I need to respond to John’s post concerning Clinton Fatigue and the 2016 election cycle. I think he is wrong on his diagnosis of the underlying problem. It is not the Clintons, it is a crazy bug shit insane anthrax and rusted tire rim eating Republican Party that is the problem.
I know this is what the GOP wants, but I can not do another round of Vince Foster or Benghazi or whatever. I just can’t. And the whole dynastic thing drives me crazy. I just can’t take any more Bush or Clinton candidates.
Vince Foster or Benghazi or Hillary is a shrill lesbian who ordered her 30 something married daughter to get pregnant with a cute grandkid are merely symptoms of a broken and crazy party.
Since it is a symptom, treatment by avoidance does not solve the underlying problem of a bug shit insane party.
I remember the great O-bot v Clintonista flame wars of ought seven here, Great Orange Satan, MyDD, FDL and everywhere else. One of the constant arguments was that Obama would not bring out the batshit insane elements of the Republican Party while it Clinton’s history guaranteed it. As an Obama primary supporter and voter, I thought it was a bullshit argument then as it misdiagnosed the problem.
I thought that whomever the Democrats nominated in 2008, they would see wild, insane, violating the laws of physics and narrative consistency conspiracy theories and charges levelled against them. The superstructure of the charges would vary by candidate. The right had a good playbook on Clinton while it was not 100% clear what the playbook would have been on Obama or Edwards in the summer of 2007. However, the attacks, despire differing on the surface details, would be isomorphic manifestations of rage and otherness.
The relevant question for supporters is not whether or not a Democratic candidate can do something to mollify the chain e-mail forwarded, Fox News viewer, Brietbart grunting conspiracy theorists as that is a constant impossibility. It is whether or not they know how to ignore the stupid and counter-productive mud wrestling while only worrying about winning November instead of the morning. The crazification factor is a constant, and it should be ignored in any comparative decision analysis.
Jude
Good point. While I do agree with John regarding anti-Clinton propaganda, I imagine that I should just buck up.
NonyNony
Well said Richard – that’s exactly right.
I’m concerned about Clinton for a lot of reasons, but this isn’t one of them. It literally does not matter who the Democrats nominate in 2016 – the Republicans will react the same way. You can’t counter their craziness by avoiding it.
Mnemosyne
I think you’re mostly right but, as an Obama primary voter myself (albeit one who almost literally flipped a coin while standing in line to cast my primary vote), I think one of the things people were dreading were not the constant attacks, but the rehashed attacks of the same goddamned stuff over and over again.
One of the things that pushed me over the line to support Obama over Clinton was that stupid attack ad McCain did that bashed Clinton for voting for funding for a Woodstock museum. And I was like, Oh, fuck, do we really have to re-hash the 1960s again?
Laertes
I have Clinton fatigue too, but who gives a shit what I’m tired of? We need a president who won’t spend the first half of her Presidency imagining that the Republican party is something other than exactly what it is.
Hillary Clinton knows better than any other human being on Earth exactly what the Republican party is and how it can be expected to treat the next Democratic president.
Duke of Clay
@Laertes: Excellent point!
MikeInSewickley
I’m torn by this. I largely agree with John on having to put up with over 2 years more of this crazy Clinton obsession. But what we need to do is somehow always pivot as quickly as possible from this crap talk and toward anything that pushes liberal / human ideas forward.
I know… easy to say, crazy hard to do but I really feel those who are pushing the ideas on how the lower and middle class are losing and the 0.1% are winning are getting traction. We need to bang the drum on that until Republican ears bleed.
Even in the Pittsburgh area, that is starting to work. Near me we have Daryl Metcalfe, a crazy loon teabagger State rep. Bragged how he got 54% of the vote last Tuesday but didn’t mention the other 46% were write-ins for his fellow Republican opponent who got kicked off the ballot late. This is mostly Cranberry – upscale, very Red, tech industry bedroom community and even they have had enough.
I wish Elizabeth Warren would run just to get her message out more but I’ll take anybody who gets the voters to think about this stuff. If Clinton will run this way, I might be able to put up with the insanity.
catclub
@Mnemosyne: Excellent point, also, too.
So what we need is someone who can get the Republicans together in a
room and tell them to cut the bullshit. ;)
Betty Cracker
I’ll vote for whomever the Democrats nominate, be it Clinton, Biden, O’Malley or a ring-tailed lemur. I suspect the same is true of 98% of Juicers.
danimal
Agreed. I was one of the naive fools who thought the GOP’s anti-Clinton hysteria would subside if we elected a rational, calm, moral, thoughtful leader. The past six years have proven that I was wrong. We just got a different type of GOP hysteria. I’m not wild about the dynastic implications of HRC, but I don’t see a better choice with a clear path to the inauguration at this time.
Thought for the day: Obama is to GOP racism what HRC is to GOP misogyny.
eric
@Betty Cracker: no one would have bigger coat tails than Hillary among that bunch, both good and bad…but since the good dont vote enough, i think she is a net win for GOTV and that could really matter. She is too new-dem for me but i know what is best for the country. Clinton/Lemur 2016
Quaker in a Basement
And looking back from today, don’t they seem silly? I mean, Clinton or Obama are both better choices than McCain/Palin.
flukebucket
@Betty Cracker: Ditto
gocart mozart
If not Clinton, who? Warren: she is a fake Indian who lies about her past to get that sweet Indian affirmative action, a Marxist and several other things to be invented later; Schweitzer, I don’t know, maybe he has sex with buffaloes and whatever your crazy uncle emails you in the future. And so on.
Morzer
If you think that the latest round of hooting and hollering is the fault of the Clintons, you probably think that the latest round of Benghazi fever is Obama’s fault. This is standard-issue GOP behavior – and it’s the consequence of having nothing to run on but hatred and division. They don’t have even the ghost of a positive, intelligent agenda, so they have to rely on driving down Democratic enthusiasm and hyping their own crazy old white base into a frenzy. It doesn’t matter who the Dems run, the GOP strategy will be the same because it HAS to be the same.
That said, I thought Bill Clinton was a fairly mediocre, weak, and, at points destructive president (DOMA, Glass-Steagall, Mogadishu, apparent inability to stop catting around etc etc) who got lucky with the economy. Sure, it’s better to be lucky than good, but I don’t see any sign that HRC is going to be a “lucky” president and I am not convinced she’s learned the right lessons from her time in politics. To be fair, judging by some of the posters on here, this is something in which she is not alone: if the GOP is trying so desperately to push HRC out of consideration, it might just be worth asking yourself why you want to go along with this and indulge them just because you are tired of hearing.. what?.. why yes, GOP scandal-mongering. If you don’t want to hear the latest round of concocted GOP nonsense, turn off the TV/radio/internet and go and do something else – and don’t blame HRC for being bashed by the right wing troglodytes. If you choose to listen, ask yourself why you want to listen to these pop-eyed lunatics. There might be a moment of self-awareness to be had there.
