How many Clinton “firewalls” were breached in 2008 and have already been breached in 2016? This woman has had more firewalls than makeovers. In 2008 she had women, POC, Superdelegates (at least near half), near half the establishment/institutional support (including mass media and money), and gun owners and later junked POC for white folks. This time she has women, AAs, Latinos, Superdelegates (more than 90%), all the establishment/institutional support (including mass media and money), and white folks. (She junked the gun owners this time around.)
Clinton has never had “firewalls.” She has machines. Machines constructed over decades.
Bernie probably knows more about such machines than more than a few people living today. Anyone born much after 1947 hasn’t had a front row seat as to how political machines operate, and not so many of those born before personally experienced them when they were young and has continued to experience how they operate. This could explain why Bernie has exceeded the expectations of so many that have supported him. He’s been finding ways around and through the power of machines throughout his whole political career. However, so far it’s not quite enough this time.
His supporters need a crash course in the knowledge and operation of political machines if we are to have a chance of crashing through them. To fully appreciate the methods to Sanders madness and what more is needed from us.
It’s not that it has escaped the attention of his supporters that the MSM, DEM party, and Wall St. money has been fully “Ready for Hillary.” Nor that they have worked diligently to dismiss, discredit, and lie about Sanders. However, rapid response to correct the record isn’t enough.
Check it out:
Clinton received 78% of the non-first time Iowa caucus attendees. That’s roughly what Kerry, Edwards, and Gephardt collectively received in 2004 and Clinton, Edwards, and Obama collectively got in 2008. We know that in 2004 that institutional/establishment vote was split between Gephardt and Edwards with a third sitting on the fence before Ted Kennedy (as a “closer”) flew in and whipped that Iowa DEM establishment. We also know that Clinton and Edwards had more of it than Obama in ’08 (hence Clinton’s shock at coming in third). (Note: SEIU was split between Edwards and Obama in ’08 As Hillary was just as “inevitable” in ’08 and if she’s so great for union members, have to wonder why SEIU didn’t at least split three ways last time around.)
With that 78% “in the bag,” Clinton’s 2016 campaign didn’t expend much in the way of retail campaign resources on Iowa. Not even Obama’s highly touted new voter outreach in ’08 could have prevailed against that 78% consolidation for Clinton. At least, and from the “paper of record,” NYTimes not until December/January when some numbers began looking unfavorable for her.
As much as 90 percent of the campaign’s resources are now split between Iowa and the Brooklyn headquarters, according to an estimate provided by a person with direct knowledge of the spending. The campaign denied that figure.
The following from the same article is more likely spin (and partisan DEMs that deny the existance of a pipeline from team Clinton to the NYTimes and WaPo are fools):
…the campaign has invested much of its resources in the Feb. 1 caucuses in Iowa, hoping that a victory there could marginalize Mr. Sanders and set Mrs. Clinton on the path to the nomination.
Ah yes, the Kerry ’04 path to the nomination. Also good BS to disseminate to the troops:
The focus on Iowa, which still haunts Mrs. Clinton after the stinging upset by Barack Obama there in 2008, has been so intense that even organizers in New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Feb. 9, have complained to the campaign’s leadership that they feel neglected.
The Democratic machine in NH isn’t as robust and entrenched as it is in Iowa, but that IA caucus win was expected to faciliate the machine and boost Clinton to a win or a very narrow loss. Somehow the faction of NH DEM voters not inclined to go along with the institutional/establishment choice swelled to 60.4%. And the “closers,” Bill, Chelsea, Albright, and Steinem, sent into NH were like what in business is known as “deal mucker uppers.” (A note: business people and politicians dependent on “closers” are second rate in their own right.)
Here’s part of the machine:
Mrs. Clinton’s campaign is counting on minority voters to help her win in the South. It has assembled “leadership councils” of elected officials, party leaders and activists who have endorsed Mrs. Clinton and has held campaign events in states beyond the early four, including the delegate-rich Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida and Virginia.
…
[Clinton’s campaign] is relying on union volunteers and members of supportive organizations such as Planned Parenthood to help her. …
The machine struck back in Nevada.
Casino union bosses worked over their members with assistance from Harry Reid (as good of a closer in NV as Teddy Kennedy was in Iowa ’04) and casino owners. Time off to caucus under the watchful eyes of the boss. And we’re told that the entry polls were wrong; more people really did intend to caucus for Clinton than Sanders. (Where have we heard this before?) (And that alleged dust-up about Sanders’ field campaigners posing as casino culinary workers is looking a bit more like a dirty trick by the opposition. Had the internet been around in ’72 would some of the CREEP dirty tricks been seen in real time? Of course, only those that wear properly functioning tin-foil hats would have read it correctly. Everyone else would have dismissed them as the wild imaginings of CT fools. I can report that as soon as I learned of the Watergate break-in, it was clear to me that it was a team Nixon operation. And yes, I was told that I was nuts.)
