Yes, she is more presidential than he will ever be.
Ladies, remember all those articles in the past year that said, “Gosh, Hillary is pretty darn near perfect! When Obama’s 2 terms are up, she’s going to run in 2016 and THEN all of the people who think Hillary will be a fantastic president will have a chance to vote for her, just you wait and see!”
That crap was all over the place in every newspaper. It was all about delayed gratification. Sure, Obama is a miserable incompetent and getting stuck with him for four more years is going to suck yak testicles, they seemed to say, but just think about 2016. Keep your eyes on 2016. Hillary is going to run. No, she never said she would but we pundits just know it. So, people, give it up for Barack just one more time and then you’ll get the competent, resolute, experienced, intelligent DEMOCRAT you’ve been waiting for.
Then, on Friday, an article appeared in the New York Times which changed all that because all the people who decided to take an old cold tater and wait for Hillary simmered in their own juices in 2012 and said nothing just like they were told, expecting nothing, demanding no promises from the DNC. Here is the title of that article in all its glory:
For Ambitious Governor, a Clinton Stands in the Way
Read it and weep.
Yes, just like in 2008, Hillary Clinton is the inconvenient woman who is standing in the way of the presidential ambitions of a younger man, Andrew Cuomo.
All that shit the party hinted at and intimated and implied and danced around to make you think that Hillary was going to run in 2016 was just a cynical ploy to get you onboard to vote for Obama now. To me, this ranks right up there with Romney telling his donors that the 47% of Americans who pay no income taxes have the unmitigated gall to insist on eating. Having a woman at the top of the Democratic ticket in 2012 or 2016 would only send a positive signal to OVER HALF of the population who is under siege from the religious right but who cares? Not Democrats.
Of course, your mileage may vary but one of the reasons we are headed into this fall election with two candidates who don’t give a f^&* about working people or women is because the Democrats failed to challenge Obama with the only other person on their side of the aisle who had a prayer of beating the Republicans, Hillary Clinton. You don’t get anything if you don’t ask for anything and the media was complicit in delaying the gratification of the desperate, the unemployed and the Clintonistas until 2016, so they asked for nothing. See how this works?
If you don’t believe that the Democrats have absolutely no intention of EVER mentoring or promoting Hillary or likely any woman for president, read the article. It’s full of the same sexist shit we saw in 2008. For one thing, why aren’t we framing the headline, “For Ambitious Secretary of State, Democratic Males Continue to Obstruct”? But wait! There’s more:
Creating frustration for his inner circle, as Mr. Cuomo considers a 2016 campaign for the White House, the eyes of his party are fixed on Mrs. Clinton, whose already sky-high stature among Democratic activists was enhanced by her husband’s crowd-pleasing speech this month at the party’s convention in Charlotte, N.C., and who can count on broad support if she decides to run.
Mrs. Clinton complicates Mr. Cuomo’s ambitions in several ways. Despite the fact that she hails from Illinois, she is now viewed as a New Yorker and commands deep loyalty from the state’s Democratic establishment. And Mr. Cuomo, 54, reveres her husband, former President Bill Clinton; he views Mr. Clinton as a mentor who helped him begin a career in politics, according to Cuomo friends and associates.
My GOD! There is a man who is frustrated! This shall not stand!
And Hillary is complicating Cuomo’s ambitions. Why is she doing that!? Doesn’t she understand that he really wants to be president?
Neither she nor Mr. Cuomo has signaled any plans for the 2016 election, and the governor says he is focused on his current job. (Mrs. Clinton is not expected to stay in her cabinet post if Mr. Obama wins a second term.) But the potential collision between them is gripping the political world in New York.
“In terms of the psychodrama of politics, it does not get any better than this,” the Democrat close to Mr. Cuomo said.
While Mr. Cuomo has deep affection for Mr. Clinton and calls him for advice, his relationship with Mrs. Clinton is less personal.
What potential collision? The DNC virtually promised women and gullible Clintonistas that she was going to run. All it needs to do is tell Andrew Cuomo is to suck it up and step aside. How hard is that?
Ahhhh, but you see, Andrew Cuomo doesn’t have a personal relationship with Hillary Clinton, therefore, it will be OK for him to go after her personally and have his droogs tear her presidential ambitions to shreds. It’s what Democratic males do.
What is most vexing to those who want to see Mr. Cuomo run is that Mrs. Clinton, given her popularity in the party, can take her time deciding whether to make another bid for the presidency, essentially freezing the rest of the Democratic field.
Yes, it’s altogether vexing. Damn her. Why doesn’t she just quit? It’s almost as if she’s so popular because so many people have been waiting so long for her.
But here’s the best line in the article:
But others reject the notion that Mrs. Clinton poses a serious obstacle to Mr. Cuomo, saying she is enjoying a political honeymoon right now but still has many of the weaknesses that plagued her in the past, including a polarizing image.
By contrast, they say, Mr. Cuomo is a fresh face whom Democratic officials, donors and activists will naturally want to court — provided that he wins re-election in 2014, when Mrs. Clinton will most likely be out of a job in politics.
This is a not so subtle way of saying that Hillary is old. Forget that her approval rating is stratospheric, she must still be called “polarizing”, she’s simply old news. She’ll be 68 before she’s allowed to run again. She’ll be past her freshness date. And she’ll be running in a primary against this young whipper snapper with a penis who wants her to get the fuck out of his way.
I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. This is the way the party is going to get rid of Hillary. They have no intention of ever putting her in the White House. Repeat after me: The Democrats do not mentor women. Don’t believe me? Remember how the Democrats saddled Nancy Pelosi with Steny Hoyer instead of John Murtha, the guy she originally wanted? Yep, before she was even out of the gate as Speaker of the House, the party guys stuck her with a minder who would simply ignore and override her. (I’ll try to find the pic where Nancy has to stand next to Steny after that announcement. The look on her face says it all. ahh, found it. See below. ) Nancy’s not much of a true liberal anyway, since she’s got her own clan to protect, but she’s not really in charge anyway. Steny is.
Remember what happened to Chellie Pingree in Maine this year? She was a Democratic representative who wanted to run for Olympia Snowe’s senate seat. But the Democrats told Pingree they were going to support an independent candidate instead of her. So, not only did the Democrats decide to support someone not even in their party, but they allowed a female senator’s seat to be replaced with a man. We have a lousy 17% representation of women in Congress and Democrats have no obligation or desire to change that number. Oh, sure, maybe Pingree couldn’t have won, but it’s not like the Democrats stood behind her and made her look like a formidable candidate. Democrats don’t do that for their female candidates. But they’ll do it for a first term senator Barack Obama and Andrew Cuomo, both of whom have the patience of a 2 year old.
Look at Elizabeth Warren. The Democrats have been notably cool to her. If she’s pulling ahead of Scott Brown now, she’s doing it pretty much on her own. That’s because Democrats don’t back their female candidates. They have no faith in them, don’t want to have to work with them, act like they’re second best, tokens. And they always expect them to step aside when an ambitious man wants to run for something.
