Via Ezra, this essay by Christopher Hayes on why to vote for Obama over Clinton now that the field is narrowed down to two people really gets at why I’m moving over to the Obama camp.
But while domestic policy will ultimately be determined through a complicated and fraught interplay with legislators, foreign policy is where the President’s agenda is implemented more or less unfettered. It’s here where distinctions in worldview matter most–and where Obama compares most favorably to Clinton. The war is the most obvious and powerful distinction between the two: Hillary Clinton voted for and supported the most disastrous American foreign policy decision since Vietnam, and Barack Obama (at a time when it was deeply courageous to do so) spoke out against it. In this campaign, their proposals are relatively similar, but in rhetoric and posture Clinton has played hawk to Obama’s dove, attacking from the right on everything from the use of first-strike nuclear weapons to negotiating with Iran’s president. Her hawkishness relative to Obama’s is mirrored in her circle of advisers. As my colleague Ari Berman has reported in these pages, it’s a circle dominated by people who believed and believe that waging pre-emptive war on Iraq was the right thing to do. Obama’s circle is made up overwhelmingly of people who thought the Iraq War was a mistake.
Jeff Fecke emailed me to ask who I’m going with post-Edwards and why, and this above is the sum of my opinion. Clinton is fine on many domestic issues, but as Hayes points out, Obama might be slightly better since he voted against the bankruptcy bill. Clinton is probably better on the issues I devote most of my time to—feminist issues, especially reproductive justice—but I think Obama is probably safe enough on this, and anyway, as Hayes points out, domestic issues are still more in the hands of Congress. If Clinton returns to the Senate, she can be encouraged to push for a pro-abortion rights bill that would shield abortion rights from SCOTUS moving further to the right on this.
But since BushCo consolidated so much power into the executive branch, especially on certain human rights and foreign policy issues, it’s important to vote as far to the left as you can on these issues. I think both Clinton and Obama are probably committed to halting torture and stopping the war, but I feel that we’re making a slightly more likely bet that Obama is going to be able to stay the course on that issue when faced with right wing pressure. Clinton has hawk blood. I don’t know how else to put it. I don’t think that she surrounds herself with people who initially supported the war just as a cynical political ploy. I think she might be hawkish, deep down inside. And we don’t need that.
I don’t think Obama is the ideal candidate. Hayes outlines the major frustration that a lot of us have with him, that he directs his awesome political skills towards centrist ends. I’m usually no fan of political speeches, since the cynic in me can just hear the focus group testing behind them, but Obama has moved me to tears on more than one occasion. He could be a progressive leader with those skills and stake out new territory while staying as popular as he is with the people who idolize him, but instead he panders on religion and calls for unity. It’s frustrating. But what do I know? Maybe it’s actually what it will take to get out the vote for him. If so, then the tantalizing possibility of down ticket wins for Democrats if he’s the nominee will make up for the pandering. I believe that this country really does have a solid Democratic majority that was thwarted by open theft of an election in 2000, and by the Republicans exploiting fears of terrorism after that. Plus, conservatives have a well-funded propaganda machine that the liberals couldn’t even hope to rival. Republicans just can’t win in a fair fight. But this election cycle, we’re getting as even a playing ground as we could ever hope to have (even though we still have a mainstream media that’s still deeply silly, which favors Republicans), and I think Obama, with his rock star persona, could really capitalize on this moment.
I’m writing this post with dread. The amount of hostility out there during this primary season has been demoralizing, and made me reluctant to write about the election. I can’t wait until the primaries are over. But once in awhile, I remember that having this platform is both a joy and a responsibility, and that I should take the latter seriously and actually try to provide some service. So here’s that service: Vote for Obama.
176 Responses to “And then there were two”
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My post-Edwards support is going to Obama, too. I really actually hate not voting for the woman in the race, but Clinton’s campaign, her race-baiting, her choice of advisors, and, most of all, her never-apologised-for support for the Iraq quagmire, really makes it hard for me to support her. And Obama is a very attractive candidate, so it’s not like I have to hold my nose while distancing myself from Clinton.
I’m writing this post with dread.
I’ve been dreading what seemed like an inevitable Clinton win– I’d have to detach from a Clinton Dem party because it sucked so bad last decade, and my usual feminist issues wouldn’t provide a haven in that case either– and I’m glad you wrote this. Especially since many of my gripes with HRC are grounded in my own brand of feminism, which pisses a lot of other feminists off.
My post-Edwards support has been leaning towards Obama, mostly because I think he has fewer electability issues than Clinton does.
This post helps me move towards Obama with more enthusiasm.
While they are both too conservative for me on domestic issues I cannot see either vetoing Universal Health Care if Congress manages to put it on their desk.
Clinton, however, is clearly more hawkish. She also fails to acknowledge the enormity of her mistaken vote to authorize Bush’s vendetta war.
So thank you, this pushes me closer to Obama’s caucus on tuesday.
I’ve been trying to decide between Obama and Clinton. Obama was my guy early on, but he’s made so many scary moves (like pairing up with homophobes in South Carolina) that I started to doubt myself.
But I think I’m going with him on Tuesday for a big reason: we need somebody new. We need someone not named Clinton or Bush in the White House. I mean, I know we’re a frickin’ oligarchy, but at least let me pretend that the country’s not controlled by two political familes, okay?
But I think I’m going with him on Tuesday for a big reason: we need somebody new. We need someone not named Clinton or Bush in the White House. I mean, I know we’re a frickin’ oligarchy, but at least let me pretend that the country’s not controlled by two political familes, okay?
The Bushes are related to the Roosevelts, so part of the family that has intermittently controlled the country for quite some time. Clinton was originally an outsider: that’s one reason that he was so hated: he was an outsider and he won.
I’m leaning towards Obama, but today the NY Post endorsed him, which makes me strongly reconsider my position: if the Post likes him there must be something wrong with him.
I don’t think there’s any dread necessary…the Obama slant here was apparent even before Edwards was gone (thought not in-your-face or obnoxious, to your credit).
Now that Edwards IS gone I’m pretty indifferent about both Clinton and Obama, to be honest. I’m going with Clinton because she’s more ruthless and(imho) more likely to get the job done. I am EXTREMELY wary of “bipartisanship” towards a party that has no intention of working with us.
“Clinton’s campaign, her race-baiting, her choice of advisors,”
Yeah, I was ticked when she brought Sandy Berger back into the Clinton circle.
(Although the fact that she did so was sufficient proof that not everything she does is to milk votes out of people by posturing. Along with a few other positions she had that anyone would realize would be unpopular, like the baby bond.)
I’m leaning towards Obama, but today the NY Post endorsed him, which makes me strongly reconsider my position: if the Post likes him there must be something wrong with him.
Oh God, did they really? That makes me suspicious too.
I’m leaning towards him anyway, though.
I’m sorry.
I wanna win.
The Clintons may be part of the machine, but this year it’s MY machine.
I watched Al Gore - arguably one of the finest men on the entire planet - garner the most votes and LOSE.
I took a leave of absence from my job and became the country’s only over-40 “Deaniac” for 8 weeks, until he was mowed down for making a loud noise.
I watched ‘Dumbya Bush - the only cowboy I know of that’s afraid of horsies - flatten real-live war hero John Kerry to get re-elected in a frightened post 9/11 America.
I’m voting for Hillary in the California Primary on Tuesday.
McCain is coming on hard and fast, and I’m bringing an alpha bitch to THIS dogfight.
If you read the NY Post endorsement, it’s much more a rejection of Clinton than a love of Obama. If you read it as more of the GOP hatred of anything Clinton, it makes much more sense.
I’m going with Clinton because she’s more ruthless and(imho) more likely to get the job done.
Hm, I see this defense of Clinton used a lot and it always kind of puzzles me. The message seems to be that getting things done, is more important than the question of which things get done. What’s the guarantee that progressives are ultimately going to be the beneficiaries, and not the target, of this “ruthlessness” you’re actively seeking?
As a twenty-something, my entire experience with “bipartisanship” has pretty much been Democrats acting like doormats and Republicans pushing their agenda, so I’m extremely wary of someone who is campaigning on bipartisanship as a Democrat. My sister is an Obamaniac; my parents (& until yesterday, me, myself, & I) were Edwards supporters and none of us yet have made up our minds regarding our second choice. I have also been moved to tears by Obama and I can’t deny his charm, but Clinton knows how damn dirty the Republicans really are and that hawkishness you speak of will serve the party well on the domestic front. Also, I was in Tennessee when the Harold Ford Jr campaign was fought by the Republicans–the racism was UNBELIEVABLE! This is not a reason to NOT vote for Obama, but that kind of hatred and race-baiting is something that Obama will have to find a very unfair line of rebuttal–ought right saying, that’s racist and Black folks have been abused in this country for 300 years–will be blasted by the conservative media, the right-wing media, and the mainstream media as “playing the victim.”
Do you guys remember that great scene in Lone Star where the white Sergeant on the army base is explaining to his friend about his relationship with the African-American soldier, and he says that her family wasn’t upset to find out about them because they had been worried that she was a lesbian, and were just happy that she was introducing them to a man?
The friend says that their reaction must have been a relief for the couple, and the Sergeant says something like, “Yeah it’s always nice to see one prejudice overcome by an even deeper prejudice.”
I think the same could be said about the Post endorsement of Obama.
I agree wholeheartedly. Such “bipartisanship” is merely a polite phrase for “craven political cowardice”.However, I think that there is a fundamental difference between Clinton and Obama in how they view working with the enemy. Clinton’s view of bipartisanship is essentially the GOP view: the reasonable cooperation of centrist and right wing Democrats towards the mutual achievement of GOP ends. I get the sense from Obama that he is not talking about cooperating with the Republicans, as in bringing Senators and Congressmen together, but rather widening the connections and cooperation between communities and circles and individuals into a wider series of overlapping mutual efforts, the creation of a new consensus on matters of shared values and efforts that the participants may have been hitherto unaware that they actually shared. It sounds fluffy, but it is really just community organizing which must be simultaneously practical and idealistic.
We can visualize is through these prose graphics: The Hilary Clintons of this world see “bipartisanship” as moving agreements and compromises left and (mostly) right along a simple linear scale. Community organizers see cooperation as the awareness of multiple interests, portions of which are brought together in a series of overlapping Venn diagrams. Coalitions are key to this sort of work, and they work best when an overarching shared dream, a shared ideal and goal is clearly enunciated and mutually accepted. Clinton couldn’t enunciate a higher ideal if her life depended on it, and it shows. That’s okay, many successful executives are nuts and bolts people. But the rocket up of Obama’s popularity, the draw of independents and moderate Republicans, and the rush -in of people previously uninspired by politics shows that there is a real, vivid, living hunger in America for such a vision.
