Comments on The Most Interesting Stat from the New Hampshire Exit Poll

I would have said the most interesting stat was that a normally 2:1 GOP:Dem Red State voted mostly for Dems this year. Kind of like how so many people did in Iowa.

But hey, ignore the obvious. All you MSM types do.

This is why we need a 28th amendment. Years spent in office by immediate families should count towards the limits put in place by the 22nd.
Think about it, Dubya's 2nd term never would've happened.

WTF?

if voters want to re elect FDR fine. 2x, 3x 5x, whatever.
if voters want to re-elect G Bush 4x fine. if voters want to elect his kid, fine. if voters want to elect HRC fine.
why in the world is term limits a good idea-- it deprives voters of their choice -- we would not have had FDR in his 3d and 4th terms -- WTF????

Look at England. Winston Churchill shouldn't have been able to be PM several times?

Essentially you are saying voters are too stupid to be trusted. You are saying "personality/freshness matters more than substance." It makes the whole system just a popularity contest based on superficial personality bullshit.

You don't have term limits for your favorite quarterback, your best manager, your spouse, your best friend or anything else, do you?

HRC is the system. They are lobbyists in DC specifically to be milquetoast and to gain access to Congress. That's it.

So of course they'd be for either Clinton. It keeps the money flowing through their coffers. God forbid someone that wants to change course would be on offer.

Bill Clinton did some good things for the LGBT community. He also did us some disservice. How does his wife feel about repealing DOMA? That of course wasn't one of HRC's questions that I could see.

HRC is Human Rights Campaign. I misread.

Still, Hillary is the system as well. We need a change.

the lady is bright no doubt and would be a ok-good leader...but her white house experience of first lady rubs me the wrong way as training for the executive, and rather peronist. we need someone who can shape the narrative. hillary can do policy but not the narrative. it's true lydon johnson shaped alot of policy but jfk gave us the narrative that allowed it to happen. someone who can explain to a country why we do what we do, and what we need to do.

The other interesting angle is that of the 38% percent who voted for Hillary, most would rather have Bill again (57% to 43%).

if voters want to re-elect G Bush 4x fine

I can't really see how this helps your argument.

Look at England...

This isn't England and I don't see how it's relevant.

...you are saying voters are too stupid...

Everyone who voted for the 22nd amendment seems to agree with this and GW's 2nd term adds evidence to support it.

It makes the whole system just a popularity contest based on superficial personality bullshit.

Actually I'd say that this would make it less of a popularity contest.

You don't have term limits for...

None of those affect over 300 million people. Apples and planets.

Bill Clinton has an 88% approval rating among Democrats! It's hard for many progressives to handle, but it's true! Given that, these numbers are totally unsurprising.

Why is Bill Clinton so popular in the first place?

This is just a way of quantifying the already-cliche "change vs. experience" dynamic of the race. Yeah, Clinton is the candidate of the party's establishment, status quo wing, Obama's the new guy, and Edwards is somewhere in between and lagging in support.

@ 10,

Beats me--he was the best Republican president we ever had. And it'll be more of the same if Hills is elected. Yuck.

Name me a better recent President than Bill Clinton? You can't. Kennedy maybe, we'll never know if he was good or not. FDR, but that was ages ago. Face it - Bill Clinton is the best President in living memory. Sucks, I know, but its a fact.

the entire logic of this post is horribly sexist. i work in a medical research inst., we have several labs where one spouse runs the lab and the other works in it. if boss-spouse (who is totally teh awesome) retires/leaves, we all wish s/he would stay, but s/he won't. then we interview internal and external candidates for replacement, one of whom is other-spouse, are we not allowed to evaluate other-spouse for the job on the merits IRRESPECTIVE OF HOW WE FEEL ABOUT OUTGOING SUPER-AWESOME BOSS-SPOUSE?? if we promote other-spouse, does it mean we are just pining away for old boss-spouse? or that we made the decision that most effectively moves the research forward? other spouse may be a good, bad, or indifferent replacement. but our love for retiring spouse is wholly irrelevant to the hiring search. we have a choice, and we make it.

in other words: like HRC? vote for her. don't? don't. bill has absolutely fucking nothing to do with it. let it go.

Sorry, I can't remember any either, @13. But then, I only moved back to the US in 1989.

@14: I only wish HRC was running her campaign that way. She's not. She cites her time in the White House as professional experience. She routinely reminds audiences about how happy they were in the '90s and implies she will continue her husband's legacy. She uses her husband to attack her opponents. Unfortunately, voters are not being asked to evaluate her on her own merits, as your analogy so nobly assumes.

