Hillary Clinton: The Teflon Candidate?
Democratic Presidential Hopeful Continues To Slip Rivals' Punches
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Clinton Seems Untouchable
Hillary Clinton is consolidating her lead and seems virtually unaffected by attacks or criticism. Jim Axelrod reports.
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Hillary Rodham Clinton
The Democratic Senator from New York and former first lady sets her sights on the White House.
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“I heard Sen. Clinton say on Sunday that she wants to continue combat missions on Iraq. To me that's a continuation of the war,” Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said at the Democratic debate in New Hampshire Wednesday night.
Hillary Clinton's rivals see her turning a steady-as-she-goes campaign performance into solid front-runner status and they're sharpening their attacks.
Barack Obama reached back 13 years to her unyielding approach during her health care failure of 1994.
“If it was lonely for Hillary, part of the reason it was lonely, Hillary, was because you closed the door to a lot of potential allies in that process,” he said.
But so far, no one's laid a glove on her. During the latest debate, she said "no" when asked by moderator Tim Russert if torture was acceptable to break up a terror plot, as another politician suggested to him.
“The guest who laid out this scenario for me, with that proposed solution, was William Jefferson Clinton last year. So he disagrees with you," Russert said.
“Well, he is not standing here right now,” she responded to applause.
Clinton's 2002 vote for the war, the health care debacle and ties to a corrupt fundraiser -- something was supposed to stick. So far, nothing has.
“Don't people think there's so much negative attached to this woman?” asks Axelrod.
“You might think there's more negative because she's in the public eye for a lot more years. All these other guys, all of a sudden they're popping up from here and there. She's been there through thick and thin with Bill,” says New Hampshire voter Debbie Fields.
The war and health care are both potential minefields for her, and she’s slipped both punches, says Democratic consultant Anita Dunn.
“It's a very risky proposition to be the person who goes and really starts defining differences in a negative fashion and that's because, generally there's a third candidate who ends up being the beneficiary of those fights - you can ask Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt who wins those fights, and the answer is John Kerry,” Dunn said.
Nothing points up this Teflon quality of Clinton more than the war. She took a lot of hits from the left when she wouldn't apologize for her vote to go to war. But in the most recent national polls, when asked which Democrat Americans trusted most on Iraq, the answer was Hillary Clinton.
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See all 90 CommentsCould hardly be first-hand analysis given his age.
Someone who expects to agree exactly with everything a candidate has ever said or done (including those erroneously reported) is bound to be disappointed. Nothing ever gets through Congress exactly the way any candidate proposes anyway, but we need leaders who will push in the right directions.
Overall I suspect Hillary will do more good and less damage than any other candidate. If Democrats again devour their own in a quest for perfection that sidelines the good, we will again wind up with a troll like Guilani or Thompson, who will prove much less than they seem.
Most women would leave thier husbands for all everything billy boy did....
Hillary didnt have the sense to stand up for her own rights, either that or she really isnt a very good example for society because she accepts it.
Billy should have had his pants sued a dozen times over for his sexual misconduct. If hillary didnt help him hide the truth about his sexual harassment of women over a decade before he became president, billy boy would never have been elected.
Hillary has no problems helping billy decieve America. It makes you wonder why she went to court to supress information about what she did when she was 1st lady. There is no doubt about it. Hillary is decieveing America again.
Will we fall for it a second time?
Sodomy is no good for the United States. Neither is Hillary.
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Posted by pwrslm at 09:28 PM : Sep 27, 2007
Get a clue -- the current chimp-in-chief has diminished the military -- squandered it on an imaginary threat so he could help his oil buddies. You, on the other hand, pathetic piece of cr*p that you are, will get nothing from George.
Posted by badaxmofo at 09:55 PM : Sep 27, 2007,,,
This is a common problem when people are very upset or angry, they are so anxious to get away from something that they are not paying full attention to what their getting, taking an attitude that anything is better than what I have now approach, the proverbial jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire! History repeats itself, this is what happened when Pres. Bush was elected, Clinton fatigue, no one really paid close attention to what they were getting into with Pres. Bush, going on the Bush name, incorrectly thinking he was a slight variation of his father. The majority of Hillary supporters for Pres. are actually Bill Clinton supporters, and while Hillary is smart, Bill is brilliant, and at the end of the day while people think they are getting Bill voting for Hillary, they are in fact only getting Hillary and once elected she will make it clear that she is the Pres., not Bill!! You know how it goes, once the election is over and she gets drunk with power like Bush it will be Bill who? The real danger is that Hillary may go too far trying to show her independence from Bill and where does that road lead too? Pure speculation of course.
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Posted by tbweb at 10:42 PM : Sep 27, 2007
Thanks for a thoughtful post unlike the conservative rednecks who apparently love this website. Shouldn''t they be listening to Fox, or out on a ledge somewhere?
The whole notion of having to explain yourself in front of everybody like that about your personal private stuff is absurd, and just like the two-faced GOP to ask of someone else other than themselves.
Posted by coffee_guy1
The Office of the President isnt a position at McDonalds. The fact that Hillary helped Bill hide his sexual harrasment history is inexcusable in any forum, and an offense against the dignity of the Office of the President of the United States.
Hillary is a liar, a cheat, and probably a thief. She doesnt deserve a second though for sitting in the Oval Office. It borders obscene.
Posted by coffee_guy1
Thats called a political shell game. The words normally dont match the actions. Even Billys claim to have balanced the Budget was a lie, because in order to do it, he stole the entire Social Security Fund, which isnt a part of the US Governments Budget, but an account that belongs to 300 million of us....
LOL
Right, not even her husband, Bill, wanted to touch her.
That''s why Bill went to smoke his big cigar in Monica Lewinski''s pussi: Hilary can''t be touched. LOL
She does. She knows that the majority of homosexuals in the world are men. She hates men. Sodomites have a life expectancy of 41 years. They get sick from terrible diseases and die young, and they dont reproduce. That makes Hillary happy.
The chinese like Hillary too. They dont want americans to reproduce, so they finance sodomy backers like the Clintons. That way, the US Military will be diminished in the long run, and it will be easier to subvert the US Government.
Sodomy is no good for the United States. Neither is Hillary.
Posted by badaxmofo at 09:55 PM : Sep 27, 2007,,,
Well seeing Hillary is the only women running and you have reason to call the woman running a ho, what do you call all those men (I think) running on the republican side toe tapping pimps.
Posted by SFTodd at 10:40 PM : Sep 27, 2007
You are so right the chimp-in-chief even hates little kids and the elderly. If we change all our names to oil do you think he not use his deadly pen?
Posted by starleo146
THATS a woman?
I been thinking it was lying, scumbag politician for 16 years now. Sure fooled me.
Posted by starleo146
Got any more bushophobic conspiracy theories? They all build up your crediblity.
Not the credibility you need to be believed, the credibility that your mentally unstable and cant think straight. Surely, if you could, you could document some of the lies as real life facts, but you dont, and cant.
You had your chance, and all ya did was post more bushophobica. Gratz, your a sucker for gossip.
Posted by pwrslm at 11:37 PM : Sep 27, 2007
Typicaly ignorant conservative -- adopting liberal language without even knowing it -- what a dumb_ss pwrslm is! LOL -- Are you also wearing clothes designed by Verace? You are an i-****! LOL!
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Posted by starleo146
He might adopt us, but now to teflon Hillary so teflon that she is going to slide out of her own pan and lose the election for being herself with all of her flip flops.
Posted by coffee_guy1
Thats called a political shell game. The words normally dont match the actions . . .
Posted by pwrslm at 11:07 PM : Sep 27, 2007
Really, pwrslm? stop embarrassing yourself -- your favorite chimp has run up the national debt more than any president in history.
Posted by AJMarine1 at 12:47 AM : Sep 28, 2007
Do you really want to see her legs? ;-(
Posted by dutchfarmer at 12:28 AM : Sep 28, 2007
Dutchfarmer -- I think you meant "into the kitchen" -- perhaps you could learn English before volunteering your intelligent opinions? Just a suggestion.
As much as I despise Bush, I also condemn the Democrats for not forcefully advocating the end of illegal hostilities, and personal accounting by Hitler Jr.
I''d bet Hillary, or for that matter all the candidates on both sides couldn''t slip my verbal punches, that is why I''d never be allowed to address them.
Posted by brianbwb at 01:01 AM : Sep 28, 2007
True enough -- I wish one single journalist in this country had the guts to ask a politician a real question. They all laugh and make kissey faces and pretend like they are not destroying this country. The only thing more disgusting than a politician is an American journalist.
Posted by socrates392
Call me sick, but once in a while wouldn''t be bad.
The far left is reeling today, and it''s their own anti-Bush candidates who have let the left down.
First, all efforts to end the war with legislation in Congress have now officially failed. Democrats run the Senate, except when it comes to the war it seems.
Second, last night''s Democrat debate. On that issue, let''s give a major league hat tip to Tim Russert, moderator of "Meet the Press." He went after the Democrats just as if the bunch of them standing up there were Bush, Cheney, Rummy and Scooter Libby. And Russert''s persistent and pointed questioning produced the most interesting results of the night.
Not one of the anti-Bush, anti-war Democrat primary leaders would promise to bring the troops home from Iraq before the end of his or her first term. Not Hillary Clinton, not John Edwards, not Barack Obama.
From the Daily Kos today, the far-left Web site run out of Berkeley, California, is this posting from Markos Moulitsas himself: "Hillary may be the most disciplined politician I''ve ever seen. If Obama is to make up ground, he''ll have to do it the old-fashioned politics way %u2014 by attacking."
Part 1
And this is from one of the Daily Kos posters later. Probably tells the real tale of the left right now: "Visit Draft Gore Central at AmericaforGore.org to find a Draft Gore group near you."
Have they given up on the big Dems, especially Hillary and Obama and Edwards? Starting to sound like it if the Draft Gore movement is picking up steam on the left.
Democrats have gone to great lengths to encourage the far-left voter to believe they will end the war and end it on the first day they have the power to do so. Now the secret is out. No they won''t.
The big three, at least, recognize that they don''t know everything there is to know about the war, and they may have to continue something they have been telling people they would end. Oops.
And to moderator Tim Russert: Thanks. That was really great.
Part 2
She will say anything in order to win.
Posted by shanev137
I want to know how the records that she couldn''t find for three years turned up under her bed in the White House and no one nows how they got there.
Posted by SFTodd at 01:00 AM : Sep 28, 2007
SFTodd:
"Just a suggestion." is not a complete sentence.
More women will automatically vote for a reasonably qualified female candidate, than will admit that now to pollsters.
Even without that, she has extended her lead over the GOP candidates, even in several Southern states.
She will be our next President. And I predict she''ll turn out to be a very good one.
"Just a suggestion." is not a complete sentence."
- Posted by namesnames at 03:44 AM : Sep 28, 2007
That''s why I gave up reading Shakespeare. All those sentence fragments of his !
"Nothing, my Lord."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing."
- King Lear
Sentence fragments. Can''t stand them. Never could.
She can also seem super-calculating, a politician who changes her positions less out of conviction than opportunism. That factor could play in particular into the hands of Obama, who will portray himself as a "new" politician, unsullied by the partisan political fray.
A further drawback is the Iraq war, which she supported in the crucial Congressional vote of October 2002. To the disappointment of liberals, she has thus far refused to disavow that vote.
Then there is Bill: spouse, informal adviser-in-chief, and the most gifted natural US politician of his era. None has a better sense of the electorate - but none is more scandal-prone. If he is caught playing the field again, not only would that be a huge distraction to Hillary''s campaign. It would remind voters of the Clinton marital psychodrama that played out in the Paula Jones/Monica Lewinsky sagas. Do Americans want to go through that again? That is why even some Democrats fear she is too divisive to be elected
- Posted by AJMarine1 at 03:19 AM : Sep 28, 2007
Not bad. She''ll also make history when she becomes the first First Lady to become President.
Before that, Laura Bush made history by becoming the first First Lady with a verified vehicular homicide on her personal record.
- Posted by AJMarine1 at 04:56 AM : Sep 28, 2007
That will come in handy on Super Tuesday.
Too bad Dubya wasn''t super-calculating when he "planned" the Iraq War.
"A further drawback is the Iraq war, which she supported in the crucial Congressional vote of October 2002. To the disappointment of liberals, she has thus far refused to disavow that vote."
- Posted by AJMarine1 at 04:56 AM : Sep 28, 2007
Not true.
Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2005
Hillary Clinton: Iraq War Vote a Mistake
For the first time since she voted to authorize the Iraq war three years ago, 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is now saying that vote was a mistake.
"If Congress had been asked [to authorize the war], based on what we know now, we never would have agreed," Clinton said, in an email sent to her supporters on Tuesday.
While saying she took full responsibility for her error, Clinton repeatedly insisted that she had been misled by "false" intelligence on Iraq''s weapons of mass destruction presented by the Bush administration."
Source (and shame on me for quoting these bums):
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/11/29/195654.shtml
Posted by Iceman_1960
According to the two-page accident report released Wednesday by the city of Midland, Laura Welch was driving her Chevrolet sedan on a clear night shortly after 8 p.m. on Nov. 6, 1963, when she drove into an intersection and struck a Corvair sedan driven by 17-year-old Michael Douglas.
Although previous news accounts have reported Douglas was thrown from the car and broke his neck, those details were not in the report.
The speed of Laura Bush''s car was illegible on the report. The speed limit for the road was 55.
Neither driver was drinking, the police report said.
Laura Bush and her passenger, Judy *****, also 17, were taken to a hospital and treated for minor injuries, according to an accident account printed at the time in the Midland Reporter-Telegram.
The police report indicates no charges were filed. That section of the report was left blank.
``As far as we know, no charges were filed,'''' said Midland city attorney Keith Stretcher. ``I don''t think it''s unusual that charges weren''t filed.''''
The police report was released after an open records request was submitted to Midland officials in March. City officials had declined to release the records because the victims were under 18.
She was only 17.
...this why the country continue to spend and kill - but oh, yeah, no one hardly pays attention with their IPODS...and Iraq is 8 time zones away.
That was below the belt on my part. I apologize.
I sank to the level of the Swift Boat crowd with that one.
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