You can deny it all you want but that’s the truth, people. Democrats don’t think very highly of women. They just don’t. And when you’re no longer fresh, you won’t get off the damn stage. And when push comes to shove, they’re going to sell you out on everything that’s important to you: equal pay, equality in general, abortion, contraception. They will ignore you in meetings, call you “not a team player”, say that you’re “hard to work with”, you insist on your own way. Don’t believe me? Go ask Christine Romer, Brooksley Born, Sheila Bair and Elizabeth Warren. Heck, the White House didn’t even keep Nancy Pelosi in the loop on the debt ceiling meetings in the summer of 2011. Obama’s team wanted to do their deal through Steny and leave Nancy out of it. They didn’t even have the courtesy of keeping her updated. If you raise your voice, attempt to exercise power, express an opinion and don’t go back home to tend the garden, they don’t want you around.
I say this as a liberal, Democrat-in-Exile, not because I want the Republicans to win. It is past time for women to seriously consider not belonging to parties that do not have a hard quota of female representation in their foundation documents, just like some European parties do that have greater female representation in government. It’s too late in 2012 but it’s not too late for 2014. I am sick to death of these two political parties treating us like we don’t matter to their own ambitions, like our lives are not as important, that we’ll just go along with the program. They treat us like children, substitute their own judgement for ours and flush our votes down the drain if they’re inconvenient. That shit’s got to stop.
Given that this is the strategy they’re going to take to sideline Hillary and everyone who has been waiting for her turn, I can’t see myself ever voting for another Democrat for president in my lifetime. I was dubious that Hillary would even want to run in 2016, no matter how much the media pushed that meme. I think she sees the writing on the walls. The Democrats don’t see her as a full person with the ability to command the way they see men. She’s also to the left of Obama and the party doesn’t want to represent working people and women anymore than Republicans do. And then there the issue of penis years. She could be as perfect a presidential candidate as there ever was and they’d still shave points off of her because she doesn’t have a penis. Penises make you want to be president more. If you don’t have a penis, your ambition mojo is not as strong.
And they’ll drag up the old urban legends about how her campaign was badly run. Yes, a campaign that won CA, PA, NY, NJ, TX, OH, MA, IN, MO, FL, MI, NM, WV, KY, AR etc, etc, was poorly managed. {{rolling eyes}} Nevermind that it was Obama’s campaign that needed to have the rules changed so the party could drag his sorry ass over the finish line for the nomination, it will always be HER campaign that was mismanaged because she concentrated on big Democratic states and ignored Idaho.
So, anyway, Democrats are lying, sexist assholes. That’s the truth. You’ve seen the data, draw your own conclusions.
Filed under: General | Tagged: Andrew Cuomo, Chellie Pingree, Democrats, DNC, Elizabeth Warren, freshness, Hillary Clinton, presidential candidate in 2016, sexists |
The plastic Donald Duck sitting on one of my bookshelves is more presidential than Obummer will ever be. 😛
I bet Donald doesn’t look down his bill at you either.
gooby pls, it’s dolan duck not donald duck.
Damn, RD…you got my blood boiling again this morning. I remember when you left DK and started The Confluence over these same issues. Keep on keeping on….please!
That NYTimes article should be spread far and wide. The bastards need to be taught a lesson they’ll never forget.
What Marsha said — I feel like I’m having a heart attack!
… and she didn’t just win them — she won many of them by more than 10%
Also. Cuomo (rests head on desk) would be one of the worst candidates ever. And that says a lot.
You gives ’em books and gives’em books and alls they do is chew on the covers.
Women fall for this shit every. damn. time. You can tell them and tell them but they desperately want to believe it’s not true.
The Democrats will NEVER run Hillary and now that the nomination has been formally decided, the masks come off and they reveal who they really are.
I am starting to think that the problem is that since the ouster of LBJ and the death of RFK we’ve misunderstood the role of the Democratic Party….. It’s purpose since then isn’t the purpose of the old New Deal, Great Society, War on Poverty Democratic Party — it’s actually the Ratchet Party. The Democratic Party is just there to keep things from sliding At ALL to the Left after a Republican shove to the Right.
Democrats are allowed to make pretty speeches (and I think hinting at a possible Hillary administration at some vague time in the future counts as a pretty speech) but, there is no way in hell the deal makers of the party would allow the fulfillment of any of those promises.
I’m almost entirely convinced that it’s just not in their mission statement.
I didn’t think about it at the time (hey! I was just 14 years old!!) but WAS it a coincidence that LBJ was forced out of office 2 years after pushing Medicare through?
LBJ wasn’t pushed out of office. He was a great liberal leader domestically but he was not a good president when it came to exercising foreign policy. It was the war that done him in and his own disastrous actions. That LBJ, Passage to Power book I read suggests that LBJ was a deeply insecure man who didn’t want to run in elections when he didn’t think he could win. It’s likely that he saw he couldn’t win in 1968 and decided to get out early for the benefit of his party. Although, I’m betting that if he thought that RFK was going to jump in, there’s nothing that would have made him quit. The two hated each other with a white hot passion that will go down in histories as one of the most notorious adversarial relationships that ever was.
The Vietnam War will remain a very embittering counterbalance to LBJ’s groundbreaking and gain-pushing/gain-consolidating domestic achievements. I remember reading a very bitter “looking-back” joke which goes like this:
“They told me that if I voted for Goldwater, I’d get a war in Vietnam.
Well, that’s what I did. And that’s what I got.”
I spent my upper-elementary school and junior high school years grinding my teeth and wondering if the Vietnam War would still be going on long enough for me to get drafted and sent.
I think it’s much simpler than that. The party is run by a bunch of older men who are used to having power and being obeyed unquestioningly. They’re not used to women wanting to be leaders. They mentor other men, listen to other men and they’re going to keep doing that until we pull them up by their short hairs and make a big stink.
They may very well be the ratchet party as well but I think that is a function of social distancing. They represent the concerns of the people they hang around with and they don’t hang around with people struggling financially or women.
yes, which is why I am so sick of watching women go along to get along for just a few more years….if only they are agreeable, work hard and explain themselves over and over and over and over and over, someday it will pay off and women will be equal and get to have the top jobs and equal pay and be real people.
Bullshit.
Democratic men, most of them, are perfectly willing to throw us under the bus for a few votes from republican men. They would rather have their votes anyway. They don’t do a damn thing for us they don’t have to do if they can help it. It is time for us to be willing to take our votes and hold them hostage for OUR good….. not the good of everyone else but us.
I agree. The Democrats set the left edge which moves further right with each election cycle.
If Rocky Anderson’s Justice Party invited HRClinton to run for President on the Justice Party ticket (with whomever she wanted as VP
candidate), would HRClinton accept that offer and take it as an opportunity? Or would she still be so loyal to the Democratic Party that she would view it as some kind of “betrayal” to the “party” that she had been in “all her political life” ?
I wonder that because if Rocky Anderson makes a credible showing (and damaging Obama’s campaign would be credible while drawing so many votes from Obama as to throw the election to Romney would be very credible indeed); then the Justice Party will face the same existential choice that the Reform Party faced right after Perot’s strong showing. Namely . . . will the emerging Party be a mere plaything of the Founder’s ego? Or will it be a growing power center able to recruit candidates and voters to the cause of a Longer War? In which case, could HRClinton be a credible Grand General in that Longer War? And would she be ready to treat the anti-NewDeal NeoDemocrats as the social class enemies of mainstream America which they certainly are? Would she be ready to accept the political extermination of the Democratic Party as the price of her own Justice Party success? Could she even bring herself to see the extermination of the Democratic Party as “gravy” and not a “price” at all?
