Right now, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is the only Democrat is who is kind of, sort of putting himself out there as an alternative to Hillary Clinton as the party’s presidential nominee for 2016. It looks like he will try to stake out some turf on the left. It would basically be a challenge from the Jesuit left, which could become kind of interesting.
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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.
good!
there is plenty of room on Hillary’s left, and plenty of voters who want a choice.
Hilary’s gonna cream him but, as a 51 year old man, it’s nice to hear another 51 year old man referred to as young.
“The Jesuit Left?” I didn’t even know we had one of those. That makes it interesting all by itself. Plus, he’s a governor, so they might even let him participate in debates.
Pope Francis.
Even lapsed Catholics (or maybe particularly lapsed Catholics) respond positively to a Jesuit message.
This is impossible.
The one, true, progressive line on religion generally, especially Catholicism, involves something about strangling the last aristocrat with the guts of the last priest and that religion is a tool of the oppressors, and a prop for the weak minded[1];
That’s it. That’s the only mental model.
If it’s Catholicism, something about perverts in dresses.
Outside that, no discussion is possible.
And people like Fred Clark at Slactivist do not exist.
[1] Special exception granted for Tibetan Buddhism because the Dalai Lama is so cool, and they’re oppressed.
very nice, Davis, you win the internets
Pet peeve. I basically left DemocraticUnderground.com because of the endless Catholic-bashing.
understood.
and the consequence
I know and have worked with people who knew Rutilio Grande, and Segundo Montes, and who worked with Cardinal Romero.
wonderful!
I imagine they are very impressive, wonderful to have a chance to work with them
What a pathetic state my party is in. The youth vote and the Latino vote are both vitally important in ’16 and going forward – not just for the presidency, but for the down-ballot offices and initiatives as well. So let’s run a Baby Boomer! That will get the kids to turn out all right. She does make the occasional mistake, like saying at a recent CNN Town Hall that those kids who crossed the border should be sent home. That will bring Latinos to the polls in droves. Sure, we all make mistakes, it’s just that we don’t make mistakes that will alienate an entire demographic.
She does have loads of charisma, though. It’s just that it’s the same kind of charisma possessed by that moldy sponge you discover under the kitchen sink. Add that she’s a lying, triangulating, corporatist, hawk and what could go wrong?
O’Malley sounds better than Hillary!, but if they don’t destroy each other, maybe they’ll eventually work together.
Ultimately, the USSC might be worth 4-8 years of Hillary!
I would of course prefer someone far to the left of Bernie Sanders, but I’m also not naive and delusional.
I’m part of the youth vote (barely). Don’t assume that we need a young face to turn out.
H is not running for the Dem nomination. She’s running for president. Hence the thing about the kids.
Besides, she’s really pretty much just a heartless bitch, isn’t she?
H is not running for the Dem nomination. She’s running for president. Hence the thing about the kids.
The youth vote and the Latino vote are both vitally important in ’16 and going forward – not just for the presidency, but for the down-ballot offices and initiatives as well.
The point is that if Sen. Clinton is going to use the ‘but, think of the coattails!’ argument as to why we should vote for her, she shouldn’t undermine herself in this fashion. ‘Blue Texas, Florida, and Arizona in 2016’ is more than convincing enough for me to support her or any Democrat, but if she heads down this path then I’m going to say ‘if we want a Blue Texas, Florida, and Arizona then we shouldn’t nominate Clinton’.
There’s still time to fix herself. However, if she keeps acting like the way she has since the NPR the argument isn’t going to be ‘hold your nose and vote for Clinton because she has the best overall chance of winning’ — it’s going to be ‘if we want to commandingly win 2016, we have to shoo Hillary away from the Presidential nomination because she’ll drag us down in areas where we’re supposed to be strong’.
Huh?
For the well informed, we know better today who she is through what she has stood for and what she has done behind the scenes, but it’s entirely consistent with what she has long been about. Take away her short lived opposition to the Vietnam War and mild feminist leanings (and on that she had a vested interest) and she hasn’t changed since his early political orientation. Of, by, and for the upper middle class and perfectly willing to throw anyone under that bus that gets in the way of her aspirations.
By fix herself I mean in the eyes of the primary and general election voter, not in the eye of the netroots. 😉
Sen. Clinton has her foot the most in the door of any non-incumbent U.S. Presidential candidate since, oh, Reagan. However, I feel that while this is a huge advantage this isn’t going to be enough to get her the job. If she decides to run a non-ideological campaign of generalized competence like 2008 Obama and Kerry and 2000 Bush/Gore and Pres. Clinton and Dole and Mondale — as opposed to 2004 Bush and 2012 Obama and 1988 Bush and any Reagan — I think that she’s going to be vulnerable to a credible challenge from the left unless she guards her flank.
There seems to be a bit of a cottage industry of folks advocating putting pressure on Hillary to “fix herself” by shifting leftward. Seems very naive to me and begging for a rhetorical change regardless of how disingenuous it would be.
Thank you for explaining that’s not what you meant. However, I’m not getting what you mean by “fix herself.” She’s not a natural politician and a poor speaker, but she’s had years of training and coaching to develop as much of those skills as possible.
