VKpedia » Democrats

IHT: The long defeat

Vijay Narayanan — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:26:02 +0000

The IHT’s David Brooks on why Hillary Clinton insists on protracting the primary season.

For nearly 20 years, she has been encased in the apparatus of political celebrity. Look at her schedule as first lady and ever since. Think of the thousands of staged events, the tens of thousands of times she has pretended to be delighted to see someone she doesn’t know, the hundreds of thousands of times she has recited empty clichés and exhortatory banalities, the millions of photos she has posed for in which she is supposed to appear empathetic or tough, the billions of politically opportune half-truths that have bounced around her head.

No wonder the Clinton campaign feels impersonal. It’s like a machine for the production of politics. It plows ahead from event to event following its own iron logic.

The only question is whether Clinton herself can step outside the apparatus long enough to turn it off and withdraw voluntarily or whether she will force the rest of her party to intervene and jam the gears.

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Politics, in four words

Vijay Narayanan — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:11:35 +0000

Supporters of Hillary Clinton: “Help Hillary make history!”

Supporters of Barack Obama: “Help make Hillary history!”

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Question

Vijay Narayanan — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:27:57 +0000

Should an effing $10 million or thereabouts (some say it could easily be $30 million) be wasted to conduct Democratic primaries again in Michigan and Florida in order to undo their flagrant violation of rules? Bu115#!+

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The Audacity of Hopelessness

Vijay Narayanan — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:46:14 +0000

The media is at its best when it does a post-mortem. And beware, they could do this to anyone if they know they are losing. However, Frank Rich’s clinical piece in The New York Times dissecting Hillary Clinton’s stuttering campaign is worth a read.

If the press were as prejudiced against Mrs. Clinton as her campaign constantly whines, debate moderators would have pushed for the Clinton tax returns and the full list of Clinton foundation donors to be made public with the same vigor it devoted to Mr. Obama’s “plagiarism.” And it would have showered her with the same ridicule that Rudy Giuliani received in his endgame. With 11 straight losses in nominating contests, Mrs. Clinton has now nearly doubled the Giuliani losing streak (six) by the time he reached his Florida graveyard. But we gamely pay lip service to the illusion that she can erect one more firewall.

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