Surrogate vs. Surrogate
I remember when I was little, I used to love watching WWF wrestling, with it’s amazing stunt-work and outrageous soap-operas. I remember that sometimes, the “girlfriends” of enemy wrestlers would “fight”, in the stead of their men, before, after and sometimes even during the main fight.
That’s what I was reminded of when I read that Bill Clinton (who apparently got free of the ropes his wife tied him to his chair with) has blamed Ted Kennedy (together with George Bush) for the failure of No Child Left Behind.
No word yet on whether they will fight with or without mud, though I’d much rather both of them pass on the spandex.
Well from Hillary Clintons website and Barak Obama’s website. Hillary Clinton……cut and pasted. End the unfunded mandate known as No Child Left Behind. Barak Obama No Child Left Behind Left the Money Behind: The goal of the law was the right one, but unfulfilled funding promises, inadequate implementation by the Education Department and shortcomings in the design of the law itself have limited its effectiveness and undercut its support. In other words Clinton is blaming Bush and Kennedy for the fact that this program. A program started by the government to FIX something. IS BROKE. Yep. You got it. Once again the government gets involved to fix something and its Broke. They both recognize this. The difference Obama wants to try to fix something that is broke. Hillary just wants to go a different Direction. Now that Kennedy has sided with Obama time to point out the truths where they exist.
I wasn’t discussing the matter of their possible differences on the program itself abri, obviously. The post is meant to point out that now it’s surrogates against surrogate (or rather Hillary’s surrogate against Obama’s surrogate, since Kennedy has tried to stay cordial towards the Clintons).
Right I understand your WWF wrestling analogy but politics is about surogates fighting your battles for you. You are even fighting for Obama as I am fighting for Hillary.
I tried to in a non inflamatory manner show the differences that they both had with the NCLB program. They both agree its broke. Kennedy is the reason………according to Clinton. Now why would he do that in your mud slinging contest? Because Kennedy with his endorsement of Obama threw the first batch of mud having insiders leak how furious he was at the slight she gave her Brother.
Your right it is surrogate vs surrogate on a program that both candidates agree is broke. That is more surogate then you can possibly know because the two candidates cant fight over this cause they agree. But their surrogates can. That is why I pointed out the two cut and pasted websites.
I think I get it now, thanks for the clarification.
It’s basically true that they agree on NCLB, and where they disagree it’s more based on strategy than on anything else. The fight Bill Clinton is picking with Kennedy is artificial. In fact if you look at his words, you realize he’s not pointing out any differences between Obama and his wife, but rather between NCLB and his policies from the previous presidency. Not a very strong point to score, but then I guess he must have been at a bit of a loss of what to tell teachers that was so much better about Hillary than Obama, being that position-wise they’re pretty much the same.
Not a very strong point to score, but then I guess he must have been at a bit of a loss of what to tell teachers that was so much better about Hillary than Obama, being that position-wise they’re pretty much the same.
Actually position wise I will surrender the point that I believe Obama has a stronger and more well laid out plan for education then does Hillary. His points are clear and concise. The problem is that his laid out agenda is just that. A laid out agenda. It is exactly what Jimmy Carter did in 1975 when he was running for the Presidency he laid out clearly and concisely his policies vs Ford who was still fumbling around as the new president trying to cement what his plans and policies were.
It was precisely this well laid out position in most things that got him in trouble because while they were very popular with the interest groups supporting them, they were not in the least popular with the politicians that somehow were going to be tasked with passing his agenda.
Thus Jimmy Carter proved inflexible because of such precisely defined and well laid out agendas that received the support of the people and propelled him to the White House. Once there he had no choice but to 1.) lool weak and stupid by surrendering point after point of what took him to the White House or 2.) promise the good fight which he ultimately did by trying to go over even his own parties head and get the people to force the good ole boys to do it his way.
This is Obama’s success and failure. If he or HILLARY is elected their programs promise to add about 1 trillion dollars to the budget. Awesome. Yet. Does anyone really think they are going to accept this? Of course not, but by having precisely laid out policy with dollar figures and numbers he is setting himself up to eat crow time after time and to keep his base riled up and polarized against them stupid legislators who dont see the light. Hillary’s generic plans provide a direction with lots of room for wiggle and compromise.
Obama’s plans do not. 1 Brigade a month till were gone. No wiggle room there. Hillary says start bringing the troops home. Room for compromise.
I could go on and on and on. Obama is setting himself up to not be able to compromise because his base is taking him at his word. We want what your promising. Can he fulfil? NO. Without a doubt NO.
Address the Dropout Crisis: Obama will address the dropout crisis by passing his legislation to provide funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies in middle school strategies such as personal academic plans, teaching teams, parent involvement, mentoring, intensive reading and math instruction, and extended learning time. Hillary will Cut the minority dropout rate in half.Here is a good example of what I am talking about. Obama has laid out in full what he will do. This one paragraph could take a decade to just sort out and figure out how to accomplish. Hillary says I will cut the drop out rate in half without elaborating. Therefore when she goes to congress she can say this is the goal, how can we get this done that both Democrats and Republicans can agree on without intense bickering?No when you look at Obama vs Hillary as I have done at my bobaggins website you can see time after time that Obama is setting himself up for one gigantic policy battle after another by having laid out his plans too openly and honestly and getting his base to support specifics instead of generalities.
abri, admit it, Obama can do nothing right in your eyes. If he speaks in generalities, he’s being to vague, lacks substance etc. If he has a clear plan, he’s TOO specific and will be hurt by THAT. You’ve already decided he’s wrong, the rationale comes after.
Here’s a question for you. Who do you think Republicans are more motivated to vote AGAINST: Obama or Clinton. Who do you think will get more Republicans to the polls to vote for McCain even if they don’t like him too much? Can you HONESTLY say that Republicans dislike Obama more than they dislike Clinton? Look around you on this blog, do you see that they feel worse about Obama than Clinton?
Claudia Admit it you have no response to my debate.
I fully believe that once the general election begins that the GOP will unite against either candidate.
My analysis has always been that the ONLY way to assure a victory is by having Barak Obama as VP to Hillary and Uniting the Democratic party. Putting Obama in a position to be a great presidential candidate in 8 years.
If Obama wins most of Hillary supporters will support Obama because most of her supporters are not the whackos in our party. However a large enough block will support McCain or not vote.
However if Hillary wins…….Obamas radical supporters will never vote for Hillary. EVER. They will most likely not vote at all and as a result the election is the GOP’s to win.
I have never said I dont like Obama. I do not like his run for the Presidency with NO. ZERO. ZIP experience. No matter how you want to make this argument. Hillary has been on the boards of major corporations including walmart. She has travelled the world as first lady and senator. She has met with heads of state. She was part of Bill Clintons policy advisory team that provided a fairly decent moderate presidency despite them both being quite left liberals.
She has been in Politics since she was in College 40 years ago. I mean We can always make the debate about elected office in which case Obama has tremendous experience determining who get the next beer license. That should be very helpful in having face to face discussions with Iran or Syria.
You haven’t answered the question abri, I asked you who Republicans are more likely to vote against; Hillary or Barack. You are free to say they would be equally opposed, but I think that runs against what I’ve been seeing in conservative blogs, polls and reports everywhere from Fox News to CBS. Hillary is clearly much more disliked than Obama. Mind you, even though I don’t like Hillary myself (and don’t consider being the Presidents wife to be "experience") I think at least PART (though not all) of the hatred deposited on her lap by some Republicans is unfair. However it IS there, Hillary is a VERY polarizing figure, and I fully believe that McCain is praying for a Clinton primary win, because she can unite Republicans the way he alone might not be able to.
Mind you, I also think that a McCain vs. Obama election would be very healthy for the country. I disagree with McCain on a lot of things, but I think he’s a principled man. I think that if the both get their candidacies, we might have the closest to a clean election as we’ve had in quite some time. No matter who wins in that circumstance (and I’d hope for Obama) the process itself would be good for the country.
I answered your question.
See the difference between me and you or me and most Barak supporters is that I like Barak. I do not hate him as most people seem inclined to do with Hillary.
In fact I WANT him to be her VP. That is how much I do respect him. However in the end a president shapes foreign policy way more then he does domestic policy. His foreign policy is dovish that wants us to all get along. Hillary’s foreign policy is Hawkish/Dovish AkA Madeline Albright which I support.
I want our president to be strong but compromising. I believe Obama will be compromising because of his base but not strong and the times that he has spoken on foreign policy he has made one mistake after another.
There was a time when his words would have been dissected and he would have been taken to the cleaners for being stupid. His words go unnoticed cause they are so enamored with his likeability. But I notice and others notice. That is why he needs experience.
Dateline, March 2007:
On Friday Obama gave a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Chicago. Reviewing the speech, Ha’aretz Washington correspondent Shmuel Rosner concluded that Obama "sounded as strong as Clinton, as supportive as Bush, as friendly as Giuliani. At least rhetorically, Obama passed any test anyone might have wanted him to pass. So, he is pro-Israel. Period."
Sounds good doesnt it? Yet when you look at the speech given to jewish leaders he said: Obama offered not a single word of criticism of Israel, of its relentless settlement and wall construction, of the closures that make life unlivable for millions of Palestinians.
