WHAT WOULD BILL HAVE DONE?

(or, we continue to piss off our friends as we rant against the hometown favorite in tonight's Democratic debate, and wonder why magic doesn't necessarily rub off when one most needs it to)


What a shame tonight in Ohio.

We could very well be wrong, but what we saw sure looked like the end of the Clinton-Bush presidencies unfolding.


Again, we're not Hillary loyalists here. We respect her, and think she'd make a fantastic president of the United States. She's served as a role model, fought for civil rights for years,is truly among the most gifted and right-thinking citizens in this nation. And, yes, our wives all love her.


However, we simply don't think she can win this, and agree with Newsweek that she should do herself and everyone else in the party a favor, and join the fight against McCain ('cause is sure ain't gonna be Mike Huckabee on the other side.)


She was shrill, she looked out-of-control, she acted and argued far from the woman we'd love to see as President. This person, we're not sure should be in the Senate.


The SNL comment?

C'mon! Very petty.

Where was her passion, her composure, her grace?

She played right into Senator Obama's hands in this one. He wore the mantle of composure tonight, and that's what televised debates are all about - Just ask Nixon or Kennedy (oh, wait a second, you can't...)



What really happened when we watched both of these candidates is something that we assume has happened to many of you over the past 8 years. We asked ourselves how Bill would be handling this if he was sitting up there this evening. We can't imagine he'd behave like Hillary did. He'd have handled this with a lot more
grace and composure...Hell, he'd be making his opponent look bad with his smiles and his gentle joking.



That's the visible role Obama took tonight. Hillary instead spent a lot of time gasping and looking just plain frustrated.



That's understandable. Nothing she's done this past week has worked. Each time she tried to slap a below-the-belt
jab on her opponent, she got called for it and it's made her look worse.

"Xerox" comment? Booed. SNL comment? Drew actual hisses from the crowd. She can't win with the media because now she has the "liberal" and "conservative" msm out against her.



Our tip of the hat tonight to Russert, who made the CNN gang look like rank amateurs by comparison.



That Austin debate? Pretty lame outing by the reporters and Campbell Brown. Tonight? This is more like what political journalism should be. Tim hit it out of the park, and beat up on both candidates. You might notice that he eventually got them to shut up with rapid-fire questions to which neither candidate had good answers and then cut them off when they failed to answer the questions directly. Neither candidate looked like they were ready for the hardball treatment tonight.

And, yes, one of us IS partial to NBC.



However, Hillary loses this one. Online votes in several places say so, commentary rightly says so early this morning. As the Huffington Post writes, "Hillary's Ignominious End" - OK, that's close to a quote, but more likely a paraphrase.



We're actually sad, because we agree with that assessment. However, we're also excited because we've been listening to Obama, and reading his books, and we don't understand where people don't think he has any substance - we've seen quite a
lot, and it's a substance that would seem to yield a formula that could actually unite the country. I know, sounds like we've taking a few sips of the "Koolaid" - but it's true. He has some fantastic ideas.



And remember, he's been selling hope when no one else has, and everyone wants to have hope. McCain has been selling more time in Iraq, more screwed up tax cuts for the rich, and Hillary has been too busy calling anyone who supports Obama a fool and other unkind things.



A couple of observations.



So far, he's still the only one selling hope. We again bring up Reagan, whom we detest. But it was hard to resist his promise of "morning in america" during the early 80s. We think the nation needs that from time-to-time to stay young.



Also, we've noticed that most recent winning campaigns have picked a winning storyline and stuck to it -- Clinton, "It's the economy, STUPID!" - Bush, "He's dumb, but getting better, and you'd rather have a beer with him than with Al" - etc and so on and so forth, if you're old enough to remember back to World War II, nearly every winning election came up with a storyline that the nation wanted and needed to hear, something worth watching. Obama truly has that now, and nothing Hillary has done has managed to dent that, whether you like her or not.



Tonight wasn't a good night for her. We sincerely hope she has better ones in the future.

...VIA



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