The Biggest Myth Of 2008

[THUNDER HANDS]

The biggest myth of 2008 is that Hillary Clinton can win because she has, in her and her supporters words: "Been tested" and has overcome all they've thrown at her.


How, exactly has she been tested? And what has she done to prove she's been able to overcome it?


She got put in charge of reforming health care in the first few years of her husband's administration. A position to which she was neither qualified for, nor accountable to any government oversight committee because she wasn't an appointed-member of the president's administration.

She failed to accomplish her goals with that, and then upon facing that failure, receded to the background for the rest of her husband's term, assuming a more traditional First Lady role. She was never put in charge of any other major initiatives afterwords.

Then she was faced with a more personal test, her husband's infidelity. It's impossible to say that she was able to overcome that, because your reaction to her reaction to that event says as much about you as it does her. Was she right to stick with her husband? Would you have done the same to a cheating spouse? Or would you have packed up and left?

There's no right or wrong way to handle that situation. So there's no way to accurately judge whether her sticking with him was an example of her overcoming a test. People would say she overcame that test no matter what she decided to do in that instance.

Then after her role as First Lady was finished, she ran for senator in one of the top-3 states in the union. A position to which, again, she was not qualified for because she had no legislative experience. She had a name, sure, and that no doubt helped her.

She faced a powerful opponent - Rudy Guliani - which would have been a true test of her abilities as a campaigner and a politician.

Unfortunately, Guliani got diagnosed with prostate cancer and had to drop out. In his stead rose Rick Lazio, an affable, if entirely overmatched lightweight congressman from Long Island who neither had the funds, time, nor the name recognition to mount a serious challenge to her. Even in that, he still ended up winning Long Island, the only place he was known, and the only parts of the state where Clinton didn't have victories.

Then in 2006 she ran for re-election against an even more overmatched opponent John Spencer, a person who nobody outside of Yonkers had ever heard of.

A year later, she's running for the presidency, having never faced an opponent who seriously challenged her.

Until now.

And her opponent is a guy most of the country had never heard of before this year. A black guy with a muslim-sounding name who runs a campaign completely unlike any campaign she or her husband ever faced before.

She had the backing of the party establishment. She had the big donors. She had the air of inevitability. National polls put her 20, 30, 40 points ahead. She had the backing of the most respected and powerful person in the party - her husband - who had unlimited time to donate to her campaign.

She had everything going her way.

And then Iowa happened and that just screwed everything up.

Ever since then, her campaign has been a series of stops and starts, rise a little here, fall a little there, win big over here, lose big over there. Do well with women. Do poorly with men. Do well with hispanics. Do poorly with blacks. Win the old. Lose the young. Do well with die-hard democrats, do poorly with independents.

To say that her track record after getting tested is complete success would be a rather large exaggeration, if not an outright untruth.



Look what happened. Someone not completely incompetent challenged her, and has put her back on her heels.

If that points to Hillary's claim that she's been tested, then it doesn't bode well should she squeak by a race where all the voters were mostly favorable to her, personally. What is she going to do in a race against someone where she has to expand her reach beyond the sea of Democratic voters?

Tested? She hasn't even picked up her pencil yet.

[FrenchieCat]

1. McCain beats Hillary's "having been Tested" meme like a drum

I'm praying that Hillary isn't the nominee.

McCain beats her at experience and integrity and authenticity and he ain't Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton!

[hedgehog]

2. I couldn't have said it better myself!

By the way, John SPencer? He's best known for marrying his secretary nad keeping her on the city payroll.

Hillary avoided the real test in the 2006 Senatorial Race; she adamantly refused to debate the Peace Candidate, Jonothan Tasini although he was polling at 10% and had views much closer to those of most New York Democrats. The day after the November Election, Hillary suddenly mutated into a Peace candidate.

[Eric J in MN]

12. If she continued doing the job of being a secretary,

why shouldn't she continue getting paid?

[hedgehog]

14. It's a little more involved than that:

For years as mayor, Mr. Spencer carried on an affair that was an open secret with his chief of staff, Kathy Spring. He eventually divorced his wife, and in 2003, he married Ms. Spring, with whom he had already had two children. They later had a third child.

