Election Result 2008

PRweb has an article uncovering a strange act by Google. The Adsense team seems to have removed an advertisement for a book that attacks Hillary. Some conservative sites are talking about this and claiming it’s an unfair move by our favorite search company/ad publisher/liberal bastion.

The criticism seems to concentrate on the apparent hypocrisy in banning this ad, while running ads for Bush Fart Dolls and the like.

If you’re interested in seeing the advertisements themselves, check em out here:
Missing Chapters
True Nightmare

According to the AP , southern Texas has contributed a full third of all of Hillary’s campaign funds for the last two years. This seems remarkable considering the coldness most Texans feel toward letting any Clinton back into the White House. This may be more a sign of the increasing power of southern Texas as a political and economic power more than a sign of a change in Texan alliances.

The Texas GOP chairman Tina Benkiser had this to say:

Democrats may raise money in Texas, but they don’t win in Texas

Guess we’ll see in a couple of years.

Last Wednesday Hillary Clinton and Newt Gingrich stood side by side and did a photo op together while proposing a new federal health care plan. Some stories are describing this as “The Beginning of the End” because Gingrich and Hillary were at such odds not too many years ago. He lead the charge to get her husband impeached and she accused him of being part of a ‘vast, right-wing conspiracy’.

Yet they met together, agreed on health care, and promoted a plan together. Coincidentally this doesn’t just give them each a useful boost toward appearing bi-partisan in preparation for the 2008 run - it also makes for healthy politics. A plan backed by someone on the far right and someone on the near left is better than a comletely partisan one.

Hillary is not attempting to hide her desire for the 2008 presidency. Newt has not ruled it out and there’s good reason to believe that he’s starting his own groundwork for the election. It’s odd that during the preparation for a primary election a Democrat’s best friend will be someone that she’s not going to be competing with. Well, I’ll enjoy the healthy politics as long as they last.

Sources: The Houston Chronicle
Concord Monitor

There’s an interesting piece in the Washington Post about how Hillary is considered to have moved to the center recently. The writer points out that this has become commonly acccepted as true (I’ve even written about it here and here) simply because she’s done things that are indicative of a centrist in her campaign for 2008.

However, there’s good reason to believe she’s not moving to the center at all. Hillary has a long record of being known as a ‘flaming liberal’ but acting in a very republican way. Here are some facts about her that I was surprised to find:

• She has spoken at length since 1990 about her christian youth group years, giving guest sermons for a United Methodist Church, and the importance of faith and theologians like Bonhoeffer.
• She has always been more of a hawk than a dove
• She has consistently stuck with the same belief her husband had about abortion: that it be ’safe, legal, and rare’ while encouraging abstinence as an alternative to sex

There’s a good chance that the press will continue to misrepresent Hillary because what is known about her beliefs and her actual beliefs seem to be discrepant. I can already imagine the GOP response to Hillary being the same that was used against past candidates (’flip-flopping’, etc.) but her record may save her on this one.

A while ago I wrote about a poll suggesting that nobody would vote for Hillary because she’s a woman. This has really started to astound me. My dad was visiting last week and he told me that he didn’t think she’d have a chance. Granted, he’s against anyone who’s not GW being president, but he seemed to think that no woman could ever be elected to the Presidency.

I suppose time will tell (maybe as early as the primaries) whether real live voters will give any support to a woman. Hillary seems to be doing everything right to secure some votes from both the right and the left, but I haven’t met anyone who really supports her yet.

The survey about voting for women said that the people who claimed they would vote for women claimed that their friends wouldn’t - so maybe we’ll be surprised and we’ll find out at election time that we’re all more tolerant than we thought.

Or maybe Hillary will crash and burn.

Robert Novak writes on the Iowa caucus and Hillary’s chances.

Prominent Democrats are advising Sen. Hillary Clinton that, if she runs for president in 2008 as expected, she should avoid the Iowa caucuses as the first competition for the Democratic nomination.

