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2008-01-07 Home Front: Politix
Bill, stumping for Hillary in NH, comes off like "Elvis playing Reno"
by Mark Liebovich, New York Times

Is this what it would have been like had Elvis been reduced to playing Reno?
Ouch!

Former President Bill Clinton has been drawing sleepy and sometimes smallish crowds at big venues in the state that revived his presidential campaign in 1992. He entered to polite applause and rows of empty seats at the University of New Hampshire on Friday. Several people filed out midspeech, and the room was largely quiet as he spoke, with few interruptions for laughter or applause. He talked about his administration, his foundation work and some about his wife. . . . Maybe the sluggish day was a blip. It was, in fairness, the day after Mrs. Clinton finished third in the Iowa caucuses, behind Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and John Edwards of North Carolina. Mr. Clinton was working on 30 minutes’ sleep. He traveled to New Hampshire from Iowa in the wee hours, and the university was on winter break.

But there was a similarly listless aura at the previous stop, in Rochester. And again, on Saturday in Bow, at just the sort of high school gym that the master campaigner used to blow out. Only about 225 showed up in Bow — about one-third the capacity of the room — to hear Mr. Clinton hit his bullet points on the subprime lending crisis, $100 barrels of oil and how “10 of Hillary’s fellow senators have endorsed her.”

“The crowd seemed very passive,” Arthur Cunningham of Bow said after the speech. “Maybe they were tired.” . . .
Tired of him, perhaps?
Posted by Mike 2008-01-07 08:37|| || Front Page|| [11129 views ]  Top

#1 I have the theory that Bill is actually trying to sabotage Hillary because he doesn't want her to overshadow him, which she would (due to her gender) if she became Pres.
Posted by Spot">Spot  2008-01-07 08:58||   2008-01-07 08:58|| Front Page Top

#2 The problem for Hillary is that while having the son of a president be president can be seen as an accident, Bush junior being succeded by the wife of an ex-president smells or more exactly stinks dinasty at a hundred miles. Also unlike in the father/son case, there are examples (eg Argantina) of the husband, the ineligible ex-president running the job in the background

If she wanted to be president she should have divorced as soon as she left Whitehouse or perhaps even in the last months of Clinton presidency. Now it is too late.
Posted by JFM">JFM  2008-01-07 09:09||   2008-01-07 09:09|| Front Page Top

#3 I suspect that if the Founding Fathers got to see all that has gone on, not just with the Clintons and Bushes, but with crap like the Kennedys, Mel Carnahan's widow and the Landrieus in Lousiana, they'd have put an anti-family dynasty clause very near the top of the Constitution...
Posted by M. Murcek">M. Murcek  2008-01-07 09:18||   2008-01-07 09:18|| Front Page Top

#4 I think the son of a President example stinks just as badly. At least Jeb is not on the short-list this time.
Posted by Excalibur 2008-01-07 09:33||   2008-01-07 09:33|| Front Page Top

#5 Jeb is more qualified than Hillary and most of the other candidates, but I wouldn't vote for him either. We need to get past this Bush Clinton thing.
Posted by Penguin 2008-01-07 10:03||   2008-01-07 10:03|| Front Page Top

#6 I wonder what the odds are of a Clinton divorce in the next two years if she isn't nominated, let alone elected:)
Posted by charger 2008-01-07 10:27||   2008-01-07 10:27|| Front Page Top

#7 Families. John and son John Quincy Adams. William Henry Harrison and grandson Benjamin Harrison. Theodore Roosevelt and fifth cousin Franklin Roosevelt [of course the latter was a dynasty in and of himself]. And the current iteration of Bush, father and son. It's not like we don't have quality people around to do the job, they just don't want to put up with all the inherit bullcrap that goes with the process while other more financial and personal lucrative opportunities are available within the culture. That is why you usually end up with 'political' families, be they local, state, or national. Hell, old Igor himself was filling daddy's Senate seat.

