Arkady
President
One of the reasons I supported Clinton over Obama in 2008 was my concern about Obama's mushy rhetoric -- all vague assurances about hope, change, empowering people, and improving the tone in Washington. I worried that if he really believed that drivel, it suggested that he wouldn't be prepared for the way Republicans play politics as a blood sport. I worried that he'd be naively crossing the aisle looking for allies, while they were doing absolutely anything in their power to destroy him on behalf of the special interests they serve (the big corporations, the plutocrats, the polluters, etc.)
With Hillary Clinton, I figured she'd seen the "Clinton Wars" up close and personal, and didn't have any idealistic delusions left about the nature of the GOP. I figured she'd hit the ground on day one with a plan to treat the Republicans as the enemy. Sure, she might "triangulate" the issues, the same way her husband did, but it would be with an eye to taking the wind out of the GOP's sails on issues that would otherwise prove disadvantageous, rather than in the naive hope of winning bipartisan goodwill from the Republican leaders by giving them a portion of what they wanted.
I brought this up because, in relation to another thread, I came across the transcript from an old debate, where the two really captured what it was that had given me that impression about each of them:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/DemocraticDebate/story?id=4666956&page=3#.UFyqo674Kl0
Clinton's message: ""We need a fighter in the White House. We need someone who's going to take on the special interests."
Obama's message: "Change does not happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up ... we're going to enlist the American people in the project of changing this country."
It's that kind of mushy rhetoric that helped Obama win the presidency, especially by energizing younger voters. And it's Clinton's style of hard-edged rhetoric that helped Clinton to lose the nomination. But, for me, those things are what made me so hopeful about Clinton and so skeptical about Obama.
In Obama's defense, he has turned out to be a pretty good president. He's a nightmare on civil liberties matters, of course, and complicit in vast overspend by the Pentagon, but the most important issue of the day is the economy, and he helped to pull us out of a Depression, while simultaneously setting us up better for the long-term with decent healthcare reform. He's earned himself a second term, and even if he hadn't, the alternative of Mitt Romney is so putrid that I can't picture any reasonable person in a swing state not voting Obama this year. Still, I think my initial take on him was right. I think he did squander a lot of time in 2009 and 2010 trying to get bipartisan cooperation that Hillary and I could have told him was never going to materialize. Specifically, he seems to have taken the public option off the table after "moderate" Republican Olympia Snowe indicated that doing so would build Republican consensus on other issues. Despite Obama giving up that key provision, Snowe and every single other Republican voted against the package, anyway.
With Hillary Clinton, I figured she'd seen the "Clinton Wars" up close and personal, and didn't have any idealistic delusions left about the nature of the GOP. I figured she'd hit the ground on day one with a plan to treat the Republicans as the enemy. Sure, she might "triangulate" the issues, the same way her husband did, but it would be with an eye to taking the wind out of the GOP's sails on issues that would otherwise prove disadvantageous, rather than in the naive hope of winning bipartisan goodwill from the Republican leaders by giving them a portion of what they wanted.
I brought this up because, in relation to another thread, I came across the transcript from an old debate, where the two really captured what it was that had given me that impression about each of them:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/DemocraticDebate/story?id=4666956&page=3#.UFyqo674Kl0
Clinton's message: ""We need a fighter in the White House. We need someone who's going to take on the special interests."
Obama's message: "Change does not happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up ... we're going to enlist the American people in the project of changing this country."
It's that kind of mushy rhetoric that helped Obama win the presidency, especially by energizing younger voters. And it's Clinton's style of hard-edged rhetoric that helped Clinton to lose the nomination. But, for me, those things are what made me so hopeful about Clinton and so skeptical about Obama.
In Obama's defense, he has turned out to be a pretty good president. He's a nightmare on civil liberties matters, of course, and complicit in vast overspend by the Pentagon, but the most important issue of the day is the economy, and he helped to pull us out of a Depression, while simultaneously setting us up better for the long-term with decent healthcare reform. He's earned himself a second term, and even if he hadn't, the alternative of Mitt Romney is so putrid that I can't picture any reasonable person in a swing state not voting Obama this year. Still, I think my initial take on him was right. I think he did squander a lot of time in 2009 and 2010 trying to get bipartisan cooperation that Hillary and I could have told him was never going to materialize. Specifically, he seems to have taken the public option off the table after "moderate" Republican Olympia Snowe indicated that doing so would build Republican consensus on other issues. Despite Obama giving up that key provision, Snowe and every single other Republican voted against the package, anyway.
