AP via Boston Globe: "Hillary: I Have the Best Chance vs. GOP," Sunday, November 25, 2007.
It looks like Hillary has forgotten how ill-advised all the "electability" twaddle was all the way back in 2004 that gave us the oh-so-inspired-and-ballsy Kerry/Edwards campaign. She is out in Iowa touting her own "electability" as measured in the same kind of polls that showed how "electable" John Kerry would be.
"I believe that I have a very good argument that I know more about beating Republicans than anybody else running. They've been after me for 15 years, and much to their dismay, I'm still standing," she said in answer to a woman's question about her electability.
She cynically ignores the fact that none other than Karl Rove has already begun setting her up as a political straw man. Why would he do this if he didn't believe, as he says, that "criticizing her unites the [Republican] party, stirs up the unsettled feelings many swing voters have toward her and allows each candidate to say why he is best able to beat her"?
To top off this cyncism, she throws some more cynicism our way, this time in talking about Iraq, clearly a hot potato that she wants nothing to do with.
"Yes, we can have some tactical successes, but ultimately this is up to the Iraqis. I believe we should start bringing our troops home now."
Whatever one may think about "bringing our troops home now" (I don't think we should leave uninvited, having invaded the country against the wishes of the entire world, a fact that is conveniently left out of the discourse in our country), it is the height of cynicism to state that "this is up to the Iraqis," when they didn't want any part of it to begin with.