Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Beyond

Hillary’s aura has dulled over the years. I doubt she will run.

I hope not, remember that Bill Clinton deregulated the banks caused 2008 financial crisis

Bill Clinton signed into law the repeal of the Glass Steagall act. Allowing banks to run wild.

Hilary Clinton is no savior for the American people. She is qualified only to continue where Bill left off hiding behind his saxophone.

She may not want to run, but if she did the nomination is hers (barring unforeseen events, of course) and she’d have a good chance to win.

And I disagree with the good doctor; I think her stint at State has greatly burnished her reputation, and the praise heaped upon the Clinton years by the Republicans this time around has drawn a lot of the sting from any attacks they could make.

IMHO, age is the only factor that may prevent her (I certainly believe she’s ambitious enough!)

She’ll be 69; John McCain was 72 in 2008; Romney 65 this year.

And what do they all have in common? Failed white house bids. I don’t think she will run, she says she is tired and she looks every bit of tired. If she does want to, she had better start eating vegan with her hubby. She’s smart, no doubt. She also has a great shot at winning. But, I don’t think people of that age can win any longer. Times have changed,and many of us remember Reagan. If not, McCain and Biden are still around to remind us what 70 somethings are like in office.

Fred,
Your Hillary fetish is um… I don’t usually like to comment on a chap’s romantic life, my motto being you’re free to do anything as long as it doesn’t frighten the farm animals but…
Fred, you’re frightening the farm animals!

Hillary is a formidable woman no doubt and was obviously a more qualified candidate than BarryO, but another Clinton? The Kennedys, Bush senior and W, and a possible Clinton double act. Dynastic politics. It seems you Americans miss having a Queen. You crave the dignity and continuity of a monarchy.

Hillary is the most qualified female candidate out there. Well respected overseas aswell with vast experience in government affairs. Smart as a whip too. She would make a fine President and a great example as the first female president of the US. I guess she will kick back a bit now and mull her options.
There was a while there when I was traveling a lot but no matter how much I got around she was doing the same. Hard worker.

Better stated as

Hillary is the most qualified candidate out there.

No need to have “female” added, me thinks…

[quote]Fred,
Your Hillary fetish is um… I don’t usually like to comment on a chap’s romantic life, my motto being you’re free to do anything as long as it doesn’t frighten the farm animals but…
Fred, you’re frightening the farm animals![/quote]

Why should they be frightened when you have already serviced and satisfied them?

so then you agree?

and Romney and Bush and Kerry and Gore…

Your view. Go back and reread your own statement regarding formidable. I concur. I would not only vote for her but also I would work on her campaign.

Don’t worry folks, Karl Rove [see “laughing stock”] has guaranteed that for $1 billion he can prevent Obama from getting re-elected. This time for sure… According to the in-house Republican polls… :roflmao:

so then you agree?

and Romney and Bush and Kerry and Gore…

Your view. Go back and reread your own statement regarding formidable. I concur. I would not only vote for her but also I would work on her campaign.[/quote]

I have to admire your non-partisan broadmindedness these days, but I guess it’s not that difficult when you [edit: naughty words removed]; just a matter of switching from suckling at the right breast to suckling at the left one.

Although Hillary may be a capable and hard-working politician, is that enough? There is also the question of morality, of basic decency. If I were a citizen of the last great hope for mankind, I would prefer someone who was not such a career politician, not such a Washington insider - someone not so synonymous with political sleaze.

Meh. They’re all politicians, no matter how they try to sell it. All else being equal, I’ll stick with the most capable one.

Where do you think that my overall positions have changed? I have articulated very clearly what I support and what I do not. I do so when Bush was president and I have done so now that Obama is president. I assure you that no one at the level cares in the least what I think and it has no impact on me or anything that I do.

Do you think that Sotomayor and Kagan are wrong choices or that I am wrong to support them particularly since Sotomayor was nominated by Bush I?

