This is Politisite’s First Article of our Continuing Coverage from the Congressional Black Caucus CNN Debate to the South Carolina Democratic Primary
PART TWO – Edwards Won CNN Debate in Myrtle Beach : Says Who?
By Albert N. Milliron
Myrtle Beach, SC- (Politisite.com – During the Congressional Black Caucus / CNN Debate all stops were pulled and Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barrack Obama snapped back and forth in what seemed to be pre-planned pop shots at one another. The news services picked up on the Walmart and Slum Lord statements made by each candidate but little has been said about Senator Obama wondering who he is really running against. Here is an except from the transcript from the debate
Clinton: “I did not mention (Reagan’s) name,”
Obama “Your husband did,”
Clinton: “Well, I’m here. He’s not,”
Obama “OK. Well, I can’t tell who I’m running against sometimes.”
So where is Hilliary Clinton? Not in South Carolina. She is campaining in Washington, D.C., California, Arizona, New Jersey and New York. She left her Husband President Bill Clinton to campaign on her behalf. Or is it the other way around? Is Bill Clinton campaigning for himself? Some speculation has arisen that Bill Clinton may be trying to avoid term limits laws and is actually running for a third term. The Twenty-second Amendment, Ratified in 1951, states that, “no person shall be elected to the office of president more than twice. So is former president William Jefferson Clinton working to get around the twenty-second amendment by having his wife run on his behalf.
There is a precedent for this, Alabama Governor George Wallace in 1966 tried to get around the states term limit laws by asking voters to elect his wife, Lurleen Wallace, as their next governor. It was clear that Governor Lurleen Wallace was only to be governor in name and George was actually running the government.
Is this what is happening now? President Clinton never liked the Term Limit Amendment as is made clear in a debate between Senator Bob Dole and President Bill Clinton
Debate: Presidential Term Limits Political Opponents Debate on 60 Minutes
(CBS) In the latest in a series of two-minute debates for CBS News 60 Minutes, former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and former President Bill Clinton discuss presidential term limits. Following is a transcript of their debate: SENATOR DOLE: Mr. President, sometimes you don’t get the credit you deserve. Just last week you showed a real sense of humor. You want to change the constitution to let somebody, anybody, serve more than two terms as president.
Now who did you have in mind? Former Presidents Ford, Carter or Bush? You know, what about me? I ran since 1980 and never got one term – or even an overnight stay in the Lincoln bedroom. Now, you want a third or fourth term. Why stop there?
If cloning keeps advancing, you could be president for more than one lifetime. The two-term tradition was set by George Washington. Only one exception: FDR in time of world crisis. Don’t you think some day Al Gore would tire of being vice president?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: “Shouldn’t the people have the right to vote for someone as many times as they want to vote for him?”
Those aren’t my words, Senator. They’re Ronald Reagan’s, who said in 1986 that the term limit on presidents was “a mistake.” Now, I wouldn’t go as far as President Reagan. I think presidents should be limited to two consecutive terms, then after a time out of office should be able to run again.
Don’t worry. I know I won’t be running for president again. It takes too long to change the Constitution, and I don’t believe in human cloning! But in the future, our country might face a crisis that a former president is uniquely qualified to help solve. The American public should have that option.
As for you, senator, you can run again. Or you could give the other Senator Dole a shot!
SENATOR DOLE: Wow. Getting a wife to run for president. Wonder where you got that idea, Mr. President. You’ve been reading too many books. Don’t be coy. I hear what you’re really saying: With the field of Democrats out there, if the law allowed, you’d be running against President Bush today. Isn’t that right?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: No, that’s wrong. I like and admire the Democrats in the race and one of them will emerge to challenge the president, and I predict another close election. I just hope this one gets decided by the people, not five members of the Supreme Court.
Source: cbsnews.com via politisite
Glenn Thrush of Newsday shares with readers Hillary’s Departure for SC. Bill Clinton is CAmpaigning in her stead, or is He?
Obama: Clinton playing hit-and-run in S. Carolina
BY GLENN THRUSH
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – Hillary Rodham Clinton is playing hit-and-run with South Carolina voters, an angry Barrack Obama charged yesterday.
Obama, campaigning here a day after Monday’s pointedly personal debate, took a parting shot at Clinton, who left the state for a two-day swing through Washington, D.C., California, Arizona, New Jersey and New York. Bill Clinton, campaigning in her stead, made stops in Greenville, Columbia and Aiken.
“I think the South Carolina voters will have to make an assessment in terms of how seriously she’s taking the state,” Obama told the Christian Broadcast Network yesterday. “She said last night that Bill Clinton wasn’t the one running for president, but this is the next primary and he’s the one who’s staying behind.”
Source: newsday.com via politisite
The Christian Science Monitor speculates on Bill Clinton running for a Third Term.
Washington – If a latter-day Rip Van Winkle woke up today after an eight-year nap, he might think Bill Clinton was running for a third term as president.
The former president carries a full slate of campaign appearances, helps set strategy, and commands the media’s attention with every utterance. Or perhaps the more apt analogy, as Clinton stumps vigorously for his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, is that he’s running for vice president, a job that often entails going negative.
For more than two weeks, Bill has been playing the bad cop to Hillary’s good cop, aggressively going after her top opponent for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Barrack Obama, on his record, his assertions, and his experience. By the time Monday’s debate rolled around in Myrtle Beach, S.C., the tensions burst into the open.
