Hillary Clinton Has Great Week: Anti-Clinton Media Recoils

I am beginning to understand what my right-wing friends and family members are forever griping about. This week, Hillary Clinton's very good September became clear for everyone to see: she outraised Obama by a fair amount, got the endorsement of an important teachers' group, and saw several polls from reputable polling organizations released which showed her with massive leads.

And then the knee-jerk Anti-Clintonites is the fourth estate start to chime in. It really is rediculous. A few examples:

On Drudge tonight, this headline: NYT SATURDAY: HILLARY HAS $$, BUT OBAMA HAS THE CROWDS IN IOWA... Thank you, New York Times, for running a story that everyone has heard over and over again. Why now? Interesting timing, to be sure.

I made the mistake of tuning into Hardball on MSNBC the other night, a practice I engage in only when in need of a splitting headache from Chris Matthews' incessant and obnoxious yelling. (Seriously, I think that he either has a hearing problem or some nervous disorder dealing with the volume of his voice.) Following are examples of some of the very impartial analysis from Matthews, the moderator:

*"If Hillary sits on her lead and doesn‘t say anything and simply has a smart operation, smug and smart, can she get blown away here?" Hmm..."smug" is always a word I choose when in need of a non-loaded and completely impartial adjective when on camera as a moderator.

*"Let me ask you about Hillary Clinton. She went on the Sunday talk shows, all five of them, made no news in five appearances." Speaking of smug...Actually, she did go on all five talk shows and made a lot of news...and received rave reviews. An inconvenient fact...

It did not help that David Yepsen was Matthews' guest. He is the Des Moines Register political pundit who is allegedly the go-to guy regarding Iowa politics. He was full of little gems like those of Matthews detailed above, but they aren't surprising or worth noting. Yepsen lost his credibility as an informed observer of the Iowa political scene when he began to carry Obama's water blatantly every time a camera is pointed at him. He looked discheveled and distracted on Wednesday night. I think his crush on Obama is starting to get to him.

Hardball transcript 10/3/07

And some of the Hillary critics are returning to the old electability saw, and as pre-refuted in this earlier post, have resorted to half-truths and distortions to make their case. In this piece on Real Clear Politics, Steven Stark (who?) penned this missive yesterday. It's title: Edwards, Not Hillary, is Dems' Best Chance. This is truly wonderful journalism. My favorite excerpt:

Clinton's problem is that, according to some polls, Rudy Giuliani is currently running even or only slightly behind her in New Jersey, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania - up-for-grabs states Clinton has to sweep in order to win. Given his current showing, it's likely Giuliani will win some of those contests in November 2008 and deny Clinton a majority.

Well written. It's also utter crap. Missouri hasn't voted for a Democrat since 1996, and is not a must-win for Dems. Ohio is the biggest swing state in the country. New Jersey and Pennsylvania are more and more blue all the time.

What Stark doesn't say is what I outlined in my post on the Northeast: Hillary is of ahead or even with Guiliani in the Northeast, but Obama and Edwards are well behind. People who twist facts to support a thesis are abhorrent.

The media should be impartial and truthful. I am amazed at the lengths media outlets will go to in order to change a narrative. That's the job of political operatives, not "reporters."

Movin' On Up: Hillary Pulling Away...

Polls, polls, and more polls over the last few days, and they uniformly paint a bright picture for Sen. Clinton, and a dim picture for Obama/Edwards/rest of the candidates.

CNN - national primary- Clinton 46%, Obama 23%, Edwards 16%

CBS/NYT - roughly the same numbers.

The LA Times is out with new polls in the early three states (IA, NH, SC) which show Clinton climbing. RCP link (LATimes is subscription only).

If Hillary! can pull out a win in Iowa, it's over for the rest of them. If she finished second but wins NH and SC, it's over for the rest of them then too. It's hard to envision a scenario in which she loses this nomination.

Obama Talks Tough / Clinton Expands Lead

The Obama people crack me up. Last week, a substantial portion of Democratic primary voters were shown how their candidate's lack of experience can manifest itself: naive and potentially dangerous policy making from a debate lectern. So, what's the solution? Get together a few experts and write a wonkish speech on American policy toward Pakistan. And the Oba-media fawns.........

Obama wants to redeploy the forces from Iraq and send two brigades to Afghanistan. And condition assistance for Pakistan on the Musharraf government's cooperation in hunting Al-Qaeda.

The speech is drawing mixed reviews. From the Washington Post's The Trail blog.

John Podhoretz is not impressed.

Obama is all thumbs when it comes to this foreign policy stuff. If I understand correctly, what he wants to do is condition aid. If they don't cooperate, we invade. So, we pull out of what Obama rightly calls a wrong-headed war in Iraq, only to possibly invade another Muslim country, of nearly 200 million people that we know has nuclear weapons and has been cooperating with us in our hunt for Al Qaeda to the extent that the government can politically and survive. What a novel construct.

New NBC / WSJ poll

Apparently, Obama needed to show a little foreign policy gravitas this week. NBC and the Wall Street Journal are out with a new poll today that shows Sen. Clinton's lead nationally to have grown to 21 percent, with another 8 points back to Edwards. I know this is a national poll and not an Iowa / NH / SC poll, but it is hard to see how she loses with numbers like these.

From the WSJ, this represents a net 7 percent increase for Hillary! over Obama since June.

