Bill Clinton paints Obama as 'establishment' candidate

[ProSense]

Bill Clinton paints Obama as 'establishment' candidate

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After trailing Hillary Clinton by a 2-1 margin in Nevada as recently as November, a poll published this week showed Obama had moved into a virtual tie with her and former Sen. John Edwards.

Buoyed by an endorsement from the largest union in the state, Obama had 32%, Clinton 30% and Edwards 27%, according to the poll conducted for the Reno Gazette-Journal with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Bill Clinton said he talked with many of the 60,000-member Culinary Union's rank-and-file who intend to ignore the endorsement and vote for his wife.

"In this case the establishment organization is with him and the insurgents are with her," Clinton said in his speech. He then asked for a show of hands from about 50 precinct captains in the audience and challenged them to stand up to the union's leadership.

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And He’s Got Some Choice Real Estate On A Swamp He Wants To Sell You, Too

For me, one of the saddest things about this campaign season has to do with Bill Clinton. I like Bill, I really do, and all his flaws aside, I still managed to have a decent amount of respect for the guy. But as the democratic primaries continue on, I’m seeing more and more of our former president that I don’t really like.

And all of this is a result of somewhere along the line, the Hillary camp decided it was okay to take the political leash off of Bill Clinton. After the hit in September, we had heard whispers that Bill was getting a little hot under the collar, that he was blaming the campaign for not hitting Barack Obama hard enough, and that was what was letting the upstart from Illinois back into the game.

And then those whispers stopped as Bill become a significantly more prominent figure in the Clinton campaign. Since then, while abstaining from maybe the drug battle (for I think Bill Clinton would be very ill-advised to jump into the drug argument against Obama more so than anyone else), the former president has been in the thick of virtually every proxy battle being waged against the Obama campaign.

What’s worse is that he’s not even showing the political prowess that once earned him the title of the most gifted politician of a generation.

The latest flap in what is quickly turning into a hefty pile of duds is the charge that Barack Obama is actually the establishment candidate, leaving me, and I’m sure a whole host of others, in a state of utter incredulity. This assertion is justified by the fact that it was Obama who managed to carry the endorsement of the Culinary Workers Union, thusly casting Hillary as the establishment underdog in Nevada. But as MSNBC points out, Hillary has long held an organizational and establishment advantage over Obama particularly in the Silver State.

Nor does her roots in the Democratic party establishment stop there. As Joe Gandelman illustrates, there is a particular sort of irony when a former two term president whose own apparatus essentially took over the party and whose wife is now a prominent member of the party is calling the other guy the establishment candidate. This is the pot calling the kettle black on a level rarely seen, especially when the kettle is closer to a dark gray.

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More on Clinton's "insurgents": Mark Penn and James Carville.

[tekisui]

1. Takes one to know one.....

[MNDemNY]

6. Birds of a feather....

[Cha]

30. And all that

jazz! :)

[GodlessBiker]

2. That's rich.

[Zynx]

3. Okay, I'll admit, that's funny.

[DS1]

4. Wanker

[redqueen]

5. Eh, not quite...

Is this what you're talking about?

"In this case the establishment organization is with him and the insurgents are with her," ?

Cause no... that's not really the same thing at all. He did use the word "establishment" though, yes.

[electron_blue]

7. I agree. In many ways, Obama is very establishment. That's probably a strength

for winning the general election. It's one of the things I disliked about Obama after reading his two books.

[Essene]

29. cuz anti-war black civil rights activists are SO establishment

[electron_blue]

37. why the sarcasm? I'm making a serious point. I didn't say he was est. in *all* points.

good grief.

[ShortnFiery]

8. Bill is not gracious. In fact, the more BIll spins, the more I like OBAMA!

Thanks "Big Dog." Yeah "woof! woof!" No Bill, this is not the 1990s - so - I refuse to roll on my back for your "shine" and DLC's vapid "tummy rubs." :eyes: ;)

IMO, Bill Clinton should STFU because "hypocritical" doesn't even begin to capture the essence of his behavior. :thumbsdown:

[Cha]

31. Hey, I like your

take on the big dog..woof..how about pathelogical liar?

[papau]

9. Who is Obama going to bring together if not the two wings of the ESTABLISHMENT - like radicals and

neo's are going to hug because Obama is in the West Wing? "Give me a break"!!!!

[ProSense]

11. Bill Clinton and the insurgents! n/t

[ShortnFiery]

12. Yes, the M$M tells us that if we don't support the DLC's or RNC's spin, we're "with the terrorists"

Oh, we're "fringe left" and "radicals" ... Mathew's evil "pajama hudeen" ... oh please?!?

What makes Bill Clinton think that "they're so special" that they deserve to monopolize The Executive Branch for another EIGHT fucking years?!?

