TNR's Zimmerman claimed young voters "are really turned off by" Clinton's "naked ambition"
During the October 30 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, while discussing a recent University of Iowa poll on the Democratic presidential candidates, host Tucker Carlson asserted that "it's women ... who are making this [Sen. Hillary Rodham] Clinton [D-NY] surge possible" and asked his guests -- A.B. Stoddard, associate editor of The Hill, and The New Republic's Sacha Zimmerman -- "[W]hat is it about Mrs. Clinton ... that appeals to them [women over the age of 45]?" Zimmerman replied: "I think she's broken a lot of glass ceilings and that their generation, particularly baby boomers, appreciate that, see what she's went through. And I think that they're a little less cynical about her kind of naked ambition and that young people are really turned off by that."
In response to Zimmerman's claim about baby boomers' view of Clinton, Carlson stated: "It is baby boomers. I mean, and let's be totally honest -- this country will be a much better place when the last baby boomer has gone to the great beyond, do you agree?" Carlson continued: "It will be. No more lectures about Woodstock and RFK and JFK and your stupid elections from the late '60s, early '70s. We're not interested. This will be a better country, won't it be?" Following Stoddard's comment that "the baby boomer-bashing thing" is "too predictable," Carlson stated: "I can't help it. It just comes out."
Later, Carlson asked: "Why do men like Barack Obama? That's -- I think this is maybe the most interesting of all. You ask Democratic men in Iowa who do you like -- Obama, Edwards, Hillary. You can kind of understand Hillary because of the castrating quality to her rhetoric, but why Obama?" As Media Matters for America documented, Carlson previously attributed a "castrating" quality to Clinton, stating: "[T]here's just something about her that feels castrating, overbearing, and scary." Further, Carlson has repeatedly said of Clinton: "I cross my legs involuntarily every time she comes on the air."
From the October 30 edition of MSNBC's Tucker:
CARLSON: Here's where it gets interesting. Let's break down that poll along lines of sex. The same poll among women -- Hillary, 33; Obama, 27; Edwards, 17.
And here's the most interesting, when you break it down among men -- Obama, 27; John Edwards, 25; Hillary Clinton, 23.
It's women -- it's women -- there's just no doubt about it, Sacha, who are making this Clinton surge possible and sustaining it.
ZIMMERMAN: Yeah, it looks like they are. But they're the over-45 women, which I think Hillary ought to really like because they vote. And if you'll remember, you know, [2004 Democratic presidential nominee John] Kerry and years past, there's always been a promise that young Democrats are going to come out.
And in this case, I don't think they will again.
CARLSON: It's the old ladies.
ZIMMERMAN: Yeah.
CARLSON: That's the old-lady vote that --
ZIMMERMAN: And they vote. Why not? Hey --
CARLSON: Well, why, I guess, is the question. I mean, why not? Sure. Of course, they vote and they know a lot about the process, and it's probably good for our democracy they do vote because they're informed.
But what is it about Mrs. Clinton -- Hillary Clinton -- that appeals to them?
ZIMMERMAN: I think she's broken a lot of glass ceilings and that their generation, particularly baby boomers, appreciate that, see what she's went through. And I think that they're a little less cynical about her kind of naked ambition and that young people are really turned off by that.
CARLSON: It is baby boomers. I mean, and let's be totally honest -- this country will be a much better place when the last baby boomer has gone to the great beyond, do you agree?
STODDARD: Oh.
[laughter]
CARLSON: It will be. No more lectures about Woodstock and RFK and JFK and your stupid elections from the late '60s, early '70s. We're not interested. This will be a better country, won't it be?
STODDARD: That's just too predictable for me --
CARLSON [laughing]: Too -- I'm sorry.
STODDARD: -- that baby boomer-bashing thing. I don't know. I'm sorry.
CARLSON: I can't help it. It just comes out. But the appeal -- look, if you're to boil down why Hillary Clinton went from this kind of objective fascination -- someone about whom we said, "Can she really win?" -- to someone about whom we are now saying, "How does she blow it?" -- you would boil it down to one word: women. Women support her. That's the key.
[...]
CARLSON: Yeah, but there's a gender --
STODDARD: It's really --
CARLSON: -- there's a gender split here. I mean, do you -- what do you think this is about? Women look at John Edwards and they think what?
