When I compare the campaign structures and media coverage of Martin O’Malley and Hillary Clinton I get a distinct impression. The image I have is of O’Malley rowing a dingy in the Gulf of Mexico while just off the horizon a tropical storm is gathering strength and bearing down on him. Whatever he may think he’s doing by scheduling appearances in Iowa and New Hampshire, his efforts are going to be swamped. Team Hillary is already enormous and this isn’t going to be an even match or test of ideas.
Now, Jim Webb may or may not get into the race. If he does, he’ll make things interesting by tacking to Hillary’s left on foreign policy while trying to make the case for moving the party away from its existing majority (presidential) base of support in a quest to do better with white working class voters. I’m not sure quite how that will manifest itself on the domestic issues, but I suspect Webb will be occupying a rightward position, especially when compared to O’Malley.
Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders would bring a completely different sensibility to the race, but one that would track fairly closely with O’Malley on most issues. I don’t know that Clinton will want to do too many debates with these three gentlemen. None of them can really challenge her financially or organizationally, but none of them are the kind of lightweight tomato cans that have filled out Republican campaigns in the last three cycles.
Despite this, I wonder if they’ll really be able to have much influence on the nation’s politics at all. If one of them were to galvanize the progressive left, they might get some delegates at the convention and have some influence that way. They could possibly force themselves onto the ticket as a way of bringing the party back together. But, right now, even these modest ambitions seem out of reach. The primary season hasn’t even begun but, on the Democratic side, it already appears to be over.
It’s hard to imagine anyone derailing Hillary this time. Perhaps Warren if she went for it. But she’s the only one I can imagine catching fire. Of course I didn’t see Obama coming last time, and then suddenly he was here and I was volunteering and donating money (as were many of my friends). So who knows.
Obama was supported by Daschle.
Tom Daschle made Barack Obama the party’s nominee.
Show me where Harry Reid has a candidate-in-waiting.
Basically, you are saying the media has decided and we should all go and vote and donate like good little robots. Thus vindicating Arthur Gilroy’s running comments.
Well, it’s not the media that has decided.
It’s the party elite.
And by elite, I mean the big money donors, everybody in the White House, elected congressmembers, think-tanks and journals, the high-level staff from Obama’s campaign right down to most of his field organizers, to the state and county party chairs.
Podesta has put everything on a glide path for Hillary and will leave the WH for her campaign within the next 45 days.
Of course, the media does notice that there are no competitors with any institutional or financial support. I notice it.
It’s what I’m writing about.
Media or rich donors, you are saying voters are not in the equation. So why are we, who belong to neither, even bothering to talk about it?
Yeah, there’s really no easy way to compete with a united Clinton and Obama.
Are voters in the equation? yes.
Voters, as in ‘all voters’ no.
Ordinary people, yes. Provided the parties are permeable. And the media plays only a small roll at this point.
On parties, the invisible primary, using ‘reform’ to game the system, the jungle primary, etc:
Jonathan Bernstein on “Is the invisible primary kosher?”
Julia Azari, “Democracy within parties”
This why political parties still matter – yes, there are thousands and thousands of people involved in the “invisible primary” and not all them are bigshot donors or elite permagov power brokers.
Look at Ready for Hillary – 3 million people, started by a young outsider (who clearly won’t be an outsider any more). At the party grassroots level there is real enthusiasm for Clinton, especially among women, and and especially among young voters who want to power their own “first ever” candidate and genuinely like her.
Is that powered by a progressive view of policy? Only in part – but it’s what’s real. Clinton is not winning the “invisible primary” DESPITE the party’s base – she’s winning BECAUSE of it.
What is the party’s base, and why don’t they show up for mid-terms?
The best analysis of the race there is.
“Progressives” are in denial.
probably more accurate to say internet progressives are in denial because out in the real world everyday progressives are onboard with Clinton
its the potential voters that have put Hilary on this path. Her numbers in Iowa and New Hampshire show no weakness.
She could win the nomination and spent 100 dollars.
The fix is in. Who will she be debating?
Probably Webb, Sanders, and O’Malley.
Just don’t expect her to agree to a million of them.
show something better than 1% in Iowa in the next few months, I would bet against him running.
What’s his appeal except that he’s younger and male when compared to HRC?
Decent governor. Typical Democratic technocrat. Like him a helluva lot better than a Cuomo. Is he marginally to her left? Possibly – but not as far as John Edwards was.
I think Webb (on the right mainly, but also with an libertarian-isolationist bent) and Sanders (the lovable lefty we all want to run) are strong contrasts to Clinton on policy. O’Malley is just a contrast in identity, and the repository for the (small and mostly white male) group of Democrats who just can’t stand the thought of HRC as the nominee.
There are Republicans that can’t stand the thought of Clinton as POTUS — but probably like the thought of her as the Democratic nominee because they believe a Republican can beat her.
There are no Democrats that “can’t stand the thought of HRC as the nominee.” Only Democrats that can’t stand the thought of more Clinton neoliberalcon policies and administration. There may be a small sliver of Democrats that only oppose HRC because they don’t think she can win the general election, but most that perceive her as vulnerable in the general election consider that a function of her political positions and possibly status age and as a dynastic pick if the GOP goes young and doesn’t nominate Jeb!
Is that it seems they like their chances against Hillary in 2016 better than against an arguable weakened Obama in 2012. How does that make any electoral sense?
Because they over-read the 1980 and 1992 Presidential election results. Incumbent Presidents begin with an electoral advantage for a second term. However, how and why they were first elected is an important element.
