Friday, December 14, 2007

Is the Fat Lady About to Sing?

Here's an interesting letter from John A. Millin, M.D., Chair of the Wyoming Democratic Party. He writes to the Denver Post claiming that a Hillary Clinton nomination would decimate the state party. Dr. Millin wrote:

All of this progress will be completely reversed if Hillary Clinton is our party’s presidential nominee. For reasons I don’t agree with and don’t completely understand, most voters in Wyoming seem to hate Hillary Clinton. This is in part due to the perception of her as being someone who supports big government, most notably through a federal government takeover of the health care system. She is also paying a heavy price for the sins of her husband.



The previously unthinkable may happen. Hillary may lose the Democratic Party nomination and in a big way. Howard Fineman at MSNBC says:

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is teetering on the brink, no matter what the meaningless national horserace numbers say. The notion that she has a post-Iowa “firewall” in New Hampshire is a fantasy, and she is in danger of losing all four early contests, including Nevada and South Carolina – probably to Sen. Barack Obama, who is now, in momentum terms, the Democratic frontrunner.

Such a development would not only represent the end of Hillary's candidacy but the end of the Clinton's political influence over a party they have led for more than sixteen years. What would a post-Clinton Democrat party look like? Maybe we're about to find out.

20 Comments:

Blogger Pax Federatica said...

I've commented on other blogs over the past few months that after Howard Dean's collapse in 2003-04, any claim of "inevitability" on behalf of any primary candidate, no matter how strong, is foolhardy. I just never imagined that Hillary would manage to outdo Dean in terms of the sheer spectacularness of her collapse.

Come to think of it, there's one more thing Hillary has in common with Howard Dean: No doubt, by now she's so frustrated she could scream.

12/14/2007 04:29:00 PM  
Blogger Boghie said...

Uuuhhhhh, yeah...

"All of this progress will be completely reversed if Hillary Clinton is our party’s presidential nominee. For reasons I don’t agree with and don’t completely understand, most voters in Wyoming seem to hate Hillary Clinton. This is in part due to the perception of her as being someone who supports big government, most notably through a federal government takeover of the health care system. She is also paying a heavy price for the sins of her husband."

Her views define 'big government'. What else does she stand for? Why ask about a perception and then provide just one of many answers to the question?

12/14/2007 04:54:00 PM  
Blogger Harry said...

The end of the Clinton stranglehold would be good for Dems, good for Repubs, and good for the whole country.

I so hope the Dems put the Clintons out to pasture.

12/14/2007 05:22:00 PM  
Blogger Peter Grynch said...

Rating the Democrat candidates foreign policy, on a scale of "Bad" to "The End of Western Civilization", Hillary actually scores the highest.

Dennis Kucinich is the foaming-at-the-mouth idiot of foreign policy and, at the least, would start a trade war with China.

Barack Obama, however, ranks next-to-last as he promises a return to the Jimmy Carter era. Carter handed Iran to the terrroists, Obama would do the same for the rest of the middle east. He would hand Taiwan over to the communists (something even Carter resisted the urge to do), and would allow the UN to dictate all American foreign policy decisions. He would substitute "dialogue" for actions and Israel would go up in smoke. Obama would then submit a Strongly Worded Memo to commemorate the tragedy.

12/14/2007 05:35:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

Hillary is tip-toeing back to hitting out against Obama. Washington Post's The Trail says:

Clinton tiptoed back to the subject of Obama's background during a taping of the Iowa public television program "Iowa Press" and at a press conference afterwards.

She again denounced Shaheen's remark: "I made it very clear as soon as I heard about it that I not only disapproved, it did not reflect the campaign I am running. I did personally apologize. The gentleman in question has stepped down from the leadership role in my campaign."

But Clinton noted, by way of contrast, that she herself had been heavily scrutinized. "I've been tested. I've been vetted," Clinton said, according to an account by Mike Glover of the Associated Press, a host of "Iowa Press." "I've been in the political arena in our country for 16 years. There are no surprises."

Clinton later added, "I'm only talking about myself."


Maybe its these weasel tactics that are telling against Hillary more than the actually mud-slinging. If she would simply stand her ground and call out whoever she wants to call out without hiding behind cut outs then you might hate her for what she says yet still grudgingly admire her willingness to do it out in the open. As it is she'll sling the mud but without being willing to do it out in the open. And maybe people get a sense of who she is from how she acts.

12/14/2007 05:44:00 PM  
Blogger Zenster said...

