We don't need 4 more years of the last 8 years

"Most of all, I ran to stand up for all those who have been invisible to their government for eight long years. Those are the reasons I ran for president, and those are the reasons I support Barack Obama for president.

I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me, or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him?

Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids?

Were you in it for that young boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage?

Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?

We need leaders once again who can tap into that special blend of American confidence and optimism that has enabled generations before us to meet our toughest challenges, leaders who can help us show ourselves and the world that with our ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit, there are no limits to what is possible in America."

- HRC August 26th, 2008

Momentum!

Gallup's daily tracking poll January 3 - May 1

Reinforcing my point that this race has been over since February, take a look a Gallup's daily poll numbers since January. Clinton started with a 10-20 point lead nationwide, which Obama erased on Super Tuesday. Since then, they've been essentially tied. There is no momentum, we're just coasting to the finish line.

Others disagree however. Here's a short list of articles describing the momentum of the race - in reverse chronological order.

4/28/2008

Trailing in Money, Votes, Clinton Gains Momentum

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary Tuesday night with a 10 percent victory margin. The win gives her momentum as the race moves to North Carolina and Indiana.

3/19/2008

Poll: Obama Speech Doesn't Slow Clinton Momentum

The Gallup Daily Tracking poll shows that for the first time in a month, Sen. Hillary Clinton has opened up a statistically significant lead over Sen. Barack Obama in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Today's poll shows Clinton with a 49% to 42% lead over Obama in national Democratic voters' presidential nomination preference.

3/6/2008

Clinton Picks Up Momentum Post-Ohio And Texas

Monday's polls hinted at a Clinton comeback in Ohio and in Texas, which prepared us for what came yesterday night. Now, surveys are registering Clinton's rise outside of Ohio and Texas, suggesting that her improved stance was not just related to her campaigning in those two states and that Democratic voters might have some buyer's remorse naturally.

1/10/2008

Florida voters retain clout

Tampa-based Democratic consultant Ana Cruz, who has been organizing Democrats for Clinton, says Florida stands to catapult Clinton into the Feb. 5 contests. Florida is the first mega state to weigh in on the Democratic nomination, after all, and it's the first primary where only Democrats can vote. Obama benefits when unaffiliated voters are eligible.

"Six months ago, people were upset and angry and saying our votes won't count," she said. "Boy the tables have turned. ... The biggest swing state in the country is going to give the Clinton campaign momentum to continue on with the marathon."

1/9/2008

Clinton Momentum Sweeps Across the Country

Fresh off its stunning come from behind victory in New Hampshire, the Hillary Clinton for President campaign today kicked-off its post-New Hampshire efforts with a series of events across the country.

1/4/2008

Iowa Winners Count on Momentum

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is still the front-runner, though fallout from the Obama win could upend those estimates. She's leading by some 21 points nationwide, according to averages of polling data gathered by Real Clear Politics. There is little historic precedent for a candidate with a lead that large to lose a party nomination.

In Nevada, Clinton leads Obama by more than 20 points, ditto for California, Florida, and Michigan (where Obama and Edwards are not on the ballot). In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, it's closer to a 30-point lead.

1/1/2008

Two New Polls Show Clinton Momentum

Two new polls released this morning show Hillary Clinton holding a lead in the Hawkeye State, continuing to build on her momentum in the final days before the Iowa caucuses.

Clinton sure has had a lot of momentum this race. However, that wasn't always true:

11/20/2007

Clinton Slips As Richardson Gains Momentum

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Hillary Clinton has lost some ground but still maintains a lead in the Democratic primary race in New Hampshire, and opponent Bill Richardson has made the biggest jump.

This election has been over since February

Map of the county-by-county primary and caucus results by dreaminonempty

There's the media's view of the current election:

Victory gives Clinton fresh momentum

Barack Obama faced renewed questions yesterday about his ability to deliver a Democratic victory in November after his failure to knock out Hillary Clinton in Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary.

With the protracted campaign entering its final phase, Clinton won the primary with 55% of the vote against 45% for Obama, a majority achieved by decisive wins among white voters, Catholics and low-income households.

The result did not significantly dent Obama's lead in delegates, popular vote or fundraising, neither did it fundamentally alter his status as the Democratic frontrunner. But Clinton cast it as a turning point. "The tide is turning," she said in an email to supporters yesterday morning.

And then there's reality.

