Do the Clintons know something the rest of the world doesn't?

[mhr123]

[CC1981]

I would have no problems if Hillary thinks that and gives her candidature her best shot. Instead what has progressively happened is that she has lost her marbles and went completly against her party's interest.

In the world of politics, that is par for the course and that is exactly what i expect/would do in her shoes, simply because, as i said earlier, what is best for Hillary is to either win the nomination NOW or scuttle the Democrats NOW.

A year or so ago it was sealed, wrapped in gift paper and ready to be handed over to her. George Bush was/is having the least favorable rating of any US President ever(almost 20%). US economy had started to feel recession, gas prices were off the roof, Republican parties was being with scandals from Florida to Minneappolis men's room. US being a 2 party country it was given Democrat will win 2008. Hillary Clinton was overwhelming Democrat nominee and Obama, a first time Senator, was not even a top 3 candidate(John Edwards and Bill Richardsom always scored more).

I for one will have to disagree. I was discussing this a few months ago with my friends here- which is more likely- that America will elect a woman as a President or America will elect a black man as a president. And the consensus was unanimous amongst us- that despite what it may seem like, America remains a far more sexist nation than a racist nation (though it is both) and the chances of a woman as the CEO of the country are far less than that of an ethnic minority dude. And so far, America has been bang on target of what me and my friends predicted- if Hillary can't win the Democratic nomination, let alone the Presidency, it goes on to show how far America has to go on its gender hangup issues. For Hillary is, quite easily, the most qualified woman in the American administration and she comes with the extra perk of having an extremely well performed former President as her hubby to give her advice/guidance. And not to mention, the whole 'exit polls/cnn-gallup polls' phenomenon of America is truely fascinating in how much credibility is associated with such a loopy statistic. For how can polling a few thousand people randomly lead to any sort of concrete idea on how a nation of 300 million will vote is beyond me....

His knack of giving speeches made people sit up and take notice.

Well the way i look at it, i am not easily swayed by eloquoence. Takes a helluva lot more than a sweet-n-confident talker to convince me that the person has substance and isn't just a bag of hot-air. And i can't say i am surprised that Americans with their television addiction and dyslexic attention span has somehow equated a rosy speaker as someone worth noticing. As far as i am concerned, i don't care much for American politics or this election, particularly because ALL three candidates have more or less the identical agendas when it comes to issues i'd care about, namely, American international trade and foreign policies. All of them espouse free trade which i hate, all of them (by all, i mean Hillary, Obama and McCootyCain) have the same idea on Iraq-Afghanistan and all of them have more or less the same idiotic ideas about social development.

[Brainfade]

Obama on the other hand had no baggage to carry. If anything his record only helped him, as witnessed by his anti-Iraq war vote. His knack of giving speeches made people sit up and take notice. The man came across as most intelligent Democrat nominee(after Joe Biden but Biden never had a chance) and when push came to shove he took stance, as witnessed in the latest Gas-tax holiday. .

Lurker, what anti-Iraq vote are you talking about? In 2002, he was not even a US Senator. He had no vote. In that respect, he was no different than 300 million other Americans. Like I said before (looks like CC1981 is the only one who reads and verifies what I say on this forum :D), even Democrats who spoke up against the war voted to give the President power to declare war (not tantamount to supporting it). They trusted the CIA and the administration, even if they themselves were against the war. Obama had no such pressure then. It is easy to take a stand when you don't have to put your vote where your mouth is. Here is an Obama quote from 2004 (emphases are mine): "I would have voted not to authorize the president to go to war given the facts as I saw them at that time. But, as I said, I wasn't there... and what is absolutely clear as we move forward is that if we don't have a change in tone & a change in administration, I think we're going to have trouble making sure that our troops are secure and that we succeed in Iraq." I admire the fellow for his charisma, but he scares the heck out of me. He has no administrative experience and seems really naive. I am afraid that, under the eloquence, lies an empty suit. But, he at least, has the eloquence. His fellow-contender, OTOH ...

[Lurker]

Lurker, what anti-Iraq vote are you talking about? In 2002, he was not even a US Senator. He had no vote. In that respect, he was no different than 300 million other Americans. Like I said before (looks like CC1981 is the only one who reads and verifies what I say on this forum :D), even Democrats who spoke up against the war voted to give the President power to declare war (not tantamount to supporting it). They trusted the CIA and the administration, even if they themselves were against the war. Obama had no such pressure then. It is easy to take a stand when you don't have to put your vote where your mouth is.