ZIMMERMAN: I think that they think he can be a little bit slick.
CARLSON: Yes.
ZIMMERMAN: And that he's not as sincere, maybe, as an Obama, who has this kind of "true believer" status. And I think that when you have, like, you know, this lawyer who comes up talking about unions and he's wealthy, that it's hard for people to imagine that he is sincere.
CARLSON: Women have an insight into his personality.
Why do men like Barack Obama? That's -- I think this is maybe the most interesting of all. You ask Democratic men in Iowa who do you like -- Obama, Edwards, Hillary. You can kind of understand Hillary because of the castrating quality to her rhetoric, but why Obama? Why is Obama more popular than John Edwards?
STODDARD: Maybe she's -- maybe he's just the anti-Hillary. Maybe they're choosing the person they think is the most viable because they don't want her -- a lot of Democrats still have a big problem with Hillary Clinton.
When are these political discussion shows going to stop opining on anything that may deem in the slightest, the most minute, the tiniest, littleist, teency weenciest bit (shhh, shh) negative about the Democrats? Tsk, tsk!
Tommy, I think what you are really saying is that no political show can ever speak of ill will toward the Democrats ever! It is just not allowed.
I think what he's saying is:
Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.
In other words, MMFA is was started by Hillary and funded by Soros to make sure that HRC becomes the next "prez"...
Like clockwork, another accusation, albeit subtle, by conspiracy theorists that MMFA is out to destroy the same First Amendment that makes it possible for MMFA to exist.
I'm sure there will be another one popping up here soon about MMFA secretly being part of Hillary's campaign gestapo.
I'm sure tommy would prefer we act more like the conservatives do. This is clearly the more honorable route.
I love it how you always have a ThinkProgress link at your disposal with such frequency, do you work for them or can you just cannot get enough of left wing punditry?
;)
Oh, c'mon Tommy, admit it--Snoopy just carved your pumpkin. :-)
I forgot to mention the inevitable prediction that Zimmerman will make 'Worst Person' today.
Its possible, Olby did name Rush last week after Rush appeared on MSNBC Morning Joe with Joe the fraud.
Pete,
There is no accusation, thinly veiled or otherwise, by me towards MMFA of wanting to stifle free speech or some secret wish to deprive right wing pundits of their inalienable right to publicly pontificate on our airwaves or throughout our media.
Nothing stealth or subtle about what I am saying.........which is nothing more than pure, unadulterated whining about poor mistreated Democrats, that's all.
;)
I'm sure you'd prefer the right wing noise machine have the field to themselves and their accusations go unanswered and become part of the political narrative but that's just not going to happen this time around.
p.s. Nobody has an inalienable right to pontificate on our airwaves.
The "right wing noise machine" pretty much does have the field to themselves, because the "left wing noist machine" can't find an audience.
Which is why Limbaugh and O'Reilly mounted such vigorous defenses after the mainstream media picked their offensive remarks right?
This isn't a battle to capture the biggest audience.
This is a battle to correct right wing misinformation.
It's a battle that wasn't even being fought as recently as 3 years ago.
So offensive remarks are now misinformation?
Wow, and I thought they were just offensive remarks?
Way to totally miss the point once again.
I only repeated what you stated, but trying to navigate through your points isn't easy.
Actually you didn't repeat what I posted but I'll write that off to your admitted comprehension difficulties.
The left wing noise machine found its audience on the internet ages ago.
I think the right wing is only just starting to figure it out and they are not nearly as well connected.
How else can you explain Max Blumenthal crashing yet another convention without even getting escorted out this time?
I mean, and let's be totally honest -- this country will be a much better place when the last baby boomer has gone to the great beyond, do you agree?
Yeah Tommy, that's just good discourse taken out of context by us to twist it to look like Tucker can't wait to see all the older gen dem's die. Good call. </sarcasm>
Oh come on! That just another right wing 'joke' that needs to be interpreted.
SAVE DEMOCRACY, VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT!!
That segment was like watching a music video with Tucker dressed like a bow-tied-yuppy-zombie while singing the "The Hillary Mash!, it was a grave yard bash!"
Happy Thoughts;
Dan Grady
Its easy money?
