Sometimes in politics there is a thing known as ‘a tell’. That’s when a politician drops their guard and tells you something true that they ordinarily give inordinate energy to hiding. For example:
“[T]he activist base of the Democratic Party… [T]hey are very driven by their view of our positions, and it’s primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don’t agree with them. They know I don’t agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me.”
Hillary Clinton made that statement back in April February in response to MoveOn.org’s endorsement of Barack Obama. Now, we in the Netroots are definitely part of the activist base. And we have been the people most vocal about the fiasco in Iraq and the abuse of our civil liberties that have been carried out in the name of ‘national defense’. It’s absolutely true that it is ‘national security and foreign policy that drives us’, although everyone has their own areas of policy concern. What’s remarkable is that Clinton so openly admitted that she does not agree with us on these issues and that she knows that we know that she doesn’t agree with us on these issues.
In one sense, I take her observation as a compliment. She knows that we’re not stupid enough to take her word on foreign policy. After all, her official positions are not all that different from Barack Obama’s or from our own. But she sees that we are not buying her rhetoric.
The Clintons hated Left Blogistan long before they realized that the activist base was going to cost her the nomination by dominating the caucus states. Now she hates us even more. What’s remarkable is that she gave too much credit to the Blogosphere. I looked around early in this contest and I didn’t see too many bloggers that had a stone-cold understanding that they were the blood enemies of Team Clinton. I tried to tell them that the people around the Clintons absolutely detested us and everything we stand for, and I got accused of being a pie thrower.
Unfortunately, the result is that the bloggers can’t take much, if any, credit for Obama’s success. He didn’t ask for help and that was resented. He didn’t follow (mostly bad) advice and that was seen as disrespectful or suspect. But, you know what? The readers of blogs…the audience…they knew all along. They understood instinctively. In every Daily Kos or MyDD poll, Clinton never cracked double digits. The readers knew that the Clintons were for shit on issues of national security and foreign policy. They knew that the Clintons hated the activist base and would sideline it if allowed to take over the DNC.
So it didn’t matter that most bloggers were hedging their bets. What mattered was who was showing up in the caucuses and who was manning the phones and who was knocking on doors. The activist base took this nomination away from the Clintons even with a substantial fraction of the leadership abandoning their posts.
So I just want to thank you…the readers…for helping to take back the Democratic Party for the people, and for the people that opposed this war from the beginning. Thank you. You are the people that give me hope for this country and for our future.
she actually said that at some unspecified time “soon after” Feb. 5, at a fundraiser. MoveOn’s endorsement came on Feb. 1. the news of her comments came out in April, after bittergate.
and no, thank you.
Back in October, the son of our then Mayor told me that it would be over by the end of February. That I would be wearing a Hilary button, or he would be wearing an Obama one. I guess I owe him a button.
In a a way he was right thought, that it was over in February. More importantly that Team Hilary’s rhetoric was that it would be over early, now its that it would go to the end.
And Booman, I think that the blogging audience took a significant part in this victory even if not that many front pagers were early adopters.
Glad I could help!
Actually, I’m not going to take that much credit and don’t think the rest of us should either.
Your take on what Hillary said and meant is SPOT ON. That’s exactly how I took it. Anybody who actually attended an anti-war protest in the last three years knows that the Clintons were not popular with the “activist base,” at least that part of it, the people who go out and carry signs and candles and what not. And as a person who worked on 2007 (CA-37 special election) and 2008 congressional campaigns here, I can tell you she wasn’t too popular with any of the people I worked for. And it could all be traced to one thing: IRAQ.
Even though I protested for the Clintons (against the impeachment, back in 1998), I hated the Clintons for the 2002 AUMF and for all their pro-war shilling since then. But as 2007 came around, and it became apparent they were “inevitable,” I tried to assure myself that they would moderate their position to satisfy the base, that they would throw us some bones to let us know that whatever they said and did back in 2002-2005, they want us on their team NOW and they intend to fix the mess.
Instead, we got Kyl-Lieberman, and a host of other squishy tidbits that by themselves didn’t stand out, except to those of us that were hoping and praying for some sign that they got the message.
And there was that singular moment in 2007 when she told an audience that if you wanted somebody who didn’t vote for the war, or that would apologize for it, you should vote for somebody else. That’s extraordinarily ballsy! For a candidate to tell potential voters that they should vote for somebody else. Don’t most voters want to be courted at least a little bit?
So they definitely knew what position they were taking. They weren’t going to let the dirty fucking hippies and the activists and the peaceniks push them around.
