"Why Hillary Will Lose" By Dick Morris

[debatepro]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/printpage/?url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/02/why_hillary_will_lose.html

By Dick Morris (former political adviser to President Bill Clinton)

Hillary Clinton has blown an almost sure shot at the Democratic presidential nomination. Having surrendered the lead to Obama, she is not likely ever to regain it. It is a fantasy that the Ohio and Texas primaries will be a "firewall" to contain the flames of enthusiasm for Obama and reverse her defeats of February. Just as with Giuliani's supposed Florida firewall, Hillary's will crumble as Obama's momentum carries him forward to the nomination.

Before Hillary lost her first primary or caucus, she lost the dialogue with the Obama campaign vis-à-vis the totally misguided decision to focus her message on experience, surrendering the ground of change to her opponent.
...

Her decision to rely on special interest political action committee and lobbyist contributions and to seed her war chest with the checks of maxed-out donors gave substance to Obama's contrast of the status quo vs. change. With her chief strategist a lobbyist and her top campaign team all in the business, she was awash in associations that crippled her ability to fight for change.
...

As the election turned from Super Tuesday to the heartland, where there are few Hispanics or new immigrants, Hillary's campaign has lost its momentum and its prospects of victory. Obama's victories in Maine, Nebraska, Louisiana and Washington state, and now in Virginia, D.C. and Maryland, show how complete is his mastery of states without immigrants blinded by the Clinton name to sustain it. Hillary's hopes for victory in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina are a fantasy. The Latino population in those states is well below 10 percent and not enough to carry her to victory.

The super-delegates will not be enough to reverse Obama's primary and caucus victories and they will run for cover and join the Obama bandwagon anyway.

[goldcanyonaz]

1. How sweet, RW talking points posted to smear HRC. Who are you people??

[mopinko]

5. who are you people is a better question.

much as it creeps me out to agree with dick morris. she is toast.

[debatepro]

6. Nice try: Quick question?

Why is Dick Morris's argument that hillary should have run a grassroots campaign and as the change candidate versus big donor special interest campaign a right wing talking point? Seriously, this seems to be something Jerome Armstrong (mydd) & Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (dailykos) argued in "Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics".

Guess if you assert something it must be true... If you want to make a run at convincing people your candidate is best you might want to consider adding some more substance to you post.

[jasmine621]

10. What was her "special interest' campaign? I thought she was talking

to working men and women. The power to label, is the power to manipulate. This is exactly what the media is doing and has done.

[debatepro]

16. John Edwards Campaign even went after her on this!!!!!! !!!! !!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!

"jasmine621: I thought she was talking to working men and women."
Sure she "talks" about working men and women. But her campaign is funded by special interest and lobbyist who have constantly worked to undermine working men and women.


http://www.observer.com/2008/edwards-campaign-hits-hillary-special-interest-money

Here's Edwards campaign communications director Chris Kofinis responding to Hillary Clinton's comments yesterday that "it's easy to talk":

"Instead of attacking Democrats, like John Edwards, who have fought against special interests for decades, Senator Clinton may want to first explain to voters why she has taken more money from the defense industry than even the Republican presidential candidates, and has taken more money than any other Democrat from special interests—the health care industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the oil and gas industry—that are helping to destroy the middle class.”

Essentially this is Dick Morris's argument. She shouldn't have taken money from special interest and lobbyist that have worked to undermine the plight of working people.

[Tellurian]

28. I make it a habit of letting people with a "Toe Sucking" fetish deciding who gets my vote..

[debatepro]

32. How nobel you to judge what someone does in their own bedroom!!!

Come on ... think before you speak... is it your job to judge what someone does in the privacy of their own bedroom. I mean there is a reason why most on the left are against police enforcement of anti-sodomy laws.

Seriously... why don't you just discount someone's argument because of their sexual orientation!!!



:sarcasm:

[Tellurian]

33. Really? I see quantum leaps aren't your thing..

Seriously, why don't you do some research and discover why that scum was fired from the BC Admin...

[debatepro]

34. No no no - your changing the subject... multiple times

You think it is alright to judge someone and their arguments based on what they do in their bedroom. That isn't a quantum leap... it is what you just did and a statement of fact...

