Hillary Ad: Change Comes With Experience
Hillary Clinton's new ad in New Hampshire features the candidate speaking directly to the camera, rebutting a point often made by her competitors — especially Barack Obama — that this election needs to be about change. Instead, she says, change comes with experience, the kind she can offer:
Comments (43)
Kefa wrote on December 20, 2007 3:19 PM:Go get em Madam Prez.They can't take the heat.
kjoe wrote on December 20, 2007 3:22 PM:Whiny, condescending---in a self-consciously defensive way.
At least she did not offer free health care to people who call her. No hostage taking will be inspired by this.
DRinOH wrote on December 20, 2007 3:22 PM:Ending the war...you mean the one you voted for?
Experience - Obama's been in legislative office far longer.
Electability - just look at the NBC/WSJ poll at the top of this page.
dajafi wrote on December 20, 2007 3:23 PM:And what experience would that be, pray tell? All those things she led on in the Senate? Like... give me a minute here... um...
Or sharing the president's bed (at least in theory)?
This would be a great argument for Chris Dodd, Joe Biden or Bill Richardson to make. It's valid against Obama or Edwards--COMING FROM THEM. HRH has little more relevant experience than, say, Katherine vanden Heuvel from editing The Nation. She's been in on a lot of detailed conversations with smart people too, and surely even contributed to them.
But, like vanden Heuvel (or any other longtime pundit/media type), HRH hasn't led--and, frankly, given her proven bad judgment and worse instincts on everything from '93-'94 health care reform to Kyl-Lieberman, I'm not so sure this is a bad thing.
Verb(ose) wrote on December 20, 2007 3:25 PM:Oh I'm so giddy,
but I just couldn't say why
but ain't my sweater purtty
Michael wrote on December 20, 2007 3:30 PM:I'm working on a blog post on this right now, but this attempt to turn Hillary into the change candidate simply isn't going to work.
The subtext of all these political messages is "change from Bush and his politics". How each candidate defines what we're changing too, so too do they define what we're leaving behind.
In order to get a good message, that will stick, then, you need to accurately diagnose what Dem primary voters think actually needs changing. This is where Hillary's campaign message has failed her.
Her "strength & experience" and "weren't the 90's rad?" and "ready to lead from day 1" and "most qualified non-incumbent" arguments point to a message of steady, competent leadership. That contrasts with the incompetent buffoonery of the Bush Whitehouse nicely. Unfortunately for her, that's not why Dems hate him, and as such, why her campaign pitch is failing.
Edwards sets it up so that Bush is owned by big business (and he is right on that), and he is the pure candidate who will eradicate their hold on the White House and much of Congress. He's much closer to the mark.
Obama sets it up so that Bush is an obdurate ideologue who surrounds himself with sycophantic yes-men and polarizes the nation and the world...and Obama is the considerate problem-solver who respects the opinions of all sides, wants to take America past partisanship, demands dissent from his advisers, etc etc.
Edwards and Obama hit much closer to home.
So Hillary trying to change into a "change" candidate misses the point, which is that she doesn't get what voters want change from and as such what they want to change to.
kjoe wrote on December 20, 2007 3:37 PM:Her sister-in-law, who happens to be barbara Boxer's daughter, is hoping or working hard for change. She would like Hillary's brother to change his attitude and pay the child support and alimony he owes.
An easier solution---call Hillary, who would call her mother, who would call her deadbeat son---problem solved. They could make a dandy ad of it---complete with a heartwarming scene of Bill and her brother...............
Liberal Larry wrote on December 20, 2007 3:40 PM:Bush-Lite/Mrs. Bush '08!
Experience We Can Believe In
This reminds me of a TV commercial where an actor comes on dressed like a doctor and hawks some cold & flu remedy. Blech!
WWNPHD wrote on December 20, 2007 3:42 PM:She's right. From what sources tell me Obama's plan for his first day in the White House is to gather his advisers and form what he calls a "Hope Circle". He anticipates that they will hold hands and sit cross-legged on the floor of the oval office until all is right with the world - of course he acknowledges it's premature to get into too many details of his plan, as the race is still tight. Personally, I want someone who's ready to lead on day 1. Not just Hope Circle.
I'm a writer wrote on December 20, 2007 3:45 PM:Hi
I am really good at
spelling
punctuation
and quotation marks
I like someone but can't say who
I guess I have writers block
cause I am an English major
and I just know I am a good writer
but haven't sold anything yet
but I will
because of
spelling
punctuation
and quotation marks
Love to all;^}
playing voters for fools...change only comes with change, not with Washington insider, lobbyist hugging and more of the same "experience". Obama has more legislative experience, Hillary just has more First Lady and lying experience. she is the last thing we need.
funny she didn't mention how she has stated that Bush Sr. and Reagan are two of her favorite presidents, or that she wanted Bush Sr to be part of her "new" foreign policy. ya, sounds like a whole lot of change to me!
and judging my all of the polls, obama will be much more electable than her in the general election, just look at the iowa polls for that trend.
stlounick wrote on December 20, 2007 3:47 PM:Hillary has put out better ads than this one which I thought was poor. It simply does not stand out in any way.
