Republicans warming up to Clinton

[Bjorn Against]

Bruce Bartlett: Conservatives warming up to ... Clinton?

If the presidency can't go to a Republican, she's becoming the most desirable Democrat.

Bruce Bartlett

Published: August 15, 2007

Is hell freezing over? One might think so after reading recent comments from editors at National Review and the Weekly Standard, America's leading conservative magazines. Over the last 15 years, both magazines seldom have passed up an opportunity to excoriate Hillary Rodham Clinton as some kind of crypto-communist.

No more. Today, Sen. Clinton is rapidly becoming not merely acceptable to many right-wingers but possibly even their candidate of choice.

Listen to Kathryn Lopez, editor of National Review Online, who was blogging live during the recent AFL-CIO Democratic debate in Chicago: "In response to more than a few answers tonight -- on Iraq, on China -- I've said, 'She sounds reasonable.'"

snip

Clinton's unwillingness to pander to her own party's base on Iraq has won her grudging respect from another unlikely source as well: William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard. On Aug. 7, he was quoted in the Washington Post saying that compared with Sen. Barack Obama, who is trying to energize the left to raise his falling poll numbers, she is looking quite presidential.

"Obama," Kristol said, "is becoming the antiwar candidate, and Hillary Clinton is becoming the responsible Democrat who could become commander in chief in a post-9/11 world."

http://www.startribune.com/562/story/1362586.html

[Colobo]

1. Bill Kristol can go fuck a dingo.

[ronnykmarshall]

3. I love that pic you have of Barack.

He's doing the "I crush your head" thing.

[connecticut yankee]

2. That's a crock!

they want her to run because they think she's unelectable.

[Deja Q]

4. Why? That commie socialist womb-to-the-tomb medical swindler?

What's changed about her?

:shrug:


Note - the subject line is probably sarcasm... it just seems weird she was lambasted so heavily for her healthcare views at one point and now she's being supported all over the place...

[Bjorn Against]

5. That health care issue may be one of the primary reasons...

Hillary once supported a Universal Health Care system, now she is one of the top recipients of "health care" industry dollars. That is a big reason many progressives don't trust her and many Republicans are reconsidering her.

[trayted]

6. Clinton would be the best Democrat for the monied interests that the GOP so love

Hillary: the right's choice?

Clinton's free-trade economics and posturing on security could endear her to conservatives unimpressed by the GOP field.
By Bruce Bartlett
August 10, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-bartlett10aug10,1,7882894.story?ctrack=3&cset=true

Same article, different title.

Sure, many Democrats will trick themselves into believing that the GOP is just blowing smoke, trying to trick the Democrats from "nominating Clinton because they fear her."

The only Democrat the Republicans fear is John Edwards. They welcome Clinton and Obama, as one of them slipped up and said by accident the other day on CNN.

Host Miles O'BRIEN: Well, all right, but as a Republican, isn't Hillary Clinton the candidate you want? Isn't Barack Obama the worst possible candidate from a Republican point of view?

Republican Strategist SANCHEZ: Not at all. I think we would -- I think Republicans would be excited about either of those candidates, but Hillary Clinton...

O'BRIEN: Really?

SANCHEZ: ... is the one that...

O'BRIEN: Why either?

SANCHEZ: Well, either one, I think, that there's a great policy debate to be had about the distinctions between the two. You've got two candidates, one with no experience, and the other who says she has 35 years. I don't know if she counts her time on Wal-Mart -- on the Wal-Mart board, as part of Hillary Clinton's public experience. But let's be clear. You don't know what you get with Hillary Clinton. I think she has a lot of negatives. She doesn't poll very well with white voters, and with married women.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0708/10/sitroom.01.html

Notice how she brought up "white voters." The GOP doesn't mind Obama running, because they don't believe that it is a coincidence that only 2 states in the history of this country -- Illinois and Massachusetts -- have ever elected a black person by popular vote to a statewide federal office, like the Senate. Since Obama would have to win states in a federal race to win the White House, they highly doubt it's possible that he would win enough states in a federal race to be elected President.

Are they right? More than likely if we base our opinions on the facts that we have, instead of just what we hope.

[Peregrine Took]

7. Good - let them vote for her. n/t

[DavidMS]

8. So will this mean...

That Hillary is the choice of the slightly more evolved knuckle dragger. Does this mean that she is the top choice of the Republicans? Considering the favorite on the right is "None of the Above." Some of them may end up deciding that Hillary is the best of a lot of bad choices.

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

9. Bartlett is a fool-- don't trust anything he says

Bartlett is so reviled by the Republicans-- both establishment and rank-and-file-- that's he's on the brink of being ostracized by his columnist job, largely due to his fawning over Hillary Clinton.

The Republicans *are not* warming to Hillary Clinton and would never support her-- again, look at the surveys of favorability vs. unfavorability, and you'll see that Hillary has by far the highest unfavorables, especially among Republicans but even among other groups. They are violently opposed to her.

The only reason some moronic pundit like Bruce Bartlett tries to play up Hillary, is to get Democrats to nominate her since then, the GOP will show its true colors and swarm against her. Do not trust this!

[zulchzulu]

10. Quoting PNAC Billy is like sticking your head in a microwave because you want a tan

What a pathetic, transparent neocon pile of puss-gurgling chickenhawk shit...

:puke: :crazy::puke: :crazy::puke: :crazy::puke: :crazy::puke: :crazy::puke: :crazy::puke: :crazy::puke: :crazy:

[illinoisprogressive]

11. oh yes, her neocon friends like Bill Kristol. Really nice.

[CTD]

12. The Clinton supporters need to WAKE UP

Some of us have been saying this all along. She is the neocon in this race yet she has many of you all tricked into thinking she is a peace-loving progressive. She isn't. Period.

And she must be stopped.

[Hawkowl]

13. She is a NeoBot

The only way these rethug rags would support her is: 1) she is a corporate/war mongering whore who is willing to continue to sacrifice the American people to the great god Profit; or 2) They really think the margin by which she would win will be small enough for them to steal another election.

[OwnedByFerrets]

14. All of these repugs who are saying this now.........

will be pulling ALL the stops to crush her in the general election. God, I hope ppl arent as stupid as they have been in the past, but theres not much hope of that.

[liberalpress]

15. Having the perspective of

working in Right Wing Radio, let me just say that while the Republicans are still hitting the "Hillary will be the next President" theme they are also painting her as a socialist who will steal their money, eat their children, cow-tow to the Homosexual agenda" (although that has still not been defined -- turn our children gay, I think)so they better vote Republican in "08 no matter who the nominee is.