I see that Peter Beinart is stirring the pot over at The Atlantic, saying that no Democrats are emerging to challenge Hillary Clinton because they don’t want to get retaliated against by the vindictive Team Clinton. That may be part of it, but another part is that Clinton’s numbers are so strong among Democrats, including liberals, progressives, people of color, that it would require some pretty rough tactics to bring her back to Earth and make her beatable. If someone wants to run a genteel race against her just to push for some progressive issue or another, that really isn’t going to get it done.
For all I know, we will have our versions of Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes get in the race just to make a point, get some fame, and improve their career prospects and book sales. But an actual bona fide challenger who can plausibly convince big donors to give money? They’ll have to wield a meat cleaver. And that’s what would cause the vindictiveness more than any intrinsic ruthlessness on the Clintons’ part.
It’s all that false consciousness…
Why didn’t you tell us, keeping it a secret from baseball scouts?
○ Sports Illustrated Cover ‒ Mo’ne Davis
and on cue, the cover jinx bites her…
Nah!! Did you see that team from Nevada?
For all I know, we will have our versions of Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes get in the race just to make a point, get some fame, and improve the career prospects and book sales.
That never happens on our side. It’s not like Dennis Kucinich is on MSNBC three times a week now, if ever. And at least Dennis had been elected mayor of a decent sized city, and a Representative.
Chris Dodd landed a sweet gig.
I’m so old I remember when Chris Dodd was a progressive hero.
Yeah, he landed a wingnut welfare type gig. The MPAA isn’t a progressive outfit at all. Did he Iowa camping out really get him the MPAA gig though?
as the grifters you mentioned. He was a longtime Senator who has done great progressive work.
Peter Beinart is good at laughable and at best ignored. Why the Atlantic continues to pay idiots like him and Conor is a problem for me and my Atlantic subscription.
Agree, it’s just trolling.
The Clintons are not that scary at all and indeed have show a fairly laudatory tendency and to forgive and move on from political slights and statements. HRC did become SecState for the guy who beat her in a the best and bloodiest Democratic primary of our lifetimes. Heck, Claire McCaskill is apparently welcome back as well.
I agree with Booman’s analysis – to really get serious, you’d have to go incredibly negative, and I don’t think any viable Dems really have the stomach for that – and more accurately, they just don’t feel it about Hillary Clinton. She’s actually very popular personally among people who know her, which includes the entire ruling class.
I’d say Teddy Kennedy vs. Jimmy Carter in 1980 was bloodier. But maybe you weren’t alive in 1980?
Is there some data or report that shows Clinton with all of the big donors sewn up? If not then a bona fide “challenger” (is Clinton an incumbent?) would only need to make a positive case for their candidacy to the donors – those same donors already know the Clintons’ assets and liabilities so no meat cleaver would be needed. Once it becomes apparent that the Democratic nomination will be an actual competition and not a coronation we’ll see who is first to bring out the hatchet. One thing is certain – hatchets will be employed by everyone involved so there’s no need losing sleep over that.
It’s a chicken and egg thing. Can’t win over donors without better poll numbers. Can’t get better poll numbers without money. To get small-money, you have to fire up the base by poisoning Clinton as an alternative. There’s no way to go after her except to go way negative.
There’s no way to go after her except to go way negative.
Hawks, non-leftist economists, and people who suck up culturally to Traditional America have a way of shooting themselves in the foot in the course of normal campaigning. Again, not saying that Hillary Clinton is fated to do this, but all it takes are a couple of well-highlighted statements saying NAFTA was an overall good thing or that the Iraq War shouldn’t have been wound down so soon or that the people are overreacting to police militarization or she doesn’t regret her vote on flag-burning amendments and there’s your opening.
You don’t have to poison Clinton to fire up the base, you simply have to assert what you (allegedly) believe – the Clinton poisoning will only be a matter of how far she stands from the position of the one asserting. “I believe in a living minimum wage that is tied to cost of housing, transportation, and food” does not equate to “Clinton is the devil!” You don’t have to go after her, you have to go after the nomination.
The base – at least on the left – can be and often is fired up by positive appeals. That hope thing actually works on the left, a viable candidate will give the base a basis for hope.
Yes, the Left goes for Hope, the Right goes for Hate.
Unfortunately, what I see in the course of my life, 1945 to 2014, is that Hate is more powerful than Hope.
Obama did not win because of Hope. He won because of Hate (for Bush).
Hope is a rainbow going from one palm of your hand to the other. Hate is a freaking laser beam shooting out of your eyes.
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True, but Hope beat Clinton before and it’ll beat her again.
the people who write about politics and who don’t understand the process.
You don’t need much money – you only need to run in 2 states. Money isn’t the issue. Money is a convenient excuse.
Win Iowa, your odds in NH are better than even money. Win NH after Iowa and you will lead nationally.
The simple truth is bloggers are scared. Kos is petrified. No one on the left has guts.
The reason they have no guts is that they know there is no there there. There is no left constituency big enough to matter. For all the bravado the left blogsphere has failed to get anything like the clout the right wing radio guys have. We are a relatively small band of people who like to talk about politics.
But there are nowhere near enough of us to matter. We have no connection to rank and file Democrats. Hillary Clinton is MOVING RIGHT. She isn’t scared of anyone to her left.
So we get absurd posts on Dkos about pushing Hillary left by taking congress – which is so stupid it is laughable.
Hillary is not a friend. I will vote for her, the vast majority on the left will as well. But she isn’t even a liberal.
