ABOUT FIRST READ

First Read is an analysis of the day's political news, from the NBC News political unit. First Read is updated throughout the day, so check back often.

Chuck Todd, NBC Political Director

Mark Murray, NBC Deputy Political Director

Domenico Montanaro, NBC Political Researcher



New Clinton ad jabs Obama, Edwards

Posted: Thursday, December 20, 2007 4:10 PM by Mark Murray

From NBC's Lauren Appelbaum
A new television advertisement called "Make It Happen," released today by the Clinton campaign, attempts to show Hillary Clinton's warm and fuzzy side, while allowing her to take a subtle -- yet obvious -- stab at Obama and Edwards.
 
In a close-up, talking straight to the audience, talks about how to achieve change, Clinton says: "I've seen what change takes," she says. "It doesn't happen because you want it to, or because you hoped for it. You have to work for it." That is the exact statement she used at last week's Des Moines Register debate, which was seen as implicit criticism of Obama (who has talked about hope on the campaign trail) and Edwards (who has called to change special interest' control of Washington).
 
"This election isn't about choosing change over experience," she continues. "Change only comes with experience. And with the war to end, and an economy to fix, we've never needed change more, or the strength and experience to make it happen."
 
The ad will be running in New Hampshire.

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Comments

You know it is pretty appalling that you refer to Senator Clinton as trying to be “warm and fuzzy”. You would never nor have you ever referred to the male candidates in this manner. As a man and a strong supporter of Senator Clinton I find such remarks to be extremely sexist. There is such a double standard in the media and such unfair coverage of her campaign. Where is your coverage of Hillary being back on top in NH and in a big way...were Obama up as many points...BIG HEADLINES.
I for one would like you to just be fair to all the candidates and I don’t want to know who your personally cheering on...your coverage should be more professional than that.
clinton campaign launches two websites solely for the purpose of smearing barack obama using words such as cowardly. article at yahoo.com

dirty politics, dirty politicians, dirty campaigning

CLINTON'S AREN'T CHANGE AGENTS

you can't change washington playing the same old games
Another loosing proposition coming from Hillary Clinton. The Ad doesn't make any sense whatsoever. How can some one who has been in the system for 35 years bring change?  She assert of being part of the system, yet, she want to change it. What a joke?

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that someone with fresh eyes will always see things differently. Hillary's idea of change is like George Bush idea of Constitution. Who in their right mind will believe Hillary is for Change. Well, some few morons or blind supporters would probably do.

She is for change, yet, she voted for the war.
She is for change, yet, she want to attack Iran
She is for change, yet, she likes running negative attack
She is for change, yet, she want to attack the Republican
She is for change, yet, she want to continue George Bush diplomacy

Can someone tell me what kind of Change Hillary Clinton is preaching? Is it the change on attacking the other democrats or change in giving lobbyist more power.
We"re gonna make it happen. We're gonna send you back to where you came from, New York, wait, arkansas, Wait, illinois. O heck, wherever you came from.


" DELUSIONAL THINKING BY COMMON SENSE AMERICAN'S IS OVER "
Can't get any better than that! but Chris Matthews will see something wrong with it and degrade because he does not like the Clinton's.  She has her mojo back!
I could imagine bin laden might just come out from his "hiddy hole", to make buddies, to encourage voting democratic in America this election year. I could also just  picture alquaida as they sit around with smirks combined with blank stares mumbling wow...wow. Can you believe this one?You talk about world politics!
How is Hillary the "change agent" when she voted with George Bush for the Iraq war ?  Hillary did not speak out against the war until 2006. Didn't Hillary have her chance to "fix" healthcare in the early '90's ?  Its someone elses turn to lead.  
The right candidate, the right message ,at the right time. hillaryclinton.com
Please come join the conversation ... hillaryclinton.com
Fellow Democrats, please begin to question what Hillary is saying.  What is her experience?  What has she accomplished?  