Iowa is far enough left that to win the caucus there would require a swing from Hillary that counter’s her recent move to the center. It’s true that she’s been giving some fiery speeches lately but those have been primarily about specific people and events. She’s changed her actual platform to something that’s beginning to resemble the right.

Some have said that leaning far left in Iowa, while assuring John Kerry the nomination, became his downfall when he tried to move from that position.

Jay Cost writes:

There is nothing organic to her politics; it all seems artificial. This is the sign of a bad politician. All politicians do the same things. They all change their views. They all move with the political currents. They are all flexible and pragmatic. What differentiates the good politician from the bad one is that you never notice that the good one is pragmatic.

Hillary has been surprising many of her would-be supporters by sounding like a Republican at times - even in the middle of a far-left fundraiser. She was noted moving to the center on abortion and religion and the movements she’s making are anything but subtle.

Cost would argue that this is a sign that she’s a bad politician. The trick here is that all the members of her party are afraid of her because of the enormous political capital they perceive her to have. Many have referred to her at the “elephant in the room” regarding the 2008 primary for the presidential election.

This is a strange paradox that she would be so disregarded by political scientists and so feared by politicians. I suppose in three years we’ll find out exactly who’s right.

While Tom Delay is getting scourged over ethics violations for actions relating to election finance fraud, Hillary is missing the spotlight entirely. Clinton has just as much or more culpability in connection to election finance fraud on her behalf than Delay has regarding his.

Clinton received $2,000,000 from a 2000 Hollywood fundraising event that was never reported. Her former chief financial advisor David Rosen is under indictment in connection to that event and there’s credible evidence that Hillary was well-informed of the events as they occurred. If this is true she could find herself in a tighter spot than even Delay.

The players:

• Aaron Tonken
  He was in charge of actually paying the money required to fund the fundraiser in 2000. He received the money from Peter Paul.
• Peter Paul
  Mr. Paul spent $2 mil of his own money to produce the 2000 Hollywood fundraiser. He claims he was under the impression that all of his expenses would be reported to the federal elections commission.
• David Rosen
  Former chief financial advisor to Senator Hillary Clinton. He has been indicted based on records kept by Tonken and Paul.
• Hillary Clinton
  Senator benefitting from this massive fundraiser. Tonken claims he personally told her dollar-for-dollar where all the money was going. Paul claims she knew all the facts. She has not thus far reported the expenses for the event as part of her campaign finances though the event was clearly focused on her campaign.

Just as John Kerry was defeated in the 2004 elections largely by the Swift Boat Veterans advertisements and books there is already a book being published that is intended to have the same effect on Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Titled The Truth About Hillary, this book has been getting much media attention and even a dedicated short segment on Fox News. Despite the buzz surrounding it very little is known about the contents of this publication. Considering the squeaky-clean record of Hillary since taking office as Senator of New York it is hard to find any breadcrumbs leading to the contents of this book.

The author, Edward Klein, has been known for books that sold very well but were widely regarded as ‘high-school level reporting’ and ‘psychobabble’ (News book review). It’s probably fitting to expect something on the same level as ‘Swift Boat Veterans.’

The former First Lady has been campaigning hard since well before the 2004 election. When asked in 2003 if she had any plans to run in the 2004 presidential race she made it clear that she didn’t, but when asked about 2008 she would give no answer.

To win the next election Hillary sees a need to appease the strong conservative base that defeated the Democratic party in 2004. So far she’s done this by compromising key liberal issues:

• Abortion
  She gave a speech in February of 2005 where she backtracked on abortion saying there was a need to focus on abstinence rather than condoms, adoption rather than abortion. This infuriated many pro-choice democratic supporters.
• Iraq
  Appearing with John McCain in Arizona Hillary spoke of the ’success’ of the Iraqi election.

What she’s doing is compromising the very resolve that made Howard Dean a superstar in the grassroots movement. Hillary seems to have made a thorough strategy to create an image, but it’s likely to backfire as the loyal democratic supporters begin to feel betrayed. I wouldn’t be surprised if Hillary was challenged from the left and defeated in the 2008 primary.