Letterman demographic: Youngish college aged males

Suggested Hillary message: "I just want you all to know that the Iowa Caucuses are on February 25th, 2010 at 8am"

Great move Hillary!

So she's thumbs down to labor unions. Is she REALLY GOING TO CROSS A PICKET LINE???

IS THERE EVEN GOING TO BE A PICKET LINE?? There should be, if not then shame on the writers.

Wait until this summer, when Verizon goes on strike. We'll show them how to have a picket line. We're going to fight to keep medical benefits for our retirees intact. Verizon wants to get rid of them for retirees completly.

So when workers go on strike, Clinton puts herself ahead of the workforce? I think I'm not going to vote for her.

She's warming up the old cackle as we speak.

Relax, Letterman worked something out with the Union. Its Leno (I believe) who is going against the union.

To the contrary, anonymous, Letterman entered into an independent side deal with the strikers, and has their blessing.

Her appearance will rally the labor vote tomorrow. Very shrewd.

A bit risky for Hillery...
It has been Letterman who night after night has reminded people what an idiot Bush is.
It is Letterman who negotiated a contract with the writers...
I am sure he will be respectful..
However..

Not having The Daily Show covering this is the biggest void in my limited TV...
Heck Letterman was telling Bill jokes in
2007.

As others have noted, this certainly seems like an odd move if the goal is to get out her voters in Iowa.

Ot perhaps, Michael, in the age of technology, she will appear via satellite.

Drinking game: Take a shot every time she cackles.

PS: Don't try this unless you have a liver the size of a horse.

Since nobody seems to sympathize with the striking Hollywood writers, it's probably a fine move for her. But I think she should show more principle and not appear on the show. The writers have a legitimate gripe.

Trevor, of course I am sure iowa gets letterman. Just from reading all this political "stuff" about how iowans are so touch feely and you have to be on the ground and rub elbows, etc., this seems like an odd move. She would probably get much more exposure on the evening news in iowa numbers wise, than she would number of people in iowa staying up late to watch letterman. Just a guess.

Criminy, still reeling from the headline . . . Greg, I'm really beginning to think you guys do that on purpose.

Seriously, its not about Iowa. It's about New Hampshire and Supercalifragilistic Tuesday.

>>Since nobody seems to sympathize with the striking Hollywood writers, it's probably a fine move for her. But I think she should show more principle and not appear on the show. The writers have a legitimate gripe.

So what if Letterman made an agreement with the union. There is still a strike going on.

What is this supposed to mean. There is no strike against Letterman. I fail to see how one "honors" a union's strike by boycotting those employers which have reached agreements with the union. There is no picket line to be crossed here, so it is senseless to complain about Sen Clinton crossing a picket line.

Why wouldn't she be barnstorming all over iowa and getting in the local evening news?

I don't get it. Is the implication that people in Iowa don't watch Letterman?

Way to go, Dave.

Unlike Leno etc., Dave owns his own production company which has struck a deal with the writers; he has shown 100% solidarity with the writers and supported them in their positions, and because he has independent ownership so he can do so. This is progressive capitalism at its best.

So the writers are happy with Dave, and I'm happy he's having Hillary on tonight.

So your telling me that the writers who are still not working shouldn't picket the studio the film at? Why should they be happy about this side deal? So millions of people don't have to watch reruns anymore? What kind of a union is that?

It's almost as bad as the MLB union and the million dollars members they have. That union is a complete joke, yet we still want our entertainment.

The point being that there is a strike going on, and there should be a picket line period. And just what deal did they cut? Are the letterman writers going back to work or something??

I know that these shows are still allowed to go on during a strike. It's called doing business. And doing the business requires people to write the material. So my question is, who is doing the writing? Letterman and Leno? or are there others? Meaning replacement writers. Just like in any business, there are people who work there who are not in the union. Are they going to do the writing? Is John the janitor now John the writer? And how long can this go on?????????

