TomatoPie wrote:The clamor is rising for Hillary to drop out of the race.

"She's hurting the party!"

"Barack has to spend money fighting her instead of McCain!"

So, for the "good of the party," Hillary should drop out and support Obama.

Right?

Well, there are a boatload of uncommitted Super Delegates out there. If Obama is the only choice, why are they uncommitted?

They could end this thing RIGHT NOW by coming out for Obama. Yet they do not.

Why?

Well, as dim as the Dems often seem, they apparently have grasped that Hillary is strong in the key swing states that Obama can't win.

Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. That's the election right there. Hillary beats McCain there, Obama does not.

There are a sufficient number of Dems who understand that.

TomatoPie wrote:Well, as dim as the Dems often seem, they apparently have grasped that Hillary is strong in the key swing states that Obama can't win.

Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. That's the election right there. Hillary beats McCain there, Obama does not.

There are a sufficient number of Dems who understand that.

TomatoPie wrote:If the Dems care more about winning in November, they will cut a deal for a Hillary/Obama ticket.

Would win in a landslide.

Obama saves face and is young enough to take the mantle from Hillary down the road.

dajafi wrote:

TomatoPie wrote:If the Dems care more about winning in November, they will cut a deal for a Hillary/Obama ticket.

Would win in a landslide.

Obama saves face and is young enough to take the mantle from Hillary down the road.

This is absurd. That violent shuddering I caused in you when I cited your logic (approvingly) about protectionism and nanny-statism a few pages back must have shaken something loose.

Nixon-in-a-Pantsuit would massively lose young voters and African-Americans--if not in votes, than in money and enthusiasm. She's still poisonous to moderates and independents--the very voters who most value integrity and authenticity, the characteristics on which McCain clobbers Her Highness.

Half the country detests Hillary, and more than half thinks (correctly) that she's dishonest and spineless. When was the last time the inferior politician won the election? Nixon in '68? If Hillary could resurrect George Wallace, then maybe she'd have a shot... though with the "hard-working whites" comment yesterday, Wallace might be extraneous with her. Or a good running mate on an All-Undead ticket.

dajafi wrote:[M]uch of Obama's appeal has to do with the fact that he recognizes the dysfunction in our policymaking--exemplified by the Gas Tax Holiday proposal--for what it is. Hillary embodies that dysfunction.

The British conservative renovation begins with this insight: The central political debate of the 20th century was over the role of government. The right stood for individual freedom while the left stood for extending the role of the state. But the central debate of the 21st century is over quality of life. In this new debate, it is necessary but insufficient to talk about individual freedom. Political leaders have to also talk about, as one Tory politician put it, “the whole way we live our lives.”

That means, first, moving beyond the Thatcherite tendency to put economics first. As Oliver Letwin, one of the leading Tory strategists put it: “Politics, once econo-centric, must now become socio-centric.” David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader, makes it clear that his primary focus is sociological. Last year he declared: “The great challenge of the 1970s and 1980s was economic revival. The great challenge in this decade and the next is social revival.” In another speech, he argued: “We used to stand for the individual. We still do. But individual freedoms count for little if society is disintegrating. Now we stand for the family, for the neighborhood — in a word, for society.”
...
They want voters to think of the Tories as the party of society while Labor is the party of the state. They want the country to see the Tories as the party of decentralized organic networks and the Laborites as the party of top-down mechanistic control.

As such, the Conservative Party has spent a lot of time thinking about how government should connect with citizens. Basically, everything should be smaller, decentralized and interactive. They want a greater variety of schools, with local and parental control. They want to reverse the trend toward big central hospitals. Health care, Cameron says, is as much about regular long-term care as major surgery, and patients should have the power to construct relationships with caretakers, pharmacists and local facilities.

Philly the Kid wrote:I hear the name Jim Webb from Virginia as a VP mate for Obama... does he need a guy from S of the Mason Dixon for VP? I thought a governor not another Senator... but who knows...

dajafi wrote:Maybe as a Loyal Bushie who's basically happy with what's happened the last eight years, you don't quite grasp this notion... but much of Obama's appeal has to do with the fact that he recognizes the dysfunction in our policymaking.

TomatoPie wrote:You cite some valid points about the Hillary Hate out there, but you may be viewing this thru East Coast Liberal lenses.

.....filler.......


The hesitation to push Obama over the top -- again, very doable TODAY -- stems from the entirely pragmatic notion that Hillary can win in November and Obama cannot.

dajafi wrote:I'm at the office today and our executive director--a former Clinton '96 staff guy--told me just now that he's come around to Webb as the logical VP pick. Reasoning is strictly that the Republicans will come at Obama on the "cultural elitist" stuff, and Webb, the ultimate "sons of the soil" advocate in Democratic politics, can hit back hard on that.

I also think that Webb, as a former Republican cabinet member who has been really critical, on the record, of social liberalism as the end-all be-all of Democratic politics, helps advance the whole "let's get past Rove/Carville, Bush/Clinton political atmospherics" storyline that Obama has tried to put out there.

Plus, as I said, they'd be hands-down the greatest literary ticket in U.S. history.

Philly the Kid wrote:

dajafi wrote:I'm at the office today and our executive director--a former Clinton '96 staff guy--told me just now that he's come around to Webb as the logical VP pick. Reasoning is strictly that the Republicans will come at Obama on the "cultural elitist" stuff, and Webb, the ultimate "sons of the soil" advocate in Democratic politics, can hit back hard on that.

I also think that Webb, as a former Republican cabinet member who has been really critical, on the record, of social liberalism as the end-all be-all of Democratic politics, helps advance the whole "let's get past Rove/Carville, Bush/Clinton political atmospherics" storyline that Obama has tried to put out there.

Plus, as I said, they'd be hands-down the greatest literary ticket in U.S. history.

My mom is down in DC now and she said the word in her circles is Webb, for the reasons you site.