Clinton was the candidate all the big money went to early on, and McCain is the mainstream media’s stud muffin, the guy they really, really want to have a beer with and then wake up in the morning in bed with a hangover and stale cigarette breath. So the corporate media and big money Democratic donors must be breathing a sigh of relief this morning.
As for me, I’m disappointed, particularly if this result knocks John Edwards out of the race. Obama and Clinton, despite all the “historic” talk, and all their rhetoric, have not shown themselves to be wedded to a particularly progressive agenda. Clinton, in my opinion, is beatable in a general election if McCain is the nominee. And even if she wins, it will be a narrower victory than any other Dem likely could achieve. Thus we would be back to all the things that destroyed the Democratic party in the 90’s. Triangulation and center right policies masquerading as liberal positions. The return of the vast right wing conspiracy machine with a vengeance, and endless media stories about Clintonian “scandals” regardless of their merits. The ugly mug and shrill voice of James Carville on television every night. The DLC and it’s own K Street strategy triumphant.
And we will see little if any gain for any progressive positions. Universal health care? Dead on arrival under HRC, except for a plan allowing health insurance companies and Big Pharma to suck up even more money than they do now. Iraq? A delayed or “deferred” withdrawal, leaving thousands of American soldiers stuck in a quagmire of neoconservative and neoliberal warhawk fantasies. A continued push by AIPAC and conservative Israeli politicians to involve America in a war against Iran. The continued downgrading of environmental issues, especially a response to global warming that promises any hope of real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
And to be honest, despite all the happy talk from Obama about being the candidate of hope and change, I don’t know that an Obama presidency would be a whole lot different, with the possible exception of Iraq. He may be a secret progressive wrapped in moderate/centrist/bipartisan rhetoric, but I’m not convinced yet that he would actually engage in promoting any policies that would radically alter the status quo. His speeches have actually referenced Republican talking points on Social Security, forgawdsake. He is tied to as many “big money” corporate interests as Senator Clinton, and nothing I’ve seen from him so far in his senatorial career has made me believe he would cross those “special interests” if push came to shove. I hope I would be wrong about that, but that’s all it is — hope.
Which leaves us in a place only the punditocracy could love: endless discussions of the “horse race” aspect of the campaign, with little if any substantive discussion of issues and policy differences between the candidates of either party. And the promise of a future only slightly less blighted than the Bush years. In short, business as usual.
Yeah, I’m depressed too.
What I am is fearful. I never saw Obama as the Messiah the media and some of his followers have painted him to be, but at least in the foreign policy area he didn’t seem to be relying on the advice of liberal warhawks. Clinton, on the other hand is part of a group of people who represent corporate interests in America, particularly in Wall Street and the media/telecommunications industries, which are not necessarily congruent with the interests of the American people. And her continued reliance on people like Terry McAuliffe, the worst DNC head in recent memory (but a great fund raiser for the Dems from corporate lobbyists) is proof to me that she has little if any interest in effecting real change. Working around the margins? Sure. But challenging the big corporate interests on issues of health care, tax policy, and the war? No.
I wish we were able to communicate this more effectively.
Honestly, for the subset of Clinton supporters who support her primarily because she’s female, and who tend to view attacks on her as being sexist, the messenger needs to be female as well. Among that subset, it is an article of faith that a female president will, simply by being president, improve the lot of women in American society, and simply by being female, she will naturally advocate for women’s issues. A significant portion of Obama’s support most likely comes from the same kind of thing, only with regards to race.
There’s some merit to the idea, too. While it won’t make the least bit of difference to serious bigots, who are by nature insulated from reality, having a capable, competent female president or black president probably would help change the minds of a lot of people, and that’s a seriously valuable goal we shouldn’t surrender lightly.
The problem with Hillary Clinton is that while she would certainly be a capable, competent president, she has made a career of backing the same establishment status quo that many of her supporters hope — in the absence of actual evidence — she will undermine. Looking for change from a candidate whose husband is a personal friend of the Bush family and whose main funding sources are the very same industries who have been the authors of most of the evils of the last two decades is like insisting that pixies make the flowers grow.
I never trusted Obama to be a bold progressive if elected either, but BooMan had me just about convinced of the massive coattails of an Obama campaign and the possible major alignment that might bring. Edwards has been the only candidate with a seemingly decent chance up to this point that I felt was more or less trustworthy to deliver on his promises, or to fight for them to the end, but I was starting to feel that a huge Democratic majority was in the offing, and more than compensation enough.
Now, of course, even that hope seems pretty distant.
I’m starting to really hate politics. The disappointment and anxiety start piling up after 7-8 years.
Is Hillary even more Republican Lite than Bill was during the 90s? Is she now a Republican, one may ask.
Well, that’s a very good question. Certainly she would qualify as a Republican in the Eisenhower era, or even in the era before the Conservative Movement hijacked the Republican party.