This election has been over since February, even if we didn't realize it at the time. Clinton has won all the states that she was expected to win the day after Super Tuesday (and by similar margins). Obama has won all the states he was expected to win. The Reverend Wright, NAFTA, Tuzla and "bitter" controversies haven't affected the race at all.

Take a look at the map above and you'll see that Hillary's greatest support follows the Appalachian mountains from northern New York state down through Tennessee then slides into Arkansas and Texas. Obama's strength has been in the south and northwest. A bright 7 year-old could tell you where the next blue and green pieces of that puzzle will go.

What looks like momentum is simply a fluke of the primary calendar. Despite reports of voters who haven't made up their minds - they basically have.

Barack will win in North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, and Montana. Hillary will win in Kentucky, Puerto Rico and West Virginia. Indiana is a tossup. He'll end up with about a 150 pledged delegate lead.

And the superdelegates aren't going to overturn that result.

Is the gas tax holiday an April Fools Day joke?

The price of gas since January 2007. Data via randomuseless.info

Hillary Clinton and John McCain have decided that the cost of gas has become so oppressive they'd repeal the federal tax on it.

Clinton outlined a series of steps to address the issue [of high gas prices] at the beginning of the show, reflecting the growing importance of pocketbook concerns among voters. “I would also consider a gas tax holiday, if we could make up the lost revenues from the Highway Trust Fund,” she said, without specifying how to make up those lost revenues.

...

McCain, the likely Republican nominee, called for Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor day last week. Economists have warned that the benefits of such a holiday are short lived.

If we repealed the tax today, we would return to a golden era of cheap prices not seen since .... April 1st 2008.

"Pennsylvanians don't need a president who looks down on them."

- Hillary Clinton (April 11, 2008)

Strangely enough, she wasn't giving a concession speech.

So let's check the record.

• Barack Obama thinks some people are bitter at being unemployed or after losing their homes.

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton's team has a problem with:

• "[L]atte-drinking, Prius- driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies"


• Voters


• Black voters


• Voters from insignificant states
  


• Voters in caucus states


• Voters who won't "get real"
  


• Independent, undeclared, moderate, Republican and newly registered voters


• Democratic activists


• Delegates elected by voters in caucus states

Other than that, she's got no problems at all.

Guess who's insignificant now

"Pennsylvania is the new Iowa," - Clinton spokesman Doug Hattaway.

Voters of Wyoming and Mississippi. Sorry, you didn't make the cut.

BTW there are at least 267 "second class" superdelegates representing the states Clinton has relegated to insignificance.

What's the sound of the Clinton campaign imploding?

Yet another Clinton surrogate flips primary voters the bird:

[C]learly both candidates have excited and engaged the party’s membership — but, even so, turnout for primaries and caucuses is notoriously low. It would be shocking if 30 percent of registered Democrats have participated.If that is the case, we could end up with a nominee who has been actively supported by, at most, 15 percent of registered Democrats. That’s hardly a grassroots mandate.

More important, although many states like New York have closed primaries in which only enrolled Democrats are allowed to vote, in many other states Republicans and independents can make the difference by voting in Democratic primaries or caucuses.

He won his delegates fair and square, but those delegates represent the wishes not only of grassroots Democrats, but also Republicans and independents. If rank-and-file Democrats should decide who the party’s nominee is, each state should pass a rule allowing only people who have been registered in the Democratic Party for a given time — not nonmembers or day-of registrants — to vote for the party’s nominee.

Do they really consider this a winning strategy? Who are they trying to convince? The 20+ million Democratic primary voters who've broken turnout records across the country? The only thing crazier than believing this nonsense is that they think it's smart politics to argue it openly while voters in a dozen states are still preparing to go to the polls.

Candidates can throw mud at their opponent and be forgiven. But they cannot continually and publicly show contempt for the voters they'll need in the general election and survive.

Before Super Tuesday, it's safe to say most Obama supporters believed that Hillary would be the party's nominee and they were ready to come over and vote for her in the general election. But you can only smack people so many times and expect them to show up for you in November. If Obama wins the popular vote and the committed delegates, but party insiders overrule them, the Democrats will lose the presidency.

In the past few weeks the Clinton team have insulted party activists, African Americans, young people, small state Democrats, moderates, conservatives and liberals, together with Republicans and independents who've recently moved into the Democratic camp. They've even branded some superdelegates "second-class delegates". Combine that with her recent Abandon All Hope talking points and you've got an election platform to rival Walter Mondale's.

