Bottom Line

Hillary Clinton seems to have this notion that just because you are experienced and the former First Lady and a Senator that you should enjoy some special station. While we respect her, the bottom line is, we don’t like her. The reason we don’t like her? Fundamentally we believe she thinks she is the Queen Bee. And, when you combine Queen Bee with cold fish, you have a powerhouse combo. We just don’t like her and none of her protestations regarding experience will ever change that. The poll numbers confirm that. She scores higher on experience than Obama, but much lower on likeability.

In the debates last night there were two key moments for me. The first was when she made the protestation regarding being asked the first question. It was an attempt by Hillary to show bias on the part of the press. How ridiculous! She was asked the first question in 6 of the past 10 debates. When you get the first question, like getting the kick off in a game, you get an advantage. She got the first question last night and got to set the initial agenda regarding health care. (More about which later). Then, she went on to make the reference to the Saturday Night Live skit last weekend which portrayed a press fawning over Obama in a Clinton/Obama debate and said, “Should we ask Barack if he needs a pillow.” It was ham handed. Hillary is not good with humor and she was hissed by the audience.

The second came when Hillary was following up on Tim Russert’s dip shit questions about Louis Farrakhan endorsement of Obama. Russert gratuitously quoted some inflammatory anti-Semitic speech of Farrakhan’s. Obama said he had consistently denounced Farrakhan. Hillary then said that when an anti-Semitic group in New York has endorsed her she had “rejected” them while Obama was only denouncing. Obama clearly had the trump on this point when he reiterated his denunciation and then said, in essence, that he would “reject and denounce.”

From here, the Clintonistas will continue their spin. They will lash out for the unfairness of it all. And, Mark Penn will continue to refine and hone his micro-targeting in order to secure for Hillary the votes of white women over 80 in next Tuesday’s primaries.