Thanks for providing excerpts, RD.
I saw the headline of the article, yesterday, and it made me sick.
Someone should tell Shakesville. Apparently, there is a residual herd of Clintonistas over there who are anxiously waiting for November 2016 and it ain’t never gonna happen.
I tried but it’s dangerous over there.
I would but I got myself banned at Shakesville.
They’re progs, not liberals, and feminists, only, if feminists put every cause first, before, you know, selfish, smelly Feminism.
The kind of peeps who are absolutely convinced that Susan B. Anthony was a terrible ray-cist, full stop.
SHAKESVILLE put something before feminism?!? 😕
Day-yum, that place has changed since I visited there frequently.
I went there and took a brief look at the most recent posts. They seem to be a very gay-issues-focused blog, and somewhat lesbian-issues-focused within that focus. That is just a quick impression, not the deep analysis that lack of computer time prevents me from doing.
Based on my quick impression, I would assume Shakesville to be a very probama site, based on Obama’s studied simulation of someone who cares about gay issues and affects a gay-friendly pose. Would I be wrong?
OK, so I didn’t know Shakesville and scampered over there to sample the wares. Now I’m back and I want to know: what is Shakesville about? I read the declaration of conventions at the top, but the articles don’t seem to reflect much of that. What’s the deal?
Unless you enjoy micro-policing your own posts to avoid anything which might offend someone, somewhere, either don’t go to SV at all, or just lurk. 🙄
Didn’t find enough of interest to lurk, either. Just not my taste, I guess.
The Democratic Party really doesn’t want candidates who are smart and more critically- exercise independence of thought. Worse yet, candidates who actually care about the public interest because as we know now, the party could care less about it. This is what happens after a corporate takeover. Looking back on it, because hindsight is always 20-20, Hillary freaked out the donors ( aka Wall Street ) in 2008 when she suggested mass refinancing of mortgages along the lines of FDRs Resolution Trust Corporation. Wall Street undoubtedly went ballistic and leaned on the DNC to get her out of the race so they could put their stooge-er- candidate in. They’re doing something similar with Elizabeth Warren. She was ” advised ” to run for Senate, because she was a thorn in Tim Geithner’s side, but the Democratic elites in Massachusetts have basically refused to endorse her. Some of them have crossed over and endorsed Scott Brown.
The Party does not want boat-rockers. They’ll take a woman to prove to everyone they are the party of inclusion, but the woman has to be someone like Mary Landrieu or Dianne Feinstein or Jane Harman.
I would love to take you to my next family event and introduce you to my Clinton hating guilty white liberal siblings. You know the type. They supported Edwards first because he was the most “liberal” then they supported Obama because at least he wasn’t the evil Hillary Clinton who was the wife (rib) of Bill “welfare reform/DLC” Clinton. So of course we could only expect her to do what Bill did and be a war monger to boot.
I started with Edwards in 2008 as well, but after JE dropped out, I became uneasy about Obummer and chose Hillary. Obummer and his Oborg have done nothing to convince me I chose wrongly.
it’s funny, I had about the same reaction to Edwards when he first got in to the senate as I did to Obama when he first ran for senate. Never trusted either one of them.
Or Nancy “Impeachment is off the table” Pelosi.
I thought Andrew Cuomo is a Republican. Yes, no?
Cuomo is technically a so-called “Democrat”.
In name only. Cuomo often has been described as all about big business and the one %ers. To paraphrase, a Republican by any other name…………….
I’m not familiar with AC, so thanx for the heads-up about him. It sounds like he’s Obummer Part Deux. 😦
Can the Clinton supporters of 2008 re-cohere as an organized group of millions without the overt leadership of HRClinton? If so, they will have four years to organize a revenge-and-prevention movement of all those millions devoted to seeing that Cuomo is prevented from becoming President one way or another. They could also study every Dparty politician for signs of Cuomo-support. They could target each of those Dparty persons-for-Cuomo for political destruction at every level. Step-by-step, they could either burn the Dparty “clean” or burn the Dparty all the way down to the ground.
If the Clinton supporters of 2008 can’t or won’t re-cohere as an organized group of millions without the overt leadership of HRClinton, why not? If they can’t or won’t even re-cohere enough to achieve funtional “extermination” of their enemies, how seriously can they expect to be taken by anyone?
( I still remember when two separate opportunities presented themselves to defeat Barry’s BORomneycare and destroy Barry’s Presidency. The self-styled “progressive” Representative Kucinich could have voted “no” and destroyed Barry and his Big Insura Bailout Law right there. A couple of self-styled “feminist” Representatives could have voted “no” on Barry’s Stupaked-up version of BORomneycare and destroyed Barry and his Presidency right there.
But they didn’t do it. And how seriously are they taken now? I realize they may well have recieved quite assassination threats against themselves and their families, but maybe accepting that threat is the price of seeking genuine “change” in American politics today).
You know, a lot of people WANT to be lied to. It is very hard to leave your tribe.
The Clintonistas who believed the Hillary in 2016 wanted to believe it. At some point, they’re going to come to the conclusion that the Democrats don’t really consider them one of them. They’re just legacy voters.
Yes, I think it would be doable to cohere. The problem is, there aren’t a lot of leaders around right now. But as long as people expect that leadership to come from the Democrats, we won’t go anywhere. The legacy voters have to decide they’ve had enough.
People of any stripe have to realize they are the leaders and stop looking to elevate some would be cult figure to semi divinity. Democracy is a do-it-yourself project. Politicians and their appointees are just hired help and the sooner people take that attitude with them, the better we’ll all be. Frankly, I have more respect for and am far more likely to take the advice of my mechanic. Who actually has a considerable skill set and bills honestly.
hmmm . . . yes . . . How DO people, especially several million people, become a “leaderless movement”? And is it even humanly possible for biologically-evolved humanimals to even function “leaderlessly” when our entire pre-civilization past has been lived as loosely-hierarchichal wolf-pack style primates? And if “leaderless” is not possible, would thousands of “cells” following thousands of observationally tested and selected micro-leaders be a useful midpoint
between mere anarchism and a charismatic Alpha-leader leading a pack of millions? (Assassinate the leader and you disperse the pack).
Maybe we need a woman on horseback to dominate the Dems. I don’t think a third party, unfortunately, will ever fly, though demographics may eventually prove me wrong.
If one of the two parties is ripe for extermination and removal and displacement, perhaps a “third” party can do that and become the second party in its place. That is how the Republican Party advanced to begin with . . . over the Whig Party’s dead body.
The Whig Party lives! http://www.modernwhig.org/ I looked over the site to see if it was anything I could throw my lot in with but, alas, too much military. The empire lives, too. Our downfall eventually.
once a “third party” becomes a second party, it will be just like the two existing power parties now. If the system doesn’t change the need to play the same games will still exist. People are not going to be more ethical because they are Green or libertarian or Justice party members, or Socialists for that matter.
But the system won’t change by itself. It will be forcibly changed by millions of people organized in a many-years effort to seize enough controlling power over it to force the system-lords to give in to forced change. So if an unorganized milling crowd of people can’t change the system, and the system will “transform” any group of people organized enough to force change . . . how do we square that circle?