LJ wrote on December 20, 2007 3:48 PM:How incredibly tiresome.
Only someone who voted in favor of authorizing an invasion of Iraq can end the war that resulted.
Only someone who failed to change our health care system in the '90's can fix it now.
Only someone who voted for the Patriot Act can restore our civil liberties.
Only someone who voted for No Child Left Behind can improve our education system.
If the American people are so vacuous as to swallow this strength and experience crap, we deserve to be stuck with Hillary Clinton for eight years of partisan bickering and gridlock.
Is there no hope that Iowa can move their caucuses up any further so we can just get this thing over with?
NCSteve wrote on December 20, 2007 3:51 PM:She says change "doesn't happen because you want it to or because you hope for it," but I do kinda think that if you neither want it nor hope for it, it ain't gonna happen.
Jeremy wrote on December 20, 2007 3:52 PM:Isn't it a little late for Hillary to be trying to change her message? I thought she was all about returning to the 90s. And wasn't her whole point on diplomacy that she wouldn't change the preconditions-based approach of the neocons because that would be "naive"?
BluePuppy wrote on December 20, 2007 3:57 PM:I can feel the big mo' moving in Hillary's direction, and listening to you sad Hillary-haters has me screaming in my cubicle: it makes more certain than that we're winning. Mr. Profile in Courage 130 times Present is going down. The sanctimonious movement is coming to an end. Amadeus, Amadeus, rock me Amadeus…
Awww wrote on December 20, 2007 4:11 PM:Hillary, "BluePuppy get over here now
and do exactly what I say, act exactly how I want you to act, and support me no matter how deep down you resent me"
BluePuppy, "OK grandmaa Hillary, me loves you this much, smooooocth"
dajafi wrote on December 20, 2007 4:15 PM:Heel!
Beg!
Lie down!
Vote for the Restoration!
There's a good puppy! Who wants a snack?
Hope Circle....LMAO
Priority #2 Affirmative Action for illegal aliens
#3 Mantory singing of Kum Ba Ya to start every school day
#4 Move nation's capital to Boulder, CO
#5 Patchouli oil with presidential seal for sale at White House
#6 Kucinich for Secretary of Defense
#7 Drum circles to replace marching bands
#8 Ramsey Clark as AG (again)
#9 Every citizen must carry a small red copy of Audacity of Hope at all times
#10 Pressure Congress to vote "present" for all pressing bills
shoephone wrote on December 20, 2007 4:59 PM:LJ @ 3:48 p.m. -
You forgot to mention:
Only the woman who traveled around the country in 2005 advocating for a flag burning amendment to the constitution can help protect and defend the constitution.
Pepp wrote on December 20, 2007 5:31 PM:Very good ad looks, like Senator Clinton is off the ropes and getting to KO Obama. PRESENT wont get it done.
Obama's Mama wrote on December 20, 2007 5:42 PM:I just love all you cutsie little Obama crazies, with your pie-eyed enthusiasm and dreams of hope, racial harmony, and never-ending peace. Guess what? In national polls, Clinton doesn't just beat Obama, she doesn't just drubb him, she smashes him into little bitty bloody pieces and bakes them up into muffins.
And guess what else? There is a reason for that. It isn't a media conspiracy, it isn't a rovian plot... the reason is that 75% of the population is over 12 years old and isn't going to vote for the latest black hippee to jump off the drug bus. When you naive children grow up you will realize that things don't work the way you'd like them to. Hoping and demanding and $2.95 will get you a small mochachino. Adults work for a living.
sn00t wrote on December 20, 2007 5:42 PM:I'm Hillary Clinton - and I will prove that I will lie my @$$ off in this commercial ...
Uhh ... 35 years of experience?
She lists adoption, body armor ...
Wow ....
That's a lot of accomplishment in 35 years ...
Let me add a few:
She successfully closed her eyes to all of Bill's affairs ...
She then went after people with a viciousness to protect her enabling ways for Bill ...
And now she has successfully cashed in her check on all of Bill's IOUs to try to win the Dem nomination ...
A spoof of this commercial ... is way too easy ...
Where are the You Tuber's ... get to work!
anon wrote on December 20, 2007 5:42 PM:This is great stuff!