As to foreign policy, do you think that I have changed my views because Obama is president and Bush no longer is? Read my comments from 2002 about Afghanistan. Read my many comments about not wanting to leave Iraq but to leave 35k to 50k troops there while recognizing that the repivot to East Asia is perhaps more strategic and important in the long run. Feel free to tell me from a policy point of view where you think that I differ. I doubt that you will be able to find anything to support your views. I freely expressed my distate with Bush spending levels and I have raised the same issues now. I supported Bush’s efforts to reform entitlement. He did not succeed. I have raised questions regarding Obamacare and its effect on business, while noting that the government does not always run programs efficiently. I still say, however, that anyone who claims to know all about Obamacare is deluding themselves. As to its effect on business and the lack of investment and hiring, I think that I have been very consistent about those aspects. Do you have proof otherwise?

[quote]
Although Hillary may be a capable and hard-working politician, is that enough? There is also the question of morality, of basic decency. If I were a citizen of the last great hope for mankind, I would prefer someone who was not such a career politician, not such a Washington insider - someone not so synonymous with political sleaze. [/quote]

I have admired Hillary even as a senator and have indicated that long ago… I never was one of those Republicans who was adamantly anti-Clinton either Bill or Hillary.

What sleaze are you referring to? the sleaze that was investigated in the mid 1990s? to my knowledge nothing was ever substantiated but there were concerns about investments in commodities that were highly profitable and Whitewater when she was legal counsel. This would have all dated from the 1980s. Where has the scandal been since?

Was she not a successful and widely admired centrist while senator from New York? Or am I the only Republican who learned to admire her strong foreign policy, defense and reform proposals? I assure you that I am not. Look to the polls and note how many Republicans now actually like and respect her. She works very hard and is very well prepared. All recognize that.

Anyway, I understand your “all-knowing cynicism.” But to what purpose? It comes off as ignorant, resigned and lazy. Just my views.

What sleaze you ask! I’m just thinking of general sleaze, mostly in relation to her husband. It’s impossible to be entirely sure of her motivations, but it would be safe to assume she covered up for his multiple indiscretions, time and again, and handled things in the way she did largely for her own political benefit.Simply not cricket. Not very honourable at all.

She’s a politician’s politician for sure and I can understand the appeal. I just wouldn’t give her as high marks as you would, surprisingly high marks when you consider her take on climate change, the UN etc.

Anyway, you already have one Big John to play with, so you don’t need another, and with the mod asking me to edit my post I’m not in a position to respond. I will simply leave you with Hillary Clinton’s greatest crime - her misuse of the name of New Zealand’s favourite son. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/nyregion/17hillary.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print

Bang! Bang! Oh damn, coming under sniper fire. Got to run.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BfNqhV5hg4

There’s zero chance Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016 because she knows her private life will be exposed and America isn’t ready yet for its first bi/lesbian president.

It is precisely her views on climate change and the UN, which I doubt that you know or understand, that I like. Didn’t take that long to answer that one, did it?

Oh so Hillary is not from the climber… Whoop-ti-do.

And if she were the lesbian, bisexual that you claim (next post), strange that she would have a problem running in 2016 when she did in 2008. Wherein lies the difference? Has she suddenly “gotten busy” since not winning the presidency?

:unamused: :unamused: :unamused:

Good grief, this Hillary fetish is more serious than I first thought. Could be some kind of Mommy Complex - damn those infant formula companies!

As for your “whoop-ti-do” regarding Hillary and the ‘climber’, I included it as a light-hearted example of her dishonesty (unlike the “under sniper fire” one), but when you really think about it, it actually says a lot about her. In fact, the late, great Christopher Hitchens used it as an intro to this piece:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2008/01/the_case_against_hillary_clinton.html

[quote]On a first-lady goodwill tour of Asia in April 1995—the kind of banal trip that she now claims as part of her foreign-policy “experience”—Mrs. Clinton had been in Nepal and been briefly introduced to the late Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Mount Everest. Ever ready to milk the moment, she announced that her mother had actually named her for this famous and intrepid explorer. The claim “worked” well enough to be repeated at other stops and even showed up in Bill Clinton’s memoirs almost a decade later, as one more instance of the gutsy tradition that undergirds the junior senator from New York.