(I remember one example of a third party reaching towards some success-as-in-Power and that was the Socialist Party up until WWI. WWI gave Wilson the opportunity he craved to destroy the Socialist Party with various forms of repression at various levels including a trumped up kangaroo trial against Eugene V. Debs. Certainly Wilson and the system-lords feared the Socialist Party would not be co-optable. Was pre-WWI America such a different world that the example is irrelevant to our own time?)
I continue to think that a third party is worth a try even as we try other things at the same time. Some people might try voting against Democrats who are not to their taste so as to force DemParty loss after loss after loss till the Democrats they wish to see purged are all purged. At this point probably every group with a theory should try applying their theory and from time to time the groups can communicate their successes and failures to one another.
Excellent points. We are going to have to exert external pressure. The PArty will not change from within. Any attempt to push the party in a progressive direction from the inside will meet with co-optation or expulsion.
I heard a quote recently that made a lot of sense.
It was something like, “you can’t cross a chasm in two steps”.
And while the FedLevel Obamacratic Party may be one thing, various state or sub-state level Democratic Parties may (May) be something else in some cases.
I don’t know. I see what you are saying and I’m sure the DNC probably does not want Hillary to run BUT she has a built in constituency which might not be overcome. I mean if she runs AND gets an overwhelming amount of votes, there’s no way the DNC could take it away from her without a riot. Last time it was close enough to steal but if she runs again, I’m sure she won’t make that same mistake again. The worst thing she is going ot have to fight is the press with their stupid “polarizing” comments. Cuomo can just suck it up if she decides to run and who exactly is his constituency anyway? The obots? Also what if Cuomo loses reelection? That would COMPLETELY end any presidential aspirations he might have.
I don’t know. How does a candidate get delegates from a state when his name isn’t even on the ballot? Seems to me the DNC can do whatever the hell it wants. Unless we are ready to leave the party or stage a sit in or some other dramatic event, they are going to screw us in any way they see fit.
Teresa, I’m ready for a sit in.
OK, that’s two of us. We’re on a roll. = )
Wake up and smell the coffee! She isn’t going to run. Do you really think the DNC thinks it owes Hillary anything? No. It does not. As far as her constituents are concerned, the party has found that it is very easy to get them to go along. Just scream bloody murder about the Republicans taking their rights away and they jump. Or LIE TO THEM. Tell them over and over again that she’s running in 2016. They will wait patiently. Then, when it is her turn, tell everyone that she’s not a viable candidate anymore for some reason. They’ll go along with it.
Jesus tap dancin’ Christ, are all the Clintonistas so fricking naive???
The constituents I’m talking about are working class voters who don’t have a candidate this election and probably are not going to show up to vote this year. I don’t think the threats about the “rights” work with them. That only works with suburban women IMO.
I will wait and see if she runs. She very well might not run. Whether she runs or not does not affect whether I’m going to vote for Obama or not. This might work with some and I have seen that narrative shopped about how if Obama wins it is going to make it easier for Hillary to run in 2016. I think that’s a bunch of bunk I actually think Obama winning will MAKE it harder for her to run and win in 2016. I think her best shot is running against a President Romney.
But I don’t think the DNC can stop her if she wants to run. Last time they tried to get her out of the race months before the end of the primary and it didn’t work. Oh, I’m sure they’ll try but there are a lot of primaries where people can vote not those stupid caucuses that brought us Obama.
She is not going to run. You will be waiting forever for that to happen. Her political career was crushed by those assholes.
BTW, I believe working women care about reproductive rights as much as anyone. It’s just that they have been closer to the economic issues than suburban women have been previously.
If I were you, I’d give up nursing any dreams that Hillary will be president in 2016 or ever afterwards. It will make people complacent. That’s just what is intended. It’s like waiting for the apocalypse because you think you might be saved. Nah-gah-happen.
It’s actually VERY like the “Waiting for Gore” movement in 2007 which possibly even more than the Edwards (fake) campaign gave Obama the space he needed to get going.
Looking back, that was obviously an Anyone But Clinton movement.
Actually I’m not going to “wait forever”. I will wait and see if she passes on 2016. It’s not like I have a candidate anyway. Like I said she very well may pass on 2016 and her presidential aspirations may be shot. It might be that taking a position in the Obama Administration damaged her more than anything else.
What do you think the solution is? I can’t think of any solution right now to our problems other than working on issues and staying away from parties.
Here is a little something I remember reading about Cuomo from a New York State perspective. I can’t remember where I read it.
The bridge over the Hudson River at Tappan Zee has been getting old and wearing out and is too small for the heavy traffic demands. When plans were made to build a matching new span, many people said something like: lets make the new span railroad ready, so that if/when so many people want to commuter-rail into NYC from higher up along the Hudson, the suitable rail lines can be laid along the railroad ready space for them. And Cuomo all by himself worked every lever of power to kill destroy and prevent that idea. So South East New York will get a KARZ ONLY!! new Tappan Zee Bridge. Have I been misinformed? Or is that historic blow against resource conservation a part of the Governor Cuomo legacy?
Makes you wonder what was in it for him or his to keep that bridge auto only.
It won’t be cars only. It will be rail ready, and the toll will go from the current $5 to $14. I have some friends who cross it several times a day in they work, and this could put them out of business.
*their work*
Hey, RD, didn’t you know that it’s time for an Italian-American president? Hillary can run in 2024. She’ll be a shoo-in after eight years of Cuomo. Go Dems!
Exactly.
If hypothetically there were a HClinton vs. Cuomo battle, which would Geraldine Ferraro support?
Clinton
I left the Democratic Party in 2008. That’s when I said: &*#k you, and the donkey you rode in on.
Wonderful piece. Should be required reading in every school, household and church. The Democrats designed their own failure, for the party, for the nation and for the world.
We can still support women for President. Roseanne Barr is heading the Green Party, with Cindy Sheehan as her Veep. Why throw away your votes on these nasty men of either party when there are smart women in the picture!
Jill Stein is running for president under the Green party. Where the heck did you come up with Roseanne Barr and Cindy Sheehan??
Barr ran under the Green Party in the CA primary, She made a showing better than the original candidate listed for the Peace and Freedom Party. So she switched.
tp://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/
Arrrrggghhh! The kid is driving me crazy with amino acid questions.
“How does this combination work?”
{{launch into explanation}}
“No, just give me the short version”
“There is no short version”
“Then be quiet, I have to think”
??? “YOU asked ME for help.”
“Would you say that an enzyme interacts with the substrate?”
“The enzyme stabilizes the transition state of the substrate”
{{blank stare}}
“Yes, the enzyme interacts with the substrate. Go to bed.”
“But this is my hooooommmmmmeeeeewwork”
“It’s getting late”
“One last question, a basic amino acid can interact with…”
{{Shoot me now}}
Here is an allegory our high school biology teacher told us to give us a “feel” for what an enzyme (which is a subset of catalyst) does.
A horse-dealer let his 17 horses to his three children in his will. Child One was to get half the horses. Child two was to get a third of the horses. Child Three was to get a ninth of the horses. The children could not figure out how to do this without grinding the horses up into dividable horsemeat. Along came a wandering peddler on a horse. He said “add my horse to your 17 horses just long enough to do the math. Half of 18 is 9, a third of 18 is 6, and a ninth of 18 is 2.
