It appears that Senator Clinton is beginning to show signs of being interested in running for president in '08. According to recent news reports, she had been speaking to top Democrats in New Hampshire and Iowa ... which are the first two stops on the campaign trail when it comes to U.S. elections.



As popular as she is, my first response to this question would be an emphatic "Yes!" And if she did, she would be the first person other than a While male to hold the job.

But, therein lies the problem. Because I'm really not sure that I believe America has progressed and advanced far enough to allow a woman to make it into the White House. I think a lot more Americans would be able to handle it better if she were going for VP. But, there's been no talk of that even being a possibility! She wants the big job. And I don't know if the Good Ol' Boys can handle that.

In reading a lot of different stories and opinions regarding this, it's also true that most opinions of Hillary are not in the middle of the road. Most people do have an opinion of her ... and they either really, really like her ... or really, really hate her! And those that dislike her have some really horrible things to say. On one message board, several of the women there said that because she continued to stay with a philandering husband, she couldn't be trusted to make good decisions about anything else! Another called her an accessory to murder, because of her friend/business partner that committed suicide while she was First Lady.

Since the media doesn't really like things that are positive in nature, there's no doubt that we would hear every piece of negativity about her, whether true or not. What her political progress, if any, has been since becoming a Senator, may or may not get any real airtime.

But, I believe the majority of the younger voting-age women will vote for her. A number of die-hard Democrat interest groups will be loving this. The right vote on the upcoming immigration bill could get her a big hunk of the Hispanic vote and if they are more organized by then, that could be a big problem for the Republicans. And, of course, there's Bill, who can probably tell her how to secure the Black vote, in case she doesn't have it already. If the Democratic Congress can get the ball rolling, they will probably be able to roll their candidate into the White House. An uphill battle for sure. But, according to all polls, nobody is more popular than Senator Rodham-Clinton. And nobody running would be able to catch her.

I wish the Democrats had actually beat the Republicans for this last election. Then I could be more confident that they would actually know how to counteract election tactics that will surely turn out to get ugly down the line! I'd be willing to bet that even those Repubs that are at each other's throats right now, will put down the arms to band together to beat Hillary.

It's getting interesting ... I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I don't think Hillary can win without serious help, and there is none out there.

Except for Obama.

I hope Barack Obama does not squander his political capital on the ambition of Hillary Clinton.

One the beauties of his appeal is that he doesn't have to do much except 'be there'.

If his name is going to be on a ballot, it should be as a candidate for the Presidency.

Hillary cannot do it with that level of assistance.

PEACE

Jim Chester

You know, Mr. Chester ... it's so rare that I disagree with you that it always surprises me when it happens!

But, for some reason, I'm feeling particularly optimistic about Hillary's chances. Moreover, I really don't see Obama has having a prayer. Even a snowball has a chance ... so that makes nothing impossible. But, I can't see America electing a Black man before electing a woman. And if it really were to come down to that, that is a criteria that many, many Americans would use when making their choice of who to send as the nominee.

Barring some drastically devastating political torpedo that the Repubs will surely try to hurl at her, I think she's popular enough to have a good chance. And I have to believe that Americans are (perhaps ever so slowly) evolving. It may be by fluke ... but, if she decides to run, I wouldn't count her out at all.

But, I can't see America electing a Black man before electing a woman.---EbonyRose

I don't base my estimate of her likelihood for success on her being a woman.

I think she will fail simply because she is Hillary.

I agree that many will make their decision based on her being a woman, but I think she will fail because she has a track record at that level that will frighten many Democrats, and almost all Republicans...certainly enough to defeat her.

My real concern is that Obama will squander his political currency on her...much as Colin Powell squandered his with Bush II.

It would be much better that Obama spend his leverage on himself...

Even unsuccessfully.

PEACE

Jim Chester

quote:

Originally posted by James Wesley Chester:
I think she will fail simply because she is Hillary.

LOL ... Now, that's not very nice, JWC. But I do know that you mean!

quote:

My real concern is that Obama will squander his political currency on her...much as Colin Powell squandered his with Bush II.

It would be much better that Obama spend his leverage on himself...

Even unsuccessfully.

PEACE

Jim Chester

Unfortunately, I think he has already begun to do that. I read an article last week where he was touting Sen. Clinton's experience and abilities.