It wouldn’t be too strong for me to say that I hate the machine and all the machine movers and shakers. It also makes me sad to see so many once good people become cogs and shills for it. Maybe they always have been, but it was easier to hide in the past.
The facts at this point in the primary are technically better for Sanders than they were for Obama in ’08. Bernie may only have tied Clinton in Iowa but it was with 50% compared to Obama’s win with 37%. Obama narrowly lost to Clinton in NH, but Sanders won a landslide. In NV Sanders is at or near Obama’s performance. But for some reason, Obama was praised as a winner by the MSM and Sanders is being called a loser (right here at the Pond).
Rationally, a loss in SC should be dimissed because the state is reliably Republican in presidential elections, but it won’t be. The task for Sanders’ team is daunting because the machine is really entrenched and strong there. And African-Americans over a certain age are exceedingly forgiving of those that throw them under the bus when it serves the tosser’s personal interests.
The base DEM primary vote in SC is near 290,000. (The ’08 new voters didn’t show up in IA or NH; so, no reason to project that they will do so in SC regardless of how often Hillary repeats her newly discovered Obamaphilia.) A pessimistic projection is that Clinton gets 78% of that. So, Sanders needs to get more new voters than Obama did in ’08 which was 192,000. Roughly 220,000 would do it. (Sanders did get more new voters than Obama in both IA and NH. Not by much but a little.) That’s a huge number relative to those that vote in primaries. It’s five and a half times the size of the 2016 NH new voters. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to build such a large new primary election voter base, and unlike Obama’s ’08 team, Sanders’ teams team has to add every single one of those new voters themselves.
One other point, machines play dirty. They will lie (I’m looking at you Ms. Huerta), cheat (I’m looking at you SEIU for your flyers proclaiming that Clinton supports a $15 minimum wage), and steal. For a candidate like Sanders, it’s not just getting the new voters to the caucus and polling sites. They have to stay until they’ve cast their vote. In Iowa and Nevada, there were reports of people leaving because the lines were too long or the caucuses too crowded. And the lines in NH were also long; so, some there may have also decided to leave without voting. It’s possible that such voter discouragement (a well known tactic of political machines) cost Sanders a win in Iowa and something in Nevada.
“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious–makes you so sick at heart–that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
― Mario Savio [December 2, 1964]
Don’t know what this means for Sanders campaign, but worth repeating: Machine may still be able to win elections (by hook or by crook)..
But it can’t fix the crisis at the heart of the system. The anger will not subside, the challenges from left & right will not go away.
machine gets what it wants – it is sentient & self-perpetuating.
— Billmon – February 20, 1916
Stole a couple of partial comments from a Naked Capitalism thread that I wanted to share.
Seems like I’m not the only old leftie having intense feelings of deja vu.
A few weeks ago I likened the feeling to having fallen through wormhole to 1972 with a DEM primary between Nixon and McGovern. Also not to be forgotten is that union leaders abandoned McGovern in the general election.
From one of our own here at the Pond – RUKidding:
Kinda shocking how f*cking useless those state machines are at electing locals, eh?
The more I watch African politics, the more similarity I see to our own failure to punish rampant failure in our own officials.
(Another seeing flashbacks.)
Those state machines are very, very good at keeping the DFHs out of the party. The more their pond shrinks, the tighter their grip on it. While I haven’t researched it, it did occur to me that IA DEMs haven’t been faring that well in statewide elections over the past decade (GOP Gov and two GOP Senators, down from DEM Gov (DINO, but still) and one DEM and one GOP Senator); whereas, DEMs seem to have made some gains in NH (DEM Gov and one DEM Senator). Hasn’t been a DEM Gov or Sen in NC for some time (but they seem to have over-performed on the “not straight” SEN category). NV (for all Reid’s power) is also weak (GOP Gov and one DEM Sen.) Could be down to zero like IA if a DEM isn’t elected to replace Reid.
Yet those states that are weak at electing DEMs punch way above their weight in the national DEM party. Almost looks as if it’s by design.
From Billmon:
Could Hillary’s dominance with older Afro-American voters be a remnant of machine politics?
Black politicians and community leaders delivered the vote just like the union bosses did in the old days.
