=======================================================
I originally wrote the post below…now slightly edited…in response to a series of kneejerk downratings and hostile posts (To the point of zeroing out some comments) by the cadre of neocentrist posters here who equate opposition to their rightward drift with something like treason. Go here to see it in context if you so desire.
=======================================================
Several quite legitimate posters here…and myself as well…have been repeatedly accused by neo-centrist DemocRat types on this site of being…oh, I don’t know….try:
Putin Puppets
Pro-Trump agitators
Totally insane and/or on some kinds of drugs
Etc., etc., etc., ad hominem, ad libitum and ad nauseum.
They kneejerk downrate…to the point of zeroing out if possible…perfectly serious arguments that we have made against the state of the Democratic Party and against their own tactics, which mimic those of the DNC used against Bernie Sanders only on a much smaller scale.
Because a number of us do not agree with their version of the world, we simply must be pro-Putin, pro-Trump apologists, insane or under the influence of drugs…two-diminsional thought at its stick figure worst.
Get real.
A good measure of how far right the Democratic Party has drifted is that many of its howling so-called centrist adherents use arguments that…with a slight change of names…could very easily be attributed to Joe McCarthy.
Nice.
This is how the Party ends.
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Y’all have convinced me.
I am out of NYC at the moment, but as soon as I get back I am going to find a way to work for Bernie Sanders. You people are beyond belief.
Read what Bernie has to say:
Read this and weep, if you still remember how to cry.
Bernie Sanders: To reform the party, Democrats must split from corporate America
—snip—
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has a clear message and strategy to help mend the wounds that have left the Democratic Party divided. After months of polling as the nation’s most popular politician, he should be taken more seriously — even as an outsider.
Sanders began with a strong rebuke of President Donald Trump and everything that Trump’s policies and rhetoric stand for. But that’s a given to a party at a crossroads, facing the question of what’s next.
So far, Sanders – who is technically an independent — and the Democrats have been on the same page with this message. But the two factions diverge when Sanders talks about reform from within the party. Scan “Resistance” on Twitter, and you’re apt to find thousands of accounts who believe that Sanders hurt Clinton’s chances for victory.
—snip—
Sanders praised the Democratic victories across the United States on Tuesday and said it was “an important first step in pushing back against Trump’s radical agenda.”
“But this will not happen without an effective opposition party,” Sanders continued. He went on to argue that, despite the victories, “the longer-term trend for the Democratic Party is worrisome.”
There’s plenty of merit to that claim, even if many don’t want to believe it to be true. Only 37 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of the Democratic Party, a new CNN poll revealed. It’s the lowest mark for the party in more than 25 years of polling. A majority, 54 percent, said they had an unfavorable view of the party. Note that Sen. Sanders is far more popular than the Democratic Party at large: in an October Harvard-Harris poll, 53 percent of those polled had a favorable opinion of Sanders. That sounds low, but he was still the most well-liked politician by far: Mike Pence had 45 percent favorability, Trump polled at 41 percent and Hillary Clinton 39.
Sanders pointed out how the party’s power and influence across the country has vastly diminished since 2009, including the loss of “more than 1,000 seats in state legislatures across the country.”
Citing tax reform and repeated health care failures, Sanders wrote that what’s most “absurd about this situation is that the American people strongly oppose almost all elements of the Trump-Republican agenda.”
Sanders argued that “the [Democratic] party cannot remain an institution largely dominated by the wealthy and inside-the-Beltway consultants.”
He added, “It must open its doors and welcome into its ranks millions of working people and young people who desperately want to be involved in determining the future of our nation.”To reform the party, Sanders said, “First, it is absurd that the Democratic Party now gives over 700 superdelegates–almost one-third the number a presidential candidate needs to win the nomination–the power to control the nominating process and ignore the will of voters.”
Second, he argued that the Democrats stand for “making voting easier, not harder,” and that it “must apply to our primaries.”
“Our job must be to reach out to independents and to young people and bring them into the Democratic Party process. Independent voters are critical to general election victories. Locking them out of primaries is a pathway to failure,” Sanders wrote.
But perhaps his final point is the toughest for many to finally come to terms with.
“If we are to succeed,” Sanders wrote, “we must fully appreciate [Donna] Brazile’s revelations and understand the need for far more transparency in the financial and policy workings of the Democratic Party.” He added, “Hundreds of millions of dollars flow in and out of the Democratic National Committee with little to no accountability. That simply is not acceptable.”
