(no subject)
Congrats to the Obama/Biden campaign. This is exciting news.
I wanted to take the opportunity to repost a comment that I left in a friend's post. He was lamenting the decision not to pick Hillary as a running mate, and I couldn't think of a worse outcome then for that to have happened:
I want to preface this by saying that I don't necessarily have anything against Hillary herself, and I think that she had some good ideas and that she could have/maybe still will do great things in the white house.
However, two major reasons, among many, that it'd have been a horrid choice to pick her as a running mate are the way that she ran her campaign, and her credentials in the republican party.
It may be difficult to remember all those 3 months ago now, but during her run up to the June 3rd primaries where she finally admitted defeat (well... at least she did a week later), she campaign was an abysmal mess both politically and logistically. She and Bill were lashing out wildly at anything they could grab hold of, and even betraying core ideals of her party in order to differentiate herself from Obama. She supported policies that were outright idiotic (repeal of the gas tax, anyone?), often appearing to be more in line with McCain and the republicans then any democratic candidate really should be in a primary. She also was very quick to jump on issues that were blatant distractions (flag pins? Rev. Wright? stupid fucking pictures of Obama in middle-eastern garb? Elitism?) to achieve a shallow victory instead of being confident in her stance on issues and relying on that to sway voters.
Logistically, her campaign continually ran in an unsustainable debt, and seemed to have little direction or discretion. She campaigned in ridiculous areas, and tried to overturn decisions that she herself had made mere months earlier (Florida and Michigan?) in order to achieve a cheap victory on a technicality. Does anyone even know if she's paid back the $11mil that she owed to all of those vendors when she ended her campaign?
Beyond that, and admittedly this has very little to do with her but it still makes all the difference in the decision for her as a running mate, is that she's a VERY polarizing figure in the Republican party. Many MANY republicans wanted her to win the nomination because it would be so easy for the party to rally against her. This elections is going to be tight and come down to swing voters, so when choosing a running mate its absolutely crucial to find one that not only isn't polarizing, but can even bring in some of those conservative votes.
The term "Dream Ticket" was coined well before Hillary's campaign got underway, and I know that I would no longer consider it a dream.
I wanted to take the opportunity to repost a comment that I left in a friend's post. He was lamenting the decision not to pick Hillary as a running mate, and I couldn't think of a worse outcome then for that to have happened:
I want to preface this by saying that I don't necessarily have anything against Hillary herself, and I think that she had some good ideas and that she could have/maybe still will do great things in the white house.
However, two major reasons, among many, that it'd have been a horrid choice to pick her as a running mate are the way that she ran her campaign, and her credentials in the republican party.
It may be difficult to remember all those 3 months ago now, but during her run up to the June 3rd primaries where she finally admitted defeat (well... at least she did a week later), she campaign was an abysmal mess both politically and logistically. She and Bill were lashing out wildly at anything they could grab hold of, and even betraying core ideals of her party in order to differentiate herself from Obama. She supported policies that were outright idiotic (repeal of the gas tax, anyone?), often appearing to be more in line with McCain and the republicans then any democratic candidate really should be in a primary. She also was very quick to jump on issues that were blatant distractions (flag pins? Rev. Wright? stupid fucking pictures of Obama in middle-eastern garb? Elitism?) to achieve a shallow victory instead of being confident in her stance on issues and relying on that to sway voters.
Logistically, her campaign continually ran in an unsustainable debt, and seemed to have little direction or discretion. She campaigned in ridiculous areas, and tried to overturn decisions that she herself had made mere months earlier (Florida and Michigan?) in order to achieve a cheap victory on a technicality. Does anyone even know if she's paid back the $11mil that she owed to all of those vendors when she ended her campaign?
Beyond that, and admittedly this has very little to do with her but it still makes all the difference in the decision for her as a running mate, is that she's a VERY polarizing figure in the Republican party. Many MANY republicans wanted her to win the nomination because it would be so easy for the party to rally against her. This elections is going to be tight and come down to swing voters, so when choosing a running mate its absolutely crucial to find one that not only isn't polarizing, but can even bring in some of those conservative votes.
The term "Dream Ticket" was coined well before Hillary's campaign got underway, and I know that I would no longer consider it a dream.