comment #1

rocco says ...

Since we're coining phrases I guess I would call myself a "dempublican"...a social liberal and fiscal conservative begging to vote for a candidate who inspires ON ANY LEVEL, be it strong fundamental economics, a level-headed foreign policy, or something as simple as a sense of decency, as is the case with Obama. Disillusioned with the religious fanaticism and care-free spending of the Republicans that was once endemic to the Democrat party, I now throw myself at the latter's mercy. Funny how things have changed.

Except, of course, there are those democrats who don't want anything to do with me. They are unwilling or unable to look past the facade of Hillary Clinton, to move beyond the roaring 90s, to do what is best and most cathartic for this country, to nominate the most unifying candidate.

Obama is not an ideal candidate, but he certainly is the best of those who remain, and as a rational and reflective voter I owe it to myself and my country to abandon the party who has abandoned all of us.

So for those supporting Hillary I ask, is there no way you can reconsider so that I and many like me can come in from out of the cold?

comment #2

IndyNick says ...

Sorry. No. As a Hillary supporter, I will not be swayed to vote for Obama in a primary. If he becomes the nominee, then I will, of course, support him, but until then, I am not going to allow myself to be swept up into the hyperbole of hope. I'm sorry. You're going to call me jaded and a whole host of other untrue names, but the fact of the matter is that the ultra-jaded ones are the people who have been swept up into the hysteria of the "now" to actually believe that one man can all of the sudden use the power of his rhetoric to unite the country. JFK couldn't even do that. It took his death to accomplish anything, and then it was LBJ who did the work.

The measure of Obama as a man will be if he loses the nomination. If he loses the nomination and takes his supporters home like a spoiled brat, then he will obviously not be the big man you all have fallen for. The fact is that Hillary continually says she will support whomever is the Democratic nominee, but Obama will only say "I can appeal to Hillary's supporters, but can she appeal to mine?" That to me is not uniting. That is polarizing. That is divisive. That is EVERYTHING you crowers of Clinton's electibility keep throwing at us.

comment #3

Abbey Normal says ...

Wells, you're not helping.

comment #4

businesstoolz says ...

So, what is is about Hillary Clinton that excites you about her being President? I'm genuinely asking and not being sarcastic. I'm under 40 and I don't know one single person who supports her. Not even my parents, who are supporting Obama, which surprises me seeing how they're both in their late 50's. The first time I was able to vote was in 92 and I voted for Clinton. I just don't see the sense in going back that far again.

comment #5

jeffmcm says ...

All this talk of 'less-well-educated women' and 'reluctant Hispanics' is not in keeping with the audacity of hope. In fact, it's exactly the same kind of petty divisiveness that Wells lambastes Clinton for indulging in.

comment #6

dre says ...

A likable president with powerful approval numbers can accomplish much (both good and bad obviously), Nick. If Obama is getting a solid number of the independents and republicans in his corner - and if he gets the nomination and if he becomes our next Prez - that DOES make way for change. Whether or not that will be good or bad for the country may depend on your view of the man's policies. Count me in Obama's camp though.

comment #7

AJW says ...

Wells, where did you go to school?

comment #8

Rich S. says ...

Jeffrey already admitted the night of the debate that if Hillary gets the nomination, he's voting for her over McCain. That may have been the celebrity intoxication of the moment talking, but facts are facts.

I'm not sure why everyone seems to believe that this is Obama's last shot if he loses the nomination. I know his wife has said that she doesn't want to go through this again, but that was probably just fatigue talking. Obama is still a relative newcomer. He still has plenty of time for another run (especially if Hillary botches things as badly as she is sure to).

Now, if he accepts an invitation to become her running mate, then more than a few people are going to view that as political opportunism and figure that his message of change was just posturing.

comment #9

D.Z. says ...

rocco: "Disillusioned with the religious fanaticism and care-free spending of the Republicans that was once endemic to the Democrat party,"

Um, the religious nut-jobs and wasteful spenders have always been the Republicans. You just didn't notice it before, because the poverty and degradation took 40 years to pile up to the point that you can't avoid it.

IndyNick: "You're going to call me jaded and a whole host of other untrue names, but the fact of the matter is that the ultra-jaded ones are the people who have been swept up into the hysteria of the "now" to actually believe that one man can all of the sudden use the power of his rhetoric to unite the country. JFK couldn't even do that.It took his death to accomplish anything, and then it was LBJ who did the work."

JFK managed to sway public opinion into demanding an end to segregation. LBJ started the most divisive war of the twentieth Century.