It's not much of a surprise anymore, now is it?

I'm sure Letterman does have a good-sized audience in Iowa. The question, though, is how many of those particular Iowans are likely to go to the caucuses and support Clinton due to her appearance. In other words, a bigger audience is not necessarily a better audience if it is actually the wrong audience.

But I think Desider confirmed my suspicion: this may just be about rebranding Clinton as a "national" candidate, supposedly as opposed to her opponents. That of course is what Giuliani is doing as well.

Anonymous 5:11 - I know you're sitting at a computer - is it too much to ask you to use Google to look up the terms of the settlement? "letterman return air settlement". Letterman signed an agreement with the union where his company takes responsibility for paying the union workers their existing demands. His WGA writers will be right there with him, not scabs.

So your telling me that the writers who are still not working shouldn't picket the studio the film at? Why should they be happy about this side deal? So millions of people don't have to watch reruns anymore? What kind of a union is that?

Okay, look. This is not complicated!

1. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers failed to sign a contract the writer's union found acceptable.

2. The writer's union went on strike against the AMPTP members.

3. Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants, one tv producer, independently signed a contract with the writer's union which the writer's union found acceptable. In other words, Worldwide Pants scabbed on the AMPTP. Since Letterman signed the contract, the writer's union halted the strike against Letterman.

4. The writer's union is now on strike against every AMPTP member except worldwide pants.

In response to Anonymous @ 5:11 pm:

Letterman's writers are back at work and will be working per usual because Letterman's production co. reached an agreement with the union. Leno is going back to work without his writers because NBC has NOT reached an agreement with the writers.

This is similar to what would happen if, for example, the airline pilots assn. went on strike and they were able to reach an agreement with United but not American. If you flew on United you would NOT be crossing any picket lines or disrespecting any labor negotiations because an agreement had been reached between United and the airline pilots assn.

DTM, I "confirmed" your suspicion? I'm just a schmoe posing on the internet with no connection to anyone, doing his best not to speculate madly like so many around here. A friendly national program where you get to look warm and funny instead of the dragon lady pre-scripted image people have been complaining about? It's a no-brainer, whether it covers Iowa or the nation. But Letterman reaches Iowa, and with 1/100th of the country's population that could be about 36,000 viewers taking a rough dumb guess. Not a bad last minute connect. Whether the Letterman audience is "the wrong audience" - well, I imagine the campaign that's ahead by 20-25 points nationally has considered this. And of course Hillary isn't "rebranding" (another worn-out talking point) - she's been running a national campaign from the start. Her difference from Giuliani is that when she meets people, her ratings tend to go up. (of course there have been some rough spots blown out of proportion, but the trends are there).

>>Greg DeLassus wrote on January 2, 2008 5:00 PM:
So what if Letterman made an agreement with the union. There is still a strike going on.
What is this supposed to mean. There is no strike against Letterman. I fail to see how one "honors" a union's strike by boycotting those employers which have reached agreements with the union. There is no picket line to be crossed here, so it is senseless to complain about Sen Clinton crossing a picket line.>What is this supposed to mean. There is no strike against Letterman.

Clinton on Letterman tonight

Per Mike Allen, she taped a "cameo" in Cedar Rapids.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7675.html

Letterman worked out a direct agreement with his writers and his writers have ended their strike and returned to his show unlike in the case of Jay Leno.

The search for intelligent life in the Obama land continues!

This is a great move. If she can manage to show people her warm and cuddly side, she'll win over many wavering voters who "know" her only through the caricature that the MSM and the wingnuts have created.

It is an excellent move that could make Letterman go down into history books as the "queen maker"... (should she win IA, watch for future candidate to fight for the "privilege" to get on "Late Night" in future caucus eves.)

Alternative, this might just be a metaphor about tomorrow night: it could be a very Late Night.

