nytimes.com— The performances of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards reveal a basic thematic divide. These distinctions eflect the competing notions of change the candidates are seeking to embody.
Dec 31, 2007View in Crawl 4
Obama is a smart unifying leader. America needs a leader like Obama who is a uniter to set it back on track. Obama is the only uniter in the leading Democratic pack. Hillary has huge negatives. Edwards is a populist who draws support by attacking the right and corporations. And yet Obama also is the toughest of the pack. Obama is the only one of the three who stood against the war in Iraq from the start when it was unpopular. Obama is the one who is not taking donations from lobbyists or benefitting from huge 527 money (Edwards' 527 is run by a fellow who was on his campaign until this summer). Even as recently as a few months ago, Hillary let Bush railroad her into supporting his warmongering bill against Iran which declared their military to be terrorists (technically a declaration of war).The media doesn't do enough reporting on these distinctions. They are having a hard time understanding Obama and getting over the fact that Clinton's "experience" is not very strong. Her key acts were to mess up health care reform in the early 1990s (we still haven't recovered from that), to vote for the war in Iraq, and more recently to let herself get railroaded into supporting a warmongering bill against Iran. I am also very concerned that she will not release her archives as First Lady in time for the Primaries, and that she and Bill will not release the records for their $500 million charity which employed their campaign officials and to which their donors gave tens of millions of dollars. Bill and Hillary also have enriched themselves to Dick Cheney levels through their government service. Together they are about 50 times richer than Obama. It just feels bad. As does Edwards' fortune.
pd2187Dec 31, 2007Submitter
"Reflect" instead of "eflect" in second sentence of description. Sorry.
jd7772Dec 31, 2007
Obama is a smart unifying leader. America needs a leader like Obama who is a uniter to set it back on track. Obama is the only uniter in the leading Democratic pack. Hillary has huge negatives. Edwards is a populist who draws support by attacking the right and corporations. And yet Obama also is the toughest of the pack. Obama is the only one of the three who stood against the war in Iraq from the start when it was unpopular. Obama is the one who is not taking donations from lobbyists or benefitting from huge 527 money (Edwards' 527 is run by a fellow who was on his campaign until this summer). Even as recently as a few months ago, Hillary let Bush railroad her into supporting his warmongering bill against Iran which declared their military to be terrorists (technically a declaration of war).The media doesn't do enough reporting on these distinctions. They are having a hard time understanding Obama and getting over the fact that Clinton's "experience" is not very strong. Her key acts were to mess up health care reform in the early 1990s (we still haven't recovered from that), to vote for the war in Iraq, and more recently to let herself get railroaded into supporting a warmongering bill against Iran. I am also very concerned that she will not release her archives as First Lady in time for the Primaries, and that she and Bill will not release the records for their $500 million charity which employed their campaign officials and to which their donors gave tens of millions of dollars. Bill and Hillary also have enriched themselves to Dick Cheney levels through their government service. Together they are about 50 times richer than Obama. It just feels bad. As does Edwards' fortune.