Poised, professional Clinton gives a glimpse of 2016 campaign themes

Filed in National by on October 24, 2013

In contrast to the shrill and dystopian future championed by the GOP, Hillary Clinton will be running as the candidate of calm, reasonable professionalism. That’s how she brought the house down while dispatching this Republican heckler at the University of Buffalo.

Speaking before a large audience at the University of Buffalo, former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got a taste of the kind of heckling she can expect if she ultimately decides to run for president in 2016, according to a report from Politico.

Clinton, who was at the university as part of its Distinguished Speaker Series, was in the midst of her remarks when a man rose up and began shouting, “Benghazi, Benghazi, you let them die!” in reference to the terrorist attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya on 9/11 of 2012.

Speaking over the heckler as he was taken from the room, Clinton said, “We have to be willing to come together as citizens to focus on the kind of future we want, which doesn’t include yelling, it includes sitting down and talking with one another.” Her comment was greeted by the crowd with a standing ovation.

While Clinton took questions at the end of her remarks, she deflected inquiries as to whether or not she planned on running for president in 2016. She did outline what she’d be looking for in a candidate, however, saying she’d like to see one able to “isolate the extreme voices and allow the vast majority of American voices to be heard.”

I still have to wonder why Republicans are so eager to cede the voters who value unity and practicality to the Democrats, but trying to understand Republicans is a mug’s game.

About the Author ()

Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (40)

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  1. Calvin Sparks says:

    I hope she runs!!

  2. Jason330 says:

    I’ve never seen a nomination so locked up. Perhaps historians know of one.

  3. John Young says:

    Reagan 1984. Clinton 1996

  4. Geezer says:

    Really? He had to spell out “non-incumbents” for you?

  5. Republican David says:

    Yeah, the problem is not people dying, but that the advocate for their memory was a little too loud. She is the disgusting problem with the country not him. I despise the Clintons. They are such a corrupt and contemptable family that sold our countries secrects to China for campaign cash. I can see why she wants everyone to sit down and be quiet.

  6. Dana says:

    Mr 330 wrote:

    I’ve never seen a nomination so locked up. Perhaps historians know of one.

    Uhhh, Mrs Clinton having the 2008 nomination locked up? 😆

  7. Dana says:

    I’ve said it before: Mrs Clinton will not be a candidate in 2016. She’s 66 years old now, and will turn 69 just before the 2016 election. That isn’t disqualifying, but the fact is that she does not look all that healthy. She can get herself made up to look decent, but there have been a lot of photos over the past few years in which she wasn’t gussied up for campaign appearances, and they really don’t look very good. I’m guessing that, by 2016, she just won’t be strong enough or healthy enough for the grind of a presidential campaign.

  8. socialistic ben says:

    Dana, we democrats don’t require our female politicians to look like Miley Cyrus at 35 in order to vote for them. I know the GOP likes to brag about having “hotter women” but your dem-friends just don’t think that way.
    I would also point out that the current president didn’t “look like” he could be nominated 8 years ago and that very same election, the GOP nominated someone older than Mrs Clinton will be who looked like he had been dead for 5 years already.
    I know, i know…. she “doesnt look that healthy” She looks a LOT healthier than Chris Christie or Anne Coulter

  9. puck says:

    “Reagan 1984. Clinton 1996”

    The Reagan recession in the early 80s was so painful Reagan’s reelection seemed unlikely. His approval rating was around 35%. I don’t thjnk there were any specific challengers, but they were thinking about it. But the jobs began to show up in time to save Reagan.

  10. Geezer says:

    “They are such a corrupt and contemptable family that sold our countries secrects to China for campaign cash.”

    Lucky for you they dropped the literacy tests for holding office some time back.

  11. Geezer says:

    @Puck: Jason was talking about the nomination, not the election.

  12. Jason330 says:

    If the GOP has nothing other than Republican David’s seething, unhinged hatred, and Dana’s “eww an older woman.” This is going to be a blow out.

    Also – Soros is in.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/24/george-soros-hillary-clinton_n_4157242.html

  13. She DID seem to have the 2008 nom locked up early.

    She ran a horrible campaign, and didn’t have an extra gear when Obama picked up momentum. Turned out not to be such a great candidate after all. To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of her inevitability were highly exaggerated.

    I’m at best ambivalent about her 2016 prospective run, which once again will be funded by deep-pocketed Friends of the Clintons.

