(no subject)

[rm]

Instead of couching this as "why Hillary drives me nuts" I'm going to couch this as "why Hllary needs a new speech writer."

Regardless, it comes out to the same. Did you see her speech last night when she ranted about shattering the glass ceiling, as if her struggle, as a wealthy, well-educated woman whose claim of experience isn't just her senate seat, but having been married to the president is somehow indicative of the struggles most women face? Sorry, her glass ceiling isn't my glass ceiling. Number two? Trying to put that against the Obama single mom story? Bad idea.

Also? People holding signs saying "We've got your back, Hillary"? Shouldn't she have ours?

She just sets my teeth on edge, mainly because I feel like her strategists are idiots.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

Exactly. One of the things that is so stunning about Obama's rhetorical skill is that before he appeared on the scene, Bill Clinton was the best American political orator in my lifetime.

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

Bill Clinton has the singular ability to give a speech and make you think that he is talking to YOU and only YOU.

That's skill.

It was a LARGE factor into what won him the Presidency.

Mike Huckabee said something on one of the pundit shows and I cannot remember the show or quote him exactly, but he essentially said you underestimate Obama at your peril. The American people aren't necessarily looking for a mechanic, they want someone who can drive the car and get them where they want to go and find a mechanic. Obama can do that.

And that's a Republican saying that.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yup, and to extend on that (and I've met Bill Clinton, and it's true and it's weird) Bill had that "you" thing, Obama has this amazing "we" thing, and Hillary just keeps talking about herself. I believe that their is great use and power in vanity and ambition, but I don't believe it of her vanity and ambition.

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

The "WE" thing is spot on. I never thought about it, but you are so right.

Thanks for that.

He really gives you the sense that he's driving the bus and everyone is welcome aboard.

[askeladden.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he's an excellent rhetorician. But what keeps getting overlooked by the deliberately dense opposition is that he's got more substance than I've seen in a political candidate in years. His whole specific, well-reasoned platform is right there on the website. He's got an admirable legislative record. He's a constitutional scholar and a best-selling author. When you compare how the two of them have actually spent their time over the last 23 years, her whole "experience" line looks pretty pale. It frustrates me tremendously when I hear people saying he's nothing but empty words; if he started talking policy, their eyes would glaze over. He's campaigning. Inspirational speeches are the way to get elected, and he at least can make them with passion and dignity. If we can actually get the guy in the White House, I'm hoping he'll switch gears and spend maybe 40% of the time being a sensible, rift-healing figurehead for America to the rest of the world and 60% of the time leveraging Congress to put the brakes on the twenty different mad plunges towards destruction that we've been on since the turn of the century. Oh, and some actual progress would be nice too, but I won't hold my breath.

I don't think Senator Clinton's election to president would be the worst thing that could happen to this country, but what an anticlimax! And ugh, what a lot of squabbling on every side it'll foment. She doesn't have the gravitas to be a public figure, and she doesn't have the strength of will to effect significant change in the face of the current administration's entrenched vileness. She's got smarts and she's got ambition and she's more or less on my side in the culture wars, but is that all we can hope to ask for from our government? Screw it. Obama all the way.

(links from Monadology.)