Good move, I say. The hours between 6:30 and 9:30 will be lost campaigning time - Fiesta Bowl, you know - so 10:30 is just right for viewing Letterman in Iowa with Sen. Clinton and Robin Williams (the other guest who would certainly never cross a picket line) Smart Dave!

jak1 wrote on January 2, 2008 5:32 PM

Wow are you clueless.

As someone up-thread used the airline analogy, if one airline settles with the pilots union, those union workers who pilot for that airline go back to work. Same deal with automakers, if the UAW is going on strike with the big three, and Ford settles with them, the UAW workers go back to work at the Ford plant, but the ones striking against GM and Chrysler stay on strike.

The search for intelligent life in the Obama land continues!

Oh for pity's sake. What is this supposed to mean? I am an Obama supporter and have been at pains to make clear that Sen Clinton is not violating a picket line. Meanwhile, I defy you to point to any actual evidence that the folks who have (wrongly) complained that Sen Clinton is not honoring the strike are supporters of Sen Obama. The above is entirely unfair.

DTM: Don't disagree about the sourcing (nothing more than rumor and conjecture at this point). That being said, it will have a profoundly greater impact on the caucus outcome than the latest stop on the 2008 "Please Like Me" Tour.

Okay, maybe I'm just slap-happy at this point, but the earnestness on this thread is the funniest thing I've seen since "A Mighty Wind." Between the cloyingly fulsome praise of her strategic brilliance of this masterstroke, the nonsensical and increasingly incoherent argument that this somehow has something to do with the writer's strike and the inevitable descent of that argument into volleys of ad hominium attacks, you guys are really killing me here.

If this keeps up, I can start skipping my daily trip over to taylormarsh.com for a dose of comically unhinged, overheated and over-the-top rhetoric over stuff that don't amount to nothing.

Another smart move by Hillary and Dave. She is his Senator from NY.

Desider,

I'm not quite sure what part of the phrase "Perhaps there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this" you didn't understand.

Next time read my post in entirety and spare me the attidude...and for the record...

google "Hillary Clinton Book Deal 8 million"

now google "Hillary Clinton Book Deal 15 million"

Otay!

http://thememlingindex.com/hillary_clinton_net_worth-wealth.html

Desider,

No, they are only "talking points" if they have been prepared for the speaker in question. That is why in my last post I said "you are giving us a preview of the likely talking points", meaning that I was taking you at your word that you were not in fact working off talking points that had previously been prepared and disseminated to you in some fashion.

What is Hillary going to do to Letterman?

Wow Letterman is a genius. With the writers strike, he gets Hillary to come on and talk about her qualifications, experience and life as a self-made, independent woman.

HILLARIOUS !!!!!!!!!!!

DTM,
I suppose someone might need "Toes Go In First" as talking points for shoes, but most of us don't. Hillary didn't have to leave Iowa, being on Letterman for what, 10 minutes, was no big drain on her last day, with a lot of Iowa and national exposure to be gained. Contrast this with the Occam's Razor discarded theory that her appearance meant she was giving up on Iowa. Perhaps "talking points" should have been on this year's most overused phrase list.

Desider,

Just to clarify, what I meant was comments like this: "she is running a *national* campaign, unlike her opponents." That is what I think might be a future talking point.

But we shall see.

The Bush-Clinton era begins to end tomorrow.
Say goodbye to the Goldwater Girl

Obama just got endorsed by the former Governor of South Carolina

You mean former governor turned lobbyist Jim Hodges?

Desider,

Right, those are the sorts of talking points I am expecting (the new schedule diminishes the value of the early states, we were ambivalent about Iowa all along, our national numbers are what matter, and so forth).

don wrote on January 2, 2008 8:34 PM:
Obama just got endorsed by the former Governor of South Carolina...You mean former governor turned lobbyist Jim Hodges

That is laughable Don considering that Hillary has taken more money in from industry lobbyists than any of the candidate on either side.