The “revelations” in question referred to former interim Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairwoman Donna Brazile, wrote last week that the DNC had an “unethical” agreement in place that put the Clinton campaign in charge of directing the party’s funds, staffing and overall strategy long before she had won the primary.—snip—
There it is.
Deal with it….and not by throwing ridiculous aspersions of pro-Putin, pro-Trump sentiments around.
As I said, I am going to work for Sanders, even if it means that he will eventually be forced to split from the party and start a new one…an action that would most likely doom the Democratic Party to total defeat. If that happens, so be it. I am through dealing with yellow dogs. (Google “yellow dog democrat definition” for the link to the definition below).) I do not want that to happen, but if it is the only way to tear the blinders from the eyes of so many well-meaning Democrats and other U.S. citizens, so be it. We need some sort of revolution here, not another bout of weak-kneed moderates getting their asses kicked by the vicious corporate interests that are now in total control of both parties..
yel·low dog
noun NORTH AMERICAN informal
adjective: yellow dog Democrat
1.
a contemptible or cowardly person or thing.
2.
a person who is inclined to support any candidate affiliated with the Democratic party, regardless of the candidate’s personal qualities or political qualifications.
Look in the mirror, centrists. Look in the mirror and then wake the fuck up before your beloved party is so far ’round the coporate bend that it is totally unsalvageable.
If of course that hasn’t happened already.
How will we know if it’s already too late?
We’ll know by the treatment that Bernie Sanders and his supporters get over the next year or so.
So far? After the recent DNC centrist putsch?
Things aren’t looking very good.
Are they.
AG
In response to pushing back on Trump’s radical agenda, Bernie stated, “But this will not happen without an effective opposition party”. He added that “the longer-term trend for the Democratic Party is worrisome.” Why would Bernie say these things? IMO, because they are true. The Democrats stopped being a real opposition party during Clinton’s administration. It wasn’t obvious to Democratic voters because some old Democratic guard were still around and the political waters were muddied due to the impeachment. I knew something was amiss when the Democratic party didn’t fight harder during the 2000 election recount and Gore left the stage with his tail between his legs. In 2004, after Howard Dean was politically snuffed out by the establishment, Kerry let himself get “swift boated”. Then came 2008 and everything was going to be different under Pres. Obama, except it wasn’t. There’s no reason to discuss what happened during the 2016 Democratic primary because Donna Brazile has already told us the process was rigged against Bernie. The Democratic establishment still knows how to be oppositional because they have opposed progressives for decades. Until this changes, the Democratic party will be a minority party in many places.
Feel the need to expand upon: “…when the Democratic party didn’t fight harder during the 2000 election recount and Gore left the stage with his tail between his legs.” The DP (aka Clinton Party) saddled Gore with Clinton’s shenanigans (recall GWB’s ‘restore honor and dignity to the WH’) and handicapped him financially (Hillary was competing with him for bucks from large donors for her Senate run). Gore was off-balance from the beginning of his campaign and only hit a stride with his convention speech. A speech that infuriated Bill Clinton because it evoked populist themes, Gore’s legacy from his father that he had set aside for decades. It was that speech that put him in the race for the first time since the election cycle had started a year and a half earlier.
GWB had millions for the recount and legal resources. Gore was forced to simultaneously fight the recount and raise money for it and the court filings. No surprise that GWB got the biggest and best legal team that could prevail upon five partisan SC justices willing to engage in pretzel reasoning.
The foregoing doesn’t mean that I have any illusions about Gore. By 2000 he was far too invested in the neoliberalism he’d supported for a couple of decades. The best rational expectation of him is that he would have been competent for the 1% and the damage for the rest of us wouldn’t have been severe. I may find Gore, and Brazile, more likeable that most Dem politicians and operatives, but on public policies they rarely deviate from the rest of the gang of thieves. OTOH, rarely is better than never.
I think Gore had a 50/50 shot of preventing 9/11 which would have helped a fuck ton.
During the Florida theft didn’t he have to deal with Lie-berman stabbing him in the back?
Gore?
Choosing Lieberman in the first place…or allowing Lieberman to be foisted upon him by whatever party hacks were in power at the time…immediately branded him a fool.
AG
I believe that “party hack” was Donna Brazile. Last seen doing business as “the last honest man.”
Indeed.