To tell you the truth, I think all this talk about him being a candidate is all a smoke screen. Anderson Cooper cornered him last night as asked him for the millionth time whether or not he was intending to run, and he said that he would make that decision at the first of the year. My guess is he won't do it.

I think this has all been a way to take some of the attention off of Hillary ... sort of "take one for the Democratic team" kinda thing. And if this is true, seems to be working pretty well.

Also, this is not so much about the presidential election itself. It's the primary that is coming up, which is actually a bit more grueling. Right now, there's a bunch of nobody's ... and Hillary. And these nobody's are going to have to present a better mousetrap to the American public to get past her popularity. In turn, she will have to show that she is more than her household name.

My guess is he won't do it.---EbonyRose

I hope you are right.

The Democrat Party does not want Obama to run on his own.

The Democrat Party was African America 'on its side' even if only for the sake of appearances.

We should remember that if not this time, if the Democrats are successful in '08, Obama won't have a rea; opportunity until '12.

PEACE

Jim Chester

quote:

Originally posted by James Wesley Chester:
We should remember that if not this time, if the Democrats are successful in '08, Obama won't have a real opportunity until '12.[/i]

Exactly, Mr. Chester! Which is, I believe, wherein lies the biggest problems ... if indeed there is one. It's the kind of thing that brings pressure. And in this case, not only for the Democratic Party in general, but for Sen. Obama in particular.

I can see the Dems seemingly believing that they could have control of the government for the next 16 years, by making Obama "wait his turn" until whoever the '08 winner is finishes his/her term in office. Or perhaps instituting a plan to put a harmless/useless Vice President in place now, only to swap him out for the Senator in 2012, thus hoping to slide him in in 2016.

I'm really not big into speculating with things like this because politics are so totally unpredictable and someone sitting on a throne today can be running for cover tomorrow! And the rules are so slippery that you never really know what the game is! For instance, in the last election, we had a Republican candidate here in TX who had died months before the election and the Repubs kept her on the ballot because they couldn't find anybody alive who would have been able to beat the Democratic challenger, and if the dead woman won, they would be able to put anybody in their party into the office!} So playing the guessing game when it comes to politics can actually run you crazy!

So I'm more or less just kicking back and watching the media circus perform their obnoxious ritual of speculation, hounding the candidate-in-question to the point of nausea ... and I really don't know what to think of this whole situation.

However, I found this article written in a British newspaper, which I thought was really interesting and agreed with the point you were trying to make above, regarding Hillary. It's a perspective that really makes you think about what might actually happen.

Vote Obama. He's black and he's not Hillary
Gerard Baker, The Times
December 8, 2006

One of the more absorbing rituals of American presidential election cycles is the quadrennial Will He? Won’t He? parlour game.

In the early stages of the campaign (which gets earlier every four years) a smattering of anonymous hopefuls jostle with a handful of more familiar figures for the public’s attention. But for a while all the media really want to know is whether one man, whom they have anointed the most exciting Republican or Democrat in the country, will decide whether he wants to run.

In 1996 it was General Colin Powell, then merely the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who was generating frenzy in the press and barely disguised alarm in the camp of the incumbent President, Bill Clinton, as the most talked about potential Republican candidate. For months General Powell let the winds of media speculation blow wildly across the sands of his supposed presidential ambitions before opting out and leaving merely an electoral desert for the Republican party.

No one, however, agonised so publicly nor teased so effectively as Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York, whose route to the Democratic nomination in the 1992 contest had been lovingly prefigured by political professionals. Mr Cuomo famously went to the point of having a chartered plane waiting on the tarmac at Albany airport in December 1991, ready to whisk him to a formal announcement of his candidacy in New Hampshire. But the plane never took off. The Governor declined to bark and the caravan moved on.

This time, a little over a year before the first votes are cast, the man playing the starring role in the latest adaptation of The Undecided is Barack Obama.

Since he first declared in October that he was actively thinking about a presidential run, the 45-year-old senator from Illinois, the only black man in the Senate, has steadily raised the temperature. On Sunday he will fan the flames a little harder when he shows up in New Hampshire, site of the first primary contest for the Democratic nomination in January 2008. Usually, first-time candidates in the state are required to earn votes the hard way — trudging from door to door in an effort to persuade a notoriously sceptical public that they have what it takes. But such is the excitement around Mr Obama that in his first trip there the senator will simply progress from one sold-out event to another. Early polls have him vaulting to the front of the field.

