in the nyt, the clintons are apparently feeling abandoned by those who were once loyal to them but have now endorsed obama.
clinton could've run a cleaner campaign but it probably wouldn't have mattered. the clintons are up against a movement of people who want to see things changed and obama has simply said, yes, it's possible to change washington and here's how.
when you're up against that momentum, it's tough to fight it back because it looks like we've reached the tipping point. many people in america are living paycheck to paycheck, more than the republicans realize, and the bush administration has been oppressive, so the idea of a clean break from old-fashioned politics is really exciting.
character has proven to be important in this campaign. i know i'm biased, but i've also paid close attention to this campaign, and from what i've seen, the obama camp has tried to stay on the high road, to keep it positive and on point, and hillary's camp keeps tugging on obama to take the low road because that's how the clintons define politics.
some people, women especially, are having a difficult time dealing with the fact that we won't have the first woman president. there virtually is no chance of hillary winning.
i'd like to see a woman president but i'd like the first one to be someone who isn't married to a former president. i'd like to see a woman who truly rises on her own and of her own merits. hillary has relied so much on bill during this campaign, using him especially in places like rural and suburban pennslyvania, where some people are reluctant to vote for a woman candidate, and counting his experience as her experience.
it also seems many women see this election as hillary's revenge for bill's affairs. bill really sullied the office of president with his shenanigans. i do think that the president has a big responsibility not just to run the nation but also to serve as a role model. if not the president, then who? i don't think obama will use his power to get the attention of interns. he seems above that and he seems to be a decent man who truly cares about his family.
but if women are concerned about women's rights, i believe that obama will do more for women than hillary because he has the power to move people and to get them mobilized into action. obama is clearly a better leader, whereas hillary is weak on that point. more than anything else, we need a leader, someone who can get ordinary americans involved.
so here are the clintons feeling that they are owed:
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clinton could've run a cleaner campaign but it probably wouldn't have mattered. the clintons are up against a movement of people who want to see things changed and obama has simply said, yes, it's possible to change washington and here's how.
when you're up against that momentum, it's tough to fight it back because it looks like we've reached the tipping point. many people in america are living paycheck to paycheck, more than the republicans realize, and the bush administration has been oppressive, so the idea of a clean break from old-fashioned politics is really exciting.
character has proven to be important in this campaign. i know i'm biased, but i've also paid close attention to this campaign, and from what i've seen, the obama camp has tried to stay on the high road, to keep it positive and on point, and hillary's camp keeps tugging on obama to take the low road because that's how the clintons define politics.
some people, women especially, are having a difficult time dealing with the fact that we won't have the first woman president. there virtually is no chance of hillary winning.
i'd like to see a woman president but i'd like the first one to be someone who isn't married to a former president. i'd like to see a woman who truly rises on her own and of her own merits. hillary has relied so much on bill during this campaign, using him especially in places like rural and suburban pennslyvania, where some people are reluctant to vote for a woman candidate, and counting his experience as her experience.
it also seems many women see this election as hillary's revenge for bill's affairs. bill really sullied the office of president with his shenanigans. i do think that the president has a big responsibility not just to run the nation but also to serve as a role model. if not the president, then who? i don't think obama will use his power to get the attention of interns. he seems above that and he seems to be a decent man who truly cares about his family.
but if women are concerned about women's rights, i believe that obama will do more for women than hillary because he has the power to move people and to get them mobilized into action. obama is clearly a better leader, whereas hillary is weak on that point. more than anything else, we need a leader, someone who can get ordinary americans involved.
so here are the clintons feeling that they are owed:
nyt: Nancy Larson’s most difficult conversation was, by far, the one with Chelsea Clinton.
“It was just heartbreaking,” said Mrs. Larson, a Democratic National Committee member from Minnesota and more to the point, a superdelegate who had initially pledged herself to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. This was last Saturday, after the former first daughter learned that Mrs. Larson would be shifting her allegiance to Senator Barack Obama.
“She is a delightful young woman who loves her mother very much,” Mrs. Larson said. “She was really pushing me. She kept asking me why I was doing this. She just kept asking, ‘Why? Why?’ ”
It is a question many in the Clinton camp are asking these days, sometimes in conversations far less civil than that one. After nearly two decades building relationships with a generation of Democrats, Mrs. Clinton has recently suffered a steady erosion of support for her presidential campaign from the party stalwarts that once formed the basis of her perceived juggernaut of “inevitability.”
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But one person’s “disloyalty” is, to another set of eyes, well-deserved “comeuppance.” And there is no shortage of powerful Democrats who are quick to accuse the Clintons of defining loyalty as a one-way street, with little regard for the sacrifices they have made for a couple whose own political needs seem to their critics always to come first.
This tension was neatly distilled in a heated conversation in January between a prominent Clinton supporter and Cameron Kerry, the younger brother of Senator John Kerry, who had just endorsed Mr. Obama.
In the telling of two Democrats familiar with the discussion, one from each camp, the Clinton supporter, a Democratic fund-raiser with close ties to both Mrs. Clinton and John Kerry, noted that Mr. Clinton campaigned for Mr. Kerry in 2004, even though the former president had just undergone bypass surgery.
To which Cameron Kerry parried that his brother had agreed to fly with Mr. Clinton on Air Force One after the impeachment vote “when no one wanted to be seen with him.”
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By the same token, “There is clearly a high frustration level among campaign types and from the Clintons themselves,” said Leon Panetta, a White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton, who is backing Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.
It is partly reserved for former Clinton administration aides who are now with Mr. Obama: Greg Craig, who served as special counsel to Bill Clinton during his impeachment saga, former National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, and Mr. Reich, who even before his formal endorsement Friday had spoken approvingly of Mr. Obama and critically of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.
“These are people that the Clintons gave an opportunity to serve,” said Mr. Panetta, speaking generally. “They helped give them the titles they now have, and made them a lot of money. I think the Clintons probably feel they are owed something.”
bill clinton's former labor secretary robert reich endorsed obama, making the fifth former clinton cabinet member to back obama
