Same people doing the same thing.
The Democratic National Committee is building a “war room” to battle President-elect Donald Trump, pressure the new Republican administration on a variety of policy matters and train a spotlight on Russia’s alleged cyberattacks to influence the 2016 election.
The DNC’s new communications and research operation, to be staffed by former aides to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, will be one of several efforts from across the Democratic firmament to take on Trump, including the office of Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Center for American Progress and American Bridge.
The DNC has hired John Neffinger, a longtime operative who runs the Franklin Forum, to serve as interim communications director and oversee the national party’s operation. He will be joined by two Clinton veterans who spent the campaign focused on Trump — researching his background, monitoring his statements and trying to drive negative media coverage of his candidacy. Zac Petkanas, the Clinton campaign’s rapid-response director, will serve as a senior adviser to the DNC and direct the Trump war room, while Adrienne Watson, a Clinton campaign spokeswoman, will serve as the DNC’s national press secretary.
I was not a Clinton person, but it was pretty clear she was significantly better than the incompetence that was in her campaign.
Are we REALLY making the same person responsible for Clinton rapid response responsible for the DNC War Room.
Seriously? Are you fucking kidding me.
From September:
How A Decision In May Changed The General Election
That gameplan was penciled in a year before Trump secured the nomination. Trump as the nominee was on their wish list. (How nice of the “liberal” media to help make that wish come true.)
Let’s also be honest that Clinton and her team worked to demonize Sanders and Trump for any association with Russia before the DNC hack/leak. Clinton set this up much earlier as a potential campaign theme. Beginning in 2011. Set-aside shortly thereafter because Obama didn’t want to use it in his re-election campaign. (Romney borrowed it; a loser campaign message by a loser.) Then, from Politico,
One of the ways in which we differ is that I feel that is a fair comparison.
I know I won’t change your mind or vice versa, so agreeing to disagree.
What’s a fair comparison? Putin = Hitler? How many times have American’s heard “X = Hitler” as a rationale for why we must start a war with X’s country?
Parts of the world were carved up the winners after WWI and WWII. In the carve out, the US got lots of military installations around the globe. How many have we since closed? Any outside the US that have been used as political footballs for federal spending? Why are we building more military installations in Africa?
Putin’s aggression in the Ukraine. I said you wouldn’t agree.
Seabee,
She and her campaign really expected to get a lot of Republican votes…she was the good Democrat and good Republican
Er, DNC is doing fund raisers and jobs program for their cadres.
What, they’re gonna get Trump MOAR inches of print? He’s kinda bulletproof at this point.
Maybe they might want to think about what THEY might propose for programs in opposition to Republicans?
Or find some decent candidates for those 39 governorships?
They have no real points of difference. To borrow a phrase from 1964, they are “me-too Democrats”.
Why would the TBTF banks and corporations want decent candidates for Governor when the present Republican Governors are serving them so well. They just want me too tokens so they can win (R) or win (D).
No, she wasn’t. They see the world and how to win political games through the same lenses. Team Clinton only briefly lost control of the Democratic Party since 1992. That brief moment in time when just enough Democrats woke up to the trail of destruction the Clinton Party had left behind them. But once Obama was put in charge, they failed to notice that the Clinton gang restoration. Either through a deal with Obama or his lack of interest in this aspect of being the head of a political party. Fully in place and observable in real time for the 2014 congressional elections. (Someone more astute than me and/or not assuming that Obama was in charge may have noticed that it was present in the 2010 mid-terms.)
==Related and at least it’s good for a few chuckles and includes less FakeNews than the NYTimes and WaPo combined: Dave Barry’s Year in Review: 2016 — What the … ?
Stories are emerging, now:
“State officials say it’s been hard to plan long term and recruit and train candidates in off-election years due to inconsistent funding from the DNC. Under Dean, the national party installed and paid several staff members in each state. But that program ended after Obama’s election. State parties began to receive monthly payments of anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000, an amount that varies depending on the year. At some point, the parties have received no money at all. The DNC does provide some money to state parties for elections based on the state’s competitive races and other factors”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/power-state-dems-frustrated-national-committee-44511939
“Read this for the horrible details. Obviously, letting Obama anywhere near any state-level initiatives is like handing an arsonist a match and a can full of gasoline.” (NC)
Glad you posted the link. I read that this morning (didn’t even know Dave Barry was still alive) and wanted to post it here but figured marduk, maythirteenth, centerfielddj et multiple cetera, would show up.