My assertion was very clearly that Obama did NOT support Iraq war. That vote you are debating upon never happened. By that I mean there was no Anti-Iraq war bill, the only bill that was brought in was the Iraq war bill and that was supported by Hillary Clinton. So if you go by technicalities then I see no reason of your viewpoint. Also it is very easy to make the argument that - it is easy to take a stand etc etc. The fact is that when Obama did stand against Iraq war there were not too many people(for either parties) who were doing that. And so whoever stood against the war then definitely receives my support.

[Lurker]

In the world of politics, that is par for the course and that is exactly what i expect/would do in her shoes, simply because, as i said earlier, what is best for Hillary is to either win the nomination NOW or scuttle the Democrats NOW.

In other words Hillary is being plain selfish and doesnt worry if Democratic party goes down the toilet. Yep thats what I think so too.

And the consensus was unanimous amongst us- that despite what it may seem like, America remains a far more sexist nation than a racist nation (though it is both) and the chances of a woman as the CEO of the country are far less than that of an ethnic minority dude.

Nope I am not gonna buy into that whole conspiracy angle. The easy answer to your sexist argument is that Hillary was leading by a landslide a year back. You can pretty much take up any poll and check the result yourself. She started with a tremendous advantage but skittled it due to lack of charisma, knowledge, integrity etc etc. Even last week there was this poll where an overwhelming population thought of Hillary as untrustworthy.And I can definitely see why. From New York driving license fiasco to Sniper fire she cooks stories to boost her record. Not to mention she doesnt have any record in the first place(aside from her Senator record that is, and even that was earned largely due to her surname).

Well the way i look at it, i am not easily swayed by eloquoence. Takes a helluva lot more than a sweet-n-confident talker to convince me that the person has substance and isn't just a bag of hot-air. And i can't say i am surprised that Americans with their television addiction and dyslexic attention span has somehow equated a rosy speaker as someone worth noticing.

My judgement is not dependent on eloquence but I certainly appreciate a man's ability to express himself. Good leaders are always those who know how to say the right things and pretty much any popular leader - from Mandela to Martin Luther King, Vajpayee to Churchill- were all great orators. Of course in the same vein it should also be mentioned that Hitler and Narendra Modi are also great orators. Which is why simply eloquence should not influence judgement but it helps every single leader out there. The other point is that as mentioned earlier Obama earns support because he comes across as smarter.Pound for pound Joe Biden was the smartest chap but he never stoood a chance. Obama was 2nd smartest and he is heading the poll. Hillary was never the smartest and even last week it was evidenced when she followed McCain's gax tax theory, was then interviewed(by a Hillary supporter mind you) if she could name 1 economist who thinks her policy of gas tax bill is correct, to which she replies - In matters of this I wont listen to economist! I mean hello if you dont listen to economist in matter of economy when do you listen to them? Obama of course said No to No gas tax pandering policy.

[CC1981]

The easy answer to your sexist argument is that Hillary was leading by a landslide a year back.

On WHAT ? a few handful of yuppies from the cities ? Look i keep telling you- you like the rest of the Americans are just buying into the media claptrap of gallup-polls and exit polls way too much. This whole 'leading on exit polls/ was ahead at T-n days of election date' etc. are all American media claptrap trying to potray some sort of predictability to the system. There is a reason why apart from America, very few countries even bother with exit polls and gallup polls and all that kind of claptrap. As for sexism, please, sexism is one of the most obvious things in America- maybe you don't see it because you live there (one grows accustomed to their surroundings) but trust me, America is just as much, if not more sexist than India is. And you will find that most non-american westerners i've ran into consider the chances of a woman slimmer in America than that of a minority guy. That picture mhr posted proves my point- you will NEVER see a sign saying ' he couldnt satisfy his wife, he wont satisfy you' being held up if the genders were reversed.

Good leaders are always those who know how to say the right things and pretty much any popular leader - from Mandela to Martin Luther King, Vajpayee to Churchill- were all great orators.

You named the greatest orator of the 20th century- Hitler. And he proves my point. Trouble with these sweet-talking leaders is that they will feed the population $hit and due to the popular perception of sweet-talking = good leaders, most people will buy that $hit.Give me a not-so-well spoken leader like Putin or Chirac over a well spoken leader like Sarkozy or Obama any day of the week.

