I’ve always thought that one of the big reasons Hillary lost in 2008 was her support for the Iraq War. I can’t prove this, but there’s no question that Iraq was one of the few issues where Hillary and Obama had taken very different stances in the past. Likewise, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the New Republic’s circulation collapsed between 2002 and 2003. I agree with Matt Yglesias it’s the same with the DLC.
I think it’s hard to understand the decline of the DLC outside the context of the rise of Third Way during the same period. If it were really true that DLC’s market niche had become anachronistic, it’s hard to see why we’d see a new organization with the same basic political mission and diagnosis become prominent. The key thing, I think, is that Al From’s decision to go all-in on Joe Lieberman and the invasion of Iraq fatally weakened the institution.
I don’t think there’s any reason that a pro-corporate agenda had to go hand-in-hand with supporting the war (for example, the Koch brothers were not for the war and you’ll find plenty of people at their various organs who spoke out against the war). The DLC supported a disastrous policy that was very unpopular with most rank-and-file Democrats and that’s probably part of why it’s gone now.
Within establishment media, it was a great career move to support the Iraq War. Radar had an excellent piece on this a few years back. And to that we could of course add the cautionary tales of Phil Donahue and Ashleigh Banfield.
But there is pretty good evidence that supporting the Iraq War was a bad move for Democratic politicians and institutions that rely on support from liberals.
A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum)
Nate Silver has some interesting thoughts to add to this discussions:
New Yorker
It’s certainly a major reason why I voted for Obama over her. I saw it either as a) Obama had the foresight to see that the war would be a catastrophe, and thus he exercises better judgment on critical policy issues than she does, or b) Obama didn’t cave in to right-wing bullies (which is what I suspect happened with a lot of Democrats) and stood by this position even when many Democrats didn’t.
Either way, it told me he was more presidential than she was. I have no problem with Hillary and had no problem voting for her in 2006, after the war, but I simply felt Obama was better.
Jamie
It is they who did themselves in.
Loneoak
Sure, there’s no logically necessary reason for this, but the whole point of the DLC was to be make Democrats look more like Republicans to draw support from some imagined wishy-washy center. DLC’ers were pro-corporate to get money from Wall St. and to look serious to David Brooks, not in pursuit of a coherent economic agenda (the Koch’ers are coherent, if execrable). If supporting the Iraq War made them look serious to David Brooks, they were going to support it whether it fit with any other portion of their agenda.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
No question about it in my mind. In fact, I suspect if she’d opposed the war there would’ve been a “Draft Hillary” movement in ’04, and right now she’d be negotiating her memoir deal as her second term drew to an end.
Walker
I don’t know what you are talking about; Downloadable Content is alive and well in gaming.
Sorry, I just don’t associate that acronym with a political organization. Which may be an indication of how successful they have been.
WereBear
And the hippie bashing lives on.
Funny thing about that… I have been seeing things posted online like “I make my own sourdough and yogurt and breastfeed my children while I’m sleeping but I’m not a hippie!”
I don’t know what it means. Except…
And the hippie bashing lives on.
Sloegin
Water is wet. Fire is hot. Obvious things are obvious.
Morbo
He of all people should know.
fordpowers
I think the reason hilary lost is because her last name is clinton. In my life there have only been presidents named bush or clinton. and I wasn’t about to vote another one in. this is democracy not dynasty. Theres 300mm + peeps in this country – and i didn’t care if your name was osama or john jones. just so long as it isn’t clinton or bush.
Gin & Tonic
@WereBear: Maybe it’s me, but I just don’t see the hippie-punching in the quote you excerpt from Nate. McGovern in ’72 *was* the liberal alternative — it’s why I voted for him, because he was explicitly anti-war. He also *did* lose badly — I may still have a “Massachusetts: the one and only” sticker somewhere. I don’t see statements of fact as hippie-punching.
joes527
It was the decider for me.
When she didn’t close the deal on super-duper Tuesday and her campaign chartered an express bus to crazy town … that didn’t help her either.
Linkmeister
The DLC was also the go-to place for “Scoop Jackson” Democrats, those who thought a “vigorous” foreign policy was a good idea.
DougJ®
@Morbo:
Yup.
Napoleon
Holy shit – I didn’t realize how dramatic it was.
Maude
OT
Congresswoman Giffords spoke. She asked for toast at breakfast.
suzanne
I voted for Obama in the primary, but I would have happily supported Hillary in the general had she won. But let’s not kid ourselves; a HUGE reason that Hillary didn’t win is because she’s a woman. Sexism is still alive and well, even among supposed liberals.
Sly
The DLC defined itself through its opposition to any and all traditional positions of the American left for purposes of electoral expediency. This is not merely applicable to Iraq. Al From made pro-war arguments only to the extent that he thought such a position could help him win elections for his clients. Harold Ford snuggles up to corporate donors only to the extent that it gives him advantage in terms of campaign finance.
Appealing to a nebulous notion of “the center” for the purpose of getting votes is the only thing that makes the DLC platform internally consistent. It’s also the one thing that explains why the organization had a complete lack of vision for the future.
Judas Escargot
@New Yorker:
The first primary I could vote in was in 2008 (I finally gave in and registered as a Democrat that year– I hadn’t voted for a Republican since Bill Weld).
I walked to my voting place, still completely unsure if I was going to vote for Clinton or Obama.
When it came time to pencil in those little SAT-esque ballot bubbles, I remembered how lonely it had been to be anti-war in 2002-2003, thought “which of these two came out against that war when that meant something”, and voted for Obama.
So yes, while one personal anecdote is not data, I’m sure that his early stance on Iraq helped him in 2008.
srv
And yet many here think progressives somehow became PUMAs, because they didn’t lurv Obama enough.
JGabriel
DougJ(r):
It was certainly a factor, as several of the above comments testify. Dynasty fatigue (Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton) was probably another.
But I think the biggest reason Hillary lost was because she staffed her campaign with DC insiders who expected to win because they were entitled to it — for instance, they left plenty of delegate votes uncontested by not focusing, as Obama’s team did, on the districts with odd numbers of delegates. The Obama team campaigned better, and played a much smarter strategy at the district level than Clinton’s team did.
.
Judas Escargot
@Linkmeister:
The DLC was also the go-to place for “Scoop Jackson” Democrats, those who thought a “vigorous” foreign policy was a good idea.