One point worth considering: right now there’s a lot of self-congratulating about the inevitable demographic advantage, electoral college advantage and so on and so forth that the Democrats have, linked to a tendency to assume that we don’t really need HRC to run and we could run Bugs Bunny and win without too much trouble. What we neglect to consider is that because we haven’t campaigned effectively at state/statehouse level we don’t have that much in the way of a bench. The list of credible Senators and governors who might run for the Democratic nomination is pretty thin. Could a candidate come out of nowhere? Sure, but it’s not exactly a strong probability. Before folks here get too invested in the narrative that HRC is both repellent and dispensable, they might want to take a good, hard look at just what the alternatives are, because I really doubt that any of them would be as strong candidates for the presidency as HRC, despite the baggage, the tone-deaf campaign in 2008, and the various faults that are attributed to her. The GOP are pissing themselves over the prospect of facing her – and that should tell you something.
ice weasel
All good and I agree with you rather than John here but for one, the dynastic considerations, which we American’s seem to love as much as monarchically inclined cousins, bother me. I’m tired of the familial succession in politics. I get that it’s as much as path of least resistance (name recognition) as anything else but it’s not a good symptom and definitely not something we should encourage, in general.
burnspbesq
There are only two things that need to be remembered.
(1) The worst Democrat is always better than the best Republican.
(2) The only way we lose is if we don’t get our supporters registered and to the polls.
Richard Mayhew
@Quaker in a Basement: Those flame wars were not quite as nasty as academic departmental politics, but the silliness of both reflect the minor differences at stake.
Turgidson
I already have Clinton fatigue too, but I suspect that the only way the GOP will ever stop spewing their disgusting bilious nonsense is if they become convinced by repeated asskickings at the polls that it doesn’t work. In that respect, nominating Hillary and letting her beat the everloving piss out of them in 2016 will be a good step towards that better world. Granted, this is a lesson they may never learn, at least for as long as they can spend money lying to and terrifying the knuckledragging blue-hairs into voting for them in midterm elections.
I was and am an O-bot and at times got pretty disgusted by Hillary’s 08 campaign. Those reservations about her as a president haven’t gone away. But I’ve also learned frmo the Obama experience that with the parties in their current polarized alignment, this country only gets ANYTHING useful done when Democrats have huge majorities, and even then it’s fitful, incremental progress. If Hillary is best-situated to have huge coattails to sweep in a Dem House majority and something approaching a 60-vote Dem Senate, she’s just fine with me. Right now that appears to be the case, though things can change. In the end, [President Clinton + working Dem majority] >>>> [President, say, Liz Warren + divided or GOP controlled congress]. Frustrating though it is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I have a bit of Clinton fatigue, I haven’t forgotten Hillary’s passive conduct as a Senator, her hawkishness or her seven kinds of stupid campaign, but I think a lot (not all, the hawkishness I suspect is strong and sincere) of that was that she bought in to the myth of her husband’s political brilliance and infallibility. I’ve always liked her better than him.
If Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or someone else who makes a good case is on my primary ballot, I’ll vote for that candidate (Brian Schweizter and Andrew Cuomo, no and no), but the polls and my own sense of the moment suggests that most Democrats and a lot of other people don’t share even my moderate level of fatigue. I have no great investment in President Hillary, I fully expect Bubba to get on my nerves for the rest our shared time on this Earth, but she looks like the strongest Dem candidate. I have little faith in an electorate that is likely to give John Boehner another term as Speaker and has, again according to polls, forgiven Condi Rice for her various sins, and some polls indicate they share Matt Bai’s opinion of her boss.
rikyrah
The problems with the Clintons is that they are fucking messy. If Barack Obama had been 1/10th as messy as the Clintons, we woulda had impeachment proceedings already.
Hungry Joe
@Betty Cracker: Agree — though I have to point out that a ring-tailed lemur, while bringing out the prosimian vote, would also provide fodder for the inevitable Madagascar birthers.
Clinton is almost surely running; if not, she would have said so by now. I’ll vote against her in the primary — Lemur ’16! — then work my ass off for her in the general.
andy
Yep. When you are GOP filth, any Democratic President is illegitimate because obviously patriotism is the natural condition of Republicans alone.
Mustang Bobby
I guess I’m an outlier or I’ve spent too many years studying theatre, but if the stakes weren’t so high — the future of the country and this jalopy-formed attempt at democracy we have going here — I’d be looking forward to it with amazement. The creativity of the guano-sniffers is boundless and when I read some of the stuff they come up with, I giggle-snort until I realize that holy crap, lives are at stake. It’s grand guignol melodrama at its best… and worst, outpacing everything from Sweeney Todd to Rocky Horror.
To quote the immortal Lord Byron: “And if I laugh at any mortal thing, ’tis that I may not weep.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Apparently this actually happened. Even after all these years I still can’t quite believe it happened, but there is video
M. Bouffant
What part of neoliberal centrist corporatist welfare-cutter don’t you all understand? Why not a Democratic candidate who’s better than all the other Dems., not merely not as bad as a Republican?
Richard Mayhew
@M. Bouffant: that is a reasonable criteria — get the best Democratic nominee who has a reasonable probability of winning the presidency —
Now that is a debate worth having as to “best” and “reasonable probability” mean, but hoping that the 27%ers don’t throw a public shit fit should not be part of that debate.
Liberty60
I found this also, when the word “liberal” was replaced with “progressive”- they just attack whatever clever branding we invent.
We can put up any candidate, any idea, any slogan or image- its US they hate. By US I mean, literally, us as people, our ideas like community and cooperation and equality and justice.
Cleek’s Law applies to us as well as Obama- even to the most banal and petty things we do, eat, wear, drive or listen to. Hating on liberals IS their ideology.
It wouldn’t even be enough for us to surrender and embrace marketplace ideology- a black/female/ghey/urban person is a threat to their perception of a just order, and like a terrified cornered animal, whenever they sense a threat, they attack.
Hawes
Amen. Or as the case may be: awomen.
Bill in Section 147
Well, one party thinks Hitler was a liberal, so I think we can rationally accept that they will respect any candidate we choose to represent us. But if that candidate were to somehow trick America into electing her, well then surely crystalnutz and armagaydom will be unleashed upon the real people and it will be their God-given task to respectfully disagree.
Maybe after eight years of HRC we will have finally dipped below that magic 27% crazy. I am willing to suffer if that is what it takes to break the fever.
HelloRochester
I think DLC Democrats (Boomers almost all and made fashionable by Bill/Hill) and the current GOP can all go eat a bag of salted dicks. They suffer from the pervasive narcissism that first emerged in Boomers and which Matt Weiner nailed last night on Colbert: “There was a generation that was asked very little of. They got education, they got a lot of entertainment, they got a lot of spending money, they became the focus of the economy, of entertainment, of everything. There was a war going on which they were supposed to fight, and some of them didn’t. The generation before them, all of them fought.” That is Boomers in a nutshell. We get corporatist Centrists and wingers only. And a couple of outliers like Bernie, Sherrod, and Dr. Professor Senator Warren to keep us from flipping our lids. We need people who aren’t obsessed with the quality of their own personal narrative. Bill, Hillary, Barack, all have interesting foundational stories and their parents truly struggled but stuff was pretty easy for them as adults. Not George W Bush my-daddy-bought-me-a-baseball-team easy, but not particularly hard either. They benefited from a meritocracy won with a ton of hard work and some bodies in their parents’ generation and then have either sold it off piece by piece or surrendered it under the cover of realpolitik. Enough.
