Letters to the Editor
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Always informative to read letters than Joan Walsh spinning, spinning, spinning for Hillary
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair05212008.html
Hillary Clinton Reclaims Her Inner Child
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Increasingly, Clinton is operating in a virtual reality programmed by her pollster Mark Penn during his downtime from working for the butchers of Colombia. Adhering to Penn’s fatal calculus, Clinton has endeavored to re-segregate the Democratic Party electorate into demographic segments and then pitted them against each other. The Clinton campaign has intentionally inflamed these simmering antagonisms: black versus Hispanic, black versus white, black versus older women, white collar versus blue collar, young versus old, under-educated versus college grad.
Back in the 1980s, Lee Atwater constructed an illusory Big Tent for Republicans, welcoming inside the Reagan Democrats—if only to soon betray their core interests. This was called the politics of expansion. In contrast, Clinton and Penn are cynically attempting to contract the Democratic base by provoking an internal Hobbesian free-for-all—total warfare of the factions.
What was once coded is now explicit. Clinton openly talks about her appeal among “working, hard working, white voters.” The implication here is that blacks are lazy, shiftless and on the welfare dole and that perhaps only half of their votes should count. But shouldn’t someone remind her that her husband dismantled welfare? Perhaps her former mentor Marian Wright Edelman should make the call.
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A few thoughts about last night
1) I missed the Robert Goulet...erm I mean Castellanos bit on CNN, but jeebus...how awful can one person get? After implying that Obama will have Ayers and Wright in his Cabinet he then defends calling Clinton a b*tch??
What a slimebag.
2) I found the exchange between Gergen and Begala fascinating. Gergen looked and sounded genuinely upset that there are some bigots voting for Clinton (not the majority most likely...but likely a sizeable number). When he said she should denounce those votes it really looked like it came from a real place inside him. Begala on the other hand (whom I still respect) basically said "whaddya gonna do? She needs those votes"...I guess it actually is easier to be principled when you're in the lead, but it's a depressing thing to hear from one of ours.
3) I'm pretty sure that if I ever have to relocate - Oregon will be my first choice! How awesome does that place sound??
cheers
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OBAMA'S DAUGHTERS
That was attractive when Obama said Clinton's example would be an inspiration for his daughters. I wonder how he'll explain to them why daddy decided to screw things up for this wonderful woman instead of waiting to be her successor.
Also I see that my suggestion that Obama make Clinton his first Supreme Court appointment made it to cable news. It came up on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" after having appeared in one of the Washington papers. I continue to think it would be the best way to unite the party and Justice Clinton could provide decades of invaluable service to the country.
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@carol richards
sometimes I worry that you don't really have the right kind of aptitude to be a really obnoxious obama supporter... Take, for example, those one in six residents of a small city, Portland, who came to the rally for Obama, I noticed the fact that they were calling themselves pro-Obama, when obviously, they aren't pro-Obama. They're anti-Hillary and worse, they are anti-Hillary supporters. They probably came to show their disgust for the first female candidate for president. It's obvious.
We are different kinds of people in this country in 2008. Instead of being red states and blue states, now we are red states (McCain unless they choose Obama or Hillary), blue states (Hillary or Obama unless they go to McCain), pink states (what color did you think I was going to pick? who will ONLY support Hillary unless they vote for McCain or possibly Obama), powder blue (who will ONLY support Obama unless they support McCain or Hillary). (I think someone might have already done this.) It's good to know that we were far too unified before, but that by separating into more colors, we can really understand how American society works. This is after all, a democracy. Votes aren't so much equal as they are important in terms of which big group or big group trend they represent. We can only hope that one day someone will invent a brain scan to find the source of who people vote for and whether or not they drink regular coffee or lattes. But for we will sadly need to take the experts word for it and accept that oral sex does NOT lead teen agers to not have sex with one another.
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@ Carol Richards
I sincerely hope you are correct and Hillary concedes after every state/territory has voted. But I will not be surprised if that doesn't happen, because of Hillary's scorched earth tactics to this point and the highly disingenuous claims her campaign has been making about the popular vote and the legitimacy of the 2,026-delegate total. Maybe this is just bluffing to keep supporters on board for these next few weeks, but I'm not so sure.
