Diane Mantouvalos is my wanker of the day. I read the entire article about Clinton dead-enders. They are evidently attempting to create a political movement that is a counter to MoveOn.org and that wants to throw Howard Dean out as party chair. Do they even have any conception of what Dean and MoveOn.org mean ideologically to the Democratic Party? If they do, it isn’t mentioned in the lengthy article. They are not quoted as opposing the left-wing of the party, or as opposing the outsiders and newcomers that make up the new ranks of party activists. They appear to oppose MoveOn.org for no other reason than that they endorsed Obama. They think Dean somehow screwed Clinton out of the nomination. How? Lord knows what goes on in their minds. Not much, from what I can tell. They don’t have a single policy difference with Obama that merits a mention. And they think that they can build a coalition of people around this? What? What is the coalition about? Why would anyone join it three years from now? These people don’t even understand what it is they’re defending. Let me ask you, what does this have to do with Harold Ford Jr., or anything else for that matter:
Why hireheels Won’t Back Obama: He’s Just Another Bad Boy
Posted on June 4th, 2008 in Sista Christian Louboutin by hireheelsRemember that cocktail reception that you went to last fall? The one where you met that really hot guy? The one who went to all the right schools, had all the right connections, the one that you could hardly believe was talking to you!?! But incredulously he was… Wow, thought you— “WHAT A CATCH!” He was smooth as silk, elegantly dressed; he knew all the right things to say— and he said them with perfect syntax!!! When he asked for your biz card, you almost fell off your Manolos as you fumbled through your purse trying to find one without make-up smudges on it… “OMG,” said you, as you told your girlfriend the next day, “I have a really great date on Saturday with this incredible guy, I just hope that I didn’t have a piece of lettuce stuck in my teeth; I couldn’t stop smiling. It was such a connection… WOW…”
Well Saturday night came, you strapped on those hot new Louboutin sandals that you forwent 3.5 months of lunches (and many dinners) to afford… you made it to the that new “IT” place (how in the name of Hell was he was able to get a reservation) just on time to run to the Ladies’ to touch up your lipstick. You made your best entrance into the bar area (no lettuce in your teeth to be sure), but no dude. You waited for an hour… checking your mobile every few minutes, maybe he’s tied up… After your third Cosmo, you finally admitted the worst. He’s a NO show— you’re stood up. This smooth-as-silk guy was a gorgeously shiny package with all the righteously right rhetoric. Sadly, this beautifully appointed Bad Boy just didn’t have the substance or the soul to back it all up.
It isn’t even a good analogy. A better analogy is that your girlfriend was supposed to give you a ride to your date but she lost her job and had her car repossessed. Is Hillary Clinton the candidate for the white working class or the candidate for the Manolo-wearing Cosmo-sipping Sex-in-the-City set?
Look, I’m all for nursing grudges but I don’t delude myself that you can build political movements based on them. You want to throw Howard Dean out? Barack Obama just retained him as chair and he’s adopted his 50-state strategy as his own. You want to change how the primaries function? Guess what…the party is about to be filled with Obama acolytes, and they are masters at understanding the rules.
Today is supposed to be party unity day, or something. I don’t really care. I’ll debate someone that thinks the Democratic Leadership Council has the right values and the right electoral strategy. I’ll debate someone that thinks MoveOn.org is too far to the left. But I won’t debate someone who compares losing the primary to getting stuck sipping Cosmos in their Louboutin sandals without a date.
You beat me to it, Boo 😉
Here’s what I just posted at culturekitchen (because great minds think alike)
Time to call out the Fauxminists and Democrats for McCain
http://culturekitchen.com/node/12448
And just to give you an idea of where am going with it :
Enjoy!
Actually Martin, if you think it works for you, just update your post with this graphic.
I feel a new blog post coming on…
There was another great one in liza’s post on culturekitchen (link in her comment above).
Go for it girlfriend, and send me a link, puh-leeeeeaze!
“It isn’t even a good analogy.”
The real problem is that it isn’t even an analogy at all. That story about the “smooth-as-silk” guy at the party is a perfect vignette of an experience that almost everyone has probably had at one time or another, and which is deeply felt. One can understand why the writer is so — I won’t say “obsessed” by it, but anyway, needing to express the scene. What I don’t see is what it has to do with Obama.
