One of my goals when I began Politidose was to get feedback from different people, whether they agreed or disagreed with me and my beliefs. I truly believe the one thing that is crucial to keep our democracy alive is good, honest, debate. So what I have here are comments that came from two of my posts("Al Gore: A True American Hero" and "A Message to Barack Obama: Shut Up"). The debate, in essence, is about whether or not Hillary Clinton is a strong candidate:
-lacyadjuster said...
The ONLY reason why 53% of the people are on a poll supporting Hillary is because Al hasn't said he will run. If he ran, the polls supporting the current Democratic nominees would nosedive. Don't you get it? Pointing to the polls is inaccurate argument for why Al shouldn't run.
-joseph patrick said...
The polls do show that democrats are very happy with their current choices. There is not a clear, defined niche where Gore is needed.
-johnny said...
Democrats were also very happy with their choices in the election years when they nominated Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry. That doesn't mean the current group of nominees are the best candidates in the election. Neither democrats nor republicans elect the president. It's the independents who eventually determine the election and I'm not sold on Hillary Clinton's electability.
-joseph patrick said...
I agree with you there, but Hillary has a record of getting Independents to vote for her, as do the Clintons in general. Also, I believe, as Clinton is the most moderate, most centrist, out of all the candidates, she would do the best in a general election.
johnny said...
One of my problems with Hillary is that you don't really know where she stands. Her opinions seem to be poll driven. After criticizing Obama for saying he'd talk with Iranian leaders with no holds barred, Hillary has now taken the same stance.
~
AP "During a Democratic presidential debate in July, Obama said he would be willing to meet without precondition in the first year of his presidency with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.
Standing with him on stage, Clinton said she would first send envoys to test the waters and called Obama's position irresponsible and naive.
But asked about it Thursday by a voter, the New York senator said twice that she, too, would negotiate with Iran 'with no conditions.'"
-joseph patrick said...
^I too had heard that from the AP, but as it turns out they were actually wrong.
Here is the correction:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/10/associated_pres_8.php
Basically it says she did not say what AP is saying:
"Hillary is saying here that her administration would negotiate with Iran the country unconditionally -- something she's said in various forms repeatedly in the past. She is not saying -- as Barack Obama did -- that she'd personally meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions. Their dispute centered around whether to engage in unconditional personal diplomacy. Whichever side you take, and whatever you think of this distinction, there's just no meaningful flip-flop here."
-johnny said...
How exactly do you meet with a "Country unconditionally" but not that country's leaders? Exactly WHO would she be meeting with? That's like Iran saying that they will meet with US unconditionally but NOT our government's leaders? If that's Hillary's explanation, it's going to be a hard one to sell to the majority of the electorate. Don't think that I'm coming down especially hard on Hillary because of her front-runner status because when the general election comes, I don't think the independents and undecideds are going to buy that explanation and they're the ones who decide the elections in November.
-joseph patrick said...
If you listen to the question posed to Hillary at the event, the question was about her administration, not herself personally. She answered the question with saying yes, but the question wasn't about her, it was about her administration. So I assume she meant people like the Secretary of State, etc. And that explanation is not actually from the Hillary campaign, its from Fox News, who for once actually did some good by playing back the question then the answer.
-johnny said...
You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to... It's all about semantics and when you have to get into technical terms, you lose most of the voters, who now think you're crawfishing.
-joseph patrick said...
I get what you're saying, but as honest people, shouldn't we stand up and tell the AP:"wait, you took Hillary out of context." Isn't it our duty as Americans to search for the truth and not just eat everything we're fed by the media?
So let the debate continue---I want to hear your opinions and get your feedback. What are your opinions of Hillary Clinton?
4 comments :
My opinion? She's playing the same political games her husband Bill played. Slide to the left a little to apease the liberal base.... slide to the right a bit to keep from alienating the conservatives in our party.... Even though I voted for Bill Clinton twice, he was a waffler when it came to satisfying the wants and needs of the liberal base of the party. From his signing of the NAFTA to his compromise "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the military, he never even threw the core of the Democratic party a crumb. Is it any wonder that so many of the liberals in the Democratic party throw their support to the Green party candidate to the detriment of the Democrats? One of the things that has hurt the Republicans is their ignoring the moderates in their party. The majority of voters in this country don't even bother casting a vote anymore and it's partly because the election has become more and more about which party can appease the evangelicalists. Why bother voting when your issues don't even get meaningful debate, much less any chance of passage? I personally was as disappointed in Hillary's answers in the HRC debate where she took the neutral stand on gay marriage where she opposed gay marriage but wasn't opposed to civil unions. That smacked of "don't ask, don't tell" to me. Where are the John Kennedy's? Do you think pushing civil rights legislation was popular back in the 50s and 60s? It wasn't popular but it was right. Hillary's lukewarm support of civil unions tells me that she doesn't care enough about us gays' civil rights to have the intestinal fortitude to actually fight for our basic civil rights.
^to be quite honest, I am more centrist, so I suppose thats why I favor Hillary. I do, however, have no problem with gay marriage.
Hey Johnny, the current group of democrats may not be the best candidates as you state but they are the only democrats in the race at this time. Same goes for the republicans side but a voter has to end up voting who he or she thinks is the best qualified. The only alternative is to stay home on election day. That does not prove anything. We the people have to weigh the positive and negative of the candidates and then make a decision. No candidate is perfect, but neither is any voter.
I've always been of that same mindset until it finally dawned on me that continuing to vote for candidates that don't care about my rights is counterproductive. Yes, I am more attuned to the Democratic agenda, but if they continue to ignore me, I'll have to start ignoring them. I have disagreed with those who have voted for the Green Party candidate in the past, as I felt it took voted from the Democrats and helped elect a Republican. However, if I think the Green Party's agenda is more attune d with my beliefs, I'm voting my convictions instead of just to keep one of the other parties out of power. I stopped voting for my Democratic Congressman many years ago because I don't agree with his voting record. I'll have no problem doing the same in a presidential election.
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