…anyone else getting BullMooseBlog flashbacks?
“THE VITAL CENTER!”
JGabriel
@Maude:
Link.
.
GregB
I still think that the ’72 election was the fork in the road on our nations’ path to decency.
We took the wrong fork and we are a much worse off place for that.
Cat Lady
It started out being the Iraq War, but by 2008 everyone on the Dem side had pretty much come to their senses and figured out how to do a mea culpa, although Hillary really never did. In spite of that, I still would have found it difficult to choose between her and Obama, if it weren’t for her choice of people to surround herself with. What finally did it for me it was two words – Mark Penn. Then, there were the Haim Saban incidents, and then it just all really started barreling down hill into disgust. The delegate counting thing was the nadir of all that.
ETA: Hard working white Americans, also too.
MikeJ
@Judas Escargot: I was thinking about that jackass just the other day and couldn’t remember his name. Thank God.
catclub
@fordpowers: “this is democracy not dynasty.”
The evidence says you are in a minority. Kennedy, Bush,
Roosevelt, Evan Bayh, Quayle Junior!
Clinton was the consensus frontrunner for a long time,
ran a bad campaign AND ran up against someone running a much better one, who had NOT hired Mark Penn. ( And could also count delegates.) In spite of all that she was still competitive for a long time.
Bob
The one thing that the DLC proved is the the American people won’t vote for a fake Republican, when they can vote for a real one.
The DLC took credit for every Democratic victory, most of which did nt win on DLC issues, including Bill Clinton’s victory. When Bill was elected on economic issues and health care, not the DLC agenda.
Their positions were disasterous. The DLC agenda DID do us in and soured the Democratic party among union households after NAFTA passed and then Dems lost control of Congress in the 1990’s.
The DLC helped the Repubs sell the Dems as elists who don’t care for the little guy. Dems lost the entire progressive economic arguement. The DLC even startyed to say that Dems should cave on abortion rights and gay rights, which would have made Dems a clone of the Republican party.
New Yorker
@suzanne:
But racism is long-gone, especially among “Reagan Democrats”, right?
jeffreyw
The rumor that Al From choked on a gyro may be unfounded.
Linkmeister
@Judas Escargot: Oh, Lord. Marshall Wittman’s insufferable condescension, laid out day after day on that awful blog. He and Lieberman deserve one another.
Sockpuppet
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Um, no we’d be in the midst of a Republican presidency. I’m not sure whose, but if you really think Hillary Clinton (or John Kerry) would have done anything to curb Greenspanism at the Fed in time to ward off the financial crisis, you’re nuts.
It’s funny given how despondent people were at Bush’s reelection, but it was probably for the best in the grand scheme of things with how Obama’s turned out.
danimal
Slowly, Democratic institutions that jettison liberal positions are being replaced by less compromised Democratic institutions. The demise of the DLC is just another example.
I wonder if MSNBC (not really a Dem institution, but the closest thing in cable-land) is next. Olbermann may be on to something; there is a need for an unapologetic liberal POV in cable, and MSNBC has been a miserable mediocrity in filling it. Liberal thinking has been left out of the national conversation, and the institutions that supposedly speak for the left should adapt or prepare to be marginalized.
geg6
@A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum):
I think this analysis is correct. It’s something that my ex and I used to argue about a lot. He was a DLC supporter from the start and I, of course, was the house liberal, the DFH. The fact that I had the background in political science allowed me to see the DLC argument as less compelling and see that it wasn’t a necessary argument to make to win elections. The ex really thought that McGovern/Mondale were no different than Humphrey/Carter. And the tough primaries that both Humphrey and Carter endured (and let’s not even go into the fiasco that was 1968; that’s for Nixonland discussions), damaged them in ways that are hard to see if you don’t know to look for it.
The only person who was a DLCer who won was Clinton. And it wasn’t his DLC positions that got him elected, IMHO. He was simply a brilliant politician, a fantastic campaigner. The DLC didn’t help Gore, that’s for sure. And as for Hilary, the fact that so many DLCers supported the war, that she was politically entwined with the DLC, and that she voted for the war and refused to admit the mistake doomed her. I know I didn’t vote for her in the primary, mainly, for that exact reason. In fact, even the ex had become anti-DLC by that point due to the war.
Davis X. Machina
@Linkmeister:
@Judas Escargot:
IOW, The Scoop Jackson Democrat became a National Greatness-McCain-Non-Batshit-Crazy Conservative, before disappearing altogether.
The DLC became an infrastructure without a populace to support. What becomes of these people? Here’s a film to help us understand.
slag
@JGabriel:
True. And I kinda hoped that strategic ability would translate to his presidency more cleanly than it has.
But the war was a biggie. And Hillary’s more hawkish stance during the campaign didn’t help either, from my point of view.
That said, I have no doubt that my own point of view doesn’t necessarily coincide with those of the majority–even the majority of primary-voting democrats–so, I don’t know why Hillary or the DLC went down. All I know is that I’m not complaining about it.
Tim Cooper
Word! This was THE issue for me in the primary. I was simply not going to vote for a pro-war candidate. In fairness, Obama had a lot less on the line in 2003, so it certainly came with much less immediate political cost to be anti-war. But when push came to shove, Hillary endorsed Bush’s utterly awful policy.
EconWatcher
How about this hypothesis: The DLC died because there was no longer any reason for it. The mainstream Democratic Party now pretty much is the DLC–centrist on almost everything. Pretty much like “Old Labour” was purged when Tony Blair took over in Britain, here the left wing has very little remaining influence in the Democratic Party.
Bubblegum Tate
OT: Prepare yourself for the Tea Party Magazine! And pity the poor copy editors who work there. Can you imagine having to make grammatical sense of teabagger scrawlings?
timb
@New Yorker: me too. I also thought, and let’s laugh at this, that the crazies on the Right hated the Clintons SOOOOO much that they couldn’t act as silly toward Obama as they could here.
Prescience isn’t necessarily one of my skills
mr. whipple
The thing is, what is left for them to do? The Democrats have done their ‘part’ to deregulate, take corporate cash, tell unions to sit in the back of the bus and be quiet, and not do anything with social issues until public support is already firmly in their corner.
I honestly don’t know what’s left for them to sell.
Omnes Omnibus
@srv: “Progressives” and PUMAs are different animals. Neither are supporters of Obama, but I would never say they are the same thing.
gene108
@Loneoak:
I can’t fault the DLC for going after corporate money, since money is such a big factor in our political process.