I know one thing she has accomplished, and that is the highest level of divisiveness of any of our candidates.  If you're thinking of voting for Hillary so that we can get revenge on the Republicans, you need to really reevaluate your values.  Do you really want the current state of affairs to continue?  Do you think the Republicans in the Senate would let her accomplish anything?  They won't have to because half of the country dislikes Hillary anyway.

Vote for a new, positive path where change is possible.

Obama/Edwards or Edwards/Obama '08
A TRUE MUST READ:
Jay Cost Thu Dec 20, 9:30 AM ET
Most neutral observers would agree that Hillary Clinton's response to Barack Obama's rise has been bungled. Over the past few weeks, we have seen her campaign attempt again and again to attack him, only to make itself look foolish. I think the worst moment came last weekend when President Clinton was dispatched to the Charlie Rose Show to trash the junior senator from Illinois. That task was simply beneath a former president. And who did not notice the irony of Clinton arguing for experience over freshness? If any Democrat has parroted Republican talking points this cycle - it was Bill Clinton mimicking Bush-Quayle '92.
TRhis plan was clearly put together on a spit and a prayer. It seems to me that if the Clinton campaign had anticipated that Obama would pose this kind of threat - it would have developed a better strategy for dealing with him. Its ineptitude over the last few weeks betrays its lack of preparedness. I am sure that Team Clinton has a number of contingency plans in its filing drawer, but the rise of Obama is clearly not one of them.
Why was the Clinton campaign unprepared for this?
Unfortunately, we cannot answer this question directly. The only people who know are the higher-ups of the Clinton organization - and they are not going to admit that they were unprepared, let alone explain why. But I have a plausible theory worth sharing.
The way to approach the question is first to ask why we should have expected an Obama surge. It stands to reason that the Clinton campaign failed to account for at least one of the factors that make up our answer. These are the three reasons that I argued for over the summer and fall:
(1) Obama raised $70 million in nine months from half a million people. This demonstrates two points:
(a) He caters to a real demand in the Democratic electorate - intense enough to open wallets.
(b) His money can facilitate a more sophisticated campaign strategy. Obama can do more than win Iowa and hope that he magically catches fire. Instead, he can win Iowa and fight Clinton dollar-for-dollar, state-for-state.
(2) Obama is the most authentic change candidate among the top three Democrats. Hillary Clinton is not this candidate. Her principal qualification for the job is her role as her husband's advisor - so she was always going to run on the record of the 1990s. John Edwards has positioned himself as a change candidate, but he does not convey the authenticity that Obama does.
(3) Obama is organized in Iowa. He recognized that organization was critically important for an Iowa victory - and that an Iowa victory was necessary for his broader strategy. And so, he is organized and ready for the January 3 caucus.
Through the summer and the fall, journalists underestimated the importance of these because they used the opinion polls to create a horse race out of whole cloth. In reality - the opinions expressed to pollsters were not stable enough to support the idea that there was an actual race going on.
Voter opinions were based on little information and even less interest in the campaign. Obama's activities were never going to register with these uninformed and uninterested voters in the summer; they were always meant to yield dividends in the winter. So, Obama was seen to be a weaker candidate than he really was. Accordingly, Clinton was seen to be stronger than she really was. She was always the frontrunner (she still is), but the overuse of opinion polls made her appear "unstoppable" and "inevitable" to the press.
Like the press, the Clinton campaign clearly underestimated Obama - it over-looked the money, the message, or the organizing. Perhaps the Clinton campaign did this for the same reason as the press. Perhaps it relied so heavily on the opinion polls that it could not see that Obama was preparing to launch a viable campaign later on.
I think this explanation has some credibility to it. I'm thinking in particular of Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist and pollster. His comments over the course of the campaign have struck me as utilizing the same erroneous assumptions that informed the press' summer horse race narrative. Consider this snippet from the Ben Smith's blog. The date of this entry is October 18. 2007:
"Republicans are not prepared for the loss of a substantial group of Republican women voters ... even in the South," he said. "I think you're going to see as much as 24% of Republican women defect and make a major difference nationwide in terms of, I think, the emotional element of potentially having the first woman nominee. And that that actually will be a major unexpected factor here that will throw the Republicans for a loop."
This is a ridiculously overconfident assertion.
First, research has shown that partisanship is a stable and powerful feature of a person's psychology. It has also shown that voters who are conflicted between their partisanship and their evaluations of the candidates often resolve the conflict by simply abstaining, rather than voting for the other party. The idea that one in four Republican women will defy these regularities is possible, but far from likely.
Second, I just cannot see how this figure can be quantified some twelve-and-a-half months prior to the election. That's just insane to me. Everything we know about the levels of voter information, voter attention, the effect of the media dialogue on transitory political opinions, the influence of question wording and ordering - leads me to suspect that Penn is committing some serious inferential fallacy. It is not that he is necessarily wrong. It is that his assertion is dramatically underdetermined. The numbers are not giving him the hard answers he thinks they are.