One problem with Clinton which went unnoticed in her poorly worded comments on LBJ is that she is both fundamentally like and unlike that president. Like him in that she is a creature of power and advancement and enrichment, a creature of ambition, a creature of the deal and the maneuver. She is unlike LBJ, though, in that she does not have at her core LBJ’s basic liberal principles which usually kept him on path and on target when his less appealing qualities might have derailed him. Sadly, even though she is every bit as tough and smart as LBJ she is LBJ’s direct opposite in one key thing: LBJ was willing to piss off both friends and enemies on his way to helping reach a higher goal such as in the Civil Rights Act*; he didn’t care if every NAACPer was furious with him, as long as they actually got the best of could be done for them as allies. Clinton, on the other hand, would be the first to soothe their shattered feelings, to stand beside them on a podium, to say the right thing, all the while doing little or nothing for them in practice.
* - Yes, Teddy Kennedy, I’m aware of JFK’s work on the Act and that Clinton pissed you off with not mentioning it. But in your heart of hearts you know that your brother couldn’t have got the Act through Congress in a million years. He wasn’t a Hill man, and never made any effort to be one or to use Johnson — perhaps the best Hill man ever — to achieve the goal.
Also, I was in Tennessee when the Harold Ford Jr campaign was fought by the Republicans–the racism was UNBELIEVABLE!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some think Hillary plays the race card?
The Harold Ford debacle will be a FRACTION of what the Rethugs will bring to a Presidential election.
“What’s the guarantee that progressives are ultimately going to be the beneficiaries, and not the target, of this “ruthlessness” you’re actively seeking?”
There’s no guarantee in any of this. Is that really supposed to be a convincing argument?
Clinton and Obama have nearly identical policy positions (well, as far as I can tell since Obama is so reluctant to actually state policy positions). It just depends on which approach (agression versus capitulation) you think will be more likely to work.
Thank you.
I think Obama will make an excellent president, and I think we’ll all be telling our grandchildren (or friends’ grandchildren) about this amazing moment in history.
He makes me feel proud to be an American, which is something I have never, ever felt. I always thought patriotism was for flag-waving Republicans, but Obama and the amazing movement he’s inspired has changed that for me.
[i]I’m leaning towards Obama, but today the NY Post endorsed him, which makes me strongly reconsider my position: if the Post likes him there must be something wrong with him.[/i]
Be realistic here… their other choices were either not endorsing anyone and look like a junior high school newsletter or endorsing Hillary. They’d probably endorse Hitler before endorsing the She-Satan of the Right.
If the two choices were Hillary and someone much farther to the left than Obama- say, Kucinich- they’d probably be able to get away with not endorsing anyone. But Obama is still acceptable enough to center-right Republicans that not endorsing anyone would look infantile.
So the post inflicted Obama with their endorsement because he’s not as liberal as Kucinich, which we already know.
It’s too bad we don’t have an LBJ running right now. We could sure use one…*sigh*
Sheesh -
That’s a false categorization (aggression vs capitulation). Obama’s style is quite aggressive, but he believes in building consensus. If you think it’s possible to be an effective president without being able to build consensus, then yes, vote for Clinton.
For more on Obama’s political development and philosophy, read this great article from The New REpublic: http://www.pickensdemocrats.org/info/TheAgitator_070319.htm
This article makes the case that Obama’s background as an organizer and Chicago politico makes for a unique miz of idealism and grit.
Word. Even though Rupert Murdoch has been making nice with the Clintons lately, he and his media empire still despise them.I remember the good old days when people actually worried about media concentration.
To all of those who bring forward the “Clinton can fight dirty, she knows what it takes to win, I want the toughest candidate memes”, please kindly accept a visual image from me. It is a massive bruiser, gripping your lapels, shaking you back and forth like a rag doll, screaming this at you in a deafening, concrete-shattering voice:
“SHE! DOES! NOT! FIGHT! THAT! WAY! AGAINST! REPUBLICANS! SHE NEVER HAS! SHE NEVER WILL! SHE SAVES THE SHIV FOR HER ALLIES! NOW WILL YOU STOP SPOUTING THAT WISHFUL THINKING, FACT-FREE BULLSHIT?!?!? NOWWW!
That bruiser is Reality (née History). I’d advise you to listen to her
I think that Clinton as a president would be, well, a lot like Clinton I: doing good things on the margins, but folding on high profile issues. Examples from CI: getting earned income credit passed but folding on the gays in the military issue*. Much better than any republican out there, but not a revolutionary, for better and for worse. Obama…I don’t know what sort of pres Obama would make. Could be brilliant, could be a disaster. Play it safe or take a risk…hmmm…
*Ok, I know this rant is 10+ years too late, but that one still shocks me. When I heard Clinton wanted to end the ban on gays in the military I though “Oh, good, another long overdue civil rights measure is finally getting passed.” I thought it would be uncontroversial because it was so obvious that it needed to happen and the injustice of the current law was so blatant. I was seriously mistaken…
Even the NY Post wouldn’t endorse Hitler. Not because of the fascism thing, but because he’s a Cowboys fan who hates the NY Giants.You know…just because someone is a Clinton supporter does not mean that they’re “denying reality”, “spouting bullshit” or uninformed.
We’ve read the articles and kept up with the news and have simply come to a different conclusion than you for our own reasons.
We can agree to disagree. Such behavior from Obama’s supporters does not help their candidate.
Even though Rupert Murdoch has been making nice with the Clintons lately, he and his media empire still despise them.Murdoch has belatedly realized that no matter how much he hates Hilary, and no matter how much media he can sell to frothers who hate the Clintons, the basic fiscal fact remains that a Hilary Clinton presidency would not be a significant threat to the gains he made during the Bush years.
Admittedly a Hillary Clinton supporter since day 1, but if there was a “solid Democratic majority” in 2000, it formed during and due to the Bill Clinton administration. That said,
Hillary Clinton is just as committed to ending the war in Iraq as Barack Obama. Almost all of the accusations against Clinton pertain to her past votes, not her future plans for Iraq.
The meaning of the term “hawk” has really changed since the end of the Cold War and the ascension of the neocons and Nixon cons in the Bush administration. So, the perceived hawkishness of a Hillary Clinton does not really approach or parallel the hawkishness that defined the past 7 years in the Bush administration. I think the conclusion that her votes in the Senate form some sort of equivalence with or support for Bush’s power grab in the executive branch is not entirely sound.
In a way, Amanda’s argument makes her a single-issue voter — granted, the issue of foreign policy and military adventures remains the most significant issue (both in terms of its international consequences on America’s humanitarian stature and domestic consequences for the economy).
I regard Hillary Clinton the better choice on domestic issues generally, and unquestionably on reproductive and feminist issues. Moreover, I believe that a resurgent Democratic coalition and majority must be built around feminist interests and Democratic partisanship, not the rhetoric of post-racial and post-partisan unity.
I guess if I had an opportunity, I would ask Amanda why she is willing to defer the fulfillment of “the issues [she] devote[s] most of [her] time to.” Who does she see delivering on that deferred program 4 to 8 years from now? Too many progressive feminists seem willing to fight the good fight 1 or 2 election cycles from now, as if the Democratic party’s current strategic advantages are going to persist another day…
The Post doesn’t particularly like him. They just hate Hillary Clinton. The endorsement wasn’t pro-Obama as much as it was anti-Clinton.
That bruiser is Reality (née History).
Hey, history, babe, put me down and chill. I’m from New York. Clinton’s my senator. She’s been a decent senator. Not brilliant, but competent and reasonably responsive. And less right wing than what’s his name, the other senator. She’d probably be about the same as president.
Truth to tell, I’d be happy with either Clinton or Obama. As long as they beat McCain/Romney/Huckabee, I’m happy.
Oh, and if the Post hates Clinton then there must be something right with her.
Here’s another thing about Obama that a lot of people don’t realize: one of the reasons he won by such a huge margin in Illinois (over 70%) was that he spent a lot of time campaigning “downstate” where all of the crackers live and he won them over. Guys who hadn’t voted Democratic for years came out to vote for Obama because he won their respect.
He was helped by the implosion of the Illinois Republican Party and the collapse of Ryan as a candidate, but he was outpolling Ryan even before the scandal hit because of the smart way he campaigned.
My problem with the “Clinton will be more aggressive towards the Republicans, she has all the reason in the world to be” argument is, much as I agree with the second part: when has she ever done this? When has she ever attempted to wreak justified vengeance on… anyone? Especially Republicans?
As far as I can tell she tends to take things out on politically un-mobilized parties to her more-or-less left, stuff like violent video games.
Obama may let down the left because of his compromises. Clinton will do it out of general principle.
Actually and sadly I think it’s a mistake these days to look towards a Democratic president to be an avenging progressive angel, in general; that job will continue to fall to outsiders on the political left for the forseeable future. Even Edwards would have been a letdown on that score, I’m afraid.
I’m not an Obama supporter per se; being wary of one candidate does not make me an advocate for another.More importantly, I did not say that Clinton supporters were those things. I said that those simpletons who advanced the “Clinton can fight dirty, she knows what it takes to win, I want the toughest candidate” arguments were spouting bullshit and denying reality. And that limited argument is quite correct. She kisses right and kicks left on foreign policy and corporate matters. She only adheres to progressive principles on matters such as reproductive rights. But so far as bombs and bucks and bullies go, she’s an elephant in donkey’s clothing.
“I did not say that Clinton supporters were those things. I said that those simpletons who advanced the “Clinton can fight dirty, she knows what it takes to win, I want the toughest candidate” arguments were spouting bullshit and denying reality. And that limited argument is quite correct. ”
Again, you basically just called me a simpleton (since her ruthlessness is my reason for choosing her).
I don’t think either candidate is the next LBJ. I think Clinton is (of the two of them) the more likely one to fight for their agenda. Again, we can agree to disagree without pettiness (I hope) if you feel differently. We are past the time where peoples’ minds will be changed I think (and they certainly wouldn’t be changed with insults, anyway).
There’s a good Canadian expression for that: “a good riding MP”. In other words, a legislative representative for local matters but not necessarily who you want in cabinet or as PM.And there’s no point in asking History to put you down. She is the best indicator of what’s going to happen next and she has an infuriating habit of being right. This is why I rolled my eye at Joe’s comments above on the Iraq war. They boiled down to “don’t judge her on her record and everything that she has said and done on the war to date. Judge her by the promises made in an election campaign!” Please.
Okay, Sheesh, if that is your reasoning then I must admit frankly that, yes, I am calling you a simpleton. If it’s any consolation I do it without malice.
Clinton does not fight Republicans that way. You are, in essence, hiring her because of a nonexistent quality. It amazes me that some Clinton supporters call Obama’s supporters wishful thinkers. That particular expectation is the biggest soon-to-be-letdown of all.
Truth be told, I think that your candidate is going to win the nomination. And I think she is going to lose a close election to McCain. And I think that the Democratic party will rip itself to shreds as the progressives quite accurately go berserk at the final and most shattering failure of the party establishment to give a damn about the base or to actually pull up its head and look at what is not only idealistic but possible because it is idealistic. That’s not what I would want, personally. But if you put a gun to
my head and said bet your last $100 on what will happen that is what I would put my money on.