"The measure of Obama as a man will be if he loses the nomination. If he loses the nomination and takes his supporters home like a spoiled brat, then he will obviously not be the big man you all have fallen for. The fact is that Hillary continually says she will support whomever is the Democratic nominee, but Obama will only say "I can appeal to Hillary's supporters, but can she appeal to mine?" That to me is not uniting. That is polarizing. That is divisive."

What's so divisive about it? He's asking a legitimate question. She needs to be able to prove she can win by popularity, and not just because of disgust with the Republicans.

comment #10

jeffmcm says ...

JFK might have helped the ball rolling, but LBJ was the one who actually got the Civil Rights Bill passed in 1964.

Stop pretending like you know anything about history. You don't.

comment #11

D.Z. says ...

jeff: "JFK might have helped the ball rolling, but LBJ was the one who actually got the Civil Rights Bill passed in 1964."

That's because JFK was likely killed by LBJ, since LBJ hoped it would be great cover for an unpopular war he wanted to start as President.

comment #12

jeffmcm says ...

And with that, the discussion is over as I am reminded once again that you're coming from a position of rock-solid lunatic-fringe masturbation fantasies.

comment #13

SpinDozer says ...

'So for those supporting Hillary I ask, is there no way you can reconsider so that I and many like me can come in from out of the cold?'

Of the five supposedly viable remaining candidates in the hunt, I admit I'd rather see Obama take the prize over the others. I will vote for him against my better judgement on Tuesday, not because he is decent, not because he differs significantly from HRC on major issues, certainly not because he somehow embodies any kind of democratic idealism, but because no matter how slim his chance of winning the nom and even slimmer chance of winning the white house, he is not encumbered with the baggage of the Clintons and his victory in either campaign would mark a transformative social change in my country. Why my against my better judgement? Count up the number of African-American winners of Governorships & Senate seats in the last 20 years. Stop when you get to five, cos you've miscounted.

That's right 150 elected offices, contested roughly five hundred times, a whopping four victories for African Americans.

comment #14

Dirty Harry says ...

Every four-years it's a new liberal media piece about Republicans going for the Democrat. Every four years the Democrats don't clear 50% of the vote and haven't since 1976.

Y-e-e-e-awnn...

Mr. Fierce Audacity is an empty suit.

comment #15

oakling says ...

Okay, I know I should just read the article. But is it really saying there are Republicans supporting Hillary? I don't know why this surprises me so much....

comment #16

jeffmcm says ...

Iowa democratic caucus turnout 1988: 125,000
2004: 122,000
2008: 220,000

Disregarding 1992 when Tom Harkin was the favorite son in Iowa, 1996 when Clinton ran unopposed, and 2000 when Gore beat Bradley easily, there's a pretty obvious trend there: Obama brought a hundred thousand people to the caucus who hadn't been there before.

comment #17

SpinDozer says ...

'Obama brought a hundred thousand people to the caucus who hadn't been there before.'

Really? Isn't it more likely that the lion's share of the credit for 100,000 more caucusing for the Democrats belongs to George W. Bush?

If the % of delegates is proportional to % of votes, the Obama could claim he brought, at most, 82720 new voters to the caucus, and every single one of them voted for him & he got 0 votes from people who caucused in 04, which would be pretty unlikely. Just sayin'.

comment #18

jeffmcm says ...

Re: Bush, yes, I wouldn't argue what you said, Spindozer.

My point is merely that Obama is having more effect on voter turnout and excitement than Harry wants to give him credit for.

comment #19

SpinDozer says ...

'My point is merely that Obama is having more effect on voter turnout and excitement than Harry wants to give him credit for.'

True. Not sure how either Bush/GOP fatigue or Obamamania will translate in the general, but Obama can claim some degree of credit for the relative enthusiasm the Democratic Party has enjoyed thus far.

comment #20

CharlieDontSurf says ...

Obama will probably be out of the Senate after his term is up. He will either run for govenor or quit politics in general. He is far to smart, talented, and creative to waste his life away being in politics.
The notion that he will run again in 2016 is laughable. He can't run in 2012 and the VP will get the nomination for sure in 2012.

In my view the democratic party does not want change. They want things to stay the same and Teddy Kennedy, Polosi, Bill and Hillary and all their special interests to keep the money flowing in and if they happen do some good for the country then thats a added bonus, but its not the goal.

The Clintons and Bushes are everything that is wrong with American politics. I get so sick of people trying to convince me that somehow the two families are different. They are both scandal ridden and foreign policy disasters. Bush with Iraq and Bill with Osama and Al-qeada. The one common trait they have is their hunger for money and power. Doesn't matter how many people they have to run over, how many rules they have to break, or how many lives they have to destroy.

I hope Obama wins but I doubt that he will. The democratic party has never been a party of vision...thats how we get stuck with loser candidates like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.