[varun]

That's a misconception among most people who haven't followed the campaign in detail have about Obama: that he's all about speeches and eloquence. The reason for Obama's success isn't just these speeches, but the fact that he has led a very different campaign that has been efficient and extremely effective with an amazing amount of grassroots support. Furthermore, they have made it so simple for people to actually come up and volunteer that they have been able to tap into the fervor that has surrounded him and his campaign To start with, he went ahead and got really smart people in his campaign that espouse progressive values like David Axelrod, Paul Tewes, David Plouffe.. unlike Clinton who had the lobbyist Mark Penn heading her campaign (who didn't even know that the democratic nomination is decided based on pledged delegates and superdelegates ! .. and of course he was involved in the Columbia NAFTA debacle) Their campaign focussed on all states, and even now they have already started their 50 state "voter registration drive" focussing on the general election. The amount of volunteers that they have been able to garner is unprecendented. There is a sense of cameraderie among the volunteers and you can make out the difference in the attitudes if you take a chance to visit one of their offices or the clinton offices (I got dragged along with an American friend) They have a huuuge internet funding base. Go to their website www.barackobama.com and check it out. They've kept it simple, and allowed users to even setup their own fund-raising ventures. They have ended up having more than 1.5 million different donors to their website so far !! (That means that 1 in every 10 voters who voted for Obama actually donated to him as well !!). They have also setup simple things which help create a "family atmosphere" like food drives (which means that donors can donate pizzas and other food items to the volunteers) What this huge donor base also means is that he can afford not to take lobbyist money and that in itself is a bigggg issue with lots of Americans who feel that their interests are always kept on the backburner as politicians give priority to the lobbyists who contributed to their campaign. And finally the fact that he has stuck to one message, and however naive and silly some people might say it is, it is a strong message of bringing the country together, hope and change.. and being able to verbalize it in an eloquent way also helped him create his huge base.

[Lurker]

On WHAT ? a few handful of yuppies from the cities ? Look i keep telling you- you like the rest of the Americans are just buying into the media claptrap of gallup-polls and exit polls way too much. This whole 'leading on exit polls/ was ahead at T-n days of election date' etc. are all American media claptrap trying to potray some sort of predictability to the system.

You are just being dismissive and buying into this conspiracy angle when it doesnt have any base. Put it this way. The following were Hillary's opponents - Joe Biden, Kucinik, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Obama, Bill Richardson. Two questions to you now: 1) Look up the names and tell me why would an average American support say a Chris Dodd over Hillary? Heck 90% of Americans wouldnt probably have heard the name. 2) If sexism was the issue why only Obama gained the support? Why not say John Edwards who was consistently number 2 to Hillary in any poll?

You named the greatest orator of the 20th century- Hitler. And he proves my point. Trouble with these sweet-talking leaders is that they will feed the population and due to the popular perception of sweet-talking = good leaders, most people will buy that .Give me a not-so-well spoken leader like Putin or Chirac over a well spoken leader like Sarkozy or Obama any day of the week.

Then you obviously has not followed Obama. He has taken two of the least "sweet" line as you put it. a) Consistently stood against Iraq war. b) Stood against anti gas tax when Hillary basically toes the Republican line. Not to mention he is the ONLY mainstream US politician who has stood against the powerful Jewish lobby and said he will speak to Iran, Hamas and whoever wants to come to table. Hillary talks of bombing Iran so not sure what exactly you mean by sweet talking Obama here.

[CC1981]

You are just being dismissive and buying into this conspiracy angle when it doesnt have any base.

I am being dismissive is because those gallup polls and exit polls have no credibility !!!!! They poll at most a dozen thousand people in a nation of 300 million people....you tell me what is that sample size and how that correlates with the universal set ! As per being conspiracy angle, no i am not playing any conspiracy angle- i am simply pointing out that America is a deeply sexist nation and most Americans-even a large number of women- do not think a woman should lead the country and instead should be subordinate to a man.

1) Look up the names and tell me why would an average American support say a Chris Dodd over Hillary? Heck 90% of Americans wouldnt probably have heard the name.

Given how liberal Hillary is, her popularity works against her, because a lot of republicans/fence-sitters remembers her stance from Bill Clinton days....so having reach does not imply popularity.

2) If sexism was the issue why only Obama gained the support? Why not say John Edwards who was consistently number 2 to Hillary in any poll?