For the past few months, quite a few Hillary backers on this site have been lying about the popular vote and FL/MI, threatening to support McCain in the fall, and insisting that Obama can't win in the general election. So its a little annoying to also be chided for failing to "respect" Hillary when her campaign and so many of its supporters have shown no respect to Obama, especially when Joan et al. cannot even explain how their chosen candidate is going to win this thing.
Respect is a two-way street.
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It's Fish or Cut Bait Time Joan
Ok, Joan. We hear you. You're jaded on Obama, because Obama supporters are sometimes hostile to you. You want Hillary to win, she's a woman, she's inspiring to you, you believe in her.
Fine...you are a Hillary supporter, and an Obama detractor -- that's a given. Your blog, your prerogative to favor your candidate of choice.
But it's fish or cut bait time, Joan.
Obama has the nomination. He is the Democratic nominee, without pussyfooting around it, or dillydally dithering, or anything else, unless one of three things happens.
1. OBAMA IMPLOSION -- Something awful, horrendous and career-ending comes to light about Obama, and fairly soon, something so seismic that superdelegates would abandon Obama entirely and shift to Hillary almost entirely, and would also cause some committed state delegates to exercise their little-used right to change from Obama to Hillary, thereby giving her the delegate count she needs to claim victory
OR
2. BREAK THE RULES RESEAT RECOUNT
-- Hillary reneges on her previous, public agreement that Michigan and Florida will not count (check--she's already done that reneging)
-- Hillary will have to get the Democratic party to seat ALL the delegates from the Michigan election in her favor, where Obama wasn't even on the ballot, because he was following the letter of the party's law, and where Hillary was not
-- Hillary will have to get the Democratic party to seat delegates from the Florida election, despite it being agreed upon, by her, that these delegates would not be seated
-- Hillary will have to convince all the remaining super delegates, including those from states whose majority of voters picked Obama, that they should vote for Hillary, even over the objections of the majority of their state voters
With the unopposed delegates from Michigan, the Florida delegates, most of the remaining superdelegates, and some defections of delegates from Obama to Clinton, she could then claim enough delegates for victory
OR
3. NUCLEAR OPTION/DELEGATE COUP D'ETAT -- Hillary will go all the way to the convention, and hope that she can "go nuclear" and at the last minute, get any last uncommited superdels, plus boatloads of committed superdelegates and committed state delegates to switch over at the last minute, based on her argument that she's the better candidate and has a better chance at election in November, based on polls at the time of the convention.
So, Joan, it's fish or cut bait time. Exactly which of these scenarios do you think will happen?
And barring some previously unknown yet horrendous thing coming to light about Obama that would take him out of the running legitimately (and not some trumped up "leaks" thanks to Mark Penn's Oppo research department), can you explain how she could pursue 2 or 3 and still exhibit be committed to democracy, fairness, ethics, good character, leadership, strength.
Would following 2 or 3 be a sign that someone is Presidential
(I mean in the real and good sense, of course, and not the "steal the election by Florida vote counting and supreme court case" sort of "presidential" we have become well familiar with, all too sadly.)
Joan, you think Hillary should be president. You think she's got the stuff to be Commander in Chief. How is she going to get there? Is it 1, 2 or 3?
And if it's 2 or 3, can you explain the rationale for why it should be, and how it it democratic (little D)? Because Hillary's arguments for it sound to me only self-serving, and again, as we all know, she publicly stated that she understood and agreed to the fact that those delegates would NOT be seated, and she is now reneging, and trying to break the rules she agreed to, for the sole purpose of giving herself whatever little remaining chance she has to win.
So, Joan, we're waiting.
You're a pundit, you're a voice on the left, you're a Hillary supporter. Pretend I'm Chris Matthews.
How can she take path 2 or 3, and yet do it in a democratic, fair, ethical, Presidential way?
How can she take path 2 or 3 without it being a banana republic, coup d'etat, Florida recount/Supreme Court decides the election sort of move?
How can she take path 2 or 3 without adopting the same sort of "Bush Mission Accomplished" fantasyland approach -- and claiming "that's not the majority, this number is is the majority," or "we all knew those states didn't count but now they do cause I say so," or"delegates used to be the way we decide but now we use polls and electability."
Fish or cut bait, Joan. How does she get there?