Could? Remnant? It’s the very definition of a machine. Recall that in ’07 that machine was with her and not with Obama. While Obama did have AA supporters, his small donor fundraising and voters in IA and NH were principally white folks that preferred him to Clinton. To see AAs getting all protective of Obama as if they were instrumental in his initial efforts to win the ’08 nomination is an effort to erase away that they were Johnny come lately’s and only after either Clinton began playing the race card (that brought the backlash in SC) or even much later after Obama had won primaries in many states. John Lewis, for example, stuck with Clinton until after she lost the GA primary.
I guess Hispanics have a “machine” down here, but if there is a general Dem one, it is weak tea. I guess it could self-sabotage a caucus, but deliver votes???
Where’s “down here?”
Political machines in the west have never been as well developed as those in other regions of the country. Partly a cultural thing — we’re just less inclined to be treated like sheep. However, they are good enough to manage the very low turnout local elections.
South Texas
Ah, well. Maybe you’d have to check out the TX GOP machine to see one with power today. Am sure that in his day, LBJ and his associates had a pretty good one in operation.
Keep in mind that political machines are not just the actual party but also affiliates such as unions and other social/religious organizations.
http://www.meanrachel.com/2010/11/crisis-of-character-in-democratic-party.html
Yet another whine that all the Democratic Party needs is more “moderates.” Weird how so many can’t see that “moderates” were the ones that destroyed the party.
would you consider writing a diary on the Clinton Foundation, how it functions, what it does? [thought I asked you this question earlier today on a thread, but I guess not]
Well, I have looked at it. The financial statements are mostly incomprehensible. Plus, there’s so much undisclosed information that I decided that further effort on this wouldn’t get me very far.
My top-line takeaway is that it primarily serves to maintain the monument to Clinton (his museum in Little Rock), employ FOBs, and hob-nob with super-wealthy people to assist them in funneling monies around among various NGOs. It’s more like a middle-man in the charity racket than directly involved in doing “good works.” The new breed of libertarian “philanthropists” is really into demonstrating that the private sector can deliver more for less to the “have nots” than government can. It’s probably more ambitious than they in that they also seek to profit from “modernizing” social/welfare institutions. For example, that e-Bay guy that’s big into “micro-credit” that so far has destroyed the financial well-being of Indian farmers and probably hasn’t made a profit either and Bill Gates and others working to destroy public education by replacing it with charter schools. (Have been stewing about the micro-credit racket for some time, but to do a comprehensible write-up would take me a long time and make it much too long for a single diary and there probably isn’t more than one or two that would read it anyway.)
Overall, I view these “philanthropists” as predators. Properly taxing them is the best way to go because that builds more sustainable economies and better health that all their disconnected little charity operations can do. IOW — societies don’t need these fake charities.
Malcolm Middle
NY Post, April 2015Charity Watchdog: Clinton Foundation a Slush Fund. (Not sure I saw that Post article but if not, did see a similar report. That may have been why I pulled up the available financial statements and other stuff to look at.)
Not sure I’d use the term “slush fund” to describe it, but it’s not too far off. Also note that most of the “grants” it receives are more like pledges of cash contributions over some extended period of time. For example, pledges of a billion dollars generates annual cash of 5-10% of the pledge. Couldn’t find information on the guarantee of those pledges. IOW the ability of the grantor to renege at a later date. So, is the Foundation worth the billions in pledges or the actual funds it receives? For PR purposes, they’ve been going with the pledges bc that makes Bill Clinton look like a super big cheese in the philanthropic racket.
yes i agree with both your posts here. i’m thinking something that gets at the nuts and bolts of how it has operated would be very useful to many readers i.e i looked at some of their financial statements on the web site but really don’t know enough to write a bout it. or maybe a wiki style diary
“Nuts and bolts” requires solid data and that’s sorely lacking in the Clinton fund public financial statements. In addition to that there are probably all sorts of special accounting rules for charities and foundations and I’m not versed non-profit accounting.
Of late have been wondering if there’s much outside financial analysis skill left within the professional ranks. We saw that Enron was labeled the “best run company in America” and banks, etc. didn’t have a clue that it was a house of cards. At one time analysts could evaluate companies in most any industry. As complexity increased analysts became restricted to one or two industries. More complexity, they could barely follow a handful of companies. After the fact, I found one stock analyst, just one, that in real time hadn’t recommended Enron because he couldn’t figure out how they were earning their money. When I scrolled through the Enron financial statements after the first big hit (at the request of a friend that wanted to know if the stock was a good buy at $30), none of the statements (not just the P&L) added up.
there are a few newspaper articles as well. someone who is versed in non profit accounting showed me what to look for, but I couldn’t do it. maybe someone reading this diary will know
Interesting.
