NY Times Sets Up Hillary For A Fall

NY Times Sets Up Hillary For A Fall
CONFEDERATE YANKEEE
In 2005, Bill Clinton accompanied mining financier Frank Giustra to Kazakhstan, provided dictator Nursultan A. Nazarbayev with a propaganda coup that undermined American foreign policy and glossed over Kazakhstan's dismal human rights record. For Clinton's trouble, Giustra walked away with shared mining rights to 1/5 of the world's known uranium reserves.

Clinton subsequently picked up $131 million dollars in donations and pledges from Giustra for the William J. Clinton Foundation as a result, including a donation of $31.3 million within months of the mining deal being finalized.

On the surface, this sounds like peddling influence for cash—and truth be told, I can't easily come up with any other rational explanation.

This is rather a bizarre time to be publishing an accusation of an incident that occurred several years ago, with only days left before Hillary Clinton engages Barack Obama in the Super Tuesday Democratic presidential primaries, and occurring just days after the New York Times publicly endorsed Clinton as their candidate of choice.

Are we to believe that the Times editors were unaware of the pending article on Bill Clinton's apparent influence peddling when they gave Hillary their endorsement less than one full week ago?

In a large news organization it is indeed possible that the editorial staff who wrote Clinton's endorsement was unaware of the pending Bill Clinton/Giustra article... but I doubt it. And it is the Times editors that chose when to publish an article that was not locked into a specific time-sensitive news cycle, but was, as they say, "evergreen." This could have waited until after Super Tuesday, without a loss of importance... but then it would lack the colossal political influence that this story now may have.

Publishing the Clinton/Giustra article on this day, so close to Super Tuesday, seems indicative of ill intent on behalf of the Times.

Perhaps Hillary isn't their real choice for President after all.

http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/253602.php

A Longer Race Benefits Obama

A Longer Race Benefits Obama
By David Broder

WASHINGTON -- Heading into Tuesday's unprecedented day of voting in nearly two dozen states, a degree of order is finally emerging in the dramatic races for the presidential nominations of both parties.

Public opinion and leadership support are finding their way to the same destinations, pointing to a clear favorite and a single viable alternative in each race.

John McCain has the easiest path remaining to the Republican nomination, with Mitt Romney needing some kind of dramatic breakthrough Tuesday to keep his hopes of an upset alive.

On the Democratic side, the battle is more even, but the advantage has shifted back to Barack Obama -- thanks to a growing but largely unremarked tendency among Democratic leaders to reject Hillary Clinton and her husband, the former president.

The New York senator could still emerge from the "Tsunami Tuesday" voting with the overall lead in delegates, but she is unlikely to be able to come close to clinching the nomination. And the longer the race goes on, the better the chances that Obama will ultimately prevail, as more elected Democratic officials and candidates come to view him as the better bet to defeat McCain in November.

As the race has moved from contests in small states such as Iowa and New Hampshire to the national dimension of Tuesday's voting, the role of the endorsements and leadership testimonials has increased. The candidates simply lack the time and resources to make personal appeals to very many voters.

Had McCain not invested that personal time in New Hampshire, with more than 100 town meetings where he argued for the correctness of his views on the Iraq War, he could not have reversed the summertime disaster that overtook his campaign, when he ran out of money and lost most of his senior staff.

But after turning back Romney in New Hampshire, the Arizona senator picked up significant establishment backing in South Carolina and Florida -- the hard-core Republican states where he had to show his credentials. He campaigned in South Carolina flanked by Tom Coburn and Jack Kemp, icons of social and fiscal conservatism, and won Florida thanks to last-minute endorsements from Gov. Charlie Crist and Sen. Mel Martinez.

Now, with defeated Rudy Giuliani adding his voice to the chorus of endorsements, and with Mike Huckabee remaining in the race to challenge Romney from the religious right, McCain appears poised to lock up the nomination.

Unelected conservative ideologues -- Rush Limbaugh and George Will -- can mutter in frustration, but Republican politicians recognize what was written here as long ago as last Dec. 2: "If the Republican Party really wanted to hold on to the White House in 2009 ... it would grit its teeth, swallow its doubts and nominate a ticket of John McCain for president and Mike Huckabee for vice president -- and president-in-waiting."

The Democratic race remains harder to handicap, in part because Clinton already has demonstrated her resilience by fighting uphill battles to prevail in New Hampshire and Nevada and because she retains formidable alliances and organizational strengths.