Bill Clinton might be forgiven his condescension to the black voters of South Carolina, Hillary excused for her clumsy comments after her Super Tuesday losses. Mark Penn can be condemned as a fool and a lousy strategist. But a campaign simply can't be caught publishing this kind of idiocy in the New York Times.

Clinton's team starts to attack Democratic voters directly

Speaking of plagiarism. Guess which of these is a line from a recent Hillary Clinton rally, and which is from the script of an RNC attack ad from the 2004 election:

Give me a break! I've got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius- driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies crowding in to hear him speak! This guy won't last a round against the Republican attack machine. He's a poet, not a fighter.

"[He] should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading ...body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to [his home state], where it belongs."

I'm not entirely sure who's going to be left to vote for Hillary if her superdelegate gambit pays off. After writing off the general election in more than a dozen states and having insulted Republicans, independents, and moderates ... now they're attacking liberal Democrats?

Clinton advocate comes out in favor of smoke filled rooms

Lanny Davis (former special counsel and spokesman for Bill and strong supporter of Hillary's) repeats the assertion that states Obama wins simply don't count.

DAVIS: She has a majority of the United States senators who have endorsed her. She won in California and in Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry's backyard. And the states that you add up that Barack Obama won and give him credit, Idaho, Utah and North Dakota are not exactly states that are ever going to vote Democratic as opposed to California and we have the two senators in Washington.

You really need to kill this meme now, Hillary, before a smart Obama strategist starts running an ad with titles like this:

Hillary Clinton thinks some states are insignificant. Is yours one of them?

Worse yet, Davis, writing for The Hill, now literally argues that smoke-filled rooms are better at choosing candidates than Democratic voters are.

That data showed that in primary elections, the turnout among Democrats was often well below 50 percent. And in caucus states, where voters had to show up at a particular time and place and wait up to several hours before voting, the turn out was often as small as 10%-20% or often much less.

We were also reminded that before these reforms, the "smoke-filled rooms" of Democratic Party leaders had led to the nomination and election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy. Not bad.

It's no surprise that this man, who once sat on DNC Executive Committee, authored the WSJ editorial entitled Liberal McCarthyism (attacking Democrats for voting against his favorite in a primary).

The Democratic base already believes that the 2000 election was stolen and would be furious if they believed their own party cheated to deny them their pick for the nomination.

If her people keep making these arguments, Senator Clinton risks being labeled as the candidate who says to hell with the voters, I'll win anyway possible. (The fact that Obama is currently winning the popular vote as well doesn't help her case.)


Update: Here we go again. These people really aren't helping you Hillary.

A top strategist to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) on Saturday countered the recent claims of some prominent Democrats that party elders would be wrong to override the will of their constituents in their choice for the Democratic presidential nominee.

In a phone call with reporters, Harold M. Ickes, argued that the 796 so-called superdelegates who could decide the party’s White House nominee were as much or “potentially more in touch” with the issues important to voters than the delegates amassed by the candidates through state primaries and caucuses.

In other words, party insiders understand the desires of voters better than the voters themselves. (Really, why do we bother to vote at all?)

Is Hillary Clinton running a 20-state strategy?

The nice thing about the Democrat's proportional nomination system is that it's worth fighting to come in a close second. It's far better to lose a state by 3% instead of by 30%. Every state is worth campaigning in, even if it's the opposition's home turf. Yet Senator Clinton has been taking states off the table ever since South Carolina - allowing Obama to defeat her by 20,30, even 50%. The only place Clinton has done as well is in her former home of Arkansas and neighboring Oklahoma.

And now we've got a collection of races that Hillary literally says are not worth winning. (I guess she's not an advocate of Howard Dean's 50-state strategy).

[Hillary Clinton] also downplayed many of Obama's Super Tuesday victories, describing them as states that Democrats should not expect to win in November.

"It is highly unlikely we will win Alaska or North Dakota or Idaho or Nebraska," she said, naming several of Obama's red state wins. "But we have to win Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Michigan … And we've got to be competitive in places like Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma."

Hillary apparently believes that there are solid Democratic states and solid Republican states that aren't even worth competing for during the general election. Instead she'll focus on a few "swing" states (don't ask me how Massachusetts and Texas got on that list).


The electoral vote map from 1964. Democrat Lyndon Johnson won the states in red (see if you can find Alaska, North Dakota, Idaho and Nebraska).