Money matters in American elections.
One of the major reasons Bush, Jr. won in 2000 and 2004 is he raised more money than any Presidential candidate in history. He raised more money than anyone thought could be raised by a Presidential candidate (including myself). In 2004, one reason the Kerry campaign didn’t respond effectively to the Swift Boat ads is they didn’t have the money on hand to counter it and be able to match what Bush & Co. were able to spend in other areas of the campaign.
Of course thinking no one could raise money like Bush, Jr. was stood on its head, when Obama basically raised what Bush, Jr. did in 2000 and 2004 combined, for his 2008 Presidential run. If you don’t think being able to spend McCain into the ground didn’t help his chances, you are nuts.
One of the big advantages President Obama will have going into 2012 is he’s sitting on something like a $300 million war chest, left over from his 2008 campaign. If he didn’t try and raise funds for 2012, he’d probably have more cash on hand at the start of his 2012 election bid, than any Republican challenger.
Davis X. Machina
@EconWatcher: But there hasn’t ever been a Democratic Party equivalent of Michael Foot or Tony Benn, or Militant Tendency, ever. Not in my lifetime, anyway.
Such as there was, it was either outside the Party — SDS, Harrington’s DSOC, etc. — or if within the Democratic Party, much less ‘left’.
suzanne
@New Yorker:
Not at all. Racism was certainly at play.
But, for God’s sake, Hillary teared up for under ten fucking seconds, and the CW immediately became that she “was too emotional for the job”. Contrast with Boehner, who can’t fucking stop bawling wherever he goes, but supposedly that’s proof of his passion and virility, or some shit.
danimal
@timb: Me neither. My Clinton fatigue was a definite factor in supporting Obama.
The batshit insanity of the past two years has clearly shown that it doesn’t matter who the Dems nominate; they would froth with rage over Jesus Christ (D).
Davis X. Machina
@Davis X. Machina: Broke my own link to DSOC.
mr. whipple
It wasn’t just that reason, though. Democrats need foot soldiers to win elections and one of those traditional groups are unions. Union membership has cratered in the USA, so if you are a politician from a state that views unions as akin to commies, where are ya gonna get the support/money to run?
Brachiator
@suzanne:
A huge reason that Clinton didn’t win was that she was not especially qualified to be president, and a majority of voters rejected the fallacy that the spouse (husband or wife) of a leader is magically qualified to be leader just because of mere proximity to the Great Chief.
@DougJ®:
Newspaper and magazine circulation has been dropping like a stone as the InterTube has risen (and also with the rise of conservative media). I understand what you are saying, but the correlation may be weaker than you suggest.
General Stuck
The DLC was first and foremost a hub for profiteering dem consultant class that grew fat and happy under the Clintonista years, until Obama became president and before that Howard Dean was DNC chairman and began cutting off the sugar tit of democratic cash. The GOP lite policies they pimped were largely due to the fact that it was the GOP heyday in the sun until George Bush et al and gooper misgovernance in general put that out of vogue largely, and along with it the gop lite grifters and pols. Iraq had a whole lot to do with that from rank and file dem voters rejecting that particular brand of politicking in the wake of Iraq and about all things republican.
I will sing no songs and say no words other than good fucking riddance.
Davis X. Machina
Broke my own DSOC link.
El Cid
One of the heavy points of emphasis for the DLC was to run Democratic candidates with policies and rhetoric which could compete in areas assumed to be hostile to Democrats, such as in areas dominated by Southern whites. Thus a key reason for Gore’s selection.
From the DLC’s website:
Bill Clinton also was able to capture four Southern states apart from his own Arkansas (Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Kentucky, often labeled the ‘Upper South’ like WVa, both non-Confederate states) and won a strong electoral vote victory because of it.
[The relevance of which to the demise of the DLC is that the white male South is pretty much a given for Republicans now. Unless the GOP again can govern freakishly enough to make such voters disenchanted or pissed off again.)
But the DLC is also the group furious with Al Gore’s campaign because they felt he had returned to the losing traditions of extreme populism and not-white-suburban-America policies.
From the DLC’s own website:
So there you go. Gore almost lost the election because of his angry, populist, anti-New-Democrat strategy.
And a big part of that was because he didn’t show up at the DLC conference to discuss the 2004 campaign, therefore it showed how wrong his campaign strategy was in 2000.
That arrogant fat bearded environmentally obsessed prick Al Gore, who failed to hobnob with the heroic Democratic leaders in the DLC who mainly wanted to read him the riot act for his Marxist-Leninist campaign of anarchist violence against real sane Democrats.
Suffern ACE
@catclub: Yeah. For me Mark Penn is really the face of the DLC and what it stands for and who stood up for it. It isn’t even “limosine liberalism”, which can be insufferable, but means well. It wasn’t about building organizations to counter right wing organizations, but more like inviting the right wing in so that one could charge a fee, keeping the Democratic party afloat because it would mean a job for him.
Suffern ACE
@El Cid: This. The DLC couldn’t even be counted on to stay loyal on ONE OF THEIR OWN in Gore, and like to pretend that it is hippies who are bad democrats.
Napoleon
@El Cid:
In reality Gores numbers rallied when he went the populist route. One of the great mistakes Dems have made, and Obama is an egregious example of this, is not calling out the financial elite in this country in clear terms.
suzanne
@Brachiator:
I would buy that explanation if she hadn’t been beaten by a first-term Senator.
I’m also recalling the endless friggin’ discussions in the media about her pantsuits and what that “meant”, and ***gasp*** the incident in which she wore a top low enough that one could see a hint of cleavage. As I said above, I supported Obama, too, but the 2008 campaign serves as a fabulous case in point for how women candidates are still treated differently than their male counterparts, both by the media and the public.
Zifnab
@gene108:
I sure as hell can.
The DLC decided the only way to beat the Republican Party was to become the Republican Party. And if we were talking sports teams or rival businesses, there’d be some wisdom in that move.
But the DLC traded progressive policy for corporate coin. That’s the very definition of corruption. They sold out, in every sense of the words.
When 2000 rolled around, and everyone under 30 was staring at Bush and Gore, thinking they were looking at reflections, the DLC took a fair share of the blame. Everyone was playing so hard to look like “moderates” that the rather stark difference between the two was unapparent.
