Someone stamped out another one of those “I’m Ready for Hillary” essays, this time for Lanny Davis to sign. It isn’t really any different than the one Howard Dean had published in Politico yesterday.
So, this must be the season for these things. Bitter realizations that Howard Dean isn’t the leader of his own adherents. Brutal reminders that Lanny Davis has known Hillary Clinton for 45 years. More bullying of any progressives who want an alternative:
Last week, on Dec. 4, I helped organize a Ready for Hillary fundraiser in Montgomery County, Md., in the immediate suburbs of Washington, D.C. The organization, an independent grassroots committee, has been at work for the past year gathering millions of names and small donations in support of Hillary Rodham Clinton for president — that is, just in case she decides to run in 2016.
When I began working on this event, I was not sure many prominent statewide or local elected officials would be willing to sign up on the invitation as members of the host committee, especially because the outgoing Maryland governor, Martin O’Malley, has made it apparent that he is running for president.
But what happened surprised me. Many of the major Maryland statewide elected officials signed up, including the attorney general, state treasurer and state Senate president. Early in the week at a Baltimore event, so did Maryland’s two popular U.S. senators: Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin. In Montgomery County, also leading the host committee were the current popular and recently reelected African-American county executive, Ike Leggett; the revered former county executive Sidney Kramer; and six out of seven members of the county council, including the incoming council president.
The guest of honor was the congressman representing the location of the fundraiser (Potomac), Rep. John Delaney. The congressman offered three facts about Clinton — the reasons she should be our next president.
The real news from this Lanny Davis endorsement is that Hillary seems to have already wrapped up most of the significant support from officeholders in Maryland.
The other news is that she hasn’t broken with Davis, which remains one of the most troubling things about her.
You know you’re a political junkie when all you have to do is read the headline of this post to crack up laughing. Well done, Martin.
Rarely would I say this Booman, but you’re being unfair here.
I don’t understand why HRC continues to be so polarizing to the vocal left when people like John Kerry, Howard Dean, Al Gore and her husband weren’t. They’re all of a piece. What’s different about her?
Do you have any indication that Lanny Davis feels even the slightest need to rehabilitate himself?
No – but I suspect he reads his own press! (Which ain’t great – and he probably feels the need to be on “the winning side” earlier rather than later).
Dean, otoh, was major political news.
why was Dean big news? He endorsed her more than a year ago.
Writing an op-ed post and tweeting it out prominently vs. off-hand remarks is pretty much going all-in – and his timing was important.
And Dean remains an important figure for activist Dems – though I find it less than hilarious that some are now ripping him because he endorsed the non-human devil herself cartoon they’ve whipped themselves into thinking of HRC as.
Or was his statement a job application?
She’s very different: pillow talk from A to Z. You see, her husband has already been president.
Yuck.
I recall that John Kerry and Al Gore were both polarizing to the vocal left at this stage in the nominating process. Obviously Dean is a different story – which is more about primary positioning rather than actual policy or background differences (same with Bill Bradley when he ran in 2000). But I don’t think that Sec. Clinton is being treated any differently than the establishment consensus picks from previous cycles…
I think she is – the vitriol and personality-based attacks on the left are dispiriting, and frankly I suspect it’s made worse by gender.
give it a rest
Virtually everyone who rips Hillary loves Elizabeth Warren – it’s more about Hillary’s history then her gender.
The disrespect and personal attacks on HRC do have the whiff of gender about them.
Here’s what Joan Walsh said and she’s entirely right (and btw Errol, no I won’t give it a rest – surely you have more to contribute than that):
People do that with every defining characteristic of those they oppose – Dubya wasn’t just wrong, the Yale grad was an idiot. Kerry wasn’t just wishy-washy, the decorated war veteran was an abject coward. John Edwards wasn’t just a slick trial lawyer, he was a cretin. Well, that last one tuned out to be true, but you get the point.
Kerry wasn’t just wishy-washy, the decorated war veteran was an abject coward.
Kerry is certainly a coward. Becoming a politician turned him into one at least.
Hillary doesn’t have a derogative nickname yet like Treebeard or Skelator – we went in on Kerry in 2003-4. And “Bubba” was not a friendly description of Hillary’s husband.
I tore up what I believe is my 6th Ready For Hillary solicitation a couple of days ago. So are they going to return donations if Hillary actually doesn’t run?
I’ll do my duty in the general, but in the primary I would vote for Satan if he were the only alternative to Hillary. Or even Cuomo. (Come to think of it, has anybody ever seen those two together?)
Why do progressives lose their shit (see above) only with one major “regular” Democrat?
Can only speak for myself, but for me it’s because of the subject of this story- the exceptionally slimy company the Clintons keep.
Yup. See my comment above, and links.
You mean Hillary? A whole lot of them suck. Clinton. Cuomo. Pat Quinn. Rahm Emanuel. Steve Israel. Joe Manchin. The only two that want to be president, apparently, are Clinton and Cuomo. And why do people lose their shit over the above group? Because they all prefer hippie-punching and then wonder why Democrats don’t vote in non-Presidential elections.