This is the kind of comment I expect from non-expert journalists who look at the polls and read the numbers in a naïve way. "Republican women say that they would consider voting for Clinton; ergo, they would consider voting for Clinton." Not quite. The fact of the matter is that you can't come to this conclusion so easily. Underlying all of those seemingly straightforward numbers is a complex, intricate aggregation of individual voter psychologies. This makes inferential analysis extremely difficult.
I would contrast Penn's silly assertion with the considered work of political scientists who specialize in political psychology. The best work in this subfield is the most difficult stuff I have ever read. The theories are complicated, the methods are complex, and the conclusions are always narrow and tentative because voter psychology is incredibly difficult to delineate. It is not made any easier by the fact that our best point of contact with voters is the opinion survey - which, when you think about it, is quite distant from their interior mental states.
You can find the same flippancy in Penn's strategy memos - which have come out periodically over the course of the campaign. All of them follow the same basic script as this one from July: Clinton's poll position is insurmountable; there is no need to have an election because a sample of the voting population has reported statistically significant results that Clinton will win.
In January he argued, "If Hillary leads in Ohio at this point in the race -- the key state that gave the last election to the Republicans -- then this confirms that Hillary can win and is today winning. She is the strongest Democrat in what was the most difficult state." Look at his words carefully: polling results some twenty-two months before the election "confirm" that Hillary can win and "is" winning. In February he said basically the same thing in response to the latest polling data, "As other candidates are getting more and more attention, Hillary is getting more and more support...This poll confirms that Hillary not only can win but actually is today winning."
In August, he wrote that voters had "come to see the race differently," and accordingly "concluded" that Clinton "has what it takes to be President and what it takes to take on the Republicans." It is untenable to argue that voter perceptions were changing in August, or that voters had concluded anything before Labor Day.
In October, he said that Clinton's support among women is "deep" - and that "94% of young women" will be more likely to turn out to vote for the first female nominee. Much like his comment about Republican women - there is no way to quantify how "young women" will respond to Clinton some thirteen months before Election Day. Nor, for that matter, can depth of support be easily interpreted from simple yes-or-no questions asked months before the first votes are cast.
In November, he wrote that the "leadership card" is the reason "why people are voting for Hillary Clinton." His consistent use of the present tense to describe the act of voting represents the same fallacy that polling respondents are no different than voters.
Now, there is a lot of spin going on with these memos. In particular, Penn has an incentive to play to the prior beliefs of the audience - i.e. journalists who cannot distinguish between a February poll and a December poll. However, spin alone cannot explain Penn's voluminous study of the polls. I counted upwards of 6,000 words offered in analysis of polling data since the start of the campaign - no campaign's senior adviser spends so much effort dissecting the polls simply for the purpose of spinning the press. That would be a misallocation of resources.
Spin alone also does not explain why Penn would consistently take the tone he has adopted. If he agreed that the polls could turn on a dime, he would never argue that they would not. Anybody with a lick of sense knows not to tell a falsifiable lie if it can be avoided. Generally, the fact that the Clinton campaign facilitated the idea of inevitability is an indication that it believed that it was inevitable. You don't go pushing that storyline if you believe it is not necessarily true. Otherwise, you set expectations far too high - and you run the risk of getting burned when things do not go your way.
This is actually Clinton's biggest problem right now. When the voting starts, expectations matter. Most of the electorate's information on the campaign will come from the media - whose emphasis is on the horse race. Who's up and who's down. If Clinton loses several of the first contests, she will receive more negative coverage than, say, Giuliani because her campaign once convinced the press that she couldn't lose.
So, I think that the Mark Penn and the Clinton campaign might have made the same basic mistake the press made. They over-interpreted the polls. They wrongly assumed that the opinions expressed in them were more informed, sophisticated, and stable than they actually were. I think that this, in turn, caused them to overlook Obama's real strengths.
The big question: what will this cost them? Possibly nothing. I think this race remains fundamentally unchanged. Winning Iowa is a necessary condition for Obama. It is a sufficient condition for Clinton. Clinton could win Iowa - and her numbers that have slipped in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and nationwide will rebound. The race will be over. In that case, her campaign will probably be in better shape for having learned a good lesson at no cost. But it might cost them something. There is such a small margin that separates Clinton, Obama, and Edwards in Iowa that her campaign's maladroit response to Obama could cost her victory. In that case - the race continues to New Hampshire, South Carolina, and then Super Tuesday. And she could lose the nomination."