The layers upon layers of corruption, dishonesty and sheer, impacted incompetence in the Democratic Party as it now stands are legion. It needs to be either revolutionized or replaced.
AG
WRT your first point, 50/50 may be high considering that CIA and FBI operations hadn’t changed by much in the first eight and a half months of Bush/Cheney. (I’m assuming no covert action by Bush/Cheney to facilitate it.) Considering that two of the hijackers that had attended the early January 2000 KL AQ summit were identified and were known to have slipped into the US later that month were allowed to roam free for the last year of Clinton’s term. Would Gore have been more pro-active in directing all agencies to report and act on anything and everything that didn’t add up? i.e. that AZ flight school and Moussaoui’s computer? Unknown but odds aren’t good for that. Three things would have been different: 1) Gore wouldn’t have shirked off Tenet’s “hair on fire” report 2) President Gore wouldn’t have been hanging out at an elementary school reading a children’s book on that day and 3) Lieberman as VP wouldn’t have been running air war games on 9/11/01. That alone opens the possibility that if not prevented, the scope of the attack could have been less.
On your second point, I have no particular recollection of Lieberman being either an asset or a burden during the recount. For the record, Gore has stated that he chose Lieberman and was under no pressure from Dem VIPs to do so. His reasoning, while logical, was too small bore. His expectation was that as Lieberman had been one of the harshest Democratic critics of Clinton’s philandering that it would undermine that GWB campaign theme of “restoring honor and dignity to the WH.” He learned too late that only he could do that. Too late because at that point he was stuck with an unattractive VP that pleased nobody other than old S. Florida voters that later demonstrated their inability to correctly fill in their ballots.
Unlike many, I think the VP choice is enormously important because it’s the only point in a campaign when the nominee publicly demonstrates his/her decision making ability. While not nearly as big a flop as McCain’s, it was a poor choice. What both had in common is that the trailing candidate attempted to make a statement with the status of his VP. Religion for Gore and gender for McCain. A trailing nominee doesn’t have the luxury of a statement VP chose unless there’s a sustainable wow factor. Lieberman and Palin were too deeply flawed as VP nominees to sustain that initial wow factor. Seen most easily in their VP debates where both flopped.
The equation of the variables to consider in making that all important decision varies enormously from one election cycle to another and the characteristics of the nominee. Too obviously cynical (or manipulative) fails in recent times. “Huh?” almost worked for GWB, but would have worked more poorly if Cheney hadn’t decimated Lieberman in their debate. However, as the leading candidate, GWB also had more wiggle room.
Two variables that I’d put at the top of the list are: 1) does the VP complement the nominee enough that visually and the public perceptions of the political positions of the two individuals make them look like a team and 2) are the debate chops of the VP strong enough to come out ahead in the VP debate. Bill Clinton and Obama aced both of those. GWB and more so with Trump fell short on the first but aced the second.
Kaine, a highly predictable choice because it mimicked Bill’s, fell short on both. Instead of a team, the presentation was one of Hillary with a sidekick. Not terrible in most circumstances, but two differences from 1992. First, it was difficult to avoid the perception that the real team in ’16 was Hill and Bill. Second, Bill’s reputation in ’92 was as a liberal and Gore served to shore up his right flank. (Didn’t say that this has to be factual.) It was the left flank for Hillary in ’16. Or — as evaluated by Hillary and her team — she needed a VP that could attract more of those Republican crossover voters. A flawed evaluation imo because that was unlikely to result in a net gain in all of those key states. She avoided looking like two left feet, but needed someone like Kaine with a freaking personality. However, doubt that Hillary has enough magnanimity in her baby finger to have gone with the only inspired option that was possibly available to her. (And no, that wasn’t Sanders because that would have required oodles of magnanimity on her part.)
Some good points overall, as usual, but here’s my take on a few things.
Lieberman: I think MN above was probably alluding to JL’s appearance just after the 2000 election/early Recount period on MTP where, when asked whether overseas military ballots w/a late postmark should be counted, he answered Yes. This was not authorized by the Gore campaign and was contrary to their stance, and put them in a tough position.
In his debate w/Cheney, he didn’t so much flop as take a dive. When Cheeny attacked him, Bill or Al, Joe meekly turned the other cheek. When Mr Halliburton made outrageously false claims, Joe let them pass unchallenged. Reminded me a bit of Sonny Liston’s curious dive to the canvas in his famous 1965 rematch w/Ali.
