Where are all the FOBs?

[pmcalk]

For those who remember, back in the 1990s, Friends of Bill (and Friends of Hillary), or FOBs, were all the rage.  The Washingtonpost was caring stories about them, people were claiming to be one in order to get seats in restaurants.  Yet, these days, their friends seems to be leaving them behind.

quote:Mrs. Clinton has been losing potential endorsers and superdelegate backing from grass-roots activists like Mrs. Larson as well as elected officials, party luminaries and former Clinton White House aides (the most recent being former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who endorsed Mr. Obama on Friday). It is the constituency that provided Mrs. Clinton with an early lead among superdelegates, one she retains although by a narrowing margin.

But there is something more wrenching at work as well, a reckoning of whether the Clintons, on balance, have been good or bad for the party. It has the feel of a very personal testing of loyalties to a former president who once always seemed to be adding to the "Friends of Bill" list, and to a sitting senator who, if not so driven as her husband to win over everyone, used her fame to help elect other Democrats.

But one person's "disloyalty" is, to another set of eyes, well-deserved "comeuppance." And there is no shortage of powerful Democrats who are quick to accuse the Clintons of defining loyalty as a one-way street, with little regard for the sacrifices they have made for a couple whose own political needs seem to their critics always to come first.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/politics/20loyalty.html?pagewanted=1

IMO, that so many close friends of the Clintons are endorsing Obama should tell people something.

[waterboy]

Every dog has his day. Mrs. Clinton seems more and more Republican every day as her desperation manifests itself in such remarks as were made re the Ayers crap. I actually began to dislike both of the Clintons during the last month. Of all their appointees I had the most respect for Reich.

[Conan71]

Is it support for Obama or finally telling the Clintons: "enough is enough"?

There could be an undercurrent of "Anyone but a Clinton or Bush...finally" or it might well be that Hillary's shrewish nature has finally caught up with her.

I don't think you will get an honest answer out of most defectors.

[rwarn17588]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Is it support for Obama or finally telling the Clintons: "enough is enough"?

How about both?

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Is it support for Obama or finally telling the Clintons: "enough is enough"?

There could be an undercurrent of "Anyone but a Clinton or Bush...finally" or it might well be that Hillary's shrewish nature has finally caught up with her.

I don't think you will get an honest answer out of most defectors.

Heard this said on Tim Russert this morning:  It may not be so much Clinton-fatigue as the sudden realization that the Clinton way is not the only way to win. They are not as essential to a winning Democratic strategy as they -- and we -- think they are.