Recently read a biography on Kreuger, and of course the Kreuger crash. He set up his network of companies and banks to obfuscate, and given the very lax regulations at the time – some stock companies at the New York stock exchange did not even publish yearly reports (those companies had been grandfathered in) – nobody except Kreuger himself could have a grasp of the total state of the empire. One striking feature was a dutch bank that he started, used and then wound down to only have its CEO employed, whos sole purpose was to store the book-keeping out of anyones reach (in a suitcase in Stockholm as it turned out).
When he shot himself after psychological problems and failed dealings his empire collapsed. What the real state of the empire was is unclear, Kreuger probably could have scaled back and survived, but psychological problems and a need to be ever more important did not fit well with scaling back.
Anyway, the Kreuger crash became iconic. Like Enron, except the founder had committed suicide, unless you believe the conspiracy theories, and lots of blanme could be pinned on him. This inspired a lot of regulations on what companies must report, in order to avoid a repeat. This element of forcing companies to abandon “financial innovations” in order to enforce clarity on the market, has so far been lacking in the response to crisis (both in Europe and USA).
Yes, interesting. But not too different from all the financial swindles that informed FDR’s financial team that formulated the New Deal banking/investment regulatory legislation.
More: Harper’s, February 19, 2016 – Thomas Frank Nor a Lender Be
Hillary Clinton, liberal virtue, and the cult of the microloan
This is all on the order of “Responsibility to Protect” that has led to more war — or more lethal conflicts.
very interesting,
Sanders needed an outright win in Iowa – and both sides I think knew it. For Democrats Iowa is REALLY important.
It is why Shaheen had Kerry pull his resources out of NH and put them in Iowa. It is why Obama and Clinton spent millions in ’08 there.
Because as I have said a million times before: Iowa and New Hampshire are where the machine is weakest. Any hope of a left of center politics focuses there because you can be competitive without millions, and you have enough time to become known.
I was struck by what a friend said – this is the last campaign of Hubert Humphrey. In ’72 it was the last gasp of the New Deal politics.
In this case it is the last gasp of the politics born to avoid the fate of McGovern and Mondale.
The machine always plays dirty – ask the Obama ’08 NH campaign chair – who will never support Clinton.
A tie in Iowa is never gamed out. A win in Iowa would have been helpful for Sanders, but a tie is good enough. Disagree with you about the DEM institutional/establishment power in IA. It’s quite robust. (Clearly substantially less so in NH, but when one of the leading lights is someone like Shaheen who struggled to beat a one special term Senator carpetbagger, it’s telling.) And unlike Obama, Sanders did IA without any of that support.
If Clinton wins the nomination, this will not be the last campaign of the “third way.”
Would be interesting to hear more about NH ’08 dirty campaign stuff.
’08 is inside baseball – stems from Bill Shaheen circulating drug stuff, and a NH mailer attacking O’s support of abortion rights among other things.
The NH Dem establishment isn’t very old – and used to the idea that you have to do things like take the tax pledge. NH in off-year elections is pretty much a 50-50 state. It reminds me of where Vermont was in say 1982.
The tie was not good enough. You need to trigger the campaign/candidate is collapsing stories to get the full bounce. This was Mo Udall close but no cigar territory. Objectively Sanders did not got the same bounce others have gotten.
The third way is on fumes for a variety of reasons, some stemming from the Iraq War, some stemming from the ’08 crisis. That is not to say Sanders like candidate will take over – but those who lessons are shaped from the 80’s and ’90’s have seen time pass them by.
A friend had dinner with Shaheen’s and some others the Saturday before New Hampshire. They
really did not know what hit them. He left and the passage about Humphrey came to him.
You raise a couple of different points.
So, Shaheen (who I place well within the institutional/establishment in NH and the Clinton camp) engaged in dirty campaign crap in ’08 (which isn’t such “inside baseball stuff” because even I’d heard that some unsavory stuff was done in that primary) to pull out a NH narrow win for Clinton and was shocked to discover that his crew was bereft of power in ’16. Sounds to me as if that group over-estimated their power and are out of touch with the NH DEM electorate.
The reference to HHH in ’72 is sort of weird considering that Muskie won the ’72 NH primary and HHH had been the DEM ’68 nominee. And Muskie didn’t begin to fade until two months after the NH primary. (I get that it was likening the DEM elite choice that year to this year, but holding up HHH in the Hillary position doesn’t work.)