Liberty60
@Betty Cracker: Roger that- Didn’t they call that “Yellow Dog Democrats” back in the day?
talentless hack
It wouldn’t matter if Jesus Christ himself ran on the Democratic ticket; the crazies would come out. For one thing, Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew. Do the math. In ’16, we’ll just be trading in racism for misogyny. And Clinton “fatigue,” which is about as tired an argument against electing someone President (or dog-catcher) as there is, will still be out there, but I don’t see it being much of an issue.
I somehow see Bill O’Reilly (and the other Fox hacks) privately wishing she would win, so he’s have something to scream about for the next eight years.
My attitude was that whoever prevailed in ’08 would be about as battle-hardened as you could get and therefore be unbeatable. Obama did, after all, beat not just one, but three Clintons – how much stronger a candidate do you want? If the nominee were HRC, however, I would have pulled the lever for her with about 99.5% of the enthusiasm that I had for BHO. That is, a statistically insignificant difference.
As for ’16, I’m ready for Hillary – to shred the Republican nominee. That’s a debate I’d watch on pay-per-view.
Liberty60
@HelloRochester:
True enough, but such folk don’t go into politics.
Roger Moore
@Liberty60:
So are we going to rename them Ringtailed Lemur Democrats?
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
It won’t be true of me, alas, but you already know why not.
@Hungry Joe:
I think this is unwise.
The Republican party will be going after any and all Democratic candidates with any shit they can dig up, take out of context, or just make up out of nothing. Your side can’t afford to be squeamish about dealing with that. The rest of the world will not thank you if you let another George Walker Bush take office — or worse yet, if you let another Darth Cheney take power.
Richard Bottoms
Fuck this noise. Poor put upon liberals have to actually stand up for what they believe and OMFG support a candidate they don’t like to beat the GOP?
Any of you who have a problem because you’re “tired” of Hillary need to pick up your balls, or your equivalent lay-parts and stop whining like some weakling.
The GOP is playing for everything. If you don’t know what everything is, go see The Monuments Men.
Armed thugs in Nevada and Utah and preparing for war, Republicans everywhere are doing their best to disenfranchise any voter with brown skin.
Elected officials feel no hesitation to openly call the President of the United States nigger.
Unarmed black people are gunned down out of fear over and over again.
And you think I ought to be sympathetic to your pain of dealing with Hillary Clinton for the next few years?
Why don’t you just say you’re for handing the country over to people who believe the Earth is 6,000 years old, climate change doesn’t exist, contraception breeds sluts because women should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen baking pies?
Stop fucking moaning go to work getting everyone you ever met to the polls this November.
Time to take a vow to slap back any and all rhetorical b.s.: “they all do it”, Hillary is a bitch, progressives won’t support her.
Bullshit is what that is.
November 2014 is when we can drive a electoral stake into the heart of these cruel, ignorant, racist, selfish assholes unless you can’t be bothered to take the pain.
Emmet Till felt pain.
Medgar Evers felt pain.
You are feeling nothing but your own unwillingness to stand up and fight.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I choose to embrace the name of Ringtailed Lemur Demcorat, I may change my gym.
Marc
Well said, Richard. This bit made me chuckle:
Heh. Some playbooks write themselves, don’t they? Thank god we dodged that bullet.
Belafon
@ice weasel: Thing is, knowing Hillary’s history in politics, I could see her running for president had she not married Bill. In some ways, I think Bill stalled her political ambitions, just because he really does suck all the oxygen from the room. She’s not running because she’s a Clinton. And I really don’t see us being all that fond of dynasties considering that she lost the nomination in 2008.
NCSteve
I was an eager and avid participant in the Great Democratic Incivility of 2007. I said many things about Hillary, some of them, were, in retrospect, wrong, some of them were and are quite true but seem diminished in importance, both because of the exemplary conduct she exhibited and additional experience she added.
My most vociferous attacks on her related to her vote for the Iraq war, but, well, at this distance, I’m willing to believe she learned what needed to be learned from that morally indefensible error.
The one thing she has to show me, however, is that she’s gotten over her tendency to trust and surround herself with scoundrels and sycophants and incompetents. It’s both why she lost and why she deserved to lose. I get why she would be inclined to a bunker mentality, why it would be a normal response. I really do. But FFS, if Lanny Davis, Harold Ickes, Mark Penn, James Carville, Richard Armitage, or any of a dozen other old Clinton hangers-on get within a thousand feet of her campaign, I’m going to have a rough time of it.
The one thing her presidency would need, above all, is fresh blood–more Obama outer circle people than old Clinton hands and more people who were never firmly in either camp.
Mart
@Morzer: Lucky with the economy? He raised taxes, scaled back defense spending, and the economy took off. Maybe not all luck. (Glass Steagle repeal was a huge turd, but at the time ALL the serious people knew it was for the greater good.)
Emma
@Richard Bottoms: Preach it, brother!
Rommie
@talentless hack: It’s an interesting thought experiment to kill a few minutes: What WOULD they say against Jesus Christ on the D ticket? That He’s a fraud, since the real JC would never be a Democrat? Doubts about His true religious stand (born Jewish, Christian pillar?) That His writings are 2,000+ years old and aren’t relevant in modern society? How far/low could they really go?
BubbaDave the Ringtailed Lemur
We are all lemurs, my friends…
Belafon
@Rommie: What happened to his dad? Was his whole “turn the other cheek” business because he was raised only by his mom? He never held onto a real job, instead living off the gifts from others (gold, myrrh) since he was born. What kind of example is that?
LAC
@Laertes: maybe it would help of we had the next democratic president’s back and not sit on our hands on Election Day as a way to show ’em what for because sparkle ponies were not in the mail. Three branches of government. . .
eric
@Richard Bottoms: Agreed….I am FAR FAR FAR more liberal than Hillary and I am willing to say that strategically she is the biggest swinging vagina in the room and i want to win because it matters to much to the disenfranchised for her to lose. She is not progressive but she is not evil. Her opponent will support evil. If there is some magic progressive that can kick Hillary’s ass then i will gleefully vote for that person. But I am not going to bemoan, 16 months in advance, that I might not get the magic pony candidate. The other side is playing for keeps, so do we.
SatanicPanic
@ice weasel: We’ve been doing that for over 200 years, sometimes it was good (Adams, Roosevelts, Kennedys) sometimes it wasn’t (Bush). Actually, with that track record I’d say we need more dynasties.
