It's Final: Clinton is Unelectable

Sometime last week, the narrative of Clinton's candidacy changed from the inevitability of her nomination to, as today's Daily News lede helpfully summarizes, “Where did Hillary Clinton's mojo go?” We dare propose it went right up the widening gyre of the news cycle: At this point, the media continue an enthusiastic pileup — while lamenting that pileup's largely imaginary toll. (“Clinton remains way ahead in national polls,” the News admits in the story's tenth graph, “Though some have shown a slip.”) Not to worry: The next, equally specious, chapter will probably be about how the victimized Hillary is racking up sympathy votes. With any luck, we can go through five or six more of these twists before Iowa, basing each one on a 3 percent shift in a poll with a 4 percent error margin. In the meantime, the latest outrages.

Hillary's campaign has copped to planting a question, a softball about her environmental policy, at the candidate's appearance in Newton, Iowa. After the Bush administration gave us stage-managed “town halls,” Jeff Gannon, and fake TV reporter “Karen Ryan,” one might not think that a single audience plant adds up to a scandal, but just wait: “While planting questions is not the worst sin of a campaign operation,” writes the Times, “the practice could reinforce negative opinions about Mrs. Clinton” — that she and her campaign are “manipulative and scheming.” In other words: It's no big deal unless it's Hillary doing it, in which case it's an enormous deal. It's rare to see the mechanism of a double standard spelled out in such literal fashion.

But hey, forget about that: Hillary's a bad tipper! A waitress at something called Maid-Rite in Toledo, Iowa, told an NPR reporter she didn't get a tip after serving the candidate a “loose-meat sandwich.” The meaty tidbit, pulled from a larger story on a different topic, became an instant Web meme and put the campaign into the idiotic position of having to explain that they did too leave a tip — $100 on a $150 check, in fact. (A staffer ran around the joint distributing twenties.)

With Hillary's recent luck, we wouldn't be surprised if that defense triggered even more indignation: fund misuse? Vote-buying? Thankfully, the supposedly slighted-then-overrewarded waitress, Anita Esterday, turned out to be the only sane person in the country. “You people are really nuts,” she told the Times. “There’s kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now — there’s better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn’t get a tip.”

Hmm. Esterday/Clinton '08? —Michael Idov

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2007/11/its_final_clinton_is_unelectab.html

For my fellow Clinton supporters who think I may have temporarily lost my faculties, read the whole article. Do not skim.

Hillary supporters don't believe it, I don't believe it, and I'm often boggled at how many people DO take this stuff seriously.

So I say Go Hillary! (just in this one instance :7)

I say go Hillary too. Go away.

On the other hand, I despise all this triviality in the face of so very many substantive issues that one can point to. A pity the media fails in its duty to cover the issues in a meaningful fashion.

...refreshing to note that it is a Biden supporter who is the first in this particular thread to call for an end to the divisive posts.

This race ain't over yet.

WE SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR AT LEAST FOUR MORE YEARS OF REPUBLICAN RULE.

DSB

already oput there and that suggests there me be more to surface.

And her campaign has already given out 5 different versions of events. That will be sure to lead to more questions.

Plus, the practice is just plain disgusting. Putting people up to asking softball questions raises all kinds of questions in peoples mind about both the candidate and the campaign.

We will see. This may blow over. But I doubt it.

"How will you deal with global warming?"

Not any softer.... or harder.... than most I've seen at candidate forums. Pretty innocuous.....and a pretty standard question, if you ask me.

Which is a different animal.

Hillary could then say "yes................" or "no................." or "Gosh, I don't know. I really don't want to have to say one way or the other."

So it's not even the question, it's the secret manipulation of the process for public consumption.

And then the 5 different answers afterwords definitely suggests they were very uncomfortable with being found out.

Maybe she should have said, "Of course we planted questions, doesn't everybody"?

It amounted to a campaign aide suggesting an Obama partisan ask his question about Iraq at an event. (OH horrors!)



If the Clinton campaign weren't so amazing, these little teapot tempests would go completely unnoticed. Other campaigns need to watch out. Questions from 'friendlies' are now on the MSM's radar screen. You're next!

Notice how the votes stopped coming in as soon as you posted this revelation for the anti-Hillary sheep who obviously thought it was a token negative Hillary post. lol

or whether or not she tips, or her laugh, or her cleavage.

It's her politics dammit.

That's why we enjoy nitpicking her every mistake. We aren't rooting for her.

I care about her votes and her actions.

Going along with a lie-based war---when she had front-row
seats to the neocon games---certainly trumps stiffing a waitress.

Voting for the Kyl/Lieberman Amendment--which officially defines
an arm of the Iranian government a "terrorist organization"--and
helps Junior take an important step closer to war with Iran---is a bit
more important than planting questions at orchestrated speeches.

Planting questions and failing to tip waitresses---really are moot--
when you're a Democrat who propagates war and does nothing to stop
illegal wiretapping, torture and the erosion of our civil rights.

he relies on himself

Some of us donb't support Hillary. And the reasons we don't support her have nothing to do with her cleavage, her tipping, her fakeness/authenticity or any of the other superficial bullshit that the MSM is force-feeding us. It's because we disagree with her policies.

I realise that virtually the entire MSM have ordained Hillary the candidate in waiting but until she becomes the actual candidate, we're still allowed to not support her and I'm still allowed to say she comes around fifth on my list of preferred candidiates.

So does Hillary.

According to Project for the New American Century.

Please provide documentation for Edwards and Kucinich using phony "plants" at their town hall meetings.
Until you do, your unsupported claims are a waste of bandwidth.


You are NOT seriously quoting PNAC to support Hillary's campaign tactics.
Are you?

http://oldamericancentury.org/

Since the anti-Hillary folks say all sorts of things with no documentation (or with Fox News as their only documentation)--I see no reason why I should have to.

But here's the LA Times saying so:
"Although other campaigns are righteously denying it, virtually every professional presidential campaign plants questions. It's a routine part of preparation for the advance people staging every event."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-ticket11nov11,1,724688.story?track=crosspromo&coll=la-news-politics-national&ctrack=1&cset=true

that the republican-owned corporate media that built up her legend would then destroy her. looks like it'll be a lingering 'death of a thousand cuts' too.

I just wish that there would be less in-fighting. Instead of throwing mud-balls at Senator Clinton, the candidates should be aiming them at the repugs...Clinton tries to do that at every turn, but no other candidates have joined her.

this is the reason the GOP are commenting about Hillary being the more qualified Dem candidate, Obama will be more difficult to smear effectively.

"...Anita Esterday, turned out to be the only sane person in the country. 'You people are really nuts,' she told the Times. 'There’s kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now — there’s better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn’t get a tip.'” --NY Mag

Or at least head of the FCC!

Our was profiteering corporate news monopolies are nuts! And that's a fact.

Why? Because they're monopolies, and they can get away with it. They lie, twist, distort, misinform, disinform, black hole critically important information, undermine democracy, kill democracy, get people killed, trivialize their deaths, ignore their deaths, trivialize torture, cover up for fascists, murderers, election thieves and highway robbers of the federal government, protect polluters and planet-killers, disempower, demoralize and disinfranchise the public, profit from war, demonize good people and laud evildoers, turn our political system into a farce, destroy the idea of citizenry by fawning over the rich and the latest "celebrity," and control, control, control what we think, what we dream for, what we eat, what we buy, what constitutes happiness, how long our attention span is, who we listen to, and what they say.

And Anita Esterday packed all this into her contemptuous, down-home reaction to these assholes harassing her about Hillary's tip. I think they oughta switch jobs. Hillary can learn what a real job is like. And Anita can run the country.