And as to Gore’s pick of Joe: my understanding is it was the small inner circle — Al, his wife Tipper, and Warren Christopher (and maybe one other — Lehane??) who made the decision. Or more probably, Al came to the meeting already having discussed it w/Tipper, having decided on what he thought would be a “nifty” “out-of-the-box” choice of a first-ever Jew on a presidential ticket. His previous moral public scolding of Bill was obviously a key factor too.
Then they called a meeting of the outer inner circle (Brazile, Shrum, a few others), but word had leaked that Joe was the choice, so the second group invited knew the score and merely nodded approval.
As to the Clinton-Gore ’92 ticket, it was dynamic because both were perceived as handsome, young yet experienced, charismatic, modern-and forward-thinking, and largely on the same page politically. And they doubled down on Southern which, back then, was helpful in the EC. I don’t think by 92 Clinton, having lost re-elect in AR in 1978 as a liberal and having adjusted rightward the next time out, was seen as more than a moderate liberal, largely Gore’s position.
Overall, I think you overestimate the importance of VP debates, and slightly so as to the importance of who is picked as VP (but only slightly). For instance, could there have been a clearer instance of a VP blow-out loss for the GOP and huge victory for the Dems than in 1988? Didn’t seem to matter to the public.
Kaine in 2016? Non factor, including a so-so debate performance. It was all about the top of the ticket, as it usually (not always) is. But if she’d picked more wisely — Bernie — she likely could have changed the dynamics of the race and infused her side with the enthusiasm it lacked, and also allowed Bernie to absorb some of the incoming negative coverage against Hillary. But no, Hillary probably saw him as a little too socialist and “out there” for her establishment tastes
I didn’t say that the VP choice was defining but it is one of the few important variables that a nominee has full control to define. Quayle’s youthfulness and attractiveness (he only revealed the depth of his ignorance once in office) balanced Bentsen’s age. Recall that GHWB was perceived as not having any deficits for the job (again, perception and not reality). It was also the last presidential election where the VP slot went either to a person that could bring in a state or region and/or fill any of several social functions for the administration, i.e. attack dog for critics, represent the president at funerals, etc., collect money by speaking at rubber chicken dinners, etc. Basically it was a job without a portfolio and definitely not part of the president’s operating team. Bentsen was too cynical choice for 1988 — 1960 was long past.
Lieberman didn’t take a dive. He wasn’t up to the task. (Nor was Edwards. Totally cringeworthy when he introduced Mary Cheney into the debate.)
In ’92, Gore was handsome and also was very good in his debate. Not that he had any competition with Quayle and Stockdale. Unlike ’88, Quayle didn’t have the edge on physical attractiveness, and he further cemented his dumb-bunny reputation in the ’92 debate.
What you and I know about a politician and his/her public policy positions isn’t necessarily the same perception as that within the general public. ’92 Clinton styled himself as hip, cool, etc. = liberal.
Gore was styled as straight-laced, stiff = conservative. Also a DC outsider and a DC insider. A perceptual balance for the general public. Perhaps authentically they were two peas in a pod (excepting personal indiscretions), but their political and presidential aspirations came from such different roots that I probably would never be convinced of that sameness.
Gore seems not to have publicly admitted that Lieberman was a mistake. Gentlemanly of him. Honest? Don’t know. If so, he’s sort of alone on this matter. Here’s how I see it: Gore was the trailing candidate and in many polls trailing badly. That is not the time to choose a status statement VP, particularly one that is a blah campaigner, if the nominee is still in the race to win and Gore was.
Palin was McCain’s hail Mary pass. Not bad at energizing a voting faction where McCain wasn’t strong but is also reliable enough to turn out for any GOP nominee; so, there was no gain with Palin. But she’s dumb enough to turn off other voters that he needed. Overall a net loss for him. And at best, it didn’t advance the prospects for a woman nominee because she wasn’t the first one and she was far more unqualified than most token women. Mondale was in a similar position; still hopeful but sure wish he’d found a stronger female VP candidate. Someone like Pat Schroeder who by then had been a House Rep for a dozen years from a swing state.
Hopeless — McGovern ’72 after Eagleton flopped and Goldwater ’64. Good position to go down with a status statement VP. If I had been in McGovern’s shoes, I would have gone big and bold with Shirley Chisholm (and said I so at the time). She had an appeal for white middle-aged women that wasn’t unlike what Oprah has. And that might have resulted in a higher turn-out by AA voters.