Mrs. Spencer worked for the Yonkers city government and when Mr. Spencer left office, he gave $1.1 million in raises to people on the city payroll, including his wife. His critics cried conflict.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/nyregion/20spencer.html?pagewanted=all

Mr. Spencer's extramarital relationship with a former Yonkers City Hall staff member, Kathy Spring, whose salary almost tripled while she worked for him and who bore two of his children while he was still married. Mr. Spencer, who subsequently divorced his wife and married Mrs. Spring, insists that she was qualified for the job.

http://www.nysun.com/article/38167?page_no=2


According to his opponent in the Republican Primary, John Spencer moved in with Kathy Spring and then proceeded to double her salary.

[Eric J in MN]

15. OK, then the problem isn't that she stayed on the city payroll,

...but that he determined her compensation instead of delegating that to a neutral party.

[woolldog]

3. Another myth

I think an even bigger myth is those "35 years of experience" she claims.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4500490

[sam sarrha]

4. the 2nd biggest myth of 2008, the ObamaNation is not going to be a Utopia either, the Re thugs have

thrown us all into hell in a hand basket.

neither your guy nor Hillery are addressing the most serious problems facing us

the mortgage bundles were sold to investors holding nearly all the pension funds in the nation, we will have yo raise taxes to cover the insured investments, and provide care for people who lost everything

no one is dealing with reality... we need to start a national energy project to free us from oil, there are half a dozen projects that need to be heavily funded to prevent total breakdown of our and the worlds economy... we need to start now

[glowing]

8. You are so right.. no one left is dealing in reality.. its b.s. politics

[bowens43]

5. You can bet that the repubs have truck loads of dirt on HIllary.

Whether or it's true or not, they can smear her much more easily then Obama. She is already the most hated Democrat in the party. We all know that the republicans have been pushing her as 'inevitable' for the last three or four years. They have done so because they know without doubt that she is unelectable. She may have been tested, but she failed miserably in the realm of public opinion.

[Drunken Irishman]

6. Spot on.

[housewolf]

7. She's fought the "Right Wing Media Machine" for years

She's had to contend with all those scandals all those years - Travelgate, Whitewater, Vince Foster, Monica, "HillaryCare", to mention a few. Be there any truth to any of them or not, those are the battles she has fought... battles over real or manufactured scandals.

What's less obvious are her efforts in the Senate over specific legislaton and confirmations.

I'm an Obama supporter but I have to give Hillary her due for dealing with all that negative media attention (whether it was deserved or not) and she's still standing. It says "something" about her - but not about her governing ability.

[bagrman]

9. If we're going for "Change" then we have to against the Old School politicos.

[NC_Nurse]

10. Excellent points.

All themes of experience and endurance are totally overblown in her case.

If you want to talk "tested", McCain spent 5 years as a POW - I think that beats having your husband cheat on you.
I think that beats dealing with the U.S. media and the Repub jerks.

It's not going to fly in the GE AT ALL. Obama has a totally different message and different strengths. That
will be a real contrast to McCain.

K&R

[intaglio]

11. I see the experience she boasts about being Bill's

All too often I see people quoting his record and achievements as a reason to vote Hillary. Whatever the merits or demerits of his record, Hillary should not be blessed or tainted by them.

I find myself asking if her campaign is trying to portray her either as the "tough independant woman", the "passive little wife" or the "betrayed faithful spouse"? Another question is what happens if you erase Bill from Hillary's past what then are her achievements compared to those of other Congresswomen?

[grantcart]

13. This whole "she has been tested" and "they threw everything they

could at me and I am still standing" is based on the faulty premise that just because we are sick of all of the gates (do they have to be listed)that means the republicans adn there 527s will not go thru the whole thing again. We will have to revisit every petty detail from Foster to Lewinsky.

That it is stupid or baseless or irrelevent is not germaine look at what happened with Kerry's honorable Vietnam service.

That we would want to go thru this again is beyond belief, when we have an intelligent, progressive, articulate, charismatic alternative.


And further to Frenchie's point they will run ads featuring Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton picture montages and in a grotesque twist they will be running away from not only Clinton but also Bush.

We cannot be this dim witted.

[Bread and Circus]

16. KNR. nice work.

[returnable]

17. If she can't beat a cult of rainbow-smokin' Kool-Aid drinkers with no command of complex issues...

...who can she beat?

:kick:

[foerschie]

18. This is laughable, she has been tested.