If you want change, then vote for the person most wedded to and in love with the idea of presiding over the current corrupt, fetid cesspool that Washington has become. It's a classic case of "up is down" ism!
Hillary, the very definition of the politician beholden to corporate and other rapacious special interests, will bring change? Yeah right, and the surge is working beautifully too.
What a load of bullshit.
Obama's Mama wrote on December 20, 2007 5:44 PM:I think Obama just gave hillary a big Christmas PRESENT.
Stand up and be a man Obama. Hillary has been taking the flak you run from for decades. Experience and leadership for change, for a change.
pacc wrote on December 20, 2007 6:05 PM:DRinOH wrote:Experience - Obama's been in legislative office far longer.
This kind of smarmy O-bomb-A cheerleading bullshit needs to be called out every time it appears.
Barry O-Bomb-A was a two-bit State Senator, in cahoots with a slum lord developer (who helped finance turd boy''s $1.5+ million mansion).
BO has no executive experience.
BO has little by way of legislative accomplishments.
About all BO has seems to be a big mouth and trying to hide behind his race.
It's time to flush the toilet.
Mike wrote on December 20, 2007 6:28 PM:Pace
put down the bass fishin magazine
and go clean out your tackle box
and I think you need some new tires
you ain't got no tread dude
you go'into hurts yourself
sorry pal but you need to be called out
Let's hear that thar rebel yell o'yours
but ain't no one a listenning
hows that go - da da da da da da of the coming of the lord, she has trampled down the vineyards
Following is a good example of why Hillary and her kool aid drinking followers should never be allowed to grasp the ring of power. The kind of people who would write this garbage and the kind of campaign that would spawn it need to be stopped cold in their tracks. Thankfully, the voters of Iowa and New Hamshire are about to do just that.
Look at this bile below. It's typical, yet the Hillary squad complains of being attacked by "haters"? Oy vey!
Obama's Mama wrote on December 20, 2007 5:42 PM:
I just love all you cutsie little Obama crazies, with your pie-eyed enthusiasm and dreams of hope, racial harmony, and never-ending peace. Guess what? In national polls, Clinton doesn't just beat Obama, she doesn't just drubb him, she smashes him into little bitty bloody pieces and bakes them up into muffins.
And guess what else? There is a reason for that. It isn't a media conspiracy, it isn't a rovian plot... the reason is that 75% of the population is over 12 years old and isn't going to vote for the latest black hippee to jump off the drug bus. When you naive children grow up you will realize that things don't work the way you'd like them to. Hoping and demanding and $2.95 will get you a small mochachino. Adults work for a living.
why didn't we have universial pre-k during the 90s? what hell did the clintons do all that time to shore up our lousy schools? anybody?
"middle class tax relief?" wasn't that a broken promise from the 90s?
all the slogans that were flashed on the screen were recent developments. where is this fabled record of experience during clinton's two terms that hillary takes credit for? i want to see that list.
stolen water wrote on December 20, 2007 6:47 PM:when did democrats become as bigoted as republicans?
Jan wrote on December 20, 2007 8:00 PM:re: "Uhh ... 35 years of experience? She lists adoption, body armor ... Wow ...."
So now the Clinton Haters think helping make adoptions easier for citizens and securing body armor for our troops are no longer worthy accomplishments.
Wow.
The more I read the comments of Clinton Haters, the more I love this woman's courage. The people who hate her prove themselves over and over again to be just plain nasty and petty.
Anonymous wrote on December 20, 2007 8:07 PM:pacc, Your silly name calling seems so juvenile. Do you really think people read childish posts?
DM wrote on December 20, 2007 8:09 PM:I don't often agree with George Will, but every once in a while he really nails it.
On Clinton's "experience":
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/12/that_70s_campaign.html
dajafi wrote on December 20, 2007 8:37 PM:helping make adoptions easier for citizens and securing body armor for our troops
These are worthy accomplishments. They're just not politically difficult. I give Sen. Clinton credit for working on them, but it's not exactly like she had to change a lot of minds or twist a lot of arms there. In that sense, these efforts are more of a piece with the school-uniforms push, TV ratings system and all the other relatively piddling stuff that Bill Clinton did, upon the urging of Mark Penn and Dick Morris, so he could say he did something, anything other than Lewinsky in the last years of his relatively undistinguished presidency.
You can't compare those things, worthy and admirable as they are, to winning health care, or creating universal pre-K, or taking meaningful steps toward energy independence. These are huge fights, in which the president will have to change minds, twist arms, and make deals.