Svensker
@suzanne:
Really? I don’t see it. I never liked Hillary but it wasn’t because of her gender, but because she is such a corporatist. Her war support was the icing. Just from personal experience, I saw much more racism from liberals than sexism — a whole lotta people I knew either didn’t think Obama could be elected because of his race and therefore supported Hill, or they just didn’t like the idea of a black president (“not yet”) and supported Hill. I knew quite a few of those folks. Didn’t know a single liberal who opposed Hill for her gender. Anecdote ain’t data, but still…
geg6
@suzanne:
You are right that sexism in politics is still alive and well, regardless of what party or party faction we are discussing (even the progressives, if less so than others). But this is simply a fact of life in politics, one of the last bastions of male supremacy (right along with the military and Wall Street). But that doesn’t stop women from winning elections and it didn’t stop Hilary. Hilary stopped herself. She had it in hand and went and hung herself with the Republican-lite noose. Her vote on the war, her campaign’s racial dog whistles, and Mark Penn and company are only the most egregious mistakes she made.
jl
This post brings up a question I had not thought about before: what is the relationship, if any, between the DLC and Third Way, especially with regard to funders.
I don’t have time to follow this stuff in detail, but Third Way is like DLC, except with a different marketing gimmick. My impression of the DLC was a bunch of arrogant policy wonks and corporate money bags. Third Way has more of post partisan semi populist independent ‘somehow we can all get along’ veneer. Seems like a lot of talk about apealing to certain demographic blocks. But they seem to be peddling a lot of same substance.
Is that right, or not?
Same organizations funding them?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@suzanne: and Obama was called exotic for vacationing in Hawaii, and asked to explain political statements by Louis Farrakhan and Harry Belafonte, two men who to my knowledge, and I looked back in the day, he had never met. There is sexism and racism in this country, and there were sexist and racist blunders all during the 2008 campaign season. But Hillary Clinton, with just four more years of federal experience than Obama, and none of his state-level elective experience, tried to make “experience” and “qualification” an issue. Hillary Clinton played it safe and centrist as a Senator during the Bush administration, and then tried to sell herself as a “fighter”.
Again, sexism was a factor, undeniable. But it was not insurmountable
KG
My guess, and really, it’s only a guess, because we’re probably still a bit close to the history to be able to say with any certainty, is that Clinton’s presidency was to the “conservative consensus” that Eisenhower’s presidency was to the New Deal consensus. I tend to think that American politics works on something of a pendulum, particularly with respect to economic issues. By the mid-70s the pendulum was swinging back from progressive policies. Today, I think the pendulum is swinging back from something of laizze-faire attitude on economic issues. I hope we find a happy medium, going back to one phone company and price controls and an airline regulation scheme that doesn’t allow for direct flights isn’t going to sell. Nor would living in a world where banks can be “too big to fail.”
On social issues, I think we are on a long march towards the liberal side.
Corner Stone
And once again we see that Hillary Clinton is the only politician to ever pay a price for the Iraq War.
Anyone who believes a “Senator Obama” would’ve cast a vote at the time against the Iraq War is completely delusional.
dollared
@General Stuck:
“I will sing no songs and say no words other than good fucking riddance.”
Amen, brother. And five million unnecessarily unemployed Americans, and half a million dead Iraqis, say amen as well.
Corner Stone
@suzanne:
Of course this is correct.
As you mention further down, the “pant suits” the “cankles” the OMG! “cleavage!”.
Balloon-Juice was rife with sexism and pent up Hills Hate during the primaries. Lots of people said they would not vote for her because she was too “divisive”. Hmmm, I wonder who told them all she was divisive?
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
Interesting conclusion given she lost to a two year first term Senator.
Chyron HR
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, really. When are you Obotomized Obots going to stop giving your Messiah a pass for the things he did in a parallel dimension?
geg6
@Corner Stone:
Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.
I seem to remember another Dem who paid a heavy price for his Iraq War vote. I know plenty of so-called progressives who did not go all out for John Kerry specifically because of his war vote, but who, to this day, cry a river about how Hillary is the only one who ever got punished.
Get out of here with this garbage.
Gin & Tonic
@Brachiator:
Didn’t look to me as if she was necessarily more nor less qualified than Obama at that point. Unless, of course, having a dick is a qualification.
geg6
@Corner Stone:
Who had 8 years as a state senator before that. How much time did Hillary spend as a legislator before her Senate campaign? Oh wait. None. Zero. Zilch. And the only legislation she ever shepherded, despite being elected to exactly nothing, was an unmitigated disaster.
Corner Stone
@geg6: Wevs.
Kerry got fucked in Ohio.
You can take your stupid bullshit and go fuck off somewhere.
Napoleon
@Corner Stone:
Your first assertion is bunk.
In both 04 and 08 the candidates who did not vote for or support that war got huge early traction. That is just a fact.
As to your second assertion maybe, but that is not what happened so he never voted for it and is on record contemporaneous with the decision as being against it, so your comment is in the “If my grandpa had a v—–a he would be my grandma” territory.
IMO if Clinton never voted for that war she would be President today and Obama would have just survived a close call in getting re-elected to the Senate.
Corner Stone
@geg6: I’ve met half a dozen State Senators. Know how many I’d put on the top ticket?
Fuck you joker.
suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Concur. I believe it was one reason, and a big one, but she certainly was far from the ideal candidate.
Corner Stone
@Napoleon:
This is in no way the corollary to someone else being punished for a vote.
DougJ®
@Corner Stone:
I think she was qualified.
But Obama explicitly said he opposed the Senate resolution at the time and I think he deserves some credit for that.
Corner Stone
@DougJ®: I agree. But he was a State Senator in front of a super blue crowd.
IMO, anyone who honestly believes he would have voted against it if he was in the US Senate is fooling themselves.
People keep dropping this as if it was significantly equivalent, and it simply isn’t.
geg6
@Corner Stone:
LOL. If there is anyone who knows about stupid bullshit, it would be you. I know state legislators, too. And guess what? Some are great and some are idiots. I actually looked up Obama’s record in the Illinois state house. It looked pretty good to me. Again, please point me to Hillary’s legislative experience before she carpetbagged her way into her Senate seat. Except her disastrous failure to get health care reform enacted for her husband, that is.
joes527
Corner Stone: What’s next? Are we going to analyse the difference between Community Organizer and
Mayor of WasillaGrifter ?Both Clinton and Obama were a stretch in the qualification/experience department. The only real difference between the two seemed to be that Obama recognized that fact and Clinton did not. He ran on ideas and she ran as the safe bet. If her qualifications/experience had supported that position, she probably would have won.