It’s really about being active and finding ways to increase voter turnout. The 66% turnout we have for presidential elections is pathetic. When Americans are polled they turn out to be a bunch of a Socialist tree huggers. The constituency is there, they just have to be persuaded to fight the good fight. Obama showed everyone how it’s done, now it’s a matter of putting forth the effort.
They have to convinced the candidate isn’t lying to them, as they so often do.
how to do it. This is the real question that even a boring liberal like myself needs to ask.
We do not connect in a way that gets people to vote. Pointing to the money is the excuse that is used not to address the problem.
Something in our advocacy doesn’t connect. That is the question to ask. It’s not that we aren’t left enough – that is silly in a country that is 22% liberal and around 40% conservative. I do think there is a sociological issue: the grad student activist just doesn’t know how to convince the mother of three to vote. Too many of our campaigns are run by the same 25 year old Ivy League grad – and yes, I did – and I have seen them alienate local people who know the area. But that can’t be close to the entire explanation.
In general this question is NEVER asked. Instead people talk about money or the media.
There is another problem. Through a generation of self-selection, affluent liberals and progressives inhabit tiny enclaves within more-reliably-than-not blue states. I confess that’s why I’m in North Carolina instead of my native state of South Carolina.
And the most lefty of progressives are concentrated primarily in New York, Chicago, Boston, and the Bay Area.
It would be hard for a solid progressive to win the Democratic Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary back-to-back because of this. And it doesn’t help that retail politics works primarily in small rural states.
I’m willing to go after her with scorched earth levels of negative.
a month ago which talked to some big donors who aren’t board with Hillary. One of them was Greta from Fox News’s husband.
There will be plenty of big money and staff who aren’t onboard with Hillary no matter how hard they push to make sure they don’t have to earn the nomination.
A Fox News donor? Not a good recommendation.
work for Fox News. Big deal.
And Bruce Rauner’s wife claims to be a lifelong Democrat, uh huh.
I don’t want any meat cleavers. Sometimes I’m just tired from the constant battles with the crazies. Sometimes I think having a female president makes up for Hillary’s weaknesses, and I don’t see any other women who seem interested in running. Mostly I just think it’s in our best interest to show a united front. Yes, having someone come in to push Hillary to the left would be a good thing, but is a mature, civilized discussion too much to ask?
If by “mature, civilized discussion” you mean discussing her shortcomings as a campaigner and the questionable aspect of some of her votes, her public stands on issues, and her spoken untruths, there’s plenty of that. Or is that too uncivilized for you?
It’s not too much to ask….so long as you don’t mind losing.
What this does not factor in yet is Ferguson and The Silence of the Dems.
I think the Hispanic vote is going to be far more important to the Dems than the black vote.
Sometimes I think having a female president makes up for Hillary’s weaknesses,
Not saying that this is going to apply to Sen. Clinton, but I don’t understand this sentiment when it’s not overloaded with a large number of disclaimers. What’s the point in having someone break through the glass ceiling if that person falls back through the hole and knocks down everyone else trying to climb after them?
Extremely effective for the powers that be to promote unqualified tokens. See, we tried that and it didn’t work. Like hiring Carly Fiorina for HP CEO.
Okay then we can all ignore all politics from this point forward and be honest that we don’t live in anything close to a democracy.
George P Bush will be ready to take over when the Democratic Queen’s term is up. After that, global climate change might make the occupant in the WH irrelevant. Assuming that Bárðarbunga doesn’t decide to really blow and create a different environmental disaster than what we’re anticipating.
Oy. I guess a volcano would be good for John McCain.
Everything is good for John McCain and none of it will ever lead to him occupying the WH unless in a single instance he’s the only one remaining in DC.
Not good for Bobby Jindal (via TPM)
scarier.
We live in one.
Most people just don’t agree with us.
They are notorious for ruining careers for people who dare to go against them.
And yes, there will be real challengers to Hillary in the primary, though her people are doing their best to push people out of the race.
O’Malley has enough party connections to be able to raise money and get a solid staff. Not everyone is going to be team Hillary.
And it is pretty offensive to see the left netroots doing their best to try to keep people from challenging Hillary.
The gatecrashers have now become the gatekeepers. Funny how aging a dozen years turned weak liberal thinkers into DINOs.
Let’s not forget that Peter Beinart was one of those guys that saw scary WMD or some other huge threatening mirage in Iraq a dozen years ago. Strong thinkers don’t get the big stuff wrong.
Maybe “they” are that scary. Pepe Escobar’s latest: The killer on the (Saudi) king’s highway
Read the whole piece — it’s almost too well written.
That’s a pretty good send-up using The Doors song as an inspiration.
Gave me a new appreciation for the song:
Morrison a bit tamer in that video than I remember him from a concert in 1967 — but memories fade.
“There’s a killer on the road. His brain is squirming like a toad.”
Chris Lehane is working for Cuomo. Both of them are odious little fuckers, but I don’t see a plan for them to dive into the presidency this cycle.
I think it is true that they are wary of the vindictive Clinton team. That means that, assuming there are any real contenders, they are keeping their powder dry so as to avoid being moving targets any sooner than they have to be.
I still think the Clinton numbers are horseshit, precisely because there is no choice right now.
If it should truly turn out that there are no effective challengers in the Democratic Party, it will mean, IMHO, that this country is well and truly fucked. Because we need some big changes, the GOP are weak and totally suck, and if Hillary Clinton is the answer to all that, that is absolutely pathetic. What it actually would show is that the masters of the universe are temporarily rallying around the donkey because the elephant can’t deliver. No more and no less.
I know that some, here as well as elsewhere. are convinced that this has already happened with Obama. But no, Wall Street would be much happier with Hillary.