Posted on 11/04/2007 1:24:44 AM PST by bruinbirdman
The “war room”, the hub of attack, counter-attack and spin which was at the heart of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns in the 1990s, has swung back into action with renewed force after Hillary Clinton was bloodied by her rivals for the first time in a debate last week.
With so few stumbles on the road to the presidential nomination, her war room has barely been needed until now but it has quietly been prepared for the moment when she trips up.
It was Hillary Clinton who invented the war room during her husband’s campaign and she has developed her own fighting machine. “Her operation is formidable,” said Jeff Gerth, co-author of Her Way, a well regarded Clinton biography. “Politics is not a polite sport and if you’re not prepared to rough it you’re going to get rolled over.”
Clinton has recruited rapid rebuttal experts to take on what she calls the “Republican attack machine”, but they are proving equally lethal against her Democratic rivals.
Their philosophy is similar to that of the mysterious unofficial website www.Hillaryis44.com – a reference to her would-be status as the 44th president – which warns darkly that one of the clearest threats to her election will come from “Democrats who repeat Republican propaganda to undermine Hillary”.
The pink website, which looks beguilingly amateurish while being deadly professional, solicits confidential tips on her rivals and is believed to be a “back door” into her war room.
Clinton’s team sprang into operation after last week’s Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia. She flip-flopped on the question of issuing drivers’ licences to illegal immigrants and was attacked by her opponents for being calculating, secretive and evasive on a range of issues, from tackling Iran to locking up records from her White House years.
At the spin room backstage, on television and the web, the Clinton camp – looking only momentarily rattled – spread the message that it was “six guys” piling on “one strong woman”.
Barack Obama, her closest rival in the polls, was pilloried for abandoning his promises about the “politics of hope”.
The next day Clinton received the endorsement of a leading public sector union and punched the air with a boxing glove to prove her fighting spirit.
Clinton’s counterblast was so powerful that some critics believe it amounted to overkill. She was “whiney”, “tinny”, playing the “victim”, a “diva”, they claimed. In one blow, Obama suggested that he was above playing the race card while she whinged about her gender.
Referring to attacks on him, Obama said: “I didn’t come out and say, ‘Look, I’m being hit on because I look different from the rest of the folks on the stage’.” However, the war room operates on the principle that no attack, no matter how small, will go unpunished. “They don’t call it the Clinton machine for nothing,” said Larry Sabato, professor of politics at Virginia University. “They take every gnat and smash it with a sledgehammer. It’s mean, but it works.”
One poll taken after last week’s debate showed Clinton extending her lead over Obama, which already averaged 45% to 22%. Her rivals are in a bind: every punch by Clinton proves her toughness, while every jab by them can be portrayed as a sign of their desperation to win.
The war room’s strategy has been carefully thought through.
Ron Fournier, a political commentator, noted that Clinton’s advisers had told him long ago that “there is a clear and long-planned strategy to fend off attacks by accusing her male rivals of gathering against her”.
Leading last week’s charge was Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s communications director, and his deputy Phil Singer, who was responsible for opposition research during John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.
Hillaryis44.com provides some intriguing hints about what may be to come. It includes a list of questions for Tim Russert, the moderator of last week’s debate and host of NBC’s Meet the Press, to ask Obama when he next appears on the show. They include such topics as Obama’s alleged ties to shady financiers and friends of the mob in Chicago and other supposed ethical and political lapses.
As Clinton herself has said, “When you are attacked, you have to deck your opponent.”
L O L I see this was just posted.....
Be ready!!!!!
Oh my, someone asked Hillary a question, call the waaaaambalance.
Spoke like someone who has never made a fist in her life, like a lawyer. A good back hand and she would be cryin' 96 tears.
Regards
Not only have I never hit a woman, the thought never before crossed my mind....
Oh I don't know from tales regarding her fit throwing ashtray/lamp throwing in the White House I imagine she is a street fighter first lawyer second. She looses this election they will have to fit her for a 'rubber' room.
I guess you are a better than me, or want to appear so. You consider Hillary a woman? You have bad taste in woman or maybe you figure she would just kick your ass.
Regards
I am dismayed at the lack of seriousness with regard to Sen Clinton here on FR.
Most threads are little more than juvenile humor and dismissive comments.
Folks, Sen Clinton is a serious threat to our nation. She is going to get a pass on everything (just like her husband) unless people take her seriously.
I read the same 5th grade posts during the Clinton impeachment. Too many posts with a snicker here and there.
Is it any wonder President Clinton’s impeachment is not taken seriously by a majority of this nation?
Consider the punctuation at the end of my sentence (post #7) before your judge me.
Where Hitlery learned tactics.
If you check my original post, you will see I never suggested that I , you or anyone smack this witch. It was you who did that. You implied I would do it and you being superior would not.
I spoke directly to Hillary’s bellacose comments and simply expressed what I thought would happen if her alligator mouth ever caught up with her canary ass.
I apologize for being too subtle.
I apologize to you for misunderstanding you.