Now we're talking "fairy tales." :thumbsdown:

----------------------------

EVERCLEAR LYRICS

"Like A California King"

I see you have made yourself a brand new life
Such a cool blue star with a bright new shine
I see you wear your checkered past just like a shining suit of gold
I know you think you look so special
I am told you have found yourself a brand new time
Watch the world stand still as the years go by
I know you think you are so new and different
But it makes no sense to me

There is nothing new about you
Just another self-made man
There is nothing new that I can see
Enjoy it while you can

I know you think you look so special
What makes you think you are so special?
What makes you think you are unique?
I see you smile and I get angry
As i watch you go colossal
Like a California king

---------------

Just please go your own "special way" Bill Clinton? Just go away? :shrug:

[karynnj]

39. This has to be a weird role for Bill Clinton to play

I don't mean being the spouse of the candidate, but being the old, jaded establishment guy, challenged by a younger, more idealist guy. In 1992, ignoring political positions, that was him. He was the smiling, glowing candidate of hope against the cranky, annoyed GHWB. Clinton is as establishment a Democrat as there is. He has controlled the party since 1992, even when Gore and Kerry ran. He's always been there sucking up the oxygen. That's 15 years!

You can't be the fresh face of change when you have dominated the Democratic party for 15 years. In Nevada when Harry Reid's son is heading her campaign you can't be the non-establishment candidate.

Oddly, this does remind me of 1992. In the last week or two of the 1992 campaign, GHWB came to my county, as old line Republican a place as you can find, he was clearly both angry and mystified that the country was rejecting him - though that was not new, his poll numbers were in the low 40s at best all year and he fell to 33% by the election. Only last month, did the "wrong" track numbers for his son reach the level that he had. He was pathetic calling Clinton, "Bozo" and Gore, "Oxzone man". His anger, knowing he was losing to people he considered less qualified and experienced was blatant. That is where Clinton is headed unless he steps back and stops these angry rants. He risks damaging the respect and affection many (not me, he lost me years ago) feel for him.

[TomClash]

10. Bill should go back to Chappaqua

Doesn't he have some Global Initiative work to do? Doesn't GHWB need some company in Kennebunkport?

He's hurting his wife, her chances for the nomination, his image and the Democratic Party with this nonsense.

[Konza]

19. Hell, he needs to start dating again....

[TomClash]

20. LOL! Welcome to DU!

By the way, I think he has. ;-)

[jackson_dem]

13. Kerry, Nelson, Johnson, and others in just a week

If the shoe fits...What Clinton said on the surface sounds ludicrous given the source. It is smart, though. Obama is falsely perceived as anti-establishment. Clinton is chipping away at that myth with this comment.

[ProSense]

17. You cannot possibly

use Kerry's endorsement to justify Clinton's claim that Hillary is supported by insurgents.

[karynnj]

41. So true

Nor can I believe that just electing a woman is "change". It would be historical, but the gender of the President does not mean that we will make the changes needed to really change the path we are on. Would Dr Rice be change if the Republicans had nominated her? (There you even have a single woman.)

It also ignores that some work from within the establishment to reform it, which is an alternative to simply fighting it. Both Obama and Kerry have done that. There are many Kerry actions that show he did, but this paragraph alone from your link illustrates Kerry's williness to risk his status in the party to do so. Ask yourself, would Clinton do this?

"Second, the BCCI affair showed Kerry to be a politician driven by a sense of mission, rather than expediency--even when it meant ruffling feathers. Perhaps Sen. Hank Brown, the ranking Republican on Kerry's subcommittee, put it best. "John Kerry was willing to spearhead this difficult investigation," Brown said. "Because many important members of his own party were involved in this scandal, it was a distasteful subject for other committee and subcommittee chairmen to investigate. They did not. John Kerry did."

Obama did that with the ethics bill where HRC has tried to diminish his role. Here is the NYT article on that bill and here is a quote that shows the Junior Senator stood up to one of the powers in the DLC, Schumer.

"The Republicans who controlled the Senate last year refused to let it come up. And on Jan. 12, before the details of the proposal had been disclosed, Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat in charge of his party’s fund-raising as head of the senatorial campaign committee, used a run-in on the Senate floor to deliver an angry rebuke to the disclosure idea’s lead sponsor, Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, several people present or briefed on the confrontation said.

In a subsequent conversation, Mr. Schumer said he worried that the proposal could cramp fund-raising by placing an undue burden on potential bundlers, said aides who were briefed and a lawmaker familiar with their talk, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of the talks.

“Senator Obama has not been the most popular person in our caucus in the last couple of weeks,” said a Democratic aide involved in deliberations over the bill. Mr. Obama also this week started a bid for his party’s presidential nomination."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/us/politics/20ethics.html?scp=1&sq=Senate+ethics+bill+

(Note the same anonymous talking behind his back against Obama that Kerry experienced when he led on Alito , Kerry/Feingold etc)

While her campaign attempts to minimize his contribution by saying that it was Reid's bill, which it was, they do not use the same standard on HRC's legislation. It is very normal for the bill to bear the name of the committee chair, even as amendments do (as they do here for Obama) bear his name. Obama was very involved in making that bill as strong as possible and with Senators like Kerry, Feingold, and Webb, he voted against tabling the Demint amendment that brought tougher rules from Pelosi's bill into the Senate bill. Had the leadership (Reid, HRC etc) succeeded in tabling (killing) that amendment, it would have been a GOP coup as they could say Democrats don't want strong ethics reform when they are in the majority.