You realize HRC was the 5th most liberal voting Senator during her time in office, and has dedicated oh … only … her entire career to advancing the super-progressive cause of equal rights for women and girls.
But sure… Manchin and Cuomo. Heckuva job.
You realize HRC was the 5th most liberal voting Senator during her time in office, …
Says who? The same clowns who said Kerry and Obama were the most liberal Senators? And voting for the clusterfuck that still is Iraq even though Bob Graham(not exactly a DFH!!) told her not to? I suppose you think having 2 sets of laws in this country is okay. See:
http://twitter.com/ZaidJilani/status/543078386122629120
Or is this okay too:
http://twitter.com/davidgura/status/543061913371181056
Zaid is a Hillary hater – he just can’t stand her personally.
Strangely, he does not feel the same way about Biden and Kerry.
…which is my basic problem with so much anti-HRC vitriol on the left – it’s very selective and intellectually incurious.
Do you have tweets, or some other proof, of this? There is nothing to really differentiate the 3 from each other.
Well for one thing, neither Biden nor Kerry are married to a former president. A president who, through his avid support of NAFTA, seriously damaged the prosperity of the American middle class and the already shaky identification of the white working/middle class with the Democratic Party. A president that has a hell of a lot of other baggage as well, most of which he shares with his wife, whether fair or not.
Because while I blame most of our current problems on Bush & Cheney, it was Clinton that seriously weakened the Democratic Party thus paving the way for Dubya. And curiously enough, Clinton’s biggest backers, Jackson Stephens (1923-2005) and his family, was also close to the Bush family. In fact they were big backers of Reagan, and known as “Mr & Mrs Republican of Arkansas.
http://articles.philly.com/1993-01-17/news/25959645_1_worthen-bank-stephens-family-bill-clinton
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/04/profile-jackson-t-stephens-mary-anne
Maybe that’s why the Clintons are so friendly with the Bushes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/05/george-w-bush-hillary-clinton-is-lik
e-my-sister-in-law/
It’s true it all depends on who measures and based on what criteria– be it social issues, economic issues , or foreign policy ones. From the social issue stance she probably was one of the more liberal ones. Obviously not so much on the other two. My guess is the majority of her Democratic opposition would prefer her to be more economically left than more foreign policy left.
Politicians rarely pay a price in the USA for being to the right regarding security. Not saying that’s how it should be, but how it is.
Remind me again when Hillary Clinton dropped her opposition to same sex marriage? I seem to have forgotten that she was in the vanguard on that issue after strenuously advocating that her hubby back DOMA.
It was around March 18, 2013, apparently.
I’m not saying that as a great Clinton admirer, mind you, but it does seem pretty unlikely that she’d try to lead the Democrats backwards on gay rights.
Visionless and politically at the end of the parade was my point. Not a leader forward nor backwards could be her campaign slogan.
Well, that’s true enough. I probably shouldn’t even bother reading posts like this one, because my position on Clinton’s candidacy is unlikely to change.
Primary (assuming she runs): No
General (if she’s nominated): Yes
woman fair under welfare reform?
NAFTA
How many Iraqi women were killed in a way she voted for?
From the Shame Project, the architect of “welfare reform,” Charles Murray. (Also known for the racists The Bell Curve that was applauded by and highlighted in TNR.)
I loathe people like Murray and those that praise his fraudulent work like Bill Clinton.
Her time in office saw the Senate pass to Republican control and be won back from Republican control. Not hard to be the 5th most liberal Senator in that crowd. Who were the top 4?
The problem that most people are having with Hillary is that we have critically failing governmental institutions all over the place and she is bringing a business-as-usual and business-friendly vision. And it is not clear that she can withstand the media blitz that will be unleashed on Democrats in general through connection with her personally to have a working Congress. And then there is the appearance among her associates from Rahm Emanuel to Lanny Davis and on that the name of the game is selling out to the lobbyists and turning the back of the hand to the public interest.
Finally, she has proven to have made poor personnel choices: Mark Penn, Victoria Nuland,…
And that’s before we get to progressive objections to the Clintonista philosophy.
5th? By what ranking? Gov.track?
Progressive punch had her as 10th in 2007, which is if we do not include the class of people who were elected in 2006.
DW Nominate is far more accurate, imo, than both of those rankings, and they put both Clinton and Obama to the slight left of your average Democrat. That was back in the ’08 election, mind you, when we had A LOT MORE blue dogs than we have now.
A few things…
First, I wouldn’t take it as a sign that she’s committed to Lanny Davis so much as Lanny Davis is trying to ingratiate himself to her.
Second, the Dean endorsement and all those Maryland endorsements are all predicated on her being the inevitable nominee if she runs and on the hope that she would have unprecedented coattails in the general election.
