So if Hillary can stand up to the republican smear machine

[Egnever]

why are Obamas mild statements having such a devastating effect on her?

I have never seen a campaign go into self destruction mode so quickly. Their actions over the last week or so lead me to believe when the bullets really start flying she is going to have a melt down on national TV.

[sandnsea]

1. There is no basis for her nomination

She has no personal experience, she doesn't fight the right wing, and she can't even stand up to being called "disengenuous". I can't believe she would continue in attack mode while it's blowing up all around her, and yet apparently she is by casting aspersions on the "vetting" of other candidates. It's stunning.

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. Funny ... they said the same thing 'bout Bill. n/t

[Dawgs]

17. No they didn't.

[Fredda Weinberg]

22. You don't remember the Comeback Kid? How quickly we forget n/t

[maddiejoan]

3. Devastating effect?

From where I'm looking she's still the front runner, despite an incredible amount of negative attacks against her by the MSM and the Obama campaign.

[Egnever]

6. Really ?

You feel comfortasble with the way her campaign has been going the last week or so ? Despite the barage of lame attacks? despite the rumors of infighting inside the campaign ? Despite the hemoraging of support in the polls?

It sure apears to me the wheels are coming off the bus.

But hey if you think it all sounds peachy I guess thats your right.

[maddiejoan]

8. I think the attack generated against Hillary

-- this week has been focused on attacking her campaign.

I'm not falling for it. Apparently you are.

[Egnever]

10. Apparently I am not the only one

As her standing in the polls suggest she is bleeding support at an incredible rate.

So you just dismiss the stories of infighting and the fact that she had to ask a prominent staff member to step down as pure fiction?

[sendero]

12. La La La La La La..

.... La La La ..... we can't hear you!

Just the absurd pronouncements of the HRC supporters here is enough to sour me on her forever. They make Bush deludiniods look grounded.

[Cha]

24. Yep, if these are

her emissaries..forgedaboutit.

[cali]

31. ugh. comparing Clinton's supporters here at DU

to bush supporters, is just slimy. And letting a candidate's supporters sway you, is just weak minded. Her supporters are a mixed bag- just like the supporters of any other candidate. Some are truly obnoxious. Some aren't. Grouping them all together and smearing them with a broad brush is just lame.

[maddiejoan]

13. Nope.

I think, however, that it is all being framed in a fashion to attack her.
I'm quite sure her campaign is no more in disarray then any campaign would be under as close scrutiny.

She's not "bleeding support"

She benefited early in the polls from name recognition, as the campaign spreads the other candidates are becoming better known and thus their numbers will rise.

The fact that she is still leading in most polls after the campaign is this far tells me she is strong as hell and likely to emerge as the winner.

[Egnever]

14. Ok I can live with that

I agree that a large part of her lead has been based on name recognition.

[Windy]

15. I've not heard one attack on her from any other candidate

She has been challenged in the issues which is a FAR CRY from the clinton campaigns tactics.

[maddiejoan]

19. You're not paying attention.

The attack is coming from both the MSM and Obama specifically on how Hillary's campaign is falling apart --and how she's attacking out of "shrill desperation".

It's the classic media attack of rendering a candidate into a negative emotional basket case

This is being achieved by microscopic scrutiny of Hillary's campaign (well beyond the other campaigns) and Obama's willingness to play the victim card while he attacks Hillary for her presumed "negativity" (coincidently just what Rove advised him to do in his open letter)

These last 2 weeks were a major media attempt at bringing Hillary down for a ratings grabbing horse race.

[Lucinda]

4. Obama's statements aren't doing anything to her. None of them are going to

rock the boat if they can avoid it, three weeks before Iowa.
They will all likely ride out the situation, and do damage control later.

[Franc_Lee]

5. Mild Statements? ->"Hillary, I'll be looking for your support as well"...

[Egnever]

7. Thats not mild?

[Franc_Lee]

9. mild but very effective!