I don't see why Bill being the best president in a group of shitty presidents ought to give him some sort of legendary status.

At least Al Gore has been doing something over the past 8 years. Plus he was in Futurama. What hip things has Bill done?

@14 You are assuming that HRC works in the same office as the boss.

She didn't.

She picked him up each night from work in the Yugo, and occassionally attended the Christmas party, and went on work trips with him so he'd have someone older to cuddle with at night.

Apples to Oranges comparison.

Chris in Tampa @ 17,

Did you read the Starr Report? Whole thing was a super-long letter to Penthouse forum. Seems pretty hip for an older dude. He makes me puke, though.

This table makes my brain hurt.

Here's why Bill was a great President: before Bill, progressives/commies ran the party and advocated nonsensical socialist economic policies. Imagine Charles Mudede in charge of economic policy. Thus Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis.

Bill said that Democrats should be the party of sound economics- balanced budgets, welfare reform, lower spending in general.

For this old school lefties (like many of the posters here on the slog) hate him, everything he stood for, and his wife (by extension.)

But (thankfully) in the real world, most democrats are hard working folks who do not in fact want a socialist utopia but care about unemployment, reasonable taxes, low inflation, and such things. Thus the support among the rank and file for Bill and his charming wife.

Everything I've read says that Hillary is somewhat more liberal then Bill, and I worry that she will backslide a bit on things like the balanced budget (Bill's crowning achievement and the source of eight years of prosperity.) But I'm willing to take that chance until Obama starts talking more about what he'll actually do if elected.

So your logic is that because Hillary, who is an independently intelligent, ambitious (it's not a bad thing! If she were a man I wouldn't even have to say that), and capable woman, who would have been drawn toward politics no matter what her husband did, who has worked hard to get where she is, who worked hard to help her partner get where he is... you're saying, because he did it first, even if she always wanted to, she shouldn't?

Fuck that shit! I'm sorry, you're husband is a successful CEO. Therefore, you shouldn't be, little woman! Just sit by and let him get all the glory.

GWB didn't work for shit and got handed the presidency. Hillary has worked hard her whole life, and if she wins this it will be the fight of a lifetime. Calling it a dynasty is just insulting to her and to women everywhere who are working to be successful in the shadow of powerful partners.

If you don't like Hillary, TALK ABOUT WHY YOU DON'T LIKE HILLARY. Enough with the sexist bullshit. Just enough.

After the GREAT polling results why would you believe this poll?

Please go back to analyzing willful suspension of disbelief.

Why was Clinton good?

Clinton fought for a budget that brought prosperity to the nation and helped working and middle class families have a better life.

He expanded the earned income tax credit, which was the biggest advance in any anti poverty program since the 1960s. Under Clinton the crime rate and teenage pregnancy rate and other social indicators improved.

He worked for peace in Ireland and the Mid East and he didn't start any stupid wars.

He tried to do health care -- it didn't work. Criticize all you like, he tried and the insurance companies won the day.

He advanced the cause of equality.

When the R's tried to shut down the whole government, he defended social security, the environment and education.

Most of all, he won. In 1992, there had only been one Democratic president elected since 1964 (Carter). We Democrats lost in 1968, we lost in 1972, we lost in 1980, we lost in 1984, we lost in 1988. We won only in the post Watergate election of 1976 (Carter).

We'd lost the last 5 of 6 presidential elections. We'd had 20 of the last 24 years under a Republican presidents.

That sucked. It looked like Republican Presidents would rule forever into the future.

Clinton changed that and revitalized the party and gave it a track record that one can be proud of.

After Clinton: we lost in 2000. We lost in 2004.

Sure, many of us want/wanted more than we got under Clinton -- but I've not heard anyone suggest a way that in reality we could have gotten more.

In the present campaign, the idea that Hillary is not change or that Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton is all the same thing is deceptive. It literally equates Hillary to the last 7 years of Bush.

This is exactly like the Naderites saying vote for Nader, because Gore is no different than Bush.

Gore was different than Bush, and Hillary would be very different than what we've had over the last 7 years.

Her vote on the war resolution was wrong, but she wouldn't have invaded Iraq or done what Bush did in running up debt and other misdeeds.

There are many issues on which Bill Clinton wasn't perfect. Sure. Same with Hillary. But it's disappointing to see the circular firing squad lining up so eagerly to totally denigrate the Clinton years, like Bill or Hillary Clinton were the same as George Bush Sr. or Bob Dole or today are basically no different than Romney or McCain or Giuliani.

Hilary would be a huge change. So would Obama. Back in the 1990s it mattered like hell to elect the Democrat -- and it still does.