Too fucking bad for them it didn’t work, eh?
So, I wish I (and the rest of us) could take more credit, but the Clintons deserve all of the credit. Let’s keep our egos normal size, but still give out a great cheer that the Clinton era of bullshit management of the Democratic Party is over.
It was always a “tell” that she would not apologize for her war vote and say that it was a mistake. Edwards did. Other dems did.
That fact alone told me two things: her hubris, and/or two, her political tin ear, her inability to read the public.
Why on earth she failed to do this is beyond me. The public back in 2003 was something on the order of 70-30 in favor of the war. It’s now 70-30 against. The public realized it made a mistake in its support and would have accepted her mistake as well.
Then, there’s always a third possibility–that she actually does support the war.
Add a third to hubris and tin ear Crass calculation of where the powerful big money supporters stood on some of these issues.
The purpose of the war was to put a greater corporate control over the oil in Iraq and throughout the Mideast. The problem is that the demographics of the area makes it particularly difficult to do so. I mean, they’re always fighting among themselves about the arrangements up in Heaven, plus who controls the oil down here. The military solution doesn’t work. It would have been better to take control through boardroom actions.
The Afghanistan part has to do with that pipeline we never hear about. The problem there is that Iran is trying to get its own competing pipeline. Russia is backing the Iran pipeline. Iran is now using euros and yuan, not dollars. You see how this is bad for the corporate hegemony.
Badly played all around. Hillary would go in and try to clean up the mess as best she could while allowing the military/oil companies to update their strategies. Really, she’s only the left hand of the Devil. If you’re lucky maybe you’ll be forced to pay Blue Cross for your healthcare.
I think she did that for two reasons:
Unfortunately, whoever was advising her on that front was a moron caught in 2004. It’s been 4 years MORE of war and the American public is tired. There’s a reason Bush is at 28% approval. For her to stand in line behind Bush was stupid and showed that in instead of running for president to try to fix America, they were running for the power of the office. It’s almost like they didn’t noticed that things have changed.
Of course, the Hillary Clinton running today is like the 8th iteration of Candidate Clinton. Hillary 8.0 if you will.
I hope that everyone doesn’t forget the fact that she moved to NY to run as a senator from that state and as a carpetbagger she always had intention of running for president all along. We all knew this–now didn’t we? My question was why did she not go back to her state of Arkansas? Would it be that she was not welcome there to do such a thing? She could not do it in Illinois…Anyhow, she blew it in the beginning, IMHO.
When she voted for the war to take place in Iraq, we all knew where she stood on everything from a to z. She is as transparent as ever! Her husband set the stage all along for this shameful act that was taken by this administration that we have now. If we were to analyse this, we now can see all along what her intentions were. Her actions since has been all telling.
To say to the American public that she is owed the White House is a farce, if ever there was. Just who the hell does she think she is.
She started outright playing the woman issue and it has grown to a point that is has created a war for many. This has created a very real problem for the democratic party. She and her husband have infiltrated the party with the dlc their workings to destroy the party and it almost happened….who saved it is probably like you said….but then it needed saving. The other side, of which she is just a little to the left of, is that they were just as bad, if not worse. The entire political situation has gotten in such a dire strait that we all had to so something, even the republicans, of which we have some of in the democratic party voting society now….like Sen. Webb for instance. Anyhow, we all knew it had to change for the whole American society was drowning in misery and taking the world along with us.
So, Booman, yes we all had to do something and I am very proud to have your site to come to to vent my frustrations and I had the tenacity to use the phone to do calling and making my first name a well known shuddering fact with my states politicians…;o)
I applaud each of you and I really mean this. You all have done a terrific job.
And I suspect that if H. Clinton were commander-in-chief in 2009 that some crisis would happen that would require the U.S. to stay in Iraq, or there would be a withdrawal that would leave fifty thousand soldiers and all of Blackwater’s 150k there to guard the oil wells. We never hear about them, the invisible army. Or that a crisis would occur that would require the semi-obliteration of Iran. Always the hand of Oil, the other hand being our military.
Despite all the talk about them being lefties by the Scaifes, I have always seen the Clintons in the pockets of the oligarchy and quite ready to go along with what the military thinks is good. When H. Clinton did that little publicity stunt of her standing in front of twenty generals a few months back I found it made a compelling picture. She’s the front man for the generals. And thus we get another glimpse of the real nature of our government.