You changed the subject from the argument. Which was Hillary should have not taken special interest/lobbyist money and run as a change candidate to ad hominem attack on dick Morris based on what he does in his bed room… now he has to be discounted because he was “fired” (official story is he resigned) from the Clinton campaign.

[Tellurian]

37. Why did you conventienty forget my original post was laced with sarcasm..

you should have warned me pre-posting, you were an "anal" debatepro...

[blm]

30. Hillary doesn't side with RW smears against Dems? Since when?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1k0nUWEQg


Character.

and

Karma

[tyne]

2. Occassionally...

even toe-suckers can be right.

[surfermaw]

3. Hillary should have let Bill lower the boom on him when Bill had him on the floor of their Arkansas

On the floor of their Arkansas home, with his fist cocked, when Hillary pulled Bill arm away for Dick Morris face.

[Benhurst]

4. You have to give Dick Morris credit.

It's hard to shovel so much shit while sucking toes. :thumbsup: Dick!

[terrya]

7. Are we supposed to care what that prick has to say?

[Arugula Latte]

8. Nooooo! Not Dick Morris! He's always wrong, and I want Obama to win...

Take it back, Dick! If you say Hillary is going to lose that means she's going to win... :cry:

[Enrique]

9. how did he do predicting Hillary's senate run?

http://www.newshounds.us/2005/08/11/sean_hannity_and_dick_morris_try_to_argue_that_hillary_clintons_22point_lead_means_shes_in_trouble.php

(...)

Only on FOX News would a Democrat's double-digit lead in the polls be painted as a political problem. But that's exactly what Dick Morris, with the very eager and willing Sean Hannity, tried to do last night (8/10/05) on Hannity & Colmes. Alan Colmes could barely keep a straight face.

Colmes opened the segment with guest Dick Morris by announcing the statistics of a new Marist Poll showing Hillary Clinton ahead of her just-announced rival, Jeanine Pirro, 50% to 28% respectively.

Morris, oozing enthusiasm, asked Colmes, "Did you see that poll?" as if it was the best news ever. Colmes looked like he was trying not to crack up as Morris explained why that showed weakness for Hillary. The way he explained it, Pirro's announcement a few days ago that she'll be running for Clinton's senate seat caused a 13-point decline "not to go to Pirro but to switch to undecided." Morris went on to say that "Hillary's problem" (notice that Clinton is "Hillary" but Pirro is "Pirro.") is that New Yorkers don't want her to "walk out on them" by running for president. "The stronger Hillary is, the weaker she is. The more she seems like a likely presidential winner, the more difficult the senate race becomes in New York. It's perfect."

[Political Heretic]

11. I really hate this guy.

[shaniqua6392]

12. So Obama fans are now quoting DICK Morris on DU???

You have got to be kidding me. I never thought I would see the day when we would use the biased writing of this traitorous Fixed News regular commentator on here to smear another Democrat because you don't like her. Wow.

[goldcanyonaz]

15. Yep, the ABC meme is as strong as ever around here.

[debatepro]

17. The question is why is he wrong?

It is convenient to use ad hominem attacks against anyone we don't like. But this is not how you will convince voters (like me in Texas) that she didn't sell us short by taking more special interest money than any other democratic candidate. From Insurance companies, Pharmaceuticals, and Oil Companies... see Edwards quotes from above.

[shaniqua6392]

21. No, that is not the question.

The next thing I see on here will probably be a post on the opinions of OUR candidates from Limbaugh or Hannity or Coulter, et al. Whether you like Clinton or not, the issue is how low people will stoop to insult her. She is, and has been a good fellow Democrat and she deserves treatment based upon that fact. She is not our enemy. She is not a Republican that we are competing and fighting against. All of our candidates have taken special interest money. Let's not be naive. That is the only way to raise the money necessary to become President. We should not resort to quoting the our enemies opinions on our candidates to boost the favor of Senator Obama. I expect Clinton supporters to abide by the same principle. We will all have to come together when this is over. Let's not be so far apart that it will become impossible for Dems to reunite.

[blondeatlast]

13. Dick Morris is and excellent... toe licker. Beyond that, I give up--and don't give a

spew what he thinks, either.

