Geraldine Ferraro's Campaign Chief Says Hillary Will Prevail

By Jeralyn, Section Hillary Clinton
Posted on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 12:03:33 AM EST
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John Sasso has a pretty impressive resume -- he was John Kerry's general election manager at the Democratic National Committee in 2004, manager of Michael Dukakis's presidential campaign in 1988 and the manager of Geraldine Ferraro's campaign.

True, they all lost, but that doesn't make his thoughts irrelevant. Writing in the Boston Globe Saturday, he says Hillary Clinton will prevail and win not just the Democratic nomination, but the Presidency.

Sasso says she's already cleared the bar, particularly that of attacks by Republicans:

If Obama is the Democratic nominee, a man less intimately understood and less defined, Republicans will rush to manufacture their own brutal definition. Can Obama withstand that kind of barrage? Does he have the personal makeup to be as relentless as his opponents? Do past political positions leave him vulnerable? Because the risks are sky-high, these questions need to be reasonably raised and answered beforehand.

Clinton is well past negative redefinition. Unlike John Kerry's 2004 campaign in which veterans opposed to Kerry's candidacy challenged his war record, it will be difficult to ram a Swift Boat into her candidacy. If there is a convict in her political past, as with Willie Horton during the Dukakis 1988 campaign, he will already have been exhumed. Besides, the Clintons are veteran enough to mount a withering counterfire of their own.

Sasso calls her a "thoroughbred" of candidates and the most electable. [More...]

Today Clinton has forged herself into a formidable political leader. She has undergone a remarkable journey. In the face of unending autopsies on her personal and political past, unrelieved targeting at both Democratic and Republican debates, the punishing demands imposed on a woman candidate, she is still standing unflinchingly in place.

....Why the most electable Democrat? Because after a year of being tightly measured, Clinton has won a public acceptance that she has the intellect and inner confidence to do the job. She has reached beyond her political inheritance and shaped a political presence all her own. Hillary belittlers still abound, to be sure. She is still caricatured as calculating. But the senator has taken on some different markings. Gone is the defensive bite, on hand is a new openness to concede mistakes, often with glints of humor.

In Sasso's view, it's Obama the untested vs. the Hillary we know. Can it really be that simple? Sasso, adding in the gender factor, believes it is.

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Geraldine Ferraro's Campaign Chief Says Hillary Will Prevail | 5 comments (5 topical)

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Competent and well-tested Hillary (none / 0) (#2)
by zhiyi on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 01:53:41 AM EST

I happened to watch Hillary answer some questions in a private setting recently. I was impressed with her commanding of problems and her ability to see the big picture. An Indian immigrant asked a question about long-waiting green card process, which led her to talk about immigration problem. She saw the immigration (legal or illegal) closely tied to average working Americans and economy. In a good economy where middle class is happy, it's easy to solve immigration problem, but in a challenging economy, people always point fingers - wrongly - at immigrants. She honestly admitted that it was a tough problem right now and she'd work on economy and middle class, which will in turn make immigration problem easier to solve. Another question was related to social security, and again she demonstrated her deep knowledge and her intelligence. She didn't think it was a big problem right now, and she'd focus on fiscal responsibility and it's easy to solve a financial problem when we have a balanced budget.

I have followed the election discussion recently, and I have found the press quite pathetic. When Hillary was riding high, everyone was talking about how she had won over her critics and had become inevitable, now she's had a few bumps, then everyone start to question her and recycles the old stories, like how she is polarizing, and it seems to be bashful just to praise her a bit. For one thing, she has proven in the Senate that she can overcome adversaries. I believe she can again overcome the challenges she is facing now.

It's nice to see Sasso come out and say who she is and what she is capable of.

Sorry, (none / 0) (#3)
by DA in LA on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 05:12:24 AM EST

I'm not sure what you are talking about. Hillary's detractors have never stopped claiming her lack of charisma and likeability would harm her in the long run. Her own campaign claimed she was inevitable. They were wrong. Don't put that on the press at large. Hillary's people made a big gamble and lost.

Many, like myself, have always and will always claim she is polarizing. She has not proven she can overcome adversaries in the Senate. She has proven she can sell out to corporate interests. She has yet to prove she can even win an election. In 2000 Rudy dropped out with cancer. In 2004 her first opponent dropped out due to some idiotic statements and a lack of Republican support. In both campaigns, Hillary ran against nothing. She is unproven in a campaign, which means, she has yet to overcome the label of unlikeable. I happen to think she is. But that is not the reason why I will never vote for her. I won't vote for her because if you turned back the clock 20 years she would be a republican. She is so far from a liberal it is amazing.

You should all know that many of us will not be going along for the ride if she is the nominee. I have many readers on my blog they are overwhelmingly against Hillary. This will be a huge mistake for Democrats if they nominate her. But, then again, so were Kerry, Gore, Dukakis and Mondale. I'm not expecting much.


Hahaha (none / 0) (#4)
by RalphB on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 08:54:00 AM EST

and beating Alan Keyes was a big feather in Obama's camp? We could do this go around all day.


: I guess (none / 0) (#6)
by DA in LA on Sun Dec 23, 2007 at 02:15:10 AM EST

If I supported Obama. I don't, so your comment is meaningless. Using an attack on another candidate is a sign of weakness of your candidate.

This title makes me smile. Who (none / 0) (#5)
by oculus on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 12:39:37 PM EST

even remembers who Ferraro is/was? Yes, I do. Now that was an historic moment.