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Did the Gas Tax Defeat Hillary?

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Did the Gas Tax Defeat Hillary?

posted at 5/7/2008 1:03 AM EDT

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EJ_Dionne

First post: 5/22/2007
Last post: 10/9/2009
Total posts: 358

There is much to say about a stunning Tuesday night that moved Barack Obama decisively toward the Democratic presidential nomination. The controversy over The Rev. Wright did not stop him. Indeed, Obama's margin of victory in North Carolina was far larger than even Obama folks hoped for. I believe Obama's pushback against Hillary Clinton's proposed gas tax holiday (first put forward by John McCain) was a decisive factor. After a listless several weeks, Obama came back to life in taking on a proposal that even Clinton supporters saw as pandering. The battle not only pushed Wright out of the news. It also allowed Obama to rejoin the central themes of his campaign, which he reprised in his victory speech in Raleigh. "Some were saying North Carolina would be a game-changer in this election," he said, echoing an earlier Clinton statement. "But today, what North Carolina decided is that the only game that needs changing is the one in Washington, D.C." One more point on the gas tax: if a candidate is going to pander, is an offer of roughly $30 really going to move many voters? My theory is that placing such a large bet -- measured by media buys and campaign trail talk -- on the gas tax holiday was a major mistake by the Clinton campaign. What do you think?

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It Didn't Help

posted at 5/7/2008 1:13 AM EDT

chrisfox8

First post: 7/8/2007
Last post: 11/26/2009
Total posts: 8459

I think the gimmickry was plain, and Obama was the one with the willingness to talk plainly to us.

McCain and Clinton just sounded willing to buy votes, when everyone knows that gas prices can fluctuate by as much as the federal tax in a few days .. so it would be lost in the noise.

I hope she drops out. I yearn to see McCain and Obama debate .. Obama is sharp and McCain has lost a lot of brain cells since 2000. By all accounts.

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Remembering ...

posted at 5/7/2008 1:39 AM EDT

chrisfox8

First post: 7/8/2007
Last post: 11/26/2009
Total posts: 8459

Walter Mondale tried the tack of leveling with us, telling the honest truth that balancing the budget required raising taxes. The public treated messengers of unpleasant news with its usual equanimity and Mondale went down in defeat.

Obama has decided to level with us, and by itself that candor seems to have erased the effect of Rev. Wright.

Trust us with the truth .. will we grow to it?

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Re: Remembering ...

posted at 5/7/2008 7:13 AM EDT

bethu1

First post: 12/4/2007
Last post: 5/16/2009
Total posts: 833

Replying to:

Trust us with the truth ..
Posted by chrisfox8

You've shown, time and time again, as Jack Nicholson said it the movie A Few Good Men, "You can't handle the truth!"

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Re: Did the Gas Tax Defeat Hillary?

posted at 5/7/2008 7:35 AM EDT

in8alpha

First post: 5/5/2008
Last post: 6/25/2008
Total posts: 123

Replying to:

I believe Obama's pushback against Hillary Clinton's proposed gas tax holiday (first put forward by John McCain) was a decisive factor.

One more point on the gas tax: if a candidate is going to pander, is an offer of roughly $30 really going to move many voters? My theory is that placing such a large bet -- measured by media buys and campaign trail talk -- on the gas tax holiday was a major mistake by the Clinton campaign. What do you think?
Posted by EJ_Dionne

I don't think there is anyone out there in the potential voter pool that is going to be swayed by anything short of a major scandal at this point. The sides have lined up and just need to pull the lever. Sure, the gas tax sham didn't fool anybody... not even the "uninformed, mindless drones waiting to be told what to do" that so many claim exist in the electorate... but I don't think it caused a lot of people to change their primary vote. I agree that it was a mistake though. It was a career-politician mistake.

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The Hillary Clinton Sash

posted at 5/7/2008 8:04 AM EDT

ragingbull913

First post: 6/13/2007
Last post: 11/2/2009
Total posts: 833

The political map has given us the "RedState/BlueState" shorthand; I would like to offer my addition to the lexicon.

"The Hillary Sash" is the string of states from New Hampshire/Massachusetts/New York in the east, through the rust belt, to Texas, across the Southwest to California, looking like the sash on a Miss America contestant.

The most notable thing about it, isn't that these are the states she won, it's that she can't win anywhere outside of it--not even close, so long as you don't count Florida. So the idea that the gas tax is the cause of her loss is not accurate. It's that she couldnt get a coalition favorable to her in NC, and in Indiana she held on barely enough to prevent Obama's coalition from prevailing. As Sun-Tzu once said, "the battle is won or lost before it is fought." Her campaign lost when they didn't have the aura of inevitability and coronation after Super Tuesday, and she was forced into a long drawn out contest. It took her 11 states to find her bearings and by then Obama all but had that aura.