I also get that you’re invested in IA being everything to the DEM nomination. If so, why did Hillary not drop out after her third place finish in ’08? McGovern ’72, Dukakis ’88, Clinton ’92? What you seem to be dismissing is that a “bounce” from a IA caucus win has to push a candidate forward in NH for the IA result to have such a stature. And that “bounce” from IA to NH has historically been for candidates that have some preexisting and definable advantage in NH. Gephardt (’88) and Harkin (’92) didn’t have that. Muskie (’72) and Kerry (’04) did.
Show me another time where the IA caucus results were within 0.2% for first and second, the candidate in second place in IA pulled off a landslide win in NH, and then was immediately dismissed as a loser? That’s the line coming from the DEM institutional/establishment. Or even a time when the DEM primary was racialized since before IA (Sanders can’t get the AA vote which is a carry forward of Hillary’s ’08 run and she flipped to Obama can’t get the white vote after SC)?
Generally there’s something unique about every primary election. Even if within the DEM party, the institutional/establishment choice usually gets the nomination. What IA and NH have demonstrated in the past three election cycles (guess I should add ’76 to that list) is the campaign horsepower of each of the candidates. Technically, Edwards probably had the most in ’04 but was too disadvantaged in NH (and lacked political experience and expertise) which gave the institutional/establishment an opening to muscle Kerry through to the nomination. However, the shortcomings of his primary campaign came back in the general (as it did for Gore in ’00). Clinton faltered in ’08 bc the establishment was split and she’s not a dynamic candidate in her own right.
I’m confused about where your naysaying about the Sanders’ campaign is coming from. Your IA projection from on the ground: My guess now us Clinton plus 7. Don’t recall that you projected a huge win for him in NH either. By standard measures and at this point in the primary season, Sanders is doing better than Obama in ’08. Without the benefit of any DEM establishment support and going into SC he doesn’t have the advantage of an opponent that explicitly pulled out the race card and he’s not a Black man.
So a couple of things are being conflated here.
HHH did not compete in NH in ’72, btw. The reference was to a type of politics that had run its course. So it was more about ideology and its representatives. Humphrey represented one, Clinton another. Muskie in ’72 wasn’t running the classic big government liberal campaign – HHH was.
On your examples:
Iowa did not matter in ’72.
Iowa was conceded to Harkin in ’92 (why people use this example is a mystery)
Gephardt got a good bounce in NH from Iowa and nationally. Had he not won Iowa he would have had a disastrous NH.
Front runners can lose Iowa: challengers can’t. Comparing Clinton’s loss in ’08 to Sanders in ’16 is apples and oranges.
Races involving front runners are completely different from races like ’88 and ’92. They are really races against time. Challengers suffer from relative anonymity. The challenge is to solve that problem before too many delegates are chosen. Additional, you have to show relative strength against the front runner.
Sanders got a good bounce out of New Hampshire – but it wasn’t enough to get him into a tie with Clinton. Given the front loaded schedule, and his problems with African American voters, he needed to win both.
The closeness of the win did deny Clinton any lasting bounce in NH though. It is worth noting, though, that polling in the 72 hours after IA did show her closing the gap, though I suppose you can argue that was just bad polling.
As of this writing his name recognition still is problematic in some March 1 states. In addition, the schedule was set-up perfectly for Clinton – highlighting states where she would do well.
Your comparison to Obama in ’08 shows the difference. In National polling taken between Iowa and NH Obama was tied with Clinton. Obama had strengths that would appear out of Iowa in the African American Community (See polling in SC after IA): Sanders has remained in polling averages between 7-10 points behind. He remains behind in most of the March 15 states as well.
His problem is that even with all the money he has raised the states on March 1 are too expensive to realistically hope to be solved by advertising. As with most challengers, he is dependent on free media.
The contrast to Hart is instructive: After we won NH we took the lead nationally, and we led in many of the states that were next on the schedule.
This is why I used the Udall example: a candidate who came very close to upsetting the front runner – and had he done so most think the race would have been very different. But he didn’t actually beat Carter.
I did think Sanders would win by a blowout in NH. I hoped that it alone would get him into a tie with Clinton.
It didn’t. Had he won both I think it would have been different.
Sanders is trying to pull off a political miracle. He has faced incredibly long odds from the very beginning. What he has accomplished is nothing short of amazing.
Yet despite all of that, Clinton maintains a structural advantage that will be hard to overcome.
But it isn’t nearly as close to over as people think.
Sanders needs something to change the dynamic of the race, though.
The whole point of my diary is a discussion of the institutional/establishment advantages that Clinton has had from before day one. So, perhaps it would be more appropriate to compare the results so far for her and Sanders to a similar race in the past.
