Senator Clinton, if you really want to win, here's what you need to change

[Ken Burch]

(Not all of this is you...some of it is the result of the attitudes some of your supporters project...but all of it stands in your way)

1)The Triangulation Thing-LOSE IT. Trust me, it doesn't work and it never has worked all by itself. Bill won on personal charisma. He'd have won as a progressive. You could win as a progressive, as a person who DOESN'T treat activists with contempt, and who isn't obsessed with finding a "center" that, well, basically doesn't exist. You just need to learn to say "Here's where I stand, and goddamn it I'll go to the mat for this". And when they call you a "liberal", you need to respond, right away, with passion and clarity "HELL YES! and here's why!" using the huge list of improvements that liberal policies have made in all our lives. Voters respect strength of conviction. It reads to them as just plain ol' STRENGTH. Try it sometime.

2)The "Nomination Entitlement Perception"- Which, again, probably comes more from the arrogance some of your supporters, particular your DLC backers, tend to project. You need to find the way to convey this sense of yourself:

Yes, I'm running for the nomination. I'm not automatically entitled to it, and if I go into the convention with the majority locked up I need to project humility and allow the grass-roots people a real say in the platform, and not insist on locking in a narrow, bland set of platitudes like the party insiders would prefer. I'll let this be a party that includes everybody that the GOP excludes.

3)The Militarism thing: You need to find a way to say "yes, I'll defend the country from external attack, but I won't go looking for a war as soon as I'm sworn in like other recent presidents have done. I'm not George McGovern, but I'm also not Scoop Jackson. And I won't insist, particularly in Latin America, on treating all social movements and all efforts by the poor to change their conditions as mortal threats to THIS country. Saying something like "I'll maintain a strong defense, but I won't bomb Iran and I'll close down the School of the Americas"
would help in this regard.

4)The Trade thing-you've got to break with the whole FTA/NAFTA/CAFTA mindset. Not backing CAFTA was a good start, but go further. Make it clear that you won't force developing countries to accept IMF austerity programs, and you'll accept that it's there right, if they wish, to put a primary emphasis on meeting their own social needs rather than increasing the profits of multinationals.

All of these would help a lot. I hope you'll consider them.

[Syrinx]

1. I can't say disagree with any of that

But I also think she should point out our very own domestic social needs, and how they are threatened by so-called free trade agreements. I wish some so-called mainstream candidate would stand up and talk about the danger that the giant corporations represent to the world and to this country. Why are politicians afraid to talk about the military-industrial complex so famously described by the last decent Republican president? Well, I know the answer, but it seems that someone would be brave enough to do what needs to be done to save freedom and democracy.

[IndianaGreen]

2. The last time Hillary was a progressive was when she took Suha Arafat by the hand

and told her that Palestinians were human beings entitled to dignity and self-determination. The flak she caught from the evil Israel Lobby somehow changed her for the worse.

[rawtribe]

3. LOL

:rofl:

Do you have money to back up your demands, if not HRC won't listen. She's a whore and won't dance without a ticket.

[Ken Burch]

5. They're suggestions, not demands.

I just figured I put this out there, since she DID say "Let The Conversation Begin".

[Greyhound]

4. Like she is going to decry the abysmal failure that her husbands pet policies (GATT, NAFTA)

have, very predictably, turned out to be. Policies, BTW, that he sacrificed health care reform to get through.

I'm not holding my breath.:hurts: