by Damozel | I'm so proud to have been a Clinton supporter. I hope other Clinton supporters will take equal pride in Hillary's efforts on Obama's behalf, and take heed of what Hillary is saying.
I keep reading that Palin's speech was the best of the Republican convention (NYT), but the bar was really quite low, wasn't it? And while Republicans might have enjoyed the sneering tone in which she delivered her little sarcasms, it was definitely amateur night at Snark City as far as I'm concerned.
The late Ann Richards was past mistress of the art of snark. Her line about George H. W. Bush was a gift to posterity.
But I'm sure the delegates enjoyed Palin's little sallies. Their only experience with comedy is Dennis Miller's rants. They don't really know the difference between what's funny and what isn't, which is how Bush got to be president in the first place.
Anyway, Hillary is going to defend her turf against Sarah. Based on past performance, she won't waste her time with little sarcasms against Palin herself; instead, she'll go straight to the GOP's jugular, which is bad policy and its current consequences.
Mrs. Clinton...has a legacy to protect: She has no intention of turning over her “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling,” as she called her supporters, to Ms. Palin, a social conservative whose policy positions are poison in Hillaryland. What is more, Mrs. Clinton wants to be the one to make history as the first woman to win at the top of a presidential ticket, be it in 2012 or 2016....
Mrs. Clinton is heading to Florida on Monday to campaign for Mr. Obama. And while his advisers expect her to serve as a counterweight to the McCain-Palin ticket, Clinton advisers are emphatic that Mrs. Clinton does not plan to attack Ms. Palin. Whether that remains the case through the fall is an open question, especially if Ms. Palin starts doing as well with, say, women who watch “The View” as Mrs. Clinton did. (NYT)
The New York Times' Patrick Healy thinks Palin, unlike Clinton, can attack without seeming nasty? Really? Palin's little sallies sounded to me like a high school girl reading aloud from a slam book.
Though, as Healy justly says, Hillary is always held to high standards, whereas " Ms. Palin faced low expectations this week, and benefited from them.". (NYT)
One Republican delegate quoted in the article said that she prefers Palin's "sincere" smile. I believe it. Again, think of how the GOP loooooved George W. Bush and how George W. Bush could see Putin's "soul" through his eyes.
Obama may need all those Hillary supporters toward whom David Axelrod and the media were so dismissive. I wish he had thought of this before he chose Biden:
If the election remains close, the next president could very well be picked by what Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist, calls “Wal-Mart Moms” — white working women with children living in the exurbs and in rural parts of battleground states, who may make up a swing sliver of the electorate.
“The real issue is whether soft Democrats and soft Republicans with a similar demographic profile, like white working women, will vote their economic self-interest and support Obama or whether McCain-Palin will be able to scare them away,” said Mr. Lehane, who was an adviser on the Gore campaign in 2000.
“In this context, Hillary and the former president are critical players, as they are a small sub-set of Democrats who can walk into a kitchen in Parma, Ohio, or Macomb County, Michigan, and instantaneously connect with those very kind of voters,” he added.(NYT)
I disagree with any suggestion---such as is put forward in this piece---that Hillary won't do all she can to get Obama elected. She's on the verge of becoming even more of a Democratic party heroine than before. What has she got to lose?
According to The Politico, she won't attack Palin, but she sure as hell is prepared to go against McCain on the economy. As one of her insiders said, “Attacking Palin is checkers, attacking McCain on the economy is chess.” In any case, Hillary understands the issues that concern working class women----and also the nonstarters.
Clinton will continue to yoke McCain and Palin to President Bush on pocketbook issues. But sources say that Clinton, who supports abortion rights, isn’t likely to criticize the Alaska governor for her anti-abortion stance. She may, however, question Palin’s record on equal-pay issues. (The Politico)
They're going to deploy her in "key battleground states."
In the meantime, how is Palin playing with former Hillary supporters? According to The Huffington Post, Palin's positions might be driving them straight back to Obama.
Sandy Goodman was deeply disappointed when Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't get the Democratic nomination, then again when she was bypassed for the VP spot. So Goodman, a longtime Florida Democrat, flirted with thoughts of shunning Barack Obama, and perhaps even voting Republican.
Then John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, and suddenly things became clear to Goodman: The Republicans had no place for her.
"Boy, you are sure not talking to ME!" Goodman, 61, says she thought when she heard Palin's views on issues like abortion rights. Now, Goodman is volunteering for Obama....
"I was insulted when [Palin] referred to Hillary and the 18 million cracks in the ceiling," Goodman says, referring to Clinton's line that her primary votes put that many cracks in the glass ceiling that has held women back. "I don't believe Hillary was making those 18 million cracks for Sarah Palin."(HuffPost)
Just Say No Deal's founder, Diane Mantouvalos, still thinks she'll be voting for Obama. (HuffPost) According to her, it's all about "principle"---a single principle. (HuffPost)
Fortunately for the nation's future, most Clinton supporters don't see it that way.
The Washington group EMILY's List, which backs female candidates who support abortion rights, says its own polling shows that a majority of Clinton supporters _ 55 percent _ say Palin's presence on the ticket makes them even less likely to vote McCain. Only 9 percent say it makes that more likely.
"There really couldn't be more of a distance between Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton on the issues and the agenda that Clinton fought so passionately for," the group's executive director, Ellen Moran, said in an interview. "The more (Clinton supporters) are learning about Palin, the more they are coming to the Obama-Biden ticket." (HuffPost)
Even our own Deb Cupples, no fan of Obama's, has argued that in the circumstances it makes sense for former Clinton supporters to "roll the dice" for the Dem.
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Interesting comment on treatment of Hillary versus treatment of Palin:
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/a_controlled_experiment_about.php
Posted by: Adam | September 10, 2008 at 04:02 PM