"
Hilaary has the 'experience' to change her position on the Iraq war

She voted for war in 2002
She supported the war while it was popular

Now, that the war is unpopular....
She has the 'experience' to 'change' her position

Britney Spears has the 'experience' to change....
Sometimes she wears panties, sometime she doesn't..
She soesn't hope for change, she changes

Maybe Brittney should be President....
She knows how to 'change'....


This message brought to you by the Clinton Smear campaign.....
official 'spokes-villan', Merle Stanley
This is a great ad!  Go Hillary!
She has seen what change takes and it takes people liking you enough to want to listen to your side.  Something she doesn't have going for her.  Mark my words- a Hillary win will mean a Republican majority in both the house and senate in '08 or '10 at the latest.  Go Hillary (smile)!
She really thinks she has the experience, but the problem is what experience? She has not offered any credible legislation that has made a difference in New York; all she has done is ride on the coat tails of her husband.
I thought it was the holidays - no negative ads!! Shame on you clinton!!!
Can someone please explain to me why Hillary Clinton is always claiming credit for her husband's administration?
What experience in administration do you acquire by being married to a president?
I won't be suprised if Chelsea also decides to run for president by touting the experience she gained as a former presiden't daughter!
When Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., voted "present," rather than "yes" or "no" on a handful of controversial abortion votes in the Illinois state senate, he did so with the explicit support of the president and CEO of Illinois Planned Parenthood Council.

"We at Planned Parenthood view those as leadership votes," Pam Sutherland, the president and CEO of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, told ABC News. "We worked with him specifically on his strategy. The Republicans were in control of the Illinois Senate at the time. They loved to hold votes on 'partial birth' and 'born alive'. They put these bills out all the time . . . because they wanted to pigeonhole Democrats."

Sutherland said Obama approached her in the late 1990s and worked with her and others in crafting the strategy of voting "present." She remembers meeting with Obama outside of the Illinois Senate chambers on the Democratic side of the aisle. She and Obama finished their conversation in his office.

"He came to me and said: 'My members are being attacked. We need to figure out a way to protect members and to protect women,'" said Sutherland in recounting her conversation with Obama. "A 'present' vote was hard to pigeonhole which is exactly what Obama wanted."

"What it did," she continued, "was give cover to moderate Democrats who wanted to vote with us but were afraid to do so" because of how their votes would be used against them electorally. "A 'present' vote would protect them. Your senator voted 'present.' Most of the electorate is not going to know what that means."

