Via Sullivan, this video of a woman who used to campaign for Hillary, but switched to Barack:
I think things like this are far more devastating than the gotcha moments the media tends to focus on. The gotcha moments provide good sound bites and can be entertaining, but private epiphanies such that this woman has had are what I think really determine the outcomes of elections.
I think we are witnessing the slow decay of the Clinton dynasty. I am not upset.
Dug Jay
That’s just John Goodman in drag.
Zifnab
She makes a perfectly good Senator. But I won’t mind her legacy ending here either. Now if the rest of the DLC can just curl up and die, perhaps the country will grow into a better place.
Ugh
im in ur h3eartland, stealin’ ur caucusers
cleek
i won’t believe a word she says until ConYank and Our Lady Of Perpetual Outrage have verified that she in fact made those phone calls and licked those envelopes. for all we know, this woman could be an actor, a plant, a long-time Obama supporter who only worked in Hillary’s office for one afternoon (and stole all the staplers on her way out the door). never trust anything like this until you verify it yourself: track down the speakers, verify their employment history, check their credit rating, do sneak-a-peek analysis of their countertops, and use scale models to verify the plausibility of any physical claims.
Dreggas
You think that is bad? Read this
Michael D.
Wow!
cleek
yow. that’s gotta hurt.
dslak
Should Hillary win, I suspect Mr. Millin’s career in politics will be over. It speaks well of him that he didn’t let that fact keep him from stating the truth.
TheFountainHead
I have to say, this makes me feel better on a number of levels.
1. I feel a little vindicated for long having held the belief that Hillary’s poll numbers did not accurately reflect the way Americans really feel about her.
2. In recent weeks Barack Obama has impressed me a great deal. His campaign has been something, well, inspired.
3. It shows me that the Democratic party, as an entity, has not been entirely lost to the machinery of the extreme left.
Rick Taylor
That’s funny, I’ve switched from O’Bama to Hillary Clinton.
One thing that’s changed my mind is she does not attack other Democrats, at least who she’s not running against, even when it would help her. The example in the debate where she refused to throw Spitzer under the bus is a great example of that, and Edwards and O’bama reflexively accused her of waffling when it wasn’t true. Another was when she voted against the bill to condemn MoveOn.org. Another was when she refused to bad mouth Sandy Berger when those rumors he was on her staff became news. She’d been highly consistent in this, and I really respect her for it.
On the other hand, I didn’t like the way O’bama handled the flap with Krguman. I didn’t like the way he immediately attacked Clinton because Novak wrote an article making unsupported claims. And there’s an article in the NY times of Obama’s campaign attacking Hillary’ investments, and called Clinton “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)”.
I watched this video, and it wasn’t persuasive. She’s shocked that Demorats would use negative attacks on one another when running for office? Excuse me? This is politics, it’s not pretty. And if anything, I think Clinton has been more disciplined about not taking cheap shots than her opponents.
That’s one thing that troubles me about Obama’s message, that people are tired of the acrimony and the division, and he wants to go beyond hat division. Well, yes, we all do, but that acrimony and division didn’t come about because Democrats have been insufficiently bipartisan. If Obama becomes the nominee, I really wonder what he’ll do or how he’ll respond when the attacks from the right wing and the main stream media start coming in. Because they surely will; Republicans have become adept at winning through sliming the opposition. They turned Al Gore, about as smart and dedicated a public servant as you could want into a serial prevaricator. They utterly slimed John Kerrey, a decent man (albeit poor politician) until even John called him a sewere trout; they even attacked his service in Vietnam for God’s sake!
So what do they have in store for Obama, and is he ready for it? I hope his supporters aren’t expecting the slime to just roll off him because he’s such a high minded person; that’s not the way it’s worked so far. He’d better be ready,he’d better not loose his cool. So far, nothing has convinced me he’s ready for it. And I think even Clinton’s detractors might admit if there’s one thing she has experience with, it’s responding to right wing attacks.
dslak
Are you referring to those contraptions that always hit their feet when fired?
Zifnab
Really? You think Barak Obama is more conservative than Hillary Clinton? Really? Wow. Republican Delusion knows no bounds.
I would have at least suspected the indoctrinating philosophy at this point would revolve around Barak Obama being just as bad as Clinton but without the name. He is, after all, Rush Limbaugh’s Magic Negro Madrassa Candidate for President. But that Obama is the centrist candidate and Hillary is off in leftistan?
Man, you guys will believe anything.
TheFountainHead
.>
You see the problem there?