Parsing policy statements to make pronouncements about what a Clinton or Obama presidency would be like is a fool’s game.
Obama would be a better candidate for two reasons:
1. Clinton unites what would be a fractured Republican party under McCain.
2. Obama looks like he would bring in so many otherwise disinterested people that the electoral landscape would be permanently changed.
Don’t you think the Republicans would be able to thwart any serious progressive initiatives on Clinton’s part? Only a sea change in the political lanscape, which Obama at least offers the hope of, will get this country moving in the right direction.
And for those who have suggested that Obama will be another feckless Al Gore type nominee: You better stop smoking that stuff until President Obama ends the drug war.
I still might write Dennis Kucinich’s name just so I can feel better about myself if Obama doesn’t start saying the right things. I’m not sure if this was already mentioned but Obama voted almost parallel to Hillary since the war started, so that makes me question what’s really going on in his mind. No one, especially Hillary, wants to be looked at like they’re scared to go to war, and be labeled a wuzz, a la Carter. However, we need somebody to be really real with us, and I’d like to see more from Obama.
I’m watching the debate right now, and man, did Obama just come up with an unfortunate example regarding health prevention. Paying for a dietician to help people lose weight now rather than surgery to cut off their feet later? Really?
p.s. - regarding the Post’s endorsement of Obama:
your enemy’s enemy is your friend.
right?
I would be happy with a Dem win no matter which one is the nominee.
But *some* Obama supporters are driving me insane. You know who else ran on a campaign of uniting the country (not dividing)? George W. Bush. He was the outside the beltway newbie, too. Look how far that got us.
I’m not saying Obama = Bush, but rhetoric only goes so far. His supporters come across as hopelessly naive. Compromise only works if BOTH sides are willing to do it; the Republicans are not. So I think an Obama presidency will mean giving in to Republican demands a whole hell of a lot.
I’d really like a progressive POTUS who’d just give the right-wing the finger.
Sigh…
“If it’s any consolation I do it without malice.”
It’s not. People who think differently than you are not always arbitrarily simpleons and have their own observations on which they base their beliefs.
With that view there’s no point in discussing it further, I suppose.
Oops, *simpletons. Typos do not help prove my point
Bottom line; My candidate of choice is out. I’m really fine with either of who is left. I really hope both sides can stop with the rancor and name-calling.
During these past couple days I have come to the realization that the Republicans have a very good chance of winning. At first it seemed ludicrous because friggin’ Huckabee won and then Romney and we all laughed and laughed. But now McCain has blown them out of the water, and I am terrified that he WILL get the nom, and if he gets the nom he most certainly will beat either Obama or Hillary. And he might even pick Huck as his running mate. And lord knows McCain will probably die soon and then ZOMG Huckabee will be our president.
:breathes deeply:
So I have to ask, if that were to happen, what on EARTH are we going to do?
Sheesh, I do not think that way, and you are disingenuously generalizing from one incident and one specific limited point to say so.
I said one thing, with clearly defined parameters: people who expect Clinton to pull out the hatchet on the GOP are simpletons in that respect. Period. Like anybody else — including and perhaps especially me — you can be right on a large number of things and staggeringly, shockingly, stunningly foolish on others. In this case, you fall into the latter category. You may be quite correct in your beliefs that Clinton would be a better candidate and president. More power to you. But expecting her to start beating the GOP in the alley when nothing but nothing but nothing has shown that she wants to or will (and when her only incidents of doing so are against Democrats who stand in her way) is so delusional as to fully merit insulting remarks on that point. You earned ‘em so you got ‘em.
Damn, I missed that. What a fucking simpleton I was to have not used that.See? Happens to the best of us.
“…is so delusional as to fully merit insulting remarks on that point.”
I do not accept that your point of view is the correct one. Again, we can agree to disagree. Quit throwing around insults.
Except that as the son of a president and the grandson of a US senator, there should have been no way in hell that Bush would have been allowed to run as an “outsider” except that the press rolled over for him, as they always do for Republicans.
Sorry, but only idiots believed that Bush was an “outsider” in Washington. That was one of those laughing-up-their-sleeves, can’t-believe-the-rubes-bought-it of the RNC.
During these past couple days I have come to the realization that the Republicans have a very good chance of winning.
How? Democratic turnout has been much higher than Republican turnout in every primary so far. If it’s a fair election — big “if” — the Democrats will really have to fuck it up for the Republicans to win.
(Smiles.) Lord knows, they’ve never done that before now, have they?
Done.I think I just saw your cousin on the TV, Amanda.
I’m not saying Obama = Bush, but rhetoric only goes so far. His supporters come across as hopelessly naive. Compromise only works if BOTH sides are willing to do it; the Republicans are not. So I think an Obama presidency will mean giving in to Republican demands a whole hell of a lot.”
I’m assuming you plan on voting Kucinich then write? Because all of the sell-out stuff you worry that Barak would do, yeah the Clintons already did that, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Welfare Reform, Defense of Marrige Act, etc. Also, frankly Clinton’s Iraq vote is indefenisble, there is literally no way she can get away with it and one is left with the conclusion that she is either a horrible judge (thus negating the years served crap) or a politically craven coward (she had the option of voitng for the Levin amendment, but she voted against it)– then She goes off and does the same damn thing with Iran (Kyl-Lieberman), so I think the onl;y conclsuion one can draw is that Huilary is either a Bush/Mccain style hawk, or so politicalluy ambitious that she would sell out the lives of both American Troops and Innocent civilians in order to retain politcal cover. — Its Kyl-Leiberman that seperates her from Edwards and Kerry and makes her basically a scumbag.
Mnemosyne,
McCain has a certain amount of charisma and has often been portrayed as a sort of “maverick centrist” by the media, which has always taken a shine to him. (I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of his views, but no matter.) In the general election, that’s an excellent place to start from, especially with his (undeserved, but hey) reputation for “genuineness”. He’s a quite popular guest to the audiences of the Daily Show, for instance, so his appeal could be pretty broad under the right circumstances, especially running against a candidate who is viewed as artificial, as Gore was, or Clinton sometimes is. Certainly McCain is the strongest general election candidate that the GOP could put forward out of the current field, and I wouldn’t be too certain of the Democratic nominees eventual success just based on primary turn-out figures — the GOP base doesn’t like McCain much to be sure, but the population as a whole might…
Mnemosyne raises an interesting point when she speaks about a fair election, one which reflects badly on many parts of the national Democratic party: the complete failure to devote massive amounts of time, effort and cash into state races (especially those for Secretaries of State), linked closely and openly to the issue of voting fairness issues. The Dems could have run with some variant of “ensuring that Everybody Can Vote”, but failed to do so. Given the massive Republican commitment to voter suppression this was a shocking failure at both a political and moral level. It’s also another failure that we can trace, in part, back to Al Gore. Many took their cue from his decision not to make an issue of the the stolen election in 2000. He should have made a huge issue of it at the time and after.
One of the better arguments against Hillary is the fact that if she wins, the DLC types will re-take the party (Dean will be finished), and frankly that;s not just something I don’t want I think its something that our country cannot afford (return of Republican lite, put it this way, you know the Ned Lamont, Joe Lieberman thing, the DLC owuld have squashed that, Liberman is there Idea of a running mate, not a running dog.)
It admittedly might just be my bias but is anyoen seeing Hillarys debate style and feeling the echoes of the Kerry/Gore style that was technically right but so uninspired that it gets spun as a loss in retrospect?
Paul Krugman explains why you shouldn’t support Obama:
More at the NYTimes
McCain will cream Clinton in a General Election.
Democrats need to hold onto every state they won in 2004 and either swing 3 small states or take one big state.
Basically either take: Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado or take Florida or take Ohio.
Clinton will not win in Colorado. Obama probably won’t win in Colorado.
That leaves Ohio and Florida.
As much as I admire the fact that Clinton will not be surprised by any right-wing smear; as much as I know that she will fight back with every tool at her disposal; I cannot ignore the fact that she will boost Republican Get-Out-the-Vote efforts.
Since I have a Y chromosome I simplify everything into a sports analogy.
Hillary is that great home run hitter who is atrocious on defense. You love the hits but deep down inside you know he looses more games with his glove than he wins with his bat.
I am not fooling myself into believing that either candidate is progressive. On a world scale the Democratic Party is a center-right party. On most issues both Hillary and Obama are to the right of Sarkozy for Christ’s sake.
Unfortunately, these are our choices.
I would rather see Clinton in the Oval office than McCain, Romney or Huckabee.
I would rather see Obama in the Oval Office than McCain, Romney or Huckabee.
I do not see much difference between an Obama or a Clinton White House.
I think Obama has more chance of getting there since Clinton is too much of a dog-whistle to the GOP base.
Still I am not sure although I am leaning towards Obama.
Perhaps I will just see how the candidate’s supporters act when I get to the caucus and base my decision on that.
Yeah, no wonder them crackers don’t much vote for liberal dems anymore. It shouldn’t be surprising that poor whites don’t like being referred to with racist slurs any more than anyone else.
If anyone is still hedging due to the Post endorsement, allow me to play the ultimate trump: Ann Friggin’ Coulter just said she’d vote for Hillary if Mccain wins the GOP nomination.
There seems to be quite a carpe diem feel to many of those who support Obama. A reader over at Andrew Sullivan’s blog seems to be a bluntly eloquent example:
Hello? The Bushes have been a wealthy, powerful family for nearly a century. They’ve had senators, governors, and Presidents. It’s been 36 years (more than most of the posters here have been alive) since the GOP had a Presidential ticket without a Bush or Dole on it.
Clinton was the son of a widowed nurse. He grew up in a blue collar family. Hillary was middle class. Neither of them of them have had any politicians in their family (unless you count their spouses). If you wanted to find any powerful people in Clinton’s family, you’d have to go back to Henry III (like one geneologist did).
Bill Clinton had eight years between 12 years of Poppy and 8 years of Shrub. If there’s a “Clinton/Bush” dynasty, the Bushes have had 3/5th of it.
There’s a lot of good reasons to oppose Hillary Clinton, but let’s not blame her for the Bushogarchy.
Hell, she’s so angry she just might vote legally this time.Another thing to consider.
Who will have bigger coattails?
It would be wonderful if the Democrats could get enough Senate votes to have the majority without Lieberman. I think Reid is handcuffed by needing to keep Lieberman in the coalition. With a few more Senators the Democrats could tell Joe to go do something to himself and push a more progressive agenda. Even though Joe is a Senator and not a Representative I think he casts a shadow over the House as well. Being able to marginalize Joe Lieberman would be fantastic.
What do you think? Who, if they can win, will have bigger coattails, Obama or Clinton?