Unlike Senator Clinton who could care less about fellow Democrats, or "down ticket" candidates (and for those that don't know what "down ticket" means, it is candidates for office that are running for state legislative positions, or Governor, or Senator, not for President, thereby being "down ticket") Senator Obama was seeking to protect other Democratic state legislators from being boxed into corners the Republicans wanted to force them.  The "Present" votes were just that.

That whole "90's" reform is grossly over rated. It is filled with gross duplicities and exasperations towards the poor. The poor are still too swept under the rug and slandered. It is still demeaning, sometimes inhumane, and too socialist in its very nature by far. It is good for emergency food only for the most part.
Clinton says: "I've seen what change takes," she says. "It doesn't happen because you want it to, or because you hoped for it. You have to work for it." That is the exact statement she used at last week's Des Moines Register debate, which was seen as implicit criticism of Obama (who has talked about hope on the campaign trail) and Edwards (who has called to change special interest' control of Washington).

The actual quote; "Some believe you can get change by demanding it. Some believe you can get change by hoping for it. I believe you get change by working hard,", That's okay, the policy here is style over substance anyway, why bother to check the quote before claiming that it's, "the exact statement."?

Sticking to your narrative like a pit bull to a fat man's shin, every thought or action from Clinton is spun into an attack. This is one of the reasons why the type of, "journalism", practiced by the troika here (and sadly many others) has taken their profession from one of the most respected (circa WATERGATE) to one of the least respected, right there with used car salesman, and congressman.

If there are 10 ways to interpret a statement or action by Senator Clinton or her campaign, invariably the one chosen by you will be the one that best plays into the negative narrative you have chosen.

Clinton's campaign gives someone a question, it's PLANT-GATE!!!!
An Obama supporter asks a planted question, it's NOT A STORY! It doesn't fit in with the Obama narrative.

It isn't what the candidates do, but the way you depict and characterize those statements and actions.

Clinton raises funds with the Chinese, It's DISHWASHER-GATE!!!!

Obama has babies as maximum contributors, it's NOT A STORY!

The very least you should be able to expect from, "journalists", is that they will treat every subject in the most objective and unbiased way possible.
Worse, the easiest and intellectually LAZIEST thing a, "journalist", can do is simply buy into the common wisdom and never go beyond the water's edge of the accepted narrative, like for example, every story about Clinton that you edit on FR.


Van

CHANGE DOES NOT COME WITH EXPERIENCE
THIS RUNS COUNTER TO EVERYTHING THE CLINTONS THREW AT AMERICA CIRCA 1992-2000

CHANGE COMES FROM NOT BEING A WASHINGTON INSIDER

CLINTON THINKS IOWANS ARE STUPID

HILLARY-- WE ARENT STUPID AND YOU WILL LOSE
The mudslinging fun time of Hillary is on...She is trying to appear innocent in fuzzy warm ads and apologies while having her surrogates do the smearing for her...what a coward... I say " Hilary, be a Woman and throw the mud yourself...show that you can really lead this country by at least being the #1 mudslinger for your own campaign"
Maybe Hillary, and those now tail tucking, would change their minds about the oil propaganda if it gets them out of this healthcare issue well enough.

OH what the HECK! Give ME the oil, and let me cash in, and I'll give to those in need in America.You know I just don't get how some could toss aside the "bling bling" when thats what the "sing sing" about.What happened to all the Mack Daddies? I cannot believe they just dropped out like that.

Where false humility come from.Do you like America?I wonder because some of you would rather your outspoken enemies profit instead.Weirdness.
It appears that Obama has caused Clinton to change from week to week.
Can someone tell me what kind of Change Hillary Clinton is preaching? Is it the change on attacking the other democrats or change in giving lobbyist more power.
Someone elaborate on what these 35 years are? I count 7.
Hillary Clinton will be the death of the Democratic Party with her slash and burn politics
I am 'hoping' that she will 'change' her mind, and take her 'experience' somewhere else.  I do not even want her as a senator anymore. SHE IS NOT A DEMOCRAT/DECENT REPUD/IND. Putin is looking for someone(volunteer pls, Hillary Clinton).
this ad is hardly negative.  come on people, this is politics.  grow a set and stop whining when candidates point out their differences from one another.  with the candidates holding mostly similar views on policy issues, I thankful they're starting to point out other differences.  HRC is the candidate with the experience to bring real change.  And, I simply love how her resurgence this week has been under-reported.  If it were Obama or Edwards surging like this, it would have been headline news on the main pages of all the sites.  She's peaking at the right time and she will not only win the nom but will be our first female president!  And, she has the most clever of all the cheesy holiday ads.  Go Hillary!  