As i said, i don't give a damn what those itty-bitty unscientific polls conclude....i am completely dismissive of those polls, so using any sort of exit polls/gallup polls to make your point is irrelevant to me.

Hillary talks of bombing Iran so not sure what exactly you mean by sweet talking Obama here.

I have watched two speeches of Obama and in both of them,he came across as an 'all sweet talk, no substance' kind of candidate...all he talked about was 'change, how America is growing up, looking positive, uniting the country' and all those sort of two-bit soundbytes...needless to say, my impression of Obama is not very high but as i said, i dont care one way or another who wins, because in major issues, most things will stay the same.

[CSK Fan]

I am being dismissive is because those gallup polls and exit polls have no credibility !!!!! They poll at most a dozen thousand people in a nation of 300 million people....you tell me what is that sample size and how that correlates with the universal set ! As per being conspiracy angle, no i am not playing any conspiracy angle- i am simply pointing out that America is a deeply sexist nation and most Americans-even a large number of women- do not think a woman should lead the country and instead should be subordinate to a man.

In all the years there have been exit polls be it for assembly or national in any country, i barely remember 1 or 2 which were off the mark and then barely. These polls wouldnt have been so popular if they did not have any credibility India was and is one fo the most sexist countries in the world, yet when an able politician came from one fo the most popular families, she was elected the PM!

[CC1981]

i barely remember 1 or 2 which were off the mark and then barely

In that case i must follow US politics closer than you, since every nomination there is half a dozen wrong guesses, nevermind every election. And considering that there are barely a dozen or so constituencies where the voting is close enough to actually challenge a six-year old's brain, those numbers are anything but impressive. This year they were already wrong about Ohio, North Carolina,etc. about the Democratic nomination. I am yet to hear from the proponents of the amazing 'gallup-poll projections' what exactly is the mathematical logic and form in sampling 10,000 points from a sample space of 10 million+ and drawing conclusions. Needless to say, i highly doubt any of the proponents of these polls here either keep record of their dubious record ( your whole idea that the guesses are off the mark in 1-2 cases is a media propaganda itself- jee, thats a surprise, given that these polls are media gimmicks themselves and so far, the Democratic nomination has blown apart this '1-2 off mark' claim) or understand the very BASICS of probabilistic modelling and set-theory.If you go to any half-decent mathematician(nevermind a math professor) and present your claims of correlation,drawing 10-12,000 points from a sample space of 10-300 million points, he'd laugh at you. And if he/she is your professor, you would be awarded a big 'F' in that report.

These polls wouldnt have been so popular if they did not have any credibility

ROTF......you have me laughing at my work....i can't actually believe you are naive enough to think that a media-gimmick poll is popular because it is credible. Answer me one question: If these type of polls where 10-12,000 were surveyed and results summarily projected to constituencies of MILLIONS, how come no other western nation engages in such type of polls ??

yet when an able politician came from one fo the most popular families, she was elected the PM!

Indian hangup with sexism is due to ignorance-driven male machismo and the sexual frustration of the young ones in our society for the large part- ie, far easier to cure than religion-driven goobledegook about woman being made out of 'leftover rib of man' and path of salvation for woman being to serve man, as it is in christian Yankeeland....a far harder and deeper,ingrained malaise. Thankfully, the number of followers of Christian or equally retarded Islamic concept of women are less than 17% of our population instead of being over 75% of the population as is the case with the states.

[The Outsider]

CC, polling has become a very accurate science over the last couple of decades with more and more thought going into choosing the sample and it's certainly not a random sample that is chosen to conduct the polls. Polls choose their samples in accordance with the population strata and are a very good indicator unless the race is very close. This is more true in a largely monolithic society like US compared to some place like India, where choosing a sample is much more difficult and you find more instances of polls going wrong, but even in India polls come up with very good results over all.

