Well, I guess Markos caused some controversy with a throwaway post he made this morning. He quoted the following comment favorably.
At some point the concept of “Republicans will do X” has turned into a license for Hillary to do all the same things. It’s bizarre, but I don’t really consider her a Dem any more.
Predictably, the Hill-o-sphere is going nuts over this with posts from Jerome Armstrong, Armando, Pamela Leavey, etc. The most interesting response is from Tom Watson, who manages to maintain a calm and somewhat detached demeanor. I agree that it’s kind of stupid to not consider Hillary Clinton a Democrat anymore. But only kind of. Let me explain.
It’s true that Clinton hasn’t suddenly started advocating Republican policies. In fact, the platform she is running on is a tad to the left of what we might expect from a member of the DLC Leadership Team. Hillary Clinton is no Joe Lieberman (although she did inexplicably support the Kyl-Lieberman amendment and suggest a Middle Eastern security umbrella to save our allies from scary Iran). No, Hillary Clinton is still safely on Democratic ground when it comes to policy.
Where she is starting to resemble a Republican is in her campaign rhetoric and tactics, and her indifference to what most of us ‘Obamaphiles’ like to call ‘The Math’. Watson acknowledges that Clinton is waging a ‘moderately vicious shin-kicking campaign’ but he doesn’t seem to disapprove in any way. And that’s disturbing.
Hillophiles like to defend her against accusations of racializing the campaign. But even if they remain deaf to dog whistle politics they cannot deny that only about twelve percent of blacks (.pdf) in Pennsylvania are supporting their candidate. How will blacks react if Obama’s reputation is trashed by Hillary making right-wing attacks on his affiliations, and he is denied the nomination despite winning the most pledged delegates, the most contests, and (most likely) the popular vote? Will they enthusiastically come out to vote for the person that perpetrated (in their eyes) the crime? And what will that do for our downticket races?
It’s the failure to look one step ahead that is aggravating to supporters of Obama. Maybe Obama will have a rough time in the general election with talk of his pastor and flag-pins and a couple of verbal gaffes he’s made in this long campaign. But at least he will have won the nomination in a way that is seen as legitimate by the vast majority of the Democratic electorate. And, please, don’t compare Michigan and Florida to a situation where Obama is denied this nomination despite winning the most pledged delegates, the most contests, and (most likely) the popular vote. That’s disingenuous.
And there has been a lot of disingenuousness and a lot of magical thinking coming out of the Hill-o-sphere. But that doesn’t mean that Hillary’s supporters are not good Democrats. And when Markos says that he is beginning to feel like Clinton is no longer a Democrat, that doesn’t mean that he thinks her supporters are no longer Democrats.
Let’s talk about Lieberman. If Lieberman had merely supported the war and cast a few lousy votes we wouldn’t treat him any differently from Ben Nelson. But Lieberman started cozying up to the Bush administration and saying and writing things that were patently untrue, and criticizing Democrats, and stepping all over the party’s message, and using right-wing talking points and tactics. It wasn’t the war the got him kicked out of the party, it was all the accouterments that went along with the war. And that is where Clinton is flirting in dangerous territory.
She’s saying that the guy that has about a 98% chance of being our standard bearer in the fall is less qualified to be president than John McCain, and suggesting that he should quit his church, and linking him to Farrakhan and the Weathermen and Hamas. If you are being honest with yourself, you have to see the resemblance to Holy Joe. These are slimy, dishonest, right-wing attacks.
At some point the concept of “Republicans will do X” has turned into a license for Hillary to do all the same things.
There is a major element both within the Clinton campaign and within the Hill-o-sphere of a ‘we’re here to save you from yourselves mentality’. It’s an article of faith that Obama cannot withstand these arbitrary and unfair attacks on his character so the Clintons are duty bound to use these arbitrary and unfair attacks as a kind of preemptive measure. Sorry, but even if that were true, the time to make that case was before Obama built an insurmountable lead in the pledged delegates. Right now, good Democrats should seriously consider spending their time defending Obama from these attacks, especially if they think they are so potentially lethal. And that’s where some Democrats are beginning to look at some Clinton supporters with a jaundiced eye. What exactly explains your continued support for your candidate under these circumstances? Farrakhan? Hamas? You are a willing participant in this?
Does Tom really answer these concerns?
But in the some of the high emotion of this long campaign, I have noticed on the part of Obama supporters a disturbing notion that Hillary Clinton and her followers shouldn’t be considered real Democrats – that the Clinton campaign is somehow working a wild, long-range bank shot that includes taking Obama down now, living through four years of McCain, and then challenging the incumbent in 2012. In reality, she’s playing out the string in aggressive fashion, trailing decidedly by not hopelessly, and doing her best to win the nomination and reward her supporters now.
I don’t know about the 2012 bank-shot but the thought has occurred to me. What’s more of a concern is how Tom blithely explains that blasting Obama with the Sean Hannity’s kitchen sink is nothing more than ‘playing out the string in aggressive fashion’. Should Obama respond to comments about Farrakhan by bringing up Vince Foster’s suicide and the Mena, Arkansas, Contra cocaine smuggling ring? That shit is bound to come up during the fall if Hillary is the nominee.
I think Hillophiles need to understand that the rest of the party (the people not still invested in her campaign) sees nothing wrong with Obama that he (and we) can’t handle. We’re excited about our nominee and impatient to get started with the general campaign. But we don’t appreciate a fellow Democrat running her mouth bringing up Farrakhan and Hamas and saying our guy isn’t qualified and he’s elitist and he’s out of touch and he’s just words with no action. When McCain and the right-wingers attack us, people know they’re biased and they take that into account. But when a fellow Democrat does it, it hurts.
Consider Sen. Thad Cochran’s comment about McCain.
“The thought of him being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper, and he worries me.”
If Barbara Boxer said that, would anybody think it was damaging? But when a Republican colleague says it, it creates a powerful 30-second attack ad. See what I mean?
Clinton needs to knock off the crap. And the fact that she is just getting nastier and nastier isn’t exactly giving the rest of us the warm-fuzzies.
So, yeah, she’s still a Democrat. But she’s beginning to wear out her welcome. If her chances of winning the nomination were quantifiable rather than infinitesimal, we might be more tolerant.
And one last point. Clinton supporters are taking this all very personally, as if an attack on Clinton is an attack on all her supporters. Or as if a desire to see Carville, Begala, McAuliffe, and Penn chucked on the ashheap of history means that the progressive blogosphere wants to throw Clinton’s base supporters there with them. That’s totally inaccurate.
I know, I know, you feel like the rest of us think you are stupid. And there is some of that. Can’t you do The Math? Can’t you see that Clinton can’t both win the nomination and keep Obama’s black and younger voters? So maybe some of you are offended by the high-handed and dismissive attitude you’re getting from a lot of people in Obamaland. I sympathize. But part of the problem is that you never saw the Clintons as a DLC machine that is a mortal enemy of the progressive movement. We don’t want to destroy you, we want to destroy the Begala/Carville/McAuliffe/Penn influence on the party. Those people hate you too, even if you don’t know it.
We don’t want to fight with you anymore than you want to fight with us. If you stop calling our guy an unqualified out-of-touch terrorist-coddling unpatriotic Angry Black elitist with ties to Hamas, the Weathermen, and Farrakhan, then we’ll stop punching back. If you’ll stop fighting, so will we.
But you’re all good Democrats. Maybe you are a little misguided. That’s all.