    I sure hope that a progressive alternative joins the fray. Another Clinton Administration will inevitably give massive breaks to their corporate supporters. Think Ed Rendell on steroids.

    I, for one, don’t want that. In fact, I dread that.

  14. Rusty Dils says:

    I guess President Obama told a little white lie (imagine that) when he promised if you like your existing health insurance you can keep it. CBS new is reporting that about 1/2 of the fourteen million people insured on their own will lose their existing health insurance, shucks, thats not bad, that means Obama only lied to 7 million people

  15. LeBay says:

    Oh, Rusty. I guess you have a short memory.

    How many people did GWB lie to about the WMD in Iraq? That’s right, the entire world! That’s 6,159,242,510 people in 2001, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    That makes Obama’s “lie” pretty insignificant, doesn’t it?

    Also, it was really cool how you worked a poorly veiled Black joke into the “white lie” line.

  16. Liberal Elite says:

    Rusty is complaining that the Insurance companies are now forced to give up their non-conforming “fake” healthcare policies…

    I’m pretty sure Obama was talking about REAL healthcare policies when he said you could keep yours.

  17. Dana says:

    Y’all didn’t understand: I didn’t say that people wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton because of her looks — although if she doesn’t look healthy, she’d have problems — but that she wouldn’t run at all, due to not being strong enough to the rigors of what is essentially a two-year-long campaign. This will be her decision, not other people’s.

  18. pandora says:

    So speaks the supporter of Ronald Reagan and John McCain.

    Seriously, Dana, knock off the ageist (women only) crap. You’d never write this tripe about an old, white male. In fact, you haven’t.

  19. socialistic ben says:

    Dana, you may have a point if Hillary were going to be new to the idea of a presidential campaign. She knows what she’s in for and she’ll have a kickass team around her.
    Not to mention her opponent….. who will either be a Santorum/Cruz type, or another Romneyesqu cardboard cut-out. There is no republican who has all 3 of the following 1) electabiity in a general election 2) ability to get nominated 3) ability to relate to average Americans.

  20. Tom McKenney says:

    Don,t forget she has traveled much more than any other Secretary of State ever has. She kept a schedule that anyone young or old could keep.

  21. Dana says:

    Ben doesn’t realize that he agrees with me:

    Dana, you may have a point if Hillary were going to be new to the idea of a presidential campaign. She knows what she’s in for and she’ll have a kickass team around her.

    That’s exactly right, which is why I believe that she will be able to determine that she won’t be able to handle it. A presidential campaign is a huge strain, and virtually constant work, for two years these days. She simply does not look very strong or healthy these days.

  22. Dana says:

    Pandora wrote:

    So speaks the supporter of Ronald Reagan and John McCain.

    Seriously, Dana, knock off the ageist (women only) crap. You’d never write this tripe about an old, white male. In fact, you haven’t.

    Actually, it was pretty apparent that John McCain was being very physically worn down by the 2008 campaign. Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, even though he was older, was strong enough for the rigors of the campaign; the inevitable physical deterioration which comes with age happens at different rates to different people.

    As for John McCain, no, he wasn’t my first choice for the nomination, in either 2000 or 2008; I voted for him in 2008, because there was no better option.

    Mrs Clinton’s parents both lived long lives, her father reached 82 and her mother 92. But Mrs Clinton herself simply does not look strong or healthy to me.

  23. jason330 says:

    So noted Dr. Dana.

  24. cassandra_m says:

    Interesting that Dana would know about the longevity of Mrs. Clinton’s *parents*. A pretty big sign of a talking point, I’m thinking. The wingnuts will be going to town about her age, in spite of their own predilection to ossify their own Old White Guys.

    On top of this, we’re going to be treated to the spectacle of a bunch of White Guys (not one of them Brad Pitt, either) opining on how Mrs. Clinton *looks*.

    This is the GOP’s idea of female outreach?

  25. Jason330 says:

    lol. Maybe the relationship between looks and success isn’t so clear cut as hunky Dr. Dana thinks it is? McCain put a hottie on the ticket and still got his ass handed to him. Damn voters!

  26. Geezer says:

    “Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, even though he was older, was strong enough for the rigors of the campaign; the inevitable physical deterioration which comes with age happens at different rates to different people.”

    Yes, physical vigor with mental deterioration is how Alzheimer’s typically manifests. He was already showing signs by 1984.