[CC1981]

CC, polling has become a very accurate science over the last couple of decades

I don't see ANY evidence whatsoever of that,sorry to say. In any constituency,where the winner has a winning margin in double digits(percentage-wise), you don't need 'science' to tell the outcome. And in states where the results are actually pretty close (within 2-3x the error margin), its been a total coin-toss...i've followed this from Dubya's election first time around till now.... take for eg this democratic nomination....the vaunted polls got it wrong for North Carolina, Iowa and a couple of other states i don't remember....that is hardly a stellar record. All these polls are a sham- if it wern't so, it'd be FAR more popular worldwide...yet outside of the US, one hardly ever hears of it. Not to mention, it is absolutely irrelevant....these polls are a royal waste of money and giving the consumers a feeling of being 'ahead of the game' when it is absolutely irrelevant....there is NOTHING lost in simply WAITING for the actual poll results... And nomatter how much you want to misuse the word 'science' in this topic, fact remains that demographic profiling is purely a guesstimate and nomatter how many parameters you wanna throw in to the profiling, its still purely arbitary and determined by someone's 'concept' of what the demographics should be. And i don't need to tell you that the math of taking 12000 sample points out of 12 million is about as shambolic as it gets. So while you american-residents might've bought into the American media's spin on these exit polls/gallup polls, you will pardon me if i scoff at the lack of mathematical or logical basis to what remains a purely marketing and PR ploy.

[The Outsider]

And in states where the results are actually pretty close (within 2-3x the error margin), its been a total coin-toss...i've followed this from Dubya's election first time around till now....

That's usually the error percentage in most of the polls ie. 2% range so you can't expect them to give better results than their self proclaimed error margins.

All these polls are a sham- if it wern't so, it'd be FAR more popular worldwide...yet outside of the US, one hardly ever hears of it.

Every country has opinion polls which are conducted at regular intervals. You can just go to the gallup website to see the broad spectrum of polls they conduct worldwide.

And nomatter how much you want to misuse the word 'science' in this topic, fact remains that demographic profiling is purely a guesstimate and nomatter how many parameters you wanna throw in to the profiling, its still purely arbitary and determined by someone's 'concept' of what the demographics should be.

Polling courses are offered by all major universities, some of them conducted by leading statisticians, political scientists etc. of the world.

[triam]

I think, the reason Clinton is going on is to have a bigger leverage be it securing a VP nomination or in the event obama wins securing some big portfolio, this may happen as some sort of truce before the convention. For CC, american society is both racist and sexist but not to the extents you claim either. If it really was that bad, it would not have been a white female and a black male fighting to become the next president.

[CC1981]

That's usually the error percentage in most of the polls ie. 2% range so you can't expect them to give better results than their self proclaimed error margins.

Please read carefully...i said 2-3x..2-3TIMES the error margin....having that kind of inaccuracy is unacceptable to someone from my background.

Every country has opinion polls which are conducted at regular intervals. You can just go to the gallup website to see the broad spectrum of polls they conduct worldwide.

Except opinion polls dont become the centerpiece of the media when other nations are holding their elections.Opinion polls dont hog the headlines on CBC when there is an election here...

Polling courses are offered by all major universities, some of them conducted by leading statisticians, political scientists etc. of the world.

Political scientists ?!? WTF !>? These days people make up all sort of 'scientist' tag to try and ride the science bandwagon to eligibility...sort of reminds me of the position i once saw advertised as 'building engineer', which i found out to be the 'new term' for a janitor... Sorry, but those guys don't cut the mustard and i say again: Show me a mathematician or ANY industrial process that will endorse the validity of a sampling of 1 in a thousand cases to draw conclusions and i got a bridge to sell you...incase you jump up on the 'quality control' issue, quality control is not a conclusive process but merely an efficiency improvement aspect of industry.

[CC1981]

If it really was that bad, it would not have been a white female and a black male fighting to become the next president.

From what/where exactly are you guaging how 'bad' i think it is, given i didnt give any 'figures' or elaborate comparisons/standings...if gender wasnt an issue, America would've had a female president by now- many democracies have so far already can boast of that.

[triam]

How can you then be sure without numbers or 'figures' that american society is more sexist than racist? yes you did not give 'figures' but you did say and i quote "And the consensus was unanimous amongst us- that despite what it may seem like, America remains a far more sexist nation than a racist nation (though it is both) and the chances of a woman as the CEO of the country are far less than that of an ethnic minority dude."

[CC1981]

How can you then be sure without numbers or 'figures' that american society is more sexist than racist?

Coz i've been there ? Travelled extensively down the eastern seaboard and i've been to Seattle countless # of times ( i live like 100kms from the US border!)

[triam]

The demographics dont support your observation though CC. Male White uneducated with less than 40 thousand annual income overwhelmingly support Hillary. if I can hazard a guess this is exactly the section of the population that will probably have this sexist tendencies. An average white male is more content voting for a white female as opposed to a black male? so from this it would seem racism trumps sexism woudnt you say?