Obama Flip-Flops Detailed

Barack Obama has made a HUGE deal this week about under what circumstances he would talk to hostile dictators. (See posts below, including "Tea and Crumpets with Kim Johg Il). HillaryHub is up with banner headlines linking to an ABC story profiling Obama's flipflopping on the issue.

Apparently he was for talks with no conditions before he was against them.

The fact that Hillary got the better of him on this whole story, which has lasted for a week, plus the fact that he has been incredibly inconsistent from day to day shows a couple of things:

1. Barack doesn't do well when he is in a defensibe posture.

2. His judgement is lacking about how and when to respond. (Recall the ill-fated "Bush-Cheney Lite" conflagration on Thursday. ) He lashes out.

3. He has Kerry-esque issues in terms of arriving at and articulating a clear position. I like John Kerry, and I think that he got a raw deal on not having a "clear" position on Iraq in 2004. It was a complex issue and he was pretty consistent. Obama has had four positions in four days on a very simple question.

He is not ready to face the Republican filth machine.

The Friday Mammary Roundup

Hillary! has boobs and she knows how to use them. A fundraising letter about your cleavage seems to be an odd postscript to a week in which she scored lots of points in many circles vis-a-vis being a serious potential President.

From Real Clear Politics: Hillary beats Obama this week.

New York Times weighs in on 2008 Congressional battle.

Finally updated- the Federal Election Commission with findraising totals and an interactive map for the Presidential race through 2q 07.

The You Tube Debate -- Who Won?

The debate is over. It was an interesting experiment that ultimately, in my view, failed. It is great to have questions from viewers, but the singing rednecks, the talking snowman, the hip-hop No Child Left Behind questioner all were beneath the dignity of a Presidential debate. I hope that when CNN holds its Republican You Tube debate in September, it is a bit more serious. On to the winners / losers:

Winners

*Clinton- As in all the other debates, she was the most Presidential and was very compelling. The Senator's handling of the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton question was masterful. It is clear that any foreign policy question that she gets she answers through a general election scope, and is more knowledgeable than any other candidate except Biden. She got more mileage out of the Edelman letter and also made Elizabeth Edwards look petty for her comments last week.

*Biden - I just find Joe Biden awfully well spoken and brave. It is not a popular thing to do in a Democratic debate to throw water on Richardson's "get out now" rhetoric on Iraq, but it is responsible. In fact (again from a general election perspective) Biden and Hillary! are the only candidates who, throughout the primary season, have shown responsibility and measured ideas for exiting Iraq. They are both plausible commanders-in-chief. Biden makes me wistful: what might have been had it not been for that Neil Kinnock ugliness in 1987...

* Edwards - I will begrudgingly admit that John Edwards improved his standing tonight. In fact, his debate performance was just okay until the health care question came about. His answer on that question was fantastic. His frustration was, I am sure, contrived. His well-known financial security makes any personal concerns about health care remote for him. All of that aside, it was compelling and for perhaps the second time in five years of watching John Edwards, I was moved by something he said. Usually he gives me the creeps.

Losers

Obama - I know that we are six months from the Iowa caucuses. I know that a lot can happen between now and January. I know that he is the great hope of the nation (note the sarcasm), but Obama needs to make a break if he is to stop the increasingly inevitable Clinton nomination. He does attack her a bit, but it is too nuanced for it to make any impact at all. His debate performance tonight was about the same as the others-- just okay. He also needs to start speaking with some specificity about something -- anything. His buzzwords are tired. "Fighting cyncism," "hope," "fundamentally changing Washington" are just words. Without a plan of action, they do not a platform make.

We learned that he is against the war, against deficits, against underinsurance, and is against- gasp!- child molestation. What a marvel! Somebody please rewrite Profiles in Courage! The more of Obama I see, the more embarrassed I am that he is going to even be perhaps the silver medalist in this contest. He simply is not qualified- period. With greater exposure, the more it shows. Hillary made him look foolish for his answer on diplomacy with Iran and Syria. Oh, and ABC caught him exaggerating. LINK

Richardson - He wants to be in the top tier so badly. In the debates, he looks unprepared, ill-informed and uncomfortable. He was borderline inarticulate at times. Senator Biden made him look dangerously ill-informed on his Iraq withdrawal "plan." The Richardson "plan" (essentially to run ripshod out of Iraq in six months with no residual troops) would cost lives both because of the rapidity of the withdrawal and because of the lack of protection for American civilians remaining. Richardson seemed not to have considered this, where a commander-in-chief would have. That is Richardson's problem right now--he appears to be not *quite* President material.

UPDATE: 11:09 PM - The reaction from the debate has begun to flow in:

Hillary wins the InstaPoll from SurveyUSA. Link (And has favorables 10% higher than Obama).

John Edwards hated Hillary's jacket, and says so.

Um, and Mitt Romney had this to say. I really hope that the Republicans nominate this moron. I'm thinking 40 state landslide for Democrats if they do.

Pre-Debate Roundup

Today's Political News:

Two new national polls out (Rasmussen and Washington Post), and Hillary has a steady and growing lead in both. Check out the RCP averages for the Democratic nomination here.

ABC's The Note with a weekend roundup. Includes analysis of new WaPo poll, the latest weird moment of the Romney campaign, and a debate preview.

More on the Romney debacle from MyDD. This guy's nomination would be a gift for any Democratic nominee.

John Sununu (Endangered R - NH) doesn't want President Bush to campaign with him. Here.

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), prostitute patron and moral arbiter, might not be out of legal trouble.

The debate starts soon.

Update: The Romney picture.