The notion that Obama fans will just vote for HRC in a general is a joke. Sure the normal voters who would have voted regardless will stay..but every new voter who came out of the woodwork and all the indep and republicans will go home and forgot about politics like they have for the last decade.

comment #21

jeffmcm says ...

He can run in 2012 if McCain wins this year, and you're making the assumption that he's not public-service minded and in politics for the long haul.

comment #22

PerfectTommy says ...

It's looking like Liz Lemmon (Tina Fey) on '30 Rock' may have called the canidates last year when she confessed to Floyd "I'll tell all my friends I'm voting for Barak Obama when I'll really vote for John McCain."

comment #23

Larry says ...

"I'm under 40 and I don't know one single person who supports her."

That's because people under 40 don't have the experience to have seen five or six such inspirational figures who get the public all hot and bothered but don't amount to much.

"JFK was likely killed by LBJ, since LBJ hoped it would be great cover for an unpopular war he wanted to start as President."

That's an Obama voter, Jeff, and you say Hillary people are the dumb ones?

comment #24

Dirty Harry says ...

"JFK was likely killed by LBJ, since LBJ hoped it would be great cover for an unpopular war he wanted to start as President."

I know how hard this is for liberals to get their minds around because Oliver Stone made an entire film trying to rationalize his love of JFK and hatred of the Vietnam War, but it was JFK who took us into Vietnam, not LBJ.

Look at JFK's record on taxes, social issues, foreign interventions, and military spending. NEWSFLASH: By today's standards your precious JFK was to the right of Bush. He'd have been a Republican. And a conservative one at that. JFK was a commie hunter -- he arranged the invasion of Cuba for crying out loud. Yes, he wanted to topple your precious Uncle Fidel...

comment #25

BNick says ...

"JFK was likely killed by LBJ, since LBJ hoped it would be great cover for an unpopular war he wanted to start as President."

I was actually going to defend whoever said this figuring they must have been trying to make a joke, but then I saw D.Z. had posted it.

Just to echo a few of the earlier comments, I'm 26 and live in NYC, and I know literally one person who supports Hillary. It's hard to believe she's going to carry the state by 20-30 points on Tuesday. But I guess it just depends on the circles you travel in.

One the "Obamacans" question, there's little doubt that not only is Obama seen as less of a menace than Hillary is by Republicans, he's actually likely to get a reasonable proportion of the Republican vote in the general election. The conservatives who have doubts about McCain's credentials will still get out to support him if Hillary is the alternative. Perhaps not so much if it's Obama.

comment #26

dre says ...

Larry: "That's because people under 40 don't have the experience to have seen five or six such inspirational figures who get the public all hot and bothered but don't amount to much."

Not being a dick, but I'm curious who you are talking about here. I can't remember (or plain don't know of) a single politician that has inspired the youth (and others) in the way Obama has in quite a while.

comment #27

BNick says ...

I think Larry is referring to the long line of Democratic politicians, starting with Eugene McCarthy and continuing through Howard Dean, who seemed to inspire young voters in Democratic Primary contests. Gary Hart and Bill Bradley are two more who come to mind.

These candidates tended to appeal to young voters and upper class voters, who in all cases did not end up constituting a large enough portion of the electorate to knock off the establishment candidate.

What Obama has that the others did not is the consolidated African-American vote behind him, and an outright majority of male voters. However, he still faces the same institutional constraints that the others faced. Hillary does well with middle and lower-class voters, women, hispanics, and seniors. Still a majority of the electorate, to be sure.

comment #28

christian says ...

"Um, the religious nut-jobs and wasteful spenders have always been the Republicans. You just didn't notice it before, because the poverty and degradation took 40 years to pile up to the point that you can't avoid it."

DZ is right. Sorry.

comment #29

D.Z. says ...

Harry: "it was JFK who took us into Vietnam, not LBJ."

If you want to be technical, intervention began with Eisenhower. JFK was simply mulling how far to go with it, before he got shot. I doubt it was coincidence that a commie was hired to take the fall, either. It made it easier for us to hate any country which was full of them.

"By today's standards your precious JFK was to the right of Bush....He'd have been a Republican.JFK was a commie hunter -- he arranged the invasion of Cuba for crying out loud."

He didn't like commies, but he didn't like disastrous wars, either. That's what makes him different from Republicans.

comment #30

Dirty Harry says ...

"Disastrous wars" - Bay of Pigs? Vietnam?

Ike = 500 in Nam. Kennedy increased to 16,000.

You. Are. Retarded.

comment #31

D.Z. says ...

The Bay of Pigs wasn't really a war, as much as an attempted insurgency sponsored by the U.S. And Kennedy increased the number of advisors, not regular troops.