Maybe if you paid very very well to serve and hammered the media with the same standards in their product [truth in labeling, et al] that we hold every other business too, you might actually attract a better field of applicants.
Posted by Procopius2k 2008-01-07 10:34||   2008-01-07 10:34|| Front Page Top

#8 Poshumus divorce after swillary's head explodes at the dem nominating convention?
Posted by M. Murcek">M. Murcek  2008-01-07 10:34||   2008-01-07 10:34|| Front Page Top

#9 1) I like Jeb. Too bad his last name is 'Bush' and not 'Lugnut'.

2) I cannot see Hillary staying with Bill after she loses the nomination.

3) Daley, father and son.

4) Obama is in for a rude awakening if he's the nominee. Lots of Republicans doing oppo research and keeping their powder dry.
Posted by Steve White">Steve White  2008-01-07 10:56||   2008-01-07 10:56|| Front Page Top

#10 Ditto for Huckabee. It's starting to look a lot like 1976.
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-01-07 11:13||   2008-01-07 11:13|| Front Page Top

#11 I heard someone on one of the Talks shows suggest that Hillary should run to the nearest courthouse and file divorce papers. This may be Hillary's only way to rescue her campaign.
Posted by Delphi 2008-01-07 11:31||   2008-01-07 11:31|| Front Page Top

#12 Mike Murphy got in a couple of good shots on Meet the Press yesterday:

When presented with a picture of Bill, Hillary, Albright, and Wes Clark:

"Yeah, it looks like a wax museum."

Followed by:

MR. RUSSERT: Last week we had Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee on MEET THE PRESS. This week we had John McCain. We invited Senator Clinton, she declined our invitation. Doing very few media interviews. I am told she might be doing “Access Hollywood” on Monday.

MR. MURPHY: Yeah, I don’t understand it, because if she doesn’t grab this thing fast—and it’s not her fault, she’s just not what they’re looking for, but she’s making it worse with this kind of campaigning—she’s going to turn into Ed Muskie in a pantsuit and there’s no chance.
Posted by KBK 2008-01-07 11:33||   2008-01-07 11:33|| Front Page Top

#13 I do wish that they had made a rule excluding nepotism in subsequent presidencies to prevent the power of the president from influencing the outcome of a race. But IMHO it flies in the face of history to have the children or siblings of a leaders be excluded from being eligible if they can can wint the vote. Should Peyton Manning's brother be excluded from playing football? Should Peyton have been excluded? For thousands of years we have recognized the role of DNA in worthy kings, animal husbandry, etc. Hillary just married the guy and long before her health care debacle, proved she doesn't have even an iota of what it takes.

That said, I'm personally very tired of the Bush clan would simply not vote for Jeb as a matter of principle. But I do think that GW was the best available choice for his time and should not have been prevented from running. Adams' son was also a very good president.
Posted by Whomong Guelph4611 2008-01-07 11:38||   2008-01-07 11:38|| Front Page Top

#14 Muskie in a pantsuit indeed.
Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-01-07 14:56||   2008-01-07 14:56|| Front Page Top

#15 Should have put underlines to indicate the above post is actually a link where you can indeed see Muskie in a pantsuit.
Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-01-07 15:00||   2008-01-07 15:00|| Front Page Top

#16 That is, if you have the stomach for it.
Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2008-01-07 15:00||   2008-01-07 15:00|| Front Page Top

#17 I'm strong, I'm weak, I'm psycho. Nothing says strength like a hormonal moment. So I guess now she's going for the pity vote?

I'd respect her more if she would just come out juggling, hoping on one leg on top of a ball and say, I'll do anything you want me to do in order to get your vote.
Posted by Whomong Guelph4611 2008-01-07 15:35||   2008-01-07 15:35|| Front Page Top

#18 That would be, by far, the most honest political gesture ever.
Posted by eLarson 2008-01-07 15:44|| http://larsonian.blogspot.com]">[http://larsonian.blogspot.com]  2008-01-07 15:44|| Front Page Top

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