9 + 6 + 2 = 17. Problem solved.” And so it was. And the peddler rode away on his horse. The peddler’s horse was the ‘catalyst’.
The allegory won’t help with your daughter’s homework, but might it help her get to sleep?
She went. The question is, will she stay there?
She should have left the Obama cabinet a year ago. They’ll hang her out to dry for the Benghazi disaster.
Yes, there will be a lot of screaming and tearing of hair about the lack of marines in Benghazi. But if there were marines in Benghazi, there would be Democrats screaming that there are “boots on the ground” and gawd knows why the left has to be so damn schizophrenic about foreign policy. It doesn’t like ANY options. Americans should just stop interacting with the rest of the world. It’s safer and less controversial and more respectful of other cultures yada-yada-yada. And then there would be the House Republicans scrutinizing the State Department asking why it thought it needed the extra expense of marines when we have contractors. Isn’t the private sector good enough for you?? And does the White House actually back up its State Department or does it let it swing in the wind so that it looks vulnerable and easy to whack Hillary when Obama needs to distract attention from his poll numbers?
FUBAR is the correct name for this, I believe.
Great, I was just drifting off into the arms of Morpheus and now that fricking amino acid conversation is going to keep me up all night. I’m stimulated now. @#$!
And she can’t find her retainer and her pillowcase is not right and she backwashed into the bottle of seltzer and now it’s contaminated and she thought I ought to know. Why won’t she go to bed??
I’m not saying it’s either fair or justified – I’m just saying that, if the Administration starts catching heat over Benghazi, it will deflect all blame from Obama onto Hillary. That’s the way these guys roll – the buck stops anywhere but with them.
Yes, from the standpoint of maintaining her reputation, Hillary made a mistake entering this administration at all. She’d have served her self-interest better by staying in the Senate.
As for foreign policy, bring our people home, dismantle our bankruptive quasi-empire of bases in countries that don’t want us around anyway, slash our “defense” spending to what is actually needed to defend this country (which probably is something like a tenth of what we spend), and use the freed money to create a welfare state for the common citizen, like they have in civilized countries.
Of course, that won’t happen, since the REAL primary purpose of the “defense” apparatus (I include the covert-action capabilities) of the United States of Fubarica is to enable US and multinational corporations to plunder weak countries with impunity, ever since the National Security Act established the modern warfare state in 1947. That is the main reason “why they hate us.”
To hell with the Empire. I want our Republic back.
Excellent post…I agree with most of it..however I have to say Hillary could not return to the Senate with Obama in the White House.. Could Not…she would then have to be part of Obama’s sell out to the health insurances companies and also lay down as he endlessly sold out to the GOP at every turn…which she couldn’t do. And while being the Senate post 2008 , if Hillary didn’t do her upmost to sell Obama’s shit burgers 101% ,she would be endlessly piloried in the press for her “sour grapes”. The O stink is bad enough at State, if she was in the Senate it would be far worse .
Part of the attraction of SOS imo was it removed her from domestic politics completely . If she could fight the forces behind Barry Inc. all by herself successfully, she’d be at 1600 PA Ave. She’s not. So Hillary chose to remove her self from the crime scene . I wish it was otherwise, but I can’t blame her
Hillary leaves a position once it ceases to exist
She was the last free agent 1st lady, she stayed in the Senate as long as it was an actual functioning body, She’s leaving SOS as it’s becoming a place for a war criminal, given our ever expanding proxy wars etc. . If that wasn’t the case, she would not be leaving…imo
Disagree with Hillary staying in the senate. If she had stayed in the senate, she would have been part of Obama’s disastrous economic policy.
My GOD! There is a man who is frustrated! This shall not stand!
Exactly! one of the biggest things that helps a Cuomo 2016 bid with the DNC( besides a penis of course) is he’s from NY and so can be used to nip any Hillary movement right in her now home state. So Hillary is already helping this political trust fund brat just by existing
How dare she breathe! Some man somewhere might want that air!
Are all the Clinton supporters, all 18(?) million of them ready to swear this oath?
“I will live to see Cuomo lose.”
Makes sense that this should be starting in NY Times. The home of the irrational anti-Clinton sentiment since the 90s (they invented Whitewater, remember? The NYT reporter actually sought a RW District attorney on the Clintons after looking into some numbers of that real estate deal. As for Cuomo? Didn’t vote for him as governor either. he was running in 2001 and was asked in an interview if he thought hir “Jr” status might be a problem. “Look who is in the White House” he answered. And he has been in Gore’s team at the time, intimately aware of the theft. Legitimizing W with one joke – he is political trash to me forever. This new twist – just the cherry on top.
As I remember, the NyTimes’s antiClintonism was driven by the Editor In Chief Howell Raines who was also from Arkansas, I believe. But he was from a self-identified “better class” of people and probably seethed with resentment that someone from genuine White Poverty should be Yale/Rhodes Scholar/President while Howell Raines . . . from
a “better class” of White People, was what . . . Chief Editor at the New York Times? So Raines used the Times to get what envy-driven spiteful revenge he could.
I wonder what it would take for so-called “feminist” political organizations to do something (anything) to chastise the Democrats. The older Dem. leaders have a good deal and will never change. Illinois N.O.W. once did something, refusing to endorse Obama in 2008, stating that when women needed Obama, he wasn’t there, referring to his many Illinois Senate “present votes” on pro-women’s issues, which are the same as “no” votes in the Illinois Senate. National N.O.W. ignored this voting record and went with the same promise of future behavior that the Nobel Committee did. As long as women are going along with the Dems about-face, reinforcing it, it will only get worse.
137 present votes. The man is a cardboard cutout.
I got my political bloggy news from Hullabaloo all during that time. I had never heard of Riverdaughter or The Confluence and I couldn’t look at Kos because it was so physically ugly a blogsite.
Does anyone here remember Digby saying anything about Obama’s many Present votes or anything else about Obama’s record and/or behavior? I don’t remember ANY of that ever even being TOUCHED on by Digby, who was my blognews source over that whole time.
Obama has got to be someones puppet. But who pulls his strings? The Media will even create an alternate reality to keep him in office. Why should they care who our president is? It could be someone in media pulling his strings.
“Cardboard cutout” . . . interesting. I believe the Intelligence Community has a word “cutout” for a false-flag person planted and guided into position to do something without being traced back to the lab which fabricated him.
Obama as “cutout”. Whose “cutout” is he? What laboratory was he designed in and launched from? Who is his “controller”? Who is his “case officer”? (Am I even using those terms right?)
Have you ever read Joseph Cannon? He’s supporting Obama’s reelection now but, he’s done a lot of research about Obama’s history.
I haven’t. I realise I should. I suppose I was a little pre-put-off by his pre-emptive declaration that “there will be no 9/11 Truthery permitted on this blog”. Especially because 9/11 Truthery is a code-word for pointed questions against the Mainstream Conspiracy Theory of 9/11 being peddled by the MSM-Government Complex. But I realise I shouldn’t let that stop me from reading his blog.
One problem is that there are so many good blogs and how does one decide which ones to read? If there are a million blogs and a hundred thousand of them are good and ten thousand of those are really good, which few does one read? How does one decide?
I’ll see if I can dig out the specific ones I’m thinking of. There is no reason to slog through everything. The no 9/11 Truth thing came about because he really was deluged with weirdos getting seriously angry with him for not writing the blogs they wanted to write.