Well said. If Obama wins, one of his hardest fights will be against that slimy, countless-times-failed wing of the party trying to ooze under his door. There will be tons of pressure on him from many sides (and from many people he needs to keep on his side) to jettison the people who actually got him there (and who would, left alone, win him the election) with those DLC / consultant class serial failures who really don’t give a damn whether he wins or not but are excellent at convincing Dem candidates that “you can’t win without us!”.Yep, I would have to say the same thing. The country is more sexist than racist, and Senator Clinton is specifically disliked by progressives and moderate independents (for different reasons). Clinton cannot beat McCain. Obama can, though it will still be an uphill battle.
Anyone who’s skeptical, go talk to your acquaintances who have voted for both Republicans and Democrats in the past. Give them the options of Clinton vs McCain and Obama vs McCain. See what happens.
I think that Colorado Dave’s question about coat-tails is actually answered by SArah many posts above:
Are there people out there flooding into the system together to share such a moment created by Hilary Clinton? I don’t think so. I think that Hilary Clinton has got a lock on many people who were there already. Creation of a new flood that will raise other boats is more of an Obama thing, at least at the moment. Whether it survives the primaries or the election remains to be seen.“Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado or take Florida or take Ohio.”
Iowa and NM are better than 50/50 based on everything I’ve seen.
Ohio is PROBABLY better than 50/50. Sherrod Brown (super guy in person, by the way) is MUCH more liberal than Obama and Clinton and had no trouble blowing through DeWine (granted, a pretty weak opponent) and winning in areas that Ohio Dems haven’t won for years.
Florida is probably less than 50/50 from everything I’ve seen.
What is reproductive justice?
Nancy,
you know, i think Krugman is right about a lot of economic issues. Way more than a lot of people. But this one doesn’t have that same “here’s how the system actually works” Krugman buzz to it. It’s about Barack Obama rather than being about the gaping chasm of difference between the US healthcare system and the Swiss and Dutch systems. Now, i know Paul Krugman knows about those systems, so why can’t he point out details to show the comparison is warranted? And if the auto insurance figure is so out of proportion, why can’t he address whether the Obama’s healthcare plan figure is more like 14% or more like 25% or more like 2%?
The mandate thing strikes a chord with me. I don’t think a universal mandate means the same thing as universal coverage.
But hell, let Krugman tear down President Barack Obama or President Hillary Clinton for 8 years, for all i care.
Carla:
http://www.now.org/nnt/fall-2006/reproductive_justice.html
I supported Barack Obama for several reasons, the biggest being the effect down the ballot here in SC. Even if Hillary Clinton won the general election, she would motivate so many Republicans to the go to the polls down here that it would give the Republicans an even stronger stranglehold over local politics. Edwards would have been a good choice as well. (The idea that Edwards couldn’t attract African-American support is crazy. You don’t get elected Senator from NC as a Democrat without African-American support. He just couldn’t attract it as well as Clinton or Obama.)
Also, Bill Clinton reminded me of what I didn’t like about the Clintons. I like Hillary, it’s her husband I can’t stand. Bill Clinton led this country through eight years of peace and prosperity, yet so many Americans were so sick of his politics that Vice President Al Gore couldn’t ride that record into the White House.
Mnemosyne, what Colorado Dave (and a few others) said. It’s not that Democrats will “fuck up;” but Republicans will nominate McCain, and he will beat our candidate no matter who it is.
On the surface he seems harmless. And most voters don’t look past the surface. Even many Democrats hate Clinton for superficial reasons. Many are not willing to vote for “the Dem no matter what” like we are. They will be taken in by McCain and the Republicans and will vote for him because they irrationally hate Hillary and when it comes right down to it are probably more comfortable with an old white guy than Obama.
The McCain surge really took me by surprise. I have been operating under the assumption that the Dems would beat the Republican candidate hands down; now I’m not so confident.
In a nutshell, Carla, it’s a condition under which all women have the same right to choose that you had.
Better hope he does. Neither one of them is going to do shit for progressive economic causes unless they are running scared that we won’t re-elect them.
I think the hope is that Obama will cut left rather than right. With Clinton, one can’t even dream of that possibility.
Thanks, everyone. I watched the debate and thought I knew who to vote for, but now…i’m back where I was. Imagine that, 39 and finally, a vote that counts! (I live in MA….if this was politics as usual, I’d vote against Mitt) But, finally, I count. Tonight, I felt like Hillary was speaking to me, and Barack, past me. And, I loved that Hillary laughed out loud, and I was worried about Barack’s comment about undocumented workers and hit and run drivers? Ack. Watching him choke is painful.
But Amanda, damn it, your point about international policy, hawks and doves. What am I gonna do? My issues are usually repro rights & gay rights. Grr.
Back to the search.
OK, how about this:
1. Could the Post have endorsed Obama because they think that he’s easier to trounce for McCain, with his vet status and experience, etc.? Would McCain have a harder time, in other words, to go up against Clinton?
2. I still have a hard time trusting Obama or Clinton to take on the major domestic issues (or any issues, really) without wafting the Republican Lite stank over everything. I voted for Edwards last week, when I sent my ballot in, because I really wanted someone more countercultural than the two suits. So … besides pretty rhetoric, what makes any of you Obama supporters trust him over Clinton?
Obama isn’t exactly the ultimate outsider either: he spoke at the last DNC and I don’t think you get to do that if you’re a crazed rebel.
I don’t really buy the “nominate X because Y has too many negatives due to racism/sexism/anti-Clintonism/etc”. None of the people who would oppose Obama based on his race would support Clinton and none of the people who would oppose Clinton based on her sex or spouse would support Obama.
We have two reasonable choices and no perfect choices. Pick your favorite and go for it, but be prepared to vote for the lesser of two evils if your less favored wins.
I’m not sure who to vote for: Clinton talks too hawkish while Obama argues too many domesitic issues from the right (health care and social security among others. And in most issues they’re very similar, neither bad.
As far as McCain goes, conservatives hate him almost as much as Clinton so he doesn’t worry me as much as some others here.
BTW: If either Obama or Clinton wins I hope the secret service stays alert, because neither of them will be in office a week before some right wing wacko takes a shot at them.
Dianne, I know a number of people (who claim to be liberals) who LOVE Obama partially because they HATE Hillary. “I don’t know… she’s just… she shouldn’t have stayed with Bill… she’s too ambitious…” That sort of crap. Plenty of Obama’s loyal followers are riding the anti-Hillary misogyny train.
And Dianne, at this point I am not concerned about which candidate we nominate. I am concerned because it looks like the Republicans are going to nominate McCain.
I’m going to keep this simple. This election year is not 1980 or 1992. You wanna know why?
At the very heart of swings in political memes is economic outcomes. Not just *any* economic outcomes, but economic outcomes that affects people who are rent-seekers. You know, people with interest-bearing documents, people who are in sheltered parts of the economy and lovin’ it, and people who derive their status from a particular confluence of activity and location.
1980 is indelibly affected by the Iranian Revolution, and the long recession that gripped the middle of the decade. Oil didn’t go up so much in prices as become unavailable on a spot basis, which is unacceptable to people who have money, and just found out that having money isn’t enough to be a poobah. It was a terrible time for the stock market, and inflation was outpacing the value of bonds.
1992 was, point blank, the repercussions of the S&L crisis come back to haunt the Bushes. A 500 billion dollar bailout…well, that required raising taxes. The no-new-taxes pledge? Fuggedabootit. Taxes went up on the rich. Bush Sr is dead as a politician afterwards.
The point I’m coming to is this: Most of the country’s economic problems comes from waaaaaaay too many entitled people gobbling up too much of the country’s productivity. Military expenditures, health care, financial activities like health care and selling debt, all of these activities aren’t really adding as much productivity as they should, but the people in them are making out like bandits.
Thus, one way or another, the next president is probably going to be tasked with the job of telling people who think they are entitled to their wealth and status that they’re going to have to take a cram-down. I mean, we simply can’t afford any of the things mentioned above, military, extraction via health care and credit cards, or asset bubbles that raise prices of necessities just on the basis that it would crash the economy from the resulting consumer demand drop.
The country gentry have never really stood for it…ever. And they are quite good at taking down any leader who infringes on their “privileges”, from Lincoln to Long and beyond. There is a reason why some people have this crazy hatred of Roosevelt, he survived four elections, two attempted coup attempts, and probably an assasination attempt or two. Moreover, he did it by populist means, and telling people to be more uppity about their rights, in their minds.
Obama would be a fool to have anybody but an obvious Henry Wallace type as his vice-president. Ask Bush Sr just how much having an apparently unacceptable successor kept problems down. In any event, the election that matters is going to be the one *after* the cram-down commences. Which is probably the 2012 election.
I’ve always viewed that anybody who wants to run in *this* election to be barking mad. You can’t be Hoover or Carter, or Bush Sr…, you more or less have to be Lincoln or Roosevelt, as in being aggressive from the start because the country gentry reactionaries will be out for blood and you’d better have the crossbow stake and garlic ready for the onslaught.
Should I take this to mean that Barack Obama will govern as far to the left as George Bush did to the right, his pretense of centrism notwithstanding?
If so, sign me up.
“did Obama just come up with an unfortunate example regarding health prevention. Paying for a dietician to help people lose weight now rather than surgery to cut off their feet later? Really?”
Really. Diabetes can cost people their feet, their vision, and their kidneys.
I don’t think I’ll ever get over Clinton’s speech before the Iraq AMF vote. She very carefully listed all the reasons that it was a very, very, very bad idea, and that we shouldn’t trust Bush to invade, and then said but there is a very small chance that he might do it right, so I’m voting yes. She knew that thousands upon thousands of lives were on the line, and that the evidence was sketchy, and Bush wasn’t likely to do things right, and that Afghanistan needed to be “finished”, and said so, then voted yes.
I’d rather take a chance on Obama, than vote for someone who could have made that speech. Unfortunately, I already voted by mail for Edwards, so my primary vote doesn’t count.
(I wonder how many absentee votes like mine Edwards is going to get?)
If you’re questioning Obama’s credibility on choice, read this and then watch the video:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/samgrahamfelsen/CGxpH
My chief reason for being pro-Obama is that he says the Iraq war was wrong, and Clinton won’t say it was categorically wrong. She will not condemn pre-emptive war.
A second reason is that Obama says torture is wrong, period. Clinton says that she doesn’t know if Bush’s torture policies were wrong because she doesn’t know every last detail about how and why things were done. It’s the principle, stupid: Torture and pre-emptive war are wrong, period.
I’m for Obama for two other reasons, policy aside:
1) The “legacy” the Clintons left for progressives in 2000. How did the Clintons build up progressive causes? How did the party do during the Clinton years, and in 2000? The Clintons left Dems in a hole that we’ve had to spend 7 years climbing out of. Ready to be thrown under the bus again?
2) Dynasty. I would love Clinton as a candidate if she were anyone else’s wife, but she is riding in on the President’s coattails. Her name recognition is part of Team Clinton; most of her “experience” is glory from the 1990s.
