Revved Up Like a Deuce
Despite West Wing misgivings, Bill Clinton will introduce President Empty Chair at the DNC on Thursday night. Edward Klein goes behind the scenes:
My sources inside the Obama campaign tell me that the last thing Obama wanted to see was Clinton, one of the country’s greatest orators, standing at the podium of the Democratic convention and sucking all the air out of the place.
The president, First Lady Michelle Obama and their senior political adviser, Valerie Jarrett, all argued strenuously against offering Clinton a plum assignment at the convention. They wanted to relegate him to a minor, non-prime-time speaking role. However, Clinton, who is viewed as an iconic figure by the party faithful, refused to accept anything less than the all-important nominating speech and threatened to boycott the convention unless his demands were met.
The decisive vote in the matter, according to my sources, was cast by David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political strategist, who argued that the Obamas needed Clinton far more than Clinton needed them. Axelrod had long been aware that things were not going as well for Obama as the mainstream media reported. [Emphasis added]
BOOM!
Forget everything else you hear about this campaign. Forget the polls, forget the primetime MSM analysis, forget the talking points on the Sunday shows. It’s all a bunch of BS.
The only thing that’s real, the only thing that counts, is that thing David Axelrod knows: President Empty Chair is in serious electoral doo-doo. Come to think of it, everybody knows it. Which is exactly why you need to forget everything else and focus on this: Empty Chair is running scared, and the MSM is covering for him in every way they know how.
It’s kind of scary that the President of the United States is getting pushed around, and by someone who is not currently running a country or possessing nuclear weapons.
GOP had Marco Rubio — dynamic, young guy with a promising future.
Democrats have an old has been who was impeached.
enough said.
rbj, give Bill his due; he’s a smart guy (as opposed to Obama’s book-smarts) and he’s a damned good politician. I would even say he’s the closest thing the Dems have had to Reagan since… FDR. I’m not talking about his morals, but his political & interpersonal talents.
It’s not hard to see why Democrats love Clinton. Consider the list of possibilities (with adjustments for modern “sensibilities”):
-FDR (ancient history, rich old white man)
-Truman (stick in the mud, old white man, got sucked into Korea)
-JFK (pretty, exciting, but nearly started WW3 and sucked us into Vietnam)
-LBJ (poontang-chasing, hand-shaking, log-rolling-genius, old perv) net thumbs down. Not to mention Vietnam.
-Carter … pass
-Clinton
-Obama (talks a good game, plays a weak one; blames everyone else; vain; self-absorbed; wears granma-pants)
When you then compare Clinton to Bush ’43, Bill in many ways appears to have the edge. He’s got the “smart” bit (Rhodes scholar, etc.) covered, compared to Bush’s apparent common-man IQ. He is quick & well-spoken compared to Bush’s labored delivery. AND he enjoyed several years of surpluses, a post-WW2 record.
Is it any wonder Democrats love the man?
“Ignore the data, listen to the pundit who’s saying what you want to hear instead!”
Or we could follow your example, and willfully ignore the fact that Obama 2012 is waging the most desperate campaign in modern American politics — which is the detail that proves the point about Axelrod. And that in turns proves the rest.
Me, I’ll stick with the salient data.
Obama 2012 is waging the most desperate campaign in modern American politics
Wasn’t there some recent election in which some flailing pol chose SARAH PALIN as a running mate?
Actually, Palin helped McCain — as much as anyone could in that doomed year.
From the time McCain named her his running mate, he was either up or tied in every major poll. It wasn’t until the banking crisis that McCain stumbled, and badly. He suspended his campaign to go to Washington and be seen sitting at a table with Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama — who proceeded to roll him. It was the most ineffective performance by a presidential candidate maybe the world has ever seen. From that point on, Obama led in the polls by increasing margins every day, it seemed.
But that had nothing to do with Sarah Palin.
Actually, Palin helped McCain
There’s no evidence at all for that, and in fact there are suggestive parallels between disapproval ratings for Palin and for the campaign as a whole (which do not map as well to personal disapproval ratings of McCain).
Examine the graphs:
http://www.duke.edu/~hillygus/documents/ellishillygusnieES.pdf
You can’t really say that Palin dragged the ticket down because separating the Palin factor is really impossible, but there is less evidence to suggest she was helpful than there is that she was a negative. Which fits intuition because Palin revealed herself as a nitwit.
The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times — the first two left-leaning sources I bothered to look for — disagree.
I’m no Palin defender. Resigning her governorship was the final proof — if any was ever needed — that she is an unserious political figure.
But the fact remains, she was a benefit, perhaps the only benefit, to a fatally flawed GOP contender
The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times — the first two left-leaning sources I bothered to look for — disagree.