[cd3dem]

11. Obama is taking a free ride...

although people on here like to make claim that the media and republicans want Hillary to get the nomination so they can take her down... look at the facts... in the debate when Hillary fumbled over the license issue... the media talked about it for weeks... the next debate Obama made the exact response on licensing illegals... nothing... Obama has not been challenged because the media wants a tighter race so they have a story and the republicans want Obama to win so they can throw their Swift Boat bullets at him when he has not bullet proof vest on... no one says a word to Obama... when they get done with ripping the flesh off of Obama he will look like Michael Jackson....

[Bitwit1234]

16. President Hillary Clinton is not having a meltdown the press is

making it one....of course....they do that and you all know it. When the even suggest something about Obama panties get bunched and shorts get changed. Hillary can take it and she will be the next president of this great country. Kick MSM ass darling.

[Egnever]

18. whats this stuff about then?

Tensions In Camp Hillary

At a time of growing tension in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, her aides described former President Bill Clinton as increasingly frustrated that his wife’s campaign has not fought back even more forcefully against efforts by Mr. Obama and former Senator John Edwards to raise questions about Mrs. Clinton’s character. They said that Mr. Clinton had warned for weeks that they were taking a toll on his wife’s candidacy.

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/12/report_tensions_i...

[Hieronymus]

20. Excellent observation .. what WILL she do when the Republicans hit her?

[Egnever]

21. If she gets the nod

I hope her reactions are better than whats on display right now.

[Tom Rinaldo]

23. Democrats don't like it when Hillary Clinton attacks other Democrats

Democrats like it when Hillary Clinton attacks Republicans.

Democrats want our candidates to concentrate on positives while talking to us.

Democrats want our candidates to be able to talk back to and trash any trash talking Republicans.


We want to see somewhat different sides of our candidates on display during the primaries and General Election. That would not be so tricky for Clinton were it not for the fact that she's already been aggressively trashed for 15 years, so that all her Democratic opponents need to do to go "negative on her" now is drop a quick line about her being "polarizing" to summon up the trash that's been thrown at her for years by the Right. Then they can go back to being positive with out breaking stride.

Hillary however has to remind folks that she's been fully vetted by past attacks but others haven't. That's the only way for her to turn that put down about her being "devicive" into a positive strength that she can claim will help her win the next election. Her task in optimally calibrating her political moves in this primary context is a very different challenge and in ways more difficult challenge for her than straight out doing battle with a Republican opponent.

But no doubt it is a type of test, and if she flunks it she will not become our nominee.

I wrote more on this theme in this OP:

"The Negative of Being Hillary"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[Egnever]

26. Quite an interesting take

I will go read your post now.

[BeyondGeography]

25. Every other person in this race has had tougher challenges as a candidate than her

She has stood for two very easy elections in her life, running as a Democrat in a bright blue state. Obama, just to take one example, has had his ass handed to him before. Defeat. It's a good thing. Breeds character.

What I'm seeing from her is a glass jaw and stress; she looks fatigued. This seems to be taking a lot out of her and we haven't even had a caucus yet. Color me even more unimpressed than I thought I would be.

[Tom Rinaldo]

27. Nice try but I'm not buying

First off I will admit that I believe, for better and for worse, that Hillary Clinton has always been Bill Clinton's political co-pilot. It's not like she was keeping the Arkansas State House and the White House nicely dusted while Bill went off and attended to his day job which they later chatted about a bit over dinner. They were in it together, and in fact Bill Clinton lost one re-election campaign for Governor, and then came back and rewon the office. Hillary lived through that defeat with him.

When Bill ran for President and the first sex scandals broke about him Hillary was part of their team defense. They appeared together on one of the big TV shows, I think maybe Barbara Walters, to be grilled about it. They pulled it off which began the legend of the come back kid. And then there was that little thing about the Clinton Health Care Plan which resulted in a massive national coordinated political and media offensive with Hillary Clinton in the bullseye. That would have destroyed the political career of a weaker politician.