And for her to claim that she has “experience” by dint of her time as a first lady stretches all credulity. Her primary policy task — her one appointive one — was to revamp health care. That was the single biggest domestic policy setback by the Dems in the last 20 years — we buried universal health care as an issue for 15 years. Heckuva job…
I’m assuming that for any number of reasons, John Edwards isn’t going to be on either Obama or Clinton’s VP list. Does anyone disagree?
I honestly don’t know what to do. A few weeks ago when the three of them were having their pleasant debate, I was kinda wishing we could just elect all three of them as co-presidents. They wouldn’t be allowed to specialize in their favorite areas. They’d have to work on problems together. There’d be one Vice-President, whose job would include yelling at them whenever they started dithering. It would turn out to be a brilliant success, with unparalleled opportunities for the doing of good. And they could run for re-election consecutively.
Okay, I’m back. SarahMC, I had to do something to try and wash that McCain/Huckabee scenario out of my mind, even if just for a minute.
When Obama speaks of centrism…I don’t know, maybe I’m just hearing what I want to hear. But what I hear is this: he knows that ‘centrist’ and ‘bipartisan’ are the magic words to keep the Village off his back. And once in office, he might actually use those same words not as they’ve been used, but for good ends - trying to force the GOP to accede to some liberal points by hammering them for not being bipartisan.
I think he plans to use his charm and sudden popularity and what will surely be a halo around him, the story of The First Black President!, to do the mirror of what republicans have done: to write out a liberal policy, then
strike out liberaland write ‘bipartisan’ in its place, and watch as this new ‘bipartisan’ liberal policy gets enacted.Because I think he knows that when the DC elites say ‘bipartisan’ they don’t mean ‘accepted by both parties’; in the halls of power, that word has come to mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean and I think (or hope) that he knows how to use that to push for whatever he wants.
Or so I hope.
Obama ‘08
peace
Thank you, Amanda for articulating so well why I’m going with Obama. He gives people hope. He inspires. He will bring legions of first-time voters and old-time disaffected voters to the polls.
While I will support Clinton if she gets the nomination, I can’t get over my misgivings about her. I’ve seen too many shades of Republican-lite in her. “Hawk blood” is a good description.
I also get deeply annoyed with the inevitability line that keeps coming up with her. Someone suggested I not “waste my vote” on Obama next week because no matter what, she was going to be the candidate. If I hadn’t been determined to vote for Obama before, that would have done it!
I watched some of the Dem debate tonight. Obama strikes me as a sincere, idealistic and probably quite naive man. In a sea of sharks, do we really want to be represented by a minnow?
I know who our enemies would choose for us and what a field day they will have with him if he gets elected. It will be exciting (and scary) to watch as he negotiates with the cold, calculating Putin’s of the world or the crazed, jihadist Muslims who want to destroy us. Obama clearly thinks he can bring peace to the world by simply announcing the US is under new, kinder, gentler and browner management.
It ain’t gonna go so well for him or us.
If you’re the same Jim B that I’ve seen over at DKos, please go back…gad!
Yeah, no wonder them crackers don’t much vote for liberal dems anymore. It shouldn’t be surprising that poor whites don’t like being referred to with racist slurs any more than anyone else.
Yes, way to miss my point that the rural whites who are automatically assumed to be racist are perfectly willing to vote for a black man if they think he’ll work for their best interest.
And I’m not sure why you’re assuming I don’t come from a family of crackers. I’m from Illinois, dude. Half my family is from the trailer park.
Yeah, and I’ll bet you know this because you looked into Obama’s eyes and got a sense of his soul.
Senator Clinton and Senator Obama are both intelligent adults, Jim. Neither one of them is going to sell out America’s national security. I am not a Clinton supporter, but I would say the same thing had you said this about her: you are sincerely naive, or quite possibly a closet McCarthyite.
Sorry to double-post, but I think I can sum it up shorter:
My impression is that Obama is willing to do the centrist-dance on the campaign trail just to get in the white house, whereupon President Obama will stab Centrist-General-Election Obama (with kung-fu grip!) in the back, while banking on his ability to make people glad he did.
This post by MH is a perfect example of my problem with Obama. It is all projection. Obama is a blank slate on which progressives and other disillusioned Democrats can create their own realities.
There is no substance and all we are left with is HOPE.
Unless you are Pandora in some Aesopian Fable hope is not enough….Not by a long shot.
I have felt uneasy about how people were flocking towards Clinton and Obama for some time now.
MH, you just convinced me that the Republicans are going to win.
Mnemosyne, what Colorado Dave (and a few others) said. It’s not that Democrats will “fuck up;” but Republicans will nominate McCain, and he will beat our candidate no matter who it is.
I think you’re vastly overestimating how much Democratic voters like McCain and vastly underestimating how much Republicans dislike McCain.
We’re not the only ones who saw those pictures of McCain hugging Bush. Bush has Republican voters running away in droves. The candidates running now are trying to pretend Bush doesn’t even exist — listen to them talk about Iraq sometime. Listening to them, you’d think the Army decided to send themselves over there, because they never even mention Bush.
Believe me, after 2000 and 2004, I don’t underestimate the ability of the Democratic Party to shoot themselves in the foot. I’m wondering what ballot initiatives the Republicans have planted for November to boost turnout, because they already played the gay marriage card in 2004, and they don’t have another surefire turnout magnet like that left.
I call bullshit on Ann Coulter. She can now guarantee that I’ll be looking for her to produce evidence of said vote come November 5th.
And shah8 - that was a great comment. And you’re not even touching on how the cram down is going to be affected and affect energy policy - there’s a lot ‘o dem gentry living in the exurbs . .
They haven’t collected signatures yet but here in Colorado they are trying to get an amendment on the ballot declaring a fetus a person….
From my understanding they are working on this in other states as well.
I’m not sure who to vote for: Clinton talks too hawkish while Obama argues too many domesitic issues from the right (health care and social security among others. And in most issues they’re very similar, neither bad.
As far as McCain goes, conservatives hate him almost as much as Clinton so he doesn’t worry me as much as some others here.
See, I think this is a key point, That conservative distaste for Mccain, that hatred that will make the far right stay home or go third party, That disappears if HRC gets the nod! I’m not going to parse words, the nomination of Hilary Clinton will be the best and most unifying thing that has happened to the Republican party since 9-11, and if you don’t think that you are sorely misreading not just the Wingnuts but also the middle, the people who tolerated Clinton through gritted teeth due to his charisma and succuess will crawl over broken glass to keep Hillary out of power. Hillary doesn’t ust lack coattails, she acts as a surrogate set of coat tails for Mccain– she’s worth at least as much to GOP downticket canidates in states like Ohio, Missouri, as the anit-gay amendments were, and what’s worse she puts yellow dog dems (the DLCers) in the position of either denoucning their own parties nominee for the Presidency or losing their seats.
We look at the Clinton era and see both the god and the bad, what we should see is the simple fact that even with an incredible economy and high persional approval ratings Bill Clinton ended his term with a GOP Congress, we should look at 1994 and realize that Hillary is the Contract with America, she will lose us seats in a year that we should by trends and demographics pick up 20-50 seats.
Put it this way, while Obama might not be able to get the racists to crossover, does anyone think that Hillary (who will also not get those votes, and will draw more GOP voters to the polls) will energize the base and bring in new voters?
Obama strikes me as a sincere, idealistic and probably quite naive man.
Because a mixed-race man brought up by a single mother, and moreover one who lived abroad part of his childhood, managed to get an Ivy League education & excelled in that environment, organized the poor & took on civil-rights cases on the South Side, and dealt with the Chicago political machine is sooo likely to be “idealistic” and “naive.” Yep– he’s got no idea how the world works, as sheltered as he’s been his entire life.
Oy… the stupidity burns.
Maybe so.
At my most cynical, I’d say this works in the Democrats’ favor. This is what Bush did in 2000. Gore had lots of specific policy proposals, and they became the chinks in his armor. Bush had nothing but a dumb smile and he won.
And don’t you just want to sit down and have a beer with Barack Obama?
They haven’t collected signatures yet but here in Colorado they are trying to get an amendment on the ballot declaring a fetus a person….
From my understanding they are working on this in other states as well.
Pro-life isn’t quite the barn-burner it used to be, especially since the electorate in South Dakota rejected the abortion ban the legislature tried to pass. You can still do pretty well with parental notification laws, but most of the states where that tactic would work already have parental notification laws.
So I don’t think that propositions to declare a fetus to be a person are going to go over nearly as well as they think, even in Colorado.
Looking at the proposed initiatives for California this November, there are several that are trying to rescind domestic partnerships, but that ain’t going to happen in California. There’s also a few banning gay marriage, which means that some morons have never heard of Proposition 22, which passed in 2000. There’s a parental consent law, but that got defeated in 2006, so I doubt it will make it to the finish line.
Oh, look, Pam’s old pal Randy Thomasson’s name is all over the gay marriage initiatives! What a shocker.
I find it interesting how many people have bought into the belief that Hillary would be better on reproductive rights - I assume this is because of her gender but her history and choice to do things like lie about Obama’s record makes me doubt that she’d stand up to the GOP any more than she has as a senator on other important issues.
On an unrelated aside, am I the only one who has to try a few dozen times before the captcha test doesn’t malfunction?
I don’t know what’s its worth to people but I think one of the most convicing endorsements/arguments for Obama comes from the Gitmo Lawyers who have chosen to back the former Constitutional Law professor: while I don’t have their words with me (google it, its worth reading) it boils down to the facts that Obama led the fioght to restore Habeas Corpus (HRC’s record is very sketchy on civil liberties) and was one of the leading Senators on Torture (seriously, our nominee could very well be to the right of the GOP canidate on Torture, tell me that’s not a bit grotesque).
Well, I guess I’ll cop to that, somewhat. I do admit that I may well be/probably am projecting a ton, here, and you’re not alone in noticing the voluminous projection among his supporters. But Obama isn’t as completely blank a slate as all that. He does have a history before his candidacy we can examine, and based on that, he’s ahead of Clinton in my book. If he doesn’t live up to that person he used to be, well, he wouldn’t be the first person to forget his roots upon attaining power, but I don’t seriously expect him to be any worse on the issues (on balance, across all the issues - obviously he’ll be better on some and worse on others) than Clinton would be.
And of course, that’s just on policy matters (which, in an ideal world, would be the only standard on which candidates are judged, but alas). There’s also the matters of electability, turnout, and downticket coattails to consider, of course.
We don’t know for sure how he’d govern, but we can still get a reasonable educated guess, and I’m guessing that he’ll be a bit left of Clinton overall, while having a better shot against McCain.
Also, please don’t confuse me with someone who’s been buying into the Obama hope/hype for long - Edwards was my #1 choice until he dropped out, and I just think that Obama is the better of the remaining candidates. I can see honorable reasons why someone would choose Clinton over Obama, and I can respect someone who decides the other way (in a way that I cannot respect someone who picks any of the Republicans).