Great post, RD, you might find this study interesting. It’s not anything we don’t already know but it’s a good study that proves gender bias. It also simply shows why any women running for president will face an uphill battle. I’m voting Green Party this year. I’m still bitter! http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/unofficial-prognosis/2012/09/23/study-shows-gender-bias-in-science-is-real-heres-why-it-matters/
I just posted on this subject this morning.
“the competent, resolute, experienced, intelligent DEMOCRAT you’ve been waiting for”
Competent? She ran one of the most poorly-organized presidential campaigns in history, going from frontrunner flush with cash to afterthought in a few months. Experienced? At what? One term in the Senate and 4 years as Secretary of State aren’t exactly a bounty of experience. And how intelligent can she be having agreed with every single stupid foreign policy blunder of Obama and his Republican Secretary of Defense?
Ah, yes, the urban legend that will never die.
In what universe does a candidate that wins CA, PA, NY, NJ, CT, MA, TX, OH, IN, WV, FL, MI, MO, NV, NM, etc, etc, become a candidate with a poorly run campaign? Her campaign was so successful that Obama had to have the DNC steal 4 delegates from her so he could be anointed the nominee. When you can show me that Obama won NY, NJ, CA, PA, RI, MA, KY, WV, OH, TX, FL, MI etc, etc, in some cases by 10% or more, as in NJ and CA and NY, then you can come back and tell me that he was a better campaigner. But you can’t tell me he’s better because he won Idaho. The only advantage he had was enough money to buy off the DNC and the superdelegates. You can call that a better campaign, I call it fraud.
And compared to Obama, Hillary had a full Senate term and part of another one before she declared. In what universe did HE have more practical experience than SHE did?
As for “blunders”, before she became SOS, all we heard was that she was going to drag us into war with Iran. People swore on it. They deliberately voted against her to prevent war with Iran. So, now she’s SOS and guess what, no war with Iran.
If she were president, she might have had the same problems getting us out of the war but there are a couple of things that would be different: 1.) she would have given her State emissaries power to actually do something, which Obama hasn’t done with Hillary’s State department employees and 2.) She wouldn’t make an announcement every year saying that the war is over when it clearly isn’t.
Go play on Military Highway. Stupid people make us cranky.
I used to kind-of believe that till I found out about The Confluence several years too late. Her campaign started off poorly but apparently learned and recovered quite well, thank you. ( I sometimes wonder whether Mr. Bill did some unecessary reputational and image damage by mouthing off right after the South Carolina primary. His language certainly sounded “raycially interpretable” to me and I wonder how many AA voters and AA sympathisers felt betrayed and disgusted by it).
And I don’t remember Digby saying word one about the deceit and pressure being orchestrated by the DNC leadership at the convention.
What I remember was Larry Johnson giving birth to the Birtherism movement and as far as I knew, that was the face of HRClintonism. I found it very repellent. (I found my way to Larry Johnson by way of James Wolcott of vanity fair when he headlined on his blog a guest blog by Colonel Patrick Lang on Larry Johnson’s No Quarter blog. That is how I found my way over to Sic Semper Tyrannis). And since Digby didn’t link to The Confluence ever (EVer), I heard nothing of The Confluence and what I have been retrospectively reading about lately.
I do remember Digby highlighting the antiClinton misogynism, so there is that.
I repeat, her campaign didn’t start off poorly. By supertuesday, she had won CA, NY, NJ, MA, MO, CT, FL, NH and MI. If it hadn’t been for fricking Iowa, Obama would have conceded. But because he was able to screw with Iowa, being that Illinois was right next door, it made her look bad when she lost it.
Then. The DNC withheld Florida and Michigan from her win columns.
Don’t you get it? It was all designed to make hey look like she was running behind and that her campaign was off. But it was just the opposite. I’ve never known any party who blew off their candidate who won all the big states. That’s just unheard of. But the party broke all the rules to get Obama the nomination.
Think of it. He didn’t win any of those big states except Illinois and Georgia. All of the other huge Democratic states were hers, in some cases by double digits and that was by Feb 5, 2008, which was EARLY.
What I want to know is why even people who should know better are still repeating this fiction.
It only gives the Obots an excuse to keep rationalizing.
You, or you and Katiebird, or you/Katiebird/and other people should write some kind of book about all this and find out how to get the whole story told with all the needed evidence, charts, graphs, etc. so it
can get beyond the blogosphere. At the very least a “here’s the whole story” long post perma-linkable somewhere so people can refer to it and link back to it on all sorts of blogs. Not all blogs would delete
or censor such a post.
We certainly have a lot of material to work with!!
I realize it would take a lot of time, and it is selfish of me to ask busy people to do such a thing . . . . but a long post of as many pages as it takes to lay out all the timelines, all the primary vote totals and when they happened as against all the caucus vote totals and when they happened . . . and charts and graphs and visual aids to make it very clear for slow thinkers like myself. So that we slow thinkers could follow the trail of smoking breadcrumbs from the very first crumb to the very last crumb.
And a whole section devoted to the atrocious behavior of O-supporters and a careful description of every stage of the O-Coup plan against the primary-caucus voters and against all the delegates.
Complete with ugly testimonials from people who witnessed particular
kinds of abuse of process. Naming and shaming. The time-delayed destruction of reputations and futures and careers which deserve to be destroyed.
And if you-all decide to create such a long post, it would surely deserve its own Permanent Sub-Link Status, so that it would be up there and linkable as long as this blog exists. That way it would not only be weaponized, it would be disseminatable. Word of its existence
and linkage could be spread from blog to blog to blog over time.
Thank you so much for the encouragement! I think it would make a really fun project.
FWIW, 20 states do not have a woman in either the House or the Senate. Three of the 20 (OK, SC, NM) do have a woman governor, in each case a Republican. Many are small with one or two House members but some are mid-size or a little larger (NJ, VA, GA, IN). Iowa has an out-sized role in selecting the President and is one of only two states never to have had a woman as Governor, U.S. Senator, or member of the U.S. House. Iowa, as you might remember, put Obama out front and gave Hillary a third place finish. Des Moines Dem, a local woman was convinced that Hillary never had a chance in Iowa and would finish behind any credible campaign. She was right.
One other difference between Hillary and Obama. Hillary had a significant private sector career while Obama was limited to a part-time job teaching affirmative action law and a short term position as a community organizer. Big advantage to Hillary. The difference between Obama and Lincoln’s “careers” is exactly that: years spent as a practising lawyer, and a good one. Years spent connecting with people. That and a heart.
This is a slightly off-beat comment since it involves just the Maine issue you discussed, but it’s been really bothering me. As you point out, they sidelined Pingree, but what gets me is that they’ve really kneecapped the Dem nominee, state senator Cynthia Dill. The research I’ve done on her shows that she’s young-ish (mid 40s), a real progressive/liberal, and has a good record as successful and ambitious lawyer and legislator. On the subjective side, she’s attractive and seems to connect well on a personal level. Everything I know or have studied about politics going back to high school tells me that this is the CV of a candidate either party would love to have and support. But, instead, the Dems are playing footsie with this King guy, a has-been who had a few turns as governor and doesn’t seem to have any larger horizons than checking the next box of offices held. It’s a criminal waste of talent, of fostering and nurturing the next generation of front-line officeholders for your state party. Short-term, I get (sorta) their logic about controlling the Senate yadayada and their small-c conservative bet on the independent they hope (?) caucuses with the Dems. But why not take a chance on a real, liberal, Democratic possible rising star in a presidential election year where more Dems than usual will go to the polls? It’s short-sighted and stupid, and it raises all the issues you discuss about what the party’s priorities really are and who they care about.