The map above is typical for American presidential elections. In 15 of the 25 elections since 1908, the winner of the presidency won over 75% of the states and over 75% of the delegates. The races in 2000 and 2004 weren't normal; they were aberrations.

This is what the map looked like 8 years before Johnson's win. 43 of 48 states switched sides. The country isn't nearly as polarized as strategists like to believe. "Democratic" states will vote for a Republican and vice versa, but you have to work for it.


The electoral vote map from 1956. Republican Dwight Eisenhower won the states in blue.

I would have given Hillary credit for making a clumsy remark, except her team keeps repeating the theme:

“Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn't won any of the significant states -- outside of Illinois?” Chief Strategist Mark Penn said. “That raises some serious questions about Sen. Obama.”

Insignificant states apparently include Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia and Washington. Since the Clinton team has already run off to Texas, I'll assume Wisconsin and Hawaii make the list too. And considering what's already on the list, you can make a pretty good case that they believe Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming aren't worth their trouble either.

That's 30 insignificant states.

Is this how she's going to campaign in the general election? Ceding large swaths of "red" America before even starting. This should be a blowout year for the Democratic nominee yet she seems to be dreaming of a 271 electoral vote squeaker.

And to paraphrase the Clinton team, the last time anybody won the presidency with fewer than 20 states was 1888 - and there were only 36 states in the Union at the time.

Clinton accuses Obama of working with a slumlord

This seems like an incredibly stupid accusation for the junior Senator from New York to throw around:

CLINTON: ... I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Resco, in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago.
....
OBAMA: ... I was an associate at a law firm that represented a church group that had partnered with this individual to do a project and I did about five hours worth of work on this joint project. That's what she's referring to.

That's a pretty cheap shot from Hillary, who should know from personal experience that a candidate can't always vet every contributor that supports a campaign. After all, this was pretty big news a few months back:

A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted Norman Hsu, a top Democratic fundraiser accused of cheating investors of at least $20 million and using some of the money to make illegal donations to political campaigns.

There's also this:

A Pakistani immigrant who hosted fundraisers in Southern California for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is being sought by the FBI on charges that he funneled illegal contributions to Clinton’s political action committee and Sen. Barbara Boxer’s 2004 reelection campaign. Authorities say Northridge businessman Abdul Rehman Jinnah, 56, fled the country after an indictment accused him of engineering more than $50,000 in illegal donations to the Democratic committees. A business associate charged as a co-conspirator has entered a guilty plea and is scheduled to be sentenced in Los Angeles next week.

And some people might think she should have had better control over her own staff:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's former finance director has been indicted on charges of filing fictitious reports that misstated contributions for a Hollywood fund-raising gala for the senator, the Justice Department said Friday.

Of course, her husband's administration was occasionally associated with unsavory characters as well:

A Federal grand jury today indicted a Thai businesswoman who worked as a Washington lobbyist on charges that she and her family funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in foreign money to the Democratic Party to gain access for her clients to President Clinton and members of the Administration.

She's bound to remember this:

President Clinton's eleventh-hour pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich has sparked a firestorm of controversy, launching investigations in both houses of Congress and igniting fierce protest from both Democrats and Republicans.

[F]ederal prosecutors in New York officially opened a criminal investigation into whether Rich did indeed buy his pardon with his ex-wife Denise's pointed largesse to the First Couple and the Democratic party.

As for actually working for clients who were later indicted, Hillary fought off these accusations for the entire 8 years her husband was in the Oval Office:

Ms. Clinton and her attorney have stated publicly that the billing records confirm that, as an attorney at the Rose Firm in the mid-80's, she was not significantly involved in the representation of Jim McDougal's savings and loan, Madison Guaranty.

According to the Rose records, Hillary Clinton billed Madison for 60 hours of work over a 15 month period. Ms. Clinton's attorney argues that this represents a de minimus amount of work and includes billings for work performed by Rose Finn lawyers working for Hillary Clinton at the time.

That was the trigger for the investigation that led to Bill's impeachment in 1998.

Hillary may be gambling that Barack won't retaliate with dirt of his own. But Republicans will definitely remember during the general election. It'd be better if she didn't legitimize their attacks herself.

If at first you don't succeed...

... Just change the names.

Washington Post reporter Dan Balz proves that just because you're perpetually wrong, you don't have to stop speculating.