TooManyJens
@Laertes:
I used to say the same thing. And then she cast “a vote that puts awesome responsibility in the hands of our President, and said, “Use these powers wisely and as a last resort!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8fknhbB-Xo
And I realized that either her judgment was no better than anyone else’s with regard to Republicans, or she was willing to ignore it for her own political advancement.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I can just see them all wearing camel buttons and camel humps around a convention hall, and Sarah Palin getting up and saying “Well I think we just need to roll up our sleeves and build an Alaskan size needles and I’ll run camels and caribou and moose right through its eyes!” And somewhere Ricky Lowry will get a little stiff
John Revolta
There was a war going on which they were supposed to fight, and some of them didn’t. The generation before them, all of them fought.”
Oh, brother.
eric
@John Revolta: that would be, i think the generation that kept black people and women as second class citizens while they fought for their country too. this tripe cant die soon enough.
Hungry Joe
@Amir Khalid: ?? I don’t understand. How is voting for another Dem in the primary, then working for Hillary (if she gets the nomination) in the general being “squeamish” or “let[ting] another George Walker Bush take office”? I’m a fairly far-left progressive, so I try to pull the Democratic Party in that direction, in part by voting for more lefty candidates in primaries. I’m also a pragmatist, and I recognize that any Democrat is 10,000 times (give or take) better than any Republican, and that the immediate effect an election can have on real people’s lives trumps my starry-eyed dreams of a democratic-socialist USA.
chopper
@eric:
OTOH, if it’s truly as dire as we all think, it’s important to try to get the most progressive candidate we can who can beat the GOP. if that ends up being clinton that’s fine, i just don’t see the need to fall in line 2 years ahead of time behind a dem who is as illiberal as she is.
Morzer
@Mart:
That had absolutely nothing to do with the tech boom – which was what primarily drove the economy. If you are seriously going to argue that tax cuts = prosperity, I’ve got Dubya on line 1 to ask why it didn’t work for him.
Moreover, your claim about defense cuts contradicts your first point. Reductions in spending pull money out of the economy and have a contractionary effect. In effect, you are trying to argue that Clinton stimulated and contracted the economy at the same time – and should be given credit for it!
? Martin
See, I think we make it too easy for them. We need a lesbian atheist of arab descent with a speech impediment. That gives them both too much rope and too many competing targets. If we have to suffer through their bullshit, lets at least make it challenging for them.
Belafon
@Morzer: Just call Kansas.
eric
@chopper: i agree…..i just believe we should (edit: NOT) bemoan that she is the front runner. The other reason why she is the best candidate strategically, is that there is NO ONE on earth vetted as thoroughly as she has been. There will be no October surprise with her candidacy.
Again, I want the process to play out and i want a good debate, but any dem that does anything to support GOP arguments against Hillary should be tossed from the party. Argue she is not progressive enough, but do not support right wing memes against her
Mnemosyne
@Richard Bottoms:
Agreed. The other point, of course, is that we haven’t even freakin’ had the 2014 midterms yet. Can the media please cool its freakin’ jets and let us take one election at a time?
raven
@Richard Bottoms: How do you really feel?
raven
@? Martin: Thilly Thavage!
? Martin
@eric:
I think we should:
1) Bemoan that there will be a frontrunner
2) Bemoan that a narrative has already been constructed that there is a front runner 2 ½ years out from the election.
Betty Cracker
@NCSteve: This. All of it.
cleek
@Laertes:
which says nothing at all about the kind of results she’d be able to get as President.
if the real Hillary is half the fighter that everyone’s imaginary Hillary is, she’d make for an entertaining President. but never forget, Clinton is not a single atom to the left of Obama on anything. she’s a DLC centrist, through and through.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@John Revolta: I’m not sure of the context of what Weiner said, but I think that pretty well spells out a lot of the armchair support for the Iraq War, and the entire media fixation on John McCain, the Big Three being Russert, Tweety Matthews and Brokaw– Daddy issues and Vietnam guilt
I would probably vote for Roger Sterling, or Peggy Oleson, over Hillary CLinton. Joe Biden has a little Roger Sterling in him, I think.
Belafon
@Mnemosyne: I’m afraid not. The 2016 election started with Issa’s Benghazi panels. As for the midterms, considering how many times people say “can’t we just think about the midterms”, I think people paying attention know their coming, and those that aren’t paying attention aren’t seeing Benghazi TV anyway.
nancydarling
Can we stop calling the Clintons a “political dynasty”? A man and his wife do not a political dynasty make. The Bushes have 4 generations in the family business now. When Bill and Hillary’s great-grandchild runs for political office, then we can talk dynasties.
Richard Bottoms
@raven: There are no bad Democrats, there are no good Republicans.
Fight it out in the primaries on ideas not personalities and then always, always pull the lever marked D in November.
There is no such thing as a moderate Republican, they are all enablers of Cruz and McCain.
Look not at what they say but how they vote.
Fuck all of them, not one vote for a Republican for any office, for any reason.
Citizen_X
@eric:
Bears repeating. You want less “dissappointing” Dem presidents? Elect more Dem congresspeople.
Oh yeah, and we need more Dem-controlled statehouses, for REDISTRICTING IN 2020.
Sorry to shout, but people seem to forget the important things.
Phil Perspective
@eric: no one would have bigger coat tails than Hillary among that bunch, ….
Proof?
TooManyJens
@? Martin: Hear, hear.
Morzer
@nancydarling:
Don’t count Chelsea out just yet. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to see her looking for a suitable Senate seat in the next ten years or so.
JoyfulA
@MikeInSewickley: Metcalfe is your state rep? And the district is an upscale bedroom community for techs in Pittsburgh?
I’m embarrassed to admit the stereotypes I was imagining for his constituents!
Col. Klink
One advantage Hillary will have over Obama in long retrospect, is that it is a lot harder for the GOP in America to bash the hell out of her key constituency (women) than it is his (the blahs). You can whip up a lot of hate toward 14% of the country, much harder to do with 51%. Oh’ they’ll try, they just have to be much more careful in their approach. (See Fluke, Sandra)
hoodie
I’m for Clinton until such time when another Obama comes along and takes the nomination from her, and I don’t see any such animal on the horizon. There is some virtue in Clinton fatigue. Most of the GOP’s material is old and thin, so I think it will be hard to get much traction with the general electorate. Hillary is familiar, harder to make her exotic like Obama. Sure, she’s had her share of fuckups and some of her friends are insufferable, but the party should consider itself lucky that she’s around to give them breathing room to develop a new generation of pols who will appeal to the changing demographic.
Amir Khalid
@Hungry Joe:
It sounds like you expect Hillary to win the primaries even if you vote against her. If a stronger candidate emerges before then, as in 2008, that’s fine; that’s whom you should vote for in the primary, and who should be president in 2017. If not, don’t you risk undermining Hillary as the eventual nominee? The Republican party gets three months to point out that her support is halfhearted about her.
Josie
@Liberty60:
Yup – My father was a die hard Democrat in the old days- a Lyndon Johnson supporter. He used to say that he would vote for a red-assed baboon if he was a Democrat.
Betty Cracker
@nancydarling: Good point.
Rob in CT
@danimal:
Cosign.
Exactly right. I was wrong, and I realize it now. They will be bugfuck crazy no matter who we nominate.