She is a phony. She represents the status quo rigged political machine. And she's about to go down in flames. Maybe she'll cackle.

b!X: It also comes with other pluses: Strike talk on late-night TV -- expect tonight's top-10 to be strike related, and Robin Williams (tonight's guest instead of Trump) has been on the picket lines in NYC, so expect more from him.

Meanwhile, the Late Show writers, despite being back at work fair and square, will nonetheless continue to take daily shifts on the picket lines in NYC.

exactly!

this is a huge PRO-union move both by hrc and by letterman/world wide pants.

it will be wall-to-wall union talk tonight.

and note that huckabee will be crossing the NBC picket lines to do leno's scab show tonight.

Obama will be on next Monday night

jakl wrote:

It's real simple. You are in a union, you are all in it together, one Union. It's all or none. You are free to go back to work at any time, but then you are a scab. So the writers are in a DIFFERENT UNION then the writers who work for letterman? What kind of a union lets some members go back to work while other members are still on strike?

jakl, you need to take a course in labor law. No one who appears on the Letterman show is crossing a picket line, and none of the writers who work for Letterman are scabs. They are no longer on strike, and the union is OKAY WITH THAT. Who are you to say they are wrong?

BTW, the real story here is Mike Huckabee, who publicly stated he supports the striking workers, and is glad he won't be crossing a picket line when he appears tonight on JAY LENO'S SHOW, where he will be greeted with picket signs calling him a SCAB.

For anyone interested, she did not actually leave Iowa to appear on the show. She appears at the beginning, before the opening credits via satellite.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080103/people_nm/screenwriters_strike_pix_dc

Not sure how this is supposed to help her Iowa campaign. I only skimmed the above comments, but I agree that it would seem to be a move to remind us that she's a "national" candidate in addition to fighting it out with the others in Iowa.

How old were you the last time we had a president who wasn't a Bush or Clinton? It's been 20 years. I was 10.

Ah. Suspicions confirmed. Most of you Obama-ites are just too young to have a very long perspective.

I was 35. Believe me, Ronald Reagan, Gerry Ford, and Jimmy Carter weren't all that great, and Bill Clinton, for all his faults, was a breath of fresh air.

jakl wrote: "I don't really know all the details of what is going on, "

Clearly.

DTM wrote: Right, those are the sorts of talking points I am expecting (the new schedule diminishes the value of the early states, we were ambivalent about Iowa all along, our national numbers are what matter, and so forth).

That’s my two cents anyway.

DTM,
Okay, I figured it out from one of your other posts. When you open your eyes and state the obvious, you call it "common wisdom". When I do it, you call it "talking points". Just put it in your Babelyzer and we can talk freely. Orp. Grgl. Plet. Zmezt.

Ted,
I'm sorry, the teacher is apparently busy and can't solve your issues right now. Perhaps I can be of help - what was the exact nature of your problem? What was the "bomb throw" that so scared you? What did you find "inane"? (I can provide you with a dictionary, perhaps you simply misunderstood). If it's "uninformed", well, inform me. We're all waiting to learn.

dcshungu spins: "If she can manage to show people her warm and cuddly side..."

After 35 years of constant battling to show the world her warm and cuddly side, and two solid years of working with media image consultants, psychologists, hair/wardrobe/make-up specialists, and cackle coaches.... she has failed to do it. But but but, she will do it this time on Letterman for sure.

The reality? Hillary is tough, mean, dishonest, calculating, power hungry, warmongering, good judgment lacking, misrepresenining, acting, adultery enaabling, obfuscating, pandering, plastic, nepotistic, coporatist, lying USER. There is no soft, likeable, human side to show, unless she invents one fst and can sell it. Not likely.

Just for those who wondered Hillary had a quick one-liner, written for her, taped and inserted at the beginning of the show before Letterman's entrance.

She said:

“Dave has been off the air for eight long weeks due to the writers’ strike. Tonight he’s back. Oh well. All good things come to an end.”