So I don’t think that propositions to declare a fetus to be a person are going to go over nearly as well as they think, even in Colorado.
I do have to agree with you on this. From my understanding (I don’t have a television and the Post and the News are both rags) it is doubtful they will collect enough signatures to get this on the ballot.
Currently I live an isolated life in central Denver with absolutely no contact with any Republicans or Independents. For this reason I likely do not know what I am talking about.
Still I think Obama will play better here than Clinton will. I don’t think he will play well enough to beat Romney or McCain; I do think he will make it close and make it a race.
What I dislike about Obama is that there is no substance. I think that will hurt him.
Remember we have to keep 2004 and win either Ohio or Florida!
I guess what it comes down to is which candidate do you think will do best in Ohio and Florida?
(God do I hate the Electoral College)
I stumbled across this post. And found myself nodding and agreeing.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Clinton-Obama ticket. Once he’s had 4-8 years of seasoning, take another run for the top stop.
Really, guys… is it really, really worth fighting over? Aren’t we just going to be happy with anyone Blue?>
“Still I think Obama will play better here than Clinton will. ” Can yuo think of a single Red State or Purple State (other than Arkansas– something that would be negated if god forbid Mccain picks the Huck) where this wouldn’t be the case?
RKMK- Clinton’s ADA rating is the same as Obama’s.
SarahMC
Respectfully, are you on crack? How does a member of a US political dynasty, a silver spoon son of a PRESIDENT, qualify as a “beltway newbie”?
‘Cuz he SAID so?????
This is true.
Obama might make Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy look like Communists but hey, I guess he is the best we’ve got.
God it is scary when you realize Sarko would be a breath of fresh air….
Where the hell did we go wrong?
Only a idiot, or maybe someone with few political ambitions beyond some nice titles, would be Hillary Clinton’s VP. Bill’s going to be the Veep, for all intents & purposes. It was tough enough for Al Gore to deal with Hillary’s intrusions by all accounts, and she’s the discreet one in that marriage.
No, Obama would be better off finishing his Senate term & then going back to Illinois as governor, if she wins the nomination & he still wants to become president.
Nope. I will consider voting for Senator Obama in the general election. I will definitely vote Green if Senator Clinton is the nominee.
Clinton has done nothing to disavow her husband’s record, while he is on the campaign trail for her talking about “if you elect us, this is what we will do”. No thanks, I want no more of him, and I will not just settle for it.
Why, everyone knows that Chicago politics are a byword for openness and honesty!
Grammar?
Will you vote Green if it hands the White House to McCain?
Will you vote Green if it hands the White House to Romney?
Will you vote Green if it hands the White House to Huckabee?
I am likely as Left-Wing as you and I know there are far worse things than Bill Clinton in the White House.
www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/
www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/gb41.html
www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/rr40.html
www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/rn37.html
Unfortunately this is not a game of “I’m getting my way or I am taking my ball and going home!”
You can currently choice between 5 people to be President. Your choices are” John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
One of those five people will be the next president. Those are your only options.
If you don’t like it then please just take your ball and go home.
Unfortunately this is not a game of “I’m getting my way or I am taking my ball and going home!”
You can currently choice between 5 people to be President. Your choices are” John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
One of those five people will be the next president. Those are your only options.
If you don’t like it then please just take your ball and go home.
Umm, condescending much?
Yes, Dave, I will. I live in Ohio, too, if that frustrates you any more.
And I have several friends here who are expressing similar sentiments (including, sadly, “I’ll just stay home if Clinton gets it”). Not posturing malcontents who don’t bother to vote anyway, but hard working, politically attuned, committed unionists, and a low-wage single mother who can’t afford to be complacent.
I am a Green and I normally vote for my party’s candidates. But I am open to being persuaded by Obama. Senator Clinton, with her REAL ID police state dreams, does not deserve my vote.
Contrary to your assumptions, I have the right to ask that the ostensibly left-wing party put forward a candidate whom I find acceptable. I do not owe my vote to anyone, and I do not have to swallow what the DLC tries to feed me.
You asked how we ended up to the right of Sarkozy. Perhaps it happened because Dem voters kept taking what they were given.
Tangentially, Democrats should consider which candidate can inspire hardcore, dedicated Get Out The Vote efforts among otherwise disaffected progressives and otherwise disinterested youth. The untapped base, remember them? That is going to make the whole difference.
Chris Adams, if you go to the very top right of this page you will see REGISTER/Site admin. Register and voila! No more captcha box. (Hat tip to MikeEss.)This “I’ll take my ball and go home” style of trying to intimidate people into voting for your candidate is very off-putting. It is most prevalent among Obama supporters (that’s not saying that all of them are doing it, though) and it’s not indicating to me that they’re on board with realizing how serious our situation is as a country.
I would literally vote for a cockroach as a Dem candidate in the general before I’d let “Bomb, Bomb Iran” win by wasting my vote on a green or independent. The primaries are where you vote on principle and after that it’s time to be pragmatic.
Eric, I know Bush wasn’t a newbie, but that’s pretty much how he campaigned - as someone fresh and new. People buy that shit and then it blows up in their faces.
The biggest reason to vote for the Democrat, regardless of whether it’s Obama or Clinton is another Rethug POTUS.
There’s no guarantee McCain won’t just be a third term of GWB, with the same cast of “upward failures”, the same policies, the same cynical manipulations by the Cheneyites.
I don’t think this country can tolerate another 4-years of that bullshit…
Thom Hartman has been really eloquent about this. He is an Edwards supporter and has been talking a lot about the choice between Obama and Clinton since Edwards made his announcement. Support your candidate during the primary, but we all need to get behind the nominee and push them to be more progressive.
President Clinton got away with a lot of crappy republican-light policies because so many people were asleep politically. Things were good for so many people they weren’t looking past their own noses.
I don’t think Hillary Clinton can have the same kind of presidency.
Anyway, I ditto Thom Hartman: John Edwards for Attorney General!
Re: bipartisanship. The Clintons are old hands, very well practiced, at trying to get Republicans to like them through selling out. That it doesn’t work doesn’t mean they’re partisan. It makes them doormats. With Obama, we’ve at least got an outside chance that he’s not a doormat, but we know it with Clinton.
One possible problem with either a Clinton or Obama candidacy is that if they lose, the message that the DNC takes away from it won’t be “People don’t want another Clinton” or “Obama really ran an awful campaign” or “The traditional Democratic circular firing squad did it’s thing again” but rather “people won’t vote for a black/woman”. And it’ll give them an excuse to not consider any other minorities or women in the future. Because no one will admit to being a bigot, but they’ll use the excuse “oh, X is just not electable: look what happened in 2008-Americans–not me you understand, but the great unwashed redneck–just won’t vote for anyone who isn’t white and male.” So whoever the candidate is, they’d damn well better win. Even if they’re not the world’s best candidate, we need them in office to pave the way for the perfect liberal black/hispanic/female/etc candidate who is going to run in 2030 or whenever.
Hillary Clinton is just as committed to ending the war in Iraq as Barack Obama. Almost all of the accusations against Clinton pertain to her past votes, not her future plans for Iraq.
Incorrect. Hayes and I admit that she has a withdrawal plan because she must in order to get elected. We’re judging her from a history of willingness to break promises. Now all politicians break promises, but you have to judge the circumstances. Was a promise broken under a barrage of genuine political pressure, or was the promise just not taken seriously in the first place? With Clinton, you get the latter. She promised, for instance, not to campaign in Florida or Michigan as part of the shut-out deal. Broken.
I guess if I had an opportunity, I would ask Amanda why she is willing to defer the fulfillment of “the issues [she] devote[s] most of [her] time to.”
I am not a narcissist. Because something is my area of activism doesn’t mean that I think it’s the most important issue.
But your question implies that I’m splitting the vote between an anti-choicer and a pro-choicer. I’m not. That’s the point. Clinton and Obama are nearly identical in every way, even on the choice issue, so the question is who is better on the war issue. That’s not “single issue”. That’s called “understanding the difference between the executive and legislative branch”. It’s arguable that Clinton will be more effective on reproductive issues from the Senate, where she has an opportunity to craft legislation protecting reproductive rights, legislation that Obama is not going to veto.
Roxanne: Lanky kid (well, 26-year-old kid) with dark blonde hair? His branch got the good looks, that’s for sure.
JimB, you really are an appalling racist. But thanks for making it clear that the “black people are childish” stereotype will be one we’ll be seeing if Obama gets the nomination. Ironically, people who believe this are usually deeply immature.
I just wanted to point out that if you glance at the aggregate poll numbers at RealClearPolitics (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html) McCain does about equally well against either Clinton or Obama (+1.8% to +1.5%). That kind of margin pre-election seems like a statistical dead heat to me, but of course it’s entirely plausible that Obama could inspire a much better turnout than Clinton. Any other matchup results in a crushing defeat for the Republicans.
Give me some more time to recover.
I guess I will go with Obama in the end.
I like Hillary as a person, but I dread the people she will have around her, especially the foreign policy team. How can I vote for the heirs of war-criminals like Albright, Christopher, Cohen and Clark?
You asked how we ended up to the right of Sarkozy. Perhaps it happened because Dem voters kept taking what they were given.
Or perhaps it happened because left-wing voters dropped out of the party and the Democrats had to drum up some new supporters to eke out a victory in 1992.
You can’t exactly look at the run of Nixon-(Carter)-Reagan-Bush I and argue that the country was over to the left before the Democrats swung right. They swung right because people on the left weren’t voting for them anymore on a national level and they had to appeal to voters in the center.
Ehh, I have no interest in having a horse in this race who I know is going to be a roadblock the day after inauguration. I’ll vote primaries in May, and general in September, but I don’t see that either Clinton or Obama are worth much energy until then.
Obama’s movement (and make no mistake, it IS a movement) is worth more in and of itself for positive change than every candidate combined. It doesn’t matter if his movement doesn’t have an accurate representation of the man (I think they’re more right than wrong) And that includes my dream candidates.
It’s simple. If Obama can get 10% of the population who doesn’t vote out to the polls, that changes everything. At that point, nothing’s like before.
Re:Obama himself, I think he knows exactly what he’s doing. The GOP have spent the last 20 years not just not fixing problems, but denying that they are problems in the first place. Obama is offering them a seat at the table to make a good faith effort to fix those problems…but at that point they ADMIT that they are problems. It creates consensus where none existed before. Think about global warming denial, health care denial, reproductive rights denial. Either they take the seat and lose their obstructionist past, or they get killed in further elections.
And the world moves on and leaves you far behind…
Maybe it’s projection, but I doubt it. He’s talking far too much in personal specifics, making them too much into moral imperatives for traditional style “bipartisanship”. The current breed of centrism lives in a world where things can be justified away, which keeps itself isolated away from the pain that these problems can cause. You can’t turn these things into moral issues (which he is doing along with Edwards, and even Clinton too really), and still be an old-school centrist.
