With all the cozying up to losing Democrats Who Act Like Republicans, it makes me wonder if he is preparing the Base for his adoption of Loserman for the shotgun seat?

Don’t be ridiculous.  Real Republicans never say “thank you”.

I have plenty of Clinton supporter friends that are ready to support Obama, but would like him to consider Hillary as the VP. They are somewhat confused as to why I am not so enthusiastic about that idea.

Thanks for giving me a link to a visual aid for what I was trying to explain to them.

are we seriously suggesting that a similar montage could not have been constructed if Hillary (or Edwards or Dodd) were the nomineee?

are we really that naive?  I don’t think so.  We always knew this was coming - no matter who won the nomination.

Are we suggesting that the party who swift boated John Kerry would not seize upon Obama’s inexperience and play it off against McCain’s experience?

Or are we outraged that Hillary Clinton provided the words? What was she supposed to do? Not mention Obama’s inexperience at all while competing with him?  We cannot mention that he is black (Racist!), can’t say he has less experience (says McCain better than Obama!), Can’t point out that South Carolina supported jesse jackson way back when (Racist!) cant call him elitist for making an elitist remark (called him elitist!)

I will have vastly underestimated Obama if he cannot blow that stupid ad away even with Clinton as his VP

What was she supposed to do? Not mention Obama’s inexperience at all while competing with him?  We cannot mention that he is black (Racist!), can’t say he has less experience

It would have perfectly legitimate to compare HER OWN experience with his. But she didn’t stop there. Which is to her shame.

Its not just that one ad though. And I was totally expecting that as well.

Its the fact that for the last few months she has spoken higher of McCain than Obama. Obviously they were going against each other, so fine, there is going to be some disagreement, but she doesn’t speak of it in a way that acknowledges that they are fighting for the same team. She sounded more and more like she was on McCain’s team.

Obama has handled everything quite well so far, but I do think Hillary as VP would be opening himself up to all kinds of attacks. Considering our current President I think it can be nice and easy to dream back to that time as if it were perfect, but which it was better it was not perfect. They haven’t even begun to bring up all the stuff that everyone was so sick of in ‘99 and ‘00 yet.

And things that the average voter, not people who actively seek out information like people here do, but average voter, whose vote counts every bit as much as mine, don’t really understand but are going to be turned off by (i.e. whitewater, impeachment).

I know how those arguments would look to me, but I am more concerned about how they will look to someone like my Mom in Florida. Now I talk to her about this stuff, but what about other people like her who aren’t getting calls from their daughter about all the information she seeks out all the time.

Those can be very powerful points.

Don’t blame the opposition for exploiting the inherent weaknesses of the Democratic canidate you chose. You knew all of this. Everybody knew all of this. Blame yourselves for choosing him.

If John McCain wants to make this about stuff said during the primary, I eagerly await the Dems running ads from Republican Primary debates where McCain talks about how wonderful the economy is and what a “good, prosperous time” we’ve had in the last eight years.

Its the fact that for the last few months she has spoken higher of McCain than Obama

What are you referring to, exactly, beyond “Commander-in-Chief test,” which I don’t interpret the same way you probably do, but at least fits the bill generally?

With low presidential approval and an unpopular war, the election has always been the Democrats’ to lose…...and they may prove how capable they are of doing just that.

I believe that Hillary would have been the stronger candidate and made a better president. I also believe the temptation of the left to “make history” clouded their judgement and now they’re left with a candidate that has little to no experience and was an unknown just 4 years ago.

El Viajero, no matter who we nominated they would be a “weak canidate” to you. Its like an Right-wing Ad Lib.

“The Democrat [sic] Party was stupid. They nominated the far-left scary liberal named (Candidate A). I I think (Candidate B) and (Candidate C) were much stronger candidates. I could respect (Candidate B) and (Candidate C), but not an corrupt America-hating homobortion-lover like (Candidate A).  Again, the Democrat [sic] Party has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”

Your side has played this game every four years since 1992, and we don’t care what you think.

Have fun with the second coming of Bob Dole. McCain will be hawking Republican wiener pills by the February ‘09.

ElViajero, do you think that nominating a woman as president would not “make history”? If Obama was up against a white male I could see this as an arguable point (a far-reach, but arguable). As it is, either of the two remaining democratic candidates would make history in their own ways.

“What was she supposed to do?”

Maybe mention:

After Yale, Bill Clinton taught law in Arkansas for a year. Then ran for the the House of Representatives in 1974. He lost. In 1976 he was elected Attorney General of Arkansas (ran without oppostion).
In 1978, at thirty-two, Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas.

A candidate whose inexperience can easily be used as a positive rather than a negative. Many people hate Washington, and they’ll flock to an outsider in ways they may not to a consumate insider like Clinton.

