Hillary's Done, It's Over

Update: I'm going to add something, via Ben Smith - there's an exception, but it still won't help Hillary:

Shaheen said Obama's candor on the subject would "open the door" to further questions. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" Shaheen said. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

If they have Obama selling drugs in a real way, he's done. BUT - it won't save Hillary. It would be mutually assured destruction and open up the door for Al Gore. As I said to someone in email, you can't kill the messiah and live. Ace is heartbroken.

With breaking news that a high-ranking Clinton campaign staffer is going after Obama on drug use, ... inhale, then stick a fork in her, she's done. Hillary is trapped in her past. Forget issues around Bill, the issue will not resonate as it only somewhat did when Bill ran. Obama did what Bill didn't do in 1992, he neutralized it by confessing in a book and moved on. The American people have too when it comes to past drug use, particularly on the Democrat and Liberal side. Hillary has now waded into the heart of the politics of personal destruction. She, of all people, will get stuck in that swamp, particularly as Iowa voters detest negative politics. With Oprah this weekend ... geesh. Hillary's polling must have shown she needed to throw a bomb. She has. And it will explode in her face.

"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," said Shaheen, the husband of former N.H. governor Jeanne Shaheen, who is planning to run for the Senate next year. Billy Shaheen contrasted Obama's openness about his past drug use -- which Obama mentioned again at a recent campaign appearance in New Hampshire -- with the approach taken by George W. Bush in 1999 and 2000, when he ruled out questions about his behavior when he was "young and irresponsible."

Shaheen said Obama's candor on the subject would "open the door" to further questions. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" Shaheen said. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

Comments

[Yoda]

Pass the splif around, Hillary would not. Bogart the bong in college, she did. Her closets full of undiscovered skeletons, they are.

[Mermaid]

Hillary! has jumped the shark. Stick a fork in her.

[chris]

Hillary loses, Allen wins. Iraq is a success. What a funny world you guys live in.

[jj]

chris, I don't agree with you all that often, but you are right about Iraq. Good catch, the rest of the media has missed it. Al-Queda is moving to other places that are safer for them than Iraq.

[Peach]

This is what happens when you put Sidney Blumenthal on your campaign payroll.

[Al in St. Lou]

Maybe Dan needs to smoke a bowl and relax. First, there was all that hyperventilating over Huckaloser. (Over a dozen posts in two or three days.) Now, he's declaring Hillary "Done" because someone who works for her campaign has pointed out that the Dem primary voters ought to remember that "dirty" Reps will try to use Obama's admissions of drug use against him. I bet this play was called by Slick Willie himself, and if Hillary's camp has some real dirt on Obama, such as drug use in the late 1980s or any time in the 1990s, it'll be Obama going down, not Hillary.

IMHO, Slick Willie will do his damnedest to get Hillary nominated. Then, if Dick Morris is correct, twenty million women who never bothered to vote will go to the polls to elect the first woman President of the United States. I'm still pulling for Fred to defeat her, with Bloomberg, Nader, and Cynthia McKinney running to steal the votes of the nuttiest.

[E Buzz Miller]

Why is Mr. Big's bass player getting involved?

[Michael Volpe]

Be careful using such over the top language. Clearly, Hillary is off balanced and she is more and more desperate towards Obama, and his campaign said as much. That doesn't mean she is done. She has plenty of organization and a huge built in support.

Frankly, the issue of illegal immigration is her biggest achilles heal. (yes I know there are so many to choose from, however here she is most obscenely wrong and on the wrong side of the electorate) The problem for Obama is that he isn't much different than her on this issue. Whoever gets out of the primary will be attacked heavily for prior votes, deeds, and words on this issue. Here is how I wrote about it...

http://proprietornation.blogspot.com/2007/10/clinton-and-obama-show-their-true.html

[sauropod]

Way too soon to say Hillary is done. Never underestimate the Clinton machine. Bill was losing to Tsongas until he became "the comeback kid." Look to Hill to repeat her hubby's performance and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

To Ace: Be careful what you wish for. Hillary is eminently electable. (I would have put this in Ace's comments, but they're nonfunctional, as usual.)

[geb4000]

Unless they have photographic evidence of Obama getting young children hooked on drugs, nobody is going to care.

[Scrapiron]

Asking B Hussein Obama about his drug use/dealing will be a 'republican dirty trick'. How can that be when the democrats have already ask the questions? Of course they didn't wait for the answers. Democrats again live up to their reputation for being really, really, stupid. LMAO

[Worst_President_Ever]

Stupid tactic. The list of admitted drug users in office is pretty long. No doubt some voters still care, most don't. I'm more worried about where Obama/Hillary/Rudy/Mitt/etc. want to take the country and not something they did as a kid.

[LiberalNitemare]

Im a little confused - did Obama inhale or what?

[seekeronos]

Heh. The party of queer pimps (Barnye Frank) cocaine-powered vaccuum cleaners and tokers (the Clintons) and general misanthropy will not even blink an eye at Obama's alleged drug use, unless he was doing it nekkid in a van with pre-teens. And even then, that's not a given that it will sink him.

As for Hillary, she didn't get to be the Epitome of All That is Evil by being a lunkhead.

[Ali]

Scrapiron:

Because, they have volunteers working in republican candidates' offices.

I've heard two callers into talk radio this week that happened to work for Hill's senate campaign now they work for a republicans campaign? Come on.

A) They wouldn't be dumb enough to say.
B) They're setting it up, by the time you prove that (after it's out there), it's too late. Nevermind who put it out this time, we have ADD.

The politics of smear. Manifesto.

Anyway, Obama would pull a free card if he had, who would jump all over a young black man going to Harvard, trying to work his way through. The pressure... the stress... the old racist, 'it's expected' BS.

Case in point: Did you hear Air America on Oprah during the Obama gig?
Uber-racist. Crickets.

[paul]

Obama should ask a very public question:

Is a history of drug use a litmus test for political office?

C'mon this is the democratic party. You'd think this was the gop, by the way they are acting. This is alienating the individuals who have used drugs in their youth, and those currently using.

Whoever is running the clinton playbook, this is like watching a football game without the foward pass. Deomocratic voters under the age of 35, and many other 'veterans' of the sixties drug culture are laughing themselves silly.

Prudish.

[spider97]

I'm in the "Hillary-cooked-her-own-goose" camp. As usual with the Clintons, they're being too cute by half.

First of all, does anyone with the benefit of half a brain believe that this was some high-ranking NH Clinton staffer who just decided to do a little free lancing without consulting with the powers that be? Please. This is one of the most scripted campaigns and candidates anyone has ever witnessed. But, as usual, Hillary expects everyone to buy whatever comes out of her mouth, because.....well, because it came out of her mouth.

Second, I don't see how this doesn't backfire on her. No one asked Bill Clinton if he sold drugs. No one asked George Bush if he sold drugs. No one asked Al Gore if he sold drugs. But Obama has the question posed to him? As we say in the South, very bad form.

Third, you have to respect the Clinton machine, but the bottom line is, Hillary just ain't Bill.

[Worst_President_Ever]

Hey Seek,

Drug use is bi-partisan, Newt Gingrich and Clarence Thomas have admitted smoking pot. And check out Rush and his love of hillbilly heroin. And he can't blame it on "youthful indiscretion".

Like I say, most people don't care. What matters is their vision for America and whether they're actually competent to get it done.

[juandos]

"IMHO, Slick Willie will do his damnedest to get Hillary nominated. Then, if Dick Morris is correct, twenty million women who never bothered to vote will go to the polls to elect the first woman President of the United States. I'm still pulling for Fred to defeat her, with Bloomberg, Nader, and Cynthia McKinney running to steal the votes of the nuttiest"...

Hey Al in St. Lou, did you bother to check the past due date on the kool-aid you scarfed down?

[seekeronos]

WPE: (cute reference to Jimmah Carter in your chosen nick, btw :P )

I've never said that GOP people never hit the bong or bellied up to the prescription counter with ulterior motives.

My take on it is we are at a point where things like sexual or drug indiscretions are taken lightly, especially by the Democrats.

Does it really matter? Probably not. What does matter is the level of transparency and lack of tap-dancing around it when those things eventually get dug up.

To Obama's credit, he pre-empted that particular skeleton by dragging it out of its closet well in time for the election. For Hillary to beat that dead horse now makes her look a bit... well, foolish.

[Jason]

if Dick Morris is correct,

then the apocalypse is upon us.