Bob, you are probably right on that one. I see her just a buffoon with the military, just like her husband was. Those generals were stage props. She has no legitimacy with the military what so ever, just as her husband had none. That is and has been their legacy, as I see it anyhow…
No, thank YOU Boo. You helped bring us together and made a huge difference in our lives – with good leadership and the framework of a community. It was an inspiration to be here, able to share and be accepted. You kept us awake.
Martin Luther King, Jr. saw it coming back in 1968 and told us about it in the very speech that Hillary attended in DC: Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution
Four days before his death, he ended that speech by saying this:
I’ve been waiting for that “change we deserve” with total faith and little patience. Now I hope I can live to see it blossom.
Lest we forget, this was her solution to her hubby’s problems with Monicagate. Government control of internet content:
“We are all going to have to rethink how we deal with this, because there are all these competing values…. Without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function, what does it mean to have the right to defend your reputation?” she said. -from Reuters, Feb 11, 1998
So how does H. Clinton really feel about telecoms?
I’ll give GW 1 pt here because without his administration’s well-documented abuses and this blog’s slogs through the analysis, red flag warnings and community, we were all sensitized to the comparisons & similarities of her actions, her people and her views of prioritizations. Too many glaring business as usuals we expected from Bush but refused to allow again.
I second those who commend YOUR leadership, Booman, on this. This truly is a reality-based community, and that’s a rare thing to find anywhere these days. I’m grateful to have such a community in my life as the one you’ve built here.
I’m also inspired by the actions of others here – what they do offline as well as online. It heartens me to see that people really do see past the media BS and can still feel the truth in their hearts. Kudos to all for your fortitude in this campaign.
It’s a bit (or really ‘way, way,’) early, I think, to send thanks around for ‘taking back’ the Democratic party.
If, as I hope is the case, Senator Obama is elected, in November, the American public will still be a long, long way from having taken the Democratic party away from those who’ve become very used to running it according to their in-groups’ whims.
In politics, there really are genuine battles–they aren’t all, as conspiracy theorists would have us suppose them to be, simply mock dramas staged to dupe the public which bothers to watch the drama. But, with that said, and, admitting that Hillary’s faction has been dealt a serious setback from the cakewalk they’d been expecting her to have in becoming the party’s heir apparent, the coming struggles will as usual go on both in public and, even more, in private over how much maneuvering room Senator Obama is allowed to have in effecting the change he has in mind and, assuming it’s the same sort of change, his diverse supporters have in mind.
We have a broken political system. Start there.
Barack Obama’s election will mean he’ll preside over it. That is still, obviously, a much better outcome than if either Hillary Clinton or, worse, John McCain, were to become president. But it’ll still be a broken political system –by my lights, anyway–and one which is still badly corrupted in ways which generally serve the interests of the powerful organized-money corporate class who have run things their way and intend to continue to do so as much as possible through any Obama administration(s).
No, thank you, Boo. It’s thanks to people like you that people have a place for talking and organizing, and doing the work to take the party and country back.
Well sure, we all know how much the Clintons hate bloggers. Really, just because the ponds hates the Clintons (and hate seems to be the word) it does not follow that the Clintons hate bloggers or even the pond for that matter.
So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me
certainly cyber bullying has been a tactic of Obama supporters. It is common for Obama supporters to flood Hillary blogs with nasty comments. Even obscure local blogs have been attacked.
If the behaviour we have seen on blogs was repeated in caucuses, then it will be very hard to put together the party again.
Maybe they’re sick and tired of the hatemongering that goes on at the Hillzilla blogs.
I think kudos are owed to Boo Man and to the people of the pond. It’s a team approach, for sure. Also, a tip of my hat to the activists who march against the war, carry anti-war posters at marketplaces, who block streets and get arrested, who occupy government buildings and get arrested, who do street theater outside military recruitment offices and get arrested, who write letters to the editor against the war and who give money, time, energy in the fantastic causes of peace and social progress.
Now it has become clear where the Clintons stand on the momentous issues of Iraq and Iran. And where the Dem Leadership Council fits in the national calculus of power – on the side of the rich and the mighty. There is so much at stake in this election. Can the majority overcome the oligarchy and take their government back? Will Obama win and will he conduct the good fight?
Thank god for the internet and for bloggers like Boo Man. Thanks also for the many members of the pond who have made their contributions to its well being. Together, all of us, reading, writing, thinking, we can regain our government and have it once again become a beacon of hope and a source of inspiration and leadership for a troubled world .
We can do it, yes we can.