As a candidate for POTUS, she reminds me more of GHWBush than anyone else. Selling a resume with many jobs on it but without identifiable accomplishments in those jobs. Also out of touch with how ordinary Americans live and not good at masking her sense of entitlement.
Watched on old Molly Ivins speech yesterday and found it amusing that she mentioned that she made good money betting on elections, but only, in her word, nincompoops bet any sooner than six weeks before election day. At this point in the election cycle eight years ago, the field was wide open. It should be the same today, but for some bizarre reason too many Democrats have decided that it’s Hillary’s turn in 2016.
The Politico link is about a single issue, immigration.
A wider discussion of O’Malley’s pluses and minuses may be found in today’s LA Times.
He’s playing to the women. Hillary is already hurt with women thanks to that old rape case.
Wouldn’t that make for interesting primaries, if he did better with women and she did better with men?
What makes you think O’Malley is playing to the women, as opposed to staking out positions he believes in?
You really think HRC is hurting with women voters? I think that’s kinduva crazy analysis, no offense.
I do think at least in part O’Malley would offer a gender choice in a primary, but it would be for liberal men who personally didn’t like Hillary. In general, I don’t see their politics as being very far apart, and he was a Clinton endorser in the ’08 primary,
This is tooting my liberal horn to be sure, but the impression I get from most of liberals is that ideological fealty is more important than the candidates’ race/sex/sexual orientation/etc. That kind of thing is only important for moderates, disengaged voters, or as a tie-breaker. Of course, ideological fealty cuts both ways.
Thus I feel confident in saying that O’Malley’s gender would only be a plus among moderate men. And even then only a small plus. Liberals of either gender wouldn’t really care, moderate/conservative Democratic women would be for Hillary, and conservative men would be for Hillary.
It’s just not a plus for O’Malley however you look at it. The United States, except among extreme social conservatives, don’t view women bosses and leaders as scary or sketchy anymore. They do and with excellent justification think that they’re underrepresented in the ranks of the elite.
I’ve said this before: I’m not convinced that Hillary as she currently is as invincible as CW says that she is. She is at best a mediocre campaigner, does not have an accomplishment or policy proposal that gets people on her side excited like the Ryan Budget or Contract With America, and depending on how Iraq and Israel goes in the next two years I don’t think that her hawkishness is something that’s just a moot issue for her.
If she survives or even thrives despite a credible primary challenge without having to ratfucking, then I’ll vote for her in the general election without hesitating. Unfortunately, I just don’t see her as-is being a runaway winner despite opposition from her left (or opposition from a more inspiring moderate) unless she gets her shit together.
It’s offensive or perhaps misinformed to say Hillary Clinton has no major accomplishment, when she has one that’s as great as one person in American public life: she’s led a quarter century movement to put the civil and human rights and girls near the top of the global development agenda….and very successfully so.
That’s why she’s an icon for women – not her last name.
Details here if you’re curious about the most prominent female Democrat of several generations:
https:/medium.com@tomwatson/hillary-clintons-greatest-credential-af4513497d51
I see you’ve shown up here. How interesting. I’m sure all the women in Gaza agree with your nonsense. And all the women in Honduras too.
Right – what’s the mainstream Democratic position of President’s Obama’s party on both of those countries?
I’m not saying it’s right – I’m saying there’s nothing about Hillary Clinton that differs from most MALE Democrats.
Your link doesn’t currently work.
Regardless, when I say accomplishment I meant something more applicable for the current generation of American voters. Something like ‘hey, I cut state taxes while I was governor and froze the property tax’ or ‘I co-sponsored the Sixpack-McBlowhard campaign finance bill’ or ‘I was commander in chief during this war that hasn’t gone pear-shaped yet’.
This isn’t a deal-breaker by any means. However, it is a weakness. O’Malley can go on and on about his liberal accomplishes — even if it’s a misleading matchup due to the strength of Democrats in his state and his position — and Clinton will be forced to either run a generic ‘reformist’ campaign, refute his accomplishments, or hope that O’Malley doesn’t catch fire.
If Hillary had something like a left-wing version of the Ryan Budget in her corner pocket I’d feel a lot more confident about her chances. That way whenever O’Malley runs the attack of ‘I made Maryland the number one state for education’ she can go ‘And I have a plan to make the United States the number-one country for education in 20 years, see the Hillary Plan’ or whatever. As it is, she’s just going to be forced to eat crow while her opponent from the left whispers sweet nothings into the opponents’ ears.
Here you go – perhaps the great accomplishment of any living American in public life:
https:/medium.com@tomwatson/hillary-clintons-greatest-credential-af4513497d51
Some would shrug – but watch out for those….
Here’s the link again:
Hillary Clinton’s Greatest Credential
For this line of argument, I’m just going to accept your premises and show how your conclusion falls short.
Again I ask you: How does this benefit the Democratic Party Primary Voter?
It’s very nice and it’s better to have than not to have. However, this accomplishment neither does nor facilitates reduced crime and gun violence in America, educates more American children, cuts American taxes, brings American soldiers home, employs more Americans etc. etc… unless she has an argument as to why her experience will lead to these things.