The Obama campaign today sent the below email to supporters from Barack Obama on the subject of 3rd party spending in the early states. From the email (full text below):

“Right now groups supporting Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are flooding Iowa and the other early states with millions of dollars in paid ads, phone calls, and mailings. Some of it is negative and even deceptive, and a lot of it is paid for by huge, unregulated contributions from special interests. Taking on these groups isn’t just a matter of setting the record straight about me or my positions. It’s about proving that a new kind of campaign — funded by ordinary people who want something better for all of us — can defeat the same tired, old political textbook that so many Americans just don’t trust anymore.”

To give you a sense of the spending in Iowa right now, below is the most up-to-date independent expenditure information in Iowa.

For Hillary Clinton

AFSCME: $907,177.24

AFT: $635,822.19

Emily’s List: $297,806.69

Total: $1,840,426.12

For John Edwards

Working for Working Americans/Carpenters: $516,216.51

Alliance for a New America (SEIU): $760,801.00

Total: $1,277,017.51

________________________________
From: Barack Obama
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 2:04 PM
To: Bill Burton
Subject: History will be made

Bill –

When our supporters in Iowa walk into their local caucuses two weeks from today, they won’t only be representing me.

They’ll be representing you and every other supporter of this movement for change.

Let’s show them just how many of us are behind them.

Here’s our historic goal for the home stretch: 500,000 people owning a piece of this campaign by January 3rd — more people than have ever donated to a presidential campaign before the voting begins.

This milestone will be a clear signal to those who rely on donations from Washington lobbyists and spending from outside special interests to support their campaigns that we are a movement of people who stand for real change.

Time is running out to be part of history. But right now one of the 454,236 people who have donated to our campaign is waiting to match your first online donation.

Make your donation of $25 now and your impact will be doubled during these final days before the voting begins:

It’s more important than ever to take action.Right now groups supporting Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are flooding Iowa and the other early states with millions of dollars in paid ads, phone calls, and mailings.

Some of it is negative and even deceptive, and a lot of it is paid for by huge, unregulated contributions from special interests.

Taking on these groups isn’t just a matter of setting the record straight about me or my positions.

It’s about proving that a new kind of campaign — funded by ordinary people who want something better for all of us — can defeat the same tired, old political textbook that so many Americans just don’t trust anymore.

Make your matching donation now to make it happen:

In exactly two weeks, Iowa will begin a succession of contests that culminates in almost two dozen states voting at once on February 5th.The presence and influence of these outside groups is only going to grow as the campaign moves into more battlegrounds.

It’s going to be intense, but with a movement owned by half a million people, we can take the fight to them and win.

Our time is now.

Barack


http://thepage.time.com/memo-from-obama-campaign/

Now the groups that don't support him are all, "HUGE UNREGULATED special interests", INCLUDING, apparently  the unions he lobbied unsuccessfully for that same nod.
Do you think Barack would be singing the same sad song, if HE had the support that Clinton and Edwards have, and that he too sought from these groups? What do they call it when you have one standard for yourself and a different one for everyone else again? The best part is that he's using it to squeeze more money out of his supporters. It will probably work too...