In the case of Carter, he was out of step with (more conservative than) the Democratic base. It was just that in 1976 other potential candidates entered the race too late or not at all. Then there was the Democratic Party flub in 1980 with Ted Kennedy’s primary run (dragging his obviously very unhappy wife with him). Carter’s flubs wrt the Shah and hostages, Olympics boycott, and grain embargo. The likely Reagan dirty tricks in making a deal with the Iranians wrt the hostages. And the ratfucking of the Liberal Party of New York — the payback for its endorsement of Anderson is that it became irrelevant quickly after that.
GHWB was always a weak candidate. Would have lost in 1988 if Democrats had nominated a decent candidate. His costly war wins (Panama and Iraq) were viewed as hollow by 1992 and his “big” campaign themes were NAFTA, capital gains tax cut, and a flag burning amendment. Plus he demonstrated arrogance in one of the debates and generally demonstrated that he was out of touch with regular people.
Still none of that explains to me why Bush thinks he has a better swing at the piñata this time than against the Muslim usurper with negative favourabilities. Hillary seems inexorable; are we missing something?
Because those who handle Jeb! aren’t idiots. Didn’t see Nixon run against LBJ in 1964 or GWB run against Clinton in 1996 either.
Plus 2012 was four years closer in time to the memory the GWB Presidency. Memories in the US electorate fade considerably after six to eight years.
However, Jeb’s larger millstone is dynasty. One that would have kept him out of consideration if not for the Democrats embracing a political dynasty again.
But does “Democrats embracing a political dynasty” make it easier or harder? I’m not saying you are wrong, just curious how much top-heavy, neoliberal smothering the electorate can bear.
I really wonder if the Clinton vs Bush rematch is a turning point in American political malaise; and not a good one.
At the presidential level, Americans aren’t keen on dynasties. Not too wild about two-term VP then POTUS successors either. John Adams — eight years VP, four as POTUS. John Quincy Adams (twenty-four years later) one term as POTUS.
Not likely that GWB would have been a contender if Poppy had had two terms. Had Democrats not colluded with GWB and nominated a good candidate, he could have been turned into a one term wonder as well.
The GOP insiders would never consider running Jeb! if Democrats hadn’t reprised their dynasty nostalgia. Likely they would prefer not to run Jeb! and slam Clinton’s legacy privilege. The problem is that the other contenders are nuts and Jeb! wears his mask of sanity well.
But I remain unconvinced; I’m beginning to agree with Arthur.
The Republicans made a four decade career out of distracting their middle and working-class constituencies with social values and shiny objects while great tranches of wealth slipped away upwards. I’m guessing we are now in for more of the same.
Republicans couldn’t have done it without active assistance from Democrats. While I don’t think that Carter was chosen by TPTB as their lackey, he did crack open two big eggs for the GOP. 1) Deregulation 2) Religion – overtly in political speech and party identification (that had been dormant since the days of William Jennings Bryan).
Clinton was the POTUS that brought home the real goodies for the wealthy and corporations. As wealth and income inequality has continued to increase during Obama’s tenure, those folks aren’t as dissatisfied with them as public rhetoric would lead one to believe.
Both parties distract with “shiny new objects,” “fear,” and some vague promise of better days. If they didn’t, the pitchforks would have come out long ago.
Here’s the thing about Clinton, Democrats convinced themselves that concession was the only way back and it sure seemed true at the time. This is why Hillary acolytes mock “social democracy” to this day; they are uncomfortably reminded of the irrelevant, enervating Left before Clinton. And back then they were probably right.
So I can’t suggest a social democrat could have won in 1992 but it seems to have been neoliberals all the way down since. To me disdain for the thimbles-full of “social democrats” whom are alleged to be in such short supply disguises a weakness inherent in the centrist strategy; those numbers would swell in a heartbeat if the curtain was pulled aside. We’ll see. These are interesting times, Marie, let us relish them.
The difference between conservatives/regressives/Republicans is that they accepted Goldwater’s defeat as an opportunity to build on what they believed in. Liberals/Democrats accepted McGovern’s defeat as a lesson in being wrong and the answer was to run away from social democratic public policies and principles and replace them with mush and later with the DLC to embrace Republican economic/cultural beliefs.
For four decades Democrats wouldn’t tell the truth and let Republicans tell lies that sounded like the truth because there was no competition.
I worked for Edwards in Iowa and NH in ’08. Edwards’ problem in some ways was his southern identity prevented him from getting to the left, though I think his AUMF vote hurt him badly in Iowa (Obama would not have won if either Hillary or Edwards had voted against it).
If either Edwards or Hillary had voted against the AUMF, Obama wouldn’t have been the the race. iirc Edwards was a Senate co-sponsor. And Hillary gave a full throated speech on the Senate floor in support of it.
Edwards tried to play the faux populist. Worked for some and rang as true as a three dollar bill for others.
O’Malley and Patrick were such good governors that they handed their office to Republican successors. That diminishes their Presidential potential. I don’t understand why O’Malley is even exploring a run, given that nasty fact. If you can’t build a state machine for your successor, how can you build a Presidential campaign that wins?
Tough standard. Not too many out of office governors have run for President. Reagan’s gubernatorial successor was Jerry Brown. Obama’s Senate successor is Kirk.
It is one that Jeb! meets, but Romney didn’t.
Massachusetts votes in Republican governors more often than not.
Patrick was an anomaly, and the failure of the state Democratic party to hold the state house was completely predictable.
There wouldn’t be veto-proof majorities in both houses on Beacon Hill, and a 10-0 US House delegation if the Democrats were moribund, or were in disarray, or didn’t have a machine.