Roger Moore
@Morzer:
I doubt that he would make that point because he was praising Clinton for raising taxes, not cutting them. And reducing government spending is only contractionary when there is insufficient demand. When there’s plenty of demand, private spending and government spending are more or less substitutes, so reducing government spending will make more resources available for the private sector. If anything, this is probably a mild stimulus, since private investment has a higher multiplier than defense spending. Even running a surplus wasn’t strongly contractionary because we were just taking money from one group of rich people (whose taxes we raised) and gave it to another (whose bonds we bought).
eric
@Phil Perspective: I think that she energize women voters and the misogyny will amp women to turn out. That is my “proof.” I think that the vitriol directed at her will energize women that will take it personally. I think there will be an “our turn” component to women voters.
Alex S.
I’m ready for the bitch.
Hungry Joe
@Richard Bottoms: You have now made 20 statements in 20 short paragraphs and I’m still waiting to disagree even slightly with one of them. Keep pumping ’em out; if you get to 27 (that number again!) it’s a perfect game and you belong to the Ages. Or at least, to the Internets.
eric
@Josie: unfortunately, Gohmert is a republican, so that is not gonna work ;)
Laertes
@cleek:
That’s probably overstating the case a bit. President Obama wasted some valuable time by treating the Republicans like serious negotiating partners. Whatever other shortcomings Hillary Clinton may have, and we could spend on day listing them, she’s not likely to repeat that mistake. It ain’t everything, but it ain’t nothing neither.
eric
@Hungry Joe: The Mount Rushmore of the Internets!
Morzer
@Amir Khalid:
If that’s the best the GOP can do, I doubt HRC will be even slightly inconvenienced. It’s not an argument that worked out for them after a pretty sharply divided primary in 2008 (remember all the PUMAs who didn’t so much as land a claw on Obama?), so I don’t see why a ripple of dissent in 2016 would matter.
Hill Dweller
@eric: As I was saying here last night, the Clinton’s tried shoving their agenda down a Democratically controlled congress during his first two years in the WH, and failed miserably. Bubba came within a hair of a failed presidency. He spent the next six years giving Republicans stuff they weren’t even asking for.
The notion Hillary is going to come into office guns blazing flies in the face of her actual political career. In reality, she’ll come in professing the desire to build unity after the ‘divisive Obama years’. Dollars to donuts she’ll pass some sort of unnecessary corporate tax cut(payback for their global initiative donations) that the wingnuts will support, and the Village will praise her leadership.
I’ll vote for her is she is the nominee, but it won’t be with any happiness.
Eric U.
I think it’s clear that Obama learned from the Clinton’s experience and I’m not sure the Clintons did. The Clinton admin was just constantly feeding them stupid crap that they could make a fuss over. The Obama administration has been remarkably free of that, as shown by the things that the Repubplicans are making a fuss over. Granted, the fuss is still working on the weak-minded, but there are also low-information people that realize it’s all nothingburgers
Marc
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, that’s what they tried with Obama after the 2008 primary. It didn’t work.
Contested primaries with strong candidates (not GOP clown-car candidates) make for better candidates in the general election. And they have great effects on organizing, too, putting the machinery and the volunteers in place months before the general.
Primaries are good for a party (provided you have good candidates and the public actually likes your policies, i.e. not the GOP clown car). Coronations are not.
low-tech cyclist
In terms of GOP attacks and their effect on the voters, I think Hillary has a good VORP. (That’s Value Over Replacement Player, for you non-statheads.)
I think the attacks of the 1990s could have been resurrected to some effect in 2008, but now that time is just too long ago, and nobody gives a damn about Whitewater or Travelgate or Filegate anymore. Nor is anyone going to be able to convince more than a few nutcases to give a damn. If Fox wants to play that game, let ’em – all it will do is get viewers to change the channel.
And if Benghazi! has any resonance outside of the infamous 27%, I sure haven’t seen any evidence of it. Nobody who’s not already well down the rabbit hole can make any sense of it, can figure out what we’re supposed to be outraged about. They’ve had a year and a half to explain this one to the American people, and there’s no ‘there’ there.
There are other reasons to hope for an Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders-style alternative to Hillary, the main one being that it would surprise the hell out of me if she’s more than two inches to the left of Obama, and Obama’s spent more of his Presidency trying to control the deficit than trying to put people back to work, and didn’t say shit when Geithner rescued the banks, but didn’t use any of the tools at his disposal to rescue homeowners.
We’re at a point where pretty much any Democrat is a few light-years better than pretty much any Republican, so if Hillary is the nominee I’ll do whatever I can to make her election more likely, but gotta admit I’d like to see the Dems do better than Hillary, or at least send a message to her that there really is a Dem base out there that doesn’t want any more DLC Dems.
Calouste
@SatanicPanic:
You mean dynasties like the McCains (dad and granddad Admiral, great uncle General) and the Romneys (dad governor and presidential candidate? Do you want to have more of those?
Josie
@eric:
That made me laugh. My father would have despised Gohmert with all his heart.
PaulW
He’s right. It doesn’t matter who the Democrats have running as a candidate in 2016, the Republicans are gonna go apeshit attacking that person for being THE SUM OF ALL EBIL.
The Dems could go with a resurrected St. Francis as their candidate and the Far Right Wingnuts will attack him for being a commune-hippie PETA member who killed Vince Foster and ran drugs out of Assisi.
Morzer
@Hill Dweller:
HRC won’t dare go anyway near describing Obama as divisive, which is what your phrase implies. She knows full well that turning off a significant chunk Obama voters (which that approach absolutely would) is the best way to go nowhere fast, both for her and for the Democrats.
Amir Khalid
@Morzer:
Of course, I’m not suggesting that this will the Republicans’ best or only argument against her. But letting them argue, even semi-plausibly. that Hillary is a divisive candidate even in her own party — that comes closer than I’d like to jinxing things.
Comrade Dread
Nice post.
I’m not thrilled with having Clinton as the defacto front runner, but I’ll happily put up with the nonsensical, insane, shrieking chorus from the vandals and their enablers if it means keeping the lunatics from being able to fuck the country over even more.
Bobby Thomson
@Amir Khalid:
Buncombe. There’s a big difference between the Clinton campaigning continuing to try to kneecap Obama after it was clear that mathematically, he had won the nomination, and having competitive primaries. There is an imbedded paradox in your question. It wasn’t “clear” that Obama was a stronger candidate than Clinton until Iowa, and that required him to campaign aggressively. If the presumed nominee can be undermined by a competitive campaign, then (s)he has a glass jaw and it’s best to find that out sooner rather than later.
You can’t live your life based on what crazy people will do. Not to mention that once the nominee is chosen, no one will give a shit about this. Didn’t make a difference in 2008 and it won’t make a difference now.
Hungry Joe
@Amir Khalid: I have to disagree. You’re saying that voting for anyone other than the front-runner in primaries will undermine the eventual candidate in the general. But the baggage from a less-than-a-landslide primary victory is minimal, I think. Also, how else to yank the party in a more progressive direction? Besides, my non-front-runner candidate COULD win. Finally, it’s my (our?) one chance to vote for what we really, really want. Then we feel gratified, it’s out of our systems, and we can get down to real politics: The Art of the Possible.
