I don’t agree with Peggy Noonan often, but this made me nod my head in agreement.
What, really, is Mrs. Clinton doing? She is having the worst case of cognitive dissonance in the history of modern politics. She cannot come up with a credible, realistic path to the nomination. She can’t trace the line from “this moment’s difficulties” to “my triumphant end.” But she cannot admit to herself that she can lose. Because Clintons don’t lose. She can’t figure out how to win, and she can’t accept the idea of not winning. She cannot accept that this nobody from nowhere could have beaten her, quietly and silently, every day. (She cannot accept that she still doesn’t know how he did it!)
She is concussed. But she is a scrapper, a fighter, and she’s doing what she knows how to do: scrap and fight. Only harder. So that she ups the ante every day. She helped Ireland achieve peace. She tried to stop Nafta. She’s been a leader for 35 years. She landed in Bosnia under siege and bravely dodged bullets. It was as if she’d watched the movie “Wag the Dog,” with its fake footage of a terrified refugee woman running frantically from mortar fire, and found it not a cautionary tale about manipulation and politics, but an inspiration.
Let me explain ‘how he did it’. It’s actually really simple. He set up organizations in places like Alaska and Idaho while Clinton was focusing all her effort on much more expensive races in California and New Jersey. As a result, he wound up getting slightly more delegates on Super Tuesday than Hillary did. And, he had laid the groundwork for the next string of states, which were also, somewhat fortuitously, good states for his message. Clinton had not done much advance work in those states and, as a result, she got her clock cleaned by whopping margins in states like Virginia, Maryland, and Wisconsin. By that point there was no recovery, and we have been operating with the fiction that Clinton can win the nomination since the polls closed in Wisconsin (if not before).
While it is true that Clinton got some bad luck when Florida and Michigan moved their primaries up too far and were disqualified, the reason she lost was that she didn’t believe in the 50-state strategy. When her campaign got crushed in places like Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming, they explained it away as the loss of ‘insignificant states’. But it wasn’t just spin. The Clintons never thought of those states as significant because they tend to vote Republican. What they forgot is that Kansas and Wyoming have Democratic governors and North Dakota and Nebraska have 3 Democratic senators to only one (retiring) Republican. Much like the lottery, you have to be in it to win it, and the Clintons were simply not ‘in’ too many races during this nominating process.
Clinton had other problems, too. Her message was all wrong. The Bush years haven’t been a failure for just the Republicans. The entire Establishment has failed us, including the majority of Democratic senators that voted for the war. Clinton was part of the coalition of the willing, and from Spain to Italy to Poland to the United Kingdom to Australia, all the leaders of the coalition of the willing have been defeated electorally…one by one by one. Clinton doggedly tied herself to the coalition by refusing to apologize for her vote, while Edwards and Dodd and Biden all strode away and were granted a measure of redemption. But, ultimately, the people wanted a candidate that was unsullied by the war, who had been against it from the beginning.
As a result, Clinton really is ‘concussed’. As is the the whole Establishment, from the media on up. An Obama presidency will be the cleanest break between two administrations since Roosevelt took over for Hoover. And given our economy and our difficulties abroad, that somehow seems appropriate.
also available in orange.
After seeing how my every word is parsed over there, I’d much rather read it in green.
Shorter version: Obama: fresh
Clinton: day old and stale
who’s parsing you?
I’m getting complaints that I would use Noonan as a source, as if I could get ‘concussed’ anywhere else.
Who isn’t lately.
As to using Noonan, the piece is relevant no matter what source.
People over there also seem to be confused about the meaning of the word “source”. Of course you want a credible source if you are using the source for facts.
But I don’t consider Peggy Noonan a true ‘source’ in this case. Boo took two paragraphs of hers and then wrote something of his own. Like Mozart riffing off of a Salieri tune (cuz we all know Boo is a BIG classical music fan LOL).
It’s almost impossible to have a high level conversation over there any more.
I wouldn’t even ask for a high level of conversation. Even the most ordinary statements are giving rise to misinterpretations, for lack of a better term. I find that I need to choose my words very carefully, communication of the simplest kind now being very difficult. I’ll lurk much more. But here I’ve gone and hijacked BooMan’s thread.
Bravo, Sir. Bravo.
I have been arguing with my old man about this for weeks. He thinks her “strategy” was defensible (his word). of course, he’s still claiming my opposition to Clinton is driven by personal animosity and hate, and he’s wrong about that too. Old dog, new tricks, difficulty learning.
One quibble: what’s this “measure of redemption” for Joe Biden you speak of. Dodd and Edwards, certainly. But Biden?
I’m glad you beat me too it. I’m no fan of Noonan’s either, but I thought her piece was bold, and spot on. I liked her opening. It reminds me there’s no use banging my head against the wall with those who truly don’t get it:
I was also disturbed by something we’ve all seen glimpses of, but Noonan makes it plain:
I don’t want a President that has to get favorable press by threatening to sue, or work their way up the chain. That shouldn’t be how it’s done. Certainly Obama’s team has not had to resort to that. They have the candidate that says things that are newsworthy, and new, and exciting. It’s no secret why he gets better press coverage. He has something new to say. HE is something new.