[Essene]

32. He isnt anti-establishment, but the Hillary camp are overplaying this argumentt because...

They know they are even in the national polls and have to find a new angle to make her the authentic "underdog" if needed.

They need some way to challenge the fact that he's getting more endorsements and out fundraising her atm.

She cant attack him as a "special interest" candidate, so she's going with this silly phrase of him representing "the establishment" because of people giving him money. NOBODY sincere is going swallow this load of hogpoo.

Thus it makes her look weak, desperate and simply bitter for not getting HIS money. It shows she feels entitled.

Even most of her supporters will laugh at this...

[karynnj]

40. Would you care to balance that with the Senators and Governors who were behind Clinton earlier?

I know they include Corzine and Menendez from my state. Reid's son is involved in her campaign. Of the 3 mentioned, I would bet the only name more than 10% of the population could identify is Kerry. Who was the last nominee, but who Clinton and his allies have worked to marginalize since the election.

Obama is not anti-establishment, nor is Kerry, they are sitting Senators, who see government as the solution, not the problem. They both have a very strong commitment to clean government as can be seen by their real work on ethics and reform. Kerry's endorsement speaks of how he sees Obama as able to reconcile the bitter partisan rift. He sees Obama as a potential leader who can bring the country together, that is not the description of an insurgent. In fact, NONE of the candidates are truly insurgents, including edwards.

[goodhue]

14. funny stuff

Obama may indeed be establishment but no so relative to the Clintons who are establishment defined.

[Maribelle]

15. Bill, of course, was speaking about that one union's leadership vs. its rank an file.

Why on earth do Hillary bashers believe twisting Bill's words will have a long term impact?

[ProSense]

18. Which ones are the

insurgents: the union leadership or the rank and file?

[Arugula Latte]

16. Pot - Kettle. nt

[Proud2BAmurkin]

21. The point is Obama isn't the most progressive or the most "different" so why vote for him especially

given that he's only been in the senate 3 years.

[Essene]

26. yea, cuz the only reason to vote for him is cuz he's a hip black jive talking fairy tale

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[karynnj]

42. Who has the most progressive record?

Obama didn't vote for a bankruptcy reform bill, as Edwards did. Look at any measure out there. Edwards was not a progressive Senator - Harkin is. Wellstone was, but not Edwards.

Edwards only had 6 years in the Senate and spent 2 of them mostly campaigning. Add that to the fact that he has apologized for a significant number of positions he took in the Senate, makes me wonder whether he wants credit for that Senate term.

Obama had 8 years in the Illinois Senate in addition to those 3 years.

[ProSense]

22. Kick! n/t

[AtomicKitten]

23. * snort *

K&R

[killbotfactory]

24. How can you get more "establishment" than being an ex-president?

Jesus what an asshole. Fuck these people.

[Essene]

25. In that same Las Vegas speech, he also said blacks only support Obama cuz he's black

Yes... yes he did.

In a slick statement... he implied that all blacks inherently support HIllary, but that some "still" support Obama because he could be the first black president.

Yep.

That's the ONLY reason, according to Bill Clinton. He then juxtaposed the race affinity to the gender affinity, implying that the gender revolution implied by Hillary in the White House was a bigger deal.

Get this guy off the campaign... please.

He's breaking america's heart and making a mockery out of our nation.

[sandnsea]

27. Hospitality workers are the establishment, rotlfmao

Okay Bill, whatever.

He just lies and lies and lies because they can't beat Obama with the truth.

[Essene]

34. Only the LEGAL ones, obviously

[Cha]

35. So say..the clintons get

in on all their lies..then what? My image is that start taking all they can get and leaving the country for the wolves.

[City Lights]

33. He can paint however he wants.

I ain't buyin' what he's sellin'. His wife is the poster gal for the establishment.

[creeksneakers2]

36. Another smear job against the Clintons

Bill said "IN THIS CASE" because he was talking about the votes of union members against the union establishment. He didn't call Obama the establishment candidate. What a lie by the Clinton haters!

Same kind of trash out of the Clinton haters all the time. Distort what the Clintons said and pretend to be outraged. Recommend and E-mail and do everything possible to spread the disinformation.

It ain't working.

[karynnj]

43. The OP linked to what Clinton said

It is Clinton, not the OP, who is making Clinton look bad.

[eridani]

38. Pot. Meet kettle. n/t

[JVS]

44. Has he been huffing glue in his retirement?

[ProSense]

45. Kick! n/t