When he ran for president in 2000, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah was entranced by the power of the Internet. Every two seconds he implored his television audience to visit OrrinHatch2000.com. It got to the point that for years I would only refer to him as OrrinHatch2000.com or just OrrinHatch.com. I’m not sure if he won even a single delegate to the convention, but he was at the forefront of online organizing. I was on the other side, trying to get Bill Bradley nominated by the Democrats. Bradley used the internet even more effectively, and actually raised more money than Al Gore. But having money couldn’t get CNN to treat him with any respect. Orrin Hatch had the same problem. Come to think of it, Howard Dean took the internet a hundred miles further than his predecessors, and he got no more respect for it, either.
We’ve come a long way, but there are still some pretty powerful gatekeepers on our airwaves who largely determine who is a serious candidate for president and who is not.
But don’t feel badly for OrrinHatch.com. With each passing year, he’s become a bigger asshole. Call it a survival mechanism in the modern GOP. He doesn’t want to go out like his colleague Robert Bennett did in 2010.
These days, it’s impossible to distinguish OrrinHatch.com from a simple troll.
Hatch also drew laughs from the crowd when he made fun of the left for using the term “progressive.”
“I get a big kick out of them using the word ‘progressive,'” he said. “My gosh, they’re just straight old dumbass liberals anyway.”
He’s says that the Republicans will win back the White House in 2016 and then they’ll serve us up with a great big dose of our own medicine.
I am not a scientist, but I am going to try to figure out how to prevent that from happening.
Democrats can win the presidency in 2 ways:
1. If the republicans impeach Obama and also at some point shut down the government, the Ds could probably run donald duck and win
and/or
2. Start promoting a better candidate to run than the Clintons.
The Ds should retreat for at least a year and come up with a winning policy agenda and then they should start concentrating on state elections. That’s how the republicans have gotten where they are today, i.e., in charge of the world.
I’m old enough to remember Jerry Brown’s “1-800-xxxx” phone number for fund raising.
While I’m not optimistic for the Democrats chances for the WH in 2016, they do need to do a few things now.
1) Get real about the 2015-2016 gubernatorial elections, 2016 Senate races, and all of the House seats.
For example, it’s my understanding that Sestak didn’t disappear after his 2010 defeat and may challenge Toomey again. Sestak is a strong candidate if he can get the attention and money he deserves. Be ruthless in identifying possible DEM challengers. Ruthless in assessing how to make GOP incumbents vulnerable. Be prepared for retirements. For example, is John Hoeven (ND) satisfied being even more of a GOP backbencher than Jim Webbb was? Give weight to those that are younger, experienced, have TV charisma, and can articulate her/his guiding principles for governance and are deft at dismissing all the irrelevancies that Republicans like to run on.
Grimes may have had a better shot at governor, but her Senate campaign may have made her a weaker candidate. Is Biden’s son the best DEM candidate in Delaware? If Landrieu loses her Senate seat does her brother have a chance to become governor of LA? If Vitter wins does that mean that Jindal could become a senator (yuck — but no yuckier than Vitter)?
No one could be yucckyier than Vitter, although the aptly named Anthony Wiener came close. Still, those diapers, no it’s no contest.
For example, it’s my understanding that Sestak didn’t disappear after his 2010 defeat and may challenge Toomey again. Sestak is a strong candidate if he can get the attention and money he deserves.
He certainly did not go away. He regularly visits the county Democratic committees here in PA. And his crew regularly emails as well. He’s certainly looking forward to a rematch with Toomey is my guess. At this point I doubt Kane will run. The newspapers here hate her, even though she really didn’t do much wrong.
Mitch McConnell isn’t a scientist either, but he plays one in the Senate.
Gag me with a spoon every time I hear Orrin’s whiney voice.
However, I’m old enough to be delighted by the phrase “my gosh.”
I still can’t figure out how these people get elected to the Senate. Oh, okay – Utah.
What medicine would that be? Attempting to govern despite the party of no?
Al From had his chance. As soon as Howard Dean was in charge, things started improving, but then Dean got sidetracked.
Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, they understand what the country needs, and there are plenty of others out there. It’s encouraging to see that they have enough wind in their sails to get Warren promoted.
As the article points out, they also appeal to a lot of people who don’t even consider themselves liberal. Merkley proved it. The DLC Republican-lite “centrists” have proved only that they are living in a bubble of their own creation.
Dems need the white working class back, and they can get it by policy shifts against free trade, against Wall Street, etc combined with propaganda shifts to undo the harm done over the years by constant and violent propaganda attacks against men and against whites.
But I don’t know how they can do that given who they are and how they have sold their anticlericalism, their feminism, and the immigration outlook solely as attacks on men, white men, and the white race.
Not to mention in the teeth of O’s impending immigration move and his horrific deals with China on trade and on the environment (also really on trade).
Both parties are increasingly behind the politics of race and issues to which class is not relevant, as well as goals openly and unambiguously harmful to the working class.
That will leave the white working class a loser, and with them will go the whole working class and those below.
Politics is always about what different factions of rich people want.
They get their way by controlling campaign money for their tools in office to use trolling for votes.
Progressivism and support for interests of the 99%, over the decades, were always about that.
Lately, that is not how the people who control the parties, their agendas, and their messages want to do business.
I have no use for Orrin Hatch. I think he’s a pig. But this:
is basically correct. In the popular view “a progressive” == “more liberal than a liberal”. And while you’re typing up your 100-word+ explanation of why I’m just plain wrong and there are differences and they do so matter, just remember: if you’re explaining, you’re losing.
The Orrin Hatches of the world are going to organize rings around you. And as long as you’re laughing at them, you won’t even see it coming.