But the last two weeks have seen a remarkable shift of establishment opinion against her and against the prospect of placing the party's 2008 chances in the hands of her husband, Bill Clinton.

The prominence of his role in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and the mean-spiritedness of his attacks on Obama, stunned many Democrats. Clinton's behavior underlined the warning raised in this column before Iowa, by a prominent veteran of the Clinton administration, that the prospect of two presidents both named Clinton sharing a single White House would be a huge problem for the Democrats in November if she is the nominee.

The negatives on the Clintons have brought much support to Obama, most notably that of Ted Kennedy, the most prestigious figure in the Democratic establishment in Washington. But it is also Obama's own appeal that is being talked about across the country from Massachusetts to Arizona by the younger generation of governors, senators and representatives who share with him an eagerness to "turn the page" on the battles of the past.

Obama is not inevitable, but the longer the race continues, the greater that hunger. And the growing recognition of McCain's appeal to independents also works in Obama's favor.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/a_longer_race_benefits_obama.html

Get ready for the Dirt...

I couldn't agree more...get ready for the campaign to get down and dirty. Can Obama survive the microscope? Hillary has already threatened to disclose something on Obama...watch for Hillary to unleash the attack dogs soon.

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The Queen Is Dead…
…Long live the king?
By Victor Davis Hanson

For the past year, I, like millions of others, have been bewildered by TV's talking heads, always assuring us that Hillary — before a single vote was cast, before a single attack ad was made, before a single blunder or mini-crisis occurred—was to be coronated as the Democratic nominee and would inevitably go on to beat any Republican rival. (Many instead thought 'Never underestimate the ability of Bill Clinton to do damage to those around him' ).

Now after the first week of the primary season, these same geniuses are deifying Obama (formerly trashed as running a "surprisingly" dismal and uninspiring campaign) to the skies and writing Clinton's post mortem — even as her national polls are still even or ahead of Obama. Something similar is true of McCain as well — once worshipped, then pitied, and now admired.

What comes across to the viewer is the near complete absence of any independent judgement; instead, the 24-hour buzz makes someone hot or cold, and the pundits adjust accordingly with praise or blame. We've seen this before with the Gary Hart, Howard Dean, and Ross Perot pet-rock like craze — which are not that unusual in the popular cultural of radically democratic cultures such as our own.

The truth is that what a few thousand Americans think in Iowa and New Hampshire does not trump the tens of millions in states like Florida, New Jersey, New York, and California. The Clinton and Giuliani campaigns were based on this fact, and could still work — as long as the perceived momentum achieved by Obama or Huckabee among tiny populations in these two early states, amplified and exaggerated by spin doctors on television, does not cause second and third thoughts in voters of these key mega-states, inasmuch as most have no firm or fixed views other than a desire to be associated with a winner.

Hillary is not comatose, but instead at a crossroads. If she distances herself from Bill, goes silent about her First Lady years, stops the play-safe, don't-blow-it-fourth-quarter strategy, and instead takes risks, talks about what she's going to do in simple, blunt terms, gives more interviews, answers impromptu questions at her campaign stops, jettisons the canned laugh for real give and take, she could recover in two weeks.

Left unsaid is that America will soon — thanks to input from the shadows from various hitmen from the Clinton 1992/1996 team — be hearing a lot more details about the relatively unknown life and views of one Barrack Obama and those around him.

Right now voters know almost everything about Hillary and are troubled by that knowledge; they know almost nothing about Obama, and are happy for that ignorance — but that too can change, since she has nothing left to disclose or lose, he everything.

Hillary Out?

The fact that this is even being talked about is incredible...stay tuned.

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TALK OF HILLARY EXIT ENGULFS CAMPAIGNS
Mon Jan 07 2008 09:46:28 ET

Facing a double-digit defeat in New Hampshire, a sudden collapse in national polls and an expected fund-raising drought, Senator Hillary Clinton is preparing for a tough decision: Does she get out of the race? And when?!

"She can't take multiple double-digit losses in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada," laments one top campaign insider to the DRUDGE REPORT. "If she gets too badly embarrassed, it will really harm her. She doesn't want the Clinton brand to be damaged with back-to-back-to-back defeats."

Meanwhile, Democrat hopeful John Edwards has confided to senior staff that he is staying in the race because Hillary "could soon be out."