If you want to go back to ’72, then Muskie was the front runner and establishment choice at the beginning (HHH was in the race but in the early contests not a factor — 1.6% IA and 0.39% NH). McGovern lost both IA and NH to Muskie by 13 and 9 points respectively.
In ’72 “surprisingly close” was losing by 9 points? Muskie won 62.6% in IL on March 21. McGovern didn’t win a primary until WI on April 4. Three other points about that primary. McGovern wasn’t without establishment support and it was a big win in MA that put in in real contention and Muskie began to fade. That’s when the “establishment” began shifting to HHH. With Wallace in the race, the others ignored the south because they could no more break through the white establishment voter there than Sanders can break through it in SC. As Wallace took MI with a convincing 15 points over McGovern, it’s possible that the party could have ended up with him as the nominee.
1972 stands out for me because it was my first presidential election and the CA primary mattered. (That didn’t happen again for decades.)
What makes ’72 a weak historical comparison with ’16 is that it wasn’t for an open seat, there were multiple candidates, and the DEM establishment wasn’t fully on board with a single candidate. ’76 doesn’t work either because the establishment hadn’t decided before NH and with Wallace back in the race, defaulting to Carter was the most viable option.
’84 — not open seat. Mondale the establishment choice, but again, Hart wasn’t without establishment support (no coincidence that McGovern and Hart both won MA.) Fritz won IA by 32 points and lost NH by 10 points. Hart remained in the race through June. (As I’m an FDR DEM and anti-hawk, I had to go with Mondale for the thankless task of being the designated DEM loser).
’88 – open — after Schroeder and Simon were out, I stopped paying attention to DEM primaries until the 2004 election cycle. However, 2000 comes closest to what we’re seeing this year; open seat and two candidates. Gore’s establishment support might have been less than what Clinton has had and he definitely had to scramble for money, but Bradley wasn’t an outsider. The closest Bradley got to Gore was -4 points in NH. Otherwise, Gore won by twelve or more points. Bradley withdrew on March 9th having lost seventeen consecutive contests (and some by more than 60%).
Review all the other years if you want to, but there is nothing that says a single challenger to a candidate with advantages-plus (like an incumbent) is out if she/he only ties in IA, is dominating in NH, gets close in NV (again the Reid machine went into overdrive for Clinton there and barely managed a five point win (and I’m not convinced that there wasn’t some cheating)) and a large loss in SC (again totally wired for Clinton). Hillary hasn’t even performed as well as Carter did in 1980 against Ted Kennedy which was closer to a level playing field as to name ID and establishment support.
CORE votes to endorse Bernie Sanders… Caucus leading the Chicago Teachers Union rejects earlier Clinton ‘endorsement’ by the American Federation of Teachers leadership…
This is two machines that Chicago teachers are bucking. The mighty Chicago DEM machine (or three if Rahm/DLC/Clinton is considered a separate Chicago machine) and the AFT machine.
But them the Chicago Machine has never been what it appears.
Before Daley attacked the kids in the streets in 1968, he was pleading with Teddy to run to stop the war.
We seem not to be on the same page wrt political machines. Daley Sr. was mayor for only twenty years (could have been longer if he hadn’t, you know, died). Harold Washington absolutely did have to beat that machine to get elected and it was a reason why is death was so crushing to those that had worked so hard on his behalf. Then Daley, Jr. took over and he retired after only twenty-two years in office. A classic example of a local machine.
Point was sometimes the machine was run by people whose politics were different from what you would expect based on how the machine was run.
I am talking Sr here.
Bernie beat one of the last Democratic City Machines left in ’81, ironically. The machine he beat was based on French Canadian dominance of Burlington politics. The in migration in the 70’s from New York killed it.
Actually don’t find it surprising that Daley Sr. could on the one hand order city goons out to bash the heads of DFHs and on the other beg Ted Kennedy to run to replace Bobby. Given the reasons why Bobby got into the race, it would have been ludicrous for Daley not to have used “ending the Vietnam War” in his entreaty to Teddy. Let’s not forget that the Daley-Kennedy political affiliation began long before 1968.
There was also a Daley (jr) – Clinton connection IIRC.
A lot of the Daley-Kennedy connection may have been Irish Catholic tribalism.
But of course. That was the roots of the relationship. May not have been as close between Jr. and Teddy, but probably still existed. Doubt there’s much of that left today with the rise and full control of the DEM party by the Clintons which we can date from the death of Teddy.
Bookmark for reference: Case for Why Hillary Clinton is the Wrong Choice.