And I don’t think that it will. Like it or not, humanitarianism — even and especially global and abstract humanitarianism — isn’t enough to convince someone to make you a political representative of the United States. It’s great that she did all these things for women, but how does that translate to putting chickens in pots here? For example, Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez was a great humanitarian AND I also believe that he would’ve made a good President with the right team because you could easily connect their accomplishments and ideas (minimum wage increases, unionization, Job Guarantee) with things that people want.
If you can connect the stuff in your linked article to proposed or passed American policy, then you’ll have a much stronger argument. But as it is, it’s a bit of a non-sequitor.
yes, current situations highlight her hawkishness – and it won’t play well imo, already isn’t playing well as the current situations remind most of us (everyone except the chickenhawks and weapons dealers) how much we want to avoid another/ more war.
Would love to see an O’Malley campaign that drove Hillary to the left, and having him as VP would be an added bonus.
He’s been pretty much ignored on the left netroots which is too bad because he would be a great Presidential nominee for Dems.
I posted a diary about why I am supporting O’Malley at GOS here – http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/25/1309473/-Gov-Martin-O-Malley-for-2016-yes-it-s-too-early-fo
r-this
there’s plenty of time; Hillary has been taking up all the air in room this year – that’s ok imo since it’s kept the republican potential candidates on their toes so to speak. (OT: anyone else tired already of Perry’s new “serious” look?)
of old Hart hands that are supporting him – there is an email list. I almost certainly met him in 1983 – though I have no memory of him. The good news is that you could not work for Hart and not understand how the primary process works, and how oh so much more vulnerable a front runner is that they appear.
So my hope is her has access to a group that he can build an organization around. I saw him in Charlotte in 12, the group seemed largely made up of DLC types – though the most interesting attendee by far Ed Miliband.
He gave the Jefferson-Jackson speech in Manchester last year – I thought he was pretty good. No mistake is was a more left leaning theme than what I heard in 2012.
Hillary is running from the extreme right of the party. She is pro-free trade, was for the invasion of Iraq, and most recently argued for intervention in Syria. She has made friendly noises about a deficit commission. There is a message that can beat Hilary.
The problem is that purely ideological challenges in primaries are tough to make. When was the last challenge that won from the left? Maybe Obama – though there was little difference between them on the issues. Before that you have to back all the way to McGovern in ’72, though you could argue Hart was to Mondale’s left on foreign policy. Dean, of course, blew his chance in ’04, though it is important to remember he lead nationally at one point and had a substantial advantage in money as well.
Good to hear that O’Malley will have some backers for his run. I was hoping Hillary hadn’t soaked up all the available money and professional campaign staffers.
I don’t think O’Malley has to run a campaign based on ideological differences. He can run on his accomplishments and talk about what he’s done leaving Hillary to counter with ????
He doesn’t have to run it on ‘I’m more liberal than her!’ like a dumbass conservative. All he has to do is stake out positions that will make her squirm a bit but are popular with the people at home. Like:
‘Vote for me and I will ensure that Wall Street and rich people pay their fair share.’
‘If I’m elected President, I will do everything in my power to get an infrastructure-renewing stimulus passed.’
‘When I get into the Oval Office, the first thing I’m going to do is crank down the powers of the NSA and drone campaign.’
The Third Way/DLC/Blue Dog problem is that while they style themselves as moderates their individual positions are less popular than that of liberals. Unlike conservatives, who can’t pull sticks from the bundle of conservatism so have to sell the whole package, liberals can salami-slice the policy bundle and force moderates to grin and bear it.
The problem is that purely ideological challenges in primaries are tough to make. When was the last challenge that won from the left? Maybe Obama – though there was little difference between them on the issues.
Ideological challenges are deceptive tough to make for a few reasons.
A.) The biggest one is that they’re structurally disadvantaged. If you’ve been the ‘It Kid’ for your Party for more than a couple of years, you’re going to drift to the center by inertia to avoid alienating your party. This dynamic happens even in the Republican Party. However, if you are the ‘It Kid’ then you’ll already have a wellspring of money and political support.
B.) The second one is that the parties wasn’t as ideologically polarized as they used to be. People were just concerned a lot less with ‘is this person a dyed-in-the-wool conservative?’ or ‘is this person going to betray the base?’ The only way you could make this kind of attack without coming off as a loon is to champion your accomplishments indirectly. Which of course runs into problem A, the moderation of the It Kids.
C.) I know liberals hate, hate, HATE hearing this but liberalism just wasn’t very popular until recently. Post-WW2 United States has consistently despised social liberalism until the late 90s. Economic liberalism was scurrilously smeared and (unfairly, but nonetheless it was) discredited from the 70s to late 00s. A concentrated ideological challenge from the left just wasn’t going to happen, because like-it-or-not tax cuts for the rich and corporations and abusing the poor and harassing the gays and putting the glass ceiling to women women and racial minorities and bombing the shit out of foreigners and snatching health care out of peoples’ hands was a popular platform until recently.