Anne Quindlen editorial on Hillary...hadn't seen this before...

[SaveElmer]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15362334/site/newsweek/

History shows that she is able to woo agnostics and even naysayers. That is how she wound up with a Senate seat in a state to which she had only recently moved. (In the carpetbagger department she was inoculated by Robert F. Kennedy, who didn't even have a home in New York when he was elected its junior senator.) She bested her opponent by 12 points because she won over some Republicans and independents and upstate residents. And she carried the women's vote by 60 percent, even though pundits loved to parrot anecdotal evidence suggesting women were put off by her decision to stand by her unfaithful husband.

But because liberals are idealists, they are unwilling to do the same. They don't even compare their most promising leaders with the opposition. Instead they compare them with the ideal, the perfect candidate, the standard-bearer without flaw. Right now that means a candidate who did not vote for the Iraq war (although, curiously, if the memory of dinner-party arguments circa 2003 serves, a significant number of liberals supported the original invasion). It also means someone who has never moderated a position for the sake of legislative consensus or personal gain: neither LBJ nor FDR need apply. The chatter about presidential possibilities for superstar newbie Barack Obama offers liberals a classic opportunity: this time around they could argue the black man versus the white woman and then watch, wounded, as another white guy takes all.

Can it truly be that the people who once brought us Social Security and civil rights, often through frantic horse-trading, are now so frozen in the amber of high-mindedness that they have become the official party of the Pyrrhic victory?

Let's see: brilliant, well informed, high profile, enormous war chest, works hard, speaks eloquently, campaigns well. No wonder the party leaders are worried. Will she run? I hope so. Can she win? She has to take only the states that John Kerry took, and then one more. (Or the states that Al Gore took, and the Supreme Court.) And the Democratic Party has to decide only that it wants to get behind its front runner, to win and therefore actually get things done instead of having the satisfaction of whining "we told you so" all the way to oblivion.

[LibDemAlways]

1. "She has to take only the states that John Kerry took

and then one more." There are no gurarantees that all of those states would go in Hillary's direction. And what would be the "one more"? My doubts about Hillary all come down to electability - particularly if the repukes nominate someone perceived as "moderate." With the media gunning for her, a third of the electorate despising her, progressive Dems distrusting her - she's simply not our strongest potential candidate. Gore, Clark, Edwards - my top three.

[SaveElmer]

2. Looking at the likely result...

I see Hillary taking 297 electoral votes minimum...

[pnwmom]

7. The one more could easily be Ohio, with fair voting.

Or Florida.

[Recursion]

3. Because if Hillary gets nominated, progressives bolt

There's a certain political party that likes to Get Republicans Elected Every November, and if Hillary gets nominated a lot of progressives are going to lose their mind and all memory of the past 7 years and vote for that party. That's part of electability too.

[Crunchy Frog]

4. I read it when it first came out.

And have pretty much dismissed anything she's had to say since then out of hand.

Well, that's the punditocracy for you. :shrug:

[xkenx]

5. I have two questions for Hillary supporters...

1. Can you name two red states she will flip?
2. Why?

BTW that stuff about many liberals supporting the war early on is B.S. All the propaganda was that we were seriously threatened by Saddam, so naturally, many would support an attack. However, the Dems. who voted against IWR, like Ted Kennedy and Carl Levin, have stated that ALL the Congressional Dems. had all the intelligence information (or lack of) to know that the Bush/neocon claims about Saddam's capabilities were bogus.
Yet Hillary voted YES, as always operating on political calculation--this time needing to show how tough she was when it came to security.

[SaveElmer]

6. ...

"1. Can you name two red states she will flip?"

Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Florida, possibly West Virginia, Nevada and Arizona (depending on McCain)...

"2. Why?"

Trends are blue in every one of those states...

Hillary CLinton is an excellent campaigner who has a knack at turning doubters to her side...

"Like Ted Kennedy and Carl Levin, have stated that ALL the Congressional Dems. had all the intelligence information (or lack of) to know that the Bush/neocon claims about Saddam's capabilities were bogus."

Really...here is what Ted Kennedy said in his floor statement...

“…I commend President Bush for taking his case against Iraq to the American people…and I agree with the President that Saddam is a despicable tyrant who must be disarmed.”

For good measure here is Russ Feingold's statement as well...

“With regard to Iraq, I agree, Iraq presents a genuine threat, especially in the form of weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological, and potentially nuclear weapons. I agree that Saddam Hussein is exceptionally dangerous and brutal, if not uniquely so, as the President argues. And I support the concept of regime change.”

Ok one more...Barbara Mikulski...

"Iraq has grim and ghoulish weapons to carry out its evil plans. As part of the Gulf War cease-fire agreement, Saddam Hussein committed to destroying its chemical and biological and nuclear weapons programs…instead, Saddam Hussein is trying to add nuclear weapons to an arsenal that already includes chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles.”

You are conflating the lies that were exposed after the IWR vote on Oct. 12th, with the debate that took place before it. Virtually EVERY IWR opponent commented on the danger Hussein posed...the debate was not over whether Iraq had WMD's or were trying to acquire them, but the best way to deal with that problem...

[xkenx]

8. Those trends are blue only for candidates who can take on the Rethugs

on their turf, a la Webb and Tester (who both won narrowly). Hillary is not one of them. She is hated by the RWers, possibly more than Bill; she doesn't have the charisma of Bill to pull in some of them; Rethug women stand by their men--no way do they vote for her. Do Rethug men vote for her?? Dream on. So where do a significant number of vote come from which were denied to Gore and Kerry? Dream on.

Posture all you want about Dem. congresspeople commenting about what a bad guy Saddam was; everyone acknowledged that. The point was that he was not any kind of imminent threat himself, not did he harbor Al Qaedas who hated him and his secular govt. THAT is why Ted Kennedy, Carl Levin, and Russ Feingold voted NO. So stop blowing smoke. That vote was where the rubber met the road.

[SaveElmer]

9. Wrong on both counts...

The same old tired DU CW...you have been proven wrong on your statements that Ted Kennedy et al saw through the lies on WMD's so you switch it to something else...get your facts straight!

Self identified Rethugs are about 35% of the population...no Democrat is going to pull them in in large numbers...independents is where it is at...Hillary does as well with them as any other Dem...

[xkenx]

10. The facts ARE straight. Kennedy, Levin, Feingold voted NO.

And while we're talking about independents, Gore and Kerry got their share. What does Hillary offer to INCREASE the Dems. share in order to flip those red states?

[SaveElmer]

11. Of course...

The usual litmus test attitude the so-called "base" employs...

Hillary's political skills are 100% times better than either Kerry or Gore's...and her negatives are lower than either one of them...

John Kerry promised we wouldn't get another Dukakis type campaign...and then proceeded give us exactly that!!!

[Larkspur]

12. Quindlen forgot to mention HIllary whoring with Rupert Murdoch

I'm sure she's trying to get Faux News to do her dirty work against the other Dem candidates.

[xkenx]

13. And they will; Rethugs WANT to run against Hillary