I think Obama’s responses have been perfect in the sense that they have let the media and America at large do all the stabbing at his opponents, and I think that will work even more effectively against the Republican slime machine, well, because it is just that and everyone will see that. I think throughout this primary season (or seasons, cause its been THAT long) Obama has developed an image of himself as going for the truth of the matter every time, and that will be how he deals with the wingers to the right. The wingers will spout of some barely factual crap and instead of Obama alternately whining and cackling a la Clinton, he’ll have the street cred to point to the truth and have it actually stick. Gore and Kerry lost to the slime machine because they ran from their guns when they should have stuck to them. I don’t see Obama putting up with that crap one bit…
P.S. Whoah…I think I just became a full blown Obama supporter as a side-effect of writing that. Weeeirrdd.
dslak
There’s a fair amount of reflexive anti-Hillary sentiment left over from the 90s. Since many of the same people who have that sentiment are also reflexively anti-left, they probably often confuse one for the other.
TheFountainHead
I think you misunderstood me and that may be my fault. I don’t hold any delusions about how left or centrist either of them may be, my point was merely that the leftist machinery seemed to have locked in Hillary as the nominee, which would be a mistake in my opinion, and the fact that someone as significant as a party chair wasn’t drinking that kool-aid makes me happy. Obama IS the more liberal of the two in the sense that Hillary is kind of a Neo-con in socialist clothing, but he is not really a part of the leftist establishment, at least to my mind.
dslak
Which leftists are we talking about here? I’d expect actual leftist Democrats to be attracted to Kucinich, Gravel, and so on, not prominent centrists like Hillary. So, what’s this “leftist machinery” promoting Clinton?
TheFountainHead
I’m talking about the MSM/Corporate-style leftists. Years ago, when it started to become very clear that the Republicans were likely not going to be able to pull out a win in 2008, the big businesses went shopping for a candidate that they could trust to protect them at least as well as Bill Clinton did, if not as well as GW has. What they found was Hillary, and they have reinvented themselves in the little ways necessary to become a force to get her elected. I’m not talking about the looney Kucinich Kids or the eight people holding signs for Gravel, I’m talking about the big cats with the big money who come out every year to find the candidate that will hold up “their end of the bargain”.
Teak111
Well, Christ, who the fuck are we supposed to vote for now!!! Every candidate looks insane, manicle, authoritarian, inexperienced, light wieght, or is a jesus freak. We need someone to right the ship after eight years of Cpt Ahab. You know get the debt down, the dollar up, have a comprehensible foriegn policy, decent domestic policy and start moving us off oil. Where is Ross Perot when you need him.
dslak
The group you’re describing are capitalizing on the fact that money buys access. In this case, they’re pragmatic rather than partisan because they support who seems most likely to win in an election year, regardless of party.
It’s not accurate to describe such purely pragmatic behavior as “leftist.”
Incertus (Brian)
You know what I’m taking away from that video? And mind–Clinton’s never been higher than third on my list of favorite candidates. It’s that Iowa’s position as first in the nation has got to go, and the sooner it goes the better. Negative campaigning doesn’t work there? Please–spare me. It’s not like Iowa caucus goers are somehow inherently smarter than the rest of the country–they gave us John Effing Kerry in 2004, for crying out loud, and then couldn’t even pull the state for him in the general election.
KCinDC
TheFountainHead, if you’re going to use your own private language in which “leftist” means something approximately opposite to what it means for the rest of us, you should provide a dictionary to help us interpret your comments. How can a leftist be “corporate-style”?
Libby Spencer
I agree. I think the polls have been manipulated and I know a lot of so-called lefties who don’t and have never supported her. I didn’t love her husband and don’t want either of the triangulating doubletalkers back in the White House. Clinton is in the corporate pocket and has been all along. I don’t hate either of them but they’re not going to change politics as usual.
I don’t think Obama is much better. He’s still a status quo player.
I think people should take a harder look at Dodd. He’s been the one consistently standing up for the people and has a good voting record. He’s one of a handful that voted against the Welfare for Credit Card Companies Act, a/k/a Bankruptcy reform, just for instance.
dslak
I think he’s using “leftist” to describe anyone who supports a Democratic candidate he doesn’t like, regardless of the reasons why.
George Soros is pretty liberal, and he’s also pretty corporate, so it’s not implausible. The idea that current big media interests are in any way leftist is, however.