January 3, 2008: Obama may have to quit after Iowa

The only race that could (end in Iowa) is in the Democratic Party and only if Hillary Clinton wins a big victory. Iowa has proved resistant to the Clinton brand, and she has struggled there throughout the year. But her final days of campaigning have been solid, and a victory, no matter how narrow, would be a big boost for her.

January 7, 2008: Clinton may have to quit after New Hampshire

Obama's freight train for change has overrun the Clinton campaign. Top officials inside her campaign and alarmed allies outside are braced for a defeat on Tuesday. Five days is not enough, they have argued, to slow and reverse the momentum Obama has developed since Iowa.

For these Clinton loyalists, the hope is that the real campaign turnaround can begin after New Hampshire. "Whatever happens tomorrow, we're going on," Clinton told CBS's Harry Smith Monday morning. "And we're going to keep going until the end of the process on February 5th. But I've always felt that this is going to be a very tough, hard-fought election, and I'm ready for that."

But like Penn's memo from Saturday, that may be more wish than reality.

January 12, 2008: Edwards may have to quit after South Carolina

"I want to be absolutely clear to all of you who have been devoted to this cause," he said Tuesday night, "and I want to be clear to the 99 percent of Americans who have not yet had the chance to have their voices heard, that I am in this race to the convention, that I intend to be the nominee of my party."

That pledge notwithstanding, Edwards has two weeks to think about the future. He is certainly in the race through Nevada and South Carolina

I'm not suggesting you should put your money on Edwards in S.C., but so far betting against this guy's gut instinct is a better gamble than betting on the favorite in the election markets.

The polls were just wrong

Before everybody gets carried away trying to explain Barack Obama's loss to Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, just remember, there's a rule in science that says the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. And the simplest explanation is this:


There was no Iowa bounce for Obama and Clinton never rallied. The polls were just wrong.


Forget the Wilder effect. Forget the Bradley effect. Forget trying to explain the results as a women's revolt after Chris Matthews' condescending comments. The polls taken in the lead-up to the New Hampshire vote were all over the place. Zogby had Obama at 42. Fox had him at 32. And 20 other polls filled every point in between.

People scratching their heads questioning how Hillary won are basically asserting that all of those polls were correct. That Obama literally had a double-digit post Iowa surge and then Clinton rallied from behind - all in 5 days. The only way to believe that argument is to believe that the polls were measuring dynamic changes in support over a very short time period. Despite the fact that many of the polls were taken concurrently over several days, yet still didn't agree with one another.

This was true in the lead-up to the Iowa vote as well, though nobody seemed to notice. On election day, Zogby predicted Obama would win Iowa by 7, while ARG predicted he'd lose to Clinton by 9.

I guess some groups are more important than others

From CNN's political ticker:

Obama leads Clinton among key groups as returns come in

Mind you, this wasn't one of the pre-election polls that predicted a double-digit victory for Obama in NH. This was an exit poll. And it predicted a tie.

Who cares about planted questions?

"And I think this little flap in Iowa over did Hillary Clinton plant questions at her rallies, just is part of all that, who cares!" - Cokie Roberts on This Week

Who cares? Well, you're supposed to Cokie.

After 7 years of staged photo ops, invitation only town hall meetings, free-speech zones, columnists being paid to plant propaganda in their papers, not to mention the accusation that Washington's political journalists are nothing more than a pack of stenographers - well, you think you'd be a little sensitive to this sort of thing.

The only thing that prevents every politician from pulling these stunts is the fear of embarrassment.

Hillary Clinton on the "forgotten front"

The forgotten frontline in the war on terror is Afghanistan, where our military effort must be reinforced. The Taliban cannot be allowed to regain power in Afghanistan; if they return, al Qaeda will return with them. Yet current U.S. policies have actually weakened President Hamid Karzai's government and allowed the Taliban to retake many areas, especially in the south. A largely unimpeded heroin trade finances the very Taliban fighters and al Qaeda terrorists who are attacking our troops. In addition to engaging in counternarcotics efforts, we must seek to dry up recruiting opportunities for the Taliban by funding crop-substitution programs, a large-scale road-building initiative, institutions that train and prepare Afghans for honest and effective governance, and programs to enable women to play a larger role in society.

