My name is Hillary Clinton and I am running for president

Clinton has just said that more people went bankrupt last year than graduated from college ... there was a collective, OH! from the audience.
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That doesn't sound right. Wonder how we could check it. Number of bankrupt individuals versus number of college graduates. And versus previous years.

OTOH, anyone who was about to go bankrupt, hurried up about it if they could, to get in before the new law took effect. . .

So, even if it's true, what does it mean?

Nance

"If this Congress doesnt end the war, in 2009 as president I will"
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And this sounds like the line all the sitting Congressmen will be hiding behind.

DH and I saw it on the news and just groaned.

Nance

What Hillary said may be true but also misleading. This because if you recall the Bush Admnistration pushed through the Bankruptcy Reform bill, to appease the major credit card companies. This was IMO one of the worst pieces of legislation ever passed during the Bush years, it reduces the power of the average citizen to take control of their own financial lives. One of the reasons I cannot support Joe Biden, whom I like and supported in 1988 before he dropped out, is that he voted for this bill to appease his constituents in Delaware where the credit card companies are the big industry.

Anyway, the impending enactment of this legislation which made it more difficult to declare bankruptcy, precipitated a rush to file such paperwork before it took effect. So there were an abnormally high number of bankruptcy filings the last year and a half. So Hillary may well be right that there were more bankruptcies than college graduations in the last year, or two years, but it isn't necessarily a trend. Seems mostly situational, a response to that horrid piece of legislation.

re: Hillary, new New Hampshire poll numbers from the Manchester Union newspaper:

Manchester – Democrat Hillary Clinton begins her presidential campaign with a large lead in the first-in-the-nation primary state, while Republican John McCain holds a smaller lead over his two top rivals, according to a new poll.

Polling results provided exclusively to UnionLeader.com today by the Manchester-based American Research Group show:

[quote]
-- New York Sen. Clinton leading Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, 39 to 19 percent, with former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards at 13 percent. No other candidate received more than 2 percent, and 21 percent of likely Democratic primary voters were undecided.

-- Arizona Sen. McCain receiving support from 27 percent of likely GOP primary voters, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani at 20 percent each and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 11 percent. No other candidates drew more than 1 percent, while 21 percent of likely Republican primary voters were undecided.

Pollster Dick Bennett said his firm surveyed 600 likely voters in each party primary between Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. The margin of error is 4 percent.

Clinton has widened her lead since ARG’s late December poll, in which she drew 27 percent, compared to 21 percent for Obama and 18 percent for Edwards. [/quote]

Hillary has the best people on the ground in NH already locked down and knows how to run there. I wouldn't advise Obama or Edwards to bet the farm on that state. Besides, New Hampshire's a crossover state, i.e. a state where you can register for either state's primary regardless of party affiliation. If so many republicans think like Bouldin does, that Hillary is unelectable, I suppose they might cross over to the Democratic Primary on election day and vote for her.

That isn't what I meant. When I said "money is the reality", it was implying the obvious, which is that in primaries the candidate who has the most money almost always gets the nomination. This doesn't have to do with policy or goals, just about the art of campaigning. Hillary presumably thinks that if she raises so much more money than the other candidates, and buys the best staff, organization, ads that money can buy, that she'll probably win the nomination. Perhaps its cynical, but did Mondale in '84, Dukakis in '88, Clinton in '92, Gore in '00 win the nomination because they were the best candidates, or because they had each raised far more money than their opponents and spent their way to the nomination?

21 percent of likely Democratic primary voters were undecided.
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So if you are among that -- important sounding -- 21 percent, what does this "statistic" on college grads versus bankruptcies mean? Does it make you trust Hillary more? Less? It strikes me as trying to pander to a bunch of us but I'm not exactly sure which cheek is being kissed.

And, more importantly to some of us in the 21 percent, it sounds like politics as usual.

Nance

ARG (american research group)
IOWA (poll of likely caucus goers done this week)

Clinton 35%
Edwards 18%
Obama 14%
Vilsack 12%
Clark 2%
Biden 2%
Kucinich 2%
Dodd 1%
Richardson 1%
Undecided 13%

Bear in mind Hillary has only just made her first campaign trip to Iowa in a decade, and Obama hasn't campaigned much at all yet, whereas Edwards has been running there extensively for over four years and Vilsack is the governor of the state.

Based on these numbers, I'd say Vilsack will probably drop out before caucus day. No way he wants to finish fourth in his own state. Looking at these numbers, if there are three or more candidates in the race and the vote is splintered, it only benefits Hillary because she'll get a certain amount of vote no matter what. I think Edwards and Obama need to run hard against each other and then by Iowa caucus time if not sooner, one of them needs to drop out. To beat Hillary for the nomination the decks have to be cleared for one other candidate to consolidate the anti-Hillary sentiment. The net effect of Iowa and NH is going to be most likely to give us two candidates, and these numbers indicate one of them is damn likely to be Hillary.

Pandering + triangulation = pandulation!
In this case, shall we call it polpollpandulation?

It's the political equivalent of the more POEtic (but no more fun to mouth) tintinnabulation --

Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, POLPOLLPANDULATION tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a POLPOLLPANDULATION with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor ...
How they clang, and clash, and roar!

Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows:
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling POLPOLLPANDULATING bells-
Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
In the POLPOLLPANDULATING of the bells!