I’m beginning to get the picture. With Fox news driving the narrative, Dems may have felt they needed to get a “moderate” in the senate seat. But all of the female candidates they have are liberal/ progressive.
But instead of saying, this is crazy, we’re undermining our party values, they cower and go with King.
It doesn’t seem to occur to them that they could have a twofer by vigorously backing a woman who cares about working class and gender issues.
I think that’s why they’re giving the cold shoulder to warren. If she wins, it will show the old Democratic message is still viable as long as you have a strong candidate who will collect attention.
But that’s too much work, it’s too risky.
Ahhh, that’s the real problem. The Democrats have become risk averse.
Worse. The few women that the Democratic machinery is willing to support are unpopular conservatives and Obama water carriers like Claire McCaskill. The rest have to run against the machinery to get anywhere. It isn’t just Maine, either. Maine, Hawaii, New Jersey, makes no difference. Except that in Hawaii, the women running for the House and the other running for a Senate seat beat the male establishment candidates in the primary.
I think you put your finger on it about risk aversion. It seems to go beyond narrow political orientation, positions on the issues, or tactics/strategy. Whenever you have anyone like Warren or Drew Westen talk about changing the narrative in order to actually push a liberal agenda, they get shouted down as amateurs, zealots, fools, and what not, but what I sense is fear at the prospect of going with your genuine convictions and seeing what happens. There always seems to be some reason of the moment (Senate control, presidential election) not to do it, but when will the “right” moment arrive? Instead of always reacting to the different risks posed by the status quo and its defenders, why not take a risk now and then and have them react to us for a change?
The NeoDemocrats resent and reject those values. They are Catfood Democrats now. Which ones aren’t? Perhaps the 26 Democratic Senators who signed a letter stating they oppose the Simpson-Obama Catfood Plan for Social Security?
(By the way, Senator Dickie-poo Durbin is a Catfood Democrat now. Just like Obama.)
We stopped watching David Letterman (and haven’t watched him for as much as a minute since) after he had Brian Williams on his show during the Primary Season and Brian (with sad deliberation) explained that it was ALL about the numbers and that since the Florida and Michigan delegations would not be seated at the convention, there was No WAY for Hillary to have a sufficient number of delegates to clinch the nomination.
No. Way. Because none of the Florida and Michigan delegates would be seated.
And Letterman nodded seriously and wondered why she was such a spoiler and staying in the race.
And we turned the Television Off.
THAT was an interview with a network anchorman — not some mouthpiece for the Obama Campaign.
And they both sat there and pretended that they believed that the Florida and Michigan – two of the most important states to a Democratic (anyone’s) Presidential hopes – would NOT be represented at the Democratic Convention.
It was absurd — but somehow it worked! Hillary’s delegates from those states were kept completely out of the count until after the last primary. Even though there was never a chance that they would be completely shut out of the convention.
For all the talk of THE RULES — the rules are there to facilitate the delegate selection process. NOT to shut the citizens of any state out of representation at the convention.
Did they only pretend to believe it? Or did they really believe it?
Because Howard Dean and the DNC apparatus and all its mouthpieces had kept saying that the MI and FL delegates would be completely non-seated and uncounted.
And the whole parallel history of this not-seating/yes-seating/ re-assigning of delegate numbers would also deserve to be written about in any grand history of the whole deal, complete with laying it out in timeline parallel with the ongoing primaries and caucuses.
Absolutely.
Well to do them justice, I believed it for about a day.
But, then I pictured the convention and imagined how it would look if those states weren’t there. And (innocently) thought about what the newscasters would say about the unprecedented void. Would they have empty chairs? Would there just NOT be the Standard for Florida and Michigan?
And then imagined the general election after those states were shut out of the convention.
By the end of the day, I realized it was absurd. But, People like Brian Williams, Ezra Klein. Kos and Kevin Drum certainly sounded sincere when they said it would violate the rules to seat the delegations. So, who knows?
Reporters, broadcasters & journalists showed their incompetence that year. They never discussed how the lock out would work.
If they did then they’d realize that it COULDn’t work.
Oh — and this was before (possibly leading to) I was a Hillary supporter.
I always thought the Hillary in 2016 idea was crap. Even if it were true why would it cause me to vote for Obama now? Surely Hillary would have a much easier time if she were running against a Republican incumbent who had had 4 years to screw things up and make people mad. The only hope of purging the Obots form the Democrat Party is to make sure Obama is a one term President. IF Hillary runs in 2016 I will vote for her.
This makes me raise again the most-unwelcome question . . .
if Obama ” MUST be defeated” as his law professor Unger said . . .
is it merely enough to vote Third Party? Will Third Party votes all by themselves be enough to assure Obama’s defeat?
I would cut off both arms before I voted for Obama but I would hang myself before I voted for Romney/Ryan. McCain is a fricking liberal prince compared to those two and I cried when I voted for him. There are some dark places that I will not go.
I expect I will do the same . . . voting for Anderson and taking the risk that Obama might win Michigan by 1 vote. That would make me feel pretty bad.
Unless the 90 million who are expected not to vote actually DO vote — and for 3rd party candidates, there are no good outcomes for this election. Unless you consider the (possible) complete exposure of the Democratic Party as a party useless to workers and would-be workers.
( And we would also have to purge all the Ofunders and the Obackers and the Ocontrollers and the Ocase-officers from the DemParty as well. If we merely purge out the Obots but leave all the funders and backers and case officers and controllers in the Party, they will engineer a whole new Obama to attract a whole new bunch of Obots).
( One wonders if it would be simpler though not easier for all the Free French Democrats . . . if you will . . . to quit the Party en masse and label all those who remain as the Vichy Democrats . . . and work from outside to exterminate their Vichy Democrat Party).
It would and it could if not for the still raging plague of Clinton Derangement Syndrome that has contaminated even the Free French aisle of the party.
(see ProNewerDeal below for details)
f both Cuomo & Sec H Clinton (Warmonger, & beneficiary of >$10M of 2B2F Bank$ta Bribes via “speaking fees” to Billy Clinton). Typical DLC hacks, we’ve had enough of those Clinton, Obama, etc.
for 2016 let’s get a genuine New Deal, economic Progressive, Prof Elizabeth Warren for President!
If the Democratic party fails, it will be due to people like you who think your judgement can be substituted for everyone else’s.
I don’t know about anyone else on this board, but the people who went out of their way to give us Obama have no legitmacy with me.
You have lost all your credibility.
I do not support 0bama, it seems you did not clearly read my comment.
I am policy-based, not politician/cult of personality or demographic based. I’d happily support an earnest genuine economic Progressive, regardless of her/his demographic factors like age, gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.
0bama is just like Hillary Clinton, a DLC hack like Rahm Emmanuel, 1%er/Plutocrat servant, a financial svcs tool, a Ronald Reagan Jr.
