Rule number one for a campaigning politician is to always make sure that you explicitly ask for someone’s vote. It’s not normally referred to as badgering. But that’s how Jane Hamsher refers to it, and she gets to represent the “professional left” in The Hill newspaper. She even goes so far as to suggest that Obama and Biden never asked infrequent voters to go out to the polls and vote for them in 2008. She actually seems to be offering a conspiracy theory that the Obama administration is trying to play eleven-dimensional chess and hurt the Democrats’ chances by asking Democrats to vote and by using a slogan that polling shows doesn’t help. Apparently, defending their record is some nefarious plot to hand over Congress to Republican control. At some point people need to consider the possibility that Hamsher doesn’t have the administration’s best interests at heart.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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The Clintons are trying to stage a political comeback.
Their supporters are starting up again.
The bit about Hillary Clinton Being VP is an example of the effort.
The professional left seems to be full of venom and they aim it at Obama or his administration.
To be honest, I don’t understand the whining and doomsday people.
Hamisher, for some reason, despises Obama.
She will do what she can to undermine him.
I’m tired of the complaining and the lack of appreciation for what Obama has done. It ain’t easy.
The pro left would have hated FDR with a passion.
Is there any basis for thinking Hillary herself is interested, or is it just the discontented James Carvilles who want back in?
The source is the Clintons. SHe wants to be president and has since she was in high school.
The Clintons operate in an indirect manner by getting others to do the upfront pressure. They can then deny that they had anything to do with this. This is an old pattern with the Clintons.
It is only the beginning.
I just watch and see how it goes.
I don’t agree with Obama on some things, but he does have those pesky Repubs in the Senate trying to make him a failure.
What bothers me it the sheer bile being hurled at Obama constantly.
The economy is very bad and it is painful for a lot of people. It doesn’t help to have the continual negative diatribes going on. It’s non productive and self defeating.
Well on Hillary as VP, don’t go wasting more time worrying about that one. It was always going to be very long-shot, only under very narrow and rather dire circumstances, but now that Bob Woodward has gone off so prematurely and so loudly about it, it’s now virtually guaranteed that it will never happen no matter what else happens in between now and 2012.
Scratch the plans for those Obama/Hillary buttons and banners. That one is now all but officially dead and buried. Thanks Bob (and Mark).
And I wouldn’t blame the Enthusiasm Gap on just former Hillary backers (like myself). Plenty of 08 Obama backers have been out there bellyaching publicly about his tepid ACA, tepic stimulus package, BushLite civil liberties record, LyndonLite tendencies on Afghanistan, ClintonLite continuation of DADT, and the curious Repub-friendly Obama CatFoodCommission.
But, not to worry, almost all the gripers end by saying they still intend for vote for the guy again.
It’s just that we have to hold something called the midterms between now and then. And I can’t say some of the lefty critics of the admin’s political strategy are entirely wrong, though Obama et al have sharpened their message for the better in recent weeks, and as of today it looks like Ds might actually keep control of both houses.
Can I get a re-vote on who represents me in the pro-left…please?
Boo:
I think you know what her point is. Saying that someone better stop their belly-aching and vote isn’t asking anyone for their vote. Asking someone for their vote is telling them what they’ll do for you and asking to vote for them to make it happen. Second, I also think you know what her bigger point is. Which is that she thinks that Obama, like Clinton, really wants a GOP lead Congress. Now, you can disagree with that but that’s what it really boils down to. And why would he want a GOP lead Congress? To do deals legislatively? To show how out of touch and extreme they really are? To continue the hollowing out, from the inside, of the Democratic party?
Does she actually do any harm to Democrats election chances this year or is it all just a mutual admiration society between her and the punditry in DC?
Kos writes a weekly column for The Hill. I don’t see anyone complaining about that. Are you saying that Jane Hamsher has love for Versailles? She has even loss love for Versailles than for her arch-nemesis.
I have no idea if she actually does damage, but she sure seems to be trying to.
After watching the Republicans obstruct everything that the President has tried to pass or appoint for 2 years, he now wants them to have power in Congress? It is just absurd.
And the Pukes didn’t obstruct Clinton? And yet Clinton passed NAFTA and other assorted base destroying moves. Then he gets in bed with with Newt and Co. for welfare reform, DADT and all that other crap.
Is DADT better than not allowing gays to serve whatsoever? Clinton thought so.
Personally, I don’t, but I think it’s arguable that DADT was better than the status quo.
It seems to be in our country’s blood to have those sorts of compromises until it gets to where we want, though, starting with the 3/5th’s compromise.
Are you serious? So as long as gays hid their sexuality(which means their partners only visiting in the middle of the night .. or haven’t you heard of asshole neighbors reporting service men/women who live off base?) it’s okay? And to what? appease bigots? Do you realize what company we keep with this policy?
Did I say it’s ok? Your hyperbole and strawmanning gets really annoying.
However, I did say that this was all Clinton could get, and many people felt that DADT was better than the status quo until full-equality could be reached in the future. I don’t think so, and I don’t like appeasing these people. It’s also why I get angry with Obama trying to find the middle ground on abortion (“We can all agree it’s horrible and that it should be used as little as possible, so let’s try and reduce the number.”) There is no middle ground with these jackals, and you don’t debate the middle ground on these sorts of things. When one side proposes genocide and the other peace, there is no middle.
But, I think it is arguable that DADT is better than the old status quo.
You’re wrong on this one, Calvin. Pre-DADT, being gay in the military was considered worse than being a Soviet spy. There were active official witch-hunters looking for gays to kick out on a DD, usually after an informal beating or worse. Clinton stopped this. How can you say that it was worse than official witch hunting?