Morzer
@Amir Khalid:
You don’t think you might be extrapolating a bit too much from the declared intentions of one person on the internet two years ahead of time?
I’d also remind you that the PUMAs and the close primary gave the GOP every chance to go after Obama in those terms – and it didn’t matter worth a damn.
Richard Bottoms
John, if you needed any reason to shake off your Clinton problem you’ve only to read the massive troll army descending on this post.
It’s Koch money and Koch influence and you better believe it is only going to get worse. The lever D only and always until we beat them.
the Conster
@NCSteve:
Agreed, but I REALLY don’t trust her judgment. She has terrible instincts. If she had given the Bush admin any of the fight she saved for the delegate fight and Obama, I’d feel better. My biggest concern about her as president is really Bill, and the fact that he can’t keep his mouth shut. He’ll be the first First Husband, and OMG the press will be chomping at the bit to go track down every single person and thing he’s been involved with since 2000, and you know that’s a huge pile of turd to poke in – not just sexually, but his foundation wheelings and dealings. OFFS, the thought of him larrying around the White House again sucking up all the oxygen in the room while the press gets to reload their panty-sniffing story macros from the 90s makes me want to punch someone.
Roger Moore
@Laertes:
That’s not really true. Until Al Franken was seated, the Republicans had enough votes to filibuster any move the Democrats made in the Senate, so it was necessary to peel off one or two Republicans to get anything passed. After Kennedy died and Brown was elected to replace him, the same thing was true. Obama was only able to get his way without dealing with the Republicans for a few months. The rest of his term, he has been forced to deal with the Republicans if he wants to get any kind of legislation passed, and until the recent round of filibuster reform he had to deal with them in order to get any appointments through. The people who deserve most of the blame for this are the Senate Democrats who empowered the minority Republicans by refusing to do away with the filibuster on 20 January 2009.
PaulW
The one thing I saw someone saying was a good thing for Hillary was that people overall have good memories of the economic boom-times of Bill’s term of office. Say, if she runs against Jeb Bush, poor Jeb has to run on his brother’s economic track record (Enron, massive deficits, high gas prices ($6 in some places, remember?), and the start of the Great Recession).
That said, I really do think the Democrats prefer going with a candidate who’s… fresher, someone who becomes a physical manifestation of the idea of Change the way Bill was in 1992 and Obama was in 2008.
I know Elizabeth Warren is off the list (and for those of you pining, knock it off, let her do her work in the Senate for God’s sake), so who else is on the edge of the radar who could make a serious run for 2016?
Trollhattan
Seconding a gazillion above, if not Hilary, then who? The Dems don’t seem adroit at grooming the forthcoming generation of usurpers and I don’t today see anybody who’s a good fit for ’16, other than Hillary.
See the same problem in California, BTW. After Boxer and Jerry and Feinstein, who will all be exiting, stage left over the next four years, there are no dynamic party leaders beyond perhaps AG Harris. I blame term limits for part of this.
Hill Dweller
@Morzer: She won’t say it overtly during the campaign. But, if elected, I guarantee she’ll start talking about the need for unity after all the polarization we endured. That will be followed by some tax cuts(likely corporate) Republicans can support. The Village will rejoice.
Morzer
@Hill Dweller:
I doubt it. I think she’ll have to go after the GOP as the party that screws over Americans and refuses to work for the country’s good, rather than grovelling to the fat cats who own them. I doubt she’ll want to pivot hard away from that and end up as the corporate stooge you seem to expect – not to mention the question of whether the party would go along with her on that one.
Bobby Thomson
@Richard Bottoms: Righteous.
Hill Dweller
@Morzer: She will want to pass some legislation early. With Republicans likely controlling the House, what do you think that will be? The only two things Republicans support are austerity and tax cuts.
Richard Bottoms
Notice the Newsmax headlines changing to reflect the conversation?
The mission is to tilt Democrat’s favorabilities on Hillary. If you really want to defeat the Koch’s you better back Hillary or anyone else who is a Democrat loudly and proudly right now.
BTW what blog funding mechanism requires you to carry their bullshit anyway? You know if you asked, many of us would pay to stop helping our enemies. If Sullivan can pull this off why don’t you try?
Morzer
@Hill Dweller:
I doubt that HRC is going to be silly enough to take that path. Put popular ideas up for a vote and make the GOP reject them. Keep forcing them to get on the wrong side of the issues. She’s also astute enough to know that we don’t need more austerity. The deficit has dropped pretty sharply under Obama and much thanks he got for it.
Hill Dweller
Obama has been proposing and Dems have been trying to pass popular pieces of legislation for years. Immigration reform, gun background checks, infrastructure spending, jobs bills, minimum wage increase, etc. are all popular and have been blocked by Republicans. Moreover, Republicans have paid no real political price.
All Presidents want to pass a piece of their campaign platform early when they’re at their most popular. Hillary will be no different.
David Koch
Personally, I can’t support Hillary after her personal attacks on Edward Snowden:
My God. She’s accusing Snowden of helping Al Qaeda. She’s worse than Bush.
Is THIS the kind of person we want in the White House? Hillary would be Bush’s 3rd term.
David Koch
Now who can argue with that?
opiejeanne
o@Trollhattan: Boxer and Feinstein are not affected by term limits, only Brown is, but yes. Term limits are bad.
Bobby Thomson
@David Koch: You certainly know your audience.
jl
@Hill Dweller:
” The only two things Republicans support are austerity and tax cuts. ”
But I read that if the measure is bipartisan, the GOP cannot even pass tax cuts anymore, they get jammed up in one chamber or the other.
And advantage to HRC is that all the lunatic attacks and dogwhistle codes will be prepackaged. Won’t have to waste time trying to figure them out and determine exactly how they make no sense.
Decoding the nonsense Big Scandals of another Democrat candidate will be dreary too. There will be a pic of the poor schlub eating a hamburger, and we have to figure out what the problem is: wrong kind of relish, too many veggies on it, cheese was too elite, what?
Then will have to learn the complex algorithms to determine in what way everything the hapless candidate does is s sign of sissy, or commie, or Hitler, or Stalin, or foreign policy and national defense non-credibility, whatever the hell… And we’ll have to do this for crap like what kind of tie or scarf the poor slob wears.
With HRC anyone not comatose for last 20 years will know the drill.
Trollhattan
@opiejeanne:
But both are likely on their final Senate terms due to advancing time on the planet (my sense, anyway), which puts the state’s three most important offices in play between ’16 and ’18. Statehouse term limits have had their intended effect–making it much harder to be a career politician here. Raises the bar on House seats and mayorships.
Amir Khalid
@Hungry Joe:
I’m not saying vote only for the front-runner. I’m trying to point out that you should vote in the primary for a candidate you think is better than Hillary, rather than for anybody but her. I believe the “anybody but …” strategy should apply only when supporting opponents of the sports team one hates the most.
