2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHillary-Phobes. Don't Paint Yourself Into a Corner
Back in 2008, during the primary election, I wrote a little piece which I called "The Mother and Child Reunion" for DU, in which I predicted that once the food fight was over, Clinton and Obama would be BFFs at the Convention. A lot of DUers who had spent the primary calling Clinton the "enemy" (because she stood in the way of the Obama nomination) disagreed. I was correct. Oh, I got one minor point wrong. I thought she would be the VP nominee. In retrospect, asking for SOS was a much better career move. Everyone loves the SOS.
Eight years later, I see many of the We Love Obama and We Can't Stand Clinton folks attacking her once again--even though their man, Obama has all but anointed her his sucessor. Even though her poll numbers look great. Even though she has been the target of a right wing conspiracy since before some of them were born--and the right wing does not waste its conspiracies on corporatist candidates who cater to Wall Street and suck up to Big Oil.
I suspect that many who talked bad (sometimes even dirty) about Clinton in 2008 are reluctant to change their tones. Doing so would be to admit that they were wrong---or, at least, took a position for political gain (for their candidate Obama) rather than because it was a correct position. No, there is nothing wrong with saying one thing in the primary and another in the general, if it furthers the cause of your political party. That is how elections are won. But some folks like to present themselves as idealogic purists---
Even though the most pacifict of anti-gun pacifists would have no problem discharging a shotgun in the face of the criminal who is trying to kill their child. All things are relative. I will say that again. All things are relative. Except when they are black and white words printed on the page or on the Internet. Then, words have a habit of assuming a meaning way in excess of what the author intended.
If you really want to, you can twist and distort the words of anyone to make them mean anything that you want them to mean. And so, if you write "Hillary is a poo poo head" during the primary because she is standing in the way of Obama, eight years later you will have to deal with Google searches that reveal that you once called Hillary a "poo poo head." If you are an amateur like me, who makes no money from political posting, who does it for fun in her free time, because that is what our Founders would have done had they possessed the Internet, so what?
However, if you consider yourself a professional political pundit, you may have a hard time with your cache. You may feel compelled to defend your previously held and now indefensible opinion, for the simple reason that you once posted it above your byline.
Beware this impulse. It is the trap that leads to political obsolescence. Be more like the left's favorite, Robert Byrd, who was more than willing to change. Change is a good thing. You proclaimed that truth in 2008. Yes, you did. I remember the slogans. All the best political pundits have had many changes of heart over the years. Situations change. Economic forces change. People change.
And once the primary is over and Hillary Clinton is the nominee, your favorite candidate is going to be her BFF. Because your favorite candidate is a true Democrat, doing it for the constituency and not for personal gain.
Got that? We do this for the party, for the workers, for the women, the minorities, the immigrants, the GLBT, the Muslims, the Jewish folks, the men who don't want to act all macho 24-7----everyone that the right wing despises. We do not do this for ourselves. And if you catch yourself doing it for yourself, ask "Is my own career as a ____ more important than the lives of those who will die without health care, those who will die in anoter war for oil, those who will die from the damage to the economy that eight more years of GOP rule will bring?"
If you are like most people, your answer to the above with be a resounding "Yes!" Because we all want to be important. We are all the stars of our own lives. In which case, maybe you should give yourself an out, make a little wiggle room so that when Clinton is nominated, you do not have to pull a Chicago 1968 and throw your support behind a third party splitter in order to live with yourself.
Idealism works in a parliamentary system. If you want to be idealistic, get to work changing our current form of government into a parliamentart system. If you want to work withwhat we have now, be prepared to compromise. It is the only way that anything good ever gets done in this country. LBJ sent Humphrey out to wine and dine Congressional Republicans in order to get the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Acts passed. Be more like LBJ and Humphrey and less like Eugene McCarthy.
Speaking of Clean for Gene, the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign will be one of my all time favorite campaigns, up there with McCarthy 1968, Jackson 1988, and the others who used the primary to get their message across. The Democratic presidential primary is one of the few times when the left wing of the party can make itself heard. Speak up. Force the nation to confront the problems it would rather ignore. Get the word out---
But don't paint yourself into a corner and never ever throw out the baby with the bathwater. We can't afford to lose any more babies.
Warpy
(110,913 posts)It's stupid, self defeating, and will cost her a lot of votes if she becomes the candidate.
