Bill Clinton the expert political adviser now..

[INdemo]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

[asjr]

1. Hah! That could well be the kiss of

death for the Newt. There are still Clinton haters out there.

[GoCubsGo]

19. The Big Dog is no fool.

He plays the right like a Stradaivarius fiddle. He knows all the buttons to push, too, which is what he's doing here.

[center rising]

23. Exactly, Push Gingrich because he would get slaughtered by Obama

[Cigar11]

2. Based on the credentials of the current GOP candidates …

I find it amusing how anyone could question the expertise of those who have and are actually doing the job.

George Town University, Oxford and Yale Law, not to mention a Rhodes Scholar (Bill Clinton)
Occidental College, Columbia and Harvard Law and Law Review (Barack Obama)

Now match anyone of theses credentials against the current crop of GOP candidates … go ahead ... I’ll wait. LOL

[WI_DEM]

3. Clinton in an interview with Newsmax! says that Newt would appeal to independents

due to his stance on immigration.

[bigdarryl]

5. Sometimes I wonder where big dog is coming from when speaking about rethugs

[msanthrope]

7. He's doing what he should when speaking to the Newsmax audience.

He picked the front runner for the far right.

He didn't run him down, which would only garner more support for Newt among the far right.

He chose to highlight the one policy that will drive the far right crazy--immigration amnesty--and praised Newt for his centrist views, to a far right audience.

That's what you do a year out. You provoke internecine warfare.

[GoCubsGo]

20. Also...

See post #1. No better way to get the right to second-guess their choice of a candidate than to have Bill Clinton praising them. :rofl:

[JoePhilly]

21. +1

[karynnj]

4. I hope that it is the media taking his comments out of context

That said, I think Clinton is overrated as a political strategist. I am completely aware that he is the only two term Democrat in the last half century. However, 1992 was likely the easiest Democratic year other than 2008 in that interval. Bush was below 40 percent throughout 1992, sinking to 33% near the election. In addition, Perot hit Bush hard but then was seen to be acting so weirdly that he was not a threat himself. Then he was lucky to get a good segment of the business cycle and presided well - and had Bob Dole, a dour, hatchetman as an opponent.

In 2008, without him, Hillary likely would really have been invincible.

[Cigar11]

6. Personally I measure my Presidents on Performance.

Say whatever you want about Bill Clinton, but I bet anyone here would take his results right NOW! Dress Stain and all!

[ProSense]

8. Actually,

"Personally I measure my Presidents on Performance. Say whatever you want about Bill Clinton, but I bet anyone here would take his results right NOW! Dress Stain and all!"

...no.

Yes, the economy grew, but that's not a good enough reason to want to relive those years. Speaking of "performance," Clinton's policies contributed to the last decade. I don't want another few good years followed by disaster.

It's time to fix this:

[Beacool]

10. Well, they were much better years than the ones we are living now.

When disaster follows disaster. The average American would gladly go back to the economy of the 90s.

:shrug:

[ProSense]

12. Hmmm?

"The average American would gladly go back to the economy of the 90s."

If only Glass-Steagall hadn't been repealed!

Did you support the repeal?

[JTFrog]

15. Of course they were. It's called "aftermath" for a reason.

This current mess can be traced back to disaster following disaster. Repeal of Glass-Stegall, NAFTA, Welfare Reform, etc... etc... etc.

[karynnj]

24. Youcan't pretend that who was President made the difference in the economy in comparing

Clinton and Obama. Clinton entered office as the recession was ending. Obama entered as the economy was in danger of going over a cliff. It is not likely at all that economy would be like the 1990s if Clinton -either one - were now in office. This is not duplicate bridge and they aren't playing the same hand.

[Cigar11]

17. To each his own …

but those few good years are why I’m able to bridge the current nightmare. Some were prepared and many were not; but fact is, when Bill left office, there was money in the Bank … period and end of paragraph. Just like in any business, CEOs come and CEO go … and each of them will have a new way of doing business. The fact is, when George Bush took over the business, the business was in great shape, but his way ran it into the ground. Whatever went wrong during his watch, he had the control to fix. The fact is, he didn’t!

I can’t control Union Membership
I can’t stop the Top 1% from making money
I can’t stop the Middle Class from losing money

[JTFrog]

18. No thanks.

Even if I had been one of those to slide in and make my buck before Clinton's disastrous economic policies took their toll (or one of the few, including Bill and his wife, to reap humungous benefits from said economic fucking), I still wouldn't wish the results on my worst enemies.

[Beacool]

9. Bill Clinton is the best politician to come down the pike in decades.

Even his enemies acknowledge his political instincts and prowess.

As for 2008, he made some mistakes but the media was partly at fault for distorting statements. Their candidate was Obama. Funny, how so many of them have stopped having that tingly feeling in their legs. Reality bites.

:D

[ProSense]

11. Interesting

Bill Clinton is the best politician to come down the pike in decades.
Even his enemies acknowledge his political instincts and prowess.

As for 2008, he made some mistakes but the media was partly at fault for distorting statements. Their candidate was Obama. Funny, how so many of them have stopped having that tingly feeling in their legs. Reality bites.

Speaking of "tingly feeling in their legs."

I do agree with you: "Reality bites."

:rofl:

[Beacool]

13. Voting has consequences.

;)

[ProSense]

14. Why

"Voting has consequences."

...yes it does.

[PragmaticLiberal]

22. I suspect "reality will bite" in 2012 as well.....

:)

[Beacool]

26. I'm indifferent to it.

I could care less.

I'll just continue to enjoy watching the circus go by.

