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Two Hillary-Related Questions for JPod
[Jim Geraghty 05/09 11:56 AM]
I'd like to be part of the kick-off here by picking John's brain on two Hillary-related topics:
1. On domestic policies, Hillary has been a conservative's nightmare. But on national security and the war on terror, she's been surprisingly and consistently hawkish. (She's a Democratic senator from New York, if she wanted to be a dove, she could get away with being a dove.) My father insists Hillary's war rhetoric and votes are mere political posturing and to give her credit for this is to succumb to the same siren's call that ultimately turned David Brock; I think she was genuinely traumatized and changed by 9/11. What's your call?
2. The New York Post has, in the past, credited Hillary for being a much better senator and representative of the state's interests than they expected. I too, expected her to be a primadonna and egomaniacal camera hog on the Hill, and have been surprised by her willingness to dive into the legislative grunt work and not-so-glamourous local issues. Could Hillary surprise us in other ways as she gets on the campaign trail?
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My Answer in the Cross-Blog Sweepstakes
[John Podhoretz 05/09 11:52 AM]
Thanks for the question about Can She Be Stopped?, John J. Miller!
Right now — and of course we're two years away from the conclusion of the primary season in 2008 — I see no plausible scenario in which she is stopped by other Democrats. She's one of the two or three most famous people ever to run for president (Eisenhower and Grant being the only two others I can think of who were as or more famous than she). She will have more money than God, perhaps a hundred million more than her closest rival. She is 25 points up on any rival Democrat in the polls, and that includes the famous guys who might challenge her, like Gore and Kerry. Can someone run to her left? Maybe, although with the exception of her votes on Iraq, there isn't very much room to her left. She has a 95 percent liberal voting record.
As for Warner, ask yourself whether there would be excitement about Mark Warner if he were, say, the governor of Kansas (also a Democrat, named Kathleen Sibelius) rather than Virginia, where so many reporters and pundits live. I think the answer is obviously no.
Hillary is as formidable a frontrunner as we've seen in decades.
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Can She Be Stopped?--by Democrats
[Kathryn Jean Lopez 05/09 11:46 AM]
I think this from John J. Miller in The Corner is cross-blog examination.
CSBS?
[Kathryn Jean Lopez 05/09 11:44 AM]
By the way, John talks about the book a bit in a Q&A elsewhere on NRO today.
Tuesday, May 9, 2006
Welcome to the Blog
My general proposition in this book is that Hillary is a very formidable candidate and that Republicans and conservatives had better focus on the electoral threat she presents in 2008 or else they and the country will reap the whirlwind. The book is as much about the doldrums into which the GOP has sailed and the profound temptation already being experienced by conservatives to fracture the 2004 coalition in pursuit of doctrinal purity. If that happens, Hillary wins. So it's simple. If you don't want Hillary to be president, you're probably going to have to swallow a little hard and accept that a viable Republican candidate for the presidency is going to disappoint you in one way or another. Such is life.
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Tuesday, May 9, 2006
I'll be in the media today—it would be great if you could tune in:
- "Sean Hannity Show," Radio
- "Hannity and Colmes Show", Fox News, live interview, 9PM
- "The Alan Colmes Show," Radio, 10PM
- "The Situation with Tucker Carlson," MSNBC, live interview, 11PM
Today, May 4, the book was featured on the Drudge Report. Check out the posting here.
"The shocking conclusion of the conservative NEW YORK POST columnist..." from the Drudge Report.
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