The most successful thing that Bush II did in 2000 was sell himself as a “Washington Outsider” despite being the son of a President and the grandson of a senator.  He even managed to play that card again against Kerry, who had been in the Senate for 20 years.

Voters frickin’ love the Washington Outsider stance.  McCain is going to have an uphill battle against that image.

Let us, ‘the left’, have a go now

If only.  Obama /= The Left. 

Obama strikes me as an up-to-date version of Bill Clinton 1992; that was turning from the WW2 generation to the Vietnam generation, and now we’re approaching the turn from the Vietnam generation to something else.  Old way clashes with New way, and New Way wins, but not triumphalistically so.

I have a garage full of old The Nation magazines cudgeling Clinton for his triangulation and consensus-making rather than championing a progressive agenda.  I expect more of that from Pres. Obama.  It will be infinitely better than anything we’ve seen this century, but Left it shall not be.

What happened to my Pandagon?  I miss the thoughtful commentary that used to be on this site.  Now it’s all-Clinton-hate, all-the-time.  : (

I’m with CES.  I understand that the nomination process is a big, big deal.  It is not, however, the only game in town.  Maybe it’s just Jesse’s frequency of posting, which I had become unused to while he was gone, but there are so many entries in the last few days, all focusing on the same thing from slightly different angles, that it feels a bit like reading Atrios.

What CES said.

Fair enough, but do you - like she is presented here as saying - believe that McCain would make a better president? That’s the question here.

I see little difference between the two on many of the issues. They both are promoting amnesty for illegal aliens and they both are interested in limiting carbon emissions from the US without including any other industrialized nations. McCain is no conservative

I think this sums it up

http://www.werescrewed08.com/

Republicans love beating up their target, and they use whatever’s ready to hand to beat up whoever that target is.  They don’t love Clinton, they hate her.  They don’t love Obama, they hate him.  They hate everything with a (D) after its name, with the possible exception of Zell Miller.

A Democratic candidate arguing that a Republican is better than another Democratic candidate is rather poor form no?

Whether or not Republicans would make that argument anyway it’s more compelling coming from another Democrat. That’s basic psychology.

Republicans love Hillary Clinton??!!?  Wha—?  They have directed more hate-filled rhetoric at her than any other person in the last 2 decades.  I’ve been hearing for the past year that we dare not nominate HRC because the Republicans’ burning hatred for her would galvanize the entire party.  Obviously it’s your prerogative to urge Obama not to choose her as his running mate, but let’s try to stay at least somewhat reality-based.

Republicans love Hillary Clinton??!!?  Wha—?

Damn skippy they love her—she’s a guaranteed fundraiser.  Drop her name into a letter, have the College Republicans mail it to a bunch of senior citizens, and the money just rolls in.  Limbaugh, Coulter and their pals were salivating at the idea of having a Clinton to kick around again so they could distract conservatives from the absolute meltdown of everything conservatism claimed it could do over the past 8 years.  And they could excuse every sexist remark with, “But she’s HILLARY CLINTON and everyone knows she’s a she-bitch from Hell!  I’m only saying what everyone else is thinking!”  They were already reliving the glory days of the impeachment in their heads.

You thought that “love” meant they actually liked or respected her as a person or a politician?  Nah.  “Love” in the sense of, “I’m going to make a crapload of money by exploiting senseless fear of the Hillary!  I love this job!”

Whether or not Republicans would make that argument anyway it’s more compelling coming from another Democrat. That’s basic psychology.

The thing is, Scaife or whoever is gonna make the same argument regardless of who the nominee is. But it is not who the nominee is who that is important in this equation—it’s the person making the argument. Scaife doesn’t really have much credibility with a lot of people—specifically, with Democrats. Hillary Clinton however has credibility with an entirely different set of people.

There are going to be people who, if Bill O’Rielly made an argument, they’d ignore it. And if Bill O’Rielly played a video clip of Hillary Clinton making that same argument for him, they’d listen. In other words, they’d be making the same argument no matter what, but it may turn out to be Clinton’s assistance that makes it work.

Every VP in my recent memory has made remarks during the campaign that undermine the Presidential candidate.  Clinton is a good choice for VP.  I’m on board the Unity Ticket Bus.

Amanda,

Flip? 

I know the Republicans are not the brightest, but I’m guessing they could’ve managed the research necessary to ascertain that Obama is a lot less experienced than McCain.  One might as well say that it was outrageous of Obama to criticize Hillary’s Iraq vote (because the Republicans would never have found a way to use that on their own). 

I could be wrong, but if memory serves it is pretty commonplace for candidates in primaries to criticize one another (often quite harshly), and extraordinarily rare for them to be demonized for it on the ground that they will allegedly hurt their rival’s chances in the general election.  In fact, I believe the latter phenomenon has been largely confined to Hillary Clinton.