This is a point I’ve been trying to make with Democrats, and it’s always met with disbelief. Voters in the state do not just pull the lever for any warm blooded candidate with a D behind his name.
Republicans held the Governorship in Massachusetts for 16 years before Deval Patrick, and Reagan won the state twice in his run for the president. It’s why I wasn’t surprised when Scott Brown won the Senate seat against Coakley in 2010, or when Coakley lost again in the race for the Governorship.
Exactly. Having a massively Democratic legislature and a Republican governor is what we do. And there are plenty of red areas in the state, even exhibiting the same amount of crazy as you’d expect in other regions of the country. What Massachusetts also has is a long tradition of moderate Republicanism, which is what tends to capture the governorship because it doesn’t frighten away the unenrolled and apolitical the way Tea Party loonery would. Oh, and we have our share of Blue Dog Dems too.
Outsiders seem to think that the People’s Republic of Cambridge is emblematic of the whole state, which is utter poppycock.
At this point, Hillary can skip any debates scheduled for Democratic candidates. It’s not as if the at least 50% of Democratic primary voters that are “ready for Hillary” have any intention of switching. Why risk a primary debate gaffe that could bite her in the general election?
But the optics of coronation are fatal, no?
The coronation optics haven’t hurt her so far. The GOP rightwingers may be the only thing standing in the way of a coronation for both parties. Then neither party will own the WH — the Clintons and Bushes will.
That’s exactly what I mean, though. My son assumes that the Bush syndicate suckered Romney and wrong-footed Christie and has fatally damaged both within a few weeks, which is hard to argue against on evidence. With so much money sloshing around our nominations have taken on a different dynamic. We’ll see if insurgencies are even relevant any longer.
It seems that an unopposed Hillary campaign argues rather more for a “broken” system then against it; yet the disruptive and reactionary opposition Bush faces is also symptomatic of a disturbed electorate. I’m not seeing the upside yet.
It feels like shopping at the mall; nothing here for me.
Being “ready” for somebody hardly implies that they are your first choice. I was perfectly ready for Hillary in 2008 and I imagine if she had been the nominee she would have won just as handily against McCain as Obama did.
But I voted for Obama because I thought he would be a better president. There’s nothing wrong with having a choice between several solid candidates. Hillary Clinton ended as up Secretary of State and Joe Biden got the V.P. slot, which are not bad consolation prizes.
I had hope. Gravis – a terrible pollster, came out with a New Hampshire poll showing Clinton at 44, Warren at 25 and Sanders at 13.
If it was true it would be huge. It would show:
UNH came out with a poll later, that had it 58-14. There is another poll coming out this weekend. If UNH is right (and they suck too) then Clinton looks tough in NH.
That suggests the only hope to have any type of race is in Iowa, and I have seen nothing that shows Clinton is vulnerable at all.
The truth is, and you see this in the Quinippiac polling of Fl, Ohio and PA, that Clinton is VERY well liked inside the Democratic Party. For example, her favorable among Dems in Florida is 88-10.
There is simply no evidence that Clinton is viewed as outside of the mainstream of her party.
I can’t stand the thought she will be the party’s nominee – but the simple truth is there is no real liberal/left identity in the country that matters. To the public Obama and Clinton are liberals, and that defines the range of options for the vast majority of the voters on the left.
I know that it’s hard for political junkies, but you should avoid reading polls this early in a race. They are simply a measure of name recognition and projection. We expect that Hillary will run, we expect that she will be unopposed.
At this point, no one has declared that they are running for the Democratic nomination. Not even Hillary.
Surprising polls in late 2006 and early 2007 gave Barack Obama a huge boost with both donors and party grassroots organizers. They showed he was a viable candidate.
Polls matter.
Clinton led Obama by 30 points right up until December 2007.
Nah – you’re misremembering. Sorry.
Feb 07 (aka now!) – Rasmussen
C – 28
O – 24
4 pts
April 07 – CNN
C – 37
O – 29
6 pts
April 07 – Q-poll
C – 32
O – 18
14 pts
May 07 USA Today
C – 38
O – 23
15 pts
October 07 Reuters
C – 38
O – 24
14 pts
This ain’t cherry-picked. Biggest gaps were around 20 pts in 2007, but many were much less. And Obama started to get the gap within 20 pts – or around 15 pts – back in the fall of 2006.
We don’t run national primaries. However, it was true in 2/07 that Hillary was polling +5 to +33 against Obama, but she was never at more than 45% and those numbers don’t include the third “viable” candidate, Edwards. In nations polls, Clinton always led over Obama until late January 2008.
Iowa — 2/07; Clinton 24, Edwards 24, Obama 18. Obama pulled ahead in November with 30% to Clinton’s 26% and Edwards’ 22%. Actual Obama 38%, Clinton 29%, Edwards 30%
NH — 2/07; Clinton 27%, Obama 23%, Edwards 13%. 1/08 Clinton 31%, Obama 30%, Edwards 20%. Actual Clinton 39%, Obama 36%, Edwards 17%
SC — Clinton led until 1/08 and collapsed after NH. Actual Obama 55%, Clinton 27%, Edwards 18%.
Sure – so we agree. It wasn’t the same dynamic in 06-08 as it has been – so far – in 14-15. Obama polling relatively close to Clinton made a difference in the “secret primary” – as did the fact that plenty of prominent Dems came out for him.
No, we don’t agree. Both of you were speaking as if it were a two-person race when in 2007 it was a three-person race. Without Edwards in the mix — Clinton would likely have led Obama by 30 or more points.