Since the start she has been playing defensive politics; hold on to the states you can win, don't go outside the margins and simply appear as the experienced stronger candidate. That hasn't worked. She did well in PA because for the first time she started to go on the offensive, but it didnt help her, it just hurt Obama. This is the problem when she starts with such a high negative rating from the get-go. Without bringing in new voters, she has no chance to win the nomination, and more importantly, zero chance to win in November.

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Re: Remembering ...

posted at 5/7/2008 8:31 AM EDT

jheath53

First post: 8/29/2007
Last post: 5/29/2009
Total posts: 4085

Replying to:

You've shown, time and time again, as Jack Nicholson said it the movie A Few Good Men, "You can't handle the truth!"
Posted by bethu1

Good thing for you that the voters can't. If the Republicans ever told the truth, they'd be as extinct as the Whigs.

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The whole story

posted at 5/7/2008 8:35 AM EDT

gary44

First post: 4/30/2008
Last post: 5/7/2008
Total posts: 2

The MSM only wanted us to hear the "tax holiday" part of Hillary's plan, so that was what was played over and over. Rarely did the remainder of her energy plan get disussed. Once again the MSM's bias told us exactly what we "needed to know".

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Re: The Hillary Clinton Sash

posted at 5/7/2008 8:59 AM EDT

NHThinker

First post: 10/7/2007
Last post: 9/7/2009
Total posts: 2762

Replying to:

I think the primary inability for Clinton to win decisively has been the funding imbalance: Obama's message was constant in all the media markets. She would have benefited from more debates because she could not afford to match his paid airtime on television and in print.

Obama will easy to paint as an indecisive wimpy liberal in the general election. The question is whether a majority of Americans will be ready for a liberal as president.

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Disingenuous defeats her

posted at 5/7/2008 9:19 AM EDT

seankirk

First post: 2/25/2008
Last post: 10/29/2008
Total posts: 149

In my view what thwarted the plans of the hillary campaign was simply being perceived as disingenuous, less than or other than honest, and the "gas tax holiday" simply codified this.

Obviously Hillary Clinton still has a great many supporters, but among those Democrats in IN. and N.C. who couldn't as of yesterday be called anyone's, proposing something that McCain had proposed a version of - and that most analysts promptly dismissed and that no one thought would ever be acted on by Congress, to boot - came off as simply pandering, and people aren't quite as stupid as her advisers seemed to think they are.

She needs to drop out.
Now there are going to be increasingly desperate calls for Florida and Michigan's "results" to be included in the delegate tally, but... what I hope is that her crewe realizes that going negative on Senator Obama was also a factor in last night's results; I don't think uncommitted voters liked it.

Let's get on with defeating the Republicans!

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Re: Disingenuous defeats her

posted at 5/7/2008 9:50 AM EDT

in8alpha

First post: 5/5/2008
Last post: 6/25/2008
Total posts: 123

Replying to:

She needs to drop out.
Now there are going to be increasingly desperate calls for Florida and Michigan's "results" to be included in the delegate tally, but... what I hope is that her crewe realizes that going negative on Senator Obama was also a factor in last night's results; I don't think uncommitted voters liked it.

Let's get on with defeating the Republicans!
Posted by seankirk

I don't think she needs to quit nor do I think that she should quit. Only in politics does this quitter-mentality surface. You don't see it on the grid iron, diamond, or play ground. We don't like it in our offices and work places. Why do we want it in our politics? I think she should take it to the end and then look everybody in the eye and say "good game". That's what a "blue collar hero" would do. That's what we teach our kids to do. That's what we do.

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Ehhh

posted at 5/7/2008 9:53 AM EDT

Dellis2

First post: 11/20/2007
Last post: 10/1/2009
Total posts: 149

It certainly was a policy mistake. But it was a small policy mistake. And given how uneducated the common voter is, my best guess is that Hillary gained as many votes in ignorant voters concerned with their pocketbook than she lost in educated voters who understand how a temporary cessation in the gas tax will not effect short-term prices, and will hinder long-term efforts to stop global warming and to stop subsidization of hostile petro-states.

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Re: Did the Gas Tax Defeat Hillary?

posted at 5/7/2008 10:06 AM EDT

INADVERTANTSLIP

First post: 2/7/2008
Last post: 11/27/2009
Total posts: 78

Replying to:

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She lost at least one NC voter

posted at 5/7/2008 10:29 AM EDT

bfehrman

First post: 5/7/2008
Last post: 6/4/2008
Total posts: 3

I had been strongly leaning toward Hillary until the gas tax debacle. A cohesive energy and education policy is one of my primary concerns. As a culture, we have been taught that if we don't like what government is doing, we should use the power of the vote to make a change. That said, I couldn't bring myself to vote for Clinton, though I am not yet sold on Obama.

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Re: Disingenuous defeats her

posted at 5/7/2008 10:44 AM EDT

seankirk

First post: 2/25/2008
Last post: 10/29/2008
Total posts: 149

Replying to:

That's fair.

I don't agree with your characterization, though; I don't think it's about "quitting," I think it's about uniting the Party for the contest in November... and it will be, and soon.

Whatever the "heroic" narrative the Clinton campaign may want us to embrace might be, the fact is that yesterday's results were nowhere near what Senator Clinton needed, and the Democrats as a party know that defeating the Republicans is the priority.

Superdelegates are going to flock to Senator Obama over the next few days and weeks, and the Clinton campaign is going to run very short on money all too soon.

In fact, what would be and will be the real act of a "hero" - for the working class as well as the rest of the nation - is to defeat the oligarchical Republican machine in the national election.

And a joy is that, while it's not going to be "easy," it is going to be fun; Senator McCain continues to wrap himself in Bush's odious mantle, America is sick to death of the Iraq war, and these are going to combine as electoral poison for the Republicans come November.

Racism is alive in America, and there are undoubtedly still a great many people who completely abhor Liberals, but they're NOT the majority of voters, only of the Republican base.
While Senator McCain will sanctimoniously trumpet his sticking to the "high road" in his campaigning, the tactic of "independent groups" taking the "low road" for him, mounting veiled racist campaign ads, attempting to put the "L" word on Senator Obama and to paint him as the "disciple" (as they laughably attempt to portray the relationship) of Rev. Wright are just not going to work.
Indeed, one of the few positive things to come out of this prolonged Democratic primary process has been the inoculation effect of the Rev. Wright issue having already peaked for any but the sad, mad talk radio listening base of the Republicans.

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Re: Remembering ...

posted at 5/7/2008 10:50 AM EDT

dfc102

First post: 10/3/2007
Last post: 11/25/2009
Total posts: 113

Replying to:

You've shown, time and time again, as Jack Nicholson said it the movie A Few Good Men, "You can't handle the truth!"
Posted by bethu1

Bethu, this sort of verdict coming from a dittohead troll like you is absolutely worthless. You don't know the truth when it hits you upside the head.

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minor and major mistakes

posted at 5/7/2008 10:55 AM EDT

bn1123

First post: 6/5/2007
Last post: 9/9/2008
Total posts: 40

Only people-and there are many of those in the media--,who have no idea that there are many Americans for whom $30 or $50 are real money could doubt why Senators Clinton and McCain proposed a summer moratorium on the federal gasoline tax. More importantly, the media failed completely to force the candidates during debates and press conferences and interviews to spell out a comprehensive policy that works towards energy independence, clean and renewable alternative energy sources and environmental protection.
I have come to the conclusion that neither political leaders not media figures (except for some like Thomas Friedman) push for this. We need a grass-root movement on this.
For more about this topic, read:
http://www.reflectivepundit.com/reflectivepundit/2008/05/much-talk-no-ac.html

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Did the Gas Tax Defeat Hillary?

posted at 5/7/2008 11:06 AM EDT

AmiBlue

First post: 1/31/2008
Last post: 8/4/2008
Total posts: 24

The gas tax was just one misstep in a poorly organized slice and dice campaign that changed its costume depending on the polls. It may have been the last straw, but it wasn't the only straw.

But who knows...perhap the gimmick would have worked if Obama hadn't taken a principle stand, or if the entire political spectrum of economists hadn't panned her plan. Having a candidate for President say she wasn't going to listen to economists was pretty terrifying, though.

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Re: Disingenuous defeats her

posted at 5/7/2008 11:16 AM EDT

jheath53

First post: 8/29/2007
Last post: 5/29/2009
Total posts: 4085

Replying to:

While I'm inclined to agree that it's time for her to figure out a graceful exit, I'd like to make a few points first:

The notion that the ongoing campaign has been too corrosive to Obama's prospects is nonsense. To be honest, the people I've seen behave the worst in all this are Obama supporters, who have accused Sen. Clinton at every turn of being dishonest, too ambitious, running a negative campaign, of lying, and of trying to damage Obama so that she can run again in 2012. I've even heard the idiotic claim that she's trying to damage Obama so that McCain will make her his running mate. Hillary Clinton has waged a tough but fair campaign. The notion that it's inappropriate to say anything negative about one's opponent is assinine. Politics ain't beanbag, and those who think she's been too rough have no idea how bad it's going to get once the Republicans go full bore against Obama. Sen. Clinton has done no significant damage to Sen. Obama's november prospects. Those Obama supporters who have been trashing Clinton so lustily are jerks.

