Title is intended to get your attention. But I am becoming convinced that Hillary Clinton really is delivering what voters are indicating they want. I am becoming convinced that those of us here don’t have a clue about what America is all about…or, more accurately, what the American people are all about.
I am becoming convinced that America WANTS Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman…they WANT either Lite Republicans or Republican Lite. You and I are either wrong or we are doing a really lousy job of getting the word out. All of this is coming to me thanks to yesterday’s really abysmally boring NYC primary election.
Years ago, before Bill Clinton’s presidency, I think, a Pulitzer Prize winning (and recently deceased) journalist, David Shaw of the L.A. Times, wrote a piece he called “The Greying of American Politics.” He was not referring to AARP’s power. He was referring to a phenomenon whereby in the national arena (specifically Presidential politics) no candidate with any unusual ideas, characteristics or positions would make it through the grueling process of a national election. Since America is so big and diverse in ideas, only the most boring candidates can survive the process. No exciting bright colors…only boring, grey politics as usual. Americans like non-threatening candidates who make them feel like everything is okay…fine…go back to watching TV.
David Shaw was talking about presidential politics, but I am convinced that this phenomenon is starting to apply at all levels of politics, including Brooklyn, NY.
People here love to hate Hillary Clinton. Many say “Hillary does not represent me…” or “Hillary is not a true Democrat.” Usually I defend her based on her overall voting record, but truth be told, despite my frequent defense of people like Clinton and Biden, they don’t represent me either. But let us look at the message that voters send them. Look at the Democratic primary in NYC (the most liberal part of NY State)…and look at the mayoral polls.
Yesterday NYC chose a boring, pro-business, do-nothing incumbent Public Advocate over a dynamic, strongly pro-Civil Liberties challenger. The incumbent won handily. The Democrats of the liberal city of NYC spoke loud and clear that they wanted calm, boring, non-threatening politics as usual. So they re-elected Betsy Gotbaum, the Public Advocate that disappeared from public view after her election. They chose the candidate that Mayor Bloomberg supported. They chose the candidate that has never stood up for the public. And they solidly rejected the progressive, interesting candidate, Norm Siegel, who had been head of the NY Civil Liberties Union for 15 years.
The clear message from yesterday is that NYC wants boring politicians who don’t stand up for anything.
In the Brooklyn DA’s race it was even worse. The most solidly progressive, most honest and most pro-Civil Liberties candidate, Paul Wooten, never even made it to the distant second that Norm Siegel did in the Public Advocates race. Paul Wooten dropped out, claiming lack of support. The second most progressive candidate, Arnie Kriss, came in dead last yesterday. The THIRD most progressive candidate, Mark Peters who tried to buy the race with his family’s money, came in distant third. The person who won was a thuggish, corrupt incumbent who looks like he is from a mafia flick and who says all is well and we need to stay the course. The person who came in second was the even more corrupt, equally thuggish machine candidate. The progressives barely made an imact on the race even though they had two, maybe three, good candidates.
Again, NYC wants business as usual–either the incumbent or the machine. We accept corruption as long as nothing too radical disturbs our quiet existence.
Finally let’s look at the polls for mayor. The Republican mayor Bloomberg looks way ahead in the polls. NYC voters seem to want a boring, pro-business Republican running the show.
This is the message voters are sending politicians–be boring. Be pro-business. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t disturb our TV viewing time. Be Lite.
WHY SHOULD HILLARY CLINTON OR JOE BIDEN DO ANYTHING ELSE BUT BE BORING AND PRO-BUSINESS? Hillary Clinton has to play to NYC and to upstate. NYC is the more liberal part of that equation. And we vote for Mayor Bloomberg, Betsy Gotbaum and Joe Hynes…We vote for incumbents. We vote for pro-business. We vote “stay the course.” We are telling Hillary Clinton that she should by no means be more liberal than mayor Bloomberg, no more exciting than Betsy “do nothing” Gotbaum, no more progressive than Joe Hynes.
Hillary Clinton does what the voters say she should do. She represents those who elected her…and Bloomberg…and Hynes…and Gotbaum. She doesn’t represent you and me because you and I barely show up as tiny blips in an election. You and I and all our progressive ilk are nothing in American politics. That is the lesson I learned yesterday in NYC.