Third, even O’Malley will defer to her if she runs, albeit in a not-so-confrontational play for the vice-presidency. He pretty much HAS to run because he has been setting up the structure to do it– which is necessary to do early if one is not the front-runner or flush with vast personal wealth.
Fourth, what if she doesn’t run? All those endorsements are free to go to whomever is a declared candidate. The good news is most other potential Democratic candidate wouldn’t consider having Lanny Davis as a trusted adviser (excepting Cuomo…)
If there was ever an indication that my vote doesn’t count, this is it.
These things have consequences: the Rodham family, as in Hillary Rodham Clinton, is every bit the old school Robber Baron Hitler financing money as the Bush, Koch and Rockafeller and I would no more vote for her than I would another Bush. But it’s bigger than that… I won’t vote for anyone in the party that runs her. I don’t vote for Fascists (Republicans) and I won’t vote for Fascism Lite. Call it throwing away my vote, but it’s clearly a worthless vote and it’s mine to throw away.
The lesser of evils is never-the-less evil.
HRC isn’t just not progressive a Dem enough – like Obama, Biden, Kerry, Dean et al – she has to be “evil.”
This is not cool.
PS – speaking of robber baron families, have you also flayed the Kennedys so competely?
Oh, stop it with your straw men. Biden was so unacceptable that he didn’t win the DEM primary. Kerry was to the 2004 DEM nomination what McCain and Romney were to the GOP nominations — the guys the party elites shoved down the throats of their respective party’s base. They also, just happened to lose in the general election.
Given a choice between a known neoliberalcon and maybe not a neoliberalcon, the latter won among Democratic primary participants and the general electorate. So, we got more neoliberalcon than we wanted, but it was still less neoliberalcon than the alternative. Not too different from Dean — except he’s more honest or lies less.
What is going on in congress today is the very reason I will not support another neoliberalcon in any primary. This congress and too many democrats wants us to back bank gambling and gifts and cuts to pensions. They also want to spend 600 B and ignore the overwhelming issues we have and take us into never ending war. HRC is on the same side of that street.
Yes, I have… elsewhere. The Carnegie, Ford, Harriman, Hill, and Kennedy. Not to mention the Morgan, Stanley, Rothschild and Warburg.
I thought you people fought a revolution to get away from Kings and Queens and such?
Not a “conspiracy nut”, a highly trained analyst, a genius with a Master of Science degree in Information Science.
well, it’s nice to know from Lanny Davis that Hillary has the AA vote wrapped up
If anyone ever needed to be Sista Soulja’d by the Democratic candidates it’s Lanny Davis.
From the comments here and elsewhere anyone taking the temperature of the progressive blogosphere on her behalf must be wondering how to break the news. It is the same everywhere, complaint, outright hostility and groans among very few staunch defenders.
If there is a Sista Soulja moment coming it is probably against the strident irrelevancy of the disloyal among Left Blogistan.
That assumes she cares what the progressive blogosphere thinks, if I were her I wouldn’t care. There’s no good reason to take it seriously.
I just want to remind folks that the whole “firebagger” nonsense started right after Jane Hamsher called out Lanny Davis on the Ed Schultz show having a vested interest in the healthcare debate. He was fronting for lobbyists.
I didn’t think that Hillary would separate her campaign from Davis, he rustles up the lobbyist money. Not the only one but now we know a lot more about how that works. After six years of the Obama administration, we indeed have more transparency into the crap that has been going on in government when it was taken for granted.
It is still 23 months until the 2016 election. The torture issue is now starting to unwind; the police brutality issue continues and shows some signs of being mainstreamed. We still have wars (of a sort) going in Syraqistan and Afghanistan. And climate change is rolling on without a adequate response. And liberals like Joan Walsh are connecting the issues and writing about a failure of authority in institutions from the federal level to the Ferguson-sized local level.
The Clinton-Davis axis is so business-as-usual in character that I don’t see how it survives the chaos we are likely to see over the next 23 months.
The coming freight train of issues is looking more and more like the chaos that occurred in 1968. (And Trey Gowdy sez Benghazi is still an investigation.)
Never thought I would be a law and order guy but the never ending wars and the loss of basic adherence to justice we see in the torture report needs to be addressed. HRC does not fit that bill. And she does not have a basic program for fixing this economy and, to tell the truth, I am not certain I would believe her, if she did.
Agree. and ppl want to settle on a candidate now? Hillary is way behind on all these issues beginning with her duh non response on Ferguson. Just don’t see that she’s relevant at all period, neither her domestic policy (does it exist?) nor her outdated foreign policy.
Let’s see a real primary with dem candidates addressing the issues that you list
I wouldn’t mind a real primary. I want to see her earn the nomination. It’ll be annoying if she doesn’t have any real competition in the primaries. I’m not worried about anyone from the GOP freak show.
I wouldn’t think that’s true since the scream. Mostly he’s an avatar for disaffected white male netroots types, who seem to think they need to be catered to, and continually call out the party for ideological bad faith for not doing so.