The media loves to take shots at Hillary. So they are pointing out that she is talking about Bernie's talk of 'revolution' as a 'magic wand.'
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/01/last-night-potus-clearly-endorses.html
True she did say this in 2008 so there will be many who insist that this shows she's about to lose again-it seems eerily similar.
"As the polls tighten in Hillary Clinton’s primary fight against Senator Bernie Sanders, her language is starting to carry echoes from a similar point in 2008, when Senator Barack Obama started surging."
"In Ames, Iowa, on Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton delivered a thinly veiled jab at Mr. Sanders, suggesting he was making big promises that the realities of divided government would make impossible to deliver on. “I wish that we could elect a Democratic president who could wave a magic wand and say, ‘We shall do this, and we shall do that.’ That ain’t the real world we’re living in!”
"It was not the first appearance of the magic wand in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign-trail speech. In February 2008, she used it to to argue that Mr. Obama’s call for unity showed he was naive about the ways of Washington:
“The skies will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect,” she said archly in Providence, R.I. “Maybe I’ve just lived a little long, but I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear!”
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/12/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-magic-wand/
But here's the thing. Maybe her talk of no magic wand is not the crowd pleaser of Yes we can or better yet vowing a 'revolution' she did prove to be right.
"Barack Obama first rose to national prominence with a speech at the 2004 Democratic convention that proclaimed that there is one America: “there isn’t liberal and conservative America; there is the United States of America.” President Obama’s final State of the Union Speech last night was suffused with an optimistic faith that this could still prove to be the case — but it was also loaded down with numerous tacit admissions that, for now at least, it might not be the case at all, that he may have been wrong about this all along."
"Obama had two primary goals in last night’s speech. The first was to speak to the nation as a whole about the future he thinks we should be working towards as a country. The second was to set the terms of the argument for the 2016 presidential election on grounds favorable to electing a Democratic successor, both to preserve his legacy and to keep the nation on the path to that future."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/01/13/obama-learns-that-there-may-be-two-americas-after-all/
True, though this agnosticism of 'a Democratic successor' misses the point. Obama needs Hillary to preserve his legacy while taking it to the next level.
"Obama has avoided directly intervening in the Democratic primary, even as he and his team obviously prefer Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders. But he's surely noticed that the candidates offer two starkly opposed narratives. Clinton's is, "Things are generally good. We need improvements here and there, on family leave and the like, but in general the best course of action is to continue the Obama administration's approach domestically." Sanders's narrative, by contrast, is deeply pessimistic: Inequality's rising, the rich hold all the political power, and only a wholesale political revolution can save us."
"Intentionally or not, the State of the Union served as a stirring endorsement of the Clinton narrative and rejection of the Sanders narrative. Obama emphasized positive trends in the economy and American accomplishments abroad; he readily conceded more work needed to be done, but mostly stuck to the mild policy proposals he's included in his recent budgets. As the leader of the party, he effectively told Democratic voters watching that the authentically Democratic position is that things are looking good and need to be maintained. That's a message that the Clinton camp wants primary voters flirting with Sanders to hear."
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/12/10758880/2016-state-of-the-union-winners-losers-barack-obama
So ironically Obama's legacy is tied up with his 2008 opponent who spoke of his wand. Ironic that Mr. Yes We Can and Ms. I Wish There were a Magic Wand are now in this together.
His legacy is based on her taking his baton he is extending.
But we are-at least-two Americas. Heck we may even be more divided than that it's beginning to seem.
P.S.
"To understand the speech’s effort to accomplish that latter political goal, look at two things from this morning: First, a new national poll showing that 65 percent of Americans think things in this country “have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track.” And second, a new report in the Washington Post detailing that the leading GOP presidential candidates, in particular Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, believe that the way to win the White House is to appeal to working class whites who feel left behind by the recovery and betrayed by the nation’s political institutions."