Well disagree there – Clinton and Obama basically split the Edwards vote when he left the race. So I’d say the difference was probably the same with or without him. I don’t think Edwards took more away from Obama than Clinton. And as they battled one-on-one down the stretch polls remained tight till the end.
What matters more is how Edwards impacted the race in the early going. At that time it wouldn’t have split 50/50 for Obama and Clinton. Had it split 33/33/33 with the last third going to the other candidates, that would have put Clinton in the 50+% range. With that much support, she would have locked in more money and support and made a President Obama almost impossible.
In Iowa. Ouch.
Yeah amazing … and somewhat shameful really … how much Iowa caucuses mattered.
I’m for all primaries, no caucuses, weekend and early voting, maximum Democratic participation.
They really need to get with the program. We clearly wasted eight years as a consequence.
the two way polling, but I really don’t agree Clinton wins by 30 if Edwards was in the race.
My recollection is the second choice numbers for Edwards voters split 50-50. In the caucus I captained (West Des Moines) the Edwards people would have gone to Obama.
I just don’t think you are right at all about that.
In fact, one poll found just that: Edwards hurt Obama not Clinton:
http://news-releases.uiowa.edu/2008/august/081208redlawsk.html
Apples to oranges. Wasn’t disputing that at the time of the Iowa caucuses that Edwards’ votes didn’t or wouldn’t have split 50/50 if he’d dropped out shortly before then.
The question is where his support and the money would have gone if he’d never been in the race at all. At the national level, not unrealistic to speculate that Clinton could easily have had a 30% lead over Obama for much of 2007. Iowa was different. Depends on how that state based Democratic Party institutional power broke. Edwards locked up a lot of that in 2004 and retained almost all of it through 2008. The other power players in 2004 went with Kerry or Gephardt. Dean had little power; just the more liberal caucus attendees.
Clinton scooped up a big chunk of the IO party power base. However, Obama had an early and good enough ground game that he secured a fair share of it as well. Then added most of Dean’s voters as well.
for a front runner. There was always very real resistance to her in Iowa and New Hampshire.
If Edwards was never in the race, my guess is another candidate would have filled some of the gap – most likely either Biden or Richardson. At times the Edwards people thought Richardson was on the verge of breaking through though he was not a good debater (which matters).
The bottom line was there was an issue that animated the party base, and Hillary was on the wrong side of that issue. This was not just a problem for Hillary but for the larger Party establishment that was viewed as out of step by rank and file Democrats on Iraq.
There is as of yet no such issue in this cycle that can be used to break the establishment hold on the nomination.
Don’t disagree. By 2006 a majority of Democratic voters had had it with the DC Democratic wimps and weren’t suffering ’90s nostalgia. That social/political position is what drove the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2007 and addition to the Senate majority in 2008.
Expression of an electorate “mood” in Presidential elections is moderated by two factors — the length of Presidential election cycles that dominate national media and dialogue and money. Personally can’t see where the big money for Edwards would have gone to Richardson or any of the other minor candidates. Obama locked up a lot of Wall St. money before Biden could get it. Obama had an initial advantage with the media because he was new/fresh and novel (as in no real chance). Not until he had the bucks — large and small — was he covered seriously. None of the others had what it takes to break out from the second tier pack.
the process, the polling in Iowa and New Hampshire both showed Hilary could be beaten.
This time the numbers are completely different.
Strange. The one thing necessary for a social democratic party would appear to be some non-trivial number of actually-existingsocial democrats.
Who cooda knowed?
Or at least some who were replicating themselves instead of hunkering down or waiting for the revolution.
Or self-identified presences in unlikely places.
Those Confederate flags and rifles in pickup trucks have intimidated most peaceable people with social democratic leanings. They’ve turn apathetic and apolitical, just like during the McCarthy tyranny.
Those social democrats? They were never there.
The Democratic party is, qua party, more liberal than it ever was. Ever.
Dixiecrats — gone.
Blue Dogs — wiped out.
The CPC is bigger than it’s ever been.
The party continues to not be the SDP, or Old Labour, or the NDP.
But then, it never was.
According to a current poll by Huffington, Hillary’s Democratic support has shrunk … SHRUNK I say … to 61%.
It is easily imaginable to me that her support will shrink even more, much like the large snow bank that seems impervious to the sun until the day before it disappears forever.
It might even be that someone better (read: more in line with the feelings of the FrogPond). But right now, Democrats (that is people who routinely VOTE for democratic candidates) like her. A lot. At least until the progressives and bleeding hearts begin to tear her down and demonize her.
Be careful what you wish for. You might get it. Bernie Sanders has about a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting elected president. Is there ANYBODY here who can show me the way he’ll take enough states to win in the Electoral College? Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Maine and Florida => All are deep or light blue in presidential politics. Is there any one of those states that would vote for Bernie?
Elizabeth Warren is the seed corn of the future. By throwing her to the wolves before she feels comfortable with running a national campaign is to use her up for nothing. She needs more national exposure and seasoning. She needs her own organization, not the bits and pieces of Clinton/Obama that will be available after a primary fight. She needs to meet and be familiar with the political royalty of the various states (Browns in CA, Wallaces in AL, Hearns/Carnahans in MO, Heinzs in PA, Humphreys in MN, Talmadges in GA and so on). All of these families are uniquely powerful in their own bailiwick, and all have RW/Conservative/Liberal/Progressive components. Knowing whose who can make the difference between benign neglect, ferocious opposition and fervent support. This takes time. Time she hasn’t had.