A Gore-Bradley ticket would have won — but the two men loathed each other by the end of the primary cycle. Gore-Boxer would have been a decent ticket (and she had been re-elected in 1998). Best choice Gore-Graham. Graham’s quirky but that has some appeal for voters. The big added plus — it would have made FL ground zero from the beginning of the general election. Under a more intense spotlight, and Graham knew FL voting patterns and how/where ugly stuff can be done, much of the GOP/Jeb! rigging wouldn’t have as easily remained undetected.
I never bothered to consider a Clinton-Sanders ticket because it simply was never going to happen. It could have succeeded, but it would have been incredibly awkward a more extreme version of two left feet that we saw with Kerry-Edwards. As I said, Kaine was a decent enough running mate choice for Clinton. Possibly better and definitely not worse than others that were potentially available. With one exception. That would have been a novel choice and likely not have let MI, PA, and WI slip away and may have retained FL as well.
Way too much to respond to, so just a few things:
Did you miss his VP Debate performance?
Except as he was constantly belittled in the press in the year leading up to the 88 primaries, as a paper tiger, effete wimp, loyal puppy dog following his master Reagan, someone skilled at getting appointed to jobs but not elected in his own right, etc.
Not in that year. 1960 and that race and Kennedy were definitely in the air. Major 25th anniversary of the assassination. Another MA Dem lib seeking the presidency. Cynical Time mag headline itself made news: “1960, You’re No 1960.” Picking Bentsen for political/geographical balance was one of Duke’s best moves (among few) that year, even if he was a tad too conservative and corporate for some. He certainly nailed and exposed Danny Boy as a lightweight in the debate.
He might have been signaling just that when he was so quick to endorse Howie Dean months before Iowa, publicly snubbing his VP pick. But has Gore ever written his memoirs on the 2000 race? Not to my knowledge. I’d be very interested to read it. Instead, he’s largely avoided talking much about that race, Lieberman, the Recount, and why he didn’t run again in 2004, the real reasons.
Clinton-Sanders: It could have happened if Hillary wasn’t so overconfident about the polls and gliding to victory over the underestimated Donald. She chose the safe conservative route, a pick designed not to harm, instead of a riskier pick that could almost have ensured victory if managed properly.
Mostly as Brodie said here on Lieberman. The 50/50 issues is that Gore would in no way have been obsessed with Iraq even before 9/11 and would probably have paid more attention to actual things that worked instead of Cheney-esque fever dreams.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/oneill.bush/
If you recall! ^
Too much blame being assigned the Clintons, not that Bill didn’t make it tough for Al. But that personal misbehaving stuff should have been handled more skillfully and forthrightly by Gore, in a way that didn’t leave a popular 2-term incumbent president largely sitting on the bench during the 2000 campaign. Gore instead chose to run from it and Bill, which left terrible optics and diminished Gore’s potential campaign strength.
Gore also largely ran away from his strong environmental stance in the campaign, for purely EC political reasons. He hardly was a profile in courage in that 2000 campaign. Run from Bill, run from the environment, run from calling out and directly confronting the GOP election theft occurring in FL.
Re the Recount, I don’t recall a major fundraising appeal by Gore, and if that’s true, it could account for why his team didn’t have adequate legal resources compared to Junior. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Millions, even tens of millions of angry, concerned Dems, eager to do something instead of sitting at home helplessly, would have responded massively with contributions. Problem solved.
Gore should have run and won in 2004, with the momentum and outrage of the stolen election aiding him, but apparently got the big turndown from too many major campaign advisers and donors. Instead we got a lousy Dean vs Kerry contest.
Disagree on all your points. How exactly does one “skillfully and forthrightly” deal with being tarnished by the misbehavior of one’s boss? Too publicly critical of the boss and he would have lost all those Democrats that rationalized the hell out of Clinton and preferred a third Clinton term to Gore. “The Kiss” is what did it but there was really only one forum in which that could be done and worked and he took full advantage of it.
That isn’t supported by the evidence. Early campaign appearances with that “oh so popular sitting president” had an effect all right — Gore’s approval rating dropped. Gore’s campaign team made a lot of mistakes, but this one is a fiction that has been promulgated by the Clintonistas and Bill himself. Plus, there are very good reasons why an outgoing president plays at most a limited role in the general election campaign of the party’s nominee. (Also, the approval rating of an outgoing president more often than not (GWB excepted) gets a boost in the final months of his tenure; so, it’s best to ignore that because it’s close to meaningless.)