In other words, people who think of Obama that way, do so for reasons that have nothing to do with Obama. I mean, he’s running for president for Christ’s sake, it’s not about having a date with him.
I feel dumber just reading that crap. I’m sure whoever wrote that thought they were being cute and clever and that makes me sad.
I wonder to what extent this is a long-running astro-turf by big moneyed efforts to
a.) undermine Obama if he wins – What they are doing now
b.) Influence Hillary away from a more populist message and ensure the interests of cosmo sipping manolo wearing women and their boyfriends in finance are well represented
c.) Provide ammunition for McCain and the R’s about nasty powerful, uppity women during a general election against Hillary
1.) It’s very interesting that two of the women profiled are both self-described independents. Which make the comments about Dean completely irrelevant. They’re not democrats. They don’t get a vote for party chair!
2.) Diane Mantouvalos is a PR Consulant. If you go to the HireHeels web site it mentions a number of recent media calls from cable and broadcast news organizations
And they are running a campaign. It’s a Mandy Grunwald type corporate campaign for a candidate – but its a campaign.
Obama and Dean’s campaigns are movement based. That’s what they don’t get. You can astro-turf a campaign or a candidate, but you can’t astro-turf a movement.
Yeah, a lot of this does feel like hired PR bullshit from the GOP. Pretty slick, really– they manage to smear both Obama and Hillary with a single shot.
You are deluding yourself, this is a real movement. It started with Alegre’s walk out on Daily Kos. It has swelled ever since. Obama supporters are in serious denial about this.
The Confluence blog was started in February of this year. It already has had 1.2 million views. No blog grows that fast unless it is meeting an unmet need.
The Obama campaign needs to address the concerns of Clinton supporters (as distinct from PUMA). Otherwise the ranks of the NObama people will continue to grow.
Let them grow. They won’t grow out of a paper bag.
“Concerns of Clinton supporters.” I keep hearing this. What might they be?
I don’t think it’s wise to count the site hits as any kind of meaningful indicator of the power of the PUMA. I’m betting there were a lot of people like me who just kept clicking back because we couldn’t believe our eyes at the rank stupidity over there.
“It started with Alegre’s walk-out on Daily Kos.” Oh, yeah. That’s a mass movement all right. Funny!
Oh and these women profiled are racists, or at the very least don’t like the black man or brown man unless they are serving them drinks poolside.
I’ll buy the beer if someone comes up with proof of this. But I know, I just know…
Here’s an excerpt from a letter that JustSayNoIdeals has front-paged right now:
Q.E.D.
The reference to Columbia as “ultra-liberal” is a nice touch, I think.
I can see why he hasn’t a job. He has nothing to say and even that he can’t say well.
Columbia? You mean where a Teachers College professor being booted out for plagiarism (stealing the work of her students, no less!!) claims she’s a victim of racism? (The complaining students are black and asian.)
Didn’t know about that. But my point — which was not clear enough in the original context, I think — is that “ultra-liberal” is a term that a conservative concern troll would use. Kind of like “whitey.”
Bitter? I haven’t noticed a large influx of non-white voices dominating the media. My experience with these reverse racism claimants is that most of them are people who never liked black people, never wanted to have to work with them, and never had a conversation with them about anything not strictly work related. They went in inclined to see the worst in their non-white colleagues and by god that’s what they saw. Then, when they’re career didn’t go as well as they would have liked, they decided to blame the most convenient scapegoat — Affirmative Action. These our the same people who would have willingly blamed the Jews in Nazi Germany for undermining the Aryan race and destroying the German economy.
NPR was interviewing some deadenders this morning in NH. In what the reporter referred to as their minds, they believe McCain is better than Obama, because Obama beat Clinton, near as I could make out. I could understand this kind of talk before the primary was over as an attempt to sway votes there. But it’s over now. If they really think McCain serves their interests better than Obama, there’s either something terribly wrong with Clinton or with their sanity. I’ll go all in on the latter.
As to the attempted analogy, um, wasn’t their date with Hillary, not Obama? That might explain a lot.