O’Malley and Webb? Well, I don’t really know much about them … and neither does anybody else outside the political maven pool. That can change and change radically with the right amount of $$$ and some luck. But it would seem to me that O’Malley would make a really fine VP (now that Jay Nixon has shot himself in the foot several times over Ferguson).
There’s more than the Pres at stake here. It disturbs me to read things like “I’ll only vote for Hillary if the R is REALLY bad”. Like there COULD be a not really bad R out there someplace? Someone who’ll appoint a social progressive to the Supreme Court to uphold Roe V Wade? Someone who’ll appoint a labor neutral person to the NLRB so that what remains of the labor organizing in the country isn’t emasculated even further? Someone who’ll appoint an Attorney General not dedicated to Mens Rights?
uh huh. sure. right. Hold that thought.
If you vote against Hillary in the General Election, if you demonize her in the primarys, if you proclaim your glad I’m not one-handed because I’m holding my nose as I vote status to the world: How are you different from PUMA? How are different from “lets teach Obama a lesson in ignoring us in 2010”? How are you different from Nader in Fl in 2000 (he agreed to stay the hell out of Florida and then broke his promise)? How are you different from Arthur “pox on all your houses” Gilroy?
I’ve lived most of my political life in the Deep South. I will vote for any Democrat against any Republican. Or I won’t vote. But I will never actively demonize a Democrat, no matter how bad he/she is. I refuse to give ammunition to those R bastards to use against future Democrats.
I’m part of the 61%.
DerFarm, you’re not looking at this the right way.
Politics isn’t about policy. It’s not about staffing the executive, nominating to the courts, determining the complexion of a congressional caucus.
It’s about self-expression. It’s how I let the people around me, the people I know, how I feel about myself and the world, through my choice of consumer products, in this case presidential candidates.
Me, I prefer hand-crafted, batch-brewed, artisanal presidential candidates that you’ve never heard of. I want to have seen that candidate in concert, twice, before you’ve even heard the song.
Some just want a cooler T-shirt.
you used to work in a record store and give dirty looks to everyone who bought top 20 albums….
< /snark>
right. Your right to self-expression.
What a selfish statement. I was there when people who moaned and cried about racism in the South … and then said it was dangerous to openly protest it because (and I quote) “you might get the REAL racists back in charge”.
You want to denigrate Hilary’s policy positions? By all means do so. Scream bloody murder about Big Banks, Big Pharma, RW control of the press, Wall Street influence. But why denigrate and demonize Democrats for it? Do you think R’s have any claim at all to the high road on these and every other issue?
By proclaiming Democrats to be in bed with the bad guys, you give credence to your crazy uncle. He’ll stand up and say: “See??? EVEN THE DEMOCRATS THINK SHE’S A PIECE OF SHIT”.
Where the hell is Nixon when you need him?
His name is “Scott Walker” and he’s running for president….
Agree 100%. We are trying to rebuild from the ground up here in my redstate and the guy who “lost badly” in November has just been reelected as state party chair. Those words in quotes were in the title of an article in our local paper about his re-election. They, the paper, that is, don’t have any sort of grasp on reality for our party, or, with their imported ultra-conservative publisher looking over their shoulders choose to stay on his good side. Not too very long ago, that paper was considered progressive/liberal in most quarters. Their African American editorial page editor (California native) has a hard time trying to stay on the right side of issues, although many in the AA comunity here think he’s probably long since moved way right. As do I.
What state is this?
Exactly why fixation on the President is wrongheaded. Progressive voters have been so fixated on the Presidency under a monarchical theory of power that they have failed to build strong enough local movements that can create the Pop Warner bench to create the high school bench to create the college bench to create the ready for prime time bench of progressive candidates who have name recognition and wide appeal — and can deliver progressive policies.
I’ve seen Democrats lose ground completely in North Carolina and it wasn’t from PUMAs or folks refusing to vote for lesser of two evils or tearing down of Democratic politicians. It was because (1) they failed to make a distinctively progressive case in Republican areas and let Rush Limbaugh talk stand as valid and (2) they got their hands caught in the corruption cookie jar and damaged their reputation.
North Carolina has gone from the progressive politics that created a progressive University of North Carolina and pioneered programs addressing poverty to the possibility of having Art Pope be President of the University of North Carolina system and possibly convince the state legislature to close historically black state universities. (Yes, that now is a possibility after the donkey died in 2014.)
The national Dems have no bench. It’s Hillary or nothing. The state Dems are in disarray except in a few states. Even New York is in disarray. Massachusetts and Maryland got Republican governors in the last election; it was because PUMAs and more-progressive-than-thou folks didn’t show up. Or voted Republican.
All the national and state Dems have is paid political consultants who do not perform. And media companies that siphon off most of the campaign contributions each cycle. And elected officials determined to remain as distant from ordinary people as possible and not be known for taking a stand on anything.
And of course in 2016, I will still vote and still vote for Democrats because the alternatives in NC are wack-crazy Republicans. Thom Tillis is so over the edge that even Renee Elmers is considered “moderate”.
What the Democratic Party establishment has not done is make any solid practical attempt to move the Overton window. Instead they have allowe it to slip even further to the right. Nor have they structured a fight that wins against the crap they are getting from the Wall Street media. Meanwhile conservatives have a continuing purge of the Wall Street media. Even Katie Couric is gone. And now they can hang Brian Williams’s scalp on their wall.
It’s time that Democrats got real about who’s not showing up to vote and why. And why their message is not getting out (given they have chosen a marketing model for campaigning).