Regards
IMHO the reason our so-called “free press” has given Hitlery such a consistent pass, is partly that they’re afraid of her. I mean, truly afraid.
It’s not so much that she’s got a lead.
If journalists can be shaken from their fear of acting like they’re still actually journalists when Hitlery is around, then she’s toast. IMHO.
Frankly, I think she’s finished.
When someone as consistently left of center, as Tim Russert, makes the Clinton smear machine’s target screen.
The beginning of the end, is at hand.
“With so few stumbles on the road to the presidential nomination, . . .”
Right - she never answers a question - no wonder there have been so few “stumbles” - duh!
The only follow up I have to that is prayer...please let it be so...
Either way we've got a lot of work ahead of us to defeat the witch.
Many people say that if she goes down, that Obama would be just as formidable an opponent. I'm not so sure, but we haven't really seen the guy open up on her. He had so many softballs tossed his way at the debate you'd have thought he could have at least hit one of them.
He's either afraid or he's simply preparing for a future run for the "throne".
I just don't see him as the threat that Hillary absolutely is.
Osama-bama is a leftist, no question.
This is, he’s not the Hugo Chavez sort. Hitlery is.
Perhaps that’s the thing. The media has seen, what its leftist lean, enabled in Venezuela. Think “RCTV”, and its recent shutdown.
Then think: Fairness Doctrine.
No question about it; Hitlery is one of those “enemies, domestic” which were foreseen, by America’s brilliant founders.
The witch, must be defeated. It’s very important.
Oops sorry.
Second sentence should start: “thing is...”
This despicable woman is so much more than the nastiest female to ever befoul our collective culture- she is the nastiest PERSON- female OR male. We dismiss her at our peril. We canNOT make the mistake of assuming she has no ideas simply because she can’t seem answer tough policy questions. She has a base of politically and economically ignorant people who are willing to follow her into hell, mostly based on their , truly odd, adoration of her husband, even though her agenda would make no distinction between them and us. She is more than willing, and has proved it before, that she will bury paperwork, lie and break the law. She destroys (not just defeat-DESTROY) those who dare to cross her. I said it before- Obama, et all, have NO idea the size of the truck about to roll over them.
The House, The Hedge, And The Hair
(A Fable)
Once upon a time, in a great big house, lived a man. The man used to be nice and was once popular with his neighbors, but now he was unhappy. His neighbors no longer liked him.
The man was unhappy because he wanted to be in charge of the town. But instead his neighbors all liked a nice and smart blonde lady that lived down the road. The blonde lady was wonderful. For years and years, as far back as anyone could remember, the blonde lady did good things for the village and the villagers.
The blonde lady took care of children and older, more helpless villagers. She was very smart and very nice. The blonde lady also cared for the poor in the village. She was always helping people. She was loved by the villagers and they gave her pink flowers whenever they thought she looked a little down.
Now the blonde lady was loved. But there was one man who did not like her. He would sit in his great big house thinking up mean things to say about the lady. He would make bad drawings making fun of the wonderful blonde lady. The man would then leave the bad drawings all over the village and laugh when people saw how he made fun of the nice blonde lady.
When the people saw the bad pictures they liked the man even less. This made him even angrier.
Every day the man would look out the big windows from his big house and see the blonde lady doing good things and being loved. This made him madder and madder. He would sit with his wife in his big house and complain.
His wife would sit and complain too. The man’s wife once was a nice lady. But seeing her husband so unhappy she became unhappy too. The man’s wife then went around the village saying mean things about the blonde lady. The man’s wife knew no one would say anything mean about her because she was very sick.
As the man and his wife got meaner and meaner the people of the village liked them even less.
One day, the man decided to build a great big hedge around his house. People were afraid. The people knew the hedge could hurt a lot of people.
The hedge was so big and strong it caught many poor animals which the man would then cook and eat. A lot of poor people got caught and hurt by the big hedge too. Some of the poor people were so hurt by the hedge they lost their houses.
Some of the houses lost by the poor people hurt by the man’s hedge were near a river. The river had washed away their houses the year before. The poor people were now even even poorer.
The man loved his big house.
The house was wonderful. It had three different stages with seating for an audience. The man and his wife loved to pretend that they were the leaders of the village. They would dress up in costumes and prance around the stage imagining the villagers bowing to them.
As much as the man loved his big house and his big hedge, with all the benefits the hedge would catch — the man loved his hare even more.
It was a beautiful brown hare. The man took great care of it. As much as the man said he loved his big house, he truly loved his hare even more.
The man took his hare to the best hare care salons in the world. He spent lavish amounts of money on his hare. The man shampooed his hare often. The hare was truly beautiful. Everyone in the village said that the man’s hare was the most beautiful in the world. The villagers even thought the man’s hare was prettier than any other hare in the world.
Suddenly, one day, the man’s brown hare turned white, and ran away.
The End.
This borders on the psychotic...
Having just re-read "The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler" for the first time in decades, I for one will not trivialize H!. If I ever post some sophomoric joke about her, be assured it is only after deleting some things I really think, because I find SS visits annoying.
She must be stopped, for the same reason Iran cannot have The Bomb. Because "Too Late" could mean "Never".
Are the American people really that stupid?
"You do not lament the loss of hair of one who has been beheaded."
Joseph Stalin (1879 - 1953)
"When you are attacked, you have to deck your opponent.”
Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947 - )
Gender card: screaming "gang-bang!" to torque up the women voters.
She keeps doing that. Women (her pals) talk to every TV camera they can find about the "violation of her space" during the 2000 senatorial debate. It's all female code talk. Gender-wars bloody-shirt politicking, argumentum ad hominem, argumentum ad populum (well, female populum, anyway). This stuff is issue-void and content-free.
Hillary's getting a pass on pushing a politics of antimasculine sexual bigotry.
Start with the concept that Hillary’s blonde hair is still natural, then go from there. She’s Park Ridge tough, but she likes people to think she came from Chicago.
Question is, why is that sort of content on Hee-a-Ree's website?
That's either 1) allegory, 2) narrative for basically mentally-impaired people, or 3) the product of a lot of street pharmacy.
Don't underestimate her willingness to get her hands dirty. Anyone who doubts she would plunge in the knife and twist it is asking for a goring. If she thought killing someone was her one last chance for the ultimate power, I have no doubt she would be willing to handle it personally. The woman is so hungry for power that anything is permissible.
Please explain. All I ever read about her was that she came from a UMC Republican family in suburban Chicago and was once a Goldwater Girl or something, then went to Wellesley and, uh, fell in love with the place and got all Lefty.
Obama will decide he wants to be VP and make up with Hill. The MSM will declare Hill empress to be and she’ll appear on SNL, be the butt of gentle jokes, and that’s that. Then back to business: smearing every republican candidate in sight except Ron Paul, whom they’ll promote in order to split the ticket. That, plus widespread voter fraud, might just put Hill in the WH. Be scared. Be very scared.
Any doubts that it was Hillary who personally presided over what one newsette referred to as "the vivisection of Monica Lewinsky" and sent Sid Blumenthal out to retail the "Mad Monica" theory, until the blue dress suddenly showed up?
"Grease" is based on Taft High School, which is just inside the city limits from Park Ridge. Did you see anything in Grease that looked like a tough place?
So, being "Park Ridge tough" means you can intimidate outsiders with an attitude, sort of like looking down at and talking down to the servants. But that does not make you tough in the real world. When pushed into a fair fight, she is more likely to fold and cry than fight back. Thus, the "six guys picking on one girl" syndrome.
That last part is what makes her an ideal Democrat - always searching fro victim status.
Weren’t these the same Leftists who were condemning President Bush for having a “Cowboy” (read: non-consensus) mentality?
Where’s the meeting, the negotiation, the discussion, the diversity of input that this Stalinist C is always talking about? What happened to her ‘listening tour’?
All rhetorical questions. She is a Stalinist down into the marrow of her bones.
Barack Obama, her closest rival in the polls, was pilloried for abandoning his promises about the “politics of hope”.That "politics of hope" was a strategic error on the part of Obama, from the very beginning. If he was serious about winning the nomination, then he should have known from the beginning that he'd have to come out swinging hard and early against the "Clinton Machine",
He should have known from the beginning that without strong attacks, strong effective attacks consistent over many months, he wouldn't have a snow-ball's chance in hell.
What he's doing now is way too little and way too late.
Which side of the border do you think it's on? I'd call it a full-blown border crossing.
Thus, the "six guys picking on one girl" syndrome..... That last part is what makes her an ideal Democrat - always searching fro victim status.
Actually, the "six guys" thing is really a message to single women and divorcees everywhere, it's an antimasculine battle-cry to other women to come and vindicate the oppressed woman-warrior-championette.
Never mind the issues. Just answer the call -- that's what she is asking women to do, illogically and w/o respect to merit.
Remember, her spinners are predicting (messaging) that she'll get 25%+ of the GOP women's vote. She's table-tapping to GOP women right under the GOP's nose. "Betray your men....men are bad....they beat you....come sleep with me!" [Oops, did I say that? My bad.]
It's emotive, gut-punching politics, only guys don't get it because the message isn't coded for them. It's Girlspeak. "Four legs good, two legs bad." Or in this case, three legs bad.
In a "fair fight" like a debate, she's not much - but get her with a bunch of goons ganging up on one person in a back (war) room - and she's formidable. Creepy Hillary.
I'm sure that's why her big student paper on Saul Alinsky is still locked up at Wellesley.
(A Fable)
We ought to craft our own infantile fables about the Clintons, eh?
Actually, I never saw Grease.....not the whole thing, just a scene or two (I remember Rosie O'Donnell in it, and Olivia Newton-John singing with Travolta -- that's about it).
It never appealed to me, not like Von Ryan's Express, Krakatoa, East of Java [okay, it was west of Java], The Dirty Dozen, and Smokey and the Bandit. Couldn't quite hold muh innerest. Know whut ah mean, Vern?
That's my standard answer, any time someone asks me if I like musicals.
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