Why is it this way? Do most Americans REALLY want it this way? Do we here at dKos REALLY represent only a tiny minority of voters even in NYC? Or are we, the left, so divided, so ineffective and so lazy that the good candidates don’t go anywhere because we don’t get out there and fight for them?
I don’t know. I do know that until we prove ourselves to be effective and active within the Democratic Party, there is no reason for any politician to buck the boring, pro-business trend. Because boring and pro-business wins the day, even in NYC.
I have no solution. I have tried throwing myself into the depths of local politics and organize and inspire my fellow progressives and get them busy. Nothing… No effect on yesterday’s election. Zero.
We here at dKos made something of a splash in OH-2. We still lost, but we made a splash. But here’s the thing. We didn’t make a splash in NYC yesterday. We were nothing. If all we can do is an occasional, single district near miss like OH-2, we really won’t be cutting it. If that is all we can manage (and maybe it really is all we can manage!) then you and I won’t even be a footnote in history.
Folks, prove me wrong here. But I think Bush America at worst, or, at best, Biden America is here to stay and you and I here on dKos, Booman, My Left Wing, etc. are nothing but a lonely, ignored minority.
As a progressive, I am implicitly disqualified from understanding what Americans want. Truly, Americans are dumber than dog-dirt, and you have laid it out well.
And yet, until the Media decided he was a threat and smeared his image on TV, Howard Dean was the front runner in 2004.
So things are not so simple.
But I am not really in a position to gainsay you.
The religious right isn’t powerful because they’re right.
They have power because they have
In other words, they’ve got what the labor unions used to have.
We don’t have that.
A leader does what anyone could do, but no one has done. A leader not only conceives a vision, but sells it to others, make them believe they can affect the outcome, and then gets them to do what they could have done themselves all along.
I’m sorry things turned out so disappointing for you, mole333. It sounds like you tried all the on-the-ground actions, and still didn’t get the outcome. Is there anything we can learn from this?
Yes, I think you’re right, I think most people don’t see ‘politics’ as important. I think they buy the easy selling messages (i.e. Corrupt guy #1 isn’t as bad as #2, and #1 is the only guy with a chance to defeat #2).
What were the numbers involved? How many people would you have needed to turn out to change things? How many people would it have taken that instead supported one of the corrupt guys?
When even the hardcore activists like yourself are disillusioned, why would we expect the average voter to look beyond the pretty (but false) choices that are pushed upon them?
It is maddening. The Religious Right were laughingstocks and irrelevant, but they kept plugging and now run much of the show. Do we have the strategy to do the same, and the patience to stick with it until it happens?
Or has the ruling class placated those of us above the median income and those convinced any personal sacrifice is worth having a govt bless their religious beliefs and biases, and made the rest who’ve been disinfrancised and ignored simply give up?
I think the only thing we can do is keep plugging away the way the right did 30 years ago. In fact, I am usually the one urging people on with that exact comparison. But it is hard to keep plugging away when the loudest critics of the Dem party on the left are doing so little to help the really good candidates.
To address some of your quesions, the election could have been totally different if more people had voted. The voter turnout was record low…somewhere around 10%, or something, was predicted. I honestly think if the reform and progressive clubs had been more focused and more united, some of the really good candidates would have had a shot. Norm Siegel got some 30% to Gotbaum’s 48%. Most people didn’t know either candidate and when even some reform clubs favored the incumbent, Siegel had little chance. Harder to say what it would have taken for the best DA candidate to win since he actually dropped out. The other two more “reform” candidates got around 15 and 6%. The incumbent and the machine candidate just had too much backing, even from reformers, to lose. The closest was a judicial seat where the good, progressive candidate lost by only .08% points. But even by such a narrow margin, it sucks that the machine manages to hold onto the judicial seats despite massive scandal and even indictments.
The right was able to stay focused for a long time until they won across the board. Our problem is we are not as focused, united or dedicated as the religious right. THey really thought they were doing god’s work on earth. Our motivation SHOULD be we are saving our nation and our world. But too often people just don’t look that far in advance. These days, any time I hear a fellow leftist attack Biden or Clinton I feel disgusted because I think of all those very vocal leftists in NYC who sat out this week’s primary and let the machine and the incumbents remain in control.