Cat Lady
@Corner Stone:
You know, if she had fought as hard against Bush’s clusterfuck of a war and his torture regime in the Senate while she had such a high profile as she fought to get those delegates, she’d be president. There’d have been no room for Obama in ’08. Instead she advocated for some bullshit flag burning ban bill. There are many reasons not to have cared for her, and as a woman only a little younger than her, I can say it wasn’t sexism that turned me, or many of the other women I spoke to regularly during that time away from her.
Corner Stone
@geg6:
Speaking of LOL. This is the nee plus ultra of utter stupidity.
daveNYC
Except at the end of the day, Hillary did vote for it, and Obama did say he wouldn’t have. Reality trumps the shit out of every hypothetical.
srv
@geg6: Once again here, progressives = PUMAs. You and Omnes Omnibus should have a chat about who is confused.
IM
Why exactly are you re-fighting the primary wars now? Is it really in doubt, that the war helped Obama and hurt Clinton?
Corner Stone
@joes527: That’s not my argument, which should be easily observable.
Corner Stone
@daveNYC: Awesome.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as far as “qualifications” go: Over 35 and a natural born citizen. Other than that it’s just a lot of palaver. “Experience” hasn’t added up to much either. Unless you believe that John Quincy Adams, James Buchanan and Richard Nixon were better presidents than Abraham Lincoln.
Turbulence
Look, I don’t care what Obama would have done in some parallel universe.
Clinton’s war support made her unfit for all government service, including garbage collector. As did Edward’s. If you fuck up so badly that a million human beings are exterminated in a war for no reason, then you don’t get the Presidency.
I don’t care if other people might have fucked up in some hypothetical world. The point is, they didn’t. Is that fair? I don’t care. My job in life is not to ensure that rich powerful people are given absolutely every benefit of the doubt. My job in life is to enforce some accountability so people that are partially responsible for the extermination of a million fucking people lose power.
geg6
@Corner Stone:
Really? So she had nothing to do with that cluster fuck? Please, oh wise one, explain to me why we didn’t get health care under Clinton since the great Hillary was the one tasked with getting it done as the chair of the Health Care Task Force?
You really are stupid. Even Hillary admits she fucked this up.
Napoleon
@Corner Stone:
What are you talking about? This is an election, the very definition of a zero sum contest. Any support you give one candidate is automatically punishing the others. If I vote for someone because they took position x it automatically is punishing all other candidates who did not take position x for not taking position x.
IM
James Buchanan was one of the most experienced presidents ever.
geg6
@srv:
No, not progressives. “Progressives.” And I know the difference even if you don’t. I’ll give you a hint, though. Progressives would never hang out with Grover Norquist. “Progressives” jump into bed with him at the drop of a hat.
Carnacki
Who killed the DLC?
It was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick.
Lorenzo gave him up to the detectives.
Brachiator
@suzanne: RE: A huge reason that Clinton didn’t win was that she was not especially qualified to be president, and a majority of voters rejected the fallacy that the spouse (husband or wife) of a leader is magically qualified to be leader just because of mere proximity to the Great Chief.
Isn’t this the Republican argument? In any case, it doesn’t answer the nepotism question, which says that Hillary Clinton’s life in the White House does not confer bonus points. So at best, she would have been on par with Obama, and her poor management of her campaign worked against her, not just sexism. And I think that DougJ(r) that her position on Iraq worked against her as well.
I agree with you that this was nonsense. No question.
And Mormons don’t get a break compared with Real(tm). And an avowed atheist candidate probably doesn’t stand a chance.
The nasty thing about politics is that nobody gets a “fair” break. The crapmeisters are always looking for an angle. The great thing about politics is that sometimes the voters see through the crap.
As an aside, I think some “Hillary Must Be the First Woman President” furor kept Obama from considering another woman (e.g., Kathleen Sebelius and a few others) as a VP candidate, and possible future presidential candidate.
By the way, I would have supported Senator Clinton over any Republican, and I also think that she would be as subject to scurrilous sexist attacks as president, as Obama is being subjected to scurrilous racist attacks.
All that said, I think that her position on Iraq did more against her than sexism.
catclub
@daveNYC: “and Obama did say he wouldn’t have. Reality trumps the shit out of every hypothetical. ”
Indeed, and one hypothetical here is that Obama IN THE SENATE,
would have voted against.
We will simply never know.
joes527
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Who is talking about what makes the best president? This discussion has been about what wins elections. Different topic entirely.
JGabriel
@Bubblegum Tate:
Why do the Tea Partiers need another magazine? They already have Newsmax & World Nut Daily.
.
Kirbster
I could never shake the feeling that Hillary was nothing but a carpetbagger. She and Bill justed shopped for the easiest jurisdiction from which she could launch a presidential bid. They settled for New York. I’m not a resident of New York, but that would have pissed me off.
Corner Stone
@Napoleon: Go back and read what you wrote.
daryljfontaine
@Bubblegum Tate: I feel for the folks who have to transcribe the rantings from the original crayon.
D
catclub
@gene108: “he’s sitting on something like a $300 million war chest,”
Wow!
Maude
@Cat Lady:
This and geg6 also.
Let us not forget two things.
The Clinton volunteer email saying that Obama was Muslim, code for terroist. That email hung out there long enough to take hold and then Clinton disavowed it.
Tuzla.
When Clinton cried in NH, it was over How Hard It Was For HER.
It was fake and self serving.
If sexism is given as a reason instead of an excuse for Clinton’s loss, I have two words to refute that premise:
Nancy Smash.
General Stuck
@Carnacki:
That puts Mustard in a real pickle.
Inspector Dijon will solve the case.
Sandwich Killer?
catclub
This Clinton discussion started with a comment that they are sick of political dynasties. I think if Hillary had married someone different, who did not become president ( yes, I have heard the joke about passing by the gas station of the guy back in Arkansas who Hillary dated) this discussion would not be taking place.
Dynasties rule. Get used to it.
Tom Hilton
@A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum):
And Humphrey was crippled by…wait for it…Johnson’s refusal to let him come out against the Vietnam war.