And this really gets us to the crux of it. If you're a Democrat who thinks that the country just needs someone who can do small things, the Clinton Restoration likely strikes you as the way to go. But if you think that this moment--heavy with some of the problems Bill Clinton couldn't or wouldn't address, like the uninsured, global warming and the need for a workers' and citizens' counterbalance to ever more concentrated corporate power, plus all the problems Bush has dumped in our laps--calls for something more than timidity and triangulation, you're inclined towards Obama or Edwards.
As much as the Hill-bots here evidently hate Obama, he's actually probably closer to your Corporatist Queen than he is to Edwards--at least if you credit him as sincere in his firebreathing populist incarnation, as I do. Both are mainstream Democrats who aren't very far off on issues. The difference is who's more likely to be brave, and who's more likely to move the country. And I refuse to believe that anyone who looks at this rationally can conclude that someone as widely hated, and as proven to have no guts or discernment, as Hillary Clinton, gets the nod on either criterion.
Anonymous wrote on December 20, 2007 9:00 PM:Corporatist Queen
What does that even mean? That unlike Edwards, she's actually interested in competing against the Republicans and winning?
Hillary is the right-wing's worst nightmare, because she could actually get our agenda in place. The Rethugs would destroy Obama. Obama would be destroyed, and Edwards doesn't have a prayer. It's said you have to throw out so much hate.
Richard L. Adlof wrote on December 20, 2007 10:01 PM:Change comes with experience?!?
Yep. It is called old age.
At least dcshungu won't abandon Her Royale Crownship . . .
dajafi wrote on December 20, 2007 10:14 PM:Hillary is the right-wing's worst nightmare, because she could actually get our agenda in place.
I don't know why I keep asking this. But I will, one last time:
Why do you think she could "get our agenda in place"?
Seriously. Convince me.
Half the country hates her. She's never--EVER--taken a strong stand for any serious progressive measure that required convincing anyone of anything.
You zombies keep reciting these "truths" as self-evident. In doing so, you remind me of nothing so much as Bush apologists. My guess is that royalist sheep simply have certain traits in common. But please, convince me otherwise--sway me that she's their "worst nightmare."
Because I see her as their fondest dream: the Limbaugh types get their she-devil back, and the corporate pigs know she's as eager to service them as Lewinsky was Bill.
shoephone wrote on December 20, 2007 11:18 PM:Obama's Mama (as if) -
You sound like the perfect Hillary Cultist. Pace comes close, but, after much deliberation, he will receive the award for best performance in a supporting role, while you get to take home the big prize.
Your ASSumptions are wildly off the mark. Not everyone who's unimpressed with the Clinton machine is an Obama supporter. I happen to be a supporter of Edwards, the man I believe will be winning in Iowa.
*Happy Holidays*
erik wrote on December 20, 2007 11:22 PM:It truly saddens me that Clintons staunchest defenders on this site confirm some of my deepest fears about her and what she preys on in the electorate.
ObamaMama and others use race-baiting, offensive cultural references, and fear speak to try and denigrate Obama. Like Obama, this doesn't surprise me. Being an idealist and being willing to hope does not necessarily blur one's understanding of reality.
It was John F. Kennedy that said, "I'm an idealist, without illusions." Great leaders look directly into the brutal facts while maintaining their vision for something better. I believe Obama to be such a leader. I think Hilary, and many, though not all, of her supporters, use the nastiness of reality to justify lowered expectations and lowered standards of conduct.
I'm tired of living in a country that does not demand excellence of itself, that places pragmatism over what is right and just. Hilary is very pragmatic, too much so in my view. It would be hard for me to vote for Hilary if she should win the nomination, just as it is hard to read some of her supporters comments on this site.
Hillary? Just say NO! wrote on December 21, 2007 12:48 AM:Obama's Mama wrote on December 20, 2007 5:42 PM:
I just love all you cutsie little Obama crazies, with your pie-eyed enthusiasm and dreams of hope, racial harmony, and never-ending peace. Guess what? In national polls, Clinton doesn't just beat Obama, she doesn't just drubb him, she smashes him into little bitty bloody pieces and bakes them up into muffins.
Upon reading this pathetic, school yard level screed, one line comes to my mind:
"And your little dog too!
AAAAAhahahahahahahahahaha!"
bbln wrote on December 21, 2007 2:00 AM:What happened to being above the fray and having hope? Most of the hateful, irrational, foaming-at-the mouth hit jobs on other Democrats come from Obama supporters.
What's all that about?
nogo war wrote on December 21, 2007 7:01 AM:The first defense of Clinton II supporters is that those who oppose her "hate" her.
I don't hate her, I don't hate Bill
(ok..I despise Bill for a lot of reasons other than using his power to have sex outside his marriage)
See..for many of us having Rupert M. host a fund raiser is troublesome.
Political music you can dance to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp6-wG5LLqE
..remember our world gets a little brighter after Saturday..
(Edwards means it)