There are two main reasons that the senator is generating such interest. The first is a cold, hard Democratic calculation: that he is not Hillary Clinton. Or more accurately, that he is the most appealing national figure whom Democrats see as a plausible candidate to stop Mrs Clinton from cruising to the party’s nomination.

There is a so far unproven but nonetheless deeply held conviction in influential Democratic circles, even among those who admire her, that for all the former First Lady’s formidable advantages she is simply unelectable. This conviction is matched by an equally firm belief that, as things stand, given the strength of the current likely field, and barring the entry into the race of someone with real appeal, she simply cannot be denied the party’s nomination.

Mr Obama, they think, can with one bound, release them from the prison of a Clinton candidacy. This is because of the second main reason for Obama-mania. There is something almost mystically appealing about his potential presidency — a black man from humble beginnings, whose grandfather was a Kenyan goatherd, and who got to Harvard Law School and the US Senate.

His popularity so far suggests he has real political skills to match the irresistible narrative. Though he is solidly left of centre on the tough issues for Democrats — abortion, gay marriage, gun control — he manages to appeal to the centre ground. He won election easily to the Senate from Illinois, triumphing not only in urban black districts but in leafy white middle-class suburbs.

For a nation in which race is a continuously reopening sore, the prospect of an Obama presidency is genuinely thrilling. What’s more, he actually opposed the war in Iraq too. And what better way to demonstrate to the world that America is ready to heal the tears in the fabric of international relations of the last five years than by electing someone named Barack Hussein Obama.

With all this going for him, why the uncertainty? What is holding him back? Senior Democrats whom he has been consulting in the last month or so say the cautious Mr Obama is concerned about his evident inexperience. Just two years in the Senate, Mr Obama has no legislative record to speak of. His political skills have hardly really been tested yet. In his successful Senate campaign two years ago he ran against a Republican who was forced to pull out of the race after allegations that he had abused his wife.

Obama-boosters note he is actually older than John Kennedy was when he was elected president in 1960. But when he ran, Kennedy had been in the House of Representatives for six years and the Senate for eight. He had, for good measure, been decorated in wartime too.

It might be better, some are telling Mr Obama, to wait awhile. You’re young, they say. Give it a miss this time. You’ll be a shoo-in for 2012, or 2016. But a number of Democratic senators disagree. One consulted by Mr Obama recently told him to remember there is nothing like timing in presidential politics. There are only half a dozen people in America at any time with a real shot at becoming president, he told him. When your name is among them you do not tarry.

Mr Obama talks about faith a lot, another reason he is seen as appealing to a wide range of Americans. In his second book, The Audacity of Hope, published this year, he demonstrates a detailed command of the Bible. One passage in Ecclesiastes seems composed for him: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

For Mr Obama , the time seems to have come. Only chance awaits.

I often wish I were a writer.

This guys says it well.

Think what it means if Obama wins the candidacy and loses the election.

The Republican Party wins, but...

There is also the reality of 'nothing ventured...'

I am coming to the conclusion that this is time for Barak Obama...regardless.

Someone has to kick down the door.

I am on his side regardless.

PEACE

Jim Chester

I think you are a fine writer, Mr. Chester!

After all, not all (or perhaps any) of us are literary award winners!

Well now ....

It's been 6 months since I started this thread and first asked the question. There's still 7 months to go until the first primaries ... and a whopping 16 months until the primary election itself!

And let's see ... Obama has indeed thrown his hat in the ring and is in it in a big way! Most polls put him either 2nd or 3rd on the contender list, which is definitely a good place to be!

And Hillary is now enjoying top ranking by most Democrats, women, and is even high up there with Black folks ... and still has a 51% "unfavorable" rating as far as being liked!! Go figure!

While the numbers seem to flip-flop with each Democratic debate -- which have been very interesting as far as showing where the candidates stand on certain issues -- what seems to stand firm is Hillary's hold on the top spot!! There's still about 6 more debates to go though, so it's still very much a "wait and see."