Sunday, June 10, 2012
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Game Change Chapters 5-8
Hilary Clinton is a politician who has a prettty solid background in this field and her family is quite famous for this as well. There is some negative sentiment that goes along with all of the positive attributes to both her last name and her background. Her husband Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States was known as a womanizer and was involved in a number of scandals, namely the Monica Lewinsky scandal in which he had an affair with the young intern. These have come back to haunt Hilary through hindering her politicl career. There are many different opinions people have of Secretary Clinton. However, after reading this book I find her to be quite power hungry which goes along with qhat many people believe. Bill dutifully attended all of her campaign rallies and supported her candidacy for the presidency, yet he made sure to generally stay out of the campaign because it was her campaign and not his, despite her large presence in Bill's presidency and attempts to overshadow him. Fortunately, her own staff and the democratic party realized that she was not the right candidate.
In Iowa, Obama was not just sitting back and relaxing with the assumption that he had the nomination in the bag. He was watching the battle being fought that he had been fighting with Clinton for a long time now. When he won, it really delineated how this election could not necessarily be won by who ever it was who had the most money. However, once Obama became nominated by the Democratic Party, he had the largest campaign budget in history due to a copious amount of donations.
Hilary is known by many for having a good political background and name recognition is there. However the name also has bad rep with Bills past scandals coming to bite her in the but. The media depicted her as a psycho who wanted power and after reading this book I believed it. Bill tried to stay out of the campaign but he was supportive always going with her to events and his want for a dynasty was always there. However he made it clear it was her campaign. Not to mention. Her own staff realized this woman is not fit to be president.(Didn't mean to sound sexist.)
In Iowa, Obama was not just sitting back and relaxing with the assumption that he had the nomination in the bag. He was watching the battle being fought that he had been fighting with Clinton for a long time now. When he won, it really delineated how this election could not necessarily be won by who ever it was who had the most money. However, once Obama became nominated by the Democratic Party, he had the largest campaign budget in history due to a copious amount of donations.
Hilary is known by many for having a good political background and name recognition is there. However the name also has bad rep with Bills past scandals coming to bite her in the but. The media depicted her as a psycho who wanted power and after reading this book I believed it. Bill tried to stay out of the campaign but he was supportive always going with her to events and his want for a dynasty was always there. However he made it clear it was her campaign. Not to mention. Her own staff realized this woman is not fit to be president.(Didn't mean to sound sexist.)
While Obama was more human i believe, the day of Iowas primary he was relaxing with his friends but not cause he thought he had in the bag but because to enjoy a battle they just went through. While Hilary was campaighning trying to win so desperatly pouring so much money into this state. It showed how the public wanted Obama and this election was one you couldn't buy. It came down to who the public liked and they wanted CHANGE so they went with Change.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Game Change 5-8
Hilary is known by many for having a good political background and name recognition is there. However the name also has bad rep with Bills past scandals coming to bite her in the but. The media depicted her as a psycho who wanted power and after reading this book I believed it. Bill tried to stay out of the campaign but he was supportive always going with her to events and his want for a dynasty was always there. However he made it clear it was her campaign. Not to mention. Her own staff realized this woman is not fit to be president.(Didn't mean to sound sexist.)
While Obama was more human i believe, the day of Iowas primary he was relaxing with his friends but not cause he thought he had in the bag but because to enjoy a battle they just went through. While Hilary was campaighning trying to win so desperatly pouring so much money into this state. It showed how the public wanted Obama and this election was one you couldn't buy. It came down to who the public liked and they wanted CHANGE so they went with Change.
Game Change ch1-4
The book started out good. No game of thrones mind you but it is similar in a political way. In the beginning Biden made a deal with Obama so they could defeat Hilary. Then when Hilary lost she joined sides with Obama. Sort of how Little Finger secured a cross where the Tyrells helped the Lannisters to defeat Stannis.