BTW, I admit there was a lot of Hillary bashing from the Obama camp (and vice versa), but I honestly don’t recall any Obama fans saying, before or after the end of the primary, that they’d vote for McCain if/because Obama lost out to Hillary. Some said they wouldn’t vote, wouldn’t work, might vote for the Libs or somebody, but I don’t think there was a single vow that I saw to vote for McCain. You? Anyway, Hillary deserves much better supporters than these whiny Sex and the City wannabes.
McCain is going to lose worse than any candidate since Mondale. And two years later no will admit having voted for him.
But to answer your question, no one that I am aware of ever said that they’d vote for McCain under any conditions not involving gunpoint.
I did say I would seriously consider (with a lot of grave reservations) actively working to get the Green Party on the ballot in my state. I said it after the notorious ABC smear debate where Hillary stood on a platform beaming over McCarthyist smears and morphing into Dr. Strangeglove.
I’m not sure I could have followed through on it because even then I thought a McCain Presidency simply unthinkable.
that’s the difference perhaps between them and me.
As an aside (not that it matters much) my voting preferences are well ordered:
Left: Feingold-X-Obama–Clinton–McCain–Right
X=my relative position on a left right scale.
Some of these people seem to claim that their preferences are
Feingold–Clinton(Y)–Obama–Mccain
Y=their preferences. First, the idea of placing Clinton to the left of Obama is absurd (though its not cflear Obama is very far left of Clinton at all as there is a lot of overlap between them). The choice for McCain or for Clinton is therefore irrational.
Or, their preference really is
Feingold–Obama–Clinton–Z—-McCain
So I suspect these PUMA people are Z voters or are irrational voters-voting perhaps on one single issue (gender) and/or voting for McCain out of spite.
Having said that, I’ve been surprised at some Hillary voters being comprised of people whom I really thought should know better.
The PUMA people are probably the Z voters you describe; those voters that sometimes vote conservative but really like Hillary. Gender is huge. Think of all the boomer women alone who have voted either Democrat or Republican in their life that would like to see a woman president or really think Hillary’s the cat’s meow. These people gave the Democratic party a shot this year. Maybe some of the recent Democratic identification trends have to do with Hillary?
Even though many of these PUMAs had a brief romance with the Democratic party this last year, some may understandably be confused about where to go now that Hillary is out of the race. But the conservative brand is such a mess that I’m sure most of Hillary’s supporters aren’t leaping at McCain. Hence the PUMAs sticking around.
Sure seems like Obama is worried about these Puma Z voters though. He’s running to the right to go after them. And now having Hillary stand by his side maybe they figure they got the Pumas locked in. These loud outliers cited in the article are simply playing hard to get. Since Obama is dancing through hoops for them I betcha he wins their sweet little hearts . . . eventually
Wow — the depth of experiential analysis here just about knocks me off my duct-taped Keds.
not sure what you are saying but…
I’m not trying for any analysis of people’s experiences here because my point is narrow:
I’ve spent a good deal of time I couldn’t afford researching people who claimed they were Democrats for Clinton who wouldn’t support Obama. Almost all were certifiable Repubs. One was a Libertarian. Several were totally unaffiliated (as Clooney would say).
There’s absolutely no one who believed in what Clinton espoused who could vote for Obama, even if drugged, drunk or drug to the polls. Anyone who claimed it was true would be a liar or hypocrite.
is there a glaring typo in here somewhere?
Don’t understand…
I’m sorry, I just don’t believe that the commenters who say: “I’m a Democrat but I’m voting for McCain because…” are for real. That’s not a typo by any means.
Did you mean McCain? Or are you focusing on the ‘but, he’s black’ part of her campaign?
It took me like three reads to spot what you’re talking about, even though you quoted it. Just goes to show my bad bad fast-reading habits.
One of the commenters at the blog you link to revealed her short list of candidates:
Anyone who seriously was considering Giuliani for president should not be taken seriously by Democrats, because they’re the same voters who are driven by fear and faux tough talk. Obama will lose many Clinton voters who fit into this category, but will pick up Independents and Republicans who would never have voted for Clinton.
that’s pathetic. must have been on deadline and hungover. it’s certainly a far cry from the unity show today:
someone get that puma into detox.
Boo – you lost moral authority to talk about party unity when you wrote that post about how you couldn’t vote for Clinton. What goes around comes around.
What goes around comes around.