Why Democrats Should Beware Sanders’ Socialism: He’s a socialist, not a liberal–and there’s a big difference.
Paul Starr writes this nonsense, so I scrolled down to see where it says who he is:
Oh, that’s cute. I guess this went unmentioned and no one thought it was important:
Yeah. Sort of like Paul Krugman’s stint with the Reagan administration gets erased.
On a related note, from David Sirota
A May 2010 e-mail to “H” from Neera Tanden – subject line “Your policies and health care” I’m not sure Sirota’s interpretation is exactly correct, but I’ve become so suspicious of the Clinton operation that I wouldn’t put anything beneath them.
Anyway, More on Ms. Tanden
I take it that you got the Sandoval puzzle.
Really quite perfect. Plenty of DEMs were open to something similar in ’08 and there’s been some salivating over what IMO is a ridiculous suggestion for this time around.
right age.
right ethnicity
right resume
right amount of charisma
Best of all both of them can be who they really are.
Yay! Another Catholic male, too.
Liberal “activists” don’t like this suggestion at all:
Not sure where liberal “activists” got the notion that they are relevant. Once elected, Obama couldn’t have been more clear in telegraphing that they aren’t.
As the GOP Senators have already stated a Sandoval nomination is DOA, liberal “activists” can chill on this one. Personally would have preferred that they point out why Sandoval is not “well qualified” for the Supreme Court, but suspect that Obama’s team already knows that.
However, Sandoval is “right” on a variety of measures for a particular other nomination.
Not particularly worried about this. Won’t go anywhere, designed to make GOP look stupid. I think you’re more correct on the “ok…now what?” part though for the same reasons I’m getting really pissed at Clinton and her handlers talking about “free stuff” like it’s a bad thing.
Did you mistake Mrs. Clinton for a FDR traditional DEM? (Imagine all her personal seances with Eleanor were for guidance on how to live with a philandering spouse. Maybe a few “conversations” in which Hillary “explained” why the New Deal had been wrong.)
Seems to me that Sandoval would be perfect for a Clinton “fusion ticket.”
If they could recruit him, he is a better choice than the Castro youngster.
…for their purposes.
Castro is so lacking in charisma and his resume is so thin, it’s surprising that so many people view him as Hillary’s running mate.
Other than being a Republican, Sandoval is made to order. Ticks all the right boxes — young (52) to negate concerns about Hillary’s age, popular statewide, multiple election officeholder (less than governor or Senator doesn’t make for the appearance of a strong ticket), Latino, physically attractive, Latino, corporatist, not too socially conservative. Scoops up Republicans and GOP leaning INDs that will be disaffected by a Trump nomination, drive up Latino turnout (men, women, and young people), status quo DEM women will swoon over him, etc. Other presidential contenders would be concerned about someone like Sandoval as VP overshadowing them, but the Clintons know how to marginalize a VP and dominate center stage by themselves.
This is a completely ridiculous proposition. Sandoval will not be the VP nominee of Clinton. Hillary hatred leads political analysis awry sometimes.
Sorry that you can’t deal with the reality of the Hillary political animal and resort to calling those that can “Hillary haters.” Were there not “DEMs” in 2007 that thought a Clinton/McCain ticket would work (I wasn’t one of those DEMs) and haven’t there were DEMs in this election cycle that have thought about a Clinton/Bloomberg ticket (I’m not one of those DEMs either)? A Clinton/Sandoval ticket is far more rational than those other suggestions.
Since Clinton can do no wrong in the eyes of her supporters, why would they have a problem with a Clinton/Sandoval ticket? It’s not as if partisan DEMs had any problem with Obama retaining Republicans and GWB appointees for his administration.
I’m a Bernie supporter, but that doesn’t make me irrational about who Hillary is and what her and her team are thinking and doing.
Whatever idiot Dems might have had a Clinton/McCain ticket in mind didn’t include Clinton herself. Unlike McCain himself, who was said to have wanted Lieberman on the GOP ticket. And name one Clinton loyalist who’s talking about Bloomberg now. Haven’t heard that one, and I’m confident it won’t happen. She’s reacting to the left in her campaign, not to the center, and for good reason.
Partisan Dems had problems with the couple of Republicans nominated/retained to Cabinet positions by the President, but was it worthwhile to demand that the Senate vote down the Secretary of Transportation or try to oust the Secretary of Defense? Didn’t mean we had “no problems” with these stray selections; just means with all the other stuff that was going on in January 2009, having a face off with the brand new President over them was not important enough.
