Hillary's 'Choice': 'Let's Get Real'

re: Hillary's 'Choice': Hope vs. Reality

Iowa Democrat — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:36:23 GMT

Can Obama be elected?

Can he actually win?

Is Bill Clinton right about the Obama fairy tale?

I am sick and tired of these questions. Yes he can! Yes we can!

Remember, a village in Texas has been missing its idiot for nearly 8 years now. If we can elect Bush president of the United States -- not once, but twice -- then we can elect a smart, powerful, uplifting mythical figure, too! It is now clear that a "C" student can start two wars, mess them both up, alienate the world, squander a $40 billion budget surplus and create backbreaking public debt. And while doing so, also manage to deepen the sense of polarization and cynicism regarding politics and our public lives.

So, when I hear these demands for greater specificity from Obama, and worries that he is a more a cult figure than a man of substance, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Given the magnitude of the mistakes of the recent past, it is just laughable to think that Obama will not be able to move us in a much more positive direction on the foreign policy front. It is equally transparent to me that he can set a fundamentally different tone for political discourse and decision making.

What makes me want to cry is the difficulty some people, including otherwise liberal public intellectuals like Paul Krugman, are having with embracing a message of hope. It seems that some folks are so hemmed in by a comprised and falsely constrained discourse that they won't embrace what a growing number of Americans plainly see and passionately want -- that we don't have to slog through the same old politics and fights. We don't have to remain in the mire. We don't have to go the low road. Hope is at hand.

I am old enough to remember the 1980 presidential election. I remember all the pundits who entered that campaign thinking America was never—never, ever—going to elect a grade B movie star president of the United States. It was only in the last two weeks before the general election that the centers of establishmentarian thinking took a hard look at the poll numbers and said, "Oh my God, Ronald Reagan may win. And in a landslide!" The rest, as they say, is history.

At that time, Reagan represented a movement, one that had felt closed out of even Republican politics for a long time. It was a movement that managed to capitalize on a political moment of deep frustration with the Carter years. That electoral success changed the national political landscape for a generation to come.

Today, Obama represents a movement, a movement on the center-left that has felt closed out of even Democratic politics for a long time. Obama can unite the Democrats, as the recent results in Maryland and in Virginia proved pretty dramatically. Just ask the expanding ranks of low-income, white men and white women who just cast their votes for Obama, too! Once elected, he will change the political landscape as well. And he can take on John "100-Year-War" McCain. It is a movement whose time has come.

Lawrence Bobo

re: Hillary's 'Choice': Hope vs. Reality

Thevail — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:27:49 GMT

Go Iowa democrat!! Seriously, i wonder if the pressi s just having some sort of moment with all of this. Yes, He can be elected, run the country, and be Commander in Chief. Look out from under your beds...yep, he's doing it.

The Hillary Campaign is out of steam, ideas, and budget. Now she's resorting to attack ads and overt cynicism. "let's get real" about what? What I hear when she says this is "Get real..you can't really change Washington DC, Get real, you can't really be a part of your own government. Best just to elect a nasty politician and then you can all go back to watching American Idol, and I'll just handle all that nasty political stuff for you."

I don't want it handled for me!! I want to help. How realistic is that, who knows? But I really start to feel like a kid telling mommy to PLEASE, LET GO! as I try to learn to ride my bike, but she just won't, instead she keeps saying "Let's get real! You'll just fall over, honey, you're too dumb to choose who to believe in for yourself."

re: Hillary's 'Choice': Hope vs. Reality

"Martin Edwin "Mick" Andersen — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:00:06 GMT

If Hillary can't put together a decent campaign organization, why would anyone think she could put together an effective government?

Experience is as experience does, and Hillary's doesn't.

re: Hillary's 'Choice': Hope vs. Reality

pbabb — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:46:25 GMT

Oh, you guys are just too 19th Century -- ever read what happened at the 1859 Republican convention?