Gator, I know that you’re not a troll, so I’m at a loss as to why you’re ignoring the substance of what everyone’s saying.

Criticizing your opponent in the primary is commonplace.  Arguing that the opposing party’s nominee would be better than your opponent is rather rarer, and for good reason.  People who would have ignored the Republicans will listen to Hillary.  What’s more, while the Republicans would certainly have attacked Obama’s inexperience (not that experience is that much of an asset in a campaign where the public wants change), now they have the “even Democrats admit…” talking point.

Amanda: “CES, my lack of courage in dealing with blind Clinton supporters isn’t shared by Jesse.  But that’s because I’m a coward.”

Wow.  You have filled Pandagon with pro-Obama posts.  I thought that was because you were an Obama supporter and that’s what someone who admired Obama and wanted him to be the Dem candidate would naturally do.  You did not write a single blog post attacking Clinton.  I thought that was because you didn’t want to attack her because you weren’t interested in attacking someone that you had a fair degree of admiration for, even though she wasn’t your first (or second) choice for Presidential nominee.  I didn’t know it was because you did after all want to attack her but were too cowardly to do it.

That really doesn’t scan with the Amanda that I thought I’d gotten a pretty good impression of over the past few years.  I’m sorry to hear that.

Jesse’s attacks are not coming over as aimed only at blind Clinton supporters, unless you consider all Clinton supporters to be so by default, simply because they did indeed support Clinton’s candidacy.  I personally would define “blind” supporters as those who will not now support Obama, which I cannot sympathize with—however, the attacks of the past few days have been quite broadly aimed at anybody who ever had any warm feelings towards Clinton at all, regardless of what they’re planning on doing now.  If this is the modus operandi you want to engage in from now on, that’s of course your choice, but I do want to make sure you’re fully aware of how it’s coming over and don’t have the mistaken idea that it’s somehow only appearing aimed Clinton supporters who aren’t going to support Obama now that he’s the Dem nominee and that other Clinton supporters don’t feel contemptuously sneered at and dismissed as losers and saboteurs.

How precious!! Amanda thinks that the McCain team wouldn’t have noticed how inexperienced Obama is if Hillary hadn’t said anything about it!

This is the obvious line of attack for McCain against Obama.  Of course he was going to use it.  Having Hillary point it out doesn’t make it any less obvious.  And since the wingnuts don’t actually respect her opinions, it doesn’t really do any damage to have her say so. 

The obvious defense is the one that Obama has been using - Judgment matters more than experience.

But, by all means, blame Hillary if you must.  That way if Obama ends up loosing in the general election you can still feel good about yourself.  <rolleyes>

I’m not at all certain that Tejota isn’t a troll.  However, since s/he is just repeating the same argument that’s been answered a dozen times in this thread alone, I don’t feel any need to come up with a new rebuttal.  So:

Criticizing your opponent in the primary is commonplace.  Arguing that the opposing party’s nominee would be better than your opponent is rather rarer, and for good reason.  People who would have ignored the Republicans will listen to Hillary.  What’s more, while the Republicans would certainly have attacked Obama’s inexperience (not that experience is that much of an asset in a campaign where the public wants change), now they have the “even Democrats admit…” talking point.

Jesse’s attacks are not coming over as aimed only at blind Clinton supporters, unless you consider all Clinton supporters to be so by default, simply because they did indeed support Clinton’s candidacy.

I like making fun of the truly crazed Clinton supporters as much as anyone but I have to agree. I’m not familiar with Jesse’s previous work but his return has been rather tone-deaf and ham-fisted.

One thing I don’t understand about this primary stuff is why every person thinks they need to weigh in five times a day. On my blog I’ve covered the Omaba/Clinton drama exactly zero times. Anything I would say has been said 1000 times - my opinion on it is far from unique, and the drama is incredibly overblown.

I don’t get what people are thinking when they make post after post about primary junk. Who cares? It’s been said better already, and most of it isn’t particularly relevant or exciting to begin with.

I’m tired of issue-centric blogs turning into primary blogs. Feminism? The “Politics of Crime”? Nope! All primary coverage. Like I can’t find that anywhere else…

I had no objection to Pandagon being filled with Obama posts, and I appreciated that you focused on your candidate of choice in a positive way, by actually posting about him, rather than in a negative way, by attacking her.  (It also made me much more receptive of what you had to say about Obama, as I tend to suspect people whose “arguments” consist of bashing other people who aren’t on their team of having rather thin ground to stand on—or they’d stand on it instead of someone else, eh?)  I don’t mind if it goes from regularly featuring Obama to TOTALLY featuring Obama (though I’m adoring the you-Katha series and will miss it terribly when it goes away).  I just am sorry to see it going to attack-Hillary-mode, and sorrier to hear that that’s what you wished you’d been doing all along.  I don’t actually have a problem with showing bias; this is a blog, after all, not AP.  But if I was looking to read dripping venom poorly disguised as thoughtful commentary, I’d be reading Michelle Malkin.

