"Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn't won any of the significant states -- outside of Illinois? That raises some serious questions about Sen. Obama." - Multi-Million Dollar Clinton Campaign Strategist Mark Penn
Genius at work! Just when you think that the Washington Beltway crowd couldn't get any more out of touch with the authentic sentiments of America, you can always count on some overpaid, soulless, loser to insult the already alienated electorate.
So, with Clinton Campaign Senior Advisor Mark Penn, denouncing the significance of a majority of American states and voters, it's time to ask how little significance the Clinton Campaign actually accords to the states and voters who have supported the astonishing rise of the Senator from Illinois.
HEALTHCARE
Since Obama's victory states, including Virginia, are not "significant", we must ask whether they are actually worthy of Federal funding for Hillary Clinton's hallmark Health care plan.
She claims that her health care mandate would cover all Americans, but perhaps she only considers "significant" Americans worthy of coverage.
Below you can see a listing of the number of uninsured Americans in the "insignificant" states in which Barack Obama has earned electoral victories:
Yes, there are a total of over Eleven Million uninsured Americans in states that the Clinton campaign does not consider significant.
Virginia 978,434
Maryland 761,249
District of Columbia 68,647
Maine 129,056
Washington 787,302
Lousiana 823,056
Nebraska 201,302
Virginia Islands *
Georgia 1,656,430
Minnesota 441,044
Missouri 719,914
Colorado 798,772
Alabama 672,949
Connecticut 353,092
Kansas 306,626
Utah 428,223
Delaware 103,667
North Dakota 72,023
Idaho 220,065
Alaska 111,209
South Carolina 696,879
Nevada 456,999
Iowa 273,812TOTAL 11,060,750
Congratulations, Mark Penn, you have taken what was left of the Clinton Campaign's honor and left precisely nothing of significance in tact. Perhaps if you had done your job, and planned for a real campaign, you wouldn't still be digging in the hole you dug for yourself.
Mark Penn is most definitely, as GH puts it, an asstard. But there's a realllly long leap from that to implying that Clinton doesn't think that 11 million uninsured Americans are insignificant.
Plenty of substantive issues to go to town on, but we get this childishness instead (and yes, I'm specifically referring to both this and Dianne's diary).
While I realize that this diary does not necessarily raise the level of discourse, it is intended to point directly to the damaging divisions that are being driven by media insiders and consultants like Penn.
Of course the insinuation is ridiculous. Hillary's plan is Hillary's plan.
The point is, that it'll take a broad coalition and consensus to get anything passed, and you don't build that by denying the "significance" of those who are not blindly loyal to you.
Thus, the sad state of the Clinton campaign today.
The next President is going to enter office with two active combat theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan).
Nothing substantive is going to get done on health care reform until the Iraq war at least is ended. There will be no money to do anything on health care reform.
It's probably going to take two years to get out of Iraq in an orderly way.
The Bush tax cuts expire in 2010, which is going to touch off the mother of all political battles over reform of the tax code. That's going to suck all the oxygen from everything else, including health care reform.
So I reluctantly conclude that health care reform just aint' happening in the next Presidential term.
It makes little sense to distinguish between Clinton and Obama based on the nuances of their health care plans. Substantively, the focus should be their plans for the war, and tax reform, the two issues that are being left by GWB for the next President to clean up.