I can forgive John Kerry somehow for his war vote. I believe he’s good enough and naive enough to have been bamboozled. But I cannot grant Clinton the same thing. She is neither good enough nor naive. She is duplicitous enough to have voted for war for what she then perceived would be electoral gain. And she’s either stupid enough or wiley enough not to read the NIE that put the lie to the war before it began. In either case, she’s no one I want near the office of the president.
I want new polls in PA. I think it’s absolutely possible for Obama to win there, if we all get busy and hit the phones and streets. I think WE have the power to end this sooner than later. I hope we do.
That one sentence is exceptional. In less than 20 words you have stated the theme and message of the coming GE.
That’s what stuck out for me, too. It’s absolutely brilliant in its simplicity.
LOL!!! I just caught a classic moment on MSNBC! A Clinton spokesperson was trying to dismiss party-splitting fears, and said he had no doubt that if Clinton got the nomination, Obama would turn to his supporters and say, “Support her.” He then said he had no doubt that if Obama won the nomination, Clinton would turn to his supporters and say, “Support me.” He quickly corrected himself to say “Support him” but it was already out there, the truth, before the coverup! 😉
Here’s the sticking point for me. I, a little old lady in Bumblebutt, USA, knew that signing the AUMF would give Bush all the permission he needed to wage war on Iraq. It was clear to me, and all the civilians I know, that Bush was straining at the leash to start bombing and killing. He had zero interest in diplomacy, he just wanted a war.
Now if I knew that, why didn’t the folks in DC know that? They had access to more (and supposedly better) lines of information than I did.
So I’m left with the conclusion that those who voted to support Bush’s War were either a) intolerably stupid, or b) concerned about their re-elections. And I don’t find either of those options acceptable for a Congresscritter, and certainly not for a President!
I can only believe that Cheney’s fearmongering woo’d them into his 1% Doctrine.
They got intelligence briefings designed to convince them there really WAS evidence of WMD. So they were more heavily propagandized than the general public was.
But even so, GWB was a known quantity. Cheney was a known quantity. More of them should have trusted that the public would NOT be in favor of the war, under the circumstances. They had no guts.
Actually, I think it’s even simpler than that. The Obama campaign didn’t set up organizations in places like Alaska and Idaho. They gave people in Alaska and Idaho, and all 48 other states, the tools they needed to set up organizations themselves.
Exactly.
It’s even more than that. They Obama campaign gave volunteers THEIR TRUST. That’s something the Clinton campaign never did until it was way too late to matter. They kept tight hold of their campaign for fear their message would be screwed up by the volunteers. Now they can only WISH they had been so ‘screwed up.’
“Clinton was part of the coalition of the willing, and from Spain to Italy to Poland to the United Kingdom to Australia, all the leaders of the coalition of the willing have been defeated electorally…one by one by one.”
Leadership in the UK remained in the hands of Labor, Brown for Blair. France and Germany saw the opposition win: Sarkozy and Merkel are both friendlier to Bush. Call it a backlash from 911, a political move to the right in Europe due to fascist tendency and racial tension with the Muslim minority.
Advantage of Arab countries … Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, UAE and Saudi Arabia, leadership remained intact! Just recently Musharraf’s party was devastated in parliamentary elections.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
I don’t see how Sarkozy, who served in various prominent positions in Chirac’s cabinet, can qualify as “the opposition” to Chirac.
And neither Sarkozy nor Merkel’s victories had much to do with their opponents’ opposition to the Iraq war, which remains just as unpopular today as it was in 2002-2003.
I’m also not sure how the creation of an SPD/CDU grand coalition in Germany can be seen as having to do with a “fascist tendency,” nor do I recall it having much to do with racial tension, even. Everyone was just sick of Schroeder.
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Policy differerences between Chirac and Sarkozy are clear on Atlanticism and support of Bush policy in the ME. Sarkozy took a tough stance on domestic problems in the Paris suburbs and violence with torching of cars. His stand on domestic issues caused the French voters to shift away from voting for LePen. The German election saw a move towards the CDU/CSU due to its stance on economic issues. In former East-German districts, there is a rise of fascists elements and violence against minorities. In the Netherlands one sees the rise of right-wing parties of Fortuyn, now replaced by Geert Wilders (PVV) and Rita Verdonk. The Danish have Rasmussen as prime minister and supporter of Bush’s policy.
In a number of European countries, one sees the rise of support for right-wing political parties and policy moving towards curtailing civil liberties, toughening of sentencing for criminal acts. Spain and Italy got their Socialist government in large part due to Iraq and pro-American policy of the prior administration.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
Looks like 60 Minutes is going to give us a little insight into “The Administration That Doesn’t Torture”…….(only interrogates in an enhanced manner).