Gin & Tonic
@Kirbster:
New Yorkers have a record of not minding very much. Cough-RFK-cough.
Carnacki
@General Stuck: I thought it was going to be Professor Plum, but Miss Scarlett gave him an alibi.
Gin & Tonic
@Gin & Tonic: FYWP. Why can’t I edit a comment? Anyway, that was supposed to be something like “cough” RFK “cough”.
drkrick
Yep, pretty stupid. I also remember the “hard working white people” line. Which was uttered by the candidate her own self, not some media types her opponent had no particular responsibility for. In light of that and a few other examples that don’t need rehearsing there, the Hilary! campaign had no standing to complain about this kind of thing – both sides were willing to blow the dog whistle when it suited them.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He may not have been the greatest President, but he was definitely better than Buchanan and Nixon. He did no permanent harm to the U.S. or the Office as a result of his Presidency, unlike the other two.
He went on to have a very distinguished career in Congress, especially trying to advance abolition.
His previous stints as Secretary of State and as a diplomat were good for America. I think he helped negotiate the purchase of Florida from Spain.
Wile E. Quixote
@suzanne:
Yeah, that’s why I supported Obama and caucused for him in Washington. “Sure he’s black” I said to myself, “but at least he has a penis, and it’s probably really big.” That’s all that mattered to me. The completely infuriating sense of entitlement that Clinton and her supporters had, that she was the front-runner and that this horrible negro parvenu from Illinois had no right to challenge her? Didn’t matter, it was all about the vagina. The incredibly stupid gaffes, such as lying about being under fire in Bosnia (and let’s face it, when you get 0wned on national TV by Sinbad you’ve really stepped in it) and dismissing Martin Luther King’s role in Civil Rights movement. Didn’t matter, it was all about her vagina? The incredibly incompetent management of the campaign, which seemed to be more about funneling money to Mark Penn and other consultants than it was about actually winning the nomination and the election, the complete ignorance of how the delegate selection process actually worked? Didn’t matter, it was all about the vagina. The whole “please ignore everything I said about the Iraq war before early 2007” the “please ignore how I fucked up on Health Care in the 1990s” and the “please ignore all of the pro-corporate votes I made in the Senate, including voting for the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Bill” positions that her campaign took. Didn’t matter, it was all about the vagina.
And of course this is why I would never want Sarah Palin to be president. It’s not about her stupidity and lack of anything even resembling intellectual curiousity. Doesn’t matter, it’s all about the vagina. It has nothing to do with her complete lack of honesty or ethics. Doesn’t matter, it’s all about the vagina. It has nothing to do with the petty vindictiveness she’s demonstrated over the years and the thought of having someone as vindictive as Richard Nixon once again occupying the White House. Doesn’t matter, it’s all about the vagina. It’s not about her completely revolting policy positions. Doesn’t mater, it’s all about the vagina. It’s not because she’s an asshole who can’t tolerate any criticism and who in fact thinks that criticism of her is akin to a “blood libel”. Doesn’t matter, it’s all about the vagina. It’s not because of her fake, folksy, Alaska wilderness gal Mama Grizzly bullshit. Doesn’t matter, it’s all about the vagina. It’s not because her husband is a whackjob who hangs out with a bunch of right-wing whackjobs who want to secede from the United States. Doesn’t matter. It’s all about the vagina. It’s not because she’s a quitter who couldn’t even hack a single term as governor of Alaska. Doesn’t matter, it’s all about the vagina.
Sockpuppet
So apparently John Quincy Adams sucked, Hillary Clinton is a carpetbagging dynastic bitch who never did anything on her own, Obama would have totally supported the Iraq War if only reality had transpired completely differently, being a state senator (being stuck in the minority doing nothing for 90% of his stay, mind, which the candidate himself said was beneath his time and talents) is a Big Fucking Deal, and there’s a difference between a progressive, a Progressive, and a “Progressive.”
Oh Balloon Juice, never, ever change.
eemom
wtf is going on here? I came here to find out who killed the DNC and suddenly I’m back in 2008.
Bubblegum Tate
@JGabriel:
I am not even making this up: Because “abolitionists, women’s suffragists, the civil rights movement, the conservative movement, et cetera — all had their own print publications.” Thus sayeth magazine rep Katrina Pierson.
Brachiator
@Gin & Tonic: RE: A huge reason that Clinton didn’t win was that she was not especially qualified to be president
Nope. Not even.
@Corner Stone:
Not at all. She lost to a better campaigner who made a better case than she did.
The point is that Hillary Clinton’s living in the White House didn’t give her (as she tried to claim) bonus experience points. The charges of sexism have to be weighed against the family romance that the spouse (gender neutral term) of a great leader somehow absorbs the powers and abilities of the leader or as mystical soul mate shares thee powers.
The Brits, for all their strangeness, got over this with Victoria and later rulers. Prince Albert was told in no uncertain terms “you ain’t the king and you ain’t ever gonna be king. You’re just married to the queen.”
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
Ok. We’ve had 44 now. How many have not had a pen!s?
Queen Victoria? Really?
srv
@geg6: Ah, so “progressives” who hated pro-war Hanoi Kerry and Obama are really FDL reverse-sexist-or-bigot hypocrite PUMAs.
Does this mean that not many progressive men read FDL? Or just non-sexist men read FDL? Or just sexist PUMAs who hate blacks more read FDL? I’m going to have to poll my Drinking Liberally crowd to find these “plenty” of people.
Just Some Fuckhead
@EconWatcher:
This.
The DLC won and retired a champion.
Turbulence
Corner Stone, I’m curious: if voting for a war that exterminated a million human beings isn’t enough to disqualify you from the Presidency, then what exactly is enough?
I mean, is the issue here that dead Iraqis don’t count as “people”? Or is the idea that Clinton had no responsibility for her vote or for her refusal to read the classified NIE?
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: How many have been black? Look, in my view it came down to this, in 2008 we were going to have either a black or female president. Any sexism was probably countered by racism, so that part was a wash. The reason Obama was the candidate is because he rounded up more delegates for the Democratic Convention. Is this a fight that we really need to fucking have right now? Should be repudiating Stalin as fucking well?
geg6
@srv:
No, it just means that stupid people do and say stupid things. I never brought up FDL, but since you insist, FDL is exactly one of the places full of people who hated Kerry and loved Hillary and are just fine with the idea of cavorting with ol’ Grover in the bathtub. Couldn’t care less if they are male or female, stupid is stupid no matter the gender.
