Posts filed under 'Hillary Clinton'
April 18th, 2008
Wouldn’t life be easier if we could pick our president by comparing our grocery shopping lists?
Well, the New York Times asked two national market research experts to help them do just that.
If you like the crunch of Kashi GoLean cereal, the grease of Church’s Fried Chicken and the energy from a Luna Bar, you might be a Hillary Clinton supporter.
Obama followers would likely prefer to eat at the trendy Panera Bread bakery/restaurant, sweeten their beverages with Sugar in the Raw and shop at the local farmer’s market.
And those of you who prefer the monstrous Hardee’s burgers, DiGiorno’s Stuffed Crust pizza and SoBe Energy drinks are most likely to vote for McCain.
Here’s how the Times cooked up the politicians’ preferences:
Larry Finkel at MarketResearch.com used information on 25,000 people assembled by Simmons Market Research to develop a voter preference index based on store-bought cookies and restaurants. […]
(Obama’s) strength among latte drinkers was confirmed by the software developers and restaurant geeks who created Urbanspoon.com. Last year, they developed a steak-sushi index showing that cities with more steak restaurants also have more Republican victories. […]
Harvey Hartman of the Hartman Group applied the data he uses to help food companies understand consumer issues and came up with a grid that predicts voting patterns based on preferences for health and wellness products.
Of course, I am a big fan of DiGiorno’s pizza, Kashi GoLean cereal and Panera Bread, so I suppose that makes me a moderate.
April 7th, 2008
Well, after ignoring weeks of calls from the media, her Democratic opponent and pundits, Hillary Clinton released her tax returns on late Friday afternoon.
Some were hoping these returns would be filled with political landmines for the Clintons, but it seems the dynamic duo gave a lot of speeches and wrote a few books and as a result, have amassed $109 million. This puts them among the top 14,500 wealthiest people in the nation, according to the New York Times story.
The fact that Clinton released these documents at 4 p.m. Friday did not make it too late for Saturday Night Live to capitalize on the seemingly anti-climatic revelation.
In case you missed it, watch it here.
March 24th, 2008
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
The decision won’t have to be made for almost a year, if at all. But speculation already is rampant in Springfield about who Gov. Rod Blagojevich would appoint to fill Sen. Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat if Obama leaves it for the presidency (or vice-presidency) in January 2009.
Possibilities include U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Chicago, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, or state Sen. James Clayborne, D-Belleville, any of whom would maintain Illinois’ position as home to the nation’s only black senator.
Or he could turn to state Attorney General Lisa Madigan or state Comptroller Dan Hynes, on the premise that these are people Blagojevich wouldn’t mind sending to another time zone.
Blagojevich could even appoint himself.
If more influential Democrats continue to line up behind Obama and his opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton to step aside, speculation like this will only increase and will move further from political bar banter and into the public domain.
Talk Back: If Obama’s seat is open after the November election, who would you like to see appointed to the U.S. Senate? Is it important for another African-American fill the seat?
March 17th, 2008
Well, it’s not quite the morning anymore, but let’s just pretend I’m not a little late in posting this weekend’s “Saturday Night Live” clips.
On Saturday, former SNL funnyman Tracy Morgan appeared on the ever-popular “Weekend Update” segment of the sketch show. He offered a rebuttal to his former castmate and current boss Tina Fey’s take on the presidential election. (Morgan co-stars in Fey’s hit show “30 Rock”)
If you haven’t watched the Fey’s bit, you should probably watch that first. Then, I recommend watching Morgan’s rebuttal. I must warn you that both segments do include some profanity, so don’t turn the volume up too loud at work.
After watching the Morgan’s take on the presidential race, I couldn’t help but wonder if his guest appearance had anything to do with this article.
On a completely unrelated but also funny note, Slate.com has a piece on its 
Web site today where readers were asked to submit their favorite sports metaphors for the Democratic presidential race. Why did the writers not include Republican contenders in their piece? Well maybe because the nomination was no contest? (Ok, I should probably leave these sort of metaphors to my much more well-qualified sportswriting colleagues.)
Here is an example of the Slate results:
Boxing. Several Gabfest listeners suggested that the perfect Clinton-Obama metaphor was a 15-round heavyweight bout that ends with several knockdowns but no clear winner. Some referred specifically to the famous Ali vs. Frazier matches, with Obama mapping to the faster, graceful Ali, and Clinton to the indestructible gladiator Frazier.