Sen. Clinton was born in 1947, and Sir Edmund Hillary and his partner Tenzing Norgay did not ascend Mount Everest until 1953, so the story was self-evidently untrue and eventually yielded to fact-checking. Indeed, a spokeswoman for Sen. Clinton named Jennifer Hanley phrased it like this in a statement in October 2006, conceding that the tale was untrue but nonetheless charming: “It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her daughter, to great results I might add.”

Perfect. It worked, in other words, having been coined long after Sir Edmund became a bankable celebrity, but now its usefulness is exhausted and its untruth can safely be blamed on Mummy. Yet isn’t it all—all of it, every single episode and detail of the Clinton saga—exactly like that? And isn’t some of it a little bit more serious? For Sen. Clinton, something is true if it validates the myth of her striving and her “greatness” (her overweening ambition in other words) and only ceases to be true when it no longer serves that limitless purpose. And we are all supposed to applaud the skill and the bare-faced bravado with which this is done. In the New Hampshire primary in 1992, she knowingly lied about her husband’s uncontainable sex life and put him eternally in her debt."[/quote]

Lots of fun stuff on YouTube if you search for “Hitchens on Clinton”. For those new to Hitchens, just a note that he’s a polemicist who seems to be more concerned with the brilliance of his own arguments than the actual topic at hand. Fun and thought-provoking but to be taken with a grain of salt.

almas john: Since you brought Hitchens up, have you seen this video where he talks about Thomas Jefferson? Awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzKiZ39Dvho

[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]almas john: Since you brought Hitchens up, have you seen this video where he talks about Thomas Jefferson? Awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzKiZ39Dvho[/quote]

Thanks mate. And completely on topic because he mentions Hillary a few times. Hadn’t seen it before. Good stuff.
Good God, I would have loved to have gone on the piss with Hitchens.

Anyway, Jefferson is a great topic. The American founding fathers are held up as almost saintlike; you approach reading about them with trepidation, sure that the truth will fall far far short of the story. And in fact the reality is not a small and shabby version of the myth; one of the great convergences of outstanding historical personalities and circumstances.

Guy, when I wrote the previous post, I was half way into the video. The second half - him answering questions from the audience - is even better than the first. Fucking superb! Could listen all day and I’m not just saying that because I’ve knocking back the Orangeboom 12%. Love the way he smokes but because he is the Hitch nobody complains.
Hitchens is… damn, was, a modern-day Orwell. Sometimes wrong, but never boring, and, hey, Orwell wasn’t perfect. As highlighted in your signature, Orwell had an irrational hatred of vegetarians.

Once again, thanks for the link to the video.

Hillary stayed in an (emotionally) abusive relationship (yes psychologists reckon a string of affairs is disrespect and abuse to your spouse) for her own ambition. She wanted Bill’s vote banks, and she didn’t have the courage to make it on her own. I mean she married her sugar daddy and stayed married to him. This whole thing, about a woman needing a powerful man to attain a top position - no matter how badly he treated her, the guy was smoking cigars out of you know, knowing full well she knew - is uggggghhhhh. There are the likes of Jackie Kennedy who remained married despite their husband’s affairs coz, it was the times, also you have young kids and well, Hillary??? She didn’t have to worry about any of that. Had she divorced him and then used her popularity to gather votes, maybe then I’d say, whoa, the woman did it. She’s an opportunist who is banking on her husband’s popularity, so they really deserve each other but they don’t both deserve to be the President.

Her international trips as first lady are all blah…she was a spouse, and you do all the support thingies of a spouse and it is a lot of hard work, especially if you’re in the spotlight, and you get credit as a great first lady, but you don’t become qualified to run for President. The last four years have shown, she is good at her job, but not exactly spectacular. She has the best brains in the country to advise her and yet… :thumbsdown: