Reince Priebus; Even Nixon didn't destroy the tapes

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Hillary is extremely intelligent and accomplished.

This talking point is getting extremely annoying. Hillary's actual resume is actually quite unremarkable.

- Before 2000 she was a mere political spouse. Granted, an active one, although the way she handled healthcare initiative makes me very sceptical about her abilities to get things done (sure, Republicans bear most of the blame for killing it, but she performed quite poorly). I doubt anyone could claim with all seriousness she would've become Senator and then a presidential candidate without being married to the President of the United States and her status of First Lady, as opposed to female politicians with careers on their own.
- No accomplishments as Senator. She was a celebrity politician and presidential-candidate-in-waiting rather than doing any meaningful legislative job.
- Very poor handling of the 2008 campaign she was expected to win.
- As Secretary of State, she merely carried out Obama's policies. That how being a Cabinet Secretary works. Yes, she was a good subordinate, but not a leader.

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But she does have a career of her own. That's the thing. No one says that Obama doesn't have a career of his own because he wouldn't be where he is without Michelle (who helped him sell himself as authentic to black community) or David Axelrod (who helped him sell himself to whites) or wealthy Chicago donors like Penny Pritzker (who bankrolled his early career). He wouldn't be where he is without any of those people. None of us would be where we are without our parents, at the very least.

Why is Hillary held to a higher standard then? No one says Ted Kennedy never had a career of his own because he wouldn't have been Senator had he not been a Kennedy.

But everybody pretty much agrees that Ted Kennedy became Senator only because this was handed the seat to him by his family's political machine. The same way Hillary's rise on the elected office was so rapid because she was the First Lady of the United States. And that is an advantage other female politicians never enjoyed. I'm sorry, but lots of her popularity comes directly from Bill's popularity as President.

Well, she did have an impressive legal career on her own (sorry for not being clear enough), but not a political one. And the fact Obama had even less impressive resume before his election doesn't change anything.

For the record, I'm not saying she would make a bad President (hell, she'd certainly be far better than any of the Republican bras), because of the resume (or lack of thereof), since it doesn't really determine a leader's qualities, but let's be objective about this.

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But she does have a career of her own. That's the thing. No one says that Obama doesn't have a career of his own because he wouldn't be where he is without Michelle (who helped him sell himself as authentic to black community) or David Axelrod (who helped him sell himself to whites) or wealthy Chicago donors like Penny Pritzker (who bankrolled his early career). He wouldn't be where he is without any of those people. None of us would be where we are without our parents, at the very least.

Why is Hillary held to a higher standard then? No one says Ted Kennedy never had a career of his own because he wouldn't have been Senator had he not been a Kennedy.

But everybody pretty much agrees that Ted Kennedy became Senator only because this was handed the seat to him by his family's political machine. The same way Hillary's rise on the elected office was so rapid because she was the First Lady of the United States.

Which everybody pretty much agrees.

But if I say Ted Kennedy was an intelligent and accomplished man, are you going to use the fact that he was handed his seat to him by his family's machine to argue that he wasn't intelligent or accomplished?

Obviously you haven't read my post carefully. So just as a reminder:

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And since I've been known aroud as a big Ted Kennedy's fan, that goes for him as well. But doesn't change how his career started. And I will stand by my statement that Hillary had, in some way, handed it to her as well.

At this point, I want the first female president to be the wife of a former president just so that spouses get some respect.

If you support Hillary because you believe she's qualified to be President and would be a good Chief Executive, I totally respect that. But supporting someone because of who's the spouse is the silliest argument I've heard so far.

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Obviously you haven't read my post carefully. So just as a reminder:

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I am being objective. No one's denying that Bill Clinton's career hasn't massively helped Hillary's. That just doesn't mean that she doesn't have a career of her own, that what she's done somehow doesn't count or counts less, or that she isn't an accomplished person.

Maybe, but "extremely accomplished" is a bit of stretch, especially since she's yet to claim the White House.

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State Department rules she wrote herself and were not in place under her predecessors.

That isn't true. The State Department requires archiving emails because all Federal agencies are required to do so by Federal law. I guess I kind of misphrased it by saying "State Department rules" but in any case your statement isn't accurate.

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They already did; it's called the Federal Records Act. Hillary violated it.

That said, all of the legal stuff is secondary to the fake that Hillary was/is obviously trying to hide something. Going through all of that trouble to ensure that the public wouldn't be able to see her emails, and then deleting thousands after this was discovered, while still refusing to grant access to her server? Come one, just using common sense you can figure out that she was doing something criminal.

Yeah, yeah, it's all a conspiracy

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Because Arkansas in 1980 is definitely reflective the electorate in swing states like Virginia, Florida, and Colorado.

Of course not. But Fuzzy made a valuable point nonetheless: Hilary does lack that personal appeal Bill have, especially with crucial centrist voters. She's more like Gore in 2000.

Really the question that Hillary has to answer is "Why are you running for president?", the same question that ultimately stumbled Ted Kennedy in 1980.  Regardless of whether she has got this far merely on her husband's shoulders or if she busted her ass to get this far, none of that matters if she can or cannot answer that question.

To be fair, it's not easy for anyone to answer such a question. For every candidate, it's obvious why she or he is running for President. But to give a good answer to that, that's a diffrent story.