The national Dems have no bench. It’s Hillary or nothing. The state Dems are in disarray except in a few states. Even New York is in disarray. Massachusetts and Maryland got Republican governors in the last election; it wasn’t because PUMAs and more-progressive-than-thou folks didn’t show up. Or voted Republican.
You’re 100% right. The Democratic candidate for Governor didn’t even bother to campaign, basically. Coakley, I think everyone knew that was doomed. NC finally seems to be getting back on track. Patsy Keever was named NC Democratic Party chair this weekend. But most state parties are a mess. Why is that? What is DWS doing at the DNC?
Regardless of what you think of Clinton, I think it is a very bad measure of the Democratic party’s health that there aren’t at least half a dozen contenders for the Democratic nomination at this point.
This will be the first opportunity in 8 years for an ambitious Democrat to get national attention. If Clinton wins, it will be another 8 years before they get the chance again. It’s also an chance for the party to energize their voters to get involved in the political process. Clinton doesn’t exactly fill the streets with enthusiatic supporters when she comes to town, yet she hasn’t even announced her candidacy yet and has managed to clear the field?
This implies that decisions are being made entirely by party insiders and money men, with voters being incidental to the process.
Part of the Democratic party’s bench problem — I think it’s overstated, but that’s another issue — is the monomaniacal fixation on the top of the ticket on the part of the casually-attached Democrat.
But given the fixation on the top of the ticket, that’s ultimately the prize worth competing for. Shouldn’t this motivate more Democrats to get in the race?
That’s someplace where the media should take some blame, they’re not interested in any other elections. The same phenomenon fosters the impression that Sanders and Warren for instance are somehow failures if they remain in the Senate. I hope they stay there forever, we need those people where they are. Though I too hope to enjoy the Sanders-Clinton debate.
Money. Citizens United has altered the electoral landscape inexorably.
You have just outlined how the current political culture in the US doesn’t give voters a choice in the primary or in the general election. Money overwhelms when marketing is the method of political conversation, even between friends. What infuriates progressives about their Fox-watching peers is that for the Fox-watchers repeating the slogans and not getting into the details is politics. For progressives, it is about dialogue on how to create the best policies in the current circumstances.
That is being replicated in the “primaries”; the best messager wins. And message equals public persona plus memorable lines plus media cash plus personal image. Policy is not discussed at all.
And…the national level of politics dominates and sweeps aside knowledge of the people and policies in local and state politics to the point that Democrats have a hard time creating a farm team because of name recognition. Republicans say something crazy and get instant name recognition.
It’s a rotten system on the verge of rigor mortis if not collapse. Reporting on it that way instead of treating it conventionally in terms of the horse race metaphor would go a long way to reforming the political culture.
And in this case, we don’t even have a monologue to fall back on. What does Hillary Clinton think the best policies are?
there are only two states that matter at the start, you can run an effective campaign in them for not much money.
It is important to understand that the way the race is reported in Iowa and New Hampshire is completely different from the rest of the country. It is why polling often is so different in them.
It is more than possible to take on a front runner if you understand the process. I actually had a reasonably lengthy conversation with O’Malley about this.
But the simple truth is the rank and file like Hillary. There is no widespread discontent there. In fact most Democrats REALLY like her.
It isn’t about money. It’s about the results of Clinton’s 20 years in politics.
And I would prefer just about anyone else.
The worst part is that a lot of Democrats think that this is a triumph. Me, I think it’s more like King Kong climbing the Empire State Building to escape the army tanks. Things look good for him now, but as soon as he started climbing instead of taking the more immediately painful choice of charging through the army lines he was doomed.
As another netizen put it:
Maybe I should vote Republican for 2016 and hope that they fuck things enough so that we can counter-attack in 2018 and 2020. It’ll be more immediately painful, but it certainly can’t be worse than having a neoliberal centrist in the hot seat for 2016-2020 such that the Republican Party gets an ‘in’ for 2020 and further cements their gerrymander.
LBJ in 1964 won 61% of the popular vote and 486 electoral votes – losing only 6 states, 5 of which were in the deep south.
If that’s “fucked” we’ll take it.
See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. People can’t see past the next election. For all the sneering we do at the Wall Street vultures and Gekko Gordons, the Democratic Party seems to have the same myopic foresight as your typical Next-Quarter CEO.
Now, I would’ve voted LBJ in anyway. What ultimately did LBJ in was not the Vietnam War but the brute demographics of Southern Strategy-induced Dixiecrat betrayal. The Vietnam War just make the Democratic Party’s reckoning come a cycle early.
Hillary’s problem was that her loss will be entirely unforced. The Democratic Party holds the demographic advantage right now and will in the future, but someone like her will be unable to take advantage of it. We’ll get neoliberal economics that increase private household debt, income inequality, financial sector deregulation that will only set us up for the next recession. And we’ll get a hawkish foreign policy that will cause the voting public to sour against the Democratic Party. All that will do is enable the Republican Party in 2020, putting us further behind than if we had just let them take the hot seat and ride to inevitable disaster with their fingers in the pie.
…you just believe she’s incapable of being a good President?
Because she’ll be running with/in line with the Obama policies and will obviously generally continue/expand those.
Yeah, it’s not a particularly lefty agenda I agree – but it’s right smack in the middle of the Democratic Party.
And the Democratic Party simply can’t afford to run the Mr. Clinton-Obama playbook for the next four years. People are looking at unemployment numbers and GDP and going ‘oh, well, looks like we’ll have a long and slow recovery’, forgetting that:
A.) Income inequality is near record-high, almost at Herbert Hoover level.
B.) Wage gains with the WWC have been stagnant and declining, creating massive amounts of resentment.