What he’s doing is VERY shrewd, and if he can get the people to the polls, it’ll be a huge blow against the conservative movement. No longer will conservatism be the default stance.
And I think he can do it.
Well, I think there’s a bit of a misunderstanding, then.
When I’m saying “Senator Clinton cannot beat Senator McCain”, that is when I’m trying to intimidate people into voting for Obama. That might not be an optimal argument, but I think it’s correct.
When I’m saying “I will not vote for Senator Clinton in the general election”, I am simply noting my intention to use my one small vote to try to intimidate the Democratic leadership into veering left after they lose yet another presidential election and shrink their majorities in congress.
I only brought that up because someone asked “aren’t we just going to be happy with anyone Blue?” A simple question deserved an honest answer.
It’s rather troubling to say that merely answering a question is a form of intimidation against other progressive voters.
As intimidation, it isn’t aimed at others here; it’s aimed at the Dem leadership. And they won’t get the message until after the general anyway.
I encourage all progressives to vote their consciences. Unless your consciences tell you to vote for Clinton, in which case, don’t, because she can’t beat McCain.
But if she does get the nomination, I sure as hell won’t be chiding anyone for voting for her, just as I request not to be chided for voting Green. That’s a promise.
And I apologize for the misunderstanding, which I exacerbated in my perverse pleasure at riling Dave, who totally deserved it.
Really.
You make it sound as if lefties just woke up one day, and over a second cup of coffee, thought “hmm, maybe I’ll stop voting Democratic, for no particular reason. That’ll show ‘em.”
Surely you have a more nuanced hypothesis for why the lefties left? But you’ve implied it was nothing more than a whim.
I thought maybe it had something to do with the fact that both JFK and LBJ happily orchestrated and oversaw COINTELPRO. What do you think?
Dianne, that is my fear as well. “We offered the public a black person and a female person but the public didn’t want it! Let’s never do that again!”
I decided to watch the Democratic debate last night with a completely open mind. I wanted to hear what the two candidates had to say, and I wanted to do so without any preconceived notions about what that may be. So I cleared my mind of all distractions, and I listened. After doing so I have concluded that Senator Obama is an extremely focused, articulate, intellignet and sensible candidate. I do not agree on all of his positions on the top issues. However, when it comes down to choosing between the two Democratic Candidates, Senator Obama is an easy choice to make. Where Senator Clinton seems to have vague, lofty and idealistic solutions to the issues, Senator Obama is sensible and focused. In the Democratic Primary, Senator Obama is an easy choice and a very viable candidate for the Presidency.
Cuz that really showed ‘em in 2000, didn’t it? Of course, the rest of us had to put up with huge deficits, a regressive tax code, shrinking of abortion rights, Katrina, 9/11, two wars, the worst president of the last century, etc. But that’s a small price to pay for “showing the Dem leadership.”
Tell you what; I’m planning to vote for whoever the Dems put up, but since I live in Kansas, I might as well vote for Micky Mouse. If you live in a contested state, I’ll vote your conscience for you, and you can vote the Dem nom for me. Deal?
Christie, are you Amanda’s mom?
(She has posted under the name ‘Christie’ before…)
MikeEss
answer is Yes.
Christie, I understand you’re pretty Republican.
(I was born and raised one as well, but College ruined me and it’s been downhill since…)
How does the matchup between Obama and McCain or Clinton and McCain look to you (and fellow Republicans)?…
Mike,
I am a Republican when it comes to fiscal issues, I do not believe in the re-distribution of wealth. When it comes to social issues, the Republicans, IMHO, have major problems. I am not in agreement with the typical Republican opinion on abortion, I am 100% pro-choice, no exceptions. I am not in agreement on the typical Republican position that marriage is between a man and a woman, come on, that is just plain stupid. I do not agree with the typical Republican on immigration, I live in West Texas, there are many many many dis-placed people living out here, I think all of us should get out from underneath the ‘fear’ of being illegal which includes employers who are fearful of hiring those who are more than willing to work.
My parents are both still living and are members of the “Greatest Generation” and are dyed-in-the-wool Republicans, my mother is a card carrying NRA member. Neither of them will be voting for McCain in the up-coming Primary.
If Senator Obama can figure out the best way to work with both parties on all issues, I just may be finding myself voting in favor of Senator Obama, in the general
Though I’m not much into either of them, I too am leaning Obama, basically for the reasons outlined in the Christopher Hayes essay that Ms. Marcotte linked to. Obama’s rhetoric of “unity” sounds naive, dangerous and unworkable to me, but Clinton has gotten her campaign some really bad advisors, especially in the area of foreign policy.
I also wonder if the incredibly nasty, racist, bigoted attacks and smears that the conservative movement will direct towards Obama might start to teach him that he can’t “unify” with them, and convince him to fight more. I just hope he does not get assassinated, in the event of his election.
Chicago 1968. And not a lot of people who left after that returned, so the Democrats had to look elsewhere for votes.
I’m just waiting for you to start talking about how The Democrats Left You Behind the way all of those people who flipped to Republican after 9/11 do.
Thanks for your feedback Christie.
(I didn’t really want to out you, but I was curious as to your thoughts on this topic.)
I’m thinking that Obama looks pretty good myself.
I’ve been afraid about the possibility of a McCain presidency for a long time, and nothing of late has made it look any better.
The only way McCain could look worse is if he chose The Huckster as Veep.
Let’s face it, when you’re at the bottom (i.e. the Bush II years) you’ve got nowhere to go but up…
Let’s face it, when you’re at the bottom (i.e. the Bush II years) you’ve got nowhere to go but up…
No, there is no bottom. Things can always get worse (and things can always get better).
You know Mike, I think most of us are tired of the politicians as usual……I think most of them will say anything to get elected, and that includes Senator Clinton and Senator McCain. I think Senator Obama believes in what he is saying, he is honest. Maybe he hasn’t been jaded by our system, I don’t know. He does seem to me believe in what he wants to do and he believes he can get it done. Like I said before I do not agree with Senator Obama on all of the issues. I think his position of using diplomacy in the Middle East is simply not going to work, just ask Jimmy Carter. Over the past 37 years that I can remember, not much has changed in the Middle East. When it comes to domestic issues, this is where we can have the greatest impact. Senator Obama, I believe, may have the best chance at getting both parties to work together, something none of the other candidates have much of a chance at getting accomplished. Someone further up the fold (don’t know who) said Senator Obama made them feel patriotic again. I say hooray. Me too.
Christie said:
Then why are you a Republican, ma’am? The GOP is the most redistributive party of all, with a well-established record in ensuring the massive redistribution of wealth from the working and middle classes to the already wealthy.Ok, moveon endorsed Obama. That balances the Post endorsement.
“JimB, you really are an appalling racist.”
Amanda, hate oozes out of you like the toxin of a poisonous toads skin.
Obama is idealistic and naïve precisely because he was raised in a white, middle to upper middle class environment. Then he went to Ivy League schools for more of the same where he became sensitized to all the usual issues of the Left.
It is the people from these kinds of environments who are least likely to have an accurate world view.
/without presuming to defend Amanda M…
Jim B, go back to the hell from whence you came.
tho’ that simile was nice, rich, and malicious.
I suppose it could be nice to have a troll that is eloquent in making people angry.
Obama is idealistic and naïve precisely because he was raised in a white, middle to upper middle class environment.
Hawaii is a white, middle-class environment? You may want to do a little more research on that talking point before you bring it out again. (Hint: Hawaii is not now, and never has been since it joined the US, a majority-white state.)
You’re right, JimB. I hate racists. Indeed, ours would be a better world if more people realized we don’t have to tolerate the intolerant.
Thanks for the comments, Mom. I think Obama’s idealism is mostly a political skill. The great rhetoricians aren’t generally unrealistic—MLK, Kennedy, Roosevelt, Lincoln—but commanded language that would be called idealistic. I consider it setting expectations type language. Obama’s record shows a man who probably understands the world realistically more than most of us.
I’m still looking for a discussion of pushing national health care in the shadow of the Hyde Amendment. If anyone has video/transcript/webinfo regarding this issue or one of our esteemed politicians addressing the subject, I’d appreciate it.
What a good Democrat you are, Blue Jean, blaming Greens for Gore’s loss. Even though Gore won Florida and therefore the presidency.
You really can’t pin this one on us. But your scapegoating is duly noted. I really look forward to working with you folks in the future.
It’s a bit premature for that, since I’m open to the possibility of voting for Obama in the general. If I do opt for vote-trading later, I’ll wait for someone who doesn’t disingenuously blame me for the collapse of democracy.
Okay, you don’t need to hold your breath.
Now you’re making it sound like the left arbitrarily broke with the Democrats in 1968, again for no particular reason.
I’m sure JFK’s and LBJ’s participation in the Vietnam fucking War had nothing to do with it. I’m sure COINTELPRO was completely unrelated. Yep, one day the left just woke up and snuck out of the bedroom before the Dems woke up. Such infidelity. What ingrates we were. And after all the Dems had done for us, too.
Actually, I blame Nader (in part) not the Greens, but I see you imagine some vast anti-Green conspiracy whenever anyone questions a vote (under the present two party system) actually hurts the actual party intended, rather than helping the party you dispise. You seem to think people here are attacking you when one is merely making an offer. Duly noted. If you ever have a flat by the side of the road, I’ll ignore you and drive by, lest any offer to help be met by your accusing me of trying to rob and murder you.
Ah, I take it my offer is rejected, even though I didn’t “blame you for the collapse of democracy”. BTW, democracy is still standing, and if it did collapse, it would be the fault of far more important people than you are me.
Have fun playing ball by yourself in your own little world. When you want to come join the rest of us here in reality, we’ll be waiting.
Bleugh. “You OR me”
BTW, I’m not a “good Democrat”. I’m a pretty lousy Democrat, actually. But I would rather vote and work for a party that’s imperfect than let the downright evil party win while I’m waiting for the Perfect Candidate to show up with A Perfect Party on a Perfect Pony.
Considering that your implication through several threads is that you and the people you know fell away during the Clinton years, to now retroactively go back and say, “Yeah, it was 1968 that did it!” is pretty inconsistent, don’t you think?
The falling-away from the Democratic Party was a long process and involved many different people for many different reasons, many of them not because the party wasn’t liberal enough. Why do you think you’re such a special snowflake when you’re set side-by-side with a Reagan Democrat?
Keep moving that goalpost, Mnemosyne. Yes, I left because of Clinton. But you’re the one who invoked “Nixon-(Carter)-Reagan-Bush I” and said the party had to “swung right because people on the left weren’t voting for them anymore on a national level and they had to appeal to voters in the center.” You’re the one who said the 1968 Dem convention was where the left abandoned the Dems.
I address that by suggesting that perhaps the party was already in the business of betraying the left, and suddenly I’m changing my arguments retroactively and being inconsistent.
You are very skilled at being duplicitous, I’ll grant you that. Ask a person to address past events, and then dismiss them for doing so. Very clever.