Its the accepted SOP for any Democratic candidate to be attacked for any observable of imagined fault?
Accually I think its the special powder that is poured into their shorts right before the broadcast that does it.
Zimmerman is correct. I am 26 and turned off by Clinton's doublespeak "say nothing but everything" style. She just wants power. Vote for ron paul!
She definitely played every angle and bobbed and veered at last night's debate, that's for sure.
The Republicans will have a field day with her performance.....if any time is Obama's time, now is it. But he did little too, in my opinion.
Name me the person who became president without ambition. The one who won the office in the lottery. The one who stumbled into the job. Its another storyline of course she is ambitious you know who else is ambitious. EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO EVER RAN FOR THE PRESIDENCY. IF ambition turns anyone off then they will have no presidential options to vote for its INANE.
Show me where I criticized her ambition? I did not. I merely commented on her debate performance last night, which she waffled and weaved all over the place. If you disagree, fine.
No thats not all you did. You criticized MMFA for putting this up here. Now since it was you I thought I didnt have to spell the point out like I would have had I posted to Rhino. Its about the narrative. The press loves to make a narrative story about candidates which in itself often, I am not saying out of a conspiricy, puts Dems in a bad light even when they are doing what ALL politicians do. This follows that pattern. Does Hillary have naked ambition? Sure. Does it make sense to say that turns off anybody when the set of people who become President WITHOUT a whole bunch of ambition DOES NOT EXIST? Its a set up, unambitious people do not become president EVER. So the idea that people dont want to vote for ambitious people is hogwash but it IS a way to discredit them. People may not want to vote for people relentlessly PORTRAYED as ambitious. This clearly furthers a conservative narrative. Do we have any evidence even HINTED at that Hillary is MORE ambitious than say Guiliani? McCain? No its just that THEY are not being portrayed as having naked ambition. I dont like Hillary if they take her down and we get Edwards or Obama that will be fine with me but this is not a reasonable criticism
If the narrative was decidedly against the Democrats, you'd have a point......but it is anything but that, and you know it. These things are bantered around 24/7 by pundits all day long on tons of media outlets - they take all the candidates on, good and bad, for and against.
This is nothing, as benign as it gets.
I know no such thing. I remember Gore being pilloried for being a liar for the kind of exagerations politicians had done since Abel ran for mayor and Bush being ignored when telling out and out LIES. No it doesnt even out. Where are the stories about Guilianis naked ambition? The sound of HIS voice? Where were the stories about Bush blowing up frogs when he was a kid? No it doesnt even out. No reasonable argument can be made that it does.
I have no interest in voting for Hillary, but complaining about a Presidential candidate's "naked ambition" is like complaining about the sky being blue. I don't know why Hillary's ambition is anymore noteworthy than all of the other candidates including the ones I like.
not to be a broken record but ron paul doesnt have blind ambition - he said on leno last night (check digg.com or youtube if you'd like to find the interview) that he wouldnt accept a VP pick if the person running for pres didnt share his principles. how is that for integrity? lets all vote for someone who is honest for a change and not someone who doesnt say anything in order to avoid alienating anybody. i dont agree with ron paul on a lot of things but he seems like a good man and not a greedy one. that has been sorely lacking in the politics of today.
i like hillary but she is just more of the same - washington power hungry politician. ill vote for her if paul doesnt get the repub nod. edwards is a huckster and romney is a used car salesman. only vote barack or hillary to prevent neocon rudy from winning
I like Ron Paul as well, but I simply don't believe it is possible even to run for the office of President and be a humble unambitious person. If Ron Paul indeed isn't ambitious, perhaps that explains why he isn't getting all that much support.
The other great observation people often make is that so-in-so is an "egomaniac". I also take that as a pre-requisite for the job. Maybe that is just me. I am pretty cynical about all of the candidates and how their images are manipulated by all sides.
"...the castrating quality to (Hillary's) rhetoric..."
Wow...! Talk about self-revealing!
Tucker should go back to wearing bow ties and become a movie critic.
Carlson is still pissed he was wrong about HRC's memoir selling more than 1,000,000 copies.
Face it, this guy isn't exactly Nostradomus or unbiased when it comes to HRC.
He's just so patently unqualified for his job...