It’s time for a FD Roosevelt Jr, a pro-99%er, a Newer Dealer, like Prof. Elizabeth Warren, or Rep. Donna Edwards. In the 2012 Pres election, the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein best represents these policies with her Green New Deal program. Unfortunately both 0bamney Reagan Jrs are worthless by comparison.
You are cluelessly out of your gourd if you think either Clinton is as conservative as Barack Obama. We’re you in preschool during the nineties?? Some of us were grown ups and out memories are very good. Barack Obama couldn’t craft a decent policy even if he wanted to, and he doesn’t much want to. Clinton’s policies actually worked. He raised taxes on the rich, gave us the family leave act and Appointed the only two liberals left on the supreme court.
There isn’t one person who blogs here regularly who takes anything you say seriously. Your perception is horribly skewed if you think bill or Hillary Clintin would have conceded as much to the Repiblicans as Obama has. And one other thing: the powers that be deliberately rigged the nomination in 2008 for Obama, a fact that is easy to prove. If Clinton was such a neoliberal, indeed, if they both were indistinguishable from each other, it wouldn’t have made any difference which candidate won. In 2008, any Democrat could have won, even Dennis kucinich. But they put the thumb on the scales for Obama and he’s turned out to be much more conservative than his party loyalists realized.
Please don’t waste our time. You’re not converting anyone here.
Nice irony of you calling me juvenile, yet you use ad hominem attacks on me (including calling me juvenile) when you do not know me. I am just calmly discussing the issues, I do not insult you.
Why don’t you try to show how H Clinton is superior to E Warren on policy/ability/etc, if that is what you believe? Instead you just insult anyone who criticizes the policies of Dear Leader H Clinton?
Is it not true that Bill Clinton, H Clinton, 0bama, R Emmanuel are all DLC politicians? Is it not true that they have pursued similar anti-New Deal, anti-99%er, anti-Progressive policy goals?
It’s possible that Bill Clinton was MARGINALLY less conservative than 0bama, I never claimed otherwise. But they are SIMILAR, & I do not see the usefulness in the question: they would be similarly plotted on politicalcompass.org spectrum. It would be like arguing who is more of an economic Progressive bt E Warren, Donna Edwards, J Stein, or FD Roosevelt. I do not over-analyze such small policy differences; I’d be thrilled with any genuine Progressive President like E Warren/D Edwards/J Stein.
Bill Clinton oversaw much of the fin svcs deregulation. As such B Clinton was among the most responsible for the housing bubble & the 2007-now financial crisis: killing Glass-Steagal & implmenting the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (over-riding the advice of his actually competent & earnest CFTC Chair, Brooksley Born – a woman btw).
Bill Clinton’s NAFTA eliminated millions of USA manufacturing job. Again with the mass unemployment in 2012 with a 58% employed-to-population ratio, NAFTA was a failed policy in retrospect. Free Trade Theory’s creator economist Adam Smith presumed BALANCED TRADE with each nation’s imports equaling its exports; NAFTA had no prevision to prevent the US being in a consistent Trade Deficit.
Journalists reported B Clinton intended to privatize Social Security, but unlikely American Hero Monica Lewinsky inadvertently killed that B Clinton policy via their sex scandal (isn’t it stupid how in American Media, B Clinton’s sex scandal is considered worse than B Clinton murdering thousands of Balkans, or Bush 43’s Iraq War killing thousands of American soldiers & Iraq citizens, or 0bama’s killing an innocent 16 yr old US citizen boy in Yemen?)
B Clinton had a good record of +20M private sector jobs during his term, but in retrospect we see much of this was built on one-time productivity surge from info technology/internet, or on unsustainable financial bubbles.
So overall Bill Clinton Reagan Jr is no Progressive hero. Making a case that Bill Clinton is a Lesser Evil than 0bama seems like a pointless task, a true example of “setting the bar very low”.
😛
Like I told you before, we’ve addressed these issues already.
Here’s what I think you don’t get. The rest of the public LOVES the Clintons. They’ve had two disaster presidents since Bill left. They know the difference.
You do not.
Hillary is not Bill, she is an actual separate human being. Before the DLC the party lost huge many times. The DLC took a wrong turn and it’s a hollow organization with no power now, obsessing over it is silly. Hillary is no warmonger. Go watch her address to the senate on why she voted for the Iraq war resolution and then come back and explain why she voted for it. If you can’t do that, STFU because you’re just another uninformed idiot parroting the other uninformed idiots with a bad case of Clinton derangement syndrome.
I like Elizabeth Warren, but she is not ready and she is no Hillary Clinton, not yet, not even close.
I have to agree about Warren being not ready yet. That is not an insult to Warren and should not be taken that way. Electoral and office-holding politics is a totally new battlefield to Warren. If she can win her very first election that would be passing the entrance exam to get into the University of Politics. Serving 6 years in the Senate in the teeth of the Vast Rich Wing Conspiracy to trap her in amber there would be 6 more years of education.
But you know . . . I can think of someone who might well be “ready” and that would be Marcy Kaptur of greater Toledo. After winning several consecutive terms and winning some Congressional power and influence in the teeth of the Pelosian opposition, she proved her effectiveness in political combat when she and Kucinich got crammed into the same “new and improved” congressional district. She defeated Kucinich in what might be called ” the Night of the Long Tire Irons”. Yes . . . in terms of dispassionately brutal political warfare combat . . . Kaptur might be “ready”.
Marcy Kaptur?? She’s one of the few anti choice candidates in the house. I’m getting kinda sick of kowtowing to the religious right.
You know Hillary has been solidly pro choice throughout her career. She’s never pandered to the right on that issue. She’s not going to run but that’s not the point. The point is that you shouldn’t have to sell out on this issue just to appease a bunch of church ladies who refuse to evolve.
Yes, that is a problem. She is antichoice. (Kucinich started out antichoice but gave in to enough pressure.) But she is also pro Fair Trade. She has also (I believe) tried being as pro Hard ReRegulation against the financial bussiness community as she has been able to be in the House. If I could find a speech I remember her giving about people under possibly fraudulent foreclosure pressure should stay in their houses and be supported in doing so (“Occupy your house”, if you will) I would offer that link. Clinton’s pro-choiceness would make her better all around, but if she indeed is not running ever again, then
is anti-choice pro-99%-otherwise Kaptur better than the anti-choice pro-1% opponents if that is all there is?
If the next President succeeds in achieving all the Free Trade Agreements left to achieve by 2016, then the question is moot and pointless. No one is going to repeal and cancel any of those agreements and laws once they are achieved. But if every one of those agreements (TransPacific Partnership/etc.) remains not-yet-passed by 2016, then it may still be possible to save what shreds of American industry will remain by then by electing an anti-Free Trade candidate. If that candidate ends up being Kaptur, my choosing for national economic survivalism in the face of the upper class Free Trade agenda to bust America all the way down to de-industrialised raw-materials-exporting banana republic status will lead me to vote for Kaptur if that is the only economic patriot I have to vote for.
Do any of you remember Andrew Cuomo being called a racist by the Obama campaign?
This one is classic and perfect, Thank you so much for this RD. I can’t tell you (or me) how much time you have saved me arguing with the Obots for Hillary 2016 and cross-listed concern trolls. I just paste the URL for this and they shut up. So I have bookmarked this one. So many thanks!