Morzer
Just a thought for those who, for whatever reason, don’t want HRC:
How do you feel about Andrew Cuomo, who might well be the “strongest” of the alternatives in terms of winning the primary?
Personally, I find Cuomo deeply repellent and a parody of a Democrat.
jl
Remember how, before the GOP learned how well racism would work, we had to put up with them trying out various Bill, Gore, Kerry vintage material on him. I remember Obama didn’t put onions on a hot dog right, didn’t eat a whole stack of plate size pancakes, something about the wrong kind of mustard on a burger.
Everyone does this. I remember Trump, I think it was Trump, ate a slice of pizza weirdly once, and people made fun. But we did not have put up with a whole reality show story arc about it, and understand all the dire implications and inferences implied thereby.
Hungry Joe
@Amir Khalid: Okay, then we’re in agreement after all. What I meant (and should have said) was that there will almost surely be some candidate I like more than Hillary in the primary, and I’ll vote for that candidate and smile while I’m doing it … then go all-out for Hillary in the general.
“Anybody but” is not only applicable but deeply gratifying when applied to sports teams.
Bobby Thomson
@Morzer: Clinton is probably better on domestic policy. Don’t really know much about Cuomo’s foreign policy views, but I suspect they aren’t much different from Clinton’s, if at all. I do think that Cuomo will get the nomination if Clinton doesn’t. He would have a strong edge in money and organization over the other candidates.
Anne Laurie
@Bobby Thomson: “David Koch” is a right-wing troll, quite possibly a paid one, although I’m sure he’d do it for free (the same way my dogs would happily clean out the cat box for me, and for the same reasons). He only shows up to dump on Democrats — “from the left”, of course — and to GOPsplain why only Republicans can ever, ever win.
opiejeanne
@Trollhattan: yes. I amended my comment to agree with you and I do. Just slow typing on this gizmo.
I tried to explain to a self-described libertarian why term limits are really a bad idea but he was stuck with that romantic notion of the average citizen/farmer doing his duty for two years in congress and then stepping aside for the next amateur. That he was standing in his family’s winery tasting room near Yakima (east of the cascades) was not remarkable. I wanted to laugh but the wine was good so we laughed in the car after we bought a bottle. Spent more at the “hippie” winery down the road from him.
eric
@Anne Laurie: he is? i thought he was a poe’s law spoof??
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anne Laurie: Eh? I thought he was an Obot parodying the Naderite/Greenwald purity caucus?
Bobby Thomson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You are correct.
Fair Economist
@Hill Dweller:
Both Bill and Obama largely said during the campaign what they would do if elected, and did a pretty good job keeping their promises. Hillary will be the same. You won’t see any surprise tax cuts. Right now, based on what she’s talking about, you can expect a minimum wage increase, some anti-discrimination laws, voting rights expansion, and a smallish expansion to Medicaid and/or Medicare.
SatanicPanic
@Calouste: well let’s do a comparison- on the plus side- Roosevelts- both great presidents. Adams- same. Kennedys- OK president + great senator + great guy who got shot.
On the minus- McCain- don’t know his dad, John McCain- lame but no worse than I’d expect from AZ. George Romney- not that bad. Mitt Romney- not that bad while Gov, never went anywhere else. GHWB- bad but not that bad. GWB- terrible.
I’m being mostly sarcastic, but dynasty still wins.
Anne Laurie
Richard, thanks for posting this. I was an Edwards supporter in 2007, because at least he was talking about income inequality. Come 2016, I’m hoping that every Democratic primary candidate will be talking about economic justice, and right now HRC looks to be the strongest possible Democratic candidate.
I actually like Hillary and (barring future problems) will quite happily vote for her, but for those who are bemoaning her lack of “progressive” credentials: Name us the candidate who better matches your list of non-negotiable demands who (a) will actually run, and (b) can get enough votes to win.
Just One More Canuck
@Josie: Red Ass Baboon/Lemur 2016!!
Morzer
@Anne Laurie:
Might be a long silence.
Anne Laurie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If he’s an Obot, why does he only show up to “bemoan” how President Obama can never, ever get anything done, because REASONS?
That’s not support, that’s undermining.
Trollhattan
@opiejeanne:
Deepest thought I generally get re. politics and politicians at any social gathering is “A pox on both their houses.”
Always just nodded and moved on but have now taken to responding along the lines of, “But it’s our government and they’re our representatives and since the system is stacked in favor of the best money raisers, how do we make politics an honorable profession that attracts truly talented people?”
At least that’s what I’d like to think I say. What comes out is, “Glurble, stupid teabaggers, blaggle, frippity, onions in belts, is there any more beer?”
Roger Moore
@opiejeanne:
Although to some extent the problem is that we have an overabundance of underqualified candidates who have to push further up the food chain. I would expect Debra Bowen and Gavin Newsome to run for higher office soon; I’m not as sure about Bill Lockyer and Dave Jones. Plus you have Antonio Villaraigosa, and any number of Representatives who might like to be Senator or hold some state office. At least the Democrats have some people currently holding high state offices, even if they aren’t as experienced as we might like. The Republicans have no bench at all.
Morzer
@Anne Laurie:
But if he’s really parodying the underminers, that would be… support? Right?
eric
@Morzer: he is with the Judean People’s Front.
Chyron HR
@Anne Laurie:
As demonstrated by the zero mentions of Obama he’s made in this thread.
ETA: I mean, holy shit, I know you think that anyone who supports Obama isn’t even a real democrat, but have you now convinced yourself that not even Obots themselves exist?
Trollhattan
@Anne Laurie:
Hillary’s stint as SecState was a strong argument she has the ability to hold and manage high office.
That the Republicans persist on 24/7 Benghazi! and now, Rove is literally attacking her mental prowess (“Always attack their strengths” –K. Rove) they’re daily tipping their hats that they believe the same.
She erased a lot of former doubts by serving in the administration at a very high level, and for her rival at that.
Morzer
@eric:
I thought he was with the PPFJ?
Morzer
@Chyron HR:
But that just shows how devious the evil traitor is! He deliberately didn’t mention Obama so as to undermine the president indirectly! He is therefore objectively pro-fascist as well as despicable and must be removed to the FEMA gulag stat!
Citizen_X
@Anne Laurie: Holy crap, is your sarcasm meter broken.
burnspbesq
@Morzer:
She can run in the special election in 2025 to fill President-elect Gillibrand’s seat.
Morzer
@burnspbesq:
Well, I am voting for Sasha and I don’t care who knows it!
cleek
@Trollhattan:
here’s the Gallup poll from June 2006:
Hillary Clinton 36%
Al Gore 16%
John Edwards 12%
John Kerry 11%
Joe Biden 4%
Wesley Clark 4%
Russ Feingold 3%
Mark Warner 2%
see Obama anywhere in there?
that’s because nobody knows anything 2 years before the election.
catclub
@Anne Laurie: “Name us the candidate who better matches your list of non-negotiable demands who (a) will actually run, and (b) can get enough votes to win. ”
Joe Biden?
burnspbesq
@Morzer:
Until proven otherwise, I’m willing to assume that the Cuomo you’re referring to is not the real Cuomo, but is rather the guy he has to be in order to govern in Albany with a laughably corrupt group of Republicans in control of one house of the Legislature.