And speaking of PUMAs, apparently they get vicious:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/02/drunk-man-climbs-tree-to-escape-pack-of-pumas.html
gene108
@Zifnab:
I think what people fail to clearly distinguish is how somethings have shifted towards liberal goals, while others just can’t return to the way they were.
In terms of work place discrimination / anti-sexual harassment type goals, we’ve moved much more to the left/liberal worldview over the last 30 years.
In terms of regulations, I don’t see how we can go back to the days of “Ma’ Bell”, regulations on airline routes, beer brewing, and a price ceiling for certain goods and a host of other things, which were left over from the New Deal era attempts at managing the economy.
I think in many ways there was a convergence in the 1990’s, where liberal goals of the 1960’s and 1970’s had finally started becoming mainstream and could no longer be used as wedge issues anymore that it was hard for the Parties not to converge.
Pat Buchanan was derided for his “culture war” rhetoric in the 1992 GOP convention.
I don’t think the idea of women working, for example, let alone being a single mom in charge of a family was going to be the sort of big deal issue, in the 1990’s, that it was in the 1970’s.
There was also an economic convergence in that you weren’t going to reintroduce regulations into many industries, like telecommunications, trucking, brewing, etc. Even Walter Mondale or Michael Dukakis weren’t going to put “Ma’Bell” back together again.
You could fiddle with some free-trade issues, like NAFTA or giving the Chinese Most Favored Nation Status, but the world has been moving towards an international free-trade economy since the end of World War II. Even if NAFTA never passed, we would still have an international free-trade policy, similar to what we have today, since I don’t think anyone wanted the U.S. to opt out of GATT or how the U.S. could opt out of the WTO and still survive economically.
I think the reason there was a “blurring” of the Democratic and Republican Parties in the 1990’s was due in large part to a convergence of issues, rather than anything the DLC did to sell out and punch hippies.
Corner Stone
@Cat Lady:
What I find awesome is this site is full of so many “pragmatists” and purity police who scream at anyone who is not happy with the answer “this is the best we can get in XYZ”.
And yet they think it would’ve been cake to go against the Iraq War vote. Just should’ve nutted up, I guess.
eemom
Kind of hilarious to see a serial misogynist who was mercifully gone from this blog for a while galloping back in, knight-like, to defend Hillary’s honor.
Hey Stoner — notice the LACK of folks chiming in to say it’s good to see you here again?
Corner Stone
@Turbulence: You’re hilarious dog.
You don’t get to be President unless you’ve already signed a blood oath you will kill whomever you’re told to kill.
Don’t act like any of them have clean tighty whities.
JWL
The only vote I’ve ever cast of which I’m ashamed was for Kerry in ’04. He knew the war was a catastrophic mistake, borne of Big Lies. Still, like Clinton and Gephardt, he took counsel of his presidential ambition, and betrayed the nation doing it. And though I believed that then, I still conned myself into a lesser-of-two evils mode, and voted accordingly.
There’s much to be said in defense of that school, and I stand ever prepared to turn my back transgressions by politicians with whom I’m usually sympathetic. But not where issues of war and peace are concerned; not anymore. So I adamantly opposed Clinton’s nomination in ’08, and would not have supported her in the general had she gained the nomination. I was accused of opposing her because because she’s a woman, but those accusations were groundless. Although she was far too conservative to suit me, had she opposed the Big Lie war I could have voted for her in the general. But she didn’t, and that was that.
Michael Finn
Damn it, I thought that meant Downloadable Content.
Just Some Fuckhead
FWIW, I’d rather have 10 Corner Stone’s passionately standing up for what they think and making me think than 1 eemom cynically pissing in the punch bowl and pretending to be too cool for school.
I know there’s a whole lot of folks that feel the same way.
Piss off, eemom.
srv
@geg6:
Well there must be a much larger list of folks that “hang out with Grover” and “jump into bed” with him than I thought. Or maybe that was another geg6. I’ll ask who’s on his rolodex at the next progressive meeting. Maybe we can get some shirtless pics.
gene108
@KG:
Clinton elicited a totally bat-shit crazy response from conservatives because he was a DFH masquerading as President. I think if he had gotten health care passed, for example, or at least something done on health care he’d be seen as validating the liberal view that government programs and activity can positively impact average Americans.
Kristol’s memo to oppose Clinton’s health care policy is based entirely on the view that if he succeeded in getting a bill passed, it’d validate the New Deal view of American government. Government would be a beneficial force for Americans.
Clinton wasn’t nearly as right-wing as people make him out to be, in my opinion, nor was his election a rejection of a liberal activist government role in America. He really based his Presidency that government could efficient and effective, without creating hosts of new government agencies, rather than the conservative dogma that “government is the problem”.
Clinton’s Presidency really shouldn’t be considered an endorsement of the “conservative consensus” because he didn’t embrace the idea that government is inherently inefficient.
Making FEMA an effective disaster response unit was part of Clinton’s view that government had a valuable role to play in people’s lives, for example. That’s not the sort of thing the “conservative consensus” really is about, since they’d just want to privatize or “starve the beast” or ignore it and hope it goes away.
Turbulence
@Just Some Fuckhead: FWIW, I’d rather have 10 Corner Stone’s passionately standing up for what they think and making me think than 1 eemom cynically pissing in the punch bowl and pretending to be too cool for school.
Um, you realize that Corner Stone just claimed that it doesn’t matter how many people a Presidential candidate kills, we shouldn’t let that disqualify a candidate ever because apparently everyone kills millions of people or something. And you think that’s not cynical or ‘too cool for school’? WTF?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Turbulence:
Where did eemom ever address that?
srv
So now we have a “serial misogynist” who is a pretend PUMA?
Or is this one of those sexist-PUMAs?
I suppose anyone who thinks otherwise is a
PUMAanti-semiteeemoms-label-of-the-daysexist too.Turbulence
@Just Some Fuckhead:
She didn’t; my point is that Corner Stone is as cynical and savvy (in a ‘too cool for school’ way) as they come. So criticizing anyone for being cynical and ‘too school for school’ compared to Corner Store is just nuts.
