First post: My day in Montgomery and Selma with Hillary and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

8 AM, Embassy Suites, A Conversation between Hillary Clinton and The People of Alabama.

I guess this is part of her Listening Tour/Conversation with America. I must say she comes across as very smart, knowledgable on issues, and completely devoid of passion. Also, you can tell she can raise as much money as she could possibly want, because her staff is unresponsive, rude, and stupid. I could name names, because I know one of them, and he is a lard ass who spent most of his name noshing at the breakfast buffet, and couldn't produce a card when I asked him how to get in touch with the campaign. This isn't just me being prickly, a few other people said the same things.

HRC is also very aware of her perceived shortcomings as a candidate, and she brings them up, and amiably answers questions about them. But, again, she doesn't really seem to NEED this.

I then drove to Selma to stand outside with about 3000 other people, and listen to Barack Obama give a speech about how he IS black enough to understand black issues. Some in the crowd were disappointed, because Obama seemed a bit subdued, but his tone was more of that of giving a speech inside a church, rather than a political rally, but given the occasion, I felt it was entirely appropriate. The real treat here was getting to listen to Rev. Joseph Lowery (the dude MLK called the best preacher he had ever heard) give a stemwinder of a sermon.

Of course, the real draw today was President William Jefferson Clinton. He flew in to walk with HRC across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and accept some Civil Rights award. As they were preparing to walk across the bridge, Bill, Hillary, Congressmen Lewis and Davis, and Al Sharpton were standing in a line ready to lead the folks...I was standing about 8 feet awayand I yelled "President Clinton!!" and he waived and gave me the thumbs up. Pretty cool, and proof that even cynical a-holes like me can get excited by political giants like Billy Clint.

At this early stage, this campaign seems to be shaping up ala Hart/Mondale in '84. Mondale had the organization, the money, and the traditional power brokers. Hart had the real ideas, the passion, and the leadership.

Be interesting to see how this all shakes out, but it was really cool to see this Alabama get this kind of attention from the people running for president. (And even GWB was in Enterprise to see the tornado damage)

I suspect what you're seeing a lot of is a posture that "we need to look like we don't need this and aren't in stark terror mode at this upstart motherfucker from Illinois that's trying to steal what is rightfully ours".

I still think Obama's eventually gonna get the "not enough experience" tag that Edwards ended up with in '04.

And while I think Clinton would probably make a decent President, I'm irked by her lack of admitting the "vote to authorize" was a mistake.

People keep bringing that up - but it wasn't a mistake, in the sense that the vote was based on mis-information, and given that same mis-information she (and most all others) would make the exact same judgement.

Also the question itself is flawed and reeks of Republican-speak. If she admits she made a mistake - even if the mistake was in trusting the information supplied by the administration - then she'll be tagged with the dreaded "flip-flopper" condemnation of the sound-bite crowd.

So what's the upside in her taking that on? And why would anyone this side of Ann Coulter hold it against her?

Topic I threw out at my house this morning: The 2008 General Election is going to be between Al Gore and Newt Gingrich.

Interesting day for sure, Dr. Gar--where you carrying Dr Cluckenstein under your arm at all times?

Yeah, but it's a total panic reaction to haul Bill's fat ass out this early in the game and at such a last minute. Wasn't it only like a week ago that Bubba wasn't going to be on board for this one...and now they cooked up some award to give him?

I think there's gonna be some rather entertaining other-democrat-fueled fall-out from this one.

Looked svelte and stately from my vantage point.

Bloor-- I wore a silver army helmet and a t-shirt that read: "JIM CLARK WAS RIGHT!!"

As to your assertion of Gore v. Gingrich -- I told Ron Ryson I thought Gingrich would enter the Republican Primary sometime after the summer.

Gore still swears he is out, but stranger things have happened.

Oh, and the way she puts this vote question to rest once and for all is to stand up and say exactly what Radcliffe described--

Based on what we had in front of us, I stand by my vote--and if all I know again amounts to what was before me then, I'd vote the exact same way. What needs to be fixed is what gets put before us.

I'd address this, but apparently you get thrown in an institution if you...

She says basically that at every turn...the problems with the uber lefties is they don't care about what you have to say about this war or any other war, they just want you to be wrong. You can't please everyone, and you shouldn't try to neither.

Someone's got a man crush.

I'd circle Labor Day for Newt; he is already calling for a series of long form debates with all the Repub candidates after Labor Day presumably to separate the wheat from the chaff on the real issues that real conservatives really care about. Really.

I think Gore can probably hold out until sometime in the summer--there's this theory that he can raise 100 million dollars in 10 days on the internet or some other horseshit I dont believe, but hey, like you say, stranger things.

i just don't see how either party wants to put up there people that lead us in, or remind us of, the battle of '96. As ugly as that period was, putting Gore and Gingrich up there seems like asking for derision from the electorate.

Sorry for stepping on your toes. I didn't see your thread until after I posted this, and figured that since I was there, and since people seem to want my opinion about many things political (inside baseball things especially) that it would be OK. You could always get Bloor to erase your thread

Oh, no toes stepped on... an eyewitness account!! I envy your day in Selma. How was Lowery. one of the great orators of his generation!

The upside is that I think people would see her as more honest. Every "answer" I've seen her give to the question is the usual circular politico-speak.

I just never get the feeling from her that she says ANYTHING that hasn't been processed via some gigantic "PoliticoTron 2000" ubercomputer.

I'm fully on the no more Clintons & Bushes in the White House anymore wagon.

Amen to that.

I was thinking of working this,




into a response, but didn't come up with anything I felt contributed enough to a dialogue (or just crapped on everything entirely ), plus I didn't know what to do with "Joshua Generation".

One unfortunate characteristic of American politics is this addiction to simplistic essentialism... all good, all bad, black hat, white hat.... not a war hero, rather a liar. I think Hillary can accurately be characterized as both false, and passionately committed.

That's a deceptively powerful notion. I guess I know we tend to over-generalize about politics, but it occurs to me that I'm extremely guilty of it, and I'm not proud of that.

She can definitely be false and passionate...the concept that you originally invoked, however, was "genuine". Again, not enough in the original to generate an in-thread response, but I raised my eyebrow nonetheless.