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)Because most of it is not hate. It is fear of the great unknown. We all have fear. It is part of the human condition. What we do with our fear is what defines us. Every election of a new president involves a "great leap of faith" to quote Hunter S. Thompson on Jimmy Carter. If you refelct upon how that turned out---excitement (1976), disillusionment (1980) and then excitement again (1988 through the present) you will see that politics is some tricky shit.
karynnj
(59,475 posts)Her name recognition and the degree to which we know her makes her more like an incumbent President.
This would actually be an exception to Hunter Thompson's rule - we didn't really know Carter, bill Clinton or Obama when we elected him. If we elect HRC, which seems likely, it will be as people who have known her well since 1992.
In fact, for many there was strong desire to find a not HRC candidate who could win. Not because we don't hnow Clinton, but because of what we DO know. I also know, that it is not realistic to expect that you will be excited by every nominee. I know for me, it was rare that someone I really wanted became President - even in 2008, it was that I did not one two of the three viable choices.
But, I will vote for HRC -- and unlike some of the biggest Clinton allies (ie Begala and Carville) I will not spend the general election whining that I am just against the Republican as they did in 2004 - when I finally had a nominee that impressed me more the more I saw or read.
Daemonaquila
(1,712 posts)Don't post insulting crap and then expect we're going to go toe your line.
Response to McCamy Taylor (Original post)
Post removed
Daemonaquila
(1,712 posts)If she manages to become the Dem nominee, I may sit it out. I'm done voting for bad candidates just because they have the D after their name. I'm done with the lesser evil, and I'm done with giving a damn what "the party" wants me to do. I vote Dem because there are good Dem candidates to vote for.
kath
(10,565 posts)I am also done voting for bad candidates.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)That we have serious unresolvable ideological splits with her that can never be resolved and from which we can simply never support her? That our animosity may not be bridgeable with a candidate that we consider to be as bad as any Republican?
I like Sanders. I like O'Malley. But I know why I am invested in this primary and it's to work to deny Hillary the nomination because if she procures it, I cannot support her in the GE.
OKNancy
(41,832 posts)You hate her. You "hate her guts".
ETA: Your profile says you live in Connecticut. You sitting out will mean zero. She will win CT easily.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)That my vote doesn't mean a lot anyways because of where I live.
I do hate her. It has nothing to do with 2008 though. I hated her when I lived in Brooklyn and she was running to be my Senator. It's a lot more personal than a lot of the people who don't support her. I don't get into why...but sufficient to say that not only can I say I know her...not like a meet-and-greet 12 seconds either--she knows my name and I can assure you that she does not want my support.
OKNancy
(41,832 posts)I've never worked for her or her campaign...nor would I have ever worked for her campaign--past, present or future.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)though. I think her fans are obnoxious, entitled, and self-centered.
And I do not recall President Obama endorsing ANYONE for president, so I do not know what the OP is talking about.
I feel that HRC owes African American voters a HUGE apology for her, her husband, and surrogates' racist behavior during the 2007-8 campaign. Many of her supporters dismiss the racism back then, but I don't. And many black voters haven't forgotten, either. Just because you may see black voters voting for HRC doesn't we we like her.
If she is the nominee, I plan to vote the downticket candidates only and skip voting for her; or, vote for the Green Party candidate.
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)Hillary is not the nominee yet. Not by a long shot.
And, it doesn't matter if Bernie likes/support her or not. I will never like her.
bunnies
(15,859 posts)William769
(55,124 posts)Thank you.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)It is making DU suck.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)equally need to stop.
As does the meme that the Sanders campaign is a joke.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)If you helped build the DLC, you have no right to ever claim to be anti-oppression.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)A handful of speeches now can't makeup for ever supporting DOMA and DADT, or ever running "law and order campaigns", or working to build a group that got Democrats to abandon blacks and gays(an abandonment that never served ANY greater progressive good, since it turned out that "just electing a Democrat" that year wasn't worth anything.
Why are you loyal to someone who has never really been loyal to you?
You can support whoever you want, but it's mystifying to me why you'd ever trust anyone who ever wanted the party to move to the right.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)HRC never backed you on any major issue until after doing so was totally risk-free. It's meaningless to support same-sex marriage now if you supported legislation to ban it in the Nineties-it's exactly the same as calling for the end of Jim Crow in 1984 instead of 1964, or calling for the withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam in 1998 instead of 1968.
Why support someone who only backed you when it was too late to matter?
The only kind of support that counts is support when it's risky-like Bernie working for SNCC in the early Sixties, when doing so could get you buried under an earthen dam in Mississippi.