[Rowdyboy]

14. So the old toe-suckers still bashing the Clintons....Some things never change

[algol]

18. I'm for Obama, but I reject anything this loud-mouth has to say

on pretty much any topic. I think Hillary is in real trouble, but rather than cogent analysis, Morris is offering his usual anti-Clinton venom veneered with half-truths.

[debatepro]

19. I encourage you to please explain your argument!!!!

algol: Morris is offering his usual anti-Clinton venom veneered with half-truths.

Which part is a half truth? The fact that she is running a campaign funded by special interests and lobbiest instead of a grass roots based campaign. And that by running a campaign centrally grounded on the experience claims (there is a reason experience versus change is a exit poll quetions)and bypassing the oppurtinity to become the change candidate she has hurt herself and essential feeds Obama's arguments for change in DC.

[algol]

20. He loses any credibility with tripe such as

"But too many of her votes come from Hispanics who fear blacks and from older whites who harbor residual racial feelings."

[debatepro]

24. Right:: But that doesn't answer the special interest experience/change argumetn

I don't agree with that statement either. I guess the difference is that this isn't what I found compelling about his argument.

Oddly, enough he is saying that she should have taken up the mantel of change and built the campaign from the bottom up just like what was argued by Jerome and Markos in Crashing the Gate.

It's people powered politics that will win democratic nominations.

[AlertLurker]

22. What a friggin' JOKE.

Like Obama hasn't been kissing lobbyist ass JUST as hard as Clinton...


only "the Latinos" can save Hillary now!!! But - they are doomed to failure: There are not enough of them...

:rofl:

Unless you count Texas, that is...

With almost 200 delegates up for grabs in that one state ALONE.

And Dick - those superdelegates (those who have already declared) you mention are currently running about 2 to 1 for Hillary over Obama.

[cloudythescribbler]

23. Not long ago, Dick Morris was predicting an Obama victory in S Carolina but Hillary the nominee

He changes his "predictions" as the electoral tide changes. And then explanations pour out like wine from a decanter.

On the likelihood of an Obama nomination victory, I am glad to say that Morris probably now has it right. And, as some have noted to dismissals from Hillary CLinton supporters, Barack Obama CONSISTENTLY runs more strongly than she against John McCain.

"WHO WANTS TO SPEND TRILLIONS MORE ON IRAQ?"

"I DO! I DO!"

[salin]

25. ah Dickie Morris - 6 months ago he was hyping a book and proposed

anti-Hillary movie that he wanted to make to claim that it was inevitable that Hillary would Win the Presidency - he was on all the rw talkshows shrilly trying to scare their base.

Such a putz.

While I now view the Obama campaign as the likely emergent winner - that doesn't change that Morris is an opportunist and a putz. We can do better than post his drivel - let newsmax and the like promote this creep.

[Dinger]

26. Fuck DICK Morris

That is all, almost.

[moosen]

27. Just wait until Morris turns on BHO once it's McCain vs. Obama

and so will the rest of thr right wing press that's been cheerleading for Barack thus far. They were heavily behind Dean at one point as well...

[debatepro]

29. Then we will just need to counter his arguments!!!!

point out his inconstancies, hypocrisy, with reasons, evidence, and analysis. Attacking the person doesn't accomplish anything but give credence to lackadaisical arguments.

[QC]

31. Why so many of us think Obamatrons are cryptorepublicans.

This kind of thread is Exhibit A.

[debatepro]

35. I have never voted for a republican... i have block walked ... for democrats for over a decade!!!!!

I have made phone calls... i have built websites... all for democrats... I have donated time and money in 2k4 JRE, KERRY, ETC... I volunteered on the Chris Bell for governor campaign 2k6... and donated money to multiple democratic candidates... on multiple levels.

I included the article because of the arguments… not the person… I would be happy to verify my identity and my public record … on all the above claims…


YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO JUDGE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[emilyg]

36. Dick Morris? LOL

[DangerDave921]

38. Flip-Flopper!

A few weeks ago, Morris wrote an article explaining very clearly how Obama would win South Carolina big, which would itself fuel his eventual losing. He predicted that Obama would be seen as the "black" candidate and that white voters would move to Hillary. Didn't really work out that way, so Dickie changes his tune. Now he says Hillary is done.

Look -- the guy is a paid pundit. He needs to write something, and say something on tv every night. Don't credit anything the guy says.