Van
At at time in which our country is facing a continuous terrorist threats, anyone who would consider this woman for President is either completely crazy and/or suicidal or doesn''t understand or remember how horribly bad this woman and her husband then President stripped, dismantled, cutback, defunded and dangerously rendered our military impotent while they were in office AND AT SAME TIME COMPLETELY IGNORING SEVERAL TERRORIST ATTACKS AND THE GROWING AL QAEDA THREAT. THIS WOMAN AND HER HUSBAND UNDISPUTABLY SCORED A "0" ON NATIONAL DEFENSE. I wouldn''t trust this woman with my dogs security much less the country''s.
I support Joe Biden but am sending money to Obama because I am sick of the attack politics of the Clinton campaign. I am tired of the win at all cost mentality. The country needs a leader who thinks more of the People and less of of their own supposed right to the office.
A perfect ad - simple yet accurate.  Obama's a talker....Hillary will get it done!

HILLARY '08
"Ready to lead on day one"... what does that even mean?  Ready to lead what?  Ready to lead health care reform into the ground again?  Ready to fight Republicans and ready to create partisan division?  Ready to slander fellow democrats with lies?

Where on a "day one" schedule does "ready to lead" go exactly?  Between "planting questions" and "throwing mud at Obama"?  Maybe instead of telling us half-truths and lies about Obama, she can explain WHAT exactly she plans to do on Day 1?

I mean, Bill Clinton suggested she would send Bill, George Sr., and George Jr. off around the world, but the Georges already shot that down.  Her Day 1 "first act" is already a failure...
Barack,

Please come back and attack these people.  Talk about Bill's drug use, talk about the rented rooms in the white house, talk about impeachment, talk about Monica Lowensky, talk about Osama and the lack of getting him.  If you do not talk about these things, you will be just like Kerry, catching blows and not responding until it is too late.  You have to destroy these old criminals.
Why does Hillary have to read off a note card to get her message straight?
Now wait! I have a plan! I would like to officially bring closure to the Iraq OIL ISSUES!!

I do not enjoy false humility and I do not like it when my outspoken enemy prospers to such an extent that my country suffers in ways. I FEEL NO GUILT. No really. Just give me the oil. I'm OK with it.

I don't mind profiting.

I don't think they do in the middle east either, and I don't think even they would think it was nice and peace loving to give their cash to us.When OH when will they give to US!I mean, I like to share, DON"T get me wrong, but seesh! MUST we let people suck off us?!
 Is it just me or do they seem a bit stingy compared to our grossly lavish giving.Enough is enough:)))
Please fix your Political Calendar.  All of Washington State's Democratic delegates and half of the Republican delegates will be chosen by caucuses on February 9, not by the later "beauty contest" primary.  Thanks.
It's about time that Clinton got tough. Obama's team is sending 4-6 negative oppo memos out each day slamming HRC in addition to negative emails. A bright light needs to be shined on BO, he has no integrity and character and has proven it by completely abrogating responsibility in Congress; the passage of the Omnibus Spending Bill with no timetable for withdraw of troops and no legal requirement for $ to be spent as appropriated gives Mr. Bush a blank checkbook. If Obama were a leader, he would have flown to Washington, stood up in Congress for the American people, and then headed back to his campaign. Its time to wake up America. Obama's actions don't comport with his message and they never have. Moreover, his indiscretions in Springfield while in office fly in the face of his supposed character. I am glad that HRC is cutting through the bleary eyed haze of the latest New-New thing in politics. It's time to face the truth.
Hey Clinton smear machine -- It's the Holidays so it's not all about you. It's about someone more important then you. Get a grip and lighten up.
Clitton more experienced?

http://jaydiatribe.blogspot.com/2007/03/barack-obamas-inexperience.html

You dumb arse Billary supporters are probably the same idiots who nominated John Kerry for "electibility".

Think Billary is the most "electible"?  The far left hate her.  Independents hate her.  Moderate republicans hate her.

If she gets the nomination (heaven help us), she will get the lowest vote % of any Presidential election.