She's electable...but that isn't everything. And ANY nominee can be electable if they get the party's wholehearted support.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)or should not support. I am an adult and have been a LGBT rights activist my entire adult life and in my teens.
I don't need your help in determining my friends.
My last point to you is that you attack Hillary all the time so you are in no position to judge others who attack other candidates.
Don't preach to me when you have not been in my shoes. Bye now!
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's not personal.
I'd back her if she ran on Bernie's program(and I'll support her if she gets nominated-as I supported Mondale and Dukakis when they were given the nomination over Jesse Jackson, who was basically the only progressive candidate in the race).
For me, it's about supporting someone who's been consistently better than HRC on ALL issues-including anti-oppression issues. It's about not just "winning an election" (which by itself is trivial) but about truly changing the country in which that election is held.
It's about making sure nobody else ends up in a mass layoff...
...or gets shot by a cop because they are a black teenager...
...or gets nailed to a fence because of their sexual orientation...
...or gets their child(including their gay or trans or African-American or Latino, or Asian or Native-American child sent home from the Middle East in a flag-draped box
...or anyone in those countries gets their child killed by our troops either, since the lives of all those kids are of equal value, worth and beauty.
...or can no longer afford to go to college because tuition's been raised so there could be tax cuts for the rich...
...or can no longer do theatre or music in high school(and therefore find the way to express, in many cases, their identity as a person in an oppressed community, because "pro-business" economics forced massive cuts in school funding.
...or gets their benefits cut when they need them(as most of us will), including health benefits for people fighting conditions like HIV and AIDS because, again "pro-business economics" means permanent austerity.
I haven't been in your shoes...but I want to help make sure you can still afford those shoes-and "market values" are making that more and more difficult for most people, including most LGBTQ people.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)You can back who you want.
All I did was ask why.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Leave me alone! NOW!
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)I don't even believe I just read that.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bernie 2016
(90 posts)That's all the supporters have for Clinton - "I support her, but I don't know why!"
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)The very personal condescension is truly hateful for some. It is very clear over time that you are involved and understand the issues of the day. Whether you support Sander, O'Malley or Clinton, you shouldn't have to be at the end of such condescension. It smacks of elitism and a complete lack of understanding.
frylock
(34,825 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I think I pointed out an uncomfortable contradiction.
frylock
(34,825 posts)sheshe2
(83,355 posts)hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)sheshe2
(83,355 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)n/t.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)They know that she ran a disgustingly racist campaign back in 2008. For her and/or her supporters to accuse anyone of not caring about bigotry is rich.
With that said, I think that ALL Democrats should do more to speak out against racism and bigotry.
The Democratic Party has taken black voters for granted long enough, and I know a lot of us plan to sit out 2016. HRC is despised for it. The racism and mistreatment of this black president has turned a lot of us off. And the Democratic Party has done very little to stand up for this president when he is being ridiculed and treated with disdain and disrespect.
DU has sucked for a long time because there is a brand of racism and bigotry that exists here ever since Obama first announced his run. It has been incredibly racist here and most black DUers and other people of color have either left or bravely stick around in the Race & Ethnicity forum to find solace and relief.
I think ALL the Democratic party nominees should be shouting about racial injustice, but I won't hold my breath. As much as I love Bernie, when he's in front of all-white audiences, he's very careful when it comes to the issue of race, which is quite disturbing and alarming. But not surprising.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)of Hillary Hate here.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Heck. Some of them are proud of voting against Jimmy Carter (for Anderson) in 1980.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Some really do believe what they say.
Some of them are green party or other third party voters and they are not as committed to the Democratic party as others are.
Some just like to hate Hillary.
Some just like to complain.
And a few are here to disrupt.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)Hekate
(90,202 posts)Chan790
(20,176 posts)Until she retires, I'm going to be compelled to trash her.
You should possibly just hide me; if she's the nominee, I'm leaving the Democratic party. I will never support her candidacy.
Hekate
(90,202 posts)Chan790
(20,176 posts)Skinner's Hillary sycophancy nauseates me and I hate the direction the party is going in embracing the malevolently corporatist center-right values of Hillary rather than telling her to go back to the GOP where she belongs.
This is the face of my true enemy:
She scares me more than any of these assholes:
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)a group which tells me in numerous posts that my life and those I care about does not matter, only their income does.
I can say I understand what you feel about the birther and Koch funded Tea Party, that you are not a GOP, and all of that.
