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Hillary Clinton In Her Own Words: "The Most Fiscally Responsible Candidate"
From the ABC News blog this tasty morsel:
Another blow Clinton has had to face is one that concerns her finances. Clinton, whose campaign is approximately $20 million in debt, said in Huron, S.D. that she is the most fiscally responsible candidate.
"If you will vote for me next Tuesday, you are voting for the most fiscally responsible candidate on either side of the aisle," said Clinton.
So aside from being "virtually tied" with Obama, she can manage money better, too! So good that we got that one on the table.
Talk, please, amongst yourselves. Anyone?
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This is because Bill's administration ran a surplus. And I'm guessing she made him do it.
May 29, 2008 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Although she was secretly against it at the time.
May 29, 2008 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
She's proven she knows all about deficit spending.
May 29, 2008 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right, Bill might have run a surplus, but Hillary has run her campaign into the ground to the tune of tens of millions of dollars in debt. Just how on earth does that point to her fiscal responsibility? It shows her to be incredibly irresponsible. Really really dumb argument on her part. She's opened herself up to strong criticism and she deserves every single bit of it.
May 30, 2008 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, well, we already know Hillary is the most masculine of all the candidates...
May 29, 2008 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
To paraphrase Monty Python: "Balls... Balls... Balls for the poor..." followed shortly thereafter by "Bring out your dead!"
May 29, 2008 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who needs comedy when there's Hillary Clinton?
May 29, 2008 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps that is her newfound career... Move over Phyllis Diller...
May 29, 2008 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is the wacky Clinton alternate universe.
May 29, 2008 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was going to ask for a link to check the whole speech in case this was taken out of context. Then I was going to ask if Sentor Clinton offered supporting facts for this statement. Then I realized I just going over the edge and decided to take a nap.
It is no wonder her mother doesn't go on campaign trips with her any more.
May 29, 2008 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary, nowadays, reminds me of Steve Carall's charecter in the Office. Totally narcissistic, useless and obnoxious- and ofcourse seriously funny.
May 29, 2008 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
kash79: Good point. I've thought that before too. Like when he selfishly tried to force everyone to celebrate his birthday and no one really cared. It's bad enough to desire all the attention in the room, it's all the more awkward when you desire it and stage an event to make it look like everyone cares about you as much as you do about yourself.
May 30, 2008 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
ARGH!
WENCH HILLARY IS THE HOTTEST BABE IN THE US!
ELECT WENCH HILLARY FOR PROM QUEEN!
SHE'LL HAVE YOUR BACK
(BILL DOESN'T WANT HER BACK)
SHE'LL BRING BACK CORPORATE RAIDING 1990S!
ACQUIRE! MERGE! MARAUD! DILUTE! DILUTE!
ARGH!
May 29, 2008 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay. Just have to say this....Where in the heck is the MSM when she makes these outrageous statements? Of course, they certainly aren't reporting on all the small business owner's who are still owed money from months ago either. Fiscally responsible? Anybody checked out her earmarks? That's a whole 'nother example of how she is so not fiscally responsible with public funds. And, FYI, many $$$$$$$ were blown by her campaign on frivolous, yet so expensive, perks for her and staff/surrogates. Isn't there any journalist who will hold this woman accountable for her 'misstatements'? Anyone?
May 29, 2008 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, they simply aren't reporting on Hillary much any more. Right now, they're also tied up with Scottie McClelland. With the press busy talking about The Book, Obama's probably happy as a clam -- he's just out there on the campaign trail, going about his business, doing what he needs and wants to do. Clinton, on the other hand, is likely furious that she's not getting any coverage.
May 30, 2008 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
If Universal Health Care had passed during Bill/Hillary's 8 year term, then Bill/Hillary wouldnt have had that wonderful budget surplus to boast about, would they?
Hmmmm......
May 29, 2008 11:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually Laura chances are if Hillary had actually passed universal healthcare in 1993 it would have done a lot to rein in costs to the federal government, business and individuals. Chances are our economy would have been more robust and internationally competitive in succeeding years. We surely wouldn't have lost as many manufacturing jobs to countries like Canada.
Don't mean to be harsh but one of the major objectives of universal healthcare is to stop Big Pharma, the insurance cos. and the providers from fleecing customers and taxpayers. Why are you making the Republican case against universal healthcare by talking about how expensive it'll be? The idea is to transfer the burden from business and individuals to the government which has much greater bargaining power.
May 30, 2008 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can the woman not say anything without being pilloried? (I know, pillory me...) The fact that her campaign has had financial problems has zero relevance in assessing the policies she would pursue as President. There are sound reasons to question her claim that she is the most fiscally responsible, but they should be based on her policies, not some glib dismissal based on the finances of her campaign. If you want to judge a candidate by his or skills running a campaign, you should have had great confidence in Bush, who ran two nearly ones. How much did that tell us about his ability to govern competently?
May 29, 2008 11:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it speaks volumes about her character. I don't know if you read the Atlantic piece, but appointing incompetant cronies to high ranking positions inside your campaign, not for their skills, but for their loyalty should be a BIG RED FLAG!