Hillary Clinton declares the surge a failure

From her statement on the recent Iraq NIE:

As I have said many times before, there is not a military solution in Iraq. Progress will only come from political reconciliation and compromise from the Iraqis themselves. In January, President Bush argued that the escalation of U.S. troops into Iraq would create the political space for reconciliation among the Iraqis. At the time that the President announced the escalation, I opposed this new strategy because I did not believe the Iraqi government was committed to making the tough political decisions necessary for Iraq to resolve its sectarian divisions. Indeed, the declassified key judgments from the most recent National Intelligence Estimate regarding "Prospects for Iraq's Stability" clearly demonstrate that progress toward political reconciliation in Iraq has not been achieved since the beginning of the President's decision to add additional troops into Iraq. The NIE's key judgments provide additional evidence that the President's escalation strategy has failed. We need to stop refereeing this civil war, and start getting out now.

Hillary Clinton calls for the ouster of Maliki

From her statement calling for political change in Iraq:

During my last visit to Iraq in January, I expressed my reservations about the ability of the Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Maliki, to make the tough political decisions necessary for Iraq to resolve its sectarian divisions. Since my visit, Iraqi leaders have not met their own political benchmarks to share power, modify the de-Ba'athification laws, pass an oil law, schedule provincial elections, and amend their constitution. During his trip to Iraq last week, Senator Carl Levin, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee on which I serve, confirmed that the Iraqi Government’s failures have reinforced the widely held view that the Maliki government is nonfunctional and cannot produce a political settlement, because it is too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders.

I share Senator Levin’s hope that the Iraqi parliament will replace Prime Minister Maliki with a less divisive and more unifying figure when it returns in a few weeks.

Such as who?

The sad fact is that there is currently no unifying figure in Iraq. In fact, Maliki was the original "unity" candidate. Picked after the Shiite's preferred candidate al-Jaafari was pushed aside with a shove from the American ambassador. Maliki was supposed to be acceptable to the Shiite majority, and the Sunni and Kurdish minorities, alike.

The problem is not Mr. Maliki’s narrow-mindedness or incompetence. He is the logical product of the system the United States created, one that deliberately empowered the long-persecuted Shiite majority and deliberately marginalized the long-dominant Sunni Arab minority. It was all but sure to produce someone very like Mr. Maliki, a sectarian Shiite far more interested in settling scores than in reconciling all Iraqis to share power in a unified and peaceful democracy.

Maliki was our choice. As was Allawi. As was Chalabi. Americans have had a pathetic record at selecting Iraq's leaders. If Senator Clinton knows of a good candidate, now is the time to speak up.

I thought Hillary wouldn't answer hypothetical questions

Continuing her unfortunate habit of embracing the Republican talking points, Hillary Clinton declares that another terrorist attack on the U.S. will benefit the same incompetents who let the first one happen.

"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world," Clinton told supporters in Concord.

"So I think I'm the best of the Democrats to deal with that," she added.

I'm not sure why she considers herself the best Democrat to deal with that. (If she explained herself, the NY Post didn't bother to tell us). We all know that the first reaction of the Republicans will be to blame Bill Clinton for destroying the U.S. military.

We know that, because that's what they're doing right now.

Here's Mitt Romney, casually ignoring the fact that almost 7 years have passed since Bill was in charge and that George Bush Junior has been given carte blanche to rebuild the military as he sees fit:

After President George H. W. Bush left office, in 1993, the Clinton administration began to dismantle the military, taking advantage of what has been called a "peace dividend" from the end of the Cold War. It took a dividend, but we did not get the peace. It seems that our leaders had come to believe that war and security threats were gone forever; as Charles Krauthammer observed, we took a holiday from history.

Here's Fred Thompson, echoing the same quote by Krauthammer:

Our country was not prepared for our current situation. We took a holiday from history in the 90’s. We cut our military, our procurement and our research and development. Now our military is stretched too thin. We are wearing out our equipment. Our intelligence capabilities are inadequate.

And here's Rudy Giuliani, explicitly blaming Bill Clinton for the attacks on 9/11:

"Islamic terrorists killed more than 500 Americans before Sept. 11. Many people think the first attack was on Sept. 11, 2001. It was not. It was in 1993," said the former mayor.

"The United States government, then President Clinton, did not respond," Giuliani said. "(Osama) bin Laden declared war on us. We didn't hear it."

h/t TPMCafe

Hillary Clinton: First choice of conservative Republicans

It's pretty incredible given the years of Hillary hatred on the right but she's now their favorite liberal. Conservatives are arguing, "If you must vote for a Democrat for God's sake vote for Hillary".

First came Rupert Murdoch, magnate of the FOX news empire.