But I can NEVER say that I can feel in my own SKIN what it has been like watching the last near decade (and hundreds of years) play out when one of MLK, Jr's dreams did come about for some of us. That a man be judged for his CHARACTER and not the color of his SKIN was elected to the highest office this nation has to offer.
And yet he was savaged by those on the left and right, and AFAIK, black people have been persecuted and terrorized more since his election. As if the establishment and their minions were busy saying to POC:
Get back in your place now!
So I understand your hatred, but to the depths you feel, I respect and don't blame you. Perhaps a statement will come out to address this... but then again, it was more the supporters that turned people off their for a while, the PUMA brigade.
Doesn't it strike you as odd that some opposing HRC now say they will play that same card?
In the end, vote for who you think will serve your interests best. I can't say anyone but Obama has ever tried to take care of ALL Americans with an equality and respect I have not seen that cuts from the top to the bottom of our society.
I wish you felt differently, but I will NEVER condemn you for it because I have not lived in your SKIN so all I can say is Peace to you and yours when Justice is served - and it is different than Mercy or Forgiveness.
Obama said Forgiveness is more of saying that one is not defined by the Offender. And he still isn't good enough for some, but he is and has been, the best thing they could have ever had. I miss him already.
Pantagruelsmember
(106 posts)Don't let your idealism cost the nation a vote for the better of two candidates. It was only 15 years ago we suffered from that exact syndrome.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)Would never be from me. I've seen it though, expressed too many times. They are not MY allies, and I will never be fooled by them again They are just like the GOP to me.
Because results matter more than egos. Obama and Hillary mended fences in 2008! They are better than so many of the hateful spewers online.
antigop
(12,778 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)since they could have to end up supporting a candidate they're currently mocking and demonizing.
It's not as there's no other possibility but HRC getting the nom.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)the DNC to turn and run in the general election.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And I was saying that to the OP, for the record.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)Perhaps you could encourage him not to say some of the things he says if it is difficult to hear the same coming back to him and his supporters. There are lots of posts about Hillary which is pulled in from the sky, no base.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Dawgs
(14,755 posts)Chan790
(20,176 posts)Chakab
(1,727 posts)recent events is beyond me. It really shows that a lot of people here care more about the cult of personality than any of the issues.
LOL at this fucking nonsense:
Even if I were a die hard Obama supporter, I wouldn't support Hillary or anybody else just because Obama gave them his seal of approval.
Cha
(295,929 posts)It's doesn't matter that there on those on DU who don't appreciate this President.. the important thing is that the country does and that's going to really help us with getting our next Democratic President elected.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)behind Obama and have remained behind Obama to this date, I also did not trash Obama in the primary.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)the corporate candidates. We have a Dem in the WH now selling us TPP, when do you realize you've been had? When they bury you six feet under?
Wake up. If Bernie doesn't win the nomination, the road to hell will be the same, one will be quicker, but the same road will be followed, BECAUSE the multinat'l corporations are TPTB.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)God talk about juvenile. Get over yourself.
En Garde
(94 posts)If so, I would love to read it.
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)It should be there under Google.
apnu
(8,722 posts)Obama supporters (I was one), didn't give a hoot about Hillary. She wasn't "the enemy" she was just not our choice. I remember the bitterness of the Hillary supporters when she lost to Obama, though Hillary, publicly, didn't seem to be bitter at all.
I'm glad Obama won, I still like the guy personally, though I dislike some of his choices.
If Hillary is the nominee for the Democratic party I have zero issues pulling the lever for her. I'd be happy to be able to vote for the first female President of the United States.
I'm also aware, that a Dem. and a liberal in the White House is 100% better than any conservative or Republican. If our nominee is a Ficus Plant and Donald Duck, I'll pull that lever over a Republican every day.
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)the attacks she endured for being blonde? Come on, this is too easy. Go over to Amazon and check out my e-book "Food Fight at a Monster Truck Rally." Check out some of the truly amazingly inflammatory and slanderous things that various writers, some of them self ascribed liberals called Hillary Clinton back in 2008. Read about the coverage of her cleavage. Yes, her tits were considered national news. Read about how Matthews accused her of trying to "crib death" the Obama campaign and how she was called "Nixonian" and worse. Much worse. She was even accused of being mentally ill. By Democrats. If you don't have 99 cents, send me a private message and Ill send you a free copy of the document.
You do realize that the reason DU had to "reset" after the election was because we couldn't have some of that bullcrap on line when the next presidential election came around.
