most generous attempts at fairness, it is difficult to trust her. It worries me that she may win this whole thing. Can anybody come up with similarly questionable material on Obama?

[Cerin]

The commentators, newspersons and pundits I've heard generally seem to agree that Clinton is better at the debates than Obama, that she has a greater grasp of the issues, facts and details. So I'm wondering a couple of things:

1. Do Obama supporters think voters in the upcoming primaries should have the opportunity to see the two candidates in additional debates?

2. If Obama refuses to debate, what would Obama supporters think of that?

[Cerin]

Can anybody come up with similarly questionable material on Obama?

Obama hasn't had an entire industry devoted for decades to portraying him as the devil's spawn, and making endless resources available to those legions who have adopted assassinating his character as their favorite leisure pastime.

I think you'll have to give it a little time.

[yovargas]

So, are you saying it's the "vast right-wing-conspiracy"'s fault that Hilary said and did all those questionable things?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Can anybody come up with similarly questionable material on Obama?

The Clinton campaign certainly has tried. The best they have come up with is accusing him of representing slum lord Tony Rezko. But this accusation actually supports soli's assertion that the Clintons are perfectly willing to go the low road by distorting the facts. Here are the true facts. Upon graduating from Harvard Law School, Obama got a job working for a civil rights law firm, Miner Barnhill & Galland (despite the fact that, as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law review, could have named his job at any major law firm or corporate legal department in America), where he represented community organizers, discrimination victims and black voters trying to force a redrawing of city ward boundaries. During his tenure at Miner Barnhill, the firm accepted the representation of the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., a nonprofit group that redeveloped a run-down property on Chicago's South Side. Mr. Rezko, not the client of the firm, was assisting Woodland with City housing redevelopment projects. As a junior associate, Mr. Obama was asked by his supervising attorney, William Miceli, to do about five hours of basic due diligence and document review. That began and ended his involvement in the case.

No one who has ever practiced law, could argue, with a clear conscience, that these five hours on behalf of a church group that partnered with a man who at a later point in time would be alleged to be a scoundrel equated to knowingly representing a Chicago slumlord. Yet Clinton could not resist leveling the accusation.

The commentators, newspersons and pundits I've heard generally seem to agree that Clinton is better at the debates than Obama, that she has a greater grasp of the issues, facts and details.

The commentary about the debates has been fairly evenly split. The main reason that the Clinton camp is pushing more debates is that Obama raised so much more money than she did in January (over $30 million to $13.5 million, mostly through a mind-bogglingly large number of small donations) that she needs the free air time of the debates to counteract the fact that he will be able to greatly outspend her on ads.

1. Do Obama supporters think voters in the upcoming primaries should have the opportunity to see the two candidates in additional debates?

I'm not a big fan of the debate format, which encourages quick sound bytes rather than extensive policy statements. However it is better with only the two candidates remaining.

2. If Obama refuses to debate, what would Obama supporters think of that?

It depends on the circumstances. I'll cross that bridge if and when it appears. It's an interesting dynamic, though. Because usually it is the frontrunner that wants to avoid debates and the challenger that wants them.

Edit to add: I have no doubt that a lot of the stories that soli is reporting about Clinton are exxagerated to greater or lesser extent, though there clearly is a germ (or more than a germ) of truth in them. And despite my suspicions about her law career and corporate history, she has done a lot of awfully good things over the years. Indeed, she is a good example of someone who has balanced a high-powered (and high-paying) corporate legal career with significant community service, particularly in the crucial areas of children's welfare and women's rights.

[axordil]

The main reason that the Clinton camp is pushing more debates is that Obama raised so much more money than she did in January (over $30 million to $13.5 million, mostly through a mind-bogglingly large number of small donations) that she needs the free air time of the debates to counteract the fact that he will be able to greatly outspend her on ads.

Dingdingding we have a winner!

If someone could come up with a real, working debate format, as opposed to nearly everything that's done now, I might feel differently, but frankly the current ones are useless except for producing sound bites, as Voronwë notes. That's nothing new, of course--it's been years since debates were useful.

[solicitr]

Richard Nixon had an entire industry devoted for decades to portraying him as the devil's spawn, and making endless resources available to those legions who had adopted assassinating his character as their favorite leisure pastime.

And you know what? Nixon was guilty of just about all of it.



Or are you saying that the New York Times, inter alia, is part of the dedicated "Kill Hill" industry?

[Padme]

On a totally different thought...

What would happen if any one of the canidates drafted Bloomberg as VP?