Lighten up. I was merely suggesting a potentially plausible (and IMHO a winning) fusion ticket for Clinton. More fun to play with than speculations about whatever the hell the GOP is going to do or who Obama nominates to the Supreme Court (none of which I have any power to influence).
You can rationalize Obama’s appointments all you want, but it’s always a weak to dangerous thing for a DEM POTUS to do. History might have been very different if JFK hadn’t held over Allen Dulles and appointed McNamara. Might even have been at the core of his assassination.
Exchanges millennial voters for establishment Republicans, if Trump prevails. Down the road: a rump Tea Party, a neo-lib/neo-con party, and a youthful libertarian/progressive party? A more honest picture of our splits, perhaps.
With Sandoval taking himself out of consideration for the SCOTUS, guess I should erase what I penciled in as a possibility. A month of positive to glowing national media coverage for the guy along with partisan DEM acceptance was sort of a minimal level of exposure that would have been required to make this fantasy ticket seem like a no-brainer.
If Hillary wins the Dem primary, don’t see a need for Bloomberg, do you? But agree, Castro is weak sauce– maybe only good for Texas, which will go red anyway.
iirc what was floated was a Bloomberg/Clinton IND ticket in the event Trump and Sanders won their nominations. So, it was hyperbolic on my part to suggest that anyone was actually proposing a Clinton/Bloomberg ticket. Still …
Personally suspect that the whispers about a Clinton/Castro ticket is PR to keep Latinos “Ready for Hillary.” Keeping in mind that Hillary is conservative, staunch loyalty to her and Bill is of prime importance, and her official VP is to remain in the background, she doesn’t have that many to choose from. An all women ticket is out. Latino is okay, but too soon for another AA. Not too young — lest that makes her look too old — and not too old (at least five years younger than Clinton). Not too exciting lest that makes her look too dull. Gov or Senate on his resume. She’d be very comfortable with Terry Mcauliffe, but he’s barely into the third year of his first elective office. I’d say that Evan Bayh is near the top of her list. Below that, Mark Warner (she needs VA). Hickenlooper (CO) is also a possibility. Beyond that not seeing any other DEM governors that add anything. (Cuomo out bc they’re both from NY and they can’t massage that as Bush/Cheney did.)
Bennet (CO) would have to give up his Senate re-election bid to accept the VP nom. Would expect that Merkley (OR), Casey, Jr (PA), Kaine (VA), and possibly Peters (MI) are on the list. Sort of a short list when sorted for age, gender, race, and politically not to her left.
Bayh may not be interested and questionable whether or not he could flip IN to blue. OTOH, he’s more physically attractive than the others I’d put in the top half of the list. Warner could have been viewed as a strong option before he almost lost his re-election bid to a charisma challenged, newbie. OTOH, Warner had decent approval ratings in the 2014 exit polls and a few points higher than McAuliffe’s which in 2015 were above 50%. Hickenlooper would deliver CO.
(bc there’s no other appropriate place to stick it today and I think it’s important info.)
dKos HRC’s final paid speech – $260K from the ACA
It relates to why young people in this country, including college kids, have more difficulty getting jobs than what the olds recall from their youth. Sanders has called this a travesty while Clinton embraces (and collects a fat paycheck) the industry that exploits young foreign workers that are hired instead of Americans.
We are also cropping the elites that are needed at home. As we educate fewer and fewer, this will become more necessary to us.
More stuff — Common Dreams – Robert Reich — The End of the Establishment?
Relevant to this diary:
Team Clinton continues to dismiss her vulnerabilities as long-standing “Clinton bashing” and not to worry because they always fight back hard and prevail. Bill may have been impeached but the only ones that went down during that scandal over extra-marital sexual affairs were Republicans. We’re also not supposed to notice that within a short period of time after Bill was out of office that the MSM dropped their Clinton scalp hunting efforts. That Hillary was applauded as a Senator. Yeah, sure it heated up again during the ’08 primary season, but it was driven by the ugly and deceitful stuff that team Hillary did during the campaign and not old lingering and irrational animosity towards the Clintons.
Picking up on Riech’s article where I left off:
Reality interfered with the GOP elite’s delusions this year. DEM elite’s want to carry their delusions into the general election.
Beginning to look more like an Obamaphilia cloak worn in certain locations and for certain audiences.
I normally check for reports from more respected sources, but in this case those publications didn’t see fit to supply the relevant quote. So, from Daily Mail (that is claiming that it’s a first hand report by their reporters at an Alexandria, VA Hillary rally with Bill as the speaker):
More neoliberal crackpot realism. A shame so many so-called DEMs and liberals are still swallowing this kool-aid.