I wouldn’t vote for Clinton. And I haven’t been going around trumpeting party unity either. And this post doesn’t trumpet it either. The Dems are about to win over the White House and huge majorities in Congress. I don’t really care whether these people that I am mocking vote for McCain or write-in Kucinich.
You’d let him appoint the next SCOTUS? I’m sorry, I can’t do that.
I happen to think that Clinton is mostly OK, but too beholden to special interests. Choosing between her and McCain would be no choice, but for Obama I’ll walk the streets and stretch my checkbook.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Fatuous Party. That;s what I’d call it. I had to google Louboutin to know what the hell she was referring to.
Right.
White working women’s shoes.
Walking around in those can’t do your back any good I imagine.
huh? you need to get out more
Are you saying that white working class women wear those shoes, or that they don’t?
Either way, you see to have missed the sarcasm.
Happy Bunny Graphics
I read about the PUMAs having a whole press machine ready to go, bragging about it, about how much attention they were going to get, and it hit me – it’s about them. Not about Hillary, about them.
They simply wanted a woman as president. Which particular woman was irrelevant, any woman will do. Her positions on issues don’t matter. They’d just as happily vote for Condoleeza Rice as Hillary Clinton. It is total, unabashed identity politics.
Because they want to vicariously stick it to the Bad Boys who stand them up for dates – and beat them out for jobs and advancement. In this they have a legitimate complaint. But these aren’t working class women, they’re well-to-do professionals. They want to see a woman in the Ultimate CEO Job, because that’s their world and that’s how worth is measured in it.
They even blogged about campaigning for Hillary to speak at the convention to try to turn all the super delegate’s votes to her. Hillary’s own wishes or desire to make such a speech seem to be irrelevant.
Here’s the thing: the super double-secret plan is, of course, to undermine Obama’s campaign so he’ll lose the election and then Hillary can run in 2012. But what they fail to realize is if they do that, and Obama fails – and their fingerprints are on it – they have just turned themselves into political kryptonite.
If they’re perceived as having undermined the Democratic party apparatus in the previous election, for whatever cause, there is absolutely no reason why the party would be beholden to them for anything. They do not have the numbers to storm the gates – as Booman points out, they really aren’t a movement. So they need a party apparatus, and they won’t be allowed anywhere near it.
This is nothing but a desperate tilting at windmills.
I don’t know — I sure don’t remember any of these Sex and the City wannabes making a fuss about Carol Mosley Braun. But she didn’t fit the image, did she? Not an ambitious white woman from the burbs. I hope these women stay in the GOP forever, and that they live long enough to pay the price of their self-obsessed juvenility.
Joan Walsh at Salon.com has been churning out this stuff, though admittedly at a lower volume since the primaries. She did have the same story, women who won’t vote for Obama, this week. BTD continues his parallel path.
I keep wondering how long this particular divisive campaign will run. It seems pretty much without traction. Gee, they tried the gay cocaine guy, they marched out the angry black preacher. What’s left?
My particular interest is in the Dean story, which I’ve followed as part of my tracking of issues related to agnatology. The Clinton campaign and its supporters were the source of many bits of disinformation, and the following article provides an example of a conspiracy theory directed at Dean and the Obama campaign.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/01/8025/
There’s much that I disagree with in Wayne Barrett’s account but I don’t think it’s necessary to correct the record at this point. What’s interesting about this issue is that there was a conspiracy — of sorts — and it was by the Clinton campaign. The “coup against Dean,” as I’ve referred to it, began a week after the 2006 election, and it involved an attempt to replace Dean as head of the DNC and was lead by Clinton supporters Carville and Begala.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/berman/single
Attacking Dean at this point only serves as a reminder of the earlier coup. It’s hard not to wonder what the intent behind that attempted coup was, and the obvious implication is that Clinton campaign was trying to stack the deck by producing a compliant DNC to pave the way for her Presidential run.
Moreover, much of the Clinton campaign’s strategy regarding Florida and Michigan smells. Although I don’t believe that her campaign had a hand in moving those primaries into the pre-window period, I’ve always regarded the Clinton strategy to agree to the sanctions against FL and MI and then insist that they count as the most damning indictment against her character. And this is why I now suspect that the coup against Dean was truly malevolent in character.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=2&docID=news-000002884518
I suppose one could say that the voters conspired to elect Obama rather than Clinton, but that’s how the democratic process is supposed to work.