Here read this. You still think how you run a campaign is not a good indicator?
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200802u/patti-solis-doyle
I don't want this person anywhere near our struggling economy.
May 30, 2008 3:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
From the article:
May 30, 2008 3:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did no one read the documents that had a list of the campaign expenditures at the time? Best hotels, fine dining, lots of perks. These were Clinton's priorities - as they say, the buck stopped with Hilary not her minions. And whose fault is it that many small business vendors (including social non-profits) months old bills remain unpaid? Hillary's or her staffs?
May 30, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
She showed that she can fire cronies, and she's been kicking Obama's ass with 1/2 to 1/3 of the money spent ever since.
May 30, 2008 3:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Really? Read the article Des. She did not want to fire her. People were begging her for YEARS to fire her. This chick was such a suck up and Hillary bought it hook line and sinker. No one could tell her otherwise. After Iowa, when Hillary was told she was broke, she got pissed asking her what she did with it all. And she still kept her because she was all happy when she soon won NH.
Heckuva job brownie! It was only after her string of losses that she finally resigned to let her go.
May 30, 2008 3:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Appalachia for Clinton! Wahooooooo!
May 30, 2008 8:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Solis Doyle was fired on 2/10. That day Clinton lost in Maine. On 2/12 she got clobbered in DC, MD and VA. 2/19 she was beaten in HA and WI. On 3/4 she won OH and RI, lost VT, won the popular vote in TX but lost the delegate count. 3/8 she lost WY. On 3/11 she won MS. 4/22 she won PA. On 5/2 she lost Guam. 5/6 the contest essentially ended when she got whomped in NC and barely won IN. 5/13 she won WV big. 5/20 Obama won OR big, she won KY bigger.
Score since Solis Doyle was fired: Obama...11
Clinton.08
And that's giving her TX where she lost on delegates.
Try again Des.
May 30, 2008 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ummm... Obama won MS.
May 30, 2008 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Phoebe Fay I stand corrected. Obama won with 61% in MS. Don"t know how I missed that.
Score since 3/10:
Obama: 12
Clinton 7
May 30, 2008 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kicking his ass might be an exaggeration, but your analysis is a bit skewed. I don't think you can fairly count HRC's losses on 2/12 just two days after Solis Doyle was fired. 2/19 is also problematic, a campaign doesn't turn around in 9 days, but I'll let that one go for the sake of argument. So, if you start counting on 2/19, you get the following breakdown:
Clinton won OH, RI, TX, PA, IND, WV, KY
Obama won HA, WI, VT, WY, MS, GUAM, NC, OR
That makes 8-7 Obama. Clinton's 7 include Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. Obama's include Guam and Wyoming (to be fair, also Wisconson and North Carolina). The point is that Clinton's campaign has righted itself and she has been arguably the stronger candidate since late February/early March. It seems apparent to me that if she had someone running the campaign who knew what she was doing, HRC would have performed better in the caucus states (instead of ignoring them altogether). Given the razor thin margin of Obama's victory, even a marginally better showing would have placed her on top.
I recognize there are no do-overs, however. She seems to have lost, fair and square.
Did you ever get your watch back?
May 30, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
February and March is when she really started to attack. If you use the GOP metric of lies and distortions as being a stronger candidate, then yes, you are right.
May 30, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Armchair, Des said ever since she fired Solis Doyle so I counted every contest after that. Hillary geared her campaign to overwhelm opponents financially as she had in both her senate races. The knockout blow was to come on 2/5 and it didn't happen. Mark Penn one of her top advisers, who for awhile after SD's firing had even more power, apparently didn't even know Dems don't have winner take all primaries according to Harold Ickes.
You can say she won TX but again, by the metric Dems use for choosing a nominee she didn't. Obama will have more TX pledged delegates than she will. Probably more supers too.
If you're going to argue that only contests after 2/19 really count then you're not talking about what Des said.
At this point you might as well say let's only count votes of white women over 50 because if we count any others we're discriminating against white women over 50.
May 30, 2008 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only point I was trying to make is that she has been a stronger candidate since getting rid of Solis Doyle. That's the core of what Des said, albeit a bit hyperbolically. The main point seems indisputable. A case can be made that she's performed better than Obama since Williams took over - and that would mean not counting 2/12, when she had all of two days to right the ship. Of course, I know everything before that counts as well and I'm not trying to overturn the results.
One word about Texas: Seems to me that Texas is a good argument against using the "pledged delegate" count to determine the nominee. Clinton got more votes than Obama. If she got fewer delegates, that just means the system for allocating delegates is warped. Same thing for Nevada.
Lest I be misunderstood, I accept that Obama is on the verge of winning and I'm not trying to change the rules.
May 30, 2008 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree. How a candidate runs his or her campaign, who they surround themselves with, what they spend their money on, how many small businesses they stiff along the way are all very telling clues as to what their administrations would look like. Not to mention the seeming-rudderless nature of her campaign message, which shifted every few weeks, adrift, unable to settle on what she was about. All of this tells me a great deal about what a Hillary Clinton administration would be like.