Follow that up with the Republican pushed alleged "Travel Gate" scandal which was focused on Hillary Clinton's office in the White House. Then the Republicans started a three year witch hunt on White Water which actually involved more investigation of Hillary Clinton's affairs than her husbands. The Republicans got an Independent Federal Special Prosecuter named and they gave him free reign to virtually look at any part of the Clinton's life that he wanted to. They brought the death of Clinton family friend Vince Foster into the investigation because they refused to accept that it was a tragic suicide. When the first Republican Special Prosecuter found no foul play with Foster's death he was replaced in a Republican Judical Coup with Ken Starr, and Starr investigated Foster's death again from scratch. Remember this is a man who was emotionally very close to both Clintons. Meanwhile Rush Limbaugh and others were furiously spreading rumours nation wide that Hillary had Foster murdered. Hillary's entire adult life in Arkansas and Washington was gone over with a fine tooth comb by Federal Prosecuters with a budget in the tens of millions with the heat left on for years. She never broke.

Starr's original mandate had nothing to do with Monica Lewinski. But we should consider that also. What type of pressure do you remember Hillary being under while the whole world was talking about her husband's illicit blow job? I remember it being overwhelming and ever present, yet she held up under it with poise and grace, and stood by Bill through the kangeroo court impeachment of her husband and blew the whistle on what legitimately WAS a vast right wing conspiracy. We talk about it all the time here on DU. It was the Republican Party and their right wing media allies who came down with their full weight on both Bill and Hillary Clinton.

You are trying to skate by on a technicality in my opinion by leaning on the fact that though Hillary Clinton faced immense political challenges and undeniable intense pressures, for the most part that wasn't while she was literally running for office. OK, you can cling to that, though I believe you are underestimating the challenge she faced winning over a lot of skeptical voters in upstate New York the first time she ran, a region that typically supports Republicans. She did great as a Democrat running there and now she is pretty well liked in that region of New York State.

Meanwhile though Obama may have faced some real electoral challenges on the local level, but the first and only time he ran against a Republican for State wide office it was Allan Keyes of all people, that extremist right wing whacko who literally had to be imported into the state to run against Obama. And it's not even like Obama had to worry about losing any racist votes to him.

I don't think Hillary has a glass jaw, far far from it. The only thing that may have been constructed out of glass was the sense of her inevitability as the Democratic nominee. Her ownership of clear front runner status may have been built from glass too, and it can shatter, but Hillary will still be standing fighting, and doing so effectively. Maybe she will win and maybe not, but it won't be from lack of toughness if she doesn't.

[BeyondGeography]

29. She has only been the product in two previous elections

and they were cakewalks; that's not a technicality, it's a fact.

For the purposes of this campaign, there appear to be few things more irrelevant than her role as First Wife in Little Rock and Washington. How is all that "experience" helping her to connect with voters? Why is her campaign widely considered to be the least well organized of any of the top three in Iowa? Hillary spent much of the early part of this campaign flying into media markets, setting up for the cameras, making speeches, saying hi to a few voters and blowing out of town. That worked fine in upstate New York in the one election where she actually had to lift a finger, because people there are not used to ever seeing a politician. Iowans, on the other hand, are spoiled. Obama and Edwards talk directly to them and take the time to do so. This might have more to do with their personalities than their experience, but there are two things to point out here: Edwards knows Iowa and Iowans much better than she does; and Obama, a community organizer at heart, welcomes the chance to engage people in unscripted situations and is a superb listener.

What I'm seeing is a very uninspiring candidate with the wrong narrative. The fact that she has been relatively untested as a candidate obviously isn't helping her to recognize the problems.

[BenDavid]

28. Watch, and pay close attention now folks how HRC will be in

lead in the polls going into christmas. Watch and play close attention. The net has been thrown out and watch obama swim right into it and uh huh caught....

Ben David

[Perry Logan]

30. Hillary has more than survived the Republican smear machine. She has triumphed over it.

[cali]

32. Maybe. But she's not doing well now. And if she can't win

the primary, you should be relieved that she won't be the nominee.