But maybe you’re right. I guess Corner Stone’s passion in insisting that it doesn’t matter how many people you exterminate, genocide should be no barrier to public office is awesome.
jefft452
“Hillary teared up for under ten fucking seconds, and the CW immediately became that she “was too emotional for the job”. Contrast with Boehner, who can’t fucking stop bawling wherever he goes, but supposedly that’s proof of his passion”
Very true, but @17 you said:
“Sexism is still alive and well, even among supposed liberals.”
Are you suggesting that the CW represents liberals?
Or are you mocking the “even the liberal …” style?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Turbulence: Meh, he/she has a long, long history here and isn’t saying anything he/she didn’t say long ago, regardless of how you want to characterize it.
eemom, OTOH, (a noob) didn’t do anything but launch into meta-thread critique and Heathers-like personal attacks.
Cat Lady
@Corner Stone:
I have no idea what your point is, but regarding Hillary nutting up, that’s an interesting comment. I always felt Hillary was keen to go along with the boys, and that her positions were less about any principles and more about the perception of her as a woman among her peers and especially the media, who of course were never going to give her a fair shake. I think that internal conflict led to her Iraq vote so she wouldn’t seem “soft”, it led to her fantasy Bosnian tarmac adventure, and it led to her overly aggressive response to how she would conduct foreign policy in defense of Israel. I don’t really blame her for being like that, but I didn’t want a president with another fucking psychological drama to act out, like the mirror image of Bush’s Oedipal term.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You are SO utterly and obviously full of shit, and such a pathetic excuse for a too cool for schooler yourself, that I’m not even going to waste my valuable snark on you.
Go drink yourself into oblivion again — after all, it IS a day ending in “y”.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom: Damn, you coulda had a trifecta with a Hamsher/Greenwald reference.
You don’t have snark, you self-absorbed old crank. You’ve never said one funny thing EVER. I challenge you to link to anything you’ve ever said that approaches snark.
eemom
[yawn]
Get along, fuckeduphead. Those Schlitzes ain’t gonna drink themselves.
mclaren
The DLC was also massively pro-globalization and pro-NAFTA and pro-CAFTA, and as the American people have realized that globalization and its associated so-called “free trade” policies are really code words for the phrase “let’s destroy the American middle class,” they’ve lost interest in supporting it.
pattonbt
Haven’t read comments yet but wanted to post my two cents on Iraq, DLC and Clinton (Hillary). I was adamantly opposed to her (and Edwards) almost exclusively for her Iraq war vote (plus I just didn’t want another Clinton circus – a fresh circus, like we have now, was fine with me). I have a special vein of hatred for those D’s who signed on to that chicken shit adventure which flushed the US down the toilet for good. I promised myself that in any primary I was eligible to participate in I would always vote fore the candidate who did not support that war. Now Obama got a bit of a luxury that he never had to put any skin in the vote game but he was outspoken against the war from jump street. I believed that anyone who could vote for wars of choice based on obviously trumped up fear and false evidence had no place in being put in a position to do so ever again. I still seethe with complete anger when I think about how the country was lead down that road and all the D’s who rolled over so they wouldn’t lose their careers or be seen as pussies.
All that said, had Hillary won the primary I would have been just as vocal (and financial) in my support for her for President as I was for Obama. There are many other reasons I preferred Obama over Hillary but I think we would be in about the same place we are now if she had been elected and not Obama (although I do not think we would have had any health care reform).
I am also glad to see the DLC die but, sadly, the corpse will get reanimated in another form sometime in the near future. The US is still very, very far away from a progressive land no matter what people say the want in polls.
priscianus jr
@suzanne:
“a HUGE reason that Hillary didn’t win is because she’s a woman.”
On the contrary, if Obama had been a white woman, she (Obama) would have won.
Sammy
“Anyone who believes a “Senator Obama” would’ve cast a vote at the time against the Iraq War is completely delusional”
Bingo. As the last two years have proven, “Senator ” Obama would have voted his best interests as a politician. During the campaign he sold the anti Iraq war snakeoil, and a lot of rubes bought it.
kay
That primary was so complicated (and completely fascinating) I feel as if “Iraq” is too easy an answer. It’s satisfying if you opposed Iraq, in the accountability sense, but I do think we have to remember that a lot of right-leaning and centrist Democratic voters supported Iraq.
They did here, anyway.
I think the people who say they went Obama because HRC voted for Iraq are telling the truth, I just don’t know that it was the primary reason she lost.
It was a combination of things, but I have an anecdote that I think typifies how that campaign was run.
Three days prior to the Ohio primary the Clinton organizer for my county called me. He just launched into this list of things I had to do. The problem was, I had already been to the state convention and the national delegate caucus, and I was a “pledged” Obama delegate. It’s not like it’s a mystery, or that he should “know” that. There’s a list. Worse, Clinton had the institutional support of the state Party, including the governor. If anyone had a good list, it was Hillary Clinton. I wasn’t offended or anything,so it isn’t that, but I did have to actually interrupt the guy to tell him “I’m on the other side”.
Anyway, she won the Ohio primary. In spite of making calls like that, and I think she would have won the general, and been a fine President. But you do have to wonder at the sloppiness of things like that, and whether it means arrogance, confidence, or just cluelessness about what was her strength, which was state Party leader and activist support. I suspect, although I can’t prove it, that she was working with a ten year old model, but A LOT had changed in Ohio since Bill Clinton ran, including the obvious fact that people get older and aren’t active anymore.
Paul in KY
@Napoleon: Totally agree with this. Pres. Roosevelt would have reamed them up one side & then down the other. All with a twinkle in his eye.
kay
By a 2-to-1 ratio, Americans favor invading Iraq with U.S. ground troops to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Not since November 2001 have they approved so overwhelmingly. Nearly six in 10 say they’re ready for such an invasion “in the next week or two.”
The Democratic primary electorate was huge in 2008, expanded by all those independents who found out they weren’t Republicans after all. A LOT of those people supported the invasion of Iraq. They turned against it when it wasn’t quick and easy, but I suspect they didn’t hold Clinton’s vote against her, because they did the same godammned thing she did. They went along.
Paul in KY
@Tom Hilton: Compared to your average Democratic Senator of today, VP Humphrey was like Che Guevara.
Paul in KY
@JWL: I was very happy to vote for Sen. Kerry. I don’t really care what votes he took or didn’t or any of that.
If you can’t be happy to vote for John Kerry over George W. Bush, then (IMO) you must be a real piece of work.