May 30, 2008 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are sound reasons to criticize Hillary's claim that she is the most fiscally responsible candidate based upon her proposed policies, but a glib dismissal based upon her campaign's financial difficulties is not one of them. George Bush ran two nearly flawless campaigns. Was that an accurate predictor of his ability to govern competently?
May 30, 2008 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Uh oh. Sorry for the double. The first was inexplicably rejected, hopefully not based upon the quality of the ideas expressed, though some may believe it so.
May 30, 2008 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
The fact that even Bush could keep his campaign in the black is a pretty good indicator of just how bad you have to be with finances to go into the red.
May 30, 2008 12:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
The troll is back speaking gibberish.
May 30, 2008 3:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
If only he could have used his powers for good instead of evil. :)
May 30, 2008 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uhhh, I believe that going beyond one's means financially is the very basis of fiscal irresponsibility.
May 30, 2008 6:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you that transferring the costs of health care to the governement would have made American businesses more competitive, but as I recall, that was not Hillary's plan. Her plan was the old mandate thing with community pricing, HMOs, and plenty of goodies to keep insurers and Big Pharm happy.
May 30, 2008 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sticking with Doyle, in my view, was probably the biggest blunder of the campaign and may have cost her the nomination. Just look at how her campaign has gained focus since Williams took over. It is well known that Clinton has a trace of paranoia in her and is fiercely loyal to her inner circle. Yes, this is a drawback, although understandable given the ferocity of the attacks on her from the right (and now left). While this is an important consideration as it relates to her political instincts (or lack thereof), however, I don't believe that this would translate into an administration staffed with cronies. My belief is based on the Clinton administration and the way she has conducted herself as Senator from New York.
May 30, 2008 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is the other thing. We have been subjected to the most secretive administration ever! Closed door government. We all see where that has led us. The best disinfectant for corruption is sunshine and I doubt Hillary will come anywhere near an open and honest government. Just for the sheer fact that she does not want her decisions to be open to scrutiny. Her lies on the campaign trail are just one indication, but her paranoia is another.
The government is supposed to work for us. We pay them. Obama wants to lay open the government for all to be involved in.
http://origin.barackobama.com/issues/ethics/
http://obama.senate.gov/issues/ethics_and_lobbying_reform/
This is the biggest difference between Obama and Hillary.
I have no doubt that a Hillary administration would be as secretive as GWB.
May 30, 2008 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bill Clinton's administration was not marked by obsessive secrecy. I take this as my marker. There is a difference between secrecy and paranoia in terms of one's interaction with (correctly, I believe) hostile forces on the other side and in the media and secrecy in conducting the affairs of state. It's the latter that concerns me. The former, while an interesting topic of discussion, is a distraction. To state that a Clinton administration would be comparable to Bush in that regard seems wildly exaggerated. Obama, I would agree, has been far more open and honest - admirable qualities but not at the top of my list as far as successful governance. In any event, he can afford to be as he has not been under continuous attack from a vast right wing conspiracy for more than a decade (yes, she was right about that one, but what flak she took).
May 30, 2008 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
What makes you think that Hillary's management of the Whitehouse would in any way resemble her husbands?
May 30, 2008 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very true. But the sad part about it is, I believe, they have gotten a "if you can't beat em, join em" mentality. They started off very idealistic and working for the people. But I believe their skewering in the public eye in the 90's have made them hard. I don't believe they are in it "for the people" anymore.
From Bill Clinton's friendship with G. HW Bush shortly after he left office, to the Dubai ports deal, Columbia trade deal, and a host of others, I suspect strongly that their hearts are no longer with us.
Hillary's failed 90's healthcare reforms gave way to being the 2nd highest recipient of those industries contributions (promptling an exposure in the movie Sicko). Her announcing that lobbyists are "real Americans" and so many more. I just don't have room.
I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt, I really would. But judging the Clintons by the memories of what they were in the 90's is just not an applicable metric anymore. They have changed, drastically. I personally believe, given their actions against democratic values in this campaign, that they really can no longer even be seen as democrats.
May 30, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
She did not run the Clinton administration her husband did. You cannot extrapolate how she would perform based on it. Her major contribution to that administration was screwing up healthcare by being insular and not working with others except her cronies (just like she has run her campaign).
May 30, 2008 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the biggest blunder was the Iraq vote, pre-campaign. Poor choices for many of her top spots ala Penn,Doyle,Mcauliff,Carville,etc, didn't help either. Throw in the defacto McCain endorsment,Snipergate,Bill and Ferraro's comments and you've got a rather unappealing candidate.But for me, the War Vote eliminated her from the get-go.
May 30, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, because excessive pork-barrel spending is fiscally responsible.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20306341/the_queen_of_pork/print
May 30, 2008 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you.
May 30, 2008 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 30, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
She apparently hasn't been paying attention to the books of her own campaign, nor is she missing those millions she's loaned...to herself.
Hillary may officially be in Bizarro World. Or, more likely, she thinks we all are fucking idiots. Yeah, I'd go with the latter.
May 30, 2008 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you finish grade school?
May 30, 2008 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink