Monday, January 07, 2008

Hillary Falters

A Kos reader provides an interesting take on the "Hillary Implosion." An excerpt:

"(In 2000), she ran a terrific campaign based on the issues with positive rhetoric and ended up beating a faux moderate congressman named Rick Lazio by ten points. She was charming, endearing, and went out and earned votes. She earned mine. If you had asked me on November 1, 2000 who my first choice for President would have been in 2008, I would have told you Hillary Clinton. But the Hillary of 2008 is not the Hillary of 2000. That's why I won't support her in the primary.

Somewhere along the line, Hillary made a decision to abandon some of her core principles and cast votes not based on her principles but based on what she thought would make her "more electable" in 2008. Her votes on Iraq and Iran were part of the old Washington game of giving yourself political cover by having votes on all side of an issue so you can argue one way or the other depending on which way the wind was blowing x number of years down the road. ...Somewhere inside of her I know she hates herself for doing this because she genuinely knows better and IS better. Her desire to please the Washington Cocktail Party Elitists overtook her common sense.

Gore hated himself for doing this prior to 2000 before his epiphany and John Edwards hated himself for doing this in 2002 and 2003 before he too had a genuine inner transformation. Both men realize that such a strategy keeps tens of millions of Democratic voters home and gives Republicans narrow wins or close losses. Hillary should have known better."

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