Mostly behind the scenes, but some of it leaked out, the DP was kicking Gore out the day after the 2000 general election (if not sooner as I suspect). The plan was always that Hill would succeed Bill, and if not consecutively which Bill’s shenanigans ruled out, then interrupted with a lousy Republican for four to eight years. (Hillary’s Iraq War vote eliminated an ’04 run.) Extremely unlikely that two Democratic administrations would be succeeded by a Hillary administration.
It’s easy to overlook the state of presidential campaign funding before 2005. Big bucks rules — and the Clintons were the first Democrats to break fully into where Republicans had been for some time. Jerry Brown’s 1-800 donation line in ’92 failed. For being more internet savvy than most in DC, Gore didn’t perceive its potential for primary funding (where Gore was hobbled by having to accept federal matching funds with its restrictions), and technologically it was barely there in 2003 — months after Gore was forced to rule out a second run.
Neither party is wild about repeating the last general election (echoes of Dewey and Stevenson), but if it were ever to succeed, it would have been in 2004. Assuming, of course, that the party elites want to win and aren’t looking four more years down the road to re-install their favorite family. May have given them a bit of a shock to see how close the sacrificial lamb, Kerry, came to winning. Ah, such well-laid plans that Obama first upended. Then with all their ducks in a row, their designated Pied Piper failed to behave properly and lose by twenty points.
(Kerry chucked his long-term principles in 2002 — just when they would have served him best — and hasn’t looked back. (Check out Larry Wilkerson’s recent speech in which he discloses that Kerry was pushing Obama to send troops into Syria. Or simply check out the speech — amazing truthfulness and passion by Wilkerson.) On Dean — the only thing I can figure out is that he channeled Jim Dean in speech for a couple of years before putting down that mask and speaking like the centrist jerk he was before and after. But he did play the part well during those two years.)
By skillfully and forthrightly pointing out it was the private misbehavior of your boss, not your misbehavior. Yet Gore did the worst possible thing by running from it — almost as if he himself had a hand in procuring women for Bill. What was it Bobby Kennedy once said: When you have a political problem, hang a lantern on it. Deal with it, explain it was a major mistake in Bill’s private life that greatly embarrassed him and his family, but had nothing to do with his ability to soundly govern the country. A major mistake in his private life — some of our very best presidents also were unfaithful to their wives, and many Americans out there also have not had problems in their marriages. Who among us is perfect in all aspects of our lives?
Something along those lines.
You don’t deal with it by running, or by expecting a moral scold on the ticket to miraculously whitewash the situation. And you don’t prematurely roll out Bill on the campaign trail until the issue is addressed and put to rest.
Re using incumbents on the trail: Nixon would have benefitted hugely in 1960, but too little too late. And Clinton, iirc, was more popular than Ike by the end of his terms.
Hillary’s Iraq War vote and 2004: not sure I understand you. It didn’t stop Kerry or Edwards. I think her not running had more to do with avoiding the perceived very difficult task of trying to beat incumbent Junior (and his election-stealing Gooper allies) while calculating that the open seat in 2008 would be far easier.
Finally, re power of party elites, Hillary and the 2008 race: if they were so powerful, how is it that she, the more senior senator compared to Obama, ended up watching O get more senatorial endorsements?
Re: Gore on Clinton. You’ve said nothing that everybody hadn’t heard before. It wasn’t an issue of not having the facts. It had an emotional base and that can’t be explained away. Doing as you suggest would only have further contributed to the perception of Gore as dispassionate and unemotional. Seems to me that you don’t comprehend why “the kiss” worked.
Did Kerry/Edwards win? Hillary gambled that 1) the Iraq War wouldn’t turn to shit by 2004 and open the door to a GWB opponent that would win and 2) as a woman and warmonger, she would increase her viability for 2008. On #1, Gore took the opposite position BEFORE Hillary voted for it. Thus, for the Clinton Party is was vital that he not run in 2004 and later making quick work of taking down Dean. She came close to losing on #1 and lost on #2 in 2008 (and should have been rejected by Dem voters in 2016).