Now, I am a seasoned trooper when it comes to Democratic primaries. I remember the first showing of the Daisy ad. So, I didn't take most of it too seriously, except for the stuff that was obviously coming from the RNC. But the stuff coming from the RNC was truly amazing in its vileness, and it bothered me that so many people did not seem to be able to distinguish between the normal Democratic Primary Food Fight that we have every four to eight years (depending upon whether there is a Democratic incumbant) and the stuff that the RNC was setting up---like the Race Memo. And no one seemed to notice or care how the MSM was (sucessfully) warping our opinions, with MSM writers claiming that they had "the goods" on Clinton or some other candidate, in order to initiate another round of Dems bashing Dems---only to back out when it finally came time to deliver.
Yes, I know that no one really meant all those nasty things they wrote back in 2008. That was just Democratic Primary politics as usual. But this is the Internet. You have to think before you post, bcause your post will be here long after you are dead.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)is even more unacceptable and to call on them to stop treating his candidacy as if it has no right to exist.
apnu
(8,722 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)Because it sounds like it is full of facts I'd like to read. Many websites spin lies on HRC, PBO and Michelle Obama.
It's an industry, like the Infowars franchise. A look at that shows psychological manipulation at its most effective, and heavily funded (the roots are JBS and Libertarian from the Koch Bros) is hard pressed to not buy it.
Alex hates Hillary, abortion, public education, Obama and now that Rand is going down in the GOP polls, he says he wants Cruz to win. Who funds him? Hint: check the outcome of what he sells.
The fact it's on 24/7/365 days a year in many venues (one can actually listen to the show on the phone) and it's free, has not been lost on the SPLC who changed their page on the owner, Alex Jones.
The SPLC now presents him as much less fringe and a laughing stock to a serious threat, which he is. He's cheered on the death of some that have been killed and encourages stock piling. His mantra that all mass killings are Obama's doing 'to take out guns'. He gets away with it all.
Anyone who listens to that is going to hate all Democrats unless they act like Teas, and Clinton, Obama and HRC in particular. FFS, they are just politicians... but he presents them as baby killers, etc.
Hillary has been hated on for so long that's in the subconscious of many Americans. And they vote, too.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)For the record, I was not an Obama supporter in '08. I offered up strong criticism of both Obama and HRC...ON ISSUES.
That hasn't changed.
I didn't reverse myself for the GE in '08.
I won't be reversing myself on issues if HRC wins the nomination now, either.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)She may be the nominee, it may even be statistically likely that she will be the nominee, but guess what: she isn't the nominee yet.
So your "once the primary is over and Hillary Clinton is the nominee" is a bit premature, dare I say even presumptuous.
Plus assuming she will be by de facto fiat allows her to abdicate (not saying she would actually do this, of course ) actually earning the thing through clear policy positions and solid issues-oriented campaigning, which will help her in the general.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)madfloridian
(88,117 posts)But we sure have to be careful about fighting back.
silenttigersong
(957 posts)Jill Stien is running for Prez,would Hillary be willing to debate her?I know Bernie would include her.If not ,What is she afraid of?
AuntPatsy
(9,904 posts)DonCoquixote
(13,615 posts)I suspect that many who talked bad (sometimes even dirty) about Clinton in 2008 are reluctant to change their tones. Doing so would be to admit that they were wrong---or, at least, took a position for political gain (for their candidate Obama) rather than because it was a correct position. No, there is nothing wrong with saying one thing in the primary and another in the general, if it furthers the cause of your political party. That is how elections are won. But some folks like to present themselves as idealogic purists---
It would be nice if Hillary and Bill could apologize for blowing racist dog whistles full blast.
and frankly, if it was not for us, Hillary would be going full right, right into the brick wall that the GOP has, the one they do every mid term when our people try to play like they were GOP.
Hekate
(90,202 posts)Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Indeed sincere change that comes from heartfelt thought and reflection can arguably yield a person who is even more dedicated to the new cause than someone who did not spend that time reflecting on the issues.
BUT -and this is a BIG BUT... "evolution" or "change" that is actually not that at all, but that is the result of political calculation is a TERRIBLE thing. It is dishonest, roping in people's emotions and loyalties when none is deserved.
Beware politicians that either hid their true feelings then or are hiding them now. For them, being true to their convictions is not as important as personal political gain. As a result, they are always a potential danger that might fuck you over at any time should the winds blow in a southerly direction. They are compass-less and morally adrift.
That is not change. That is drift.