Note:  I’m still not comparing Pandagon to Michelle Malkin.  You have such a loooooooooooong way to go to reach that, er, standard; actually, I doubt anybody on here is capable of it.

This is the obvious line of attack for McCain against Obama.  Of course he was going to use it.  Having Hillary point it out doesn’t make it any less obvious.

It’s not whether or not it’s obvious.  It’s them being able to say “Even the Democrats think Obama doesn’t have enough experience!  Why should you vote for him if even his own side says he’s no good?”

It’s not aimed at Democrats (though it will probably peel off a few waverers who don’t strongly identify with the party).  It’s aimed at the independents, who are usually the ones who sway elections.  And to them, the argument that even Hillary Clinton thinks Obama is not good enough will have some traction.

They still would have made the attack, but having the footage so they could play the Even A Democrat game made it a lot easier.

Even Tejota’s mom thinks he/she is obtuse.

Oh, you’ve been careful of the “blind Clinton supporters” because we’re “sooooo sensitive.”

Well, gee. Thanks.

This is why I’ve begun to really detest Obama supporters. Talk about entitlement.

It may have escaped you, but Clinton racked up half the votes, and came damn near winning. How interesting that despite Obama’s inevitability, Clinton was still winning primaries. Since Barack had to wait until June to declare “victory” guess he had a real blow-out there, huh?

I used to check in with pandagon every day. No mas.

This is why I’ve begun to really detest Obama supporters. Talk about entitlement.

It may have escaped you, but Clinton racked up half the votes, and came damn near winning. How interesting that despite Obama’s inevitability, Clinton was still winning primaries. Since Barack had to wait until June to declare “victory” guess he had a real blow-out there, huh?

Entitlement? More like a basic ability to calculate simple delegate math. It has been apparent for weeks now that there was virtually no way for Hillary to catch up and win the nomination.

How is it entitlement for Obama supporters to say that they’re winning, and that they’ve won, when they have?

It’s not whether or not it’s obvious.  It’s them being able to say “Even the Democrats think Obama doesn’t have enough experience!

Yep.  It’s true, they don’t think he has enough.  But he isn’t running on experience, he’s running on Hope, or Ponys or something.  Fact is nearly half of Democrats picked him.  DESPITE his lack of experience, or perhaps even because of it.  If that strategy didn’t work for Hillary, why on earth would you expect it to work when McCain repeats it?

Why should you vote for him if even his own side says he’s no good?

Don’t be silly, Inexperience is curable.  No good isn’t.  The two things aren’t even remotely the same.

They love that Clinton did all their opposition research for them, Flip.  That doesn’t mean they want her to win. But I guarantee you that there have been many a toast to the Clinton campaign amongst the campaign staff for McCain.  They owe her a huge debt for creating their narrative against Obama for them.

The two basic knocks on Obama all along were going to be “Who is this guy?” and “What has he done?”  If he had run unopposed, the Republicans would run that as their general election framework.  And this whole concept cuts both ways:  the Republican montage against Clinton would probably consist of Obama and his supporters saying versions of “She’s willing to say and do anything to win.”  The Republicans like that one very much.  They kind of invented it.

I don’t see why this is something to worry about.  She said negative things about him, he said negative things about her, some of them were destined to become gotchas later.  That’s typical, isn’t it?  Bush The Elder called Reagan’s economic plan “voodoo economics,” but that didn’t become the silver bullet against them.

Republicans say: Thanks for doing our work for us!

You know, I saw this title, and thought: woo! Amanda Marcotte gets it: no trashing the Democratic candidate who only just lost a hard-fought primary, because that’s doing the Republicans work for them - you don’t want to alienate the millions of voters who wanted Hillary Clinton for President, you want them out there supporting the Democratic candidate.

Then I read the post and discovered nope, Amanda’s happily trashing Hillary Clinton, for which there is now no tactical excuse whatsoever.

I can see that during the primary campaign it was both easy and appealling to attack Hillary Clinton - the mainstream media were doing so, the blogosphere was following along behind - and that you could tell yourself this was OK because you were trying to convince people to support Obama by trashing Clinton. Never mind that that was doing the Republicans work for them: I can see the logic there.

But now? Obama’s won. Clinton’s lost. It should be obvious to the meanest intelligence that now is not the time to alienate the millions who wanted Clinton for President. Isn’t it?