  27. Geezer says:

    The GOP still doesn’t understand that women are the majority of adults in the country, so they see no problem in revealing their view that women are breeding vessels first and second-class citizens once they hit menopause.

  28. pandora says:

    Dana,

    Can you show me your posts on your concern for McCain’s age. They do exist… right? The posts where you say he doesn’t look “strong or healthy” because McCain sure didn’t looked strong or healthy in 2007-2008.

    Oh, and keep up with that female outreach thing. You guys are rockin’ it. Don’t believe me… take a look at what’s going on in Virginia. Women HATE Cuccinelli. How could that be?

  29. Dana says:

    Cassandra wrote:

    Interesting that Dana would know about the longevity of Mrs. Clinton’s *parents*. A pretty big sign of a talking point, I’m thinking. The wingnuts will be going to town about her age, in spite of their own predilection to ossify their own Old White Guys.

    I didn’t know; I found their ages on the wikipedia biography page for Mrs Clinton.

    Y’all still don’t want to understand what I wrote: I didn’t say that she couldn’t win the election if she ran; I said that I didn’t believe she would run at all, due to her age and health.

  30. Dana says:

    Pandora asked:

    Can you show me your posts on your concern for McCain’s age. They do exist… right? The posts where you say he doesn’t look “strong or healthy” because McCain sure didn’t looked strong or healthy in 2007-2008.

    Nope, I wrote none concerning his age, because he chose to run; my point is that my guess is that Mrs Clinton won’t run, not that she’d be defeated if she ran due to her age.

    As I said before, I voted for Mr McCain in the general election, but he wasn’t my preferred candidate.

  31. jason330 says:

    The hunky Doctor has spoken.

  32. cassandra_m says:

    I said that I didn’t believe she would run at all, due to her age and health.

    And you aren’t paying attention to what we wrote — GOP men making judgments about women’s capabilities based on age and health — health that you have no information on — is more of the usual sexist shit. Until you can point to some confirmable medical information, all you are doing is trying to spread the disinformation that she is too old and too sick.

  33. pandora says:

    Okay… so you didn’t write anything about old white men. Got it.

  34. Dana says:

    The Geezer wrote:

    Yes, physical vigor with mental deterioration is how Alzheimer’s typically manifests. He was already showing signs by 1984.

    And it was so apparent that he carried 49 states. 🙂

    However, from Wikipedia, there was no mention of anyone wondering about it until 1986, and Dr Larry Altman, senior medical editor for The New York Times, investigated and said, on NPR,

    I was unable to find any evidence by any medical criteria that is known to the medical profession that Mr Regan had any symptoms or signs of Alzheimer’s when he was President. The signs and symptoms developed several years after he left office, but interviews with senior Cabinet officials in his last term, with his doctors who treated him on a regular basis, and other people who knew him, could turn up no evidence that there was any incidence or incidents that suggested that he had Alzheimer’s. And even his biographer didn’t find any evidence of it.

    Perhaps your suggestion that he was showing signs of Old Timer’s Disease by 1984 are not quite in line with the facts.

  35. jason330 says:

    Cassandra, I think you are not taking into account all of the hunky Doc’s wingnut medical school training that dealt with diagnosing fitness levels through the TV?

  36. jason330 says:

    Reagan was a doddering, nearly brain dead idiot in 1984. That is an established fact.

  37. cassandra_m says:

    wingnut medical school training

    This is the wingnut medical school in Grenada?

  38. Rusty Dils says:

    For those of you who are too young, here is a little tid bit of Hillary’s Glorious Past.

    http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=14437

  39. LeBay says:

    Oh, Rusty. Are you really dredging up the Whitewater scandal & the complete incompetence of Ken Starr & his prosecution team? How many taxpayer dollars did Starr & company WASTE on that disaster? How many people named Clinton were convicted?

    Answers: Zero Clintons convicted and nearly $60 million taxpayer dollars wasted. All this by the crowd who claims to seek out and eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse.”

    This quote from the article you linked says all I need to know about the author’s motives:

    “Hickman Ewing, Starr’s deputy, testified in court that after he heard Hillary Clinton say “I don’t recall” some 50 times in one deposition, he gave her an F grade for her truthfulness.”

    Wow. I wonder what Mr. Ewing thought of President Reagan’s performance in the Iran-Contra hearings?

    To refresh your memory, conservative hero Reagan said “I don’t recall” or “I don’t remember” 88 times during the hearings. Sadly, he may have been telling the truth.