“I can’t tell who I’m running against sometimes,” Senator Obama retorted in apparent exasperation over being double-teamed by the Clinton’s
Source: csmonitor.com via politisite
John Brummett wonders if Co-Presidents can seek a third term and Looking at Senator Clintons Experience
JOHN BRUMMETT: Co-president seeking her third term
Does my wife, by virtue of her 20 years of challenging association with me, possess the relevant experience to become a newspaper columnist on politics?
And consider the case of the service station mechanic down the way. He’s been ill lately. Maybe I could get his wife to change my car’s points and plugs.
If, that is, Hillary Clinton is to be believed on the matter of a wife getting job-qualifying credit for her husband’s experience.
It’s indeed odd that Clinton asserts — and is generally conceded — a clear advantage in relevant experience over her Democratic rivals.
She’s been in the U.S. Senate less time than John Edwards, and Edwards actually ran on a national ticket, as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004. Clinton has served in the U.S. Senate twice as long as Barrack Obama — but, then, Obama did seven years as an Illinois state senator. That ought to count for something, especially considering that Hillary never held elected office herself before becoming a U.S. senator from New York in 2001.
Before going to the White House with her husband, Clinton had been a corporate lawyer and a Wal-Mart board member. True, she’d ventured out as first lady of Arkansas, in 1983, via her husband’s appointment, to head a commission drafting new curriculum and performance standards for the state’s public schools. But I’m not sure anyone wants to say that mandating extra units of math and science commends one for the American presidency.
We haven’t even brought up U.S. Sens. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, Democratic presidential also-rans who have it all over Clinton when it comes to time and foreign policy experience in the Senate.
The point is that Hillary presumes to get credited with relevant experience for what her husband achieved. And she seeks and seems to get that credit singularly, even historically.
No other president’s wife, save perhaps Eleanor Roosevelt, would presume to lay any remotely similar claim, much less be conceded it. Laura Bush does not suggest that she possesses that kind of experience. Her mother-in-law didn’t. Nor did Nancy Reagan, or Rosalyn Carter, or Betty Ford.
Source: lvrj.com via politisite
The BBC noted that President Bill Clinton wanted to Repeal the 22nd Amendment Long Ago
Clinton calls for third term Bill Clinton
Former US President Bill Clinton has called for a change to the constitution’s 22nd Amendment which prevents a person from being elected president more than twice.
“I think since people are living much longer… the 22nd Amendment should probably be modified to say two consecutive terms instead of two terms for a lifetime,” he said.
Speaking at the John F Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston, the former president said such a change probably would not apply to him but would benefit future generations.
The amendment was passed after Franklin D Roosevelt was elected to a record fourth presidential term in office.
Source: news.bbc.co.uk via politisite
Be Afraid, Be Very Afriad! Have you Thought of this? Who will be Hilliary’s Runing Mate? How about Bill Clinton?
Can Hillary Clinton make Bill Clinton her running mate if she gets the Democratic bid for President?
Constituional scholars of all stripes have differing opinions on the question. The positions holding that former President Clinton cannot be nominated Vice President are fairly well known, however there are credible positions that believe the opposite to be true. There has been no declarative answer on this from the United States Supreme Court to date.The U.S. Constitution, it could be argued, only bars those “ineligible” to be elected President, to be Vice President. The Constitition specifically states that to be eligible, that you must be a U.S. citizen, 35 years old or older and a resident of the United States for 14 years or more to be eligible to be elected to the office of President. Bill Clinton fits all the constitutionally mandated criteria to be eligible to hold the office of President. Therefore one could argue that he could hold the office of Vice President and then assume the office of President not via an election, but in the unfortunate event the elected President could not fulfill his or her term of office for some reason.
If one were a strict constructionist, then this argument would be very compelling as the 12th amendment explicitly uses the words “ineligible to the office ” and what the criteria are that make you “ineligible to the office” are clearly outlined in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which outlines exactly what makes one “eligible to the office of President”.
In addition the 22nd amendment, that was designed to stop a repeat of three terms in a row, which FDR accomplished only bars a person from being ELECTED President three times not from becoming President three times. If Bill Clinton was to become President through some other means than an election, he would not be violating the text but possibly the spirit of the 22nd Amendment. Note that the 22nd Amendment does not mention anywhere, the position of Vice President.
“The 22nd Amendment Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. …”
Of course, former President Clinton would not be able to run for re-election once the term in which he became President ran out.
This is by no means a slam dunk argument, as with the majority of constitutional questions, there are arguments on both sides and if President Clinton ever did run for Vice President, or even be nominated or elected to a position that put him in the line ascension, no doubt legal challenges would be made to clarify this question constitutionally.
Source: wiki.answers.com via politisite
The web is full of commentaries and speculation on a Third Term for the Clinton’s. If President Bill Clinton really will be calling the shots as did George Wallace in Alabama is this constitutional? Is it constitutional for Bill Clinton to say, while campaigning for president in 1992, if he were elected you would have two presidents for the price of one. Hilliary is toughing her experience as working directly on presidential issues while she was First lady. Does this disqualify her from running for president?
One observation, Bill Clinton goes off on Barrack Obama whenever Hillary is down in the polls. She is not expected to win here in South Carolina. It appears to the writer, that the Clinton’s are trying to get Obama to roll in the mud. The Clinton’s are experts in mud slinging and mud wrestling. Obama would do well to ignore the co-presidential candidates and stick to his candidacy of Hope. Maybe the Clinton’s should be using the slogan, “Four More Years”.
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