Murdoch to host fundraiser for Hillary Clinton

One media lobbyist said: “Murdoch will be for the Republicans but he is also smart enough to know that the Republicans might not win. At some level, whether nationally or in New York, Hillary is the future and what savvy businessman would not want to put a line of interest in someone who will be the future?”

And now we have neoconservative icon Bill Kristol singing her praises.

William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, sounded more effusive. "Obama," he said, "is becoming the antiwar candidate, and Hillary Clinton is becoming the responsible Democrat who could become commander in chief in a post-9/11 world."

But why would conservatives, to whom Hillary has come to personify everything that's wrong with the left, pick her as their best hope?

First, given the hard times the Republicans have fallen on, they realize that she's may be their best bet. With the possible exception of Joe Biden, she's the most conservative candidate on the Democratic side.

Here's Bruce Bartlett.

Having come to this realization, it became necessary to judge the Democratic field to determine which candidate would be the least bad from my point of view. I concluded that Hillary Clinton was less objectionable that the others. She appeared to be a clone of her husband on economic policy--which is good as far as I am concerned--and a realist on foreign policy. Given the choices facing us, I concluded that conservatives ought to consider supporting Hillary in order to ensure that a more liberal candidate such as Barack Obama or John Edwards didn't become our next president.

Republicans hated Bill because he kept stealing their ideas, not because he was a radical leftist. Now they're worried that the choice is between a triangulator and an liberal ideologue.

They also think she's more of an opportunist than an idealist - she might be happy just to get the brass ring. Ross Douthat:

As a conservative, I see this as an advertisement for a Clinton presidency, not a mark against her candidacy. I like my liberal Presidents to offer "no big ideas, no crusading causes" - particularly after eight years of George W. Bush, Big Thinker.

... And yet, and yet. She has a real record now, and it's no more left-wing than her rivals, and a good deal more restrained. Whether you're a libertarian like Andrew or a social conservative like me, you're not going to be wild about any Democratic president. But better a liberal "Nixon in a Pant Suit," I often think - and whatever her pathologies they can't hold a candle to Tricky Dick's - than the liberal, realigning Reagan that Obama has an outside chance of turning out to be.

Moderate Republicans see in her a bit of themselves. Here's Andrew Sullivan, who dislikes Hillary, but can still identify with her on a fundamental level:

I've written before that Clinton's relentless sensibleness on many issues - including the war, where her own journey has been in the same direction as mine - makes her hard to oppose.

And finally, for the far right, there's the war. Hillary is the only Democrat running who hasn't completely repudiated the case for the Iraq war.

(Rich Lowry)

In those moments in the Democratic debates that have offered a choice between saying what the pacifist left wants to hear or saying what someone who might someday be president should say, she has done the latter. Her default mode is seriousness, and all her preparation shows. When she was asked in the most recent debate about the possibility of nearly three decades of a Bush or Clinton in the While House, I found myself commenting to a friend, “Watch — she’ll hit this out of the park.” Which she did with a joke about regretting that Bush won in 2000.

(Fred Barnes)

There was a key moment, however, and once again it pitted Clinton, the New York senator, against Barack Obama, her counterpart from Illinois. The question was whether they'd promise to meet in the first year of their presidency with the leaders of such enemy nations as Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, and Syria.

"I would," Obama said, foolishly showing his inexperience, and perhaps his naivete as well, in foreign affairs. After all, he said, President Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" and still talked to Soviet leaders. "I think it's a disgrace we haven't talked" to leaders of the five anti-American countries, Obama said.

(Charles Krauthammer)

From the Nation's David Corn to super-blogger Mickey Kaus, a near-audible gasp. For Hillary Clinton, next in line at the debate, an unmissable opportunity. She pounced: "I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year." And she proceeded to give the reasons any graduate student could tick off: You don't want to be used for their propaganda. You need to know their intentions. Such meetings can make the situation worse.

Just to make sure no one missed how the grizzled veteran showed up the clueless rookie, the next day Clinton told the Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa, that Obama's comment "was irresponsible and frankly naive.

None of these men will vote for Clinton. With the exception of Andrew Sullivan, they look at the Democratic field and think, "she's a person I could vote for, but I'd rather have a real Republican".

Deep down they believe Hillary is the smart move for Republicans. She motivates their base helping Republicans generally, but if she wins, she's still the most conservative Democrat. It keeps the debate shifted to the right.

And they dream of a rematch in 2012.