[Dialogue] {Disarmed} Re: {Disarmed} The Uphill Struggle

Fri Jul 27 13:04:30 EDT 2007

You are so confused.  Hillary will easily beat any of the Republican
candidates.  Against a Republican, she will get a huge majority among women
voters who are a majority among voters.  

I am interested in going to Gresham Wisconsin (just south of the Menominee
Reservation) just before or after our canoe trip - over one day and back the
next.  Would you be willing to accompany me and join us in a sweat lodge?.
Quite an experience.  Religion the way it was in America before the
Christians came.  Sitting Owl aka Dave Thomas

  _____  

From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
[mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of KroegerD at aol.com
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 9:25 AM
To: dialogue at wedgeblade.net
Subject: [Dialogue] {Disarmed} Re: {Disarmed} The Uphill Struggle

FRom everything I've seen and heard, a Hillary nomination will guarantee a
republican president!  Without Hillary, the republicans have nothing to talk
about.

Dick Kroeger

In a message dated 7/27/2007 8:41:50 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
FacilitationFla at aol.com writes:

>From a conservative columnist

New York Times 

The Uphill Struggle 

By
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/dav
idbrooks/index.html?inline=nyt-per> DAVID BROOKS

Published: July 27, 2007

The biggest story of this presidential campaign is the success of Hillary
Clinton. Six months ago many people thought she was too brittle and
calculating and that voters would never really bond with her. But now she
seems to offer the perfect combination of experience and change. 

She’s demonstrating that it really helps to have lived in the White House.
She can draw on a range of experiences unmatched by her rivals. She’s
dominated most of the debates. She’s transformed her position on Iraq
without a ripple. Her measured, statistic-filled speeches rarely inspire
passion, but always confidence.

Her success has put incredible pressure on Barack Obama. He continues to
attract huge crowds and huge money, but he also continues to make rookie
mistakes, like saying he’d talk with Hugo Chávez. He’s forced to campaign on
the defensive now, knowing that each misstep reinforces the “He’s too young”
story line.

Clinton’s performancewill also have an effect on the Republican race, though
many Republicans are only now beginning to realize it. When you ask
Republican presidential candidates about Clinton, a smile of professional
respect comes over their faces.

But their world is transformed. The one thing Republicans had going for them
was the head-to-heads. Bush, the war and the party could all be unpopular,
but individual G.O.P. candidates beat Clinton because her negatives were so
high. But she is changing that. People who’ve said they would never vote for
her will take a second look once they see her campaign. 

That means in 2008, Hillary won’t save the G.O.P. An orthodox Republican
will not beat an orthodox Democrat. If Republicans want to have any chance
next year, they have to go for broke. 

You can see hints of the bad environment at Republican campaign events. A
city councilman in Franklin, N.H., introduced Mitt Romney by saying that
America is looking for a leader “to take us out of the shadows.” A
questioner in New London asked how Romney will bring honesty back to the
White House. A questioner at a McCain event in Keene charged, “We’ve had 16
years of draft dodgers in the White House!” 

These are Republicans talking about seven years of Republican rule.

Then there’s the issues. Iraq will still be a shooting war in 2008. Health
care is emerging as the biggest domestic concern. This is natural Democratic
turf. So as I travel around watching the Republican candidates, I’m looking
for signs that they’re willing to try something unorthodox. Eighty percent
of the time, what I see is the Dole campaign: Republican candidates uttering
their normal principles — small government, military strength, strong
families — and heading inexorably toward defeat.

But there are flashes. There are times when they break out of the
conventional trench warfare and touch the anger and longing that define this
historical moment.

One occurred at a McCain event Wednesday. In Washington, the McCain campaign
is considered dead, but somebody seems to have forgotten to tell the people
up here. A man at one packed event rose to vent his outrage at Washington.
He ignited something in McCain, who started talking about what he’d learned
from the failure of immigration reform. McCain worked himself up, recounting
one failure and disgrace after another, culminating finally with an angry
bellow, “Nobody trusts us to do what we say we’re going to do!” 

It wasn’t a Howard Beale “Network” moment, but it touched something. The
crowd was with him all the way.

The other flash I saw was at a Romney event at the Lincoln Financial Group
in Concord. Romney had slipped away from the policy chunks of his stump
speech and was talking about his success in business and in running the
Olympics. He was talking about how you assemble a team of people with
complementary skills. How you use data and analysis to replace opinion. How
you set benchmarks and how often you should perform self-evaluation.

It wasn’t impassioned or angry (he doesn’t do anger). But it was Romney
losing himself in something he really cares about, and it opened up a vista
of how government might operate. 

The McCain and Romney flashes weren’t about policy. They weren’t part of the
normal Republican vs. Democratic dynamic. They were about leadership, honor
and intelligence. If Republicans are going to have a chance, it’ll be
because, by focusing on the state of American politics, they reshape the
battleground under everyone’s feet. 

Cynthia N. Vance, M. A.
Strategics International Inc., Miami, Florida
305-378-1327; fax 305-378-9178
Venice, Florida Office: 941-483-9165
http://members.aol.com/facilitationfla

Want to build your own facilitation skills? 
Want to meet facilitators from around the world and in your own backyard? 
Mark your calendar for the International Assoc. of Facilitators Conference
2008
Atlanta, Georgia -- April 10-12, 2008 See www.iaf-world.org
<http://www.iaf-world.org/> 

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