:D

[karynnj]

33. You could care less if Romney or Gingrich win the election?

Your comments in the past have been very negative toward Obama, but this falls off a cliff into PUMA territory. I think youneed to take stock of where you are.

In 2007, I was against Hillary Clinton. The moment that I realized that I would not only vote for her, but campaign hard for her if she won the nomination was when Bush vetoed SCHIP. NO Democrat would have done that - and all of the Republicans would. As you say elections have consequences and the real stakes are clear. Hillary and Obama are on the same side.

[Beacool]

34. I'll go out and vote, but that'll be the extent of my involvement.

As much as I have zero use for Obama, the Republicans are far worse.

[karynnj]

25. There were huge critical mistakes in the campaign - and many were his

The fact is that the race was pretty stacked in her favor. The conventional wisdom was no one else could handle the roadblockof super Tuesday when something like 22 states chose. If you watched the polling, it was clear that the Obama surge happened AFTER they used Bill Clinton as HRC's attack dog. From many accounts, it was the Clinton attacks that so appalled Kennedy that he could not remain neutral. If not for Kennedy, it is very likely that her delegate count from the big primary states, NY, NJ, CA and MA -all of which she won - would have been much larger. (In MA, there was even some likelihood that she could prevent him from getting any significant number of their delegates - he was polling around 20% when Kerry endorsed him.) There is a reason that the Clinton people hated both MA Senators.

Not to mention, when she was working hard at the end with little chance of winning, her husband excused her Bosnia comments by saying that she was tired and old - is that how you would want your husband to answer?

[Beacool]

27. Kennedy? The Kennedy who let a girl drown to cover his ass?

That Kennedy? He had a lot of gall to criticize Clinton. Nothing that Clinton has ever done in his life can compare to what Kennedy did that night to cover his actions. I don't care what Kennedy thought about this or most issues.

As for MA, despite Kerry, Kennedy and Patrick endorsing Obama, Hillary won the state by a nice margin.

x(

[AtomicKitten]

28. President Obama won MA in the general election by 26 pts. and that's what counts.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/election_results/massachusetts_results/

[Beacool]

29. Kitten, go play with a mouse or something.

I wasn't talking to you.

Shooo, kitty.

:D

[karynnj]

32. You wrote on an open forum - so anyone can respond

[karynnj]

31. My point is that she did not win by very large margins, but that in the

last few weeks before the primary, she lost about 20 percent, a huge shift. She ended up with 56.2% and Obama with about 40.8%, leading to a delegate split of 55 to 38. ( http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/states/MA.html ) This meant that she netted only 7 delegates there. Had there NOT been that swing, the difference would have led to her getting almost all the delegates. The fact is that Clinton had nearly every political operative in the state working for her including many who were close to Kerry or Kennedy, while Obama had almost no organization.

The same thing happened in CA, NJ, and NY. In all these states she won, but by that kind of margin leading to that kind of delegate split. I know how the numbers shifted in Morris County NJ, where I live and was phonebanking for Obama. Had Hillary stayed at the January level, she would have ended SuperTuesday far ahead of Obama in delegate count and she likely would have been declared a prohibitive favorite. The victory for Obama was that he was tied (or slightly ahead) in delegate count. This was due to Clinton's team not spending much effort in the caucus states and her big primary state gains resulting in rather small delegate count differences. ( What I don't get is why Bill or Hillary Clinton did not see the danger in not actively working to get the small state delegates as they do add up. That is political strategy and the Obama people ate their lunch.)

I have no intention of defending Kennedy on Chappaquiddick, other than to say there likely still are things not known about what happened that day, nor am I saying that Bill Clinton was worse or as bad. The point was that Bill Clinton's actions led to an endorsement, that by many accounts, would not have happened otherwise, that helped his wife's opponent. There is no denying that in 2008, a Kennedy endorsement meant a lot to many Democrats. It was not his personal life that made that so, it was his public life and the things he fought for in the Senate. There is no denying that he was one of the most accomplished Senators in history.

[AtomicKitten]

36. The O campaign really did their homework.

Although Clinton "won" the states of Nevada and Texas, the O campaign studied every precinct and walked away in each state with 1 delegate more than Clinton. The endorsement from Teddy was a godsend for the O campaign, or more accurately a Billsend because it was his boorish behavior that tilted the scales.

[Douglas Carpenter]

35. indeed, he helped accomplish the dismantling of the New Deal in ways that Reagan only dreamed of.

And he managed to "feel our pain" and wrap it in a liberal and progressive veneer while he did it. Of course, just as with Barack Obama - the only political alternative that was available at the time were forces that were far, far worse.

[AtomicKitten]

37. After signing the repeal of Glass-Steagall, it was another decade before the economy blew up

allowing Bill Clinton to get far away from the scene of the crime. It was probably the singular most devastating blow to our nation's economy. In his new book about what he would do to fix the economy, he forgot to mention his hand in its demise and that only a wayback machine could remedy it.

[AtomicKitten]

16. As long as he sticks to advising the GOP, Dems should be good to go.

BC offers counsel to Paul Ryan regarding "reforming" Medicare:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/paul-ryan-and-bill-clinton-chat-backstage-about-medicare-ny-26-video.php
video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOrSURZKrcw

BC and Newt Gingrich conspire to "reform" Medicare and Social Security:
http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2008/05/29/the-pact-between-bill-clinton-and-newt-gingrich

[davidpdx]

30. I have no problem with Bill Clinton

But his words could end up biting him in the butt six months from now. People who want Newt as the Republican nominee should be careful what they wish for. As the DNC said, anyone who underestimates Gingrich does at their own peril.