Now that looks like shallow class politics. Do I resent the Clintons because they are rich. No. But they are decades removed from associating with the class of folks who are hurting. From what I read, the press corp who follows her campaign resents the manner in which ALL access to the candidate is shielded and staged. Her campaign was built around a media machine and the advertising was perfect. Too perfect. Artificial. So she looked like a packaged product, and Obama was strikingly real.

Now I may be projecting, but here’s the bottom line. Obama plans to include and use his army AFTER the election. He talks about open hearings on TV for the health care debate that will follow his election. By implication, he’s going to hold some feet to the fire and use the voters who elected him as shock troops in the war against special interests. By way of contrast, I feel like the gates would shut on us after Senator Clinton moved in the White House. The events would all be carefully staged. We would be told that we will be told what we need to know - when we need to know it.

Clinton handled everything in the campaign perfectly. But she neglected the voter.This year, the voters are not buying ‘Big Mac’ candidates. Not this year.

That was part of it, but she also pissed off a lot of people who might have helped her because of the autocratic, secretive way she put together the 1993 proposal. She really doesn’t have a good track record of being able to get a lot of people on board with a project. And the proposal was a mess.

I think her current ideas (which she pretty much lifted from John Edwards) are preferable to Obama’s but neither is what I want or truly universal. I don’t think either plan would work to provide everyone with decent health care in the most cost-efficient way possible.

Bill Clinton is respected and loved around the world; I don’t know about Hillary Clinton. But news stories say that Obama has considerable support around the world.

Also found there, this snippet of Hillary calling for the seating of FLA & MI delegates. There is no time/date stamp on the video, so I figured this has to before the debate. No No, the very next morning. Now we know what she meant when she said the “automatic” delegate issue would sort itself out.

I am an ex-Clintonista now. No pride left in the moniker. This underhanded approach of, “I only agreed not to campaign there” nonsense gives a body memory “ick”. To bad she not listening to Alter, who’s calling for a classy graceful path to the door by getting out before March 4th.

When Bill Clinton ran years ago, before the two of them were well known, many were saying we’d be getting a “two-fer” - two bright progressive people, not just a wifey who baked cookies - in fact there was a flap about this very thing.

Indeed, I have moderate Republican family members who are rooting for the Clintons this time around, for this very reason - a two for one deal, and the supposed vast experience my GOP family members perceive therein.

And so comparisons with any other candidates aren’t quite apples to apples - Michele Obama’s resume can’t stand up to Bill Clinton’s.

Regardless, your overall point is well taken - even with her White House experience, she managed to bollox up health care reform, as well as mis-running this campaign. She does seem to fail spectacularly, as you point out, and needs to be called out on this.

Hillary always impressed me as someone who could read the music but who couldn’t dance or improvise, a real tin ear for politics, unlike her husband, who is truly gifted in this area. It’s edifying that another gifted politician, Barack Obama is running rings around her, and has destroyed her smug claim to inevitability.

I realize there are a lot of obnoxious Obama supporters too, but for once I wish the Clinton supporters — who pride themselves on being realistic and pragmatic — would get a clue how irrational they sound sometimes.

Obama does have a history, you know. He wasn’t hatched out of an egg last week. As my nephew Ian says in comment #3, his record in the Illinois Senate — not only what he accomplished but the kind of legislation he stuck his neck out for — really does speak volumes of good things about him. And his record going back to whenever is quite progressive, IMO somewhat more so that Clinton’s.

Now, because people don’t bother to find out about him, and because news media is worthless, and because the Clinton campaign is selling the false dichotomy that because someone is eloquent he must be an empty suit, people do project all manner of things upon him, some of which doesn’t have anything to do with who he is. However, this is not his fault.

I DON’T think he’s a perfect vessel for my progressive hopes. Although they’re about the same on issues about 90 percent of the time, where Obama and Clinton differ on economic issues, including health care, I tend to prefer Clinton’s positions.

The problem with Clinton’s positions is that she really doesn’t get shit done. My fear, based on her record, is that if she’s elected everything she promised will be watered down, and what we’ll end up with will be a few moderately progressive tweaks to conservative policies. That’s been her pattern for a very long time.