Game Change Chapters 1-4
Chapter 1: In this chapter, Hilary Clinton decides to not drop out of the running for the Democratic nomination and refused to let John Kerry gain popular support from the party and become their nominee without a fight. I don't feel that this was the wisest choice because maybe if she rallied behind Kerry in 2004 her support of him would have been just enough to have him elected president. Kerry would have then given her a good job and then she could have ran again four years later. Clinton's initial relationship with Obama is ironic because she set out to destroy him in the 2008 elections when the two would have been more successful working together.
Chapter 2: Key Democrats encouraged Barack Obama to run for the presidency because he was seen as a young and charismatic leader who would appeal to a wide range of Americans. It was his youth, his charisma, and his skills as an orator which helped to qualify him for the job. What gave them pause was Clinton having more political experience than Obama and that she has been a household name far longer than Obama ever was. Their support of Obama was clandestine because he relatively very unknown and they didn't know how the American people would respond to him at first.
Chapter 3: Clinton faced challenges in her candidacy such as the stigma that America did not want a woman to become president and the stigma that she was just riding on her husband's political coattails. I personally do not sympathize wirh her because she knew what she was getting into when she wanted to run for president how difficult it would be and she knew of the challenges that she was up against. I feel like the book tends to sympathize with her cause, contrary to my opinion.
Chapter 4: I think that the process of getting someone in my family or a spouse to run for president would be extremely difficult and quite frankly not worth my time. I feel this way because why would a majority of the country vote for somebody in my family. Running for president as it was described by David Plouffe to Barack Obama does not sound appealing to me due to all of the time, work, and money that must be put into the effort. People still want to run for the country's highest office for all of the prestige and the responsibility they want to tackle. Clinton and Obama wanted to both run because they both wanted the leadership and power that comes with being President of the United States. Their drive is defined differently through Obama's skills with speaking and Clinton was more focused on attacking Obama ona personal level during the campaign.
Chapter 2: Key Democrats encouraged Barack Obama to run for the presidency because he was seen as a young and charismatic leader who would appeal to a wide range of Americans. It was his youth, his charisma, and his skills as an orator which helped to qualify him for the job. What gave them pause was Clinton having more political experience than Obama and that she has been a household name far longer than Obama ever was. Their support of Obama was clandestine because he relatively very unknown and they didn't know how the American people would respond to him at first.
Chapter 3: Clinton faced challenges in her candidacy such as the stigma that America did not want a woman to become president and the stigma that she was just riding on her husband's political coattails. I personally do not sympathize wirh her because she knew what she was getting into when she wanted to run for president how difficult it would be and she knew of the challenges that she was up against. I feel like the book tends to sympathize with her cause, contrary to my opinion.
Chapter 4: I think that the process of getting someone in my family or a spouse to run for president would be extremely difficult and quite frankly not worth my time. I feel this way because why would a majority of the country vote for somebody in my family. Running for president as it was described by David Plouffe to Barack Obama does not sound appealing to me due to all of the time, work, and money that must be put into the effort. People still want to run for the country's highest office for all of the prestige and the responsibility they want to tackle. Clinton and Obama wanted to both run because they both wanted the leadership and power that comes with being President of the United States. Their drive is defined differently through Obama's skills with speaking and Clinton was more focused on attacking Obama ona personal level during the campaign.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
GAME CHANGE BOOK DISCUSSION, CHAPTERS 5-8
Hey, same as last time... Some interesting questions to consider:
- How much is Clinton's last name an advantage? Disadvantage?
- What do you think of Bill's role in his wife's campaign thus far?
- How did Clinton's theme of inevitability help and hurt her?
- Is there anything surprising about Hilary's responses to her setbacks that is revealing about her character?
- What were some issues Obama faced as a candidate related to how he campaigned?
- Do you find Obama's struggle with the day-to-day of campaigning humanizing or does it paint him as a little bit bratty?
- Why was Iowa so important for both Hilary and Obama?
- How did John Edwards distinguish himself from the two candidates? What did he focus on?
- What personal problems beset his candidacy? Do you agree with his decision to run despite his wife's diagnosis?
- In regards to his affair, when does personal become relevant to the voter?
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