The Pentagon, for what it’s worth, calls the charges “unsubstantiated, implausible, and simply outlandish.”
Why is Clinton continuing a scorched-earth yet hopeless campaign? One school of thought, backed by Matthew Yglesias, suggests that she knows she has already lost the nomination, but wants to kneecap Obama in the general, throwing the election to McCain and leaving her positioned for 2012. The objection to this from, for example, Kevin Drum, is that her fingerprints could not be scrubbed from the bat that did the kneecapping, and that this therefore is not a viable strategy. The explanation left is that Hillary is running on desperation and ego and throwing caution to the wind in what is probably her last dance on the national stage, win or lose.
The problem with the latter explanation is that it doesn’t make clear why Hillary’s big-time backers are continuing to support her vociferously, as we can see from the Pelosi letter they are, in an irrational ego-driven enterprise. The real question, then, is not what does Hillary want?, but What do Hillary’s backers want? It’s not about policy, at least not stated policy – their differences are not that great. But Obama is not beholden to the big-money boys to the usual extent, as he has shown he can out fundraise them on the Internet. The fight, then, is not about Hillary, but about the ability of big money to continue to call the shots. From this perspective, Hillary kneecapping Obama is fine; Hillary’s fingerprints may be on it, but her backers are still anonymous to the public and can get another horse for the asking in 2012. As someone said early in this election, “the establishment always wins”, but the establishment is not Clinton, but the forces behind Clinton. If they have to cripple Obama, the Democratic Party, and Clinton to maintain power, that may well be a choice that makes sense to them.
I think Hillary also is now playing for 2012.
I think she truly believes that if Obama goes down to defeat this year, that she will be seen as the Democratic party savior in 2012.
I agree that it seems doubtful that would ever happen, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t believe it is a viable strategy right now.
I’ve been trying to make the case on various blogs that Obama’s vastly superior and smarter campaign is one of the best reasons to prefer him over HRC.
Hillary Clinton had every imaginable advantage when the race began– $100 million in the bank, 96 committed superdelegates, a very famous husband who was the most visible and influential Democrat in the Party, major name recognition after two terms as First Lady, a compliant media that had all but annointed her the next President, many, many friends and political allies in the Democratic Party hierarchy, and– she is a Senator from New York, one of the two largest and most important states which also happens to be the media hub of the nation. It is almost impossible to imagine a candidate going into a campaign with a greater headstart than HRC enjoyed.
Obama started with none of those advantages, and has run circles around her. He surrounded himself with better people.
What Obama also did was realize that at least two other huge shifts happened following 9/11.
People are quick to say that 9/11 changed everything. True.
But the day Bush declared Iraq as part of the Axis of Evil he 1) set an irreversible course to war – there was no going back because it put Saddam in a place where he could not cave in and Bush in a situation where he couldn’t take it back, and 2) demonstrated to the world that many in the US had gone mentally ill as much as many in the Arab/Muslim world had.
The second shift happened when the decision was made to actually launch the attack without adequate strategy, international support, planning, troop strength to actually “win” in terms of not making Iraq a 200 year hell hole of dysfunction and human misery. I said it at the time that fucking up the regime change would be far far worse than the questionable decision to invade at all.
What Obama is siezing on is many American no longer want to be mentally ill and don’t want the inmates running the asylum any longer. They see there is a third way to the bi-polar thinking of our current political leadership.
And he also seized on the fact that many American want to return to the things that make them proud of American and the things that make the rest of the World admire us. Most Americans don’t see themselves as bullies and occupiers and exclusive.
I’m not a fan of Peggy Noonan. She’s a Reaganite, and her whiny voice is nauseating to me, but her columns on the campaign — or at least those I’ve read so far — have been pretty damned good.
My first hardened memory of national politics is of seeing Bill Clinton stand in front of the country and say, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” so I was never under the illusion that the Clintons were honest people. (I’ve always thought of that moment, “Why not just tell the truth, you idiot?”) Watching this campaign has convinced me that, for once, my Republican friends have been right where my Dem friends have been wrong: For all their “success,” the Clintons are scumbags.
And I say “success,” because much of what the Clintons are remembered for is not the product of the Clinton administration. The economy did not boom because of Bill Clinton. It boomed because a bunch of people in Silicon Valley (among other places) discovered ways we could do amazing things with fewer resources relative to the old ways, and the work that went into that goes back much longer than the Clinton presidency. Being an economist by trade, when I see people championing the Clintons for that, I find them unbelievably stupid.
And that holds for many of the other issues. We wind up being left to hold up the Clintons because of a balanced budget. Which is fine, but when the economy is growing at 4%, year after year, I expect the government to balance the damned budget. It’s only the pathetic standards of Junior and Reagan that leads people to see this as some kind of grand achievement. If that’s as high as the bar will be set, we might as well throw in the towel as a country.