After so much democratic party treason in the forms of Murtha, Pelosi et al, it comes as no surprise that a grasping, power-hungry, pseudo-socialist, inexperienced political carpetbagger is being treated like a whore in church. The democrats' current slate of candidates has absolutely nothing to offer America, save further betrayal of our national security and more invasive nanny-state politics. I can only hope that the American electorate has had its fill of such garbage posing as leadership.

12/14/2007 05:55:00 PM  
Blogger Whiskey said...

A post Clinton Democratic Party would be a disaster. As loathesome as the Clintons are, with sleaze and corruption and personal scandals a plenty, at least they realized that there were some genuine foreign policy dangers and something had to be done at some point.

ALL of the other candidates have a fantasy that if we are just pc-multi-culti "nice" to other people, the world will resemble a Malibu spiritual retreat. Complete with crystal channeling and chakras.

You'd see a complete take-over by the Kucinich-Gravel-Obama-Edwards lunatics, not just far left but hard-far-left. Lunacy to the point of giving up all our nuclear weapons and putting a giant "nuke me" sign on America. Apologizing to and negotiating with Osama for our surrender.

This would of course mean the death of the Democratic Party. Or at least the end of any pretense to a Democratic Party that gave a darn about ordinary middle and working class white people who are not gay or tragically hip or people of color.

Meanhwile the Republican Party has it's own suicidal impulses. Huck? Jeez. He makes Jimmy Carter look strong and commanding, with a proven record of sleaziness, love for criminals and contempt for victims, and lunacy akin to Kucinich on foreign policy. Fortunately he won't win in NH and might be stopped in South Carolina where his evangelicalism is balance by all his other insanity.

I would say that Clintonism allowed the Democratic Party to function with massive hard-leftism in the Party while it's worst tendencies were checked. Like say Amnesty for Illegals. Or as Kucinich said, "Undocumented Americans." Absent that the Democratic Party will be forced to confront the wages of it's hard-leftism.

12/14/2007 06:00:00 PM  
Blogger wretchardthecat said...

A post Clinton Democratic Party would be a disaster. As loathesome as the Clintons are, with sleaze and corruption and personal scandals a plenty, at least they realized that there were some genuine foreign policy dangers and something had to be done at some point.

It's been said of both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair is that they made the left electable again through the process of "triangulation". Kevin Rudd in Australia has been described as following this policy. By going conservative in certain key areas they made it possible to bring in parts of the leftist agenda which the electorate did not feel so strongly about. So for example, Kevin Rudd is very definite that he will preserve the US alliance and by so doing gains the political space to sign onto Kyoto.

When a fractious entity held together only by a strong unifying figures loses that figure -- as in the case of the death of Marshal Tito -- two outcomes are possible. First it can break apart into squabbling wings. Second, it can create a new compromise figure who will be the "new Clinton" or the "new Tony Blair".

Hillary's great strength, which was her greatest weakness, was that she was said to believe in nothing. If Barack Obama aims to become another triangulating figure he will have to learn to be similarly pliable. The problem with managing Big Tent politics is that you have to become all things to all men. It's often forgotten the political strongmen emerge not in societies with consensus but in polities which are bitterly divided. For this reason the Left in recent years has needed the "strongman" far more than the conservatives. Without the Clintons to kick around they'll need to define a new point of unity to paper over all the cracks.

12/14/2007 06:13:00 PM  
Blogger Boghie said...

Politicians here in America are trying to find the common thread of the voters...

Trying Hope
Trying Change
Trying Religion
Trying Toughness
Trying Governance
Trying Two Americas

Many candidates are flipping from trying this to trying that...

I think the ones that are 'surging' have accidentally tapped into:

Trying Leadership...

12/14/2007 06:36:00 PM  
Blogger joe buz said...

Nice point Boghie. And Ol Hil does appear to stand to the right of her mates on NatSec. No one on either side is appearing to find a comfortable center. The mute voice of the center mass garners little attention. Since the Goracle invented the net the voices of the outside fringes are often the most heard or read....or talked about. Or so it seems to this crunchy con redneck at the base of the blue ridge mountains.

12/14/2007 07:10:00 PM  
Blogger Zenster said...

joe buz: The mute voice of the center mass garners little attention.

Which is rather curious as it represents a huge number of votes. Even more so now that republicans and democrats alike have alienated massive numbers of their followers with the illegal alien amnesty bill. It is difficult in the extreme to recall any other bipartisan supported measure that so exposed the mercenary aspects of both parties.

I can only hope that during this campaign cycle a vast portion of America's electorate goes "independent" due to this gigantic betrayal and forces the presidential candidates to address issues of substance instead of allowing them to blat their usual tiresome party-line clichés.