Does anybody else have a problem wth the words "Clinton" and "naked" being used in the same headline? Eww
Oh, I dunno. I'm kinda intrigued about seeing her do a kissinger layout.
...depends on which Clinton you're talking about.
...no...it doesn't!
Sorry, WC, I had you figured wrong...thought you might be interested in some naked girls.
Hillary????? C'mon Irony - you can do better than that!
"this country will be a much better place when the last baby boomer has gone to the great beyond" says Tuckie.
Actually, I think this country will be much better off when the last remaining member of Tuckie's audience realizes that he's a brainless putz, and his show gets cancelled.
I can't help it. It just comes out.
..well judging by the latest ratings that may have already happened.
"this country will be a much better place when the last baby boomer has gone to the great beyond" says Tuckie.
I don't understand how this idiot thinks he can make such a remark and continue in his business. I find in more offensive than just about anything he has ever said.
Tucker : this country will be a much better place when the last baby boomer has gone to the great beyond.
I know when one boomer retires from "serving his country" (which the makes the country feel likes it is getting serviceD) the country will be better off.
Aren't young people really turned off by the crass, naked ambition of what passes for political dialogue in this doomed nation? Aren't they truly sick of the constant negative harping on Clinton and other progressives by the current crop of TV nattering naybobs of negativism?
Yes. This one is.
Hillary's Naked Ambition
I saw that one when I was in college. That was hot.
Why are 18-44 lumped together into a single group, and yet 45+ was broken into two groups ? I would love to see the data for Tucker's age group, let's say 30-44. I would love to see Hillary ahead in that group and then stuff his freaking bowtie into his gas-emitting yapper.
I think Tucks is just pissed because women appear to have the controlling vote in 2008. He has to hide his misogyny behind something ... and he chooses agism ! What an asswipe. (Joke on "Tucks", if you know what those things are.)
here's a zogby poll showing her trailing obama 34 to 32 percent among 18 to 29 year olds. sounds like she is not so disliked by young voters after all.
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1381
The SOP for Tucker is to
(1) emphasize groups which OPPOSE Hillary, and
(2) show bafflement and befuddlement about the groups that DO support Hillary. I mean, what's WRONG with these people? Don't they know Hillary is out to CASTRATE Tucker, a fear so real to him that he admittedly "crosses his legs" whenever her name is mentioned?
Rightwing "misinformation"? Yes, but it is of the type SOLON identified, that of perpetuating the Rightwing NARRATIVE, missing no opportunity to tear at Hillary from every petty angle imaginable.
(P.S. For "NAKED AMBITION", can ANYTHING top the egos of the slate of Rightwing bloviators, from Limbaugh and Hannity to Tucker and Beck and from Novak to Krauthammer? The studios these guys yack from had to have the doors widened to admit their hugely swollen heads. Cripes.)
Headline:
YOUNG VOTERS TURNED OFF BY HILLARY'S NAKED AMBITION
Elderly voters willing to "take a look" before deciding
I would have Imagined Clinton getting more not less from under the under 45’s than from the 45+’s. I would have thought this would be so on the abortion issue alone for reproductive age women. But only about 1 percent of those polled said abortion was the biggest issue for them.
The biggest factor seems to be Obama having double the percentage of the under 45’s Clinton has. I would surmise the freshness, youth, and new page politics of Obama is the key to his relative success among the 18-45 age bracket. And the disparity between young and older women perhaps does not reflect so much negatively on Clinton as positively on Obama. In other words absent Obama, this younger demographic might be much closer to the over 45’s relative to their support for Clinton.
I hate Carlson, but he's correct on this one. I can't wait until we don't have to put with Baby Boomers any more, right or left.
As a woman, I am infuriated by these clowns' so-called insights. I am older than a Baby Boomer, and my daughter and daughters-in-law are younger. We all like Hilary and what's more we plan to vote for her. So are my sister and sister-in-law and all of my friends. Why? We like her. We think she's intelligent and speaks for us, and, let's be honest, we think it's time for a woman to be elected to this nation's highest office. Heaven knows the man in there now has done an abominable job. If I have any doubt at all about his successor, it's more an expression of pity because that person--Hilary, I hope---is going to inherit one god-awful mess that may take another generation to heal. Go Hilary!!