That’s a fair comparison: Hillary and Eisenhower, only Eisenhower, I suggest, was more liberal in the relative sense of speaking.
Bill’s folly is that he sees Hillary as needing again to steal the Republican’s positions. This is an old ploy, which, I am afraid to say, is outdated. As some have suggested, Bill needs to recede into the background, lest he spoil what momentum Hillary gained out of New Hampshire.
Well said. Edwards is the only one who gets it. I’m afraid that id McCain wins all Bush has to do is start another conflict and we will have more of the same and Im not sure the country can take it.
That is the best/funniest headline I have seen all week!
Yesterday there seemed to be a lot of chat that Hillary’s revival was a reaction to the sexism of the pundits and mean words by the other candidates towards her. The reports of the gender difference in the vote would seem to indicate a big slant of women voters towards Hillary.
It is an unbelievable narrative.
It’s very weird. Hillary has not offered any kind of program that improves the lot of women. There was a generalized complaint that “change” is too vague, but I haven’t heard much specificity from Clinton. The candidate who at least identifies the parties in conflict is Edwards. Even his stump speeches sound mild compared to what FDR would have tossed off. So what is the difference? “My bland stump speech is better than your bland stump speech”? That a conservative candidate (Clinton) wins in a conservative state is in itself no great surprise. It’s the media narrative that doesn’t seem to fit.
I have heard a number of women say that they are glad for Hillary because of the guys who had the stupid “Iron My Shirt” poster at one of Hillary’s rallies. That and Steinem’s ridiculous op-ed piece yesterday. The “Iron My Shirt” guys could just as well have been handing out Fair Play For Cuba pamphlets. It smells fake. And it’s a story that’s been repeated over and over, which suggests a prearranged insertion of gender politics that was designed to offend women and push them towards Clinton. The narrative suggests that women are so flighty as to vote against their interests in order to get back at two knuckleheads. It smells of provocation.
The whole narrative of Clinton The Phoenix seems to be overdramatized, prearranged: the oligarchy’s hack faux revolutionary Gloria Steinem’s well-timed op-ed in the NY Times; the polls that suddenly went ten points in Obama’s direction, a shift that either didn’t happen or was immediately followed by an equal shift back to Clinton the day of the election. How could television’s talking heads declare Clinton’s campaign dead when she is the permanent government’s candidate?
Anyway, let’s see how all this is packaged and resold to the hoi polloi.
someone told me last night that a Boston radio station was responsible for the ‘Iron My Shirt’ thing. Is that true?
Yes.
Diebold tallies 81% of the New Hampshire vote using unpublished code which may not be audited.
What result can we expect?
As suspicious as I am re these machines, and as much as we desperately need better checks and balances (i.e., fully paper elections that are at least sampled/audited in a statistically significant way by hand), after looking at the exit polls, it seems clear the machine votes matched the exit polls, and lacking any reason to disbelieve the exit polls, that’s good enough for me.
Clearly, the polls prior to the election undersampled women, and that made the difference for Clinton.
Also – I don’t think any polls were made after Clinton’s emotional incident, and that was huge, for woman. I was even touched, and I really don’t want her to be our candidate.
Lisa-
Could you point us to an analysis of the Exit Polls vs Election Results? I have been wondering about this myself and haven’t found it yet. If, in fact, the media’s exit polls matched the results reasonably closely I will be satisfied.
I keep remembering 2004 when the Exit Polls didn’t match the results and the media tried to calm us down, insisting that their Exit Polls were wrong. Exit Polls are rarely wrong and when we see discrepancies like that in other countries, we apply pressure for a do-over (remember the Ukrainian elections a while back?)
Anyhoo, I’d really like to see a good write-up of a comparison between the two.
On your other point, I agree. I watched and read endless media coverage yesterday and they were all just savaging Hillary Non-Stop. While I am not a fan of hers, I felt pity for her. If I were a woman I might even have taken it personally and gone out and voted for her just as my own way of “flipping off” the media.
First, let me say that I never believed that Edwards was internally as progressive as he conveyed outwardly.
But I think the opposite is true of Obama. His record shows him to be consistenly liberal, consistently on the right side of the issues I care about.
I highly recommend people read about Obama’s time in his state legislature, how he got some of the strongest campaign financing reform in the nation passed, among other acts, and in his short term in the Senate, he’s still gotten a few restrictions passed against lobbyists, and recently got legislation passed to help veterans medically.
He’s not all talk, and Edwards is not all action.
I think if people did what I did, i.e., recheck your assumptions and do some research, you’ll find there’s a lot of progressive substance to Obama’s record.
Fearful, depressed, sad, angry.All good words . Here are two others- Bradley Effect! and for those who don’t like those two- try this pair on for size- Vote tampering!
I crossposted that comment to a diary over at EuroTrib and someone asked me to elaborate. I cranked this out at the last minute before leaving for work.