C.) We have record-settingly high household debt.
D.) The financial sector continues to remain dangerously unregulated, Dodd-Frank or no.
E.) The declining deficit is actually a very bad thing. The United States is getting little foreign investment (what with our huge trading partners also being economic basket cases), the income inequality is concentrated towards those with the lowest marginal prospensity to spend, and the high household debt means that only so much money can come from the private sector. The United State MUST run a deficit if this recovery even has a chance of being sustained.
And of course there’s also the issue that she’s more hawkish than Obama. Getting the United States involved in an avoidable war (like, say, intervening more directly in Syria or Iraq) would be flirting with suicide. Warhawkery helped Bush in 2002, was neutral in 2004, and proved to be his undoing in 2006 and 2008.
Obama might be able to complete his Presidency without further disaster. Clinton, especially if she continues the policies of the Obama Presidency, certainly won’t. The United States right now is a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off. And only genuine progressive policy can defuse it. And if we can’t get a progressive able to do this task, then I at least don’t want it to blow up in the Democratic Party’s face while they’re in the hot seat.
Your insane. The only thing that matters is the Supreme Court. NOTHING else matters. If a republican gets elected in 2016 he will put at least three new hacks on the court.
And we will be screwed for the next 30 years.
You might vote for a republican so they can ‘screw up’? They see the big picture, while you don’t.
Bush 2 was a disaster, yet he left with the court in secure republican hands. THAT is the big picture.
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What makes 2016-2020 so special compared to 2020-2024? Do you have an actuarial analysis of some sort that shows that the USSC will be especially likely to change during that time period?
At any rate, my real concern is climate change. The next 16 years will be the biggest years of the human race. The United States, let alone human civilization can recover from a heavily right-wing USSC. It won’t be able to recover from the Republican Party being able to stonewall major legislation from 2018-2028. If we’re doing a ‘this range of time is so important that it’s worth pushing all of our chips onto it’ argument, that’s my counterargument. You know, aside from a request that shows that 2016-2020 will be more important than 2020-2024.
Democrats have been running on “it’s the Supreme Court” since 1980. At least back then they could claim credit for having rejected Haynesworth and Carswell. Since then — they’ve only managed to bork Bork. Rhenquist for Chief Justice — no problem. Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas — fine. Democrats did luck out in that Souter didn’t turn out to be a rightwing hardliner.
Not the GOP’s fault that they choose young nominees (Rehnquist 48, O’Connor 51, Thomas 43, Scalia 50, Kennedy 52, Alito 56, and Roberts 50) whereas, from 1969 to 2009 the only two Democrat POTUS nominees were 56 and 60 years old.
Obama is hawkish enough on some major FP issues that are hugely consequential, like Russia/Ukraine and generally on insisting the US be the dominant heavy-footed military player in the world. Hard to see Hillary going to his right, though I suppose it’s possible. It wouldn’t help her overall in the primaries, and if going up against the Jebster in the general, a too-hawkish stance could hurt her turnout with the base and put in jeopardy her election.
The economy, Wall St, income inequality — all that’s important, but of only secondary importance if we don’t get someone in the WH with the cojones sufficient to tell the national security establishment to stuff it. Especially on Russia, Ukraine. We are currently sleepwalking into disaster with our aggressive posture there. Finally it seems a few leaders in Europe are also realizing this, and of course they would be much closer to the action.
How pathetic though that a smart, well-educated person like Obama can’t seem to grasp what Putin might be thinking.
It’s not about her hawkish in the primary campaign or general election, but once she’s actually in office. Democrats will still have to win elections once Hillary Clinton gets her ephemeral landslides and nothing will make said landslides quite evaporate like a hawkishness-induced FP debacle.
I don’t think that the crises in Eastern Europe will, in terms of US electoral politics, amount to anything as long as Obama doesn’t actually commit anything more than American exceptionalist rhetoric and vague financial support. Even if Putin skillfully outmaneuvers Obama from now on — which doesn’t seem likely, because Russia is fucking up their own economy with neoliberalism — Obama can always just disengage and America can worry about ebola or Honey Boo Boo or whatever the fuck. Potentially disastrous for the people living there, but no one over here will care.
That changes once soldiers are actually committed, which is why I’m extremely leery of anyone even hinting of being more hawkish than the already-playing-with-fire Obama.
All important. All interrelated.
At any rate, FP debacles don’t work like, say, economic debacles. Americans don’t really care as long as American lives aren’t directly threatened or the blowback is sharp and obvious. And again, I don’t mean in a ‘tens of thousands of human beings are dying and orphans are starving in the streets’ kind of way, I mean in a higher gas prices kind of way. Sure, embarrassing when our ‘allies’ get humiliated and our ‘enemies’ get what they want at America’s expense, but it’s the kind of shit that gets forgotten in time for the next HBO special.
The economy is much more important. Will always be. Presidents can recover from foreign policy debacles that don’t involve mass deaths of Americans, but they can’t survive recessions. And it looks like the Democratic Party is unable and/or unwilling to do what it takes to stop the next recession.
past the next election because the next election is completely unforeseeable.
Elections are the end product of a number of variables: economic, sociological, political. We have no idea what 2020 will look like.
Economists can barely predict 12 months ahead. I can make a good argument that globalization and automation will mean inequality will increase and the economy will struggle. But that is a guess.
How many saw oil at 50 bucks 6 months ago.
We barely know what 2016 will look like.
Human beings suck at predicting the future.
Which means you give all to the election in front of you.