Those aren’t left-wing papers and no they don’t. The Times quotes one political scientist who seems not to notice that convention bumps exist but the article otherwise takes no position. The Post says she helped turn out the base but turned off what every republican needs in addition to the base: independents and democrats. Neither presents usable numbers. Effect not proven, but again, Palin disapproval matching McCain polling is a very interesting thing.
In any case, I think we both agree that McCain was clutching at straws, Sarah Palin was the straw, and neither of us think much of her. Which is the point of contrasting the 2012 Obama campaign with the 2008 McCain campaign.
The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times are *not* left leaning? Are you effing kidding? What color is the sky in your world, because it sure isn’t blue.
That’s when I dropped the thread. Because vile progs tell vile lies.
Every politician with a brain runs as desperately as they think they can get away with. I mean really, what desperation are you talking about here? Obama is running attack ads early, sure, but that’s just good sense(it arguably won my current PM his last two elections). He’s trying to get one of the most popular politicians in the world to appear at his convention. His fundraising isn’t messianic this time, and he is behind, but it’s still decent. The only thing I’ve ever seen from you that actually looks like a campaign in trouble is the bit about hosting smaller events.
Obama is vulnerable, certainly. This will not be a cakewalk for him. But he’s still fairly popular, and Romney isn’t exactly a candidate of legend. All the data shows the race as close, but in Obama’s favour. I’m not going to ignore that for a hunch.
Let’s phrase it this way: Romney is trading at 42% on Intrade. You seem to be arguing like his odds are 80-90%. If it’s such an easy way to double your money, how much cash do you have bet on the GOP win?
Actually you should just watch how the Obama Campaign is actually behaving. THEY sure as hell don’t seem to believe the polls. That’s why they are following Romney into disaster areas, sicking their media minions after an octogenarian actor, and inviting the only guy with more D star power than Obama on stage with him. Not to mention the scorched Earth campaign they are waging against Romney.
Data collected and interpreted by slanted sources is garbage. Many of the polling companies and all the Lamestream Media live in a Democratic echo chamber.
Figures don’t lie but……..
The “Hillary 2016″ campaign kickoff speech?
Absolutely.
The best chance Hillary has to be POTUS is in 2016, coming off a Romney presidency. In the modern political era, Americans do not return parties to the WH for a third term unless it is on a wave of popularity (Roaring 20s, FDR, Reagan). Two terms of Dear Leader will be a disaster, and Hillary’s chance of winning in 2016 would be zero.
Clinton will seemingly do everything he can to support Dear Leader while he prepares the groundwork for his defeat in 2012 and the re-assertion of the Clintonites in the Democratic Party.
I expect to hear a lot about the “success” of Dear Leader’s foreign policy– winding down operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Arab Spring, talking tough and working with regional powers in Syria, coordinating with Europe during its troubles, collaborating with China to ensure we both benefit from a healthy relationship, etc, etc.
And what’s the over/under on how many times he mentions his wife, either warmly as “Hillary” or as the State Department? 3.5? 4.5?
The grave mistake Mitt Romney made was calling Paul Ryan a stupid kid the next President of USA whereas when wolf smile call Biden the next president this show he knew he was a kid and respect his elders
close to heart attack Bill Clinton on stage what will he prove to the people and the people hear him say in the unspoken words:” do not cheat on your wife, stay away from Ayn Rand whore wackos or you end up like me where I can not even eat steak or this give me a heart attack” but then he can tell the people wolf smile should have done what he did a leave Osama to the courts but the people will not listen to Bill and be glad he pass the touch to wolf smile who I believe will repent latter for killing Osama and who know ?
Maybe he grow hair on his chest figure of speech figure of speech and he show experience when he speaks and his passion based on substance like FDR in his 1936 speech
yes/no?
Could someone please translate Waxwing’s comment into a language spoken on Earth?
It’s….
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9khhrx5Gq1rxog5oo2_500.jpg
WTF?
Does waxing need more meds, or less?
Forget spin, how’s Obama doing in a State he won last time by 23 points? eh, not so well actually:
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-connecticut-poll-fundraising-romney-weinstein-marriott-2012-8#ixzz25DyKDhsg
“Men actually prefer Romney by a 6-point margin in the state, as Obama is buoyed by a near 20-point lead among women. Romney also garners 47 percent of the Independent vote to Obama’s 40 percent.”
My conclusion? This election is not close, there is no such thing as an undecided voter and a large percentage of former Obama voters are either not planning on voting or will actually( gasp!) vote for Romney/Ryan.
So since CT was one of the “high water mark” States last time, then how does it look out where it was close last time? My conclusion is that if CT is in this sort of shape, then the battleground states have to be a complete mess for the Democrats.
If Obama doesn’t get a bounce from the DNC, how long will it take before Axlegrease is Histwa!?
Will he jump out or will he be pushed off?
Here’s a bumper sticker for you:
http://thevailspot.blogspot.com/2012/09/new-obama-bumper-sticker.html