He also failed: While constantly emphasizing his concern about the threat Israelis face from Palestinians, Obama said nothing about the exponentially more lethal threat Israelis present to Palestinians. In 2006, according to B’Tselem, Israeli occupation forces killed 660 Palestinians of whom 141 were children — triple the death toll for 2005. In the same period, 23 Israelis were killed by Palestinians, half the number of 2005
The point here is not to dish the Jewish people of which I am a very strong supporter. The point here is to show how refined and focused Barak Obama is when it comes to courting interest groups.
Compare this to his recent statements: Unfortunately the Palestinians, through Yasser Arafat, suffered from leadership that seemed to be more interested in the rhetoric of Israel’s destruction and less interested in actually constructively creating a peaceful solution to the problem and focusing on delivery of services to the Palestinian people.
Yet despite these pronouncements which are almost identical to the Bush Administrations announcement he somehow will find a way to make the Palestinians like him and want to be buddies to the Jewish nation when he has outwardly stated a position that is inflexible and seems to put all the blame on the Palestinians and their leadership.
This is not a slam on Obama as much as it is a sign of how inexperienced he is in foreign policy. While he may be speaking the truth, sometimes its better to leave the truth locked away then to inflame the truth with rhetoric that will only inflame the situation instead of mollify the principals.
Oh abri. Here’s Clinton on Israel:
Clinton has shown herself to be fairly uninterested in Palestinians these days as well. It should be noted that I disagree with both of them, and with pretty much all American politicians on Israel. I think our support for Israel should be a lot more conditional than it currently is, and that we get no end of flak for the things Israel does to the Palestinian people. I invite anyone who thinks Palestinians are making their plight up to visit Israel and take a look.
Abri, Clinton and Obama are almost identical on the issues, I’ve yet to find a significant difference. The difference does not reside on policy, it resides in personal leadership ability, style, experience, ability to get things done etc. We both consider our candidate to be the best at these things, but policy-wise, each of us could counter one position with another.
Ahh but you have to put in context his broader message which can be summed up here.
The Bush Administration’s failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.
Here he is criticizing his own stated policy. This shows how he simply speaks to who is listening at the time in colorful metaphors.
From Mathew Yglesias at the Atlantic of which I have to agree.
And the problem why both GWB failed and why Obama would fail is summed up here in his words.
But, of course, the odds of actually achieving a settlement go down when leading American figures make these kind of statements that wreck their credibility as honest brokers. Similarly, Palestinian moderates are left hanging out to dry when American leaders give the impression that they have no intention of acting in a reasonable and impartial manner even if Palestinians change their behavior.
To Jimmy Carters greatest credit. As an Honest broker for peace in the Middle east he was actually able to negotiate a peace settlement between some of the parties because he did not make such statements nor did he go into the process with the stated position that one side was wrong. Both sides simply needed to negotiate and compromise.
However in fairness their was a report that Hillary was going to release a position paper on Israel that bashed Palestinians and rallied support for Israel. The report never surfaced but it made good news and it made the above post by Mathew all the more relevant.
I have not heard a single peep about a line spoke by Hillary at the debate the other night.
I believe in a foreign policy based in realism. Not based in an interventionist approach as our President or the Idealistic approach advocated by some.
Translation. Anyone?
Hillary Speech to Princeton in late 2006.
The security and freedom of Israel must be decisive and remain at the core of any American approach to the Middle East. This has been a hallmark of American foreign policy for more than 50 years and we must not — dare not — waver from this commitment.
Several paragraphs of being nice to Israel, praising some efforts in the middle east to begin including women and finally this:
Just this morning I met with Shimon Peres, another of Israel’s founding leaders, and one of the issues I discussed with him was not only the upcoming Palestinian and Israeli elections, but also the need to provide economic opportunity for the Palestinians, to help raise their standard of living, to give them some belief in the future so they do not fall prey to the blandishments of the extremists.
The United States plays the central role as the guarantor of Israel’s security, but also of the guarantor of a better future for the Palestinians – if they will join in creating a stable, peaceful situation. In Danny Abraham’s book, Peace Is Possible, he goes into great detail about his personal contacts with generations of Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He comes out of that as an optimist. He comes out of all the disappointment and the heartbreak, the rejection, the stupidity, that so often marks the actions that are taken, the evil, the hatred; he comes out of all of that with optimism. He does so because he has an overwhelming belief in the importance of peace; for the state of Israel which he loves and has devoted so much of his life serving, but also for the Palestinians, who he has also grown to love.
So while I find Hillary a strong supporter of Israel I find her rhetoric to NOT be anti Palestinian. I for the record do not believe that Barak Obama is anti Palestinian but he keeps making silly statements that lack foreign policy intuition and show his total lack of cognitive awareness of the implications of his words.