Wasn’t Hillary “inevitable” in ’08? However, the Clinton power of/over the DP had ebbed between 2004 and 2008. 1) They didn’t control the DNC chair. This was a consequence of the dirty tricks played by Clinton operatives to take down Dean in ’04. His supporters demanded a pound of flesh in the form of appointing him DNC chair. He played fair. 2) a good third to half of the big-bucks boys had soured on the Clintons or had never been enamored of Hillary to begin with. And they liked that young black guy with the funny name. Obama then proceeded to build on that Dean internet funding model. Hillary didn’t master that then or eight years later. That made Obama campaign chest larger and more robust than Clinton’s as small donors can continue to put money in the meter as their guy wins primaries. 3) Bad campaign projection — set up to defeat the wrong expected main opponent, Edwards (a familiar Hillary theme there) — Obama was like her black swan (because projective strategic thinking is outside the forte of her and her team (another familiar Hillary theme). 3) She was lining up superdelegates from the get-go. Problem there is that a high percentage of the early public endorsements came from long-time AA Clinton loyalists. The IA caucus results put those superdelegates between a rock and a hard place. Hang in with #3 and diss a brother, withdraw the endorsement and become neutral, or switch to Obama? Bill Clinton was royally pissed with those that didn’t hang in there with her and didn’t care what that would have meant for those politicians with their constituencies. Most of that was fully repaired by 2015 (part of their deal with Obama?). O’Malley — who couldn’t draw a crowd, wouldn’t get big bucks (almost all of it pledged to Clinton before she was officially a candidate) (a base of small donors without significant big bucks has always failed), and by delaying and limiting the debate schedule, would have been little seen — was expected to hobble out of IA and been gone after SC. That was expected to give her another six months to pound exclusively on the potential GOP nominees.
Being out of touch with the national mood — Obama also had strong approval ratings — left a huge vacuum for Sanders to fill. And he did. Far beyond anything team Clinton anticipated. In large part because small donors materialized in unanticipated huge numbers. Clinton’s budget for the primary was a hundred to a hundred-twenty million dollars. She blew through that early on and therefore, her schedule had to be reconfigured to add in a lot more big bucks fundraisers. She ending up going over her primary campaign budget by 100% or more.
Remember, campaigns are dynamic and evolve during the election cycle. As such any analysis of what went right and what went wrong has to be placed within points during the process and not abstracted to apply to the whole campaign.
Again, way too much to respond to. Only a few more comments from me.
Dispassionate and unemotional??? Talking frankly about the situation, noting how we’re all human and make mistakes and that he himself, while his own marriage is solid, doesn’t claim to be perfect — how would that make him dispassionate and unemotional?
Re the Kiss — a clunky, gimmicky, obviously politically calculated display of marital affection. And no, it didn’t register with me as a major plus factor for Gore, though clearly it didn’t hurt him. Was polling done on it specifically? Focus groups? And if I somehow missed how effective it was, then with the Clinton affair put behind him, why didn’t Gore put Bill out on the stump?
Finally on Gore in 2000, he was far too often on the defensive on a range of (mostly personal/character) issues, and you don’t beat a good or effective (and amoral, ruthless) opponent by largely allowing yourself to play only defense. You have to know you’ll achieve a better outcome by forcing the other guy to play defense once in a while, preferably often.
And Al, never in JFK’s or Bill’s class as a talented, natural pol, too often went for gimmick plays (I can think of 4 offhand) which he probably thought clever and winning moves. They were not. Gimmick plays — all too often (as in sports) a sign that the candidate is not confident of himself, of the campaign strategy, of being able to beat his opponent straight up.
Still, despite his shortcomings as a pol, he was the inevitable candidate we had (Bradley, low-wattage personality that he was, had little appeal except to a few political wonks and the MSM) and but for some GOP election theft and rolling over meekly by Gore and the Dems, he would have, should have won. And he was my early pick for 2004 given the theft and given the lack of viable alternatives.
And I’m still waiting for him to open up and speak in depth about that campaign.
I’ve always felt the gentlemanly Gore, by 2000 a little too concerned about what others in the Beltway Establishment would say about him, didn’t want to engage in anything unseemly, in his eyes, or even dangerous (“tanks in the streets”) by being more aggressive during the recount.
As I recall, there was plenty of dissent inside the Gore team as they decided upon a legal strategy, some wanting him to go for a recount in all counties, but for the above reasons, Gore chose the modest 4-county approach, which still didn’t win him universal applause by D.C. pundits.
I also understand Jessie Jackson (among others) wanted to organize Dems and stage major protest marches re counting all the votes in FL, but Gore, previously battered in the media for being too aggressive, worried about the optics and the tanks.
