Weekly Links #4 - The Return

This really is a HRC special edition. With the nomination looking more and more locked up for Obama, I thought we'd take a short tour through the past and revisit some of HRC's claims of inevitability which, like her Iraq vote, seem to be based on faulty intel.

Let's kick this off right. First a look back to the glory days of Madame HRC's campaign. When Larry King recently asked Jon Stewart "What happened?" to HRC's campaign, Stewart remarked "the voters started voting." But what was the world like for HRC before voters started voting? Take a look at this interview between Katie Couric and HRC done in Nov 2007:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/26/eveningnews/main3540666.shtml

Money quote: "It will be me."

Here's a montage of HRC laughing off serious questions about her husband, Iraq, health care. Yes, back in October 2007 everyone else in the Dem race seemed like a joke. From Glenn Beck:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlF12X1dCeo

But things began to shift in December of 2007. The polls showed the races as dead-heats in both Iowa and New Hampshire. And then an infamous incident occurred at an Iowa debate where HRC interrupted Obama as he tried to describe his foreign policy credentials. It can be found in the following Countdown clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3wSWW8QmpM

And then the junior Senator from Illinois beat the junior Senator from New York in Iowa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_idWWFE-xiY

Bill Clinton's flops in South Carolina probably didn't help his wife's campaign there. In fact, Obama took 90% of the black vote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqd2dfjl2pw

Super Tuesday wasn't far away. This was the day it was supposed to be "all-but-over" for the Obama campaign. He ended up winning more states and more delegates.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/02/the_spin_wars.html

Super Tuesday lionized Obama. He had been a central figure of many of the debates and all of HRC's attacks for a long time, but he finally carried the national stage. We are now at 11 straight victories and counting.

Frank Rich has a wrap-up of the HRC campaign fiasco thus far titled "The Audacity of Hopelessness." Killer point in my opinion: if she's such a manager, and is "ready from Day-1," why has her campaign had so many shakeups and why did it make so many mistakes?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/opinion/24rich.html?ref=opinion

And Maureen Dowd published an interesting article on the HRC camp trying to criticize Obama's chief personal trait, his ability to communicate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/opinion/20dowd.html

Best line:

"Doin’ it her way, Hillary huffed to reporters on her plane: “If your whole candidacy is about words, they should be your own words.”

I guess that means if your whole candidacy is anti-words, you don’t have to use your own words."

Also a fun video of HRC stealing campaign slogans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myoUzFfEdu0

Can't wait for March 4.