You always see this poll but I'd be curious to know the last date that a majority of Americans thought the country is headed in the right direction. Probably the last time Congress had a positive approval rating.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/01/last-night-potus-clearly-endorses.html
True she did say this in 2008 so there will be many who insist that this shows she's about to lose again-it seems eerily similar.
"As the polls tighten in Hillary Clinton’s primary fight against Senator Bernie Sanders, her language is starting to carry echoes from a similar point in 2008, when Senator Barack Obama started surging."
"In Ames, Iowa, on Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton delivered a thinly veiled jab at Mr. Sanders, suggesting he was making big promises that the realities of divided government would make impossible to deliver on. “I wish that we could elect a Democratic president who could wave a magic wand and say, ‘We shall do this, and we shall do that.’ That ain’t the real world we’re living in!”
"It was not the first appearance of the magic wand in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign-trail speech. In February 2008, she used it to to argue that Mr. Obama’s call for unity showed he was naive about the ways of Washington:
“The skies will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect,” she said archly in Providence, R.I. “Maybe I’ve just lived a little long, but I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear!”
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/12/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-magic-wand/
But here's the thing. Maybe her talk of no magic wand is not the crowd pleaser of Yes we can or better yet vowing a 'revolution' she did prove to be right.
"Barack Obama first rose to national prominence with a speech at the 2004 Democratic convention that proclaimed that there is one America: “there isn’t liberal and conservative America; there is the United States of America.” President Obama’s final State of the Union Speech last night was suffused with an optimistic faith that this could still prove to be the case — but it was also loaded down with numerous tacit admissions that, for now at least, it might not be the case at all, that he may have been wrong about this all along."
"Obama had two primary goals in last night’s speech. The first was to speak to the nation as a whole about the future he thinks we should be working towards as a country. The second was to set the terms of the argument for the 2016 presidential election on grounds favorable to electing a Democratic successor, both to preserve his legacy and to keep the nation on the path to that future."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/01/13/obama-learns-that-there-may-be-two-americas-after-all/
True, though this agnosticism of 'a Democratic successor' misses the point. Obama needs Hillary to preserve his legacy while taking it to the next level.
"Obama has avoided directly intervening in the Democratic primary, even as he and his team obviously prefer Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders. But he's surely noticed that the candidates offer two starkly opposed narratives. Clinton's is, "Things are generally good. We need improvements here and there, on family leave and the like, but in general the best course of action is to continue the Obama administration's approach domestically." Sanders's narrative, by contrast, is deeply pessimistic: Inequality's rising, the rich hold all the political power, and only a wholesale political revolution can save us."
"Intentionally or not, the State of the Union served as a stirring endorsement of the Clinton narrative and rejection of the Sanders narrative. Obama emphasized positive trends in the economy and American accomplishments abroad; he readily conceded more work needed to be done, but mostly stuck to the mild policy proposals he's included in his recent budgets. As the leader of the party, he effectively told Democratic voters watching that the authentically Democratic position is that things are looking good and need to be maintained. That's a message that the Clinton camp wants primary voters flirting with Sanders to hear."
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/12/10758880/2016-state-of-the-union-winners-losers-barack-obama
So ironically Obama's legacy is tied up with his 2008 opponent who spoke of his wand. Ironic that Mr. Yes We Can and Ms. I Wish There were a Magic Wand are now in this together.
His legacy is based on her taking his baton he is extending.
But we are-at least-two Americas. Heck we may even be more divided than that it's beginning to seem.
P.S.
"To understand the speech’s effort to accomplish that latter political goal, look at two things from this morning: First, a new national poll showing that 65 percent of Americans think things in this country “have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track.” And second, a new report in the Washington Post detailing that the leading GOP presidential candidates, in particular Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, believe that the way to win the White House is to appeal to working class whites who feel left behind by the recovery and betrayed by the nation’s political institutions."
You always see this poll but I'd be curious to know the last date that a majority of Americans thought the country is headed in the right direction. Probably the last time Congress had a positive approval rating.
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