12/14/2007 08:12:00 PM  
Blogger veng said...

Wretchard,
"For this reason the Left in recent years has needed the "strongman" far more than the conservatives. Without the Clintons to kick around they'll need to define a new point of unity to paper over all the cracks."

Actually, the left has used their hatred of George Bush as the point of unity to cover the cracks. This is evident on the "progressive" radio talk shows.

What they'll do when BDS no longer works, that is when they realize that Bush is not running and won't endorse any candidate in the primaries will be interesting to see.

12/15/2007 12:14:00 AM  
Blogger The Anti-Jihadist said...

After literally years of build up and suspense, the action is finally about to begin. It's gonna be interesting. Nobody--including the overly paid political talk show pundits, the pollsters, or the consultants on board the various campaigns--really knows what's going to transpire between now and the big day next November. I think the only safe thing to say is "expect the unexpected."

BTW, speaking only for myself, watching Hillary's political self-destruction (if it comes to that) will give me a great feeling of schadenfreude.

12/15/2007 02:44:00 AM  
Blogger Teresita said...

Her views define 'big government'.

The last time we had a Clinton in office we had three consecutive years of budget surpluses, while Bush-43 has grown the federal government faster and bigger than any of his predecessors.

12/15/2007 04:02:00 AM  
Blogger Peter Grynch said...

Teresita is right in that George W. Bush is a big government conservative. When the Republicans took control of Congress they enabled his free-spending ways and brought down the whole party. Now we are forced to live in a Bizarro world where Democrats are viewed as more fiscally conservative!

John Kerry's biggest mistake was not parading around pretending to be a War Hero, it was promising to spend even more money then the out-of-control Republicans.

Teresita is wrong, however, in crediting Clinton with the budget surplus, although this hasbecome the popular mythology thanks to the MSM. For two years when he was first elected, Clinton had a Democrat Congress and it was a fiscal nightmare. The straw that finally broke the camel's back was Hillarycare.

Gridlock saved the Clinton fiscal legacy, just as it seems to rehabilitating Bush's legacy. Every time he uses his veto pen, his popularity increases.

12/15/2007 05:09:00 AM  
Blogger RWE said...

When Bill Clinton was elected, the response in Washington DC was stunned shock. It was the end of life as we know it.

Then, world weariness set in and people seemed to accept that these newcomers would be changed by the DC reality. It was like invading China – by the time you are done you are Chinese, too.

In reality, the reverse happened. The Clintonistas changed DC, and especially the Democratic Party. Few things indicate the
vacuous nature of modern liberalism and the rotten core of the Democratic Party more thoroughly than the way in which the whole apparatus got in line and started following orders. It indeed would be a good thing for this crowd to go down in flames, but I don’t know if there is anything left to replace them with in the Democratic Party. Yugoslavia is a good example of a similar situation and Albania probably an even better one.

I am not that pleased with Huckabee, and prefer either Romney or Rudy or Fred to him, but have to admit that he has one huge advantage, which may turn out to be superficial but which sticks out like a 50 ft flag:

He looks and acts less like Bill and Hillary than any of the others.

12/15/2007 09:00:00 AM  
Blogger vanderleun said...

Smoke and mirrors, my friends.

All smoke and mirrors.

12/15/2007 02:06:00 PM  
Blogger LarryD said...

BDS is in large part a reaction by those in denial against the fact that Bush is trying to deal with the Islamic Radical threat. Notice that Sen Lieberman get the same hate, and he's a liberal Democrat. But Lieberman too, will not pander to those in denial.

"The mute voice of the center mass garners little attention."

Exactly the problem.

12/16/2007 07:33:00 PM  
Blogger JimMtnViewCa said...

Think of the relative likelihoods for these 2 events:
1) Hillary does NOT get the Dem nomination.
2) the current head of the Wyoming Dem party is out on his ear in a year.
My money is on #2.
Hillary's backers have lots of resources, and Obama and Edwards are empty suits.

12/17/2007 12:58:00 PM  
Blogger eggplant said...

JimMtnViewCa said:

"Hillary's backers have lots of resources, and Obama and Edwards are empty suits."

Jim has nailed it. Hillary has money and the power of the Democratic Party elite behind her. Obama has MSM political spin behind him and nothing else.

IHMO, nothing has changed...

There will be initial hiccups but Hillary will win the Democratic nomination. The only real issues are whether the Republicans can field a viable candidate (NOT Huck!) and how badly the economy tanks in the next 6 months. If the economy tanks then Hillary wins no matter who the Republicans nominate.

12/18/2007 01:19:00 PM  

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