Result was a pathetic, wimpy, narrowly legalistic approach which left grassroots Dems sitting nervously on the sidelines. What undeniable message about not interceding could have been sent to the SupCt with mass demonstrations? We’ll never know.
And with that small ball/butter knife to a gunfight approach, Dems signaled to the GOP they could get away with anything with no Dem pushback. Kerry showed that in 2004.
Yup.
Or…he was just obeying orders from…above? To the side? Under the table? We’ll never know.
AG
Predates 2000 and isn’t limited to DC. And less about being gentlemanly than not rocking the boat to do what is right. He jumped with both feet and fully into the christianist and DLC swamp as a means to restore the family political fortunes after his father’s re-election defeat. Overlooking that it made him risk averse and status quo oriented instead of progressive, a key element (even if not authentic), in candidates that win presidential elections.
While it appeared, and at the time and for long after I agreed, that Gore’s cautiousness led him to limit his request for a hand recount to four counties, that minimizes other important and relevant factors. I don’t know if in 2000 the FL SoS had the power to order a statewide full hand recount (current law doesn’t), but even if it did, no way could he have prevailed upon Harris to do that. That only gave Gore and his team the option of appealing to each county canvassing board. He didn’t have the resources to do that within the time limits, and as most of those county boards were dominated by Republicans, he wouldn’t have succeeded with those election boards anyway. (Possible that some may also have charged him for the cost of the recount and he didn’t have the money for that.) So, they went to the counties most likely to approve a manual recount and as they were the most heavily Democratic counties, where in a fair election the most additional votes could be found. (FL 2000 wasn’t fair and the mother-lode of additional Gore votes were in Duval County that probably didn’t even do the required machine recount and apparently chucked the thousands of paper ballots that the machines spit out which prevented any subsequent inspection. That’s where Gore should have taken a calculated risk (plus somehow 10,000 more votes in Duval were recorded in the Senate race than for president and Bill Nelson (D) received fourteen thousand more votes than Gore did). That’s where Jesse Jackson should have been — but outsiders don’t know enough to get something like this right.
what’s a gantlet?
A Massachusetts glove?
Guess a few of us here can accommodate obvious typos and aren’t much bothered by them.
But why snipe at me? I didn’t initiate the typo and wasn’t alone, or even the first to post in this thread, in not correcting the subject line.
gantlet
Why do you ask?
AG
A well-stated position from the Senator who ensured that rural and urban communities got funds for community health care centers (soon to be scrapped). Doesn’t get enough credit for making Democratic legislation more effective.
By criticism. AG, I’m not sure another 25-year rear-view mirror thread gets us any closer to identifying what it takes for Democrats to be an effective opposition party.
What people apparently like about politicians are those who are not obviously corrupted by the Washington money chase and waste of money on consultants and media companies that make campaigns so expensive. Nor do they like the negative lying campaigns that they get swayed by; they don’t like being deceived. Nor do they like the fact that the political parties have upped the rhetoric so that it splits families.
The problem is that no opposition to Republicans and Trumpism have figured out how to deal with the hostile media environment for honest policy debates. And the Clintonist attempt to beat that media environment at its own game unleashed some of the Coulteresque tactics on progressives.
At best, the current Democratic Party acts as a brake on a runaway Congress. If they can deliver DACA from Trump’s pen it will be another Grand Bargain maneuver. What will we have to deal with in return?
Last I checked, a few months ago, the msm was all about Russia Russia Russia, with, presumably, some Iran Iran tossed in lately. How about our Dem pols stop obsessing about Russia and Putin and engaging in govt censorship and McCarthyism — it’s really getting out of hand and represents a huge moral black mark against the party — and let the ongoing investigations look into it, and start talking instead about real issues that affect people. In that effort, they can perhaps pressure/shame some media outlets to begin shifting away from 100% Russia/Putin pseudo scandals and on to coverage of substantive issue debates.
Btw, in my humble, one is more likely to find pretty good policy debates on RT as opposed to American cable outlets. And their shows aren’t interrupted every 4 minutes for commercials, unlike the corporate cable outlets which cater to, and promote, short attention span audiences. A fair range of views presented on RT, though overall their US outlet — while it lasts before US govt censorship finally brings down the fatal hammer — leans left, which is not a bad thing.
“They kneejerk downrate” — you have the wrong reflex. Think gag.