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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 4, 2008 / 28 Adar II 5768

Hillary's biggest mistake

By Dick Morris & Eileen Mc Gann


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | What worked for P.T. Barnum didn't do as well for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). When the great showman said, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people," he unknowingly anticipated the fundamental assumption that underlay the campaign of the first woman seriously to contend for the presidency. But however correct Barnum's observations may have been about the circus audiences of years ago, it has proven a flawed premise for a 21st century presidential campaign.


From the very beginning of her solo political career, Hillary Clinton has manifested a consistently low opinion of the intelligence of voters. Sometimes the bet has paid off — as when she tried to convince New Yorkers that she wanted to become one of them (when, in fact, she would have run in Montana had there been a vacancy). But lately, it hasn't. Her entire decision to predicate her campaign on the basis of her so-called "experience" reflected a belief that she could put one over on us by co-opting Bill's experience and making it her own. So enticed was she by the prospect of attacking Obama for his lack of tenure in federal office that she didn't stop to notice that she didn't have much more than he did and could only make her point by exaggerating her role in her husband's administration. Small matter. She was so confident that she could pull off the deception that she premised her entire campaign on her ability to do so.


In all matters but the most personal, Bill Clinton never played down to voters. His 1992 campaign mantra — the need for a New Democrat — addressed frankly the failures of the party for the past two decades. Facing globalization, he didn't talk down to the electorate but explained the nature of the new situation and articulated the ways in which we had to become competitive to meet it.


But Hillary always tries to put one over on us. She refused to release her financial records and tax returns and figured we'd never notice. She spoke vaguely of her sympathy with those who wanted to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and bet that the media would never force her to articulate a real position.


Hillary tried to make her insistence on mandatory health insurance the lynchpin of her differences with Obama and assumed that she would never have to explain how she would enforce it. Her campaign was funded by lobbyists — and Obama's was not — but she guessed that it would never become an issue. She and Bill kept dropping hints about racial issues in the campaign, but they decided nobody would call them on it.


Mrs. Clinton believed that she could support the Iraq war until moments before her presidential candidacy began and that the anti-war movement would welcome her as one of their own anyway.


The Clintons' entire approach to this campaign season was based on learning the wrong lessons from their political history. They survived the Lewinsky imbroglio, the pardons scandal, and the theft of White House gifts and assumed they were bulletproof. They confused our forgiveness with gullibility and came to feel that they could get away with anything. When Hillary won her Senate seat in New York, after Giuliani dropped out and Lazio could offer only nominal opposition, she believed she could sell voters any kind of chimera and they would fall for it.


But she assumed wrong. We saw through her claims of experience and followed her twists and turns on Iraq. We realized that she was being propped up by lobbyists and special interests as a phony brand of change. And when we saw the real kind of change offered by Obama, we backed his candidacy.

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JWR contributor Dick Morris is author, most recently, of "Outrage: How Illegal Immigration, the United Nations, Congressional Ripoffs, Student Loan Overcharges, Tobacco Companies, Trade Protection, and Drug Companies Are Ripping Us Off . . . And". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.



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