Photo courtesy of Slate.com
March 15th, 2008
In today’s paper, I told you about the six local people who will get to attend the lavish Democratic and Republican national conventions.
These multi-million dollar parties are technically where the Republican and Democratic nominees for president get the official nod. In recent history, the country and the parties have known well before the conventions who will be the presumptive nominee.
This is because of one single word — delegates. These delegates are one part of the complex primary process we use to decide on one candidate for each party to advance to the general election in November. And no one has probably paid more attention to delegates like the country has this year.
In January, it became more and more clear that delegates were going to be an issue in the primary season, so I attempted to give you a lot of background information, including the delegates’ role at the conventions. Also Bernie Schoenberg, who also works for GateHouse newspapers, did a good job explaining what happens at the conventions.
Now after Illinois voters chose their Republican and Democratic delegates during the Feb. 5 primary, only some of those delegates could celebrate when the unofficial results came in. Those were the Republican delegates, because in Illinois, the top four vote-getting Republican delegates go to the convention.
On the Democrat side, however, the selection process is much more difficult. The votes people cast on Feb. 5 was only one part of the equation. In fact, the four people chosen from the 16th Congressional District (which includes Rockford) were ranked first, second, fourth and seventh in order of most votes received.
This is why Clinton delegate Barbara Giolitto was so surprised when I called her about being a delegate. Giolitto, who was a state representative for one term, took seventh place after Feb. 5. Rockford City Councilman Victory Bell and state Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, actually received more votes than Giolitto.
So why did this happen?
Well, the national Democratic Party sets rules for the delegate process but allows the state Democratic Party to choose from a few options to ultimately decide how the Illinois delegates are chosen. Not only are the delegates doled out based on the proportional vote in a Congressional District, but other factors, such as gender equality, may play a role. Because of the proportional vote, Obama received three delegates from our district, and Clinton received one.
The gender equality factor is what allowed Giolitto to get the nod, and it is also the reason that Eleanor “Bobbie” Colbert did not. Colbert placed third, but Sunil Puri was able to leap frog her because Mary Tuite placed second and thus was the first woman to be selected.
And before you start thinking all these technicalities is a way for the Democratic Machine to control the delegates, these same rules prevented party chairman Michael Madigan’s wife, Shirely, from getting to join her fellow Democrats in Denver for the convention.
Other people have written about this process recently as well (including the even more confusing Michigan and Florida delegates):
March 10th, 2008
As soon as Sen. Hillary Clinton’s “3 a.m. Phone Call” ad invaded televisions across America, I could hardly wait for the weekend because I knew a scare-tactics ad like this nearly begged for a Saturday Night Live parody. And I was right.
Here is another edition of the Monday morning funnies:
(I can’t get the NBC video to embed properly on the blog, but you can watch it here. Warning: This skit does involve censored profanity.)
Here is Clinton’s controversial ad that started it all and that some say helped her snag Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island away from Sen. Barack Obama:
And of course, the Obama camp quickly came out with a rebuttal:
And now for the ironic twist:
February 25th, 2008
Hillary Clinton is beginning to look desperate.If she isn’t desperate, she is doing a good job of fooling us.
Over the weekend, Clinton made a few campaign stops through Rhode Island and Ohio. Now I’m sure she said many newsworthy things during her time there, but her decision to “go negative” is what made it on the newscasts.
Here are the two clips.
After a rally at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College in Ohio:
In Providence, R.I. (and try not to laugh at CNN’s new label for the presidential campaign — Ballot Bowl ‘08):
The line, “Go hard or go home,” comes to mind after watching the videos. In campaigns, the rule of thumb is if a candidate decides to go negative in a campaign, go very negative. Well, in one respect, she’s successfully become very negative.
Clinton has consistently used some of these tactics throughout the campaign, and Obama responded to this in the last debate.
But how much will this strategy help her as the Democratic nomination lurches toward Texas and Ohio? These states have a lot of delegates, and overwhelming wins would help Obama pull further away or allow Clinton gain some much needed ground. According to CNN, Obama leads the pledged delegate race 1,166 to Clinton’s 1,026.
Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont will hold the next primaries on March 4.
February 12th, 2008
There is something about Hillary.
As the race for the Democratic presidential nomination drags on, the nation remains transfixed on the senator from New York.
Her words, outfits, decisions and personality are continually picked apart on national talk shows, in newspaper columns and around dinner tables.
It’s not only because she is running for president. There is just something about Hillary.
New Yorker editor Susan Morrison also noticed the way Clinton “pushed different kinds of buttons than other politicians pushed.” So naturally Morrison decided to give 30 respected female scribes a national platform to flesh out her theory.
Well, it’s just another book to add to an ever-growing bookshelf.
This weekend, I popped into my favorite Springfield bookstore. Among the vast 20,000 books, I stumbled across three tall bookshelves devoted to U.S. presidents and yet another devoted to their wives.
I scanned the titles and was not surprised that books about Hillary Clinton dominated the section. I even purchased two of the books because it epitomized the Hillary fascination – “The Case Against Hillary Clinton,” by Peggy Noonan and “The Case For Hillary Clinton,” by Susan Estrich.
The other books claimed to be about her failed healthcare initiative of the ‘90s, about her husband’s sex scandal that nearly cost him the office and about her rise to power. On the surface, the books profess to be about Clinton’s policies, but I would be willing to wager my small monthly paycheck that most of the pages are spent parsing her personality, not her policies.
Similarly, Morrison’s book likely has some high points, if the reviews are any indication, but it is also clear that it hits some real lows — namely, an essay about whether Clinton is a dog or cat person and another about her eating habits based on past lunch choices.
Really? Are those facets of Clinton’s life really that fascinating?
Perhaps they are. Something tells me that we would be really bored if we learned Barack Obama enjoyed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off or found out that former Vietnam prisoner-of-war John McCain was a cat person.
Even if we were interested, books like that about male presidential candidates will probably never appear on the shelves of American bookstores.
Clinton has been under a microscope for much of her adult life, and largely, by her own volition.
Since the 2008 presidential race actually began early last year, I have kept a keen ear out when people – and by people, I mean the ones at our favorite coffee shops and around our kitchen tables, not the pundits – begin explaining why they dislike Clinton.
It is rare that someone will provide anything but a superficial criticism. There is probably plenty to not like about Clinton – perhaps her hawkishwar stance or the millions of dollars her healthcare proposals would cost the country.
Yet many just don’t like her.
Sometimes politicians are slimy people who betray the public’s trust. Those people deserve our anger and contempt.
But it seems unfair to dislike a politician’s personal attributes, whether it is Clinton and her “Miss Frigidaire” exterior, or Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his perfect hair.
Perhaps if people spent more time dissecting the issues, not the person, then we can truly, as Clinton is wont to say, start the conversation.
What do you think? Is this sort of criticism warranted?
January 22nd, 2008
Last night I watched CNN’s Democratic presidential debate with a group of fellow political enthusiasts, and about halfway through the debate, my friend’s small dorm room exploded with surprise.
Why, you might ask?
Because she went there.
Sen. Hillary Clinton brought up the name of indicted businessman and fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko during the most heated exchanges of Monday night’s debate with Sen. Barack Obama.
For a few years now, Rezko has been a familiar name inside Illinois political circles for his connections to Gov. Rod Blagojevich as a political adviser and fundraiser. The federal indictment alleges Rezko was at the center of money laundering, fraud, attempted extortion and aiding bribery.
On Sunday, a media report said the federal indictment also linked Obama to Rezko.
For the first time, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama has surfaced in the federal corrupton case against his longtime campaign fund-raiser, Tony Rezko, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
The Illinois senator isn’t accused of any wrongdoing. And there’s no evidence Obama knew contributions to his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign came from schemes Rezko is accused of orchestrating.
The allegations against Rezko that involve Obama are contained in one paragraph of a 78-page document filed last month in which prosecutors outline their corruption and fraud case against Rezko, who was also a key money man for Gov. Blagojevich and other politicians.
Clinton’s name drop may have gone unrecognized by many of Monday night’s debate watchers, but even some of the astute audience members picked up on the reference.
The Rezko case is a deep and tangled web that is unlikely to go away anytime soon. Here is a list of links to help people catch up on some very important reading.
Happy reading!