I predict 28%.
The Clinton's LIE. That 90's "reform" is not what they promote it to be!It made some very SMALL improvements.It helped a couple poster children for them.BIG DEAL!The system is nasty still.You be eating your supply of food help from your car or some ghetto housing development.Whoopee.People have no idea about real poverty in America.You cannot learn to understand it in college.
I too wonder what kind of "change" Hillary is talking about. Does she really think we want just another partisan in the White House? Her supporters are deluded if they think she's for change other than her address. This goes out to all the women out there who are supporting Hillary because she's a "strong woman": Hillary got where she is today because of her husband - this does not a "strong" woman make. Hillary would be a 2nd rate candidate if not for her last name. Hillary is a Washington insider, she is not a change agent. And Hillary is a fighter, yes, she knows how to "fight Republicans" - unfortunately fighting and dead-lock is all that Hillary will accomplish if she gets the keys to the White House. A REAL "strong woman" knows when to stop the mudslinging, the triangulation, the politics of personal destruction, and wars by proxy. If she were a REAL "strong woman" she would have kicked Bill (as much as I love him) to the curb years ago. Experience? Fighting Republicans. Leadership? She has her proxies attack Obama. Change? No, dead-lock. Electability? Polls show conclusively Edwards and Obama fair better in the general election. I ask you then, what does Hillary really have going for her in the final analysis?
Lol, I've never seen anyone try to turn hope into something bad.

Just goes to show that Hillary isn't happy just bringing out the worst out in people, she even tries to bring out the worst in otherwise positive concepts.
Hillary will win Iowa ! hillaryclinton.com
The next President,will be Hillary Clinton. come see why... hillarycl;inton.com
Hillary Clinton has betrayed both women and by running a campaign based only on the sexist and chauvinistic goal of gaining power for power's sake. In fact Edward's finessed positions echo the same. Only Barack Obama fairly represents both women and men as an honest candidate seeking to bring people together to solve problems and consistently promote values and positions that serve and respect all. Barack Obama does not have to produce an ad to show that he is warm or strong, he just is.
All I can see here is that if you are not for Clinton then she is Satan incarnate. If you are for her she is super OK. Some people are so bitterly opposed and spew such hatred over somebody that they don't even know, that it is really appalling. You can say that I don't like her character or her policies, but to say that you hate somebody and that they should never be president under any circumstances is really Rush Limbaugh and Fox News Ann Coulter horse manure and those people are only saying that for the ratings and not because they believe it.

The disgusting thing that I see is that the people commenting here first, don't know what they are talking about and are making such a personal issue out of this that one would think that this person had killed their pet dog. Come on folks it's only a campaign and all of the candidates tell you what you want to hear. They all read and listen to the polls. They all have their expert advisors and demographic specialists and some even change their lifelong positions on certain issues to attract different segments of the voters.

I have to smile when somebody says that so and so seems more sincere than another candidate. That may be partially true but what you are really saying is that one person is a better and more accomplished actor than the other.

These candidates know that the american electorate is horribly ignorant and play to that ignorance to the hilt. When a personal handshake or a TV ad or a brochure can persuade a voter it really makes me question how effective our democracy is working. I know that there is no other system of government that is better, but I wish somebody would devise one.
Hillary Clinton states that change will happen only we if "work hard".  This implies that despite her years of experience she must not have been working hard enough.   Our country is facing numerous problems that have festered for too many years -- health care, Social Security, Medicare, etc.  I don't believe we will be able to tackle these problems unless there is a mandate for change coming from this presidential election.  Electing a divisive candidate by a narrow margin, such as Mrs. Clinton, will not create that mandate for change.  Instead, I believe a candidate such as Barack Obama has the best chance to forge a coalition of Democrats, Independents and even Republicans  that will create a wide margin of victory and provide the political capital necessary to create solultions
I want to warn Senator Clinton about making comments about fellow democrats - this strategy could backfire!! Around the watercooler, Edwards and Obama supporters are upset about recent comments she made about her opponents. Women are vicious and quick to retaliate and some are saying they will NOT vote for a pouty, tattle-telling Hillary because she has failed to stick to the topics and has chosen to bash her opponents..............


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