Which is a roundabout way of saying the jury’s still out on him.
Morzer
@cleek:
True, but, at the same time, Obama was known for a remarkable speech to the DNC convention in 2004 and had been identified as a future star. Where are similar credible Democratic “future stars” as we head for 2016? About the only one I can see is Julian Castro, and he’s obviously not going to run in 2016.
Suffern ACE
@Trollhattan: I think Kerry is purposely flailing in the Secretary of State gig just so tha Hillary looks good by comparison.
Morzer
@burnspbesq:
I see exactly nothing in Cuomo’s actual record to indicate that he isn’t perfectly happy to partner with the Republicans – and much that suggests he prefers to do so.
Suffern ACE
@Morzer: And seriously, if the voters are worried about Dynasties forming, giving the nomination to the guy whose claim to fame was a Department of Transportation gig that he got because his father was governor of a large state doesn’t make much sense.
Morzer
@Suffern ACE:
Well, he.. um… likes vintage cars?
Fair Economist
@catclub:
Also a New Dem; also voted for the AUMF, a big supporter of the credit card companies while in the Senate (notably the odious bankruptcy deform). Has foot-in-mouth disease and much more of an age issue. He certainly has his virtues but I can’t see how he’s an improvement over Hillary.
Morzer
@Fair Economist:
I agree with you about Joe Biden, but I do have a considerable affection for him just because of the way he put Paul Ryan through the wringer.
Fair Economist
I like Joe too. I’m just pointing out he’s not going to pass the purity test either. I honestly don’t think you can get somebody who does better than Hillary on the purity test without having to go to someone with a lot less experience with national politics and/or administration, and that means we’d have to give up on electability and likely effectiveness to go higher on the purity scale. Hillary isn’t perfect, but at present, I’d rather have her as the Dem candidate than anybody else. I might well support Sanders, but mostly as a goad to get Hillary to take more progressive positions.
Marc
@Chyron HR: It is in the nature of conspiracy theorists to assume everybody else is part of the conspiracy.
Morzer
@Fair Economist:
“It wears progressive policies on its skin, or else it gets the primary hose again!”
J R in WV
I am proud to be a Yellow Dog Democrat, which means specifically that I would vote for my mutt Alice before I would vote for anyone willing to be called a Republican! Proudly!!
That said, I would prefer a good solid Democratic office holder, like Kirsten Gillibrand or Amy Klobuchar, to even the sweetest Democratic puppy Alice. Both of whom, I happily point out, will attract female voters as well as Hilary will.
I will not vote for Cuomo in a primary, and I would have a hard time in the general… but I AM a yellow dog dem. I have Alilce, a puppy who might be better than Cuomo… a yellow lab mix, actually.
Hungry Joe
@J R in WV: My mutt is Alice, too, and I’d vote for her over any Republican even though she’s not yellow. I’d even vote for her over your Alice. No offense.
(Tom Waits: “There’s only … ALICE!” I may have sung that to her once or twice. Or sixty or seventy times.)
David Koch
@Anne Laurie: I’m such a right wing troll that I was sent to infiltrate a tiny blog 7 years ago, in 2007, to support then candidate Obama, who was losing to Hillary by 30 points, because we knew a skinny guy with a funny name, whom nobody had ever heard of, would eventually beat the most famous woman in the world and become the first black president in the annals of western civilization, and then we knew he would show uncommon magnanimity and rescue his vanquished opponent by making her Secretary of State, which would give her the opportunity to reinvent herself and run for the presidency 9 years later in 2016, at age 69. We projected this all in advance.
But if I’m a right wing troll, what is your hero Greenwald? I am not the one who called Hillary, “banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion.”
I am not the one who called Hillary “a fucking hawk and like a neocon, practically.”
I am not the one who dismissed Hillary’s supporters as superficial identity voters.
No, it was your idol.
And if little ole me is a right wing troll, what are all those people on GOS who despise Hillary?
Gawd, I’m having so much fun watching the dead-end Hillbots have to deal with Greenwald, now that he’s turn against them.
CTVoter
@Betty Cracker: Same here. It might not be pretty, but it’s sane.
SiubhanDuinne
@Belafon:
Yeah, and what’s with the flight into Egypt? Running away at the first sign of trouble?
David Koch
@Anne Laurie:
That’s a sad, sad smear.
I have never posted a single word supporting republicans. Prove me wrong. You can’t because it doesn’t exists.
In fact, my long comment history on NYMag is the exact opposite.
Is this the sad state of Hillary’s supporters that the only thing they have left is smears?
Morzer
@SiubhanDuinne:
Like all liberals, he was an illegal immigrant who just wanted to mooch off the real Egyptian pyramid makers.
SiubhanDuinne
@Richard Bottoms:
It’s not for the money. It’s for the LULZ.
Bill Arnold
@Suffern ACE:
Well sure, but currently he is the governor of a large state, and he has a lot of (mostly calculatedly centrist/bipartisan) stuff to boast about, in particular a series of on-time budgets for the first time in a long while. The small c conservatives that I know are surprised to be happy with him. (My sister, a teacher, is … unhappy.)
(Random thought: Is there any evidence that he orchestrated the defections that turned the NYState Senate back to the Republicans, e.g. to give room to polish his bipartisan creds? I don’t know of any evidence for this.)
Morzer
@Bill Arnold:
Cuomo certainly did nothing to stop the defections – that much seems to be generally agreed. Whether he orchestrated them, I don’t know.
askew
@Anne Laurie:
Not that anyone listens to me, but I’ve been saying that Governor Martin O’Malley of Maryland matches all of those demands easily. And he actually has a list of real accomplishments to run on. He’s been an incredibly effective Governor and Mayor. Hillary sat on her ass in the Senate and did nothing for 8 years. I supported Obama in 2008 because he had a record of getting stuff done. I am not a big fan of politicians who are all talk and no action, so I’ll never be a Hillary supporter.
Paul in KY
@Laertes: Good point there.
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: Another good point.
Paul in KY
@Richard Bottoms: Fuck, yeah!! I would love Hillary to crush their dreams. Any Democrat to crush their dreams.
Paul in KY
@Josie: My dad is the same way.
Paul in KY
@Trollhattan: Joe Biden would also be a good candidate.
Paul in KY
@David Koch: I think she raises valid concerns. You and I may not agree with them, but you can’t say she is being crazy from a National Security viewpoint.
Paul in KY
@David Koch: As long as ahe has a ‘D’ after her name, that’s OK by me. We have to win in 2016 with someone.
Paul in KY
@Morzer: If he win s the primaries, I’ll be voting for him in November 2016.
cleek
@Morzer:
that’s a nice myth. but i’ve never bought it.
the polling at the time shows that people didn’t give a crap about his DNC speech. he couldn’t even pull 3%. at this point in the 2008 election cycle Obama was utterly unknown to the public.
Paul in KY
@askew: Gov. O’Malley needs to get in the primaries so we can evaluate him.