Regular readers know that I long ago began arguing that it was the wrong approach to base your primary decision on policy grounds. That might be appropriate when your choices include Jimmy Carter and Scoop Jackson, but Obama and Clinton are peddling pretty much the same load of poll-tested tepid and unambitious crap. Better, by far, to look at their advisers and the major financial people, and the way they run and conduct their respective campaigns. To that end, this should help you make up your mind.
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
HRC is obviously working overtime calling in all her favors.
She doesn’t have to. They didn’t give her that money for nothing. They wanted favors – favors they won’t get from Obama. They’re pissed. GOOD.
She’s insane. Another Dick Cheney muttering “So?” into the crowds.
I’ll say it again:
Obama Builds, Clinton Breaks.
if we can’t have it neither will you.
dumb move. The Financial Times nailed it many months ago.
Bill and Hillary Clintons’ shenanigans in this campaign will damage future business relationships with titans of industry. The Clinton Global Initiative and THe Clinton Foundation will suffer the consequences…there’s an undercurrent of disgust. Decent, fair – minded men and women are appalled at the former President and First Lady of the United States of America carrying on like common thugs. Not even in a banana republic do you expect to see such a spectacle.
Hillary is damaged goods for whatever political office she may aspire in the future. This letter by her power donors serves only to re-enforce her negatives.
Horrible to say, but this is A*P*C at work. When is the United States going to get the Israeli monkey off its back?
care to back that up with any links?
i usually stay well out of the way whenever anyone mentions aipac or israel, but i just saw this current frontpager at open left which suggests that this connection may not be completely out in left field …
Patricof was threatening the Dems a week or so back, over the Florida primary crap.
Basically, the post notes that a minority of the donors in question are Lieberman supporters, and of those a couple are known to be pro-Israel hawks. Nothing new and certainly nothing surprising. That the Clintons belong to the pro-Israel hawk wing of the party is not news, nor have they ever shown any disinclination to accept funding from foreign sources or their domestic allies in general.
Israeli participation in American politics is generally pretty much out in the open for anyone to see. Even the heavy-handed way our domestic Likudniks go about smearing and silencing critics of Israel is quite open and transparent, and none of it could happen if there weren’t a large majority of Americans who are sympathetic to Israel.
Mind you, I’m personally only sympathetic to Israel in contrast to, let’s say, Hamas, but there is no conspiracy here. The neocons in the State Department may be another matter, but cronyism is relatively safe. The Israelis know that the fallout from getting caught with their thumb on the election scales would far outweigh any benefit they could derive from it.
Al Giordano thinks Pelosi herself leaked their “written temper tantrum” to the blogosphere in order to show these thugs that she won’t be intimidated by them.
If so, good for her.
I saw this coming a month back. People like the head of the California Democratic Party, Art Torres, was saying, Yeah, well, let’s wrap this up… will of the people… etc. It didn’t take much reading between the lines to see that a lot of Dem leaders want this wrapped up. Considering that a lot of the Clinton backers are tapped out to the legal limit, and reports seem to indicate that Clinton’s campaign is pretty much in the red, I can understand their anger at not being ambassador to Belgium or whatever.
I also see this as an attempt to blackmail the Speaker of the House. I really hope Pelosi tells them, and I must quote Roy Edroso from one of the most obviously late night drunken rants I’ve ever read, ‘Go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut’. I don’t even want to imagine what Steve Gilliard would have to say about this, but I know he’d be pissed.
Philly local Dem Marc Aronchick is the first signatory to that letter. I think I may have met him once briefly at some event, but don’t have enough knowledge to make an informed opinion about him. As I wrote over at dkos, I do know…
What’s the story here? Was he grudingly supporting the progressive wing?
I doesn’t seem to me that someone who was beholden to the Clinton/DLC wing would be hosting Jim Dean and DFA at his house. (Or going against the Philadelphia machine, but that comes with its own set of circumstances that may not apply perfectly.)