"Her money is going to dry up," Edwards confided, a top source said Monday morning.

MORE

Key players in Clinton's inner circle are said to be split. James Carville is urging her to fight it out through at least February and Super Tuesday, where she has a shot at thwarting Barack Obama in a big state.

"She did not work this hard to get out after one state! All this talk is nonsense," said one top adviser.

But others close to the former first lady now see no possible road to victory, sources claim.

Developing...

[The dramatic reversal of fortunes has left the media establishment stunned and racing to keep up with fast-moving changes.

In its final poll before Iowa, CNN showed Clinton with a two-point lead over Obama. Editorial decisions were being made based on an understanding the Democratic primary race would be close, explained a network executive.]

http://www.drudgereport.com/flashhn.htm

Iowa Caucus: The Democrats
CAPTAIN ED BLOG
By Ed Morrissey on 2008

Hillary Clinton has run into a serious buzz saw on her way to the coronation. Not only did she not win the state, but she lost to the wrong candidate. Barack Obama now threatens to steal away a nomination that the Clintons thought they had in the bank less than three months ago.

Clinton would have had a tough time winning Iowa in any case. The populist appeal of John Edwards always figured to take some significant support away from Hillary. However, a second-place finish to Edwards would not have had much impact on her campaign, because Edwards has little appeal outside of the populist Midwest. She could easily have survived that kind of loss, without even considering it a bump in the road.

Instead, Barack Obama beat both of them, and that's an ill portent for Hillary's march to the nomination. Obama beat Hillary in a state that has a very small African-American demographic; he won not by playing the race card, but by simply offering a departure from Clintonian politics. That victory will resonate in New Hampshire, where Obama already has her in a dead heat, but also in the following states.

Even worse, Hillary finished in third place, behind Edwards, after working the state hard for the past three weeks. Edwards, meanwhile, didn't improve over his performance in 2004. He wound up actually two points lower, 30% as opposed to 32%. Hillary couldn't take advantage of the decline, and trailing a stagnating Edwards won't give Democratic primary voters any confidence in her ability to beat Obama, let alone a Republican in November.

Hillary has reaped the harvest of two months of self-inflicted wounds, starting with her collapse on drivers licenses for illegal aliens, and through some bizarre attacks on Barack Obama in the aftermath. The question will be whether she can recover from the rapid decline. The answer: she's no Bill Clinton.

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Iowa Caucus: The Republicans

By Ed Morrissey on 2008

This started off sounding like the Super Bowl -- the big-money Immovable Object meeting the grassroots Unstoppable Force. Iowans turned it into the usual kind of Super Bowl, a laugher, as Mike Huckabee stunned Mitt Romney with a nine-point win. Huckabee beat Romney by a much wider margin than anyone predicted, even larger than the five-point gap that I posted earlier this evening.

What does this mean for Romney? It's a body blow. He spent somewhere between $8-9 million and came up far short of a victory. That directly reflects on his next race, where John McCain has taken the lead in his backyard. If he can't do any better against McCain than he did against Huckabee, Republican voters will rightly question whether Romney can win anywhere, even with the huge funding advantage he has had.

If McCain wins in New Hampshire, Romney has serious problems, but it assists the other 50-state candidate: Rudy Giuliani. Unlike Hillary Clinton, Giuliani was smart enough not to waste time in Iowa, and he won't tangle in New Hampshire, either. If Romney gets derailed, it leaves the Super Tuesday field open to Giuliani, who already has leads in the big coastal states. He's an experienced campaigner, and this Romney loss validates his strategy.

Fred Thompson and John McCain, at this moment, still struggle for third place. McCain just needed a significant showing for his upcoming battle in New Hampshire, but Thompson needed a third-place finish just to keep his credibility alive. It looks like he did that, and conservatives who had made a mad rush to help him stay afloat in the last two weeks have longer to build momentum for him. If they can make a big push in South Carolina, he could get back in the race -- but that also helps Giuliani.

Finally, Ron Paul did a respectable 10% in this race -- not bad, but no better than fifth place. The Paul supporters who kept insisting that their man had been victimized by pollsters conspiring to make him look weak in the race will have to explain away a fifth-place finish in a field of seven, only beating Giuliani because he didn't bother to campaign there. A 10% finish won't derail either John McCain or Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. In fact, both men may need to worry about Mike Huckabee, and Romney more than McCain.