Sorry, I guess I’m particularly stupid tonight — why am I inconsistent for pointing out that the Democrats swung to the right with Clinton and that it was part of a consistent pattern since 1968?
I was happy to have Clinton in power since it meant the country was going to hell very slightly less quickly, but a year into his term, only the most idiotic of the Republican base thought he was liberal in any way.
Do you understand that you can’t blame Nader for Gore losing Florida, because Gore won Florida? You don’t do yourself any favors by arguing against basic logic.
Which explains why you responded to an individual Green’s statement that “I will not vote for Senator Clinton in the general election” by saying that my equivalent stance in 2000 led to “huge deficits, a regressive tax code, shrinking of abortion rights, Katrina, 9/11, two wars, the worst president of the last century, etc.”
And of course it just makes sense that when you’re attributing the cause of those problems, you’d quote my reasoning for my vote, “showing the Dem leadership”, because you weren’t blaming me.
Hell, if you really didn’t mean to blame me, maybe you could apologize for blaming me? I wouldn’t turn down a little solidarity here.
As for “that really showed ‘em in 2000, didn’t it?” Maybe it did. The Democratic party has shifted somewhat to the left since losing in 2000, pushing Sherrod Brown as a Senatorial candidate, kicking Joe Lieberman out of the party, and getting out of Bernie Sanders’ way, as a few examples. I attribute this to the strength of the whole progressive movement, and I do think those of us outside and on the fringes of the Democratic party, dragging constantly from the left, have been an important source of momentum.
The Democratic party is worthless if it’s run by DINOs. You cannot really believe that it’s always better to have a Democrat than a Republican. In a hypothetical race, would you vote for Lieberman over Arlen Specter?
Nope. Just a chorus of individual Democrats who can’t resist the opportunity to say divisive and unsupportable things whenever individual Greens speak up in their presence.
If after Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), and the rampant voter disenfranchisement in Ohio in 2004, you can honestly say that democracy still exists in the United States, then we just don’t see eye to eye and I don’t know how to resolve that. If you meant that democracy still exists in other countries, sure, you may be right.
Others are explicitly attacking me, yes. If your words were not meant as an attack, well, I’ve explained why I thought otherwise and I think my response was understandable.
But now I see you weren’t attacking me at all, just a little misunderstanding. It’s not as though you spit huge sticky globs of condescension at me:
You really are a bridge builder, aren’t you? A real uniter, not a divider.
And I must be a wild-eyed idealist to consider voting for Obama on his perfect pony but not Clinton. Oh, what a fool I’ve been. I’m going to start voting for every Democrat that my ballot offers me. That’s exactly what the Democratic party needs to be robust, healthy and responsive.
What’s inconsistent is offering 1968 as a topic of discussion and then calling me inconsistent for talking about it.
Grammar, I can’t figure out why you think you’re supposed to get any more respect for your political opinions than a Republican who came over here to tell us who s/he was going to vote for.
And I can’t understand why you keep changing the subject, mnemosyne.
Someone above asked “aren’t we just going to be happy with anyone Blue?” and I answered that no, I might be happy with Obama but not Clinton. Someone responded, and I responded in turn, etc.
At what point that turned into me saying I’m entitled to special treatment, I don’t know, that only happened in your imagination.
You really are an incredibly dishonest person.
Someone above asked “aren’t we just going to be happy with anyone Blue?” and I answered that no, I might be happy with Obama but not Clinton. Someone responded, and I responded in turn, etc.
You belong, by your own statements, to another party. You are not a Democrat. You’re a Green. Why, exactly, are we supposed to pay attention to your opinion about who the Democrats should nominate, any more than we pay attention to Dana’s opinion?
At what point that turned into me saying I’m entitled to special treatment, I don’t know, that only happened in your imagination.
You mean other than demanding in several threads that we respect your opinions about the Democratic primary when you’re not a Democrat?
You really are an incredibly dishonest person.
Yes, I’m the one who comes into threads about another party’s nominations and declares who that party should nominate if they want to get my vote, even though I don’t belong to that party and don’t consider myself part of that party.
Again, you coming in here to tell us who to nominate is like me going to RedState to tell them which Republican I would vote for.
Sorry, but I’m tired of playing your little game. If you’re not a Democrat, you have no place in the nomination process for the Democratic Party. It’s party business. Vote for who you like in the general election, but if you’re not a Democrat, why do you think we should pay attention to you?
Ah. I’m truly sorry. Now I understand. I didn’t join your club, so I’m not welcome in discussion threads at Pandagon, the website for Democrats only, that you personally own and moderate. I have a static IP, so perhaps it’s best if you just ban me, mnemosyne.
Again, I apologize. See, I didn’t know that the Democrats have an unwaveringly loyal base of 51% of registered voters in enough states to carry the Electoral College. That was my mistake.
Are you “supposed to” listen to my opinion? I make no such claim.
But some people asked some relevant questions here:
I think that Colorado Dave’s question about coat-tails is actually answered by SArah many posts above: “I think we’ll all be telling our grandchildren (or friends’ grandchildren) about this amazing moment in history.” Are there people out there flooding into the system together to share such a moment created by Hilary Clinton? I don’t think so. I think that Hilary Clinton has got a lock on many people who were there already. Creation of a new flood that will raise other boats is more of an Obama thing, at least at the moment.
Put it this way, while Obama might not be able to get the racists to crossover, does anyone think that Hillary (who will also not get those votes, and will draw more GOP voters to the polls) will energize the base and bring in new voters?
I guess what it comes down to is which candidate do you think will do best in Ohio and Florida?
Strangely enough, some people here actually care to ask whether Clinton or Obama can reach out to non-Democrats and bring in enought votes to carry Ohio. Imagine that!
And as a non-Democrat living in Ohio, I might have something to offer as in reply. Not much, but the questions were raised and my anecdata are as good as any. I didn’t notice that those people posing the questions also requested that non-Democrats need not respond. I am so very, very sorry for that oversight.
Really, mnemosyne, this is what I don’t understand. If you don’t care what I have to say, why don’t you just ignore me, instead of picking an argument with me? Wouldn’t that be a more judicious use of everyone’s time? Please. If you want to talk, talk. If you don’t, don’t! Either way is fine with me. Just don’t act like I’m pulling your arm.
More lying, eh, mnemosyne?
Quotes or it didn’t happen.
While I understand that you feel I am not welcome here, I am not being dishonest. I am not misrepresenting myself. If I claimed to be a Democrat, that would be dishonest, though on the other hand I would not have incurred your wrath. Quite a dilemma.
I was under the impression that Pandagon was a website for progressives, and not just Democrats. If Amanda, Pam or Auguste tells me I am wrong about that, I will be on my way.
If, on the other hand, I am permitted here, and if some of the above posters who appeared to be wondering what non-Democrats think were indeed wondering what non-Democrats think, then I don’t see what the big honking problem is.
Ugh. I think I feel another apology burbling up.
I didn’t know that this whole business was all just about insider trading and meaningless horse races. I had mistakenly thought that the future direction of the nation and the world was in the balance, and that I was a United States citizen who had not only a stake in that future but a right to express my hopes through speech and votes. Fuuuuck me, I was so wrong. Thank you for setting me straight.
Yeah!! My words on a website are a gun to your head, mnemosyne! Care about all my anonymous little opinions, right now, or I’ll pull the fucking trigger!
“You’re right, JimB. I hate racists. Indeed, ours would be a better world if more people realized we don’t have to tolerate the intolerant.”
Amanda, you hate far more than supposed racists. You hate Republicans, you hate conservatives, you hate frat boys, you hate Christians, you hate pro-lifers, you hate non-feminists, you hate Bush, you hate BushCo, you hate Cheney, you hate American soldiers, you hate talk radio, you hate Corporations, you hate black conservatives, you hate black, Christian fundamentalist preachers, you hate Sky Fairy believers, you hate EvoPsyc’s, you hate America, you hate masculinity, you hate supposed white privilege, you hate … a lot.
Mnemosyne: “Hawaii is a white, middle-class environment? You may want to do a little more research on that talking point before you bring it out again. (Hint: Hawaii is not now, and never has been since it joined the US, a majority-white state.)”
I saw a photograph of his prep high school class. It was overwhelming white.
“Amanda, you hate far more than supposed racists.
You hate Republicans, you hate conservatives (only the batshit insane ones), you hate frat boys,you hate Christians, you hate pro-lifers, you hate non-feminists, you hate Bush, you hate BushCo, you hate Cheney,you hate American soldiers, you hate talk radio, you hate Corporations (only the ones that are trying to destroy our planet in the pursuit of profits), you hate black conservatives, you hate black, Christian fundamentalist preachers, you hate Sky Fairy believers, you hate EvoPsyc’s,you hate America(WTF?),you hate masculinity(which is why Amanda’s in a stable long-term relationship with a - wait for it! - Man!!!), you hate supposed white privilege, you hate … a lot.”(Made a few corrections on Amanda’s behalf. Hope you don’t mind. The ones I struck-out are obvious straw-attempts to read evil into Amanda’s beliefs…)
Wow, that’s quite a grab-bag of anxious-American-white-male obsessions you’ve got there, JimB. Ever sought professional help? It might do you a lot of good…
Any theory that traces the rightward move of the Democrats to 1968 has to explain how McGovern got nominated in 1972. I’d say that the fact that he carried only one state in ‘72, that Carter was successful in winning the presidency with a more centrist approach in ‘76, and that Carter then got beaten by Reagan in ‘80 (thanks in part to the Iranian hostage situation) all had a lot more to do with the rightward drift of the party than anything that happened in Chicago in ‘68.
Dave W., I’m pretty sure that Carter would not have been elected without Nixon’s fall and Ford’s bumbling personae.
Those factors interrupted the Republican plan for political domination started after the defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964.
McGovern is used as a Rethug shibboleth, but the man was/is a great man who was rat-fucked by the proto-Rovian Rethugs for daring to oppose their designs on America. He didn’t deserve the disrespect he got at the time. America would have become a much better place if he had been elected instead of Nixon…
Anyone wondering about Obama’s record and/or his approach to bipartisanship should read hilzoy’s article on his legislative accomplishments in the Senate (from 2006), and this WaPo article on his record in the Illinois state senate. The man has a solid record of getting important but non-sexy stuff done by building coalitions and finding people across the aisle who can join him on individual issues even if they disagree on other issues. I’m particularly impressed with his work on that death-penaly interrogation taping bill in Illinois. Starting with a potential hot-potato like that, and getting it to the point where it passed the Illinois senate unanimously, was signed by the governor who had initially opposed it, and supported by law-enforcement organizations that had initally opposed the idea shows real political savvy. I expect that this actually gives us a pretty good idea of how he might go about governing as president.
Best part of the hilzoy article was this comment -
So far, a cipher. With visible calculation.
I prefer Ezra’s take from 2006.
The Grateful Dead will perform for Obama tommorrow.