You're old enough to remember 1980 -- good for you, woof! woof! woof! Aren't you enlightened! Do you remember the Democrat who ran against Reagan? Do you remember Hart? Do you remember Dukakis? Remember what whiz-bang winners they were?? Oh! You're so good at electing Democrats to the White House, by all means, carry on!!

re: Hillary's 'Choice': Hope vs. Reality

eddiewhere — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:47:22 GMT

HERE'S yOUR pROOF HALLOW. I AM VERy GLAD yOU ASKED THIS QUESTION.

THIS pROVES THAT OBAMA IS THE REAL DEAL SON.

Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping.

Obama didn't stop there. He played a major role in passing many other bills, including the state's first earned-income tax credit to help the working poor and the first ethics and campaign finance law in 25 years (a law a Post story said made Illinois "one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure"). Obama's commitment to ethics continued in the U.S. Senate, where he co-authored the new lobbying reform law that, among its hard-to-sell provisions, requires lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who "bundle" contributions for them.

Taken together, these accomplishments demonstrate that Obama has what Dillard, the Republican state senator, calls a "unique" ability "to deal with extremely complex issues, to reach across the aisle and to deal with diverse people." In other words, Obama's campaign claim that he can persuade us to rise above what divides us is not just rhetoric.

Avian flu: Obama was one of the first Senators to speak out on avian flu, back in the spring of 2005, when it was a quintessentially wonky issue, not the subject of breathless news reports. There's a list of Democratic efforts on avian flu here; Obama shows up early and often. He has sponsored legislation, including what I think is the first bill dedicated to pandemic flu preparedness. It's a good bill, providing not just for vaccine research and antiviral stockpiles, but for the kinds of state and local planning and preparedness that will be crucial if a pandemic occurs. (I was also very interested to note that it requires the Secretary of HHS to contract with the Institute of Medicine for a study of "the legal, ethical, and social implications of, with respect to pandemic influenza". This is actually very important, and not everyone would have thought of it.)

"We recommend that this administration work with Congress, public health officials, the pharmaceutical industry, foreign governments and international organizations to create a permanent framework for curtailing the spread of future infectious diseases.

There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama's bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to "solve" crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it.

THIS IS A pERFECT EXAMpLE OF WHAT OBAMA CAN DO AND HAS ALREADy DONE, BRING DIFFERENT FACTIONS TOGETHER TO ACHIEVE A COMMON GOAL.

RUDy WHO

re: Hillary's 'Choice': Hope vs. Reality

eddiewhere — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:47:24 GMT

HERE'S yOUR pROOF HALLOW. I AM VERy GLAD yOU ASKED THIS QUESTION.

THIS pROVES THAT OBAMA IS THE REAL DEAL SON.

THIS IS A pERFECT EXAMpLE OF WHAT OBAMA CAN DO AND HAS ALREADy DONE, BRING DIFFERENT FACTIONS TOGETHER TO ACHIEVE A COMMON GOAL.

RUDy WHO

re: Hillary's 'Choice': Hope vs. Reality

Vifer — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:27:36 GMT

Stick a fork in the ***!

re: Hillary's 'Choice': Hope vs. Reality

Karenn1 — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:03:45 GMT

The only choice is more corruption or a democrat.Hillarys got my vote,but will vote democrat.Don't care how much lipstick they put on that elephant .

re: Hillary's 'Choice': 'Let's Get Real'

lmcchesn — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:21:47 GMT

Come on Texas and Ohio,please vote smart and not for this image that is out there called barack. We need a serious leader with strtegies,and experience to be a global leader, not a preacher. Barack may be a good speaker, but for gods sake, look deeper. It's is empty, shallow and hollow. He cannot possibly handle this economy or terrorism, he just cant. He did not want to protect us just after 9/11, come on now. Some war strategies are bad. Vote Hillary...

re: Hillary's 'Choice': 'Let's Get Real'

lmcchesn — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:21:49 GMT