I “foresee” climate change, for example, arguably our major challenge, not making the policy agenda. Why? Because the vast majority see it as an impost on their consumption not an issue of survival for their descendants.
Income inequality will be fêted but abandoned at the altar. Threats to our security, no matter how unlikely, will be relentlessly exploited as a rhetorical chew toy by all concerned. And so forth.
So, yeah, I like your acknowledgement of the unknowable but some things are baked in too.
I have to say that I can’t sympathize with this viewpoint. We know that neoliberal economics are bad for the economy and for the popularity of Democrats. We know that a hawkish foreign policy will bite us in the butt. We know that the Democratic Party is very fragile right now and a major misstep will shatter the Obama Coalition. We know that issues like income inequality and appointments to the USSC and climate change are things we will have to worry about indefinitely and we can’t afford to take one step forward now at the cost of going two steps backwards two years from now. We know these things and yet the Democratic Party is marching to their doom anyway — and I’ve gotten one of three responses to this:
1.) There’s no getting off of this crazy train no matter how much you O’Malleyites/Warrenites/Brownites protest because Hillary’s just too strong. So we might as well party as hard as we can before the Titanic sinks. Hillary 2016!
2.) Maybe something nice will happen and we get bailed out despite our awful strategy. Maybe the GOP frontfronner gets caught whipping a screaming prostitute and it drives up our margins in 2016 enough so that we can weather the oncoming storm! Maybe gas will go down to 30 dollars a barrel!
3.) 2012-2016 is so important that it completely dwarfs everything that happens afterwards.
Simplified myopia.
1958 – when LBJ was the Senate majority leader – Democrats picked up 15 Senate seats for a 65 seat majority. Lost one in 1960 and gained 2 in 1964 for a total of 66 seats.
1958 House – Sam Rayburn Speaker – won 48 seats for a new total of 283. 1960 – lost 21; new total 262. 1962 – lost four seats. John McCormack Speaker. 1964 gained 37 seats — new total 295.
If wasn’t merely LBJ’s landslide in 1964 that facilitated his robust domestic agenda but what he and others engineered six years earlier and without relinquishing that strength in the two intervening national elections. Very different from the 2010-2014 elections.
Delusional to project that the first female POTUS will have gigantic coattails compared to the first Catholic POTUS.
Well probably bigger coattails than the first Catholic president. Not saying she’s gonna win 44 states of course – but significant electoral landslide and some coattails (Senate yes, House probably not) sure.
Not saying she’s gonna win 44 states of course – but significant electoral landslide and some coattails (Senate yes, House probably not) sure.
What Senate seats are we going to win with her on the top of the ticket that we wouldn’t otherwise win? We’ll win Wisconsin regardless, as long as Feingold runs. We’ll win PA if Sestak is the nominee. It matters more who the candidate in each of those states is.
You’re right – you need good candidates. But strong presidential election years do matter on the congressional level – or rather, they can matter if you have good people on the ballot.
The 2014 loser Democratic Senate candidates followed the team Clinton “middle way” strategy. All of them also had Bill and many had Hillary on the stump with them. But don’t let recent electoral facts get in the way of your fantasies.
The fantasy is linking those losses to the Clintons.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are in the House and Senate minority.
Obama turned out to be better than I expected (not that I expected very much) but he completely screwed the pooch on:
1.) Not making the economic stimulus package big enough. This completely derailed his Presidency and is the biggest reason why 2010-now has been such a struggle. I’ve heard apologia that the stimulus was as big as he could’ve gotten it, but that’s horse pucky. If there was one thing Obama should’ve staked his Presidency on, more than Dodd-Frank, winding down the Afghanistan and Iraq War, and the ACA it should’ve been the stimulus package. That he didn’t was the biggest missed opportunity in American politics since, oh, Eisenhower and Truman deciding to double down on imperialism instead of sponsoring Vietnam, Iran, et. al Marshal Plan-style packages.
2.) The 2010 debt ceiling negotiations. Obama should’ve told the Republican Party to go fuck themselves the first time around. But he didn’t and now we’re stuck with the fallout. If we have a recession any time from 2015-2018, it’ll be because of that idiocy.
I think Booman is right that we’re probably running out of time for a not-Hillary challenger to appear. My big concern with a largely-unopposed Clinton coronation march is that a contested primary is a great way to build enthusiasm, mobilize supporters, sharpen messaging, and most importantly, shake out your campaign apparatus. This is doubly concerning with Clinton because she proved completely terrible at staffing and running a national campaign in her one attempt to do so. I’d like to think she’s learned from her mistakes, but I’d be a whole lot happier if the first time her campaign organization had to spin up and perform wasn’t against a deep-pocketed GOP nominee who had just survived a year-long nomination circus and whose organization was already firing on all cylinders.
Without substantial state and local coattails, Hillary Clinton’s dominating the Presidential race will be the death of the Democratic Party. If she seeks to be a historic President, her campaign team better be plotting how to bring a congenial Congress and state legislatures to power with her election.
That’s what parties did in the era before the cult of personality and the dominance of media. And it was why candidates sought party endorsements and could be disciplined to not betray party agendas.
But progressive critics maintain that the Obama administration has delivered the party agenda. I disagree, but the narratives from the days when parties behaved like parties instead of collections of independent-minded candidates with independent sources of income and campaign cash persist.
But progressive critics maintain that the Obama administration has delivered the party agenda.
No. Liberal sometimes critics of Democrats maintain that. Progressives give Obama his due in the few areas where he’s been okay to better than okay. Otherwise, they are harsh critics of all his DLC/GOP-lite policies and administrative handling.