TheFountainHead
Fair enough. Leftist may have been too harsh a label there. I retract it. My point remains the same. The DNC was ready to give Hillary a scepter a year ago, at least the way I was reading it, and I think this is a good sign that maybe they aren’t willing to simply cave to the domineering corporate lobby. Who happen to be liberal. This election cycle anyway.
binzinerator
I don’t want to see any more Clintons in the white house, either, for the exact reasons LS stated. I did vote for Bill, both times, but one Clinton is enough even in the best of times, and these are not those times.
Dodd’s also the one who had put a hold on the latest FISA bill, a.k.a. The Telecom Get Out Of Jail Free Card. I’m looking closer at him now too.
TheFountainHead
Fair enough. Leftist may have been too harsh a label there. I retract it. My point remains the same. The DNC was ready to give Hillary a scepter a year ago, at least the way I was reading it, and I think this is a good sign that maybe they aren’t willing to simply cave to the domineering corporate lobby. Who happen to be liberal. This election cycle anyway.
Pb
Er, yeah. There is no MSM/Corporate “extreme left”. That’s just an oxymoron. The “extreme left” has no machinery, they’re lucky have cardboard signs. At best, you’d be talking about the ‘centrist’ / DLC “third way” types and the punditocracy, who range from barely plausible independents to outright Republican shills. FYI. Hillary Clinton is the Republican party’s pick for the Democratic nominee, because they’d love to run against her and get their own base fired up on yet more Clinton hate–remember, folks, they’re still running off of fumes from Clinton, Carter, Ted Kennedy, etc., etc. An untapped alternative energy source, I tell you!
dslak
Now you’re just using “liberal” instead of “leftist,” but with the same meaning, and it’s still wrong.
Doubting Thomas
Obama is Hilary minus the spunk. I agree with Rick Taylor.
TheFountainHead
Not at all. What the hell would you call Oprah?
cleek
what Incertus said. letting two rinky-dink rural states have so much say is absurd.
Pb
A wealthy daytime talk-show host with a large following. What the hell would you call Dr. Phil, and what does all this have to do with the price of tea in China, anyhow?
F
Wow I see the Clinton hate (CDS) is still live and active.
When it comes to the Clintons I’d take anything Sullivan says, links to or refers to with a massive grain of salt. Have you seen his site recently every third post is a CDS statement, soon he will have her digging up Vince Foster to kill him again.
I guess we learned nothing from the 90’s, when Republicans and so called Moderates say anything about the Clintons please take a deep breath and analyze through you CDS filter.
Also John, I’ve asked you this before, please up a post where you, Tim and Michael can list the reasons you dislike the Clintons. I’ve never understood the hatred of the Clintons by the Republicans and some Moderates. Is it personal, then why? Is it policy?
F
Rick Taylor
This is a very detailed endorsement of Hillary from the left coaster. Complete with links to many supporting arguments. There’s a lot there, but one quote from Armstrong on mydd I like very much:
Conservatively Liberal
I am glad to see that Hillary! is dropping like a stone, I would not vote for her if my life depended on it. Why? Because I don’t trust her a bit. I just flat out don’t trust what she says. She triangulates everything she says/does. She fudges around in the middle, hoping to muddle everything up so she can retain the support of both sides. She was ‘for the war before she was against it’, just like everything else that has been an issue for her. She is the ultimate corporate Democrat, and I am sick and tired of corporate anything.
Dodd is my guy, and he shows it every day like with his latest move to put the brakes on the telecom immunity. Too bad that he does not stand an icebergs chance in hell of winning the nod. Big money is not behind him, they have rather staked their future on Hillary!. When I look over her campaign donors, that alone is enough to tell me that a vote for her would be a vote for the same old same old.
If Obama gets the nod, he gets my vote. It ain’t Dodd, but at least it ain’t Hillary! either.
Oh, and those of you who are pushing the “CDS” like the right pushes the “BDS”, that only make me associate the the two of you as one and the same. I always thought the BDS crap that the right hung on to was stupid and childish, and the CDS crowd will be viewed the same way. There is no BDS or CDS, some people just don’t like other people, and that is life. Get over it. If anything, those who run around claiming that someone has BDS or CDS are the carriers of the disease themselves. They are so deranged that they can’t see anything but undying love and support for their guy/gal, no matter what.
Now that is deranged.
rachel
Meh. If Hillary is the Democratic candidate, I’ll hold my nose and vote for her–and a fat lot of good it’ll do me because I’m from a state so red that its electors will vote for the Republican candidate whosoever the candidates of either of the paarties turn out to be. You can see why I don’t bother about the primaries.
Jadegold
So, JC, what is it exactly you have against the Clintons?