"Frankly the Democratic Party is in good shape right now, but Hillary could destroy it. When the last Clinton took office, the Democrats controlled everything -- the House, the Senate, a majority of state legislatures, a majority of governorships. After eight years of Clintonism, all that was gone, along with the presidency."

The Clintons ran on National Healthcare. But it turned out had no plan or ideas, achieved Nothing, and mainly advanced Reaganism, with the difference primarily being less guns and more butter, imo. And they collected lots of cash. Its reported the Clinton Foundation has over $200 million now.

dmm,

"To our shame, a lot of my fellow Christian conservatives can't figure out the difference between moral conservatism (e.g., pro-life, sanctity of marriage) and other kinds of conservatism (e.g., lowering taxes, balancing the budget, reducing the federal government, controlling our borders). Even more sad, they can't figure out which kind of conservatism is most important."

In my view- The terms "conservative" and "liberal" are plastic with many different and conflicting meanings. Social conservatives value moral principles which lead to more or less mild socialism, some restraint of personal freedoms for the common good, and democracy, which is called being politically liberal...

Social Liberals value personal freedom and liberty, which also means freedom to exploit others by the more clever, which leads to political dominance by a small class, eventually a aristocracy of some sort, all of which is called being politically conservative....

Huckabee comes across as a socially conservative, fiscally moderate, poitical liberal, and my wife's favorite republican I think.

A president, in order to be effective, needs to have a Congress with either a solid majority from his own party, or a solid number of opposition members ready to compromise and work with him. To me, that is the single biggest argument against HRC: that she would <i>clearly</i> be the <i>least</i>-effective­ president of the existing candidates. In the absence of a big Democratic majority (and given incumbents' success in regaining office, I don't see that happening), an effective president is going to be one who is able to reach across the aisle for bipartisan support. Obama has the potential to do that - whether he will actually be able to convert it to action is another matter. Hillary absolutely does not have that potential, because she is so anathemic to much of the Republican party; there is simply not enough political cover for Republican congressmen/senators to publicly support her policy initiatives - even those with which they might agree.

Thanks for the forthright answer.

The problem I have though with your examples is that they require you to believe the spin put out by the likes of Hannity and Limbaugh and ignore the inconvenient facts - such as the fact that though files were improperly handled, no one used that data for anything.

That's not much of an indicator of compromising core values.

That begs the question.

OK, but the WJC "soap opera" was largely orchestrated by some deep pockets in the RNC, just like the Swift Boat bullshit. What would lead anyone to believe the same wouldn't be done to Obama?

The GOP in the Senate isn't going to treat Obama any differently than HRC. They will attempt to filibuster any bill they don't like.

The biggest diff though is that HRC knows folks like Specter, Snowe, Collins, Mcklutskey [sp?], Graham etc. much much better than Obama does, AND she knows how to appeal to them from the WH having worked with them from that angle.

If the Dems pick up 4 of the contested Senate seats (that's a 4:3 split) then that means they only need 4 of the above to defect on cloture at any point. And given the way the above are pissed off at the GOP, its quite reasonable for a skilled WH to be able to give them something to break cloture - while still allowing them to savce face by voting against on the floor vote.

In the House, GOP resistance doesn't matter because Pelosi will ram through anything needed.

My point would be that Obama has the potential to bring Republicans across the aisle and pass legislation that doesn't eke its way through by the skin of its nasty, partisan teeth. Enough Americans want to see something accomplished that, given the right leader offering genuine attempts at real legislative work, there would be pressure on Republican senators/congressmen back home in their states/districts to cooperate rather than obstruct. I don't know whether Obama could really be that leader; what I do know is that HRC absolutely cannot.

And its not a meaningful point. Which GOPers will break with their party to come across the aisle? Remember that in the House it doesn't matter who comes across the aisle, the legislation passes by a solid majority.

In the Senate, the GOP Filibuster block is solid conservative. Only about 7 senators are even slightly moderate and of those, probably 2 will lose their seats. So that leaves 5 to break cloture - which they will only due if they are given the right bennies from the WH. Clinton and Obama can offer those equally and Clinton actually is better versed in horse-trading with these folks.

So if you think Obama can inspire these GOP conservatives to cross the aisle, you've been drinking too much Obama coolaide. There is ZERO evidence that Obama can do anything about the "nasty partisan teeth".

And you likewise have zero evidence to support the idea that Hillary would be better at this kind of dealmaking than Obama. She wasn't the one doing it while Bill was in office, and she would be unlikely to do it as effectively as he did (hard to imagine, but I think she's an even more polarizing figure than he was). It's not a matter of their ideology as much as it is their fear of losing their re-election bids; if the next president brings credible, moderate ideas to the table, even the conservative die-hards will be hesitant to be seen as obstructionists when their constituents want to see something accomplished.

Is this your example of a "graceful" post.

Actually there is. HRC has been an effective legislator for NY State despite the Senate being GOP controlled for most of her tenure. And unless you consider her to be a "little lady" kind of wife, she clearly had input and got insight into who could be moved how in Congress and the senate.

Conservative die-hards have no problem being seen as obstructionist - their constituents would rather see nothing done than "something" accomplished they disagree with. That's why the current filibuster block is so effective. If you believe otherwise, you really haven't been paying attention to how the Senate has been working since 2006. Their consitutencies consider anything moderate to be 'left wing'. That's why the Clinton legacy of the 1990s is slightly right of center, they couldn't get anything truly moderate passed.

If you want meaningful healthcare reform - it won't go through because of "bridging the aisle". It will only go through with the meanest gut-fighting out there. And I for one am loathe to see another 2 years like 1992-1993 only to then lose the house again because the idealistic constituency like you, abandon an ineffective POTUS because he can't get any of your dreams accomplished due to his idealism

Nobody once accused the Bush administration of actually using the information gathered through warrantless wiretapping for any purpose other than hunting suspected terrorists and preventing attacks, yet that didn't stop people from getting all bent out of shape about it. And you want me to excuse the former president for having the FBI files of his political enemies sent to the White House just because we don't have proof that they tried to use them nefariously?

C'mon! Whether or not the Bushes acted properly, you can at least understand the national security reasons why they did what they did. You and I both know that nobody was concerned that Tom DeLay was a terrorist or spy. They were just digging for dirt.

The FBI files were requested by Craig Livingstone and were from a list of people provided by the Bush transition team. The highest ranking republican on the list was James Baker. It was far from a list of Clinton enemies.

This is from the testimony of Ken Starr to congress..

"As to the FBI files matter, there are outstanding issues that we are attempting to resolve with respect to one individual. But I can address two issues of relevance to the committee's work. First, our investigation, which has been thorough, found no evidence that anyone higher than Mr. Livingstone or Mr. Marceca was in any way involved in ordering the FBI files from the FBI. "

[found no evidence that anyone higher than Mr. Livingstone or Mr. Marceca was in any way involved in ordering the FBI files from the FBI. "]

Right . . .

Like anyone would accept that kind of excuse if they weren't shilling for the candidate.

They might not have found proscecutable evidence, but that doesn't mean it's plausible.