I have read some things that indicate that Sen. Clinton does see the handwriting on the wall, and is positioning herself to run as Obama's running mate. While I think it would be good for party unity, it would be a loss to the country. Sen. Clinton has the makings of a historically great senator. I'd hate to see her stuck in the dead end job of the Vice Presidency.

BTW, I voted for Obama.

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THE RIGHT AND LEFT HANDS

posted at 5/7/2008 11:20 AM EDT

INADVERTANTSLIP

First post: 2/7/2008
Last post: 11/27/2009
Total posts: 78

The answer to the question posed at the head of this Forum is 'No'.

Given the Ocean of continual accusations and counter-allegations regarding some issue of character or personal conduct - and much as these do matter - between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, it is astonishing that a particular policy declaration seems to have brought so much derision to one of the candidates.

The Gas Tax proposal made by Mrs. Clinton may have been a factor in the latest Primary Elections and was supposedly viewed as being not sincerely meant but improvisory, designed to attract a few votes.

It is difficult to understand why a desire to attract votes should run counter to the avowed purpose of an election but that would be merely a digression, equal in terms to Mr. Obama deciding suddenly to disown the Reverend Jeremiah Wright after an association of some decades.

Mr. Obama may be the nominee of the Democratic Party at the Presidential Election in November and there is a remote chance that he could win, which may raise the interesting subject of who would read the lesson at his Inauguration; it may not be the Reverend Wright but is there to be found anywhere a Pastor of an African-American congregation who has not been mildly critical of the foreign policy attitudes of the United States over recent years?

It is interesting that Mr. Obama speaks to policy a little more these days; it seems - reading between the lines - that his grand economic theory is to reduce personal taxation whilst raising Federal government expenditure.

The people who have been supporting Mr. Obama, who have lauded his candidacy, ought to understand perhaps that the economic policy he seems to wish to pursue will result in higher Sales taxes and - as a consequence - price rises, which will cause Interest Rates to move in an upward direction.

Mr. Obama will not do anything to resolve the current housing crisis, it will indeed be exacerbated by the type of policy which appears to hold an appeal for him and will be supplemented by rising unemployment and inevitable reductions to Federal social programmes.

Mitigating this concatanation of economic disasters which Mr. Obama would certainly visit upon the United States should he be elected as its President, however, the average Citizen may be enervated to discver that tax revenues will be diverted to funding a vital human expedition to Mars - having ruined one planet, why not start to work on its nearest relation? - whilst mere Earthling Americans have to continue to suffer.

Hillary Clinton has been defeated by the entire Electoral process in the Democratic Party being weighted against her in 2008; it has resulted in the absurd situation that she may be the choice of most of its long-term Registered Voters as the Presidential nominee but is being usurped due to the intervention of any number of meddlesome interlopers and a candidate who is simply exploiting its organisation.

The mechanism that the Democratic Party chose to employ for the selection of its Presidential nominee on this occasion - Simple Plurality plus Proportional Representation - means that the entire Primary Season has been an expensive and irrelevant farce.

Assigning Delegates by the percentage of votes which a candidate has received at a Primary Election or Caucus means that it is the aggregate total which counts and not the result in a particular State; it is in effect a national poll being painfully conducted by degree.

It would have been far wiser - and in fact the same process - to have held the ballot on one day in the style of the Presidential Election, given especially the presence of not more than two candidates. The chances of them each receiving exactly 50% being 500-1 against, the winner would have been the nominee.

It is, incidentally, the height of being disingenuous for Mr. Obama to suggest that he is only 200 Delegates away from the nomination; the number of available Proxies remaining means that he could not be endorsed as the choice of the Democratic Party and Mrs. Clinton can still win more of them than he may find it possible to do.

It is the management of the Democratic Party at national level that ought to stand charged with gross incompetence for creating an electoral system which was going to result in a stalemate and leave an absolute mess.

The fact that there are likely to be two main Party candidates running in the Presidential Election in November means that - as ever - they will be awarded the total number of Electoral College voters for the States which are respectively called in their favour.

Had the Democratic Party continued with this tried and tested practice - which meets all the criteria and is relatively accurate where there are only two contestants in the race - Hillary Clinton would have become the nominee several weeks ago; why is she the victim of what amounts to electoral malpractice?

Was the Democratic Party assiduous in ensuring that all intending registered and other participants in the polls were informed about the new system and understood what it could imply?

It is for the voters in the remaining Primary contests to prevent the process from being manipulated and a fraud perpetrated.

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