They may have a “war room”, but that’s not where the resistance will be coming from.
In all probability, that bunch will wind up trying to suppress the resistance in favor of establishment politics.
I see more divisiveness and grasping for total control ahead.
More donkey twitching.
Here’s what the DNC can only fear.
Howard Koplowitz,AL.com: NAACP occupies Jeff Sessions’ Mobile office in protest of AG nomination
“…until Sessions withdraws his name from nomination as Attorney General or we are arrested.”
In the tweet stream, folks outside Alabama have been ordering pizza for the protesters.
Meanwhile the DNC is likely putting up maps with only blue states on them.
I wonder how long it will take before those maps only have California, Oregon, New York, and New Jersey on them.
Sure got a lot closer to that in the past eight years. The left coast might need to begin thinking more seriously about seceding. CA, OR, WA, HI would be larger than many countries in land mass, population, and GDP.
And a whole lot better in climate! Today was 37-39 but windy. I don’t know the official wind chill but I felt much worse than I did shoveling snow at 11 degrees the week before Christmas.
I used to met ex-Chicagoans in southern California that told me “I miss the snow!” Yeah! Sure! In a pig’s eye. If I lived in L.A. for a hundred years I still wouldn’t miss the snow.
I note that my father’s relatives in San Diego all lived much longer than his Chicago relatives, including my great-grandmother who lived past 100. But she was a most remarkable woman. Just 4’10” but hard as nails with a will of iron. The whole family was in awe of her. Born a serf in Sicily, she crossed the Atlantic in steerage nine months pregnant with a two year old and four year old in tow. Survived various epidemics. Had eight or nine kids and ruled her family like an oriental potentate. Her daughter, my grandmother, was pretty tough too.
Snow for native Californians from the flatlands is something to visit but not live in.
US life expectancy by states. Your anecdotal experience isn’t supported by the numbers. In the top fifteen, all but HI and CA are snow states.
heh — the best place for white people is DC. So, the fossils in Congress are actually real.
Maybe it’s ethnic. The Spanish Flu cut like a scythe through Chicago’s Italian population. We can’t take the cold like Germans, English and Scandinavians. Heh! Only Norwegians and Swedes could think Minnesota is Heaven.
Italians liked New Orleans climate fine. The family only left because of the Yellow Fever Epidemic . That one and the Spanish flu were the two epidemics I referred to before.
Chicago’s black population was hit hard by the great Flu also.
A nation comprising CA, OR, WA, and HI would be between South Korea and Myanmar in population and likely between the UK and Germany in GDP.
That of course could change dramatically if secession was violently opposed by the US, still 5 times the population and no less than 3 times the GDP and with the ability to call up a draft quickly. Moreover, the folks who would have ordinarily been expected to form the army of the new nation are likely divided more towards Trump and remaining than the general population.
From one who was born in a state that led a secession movement, it turns out to be a very bad deal if opposed. Also, from the historical experience here, it is tougher than it seems in the romantic history to consolidate everybody onto a war footing. Most folks would rather not get involved, even with rampant secession fever. It turns out to be a top-down sort of thing.
Wouldn’t “red state America” applaud the secession of the left coast? They hate us. And they would still have Disneyworld, Branson, and all the best megachurches.
Per capita, the CA GDP is 37% larger than Germany’s, but we do far less with more on measures of health care, education, public transit, job security, and housing and income security. We used to do better when socialism (not called that for political purposes) and unions were more prevalent. (The left coast is under-populated when compared to those countries you listed, but I only said “most countries,” not all countries. But the land mass is larger and that along with the automobile led more spread out development.)
Isn’t much of California actually mountains and desert? The three biggest cities are all seaports. To tell the truth, San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are all I ever visited, being as how I was on US Navy business.
I remember driving between LA & SD in 1968 and again in 1979. the first trip I mostly saw orange groves. the second was unbroken city with no orange groves. well, broken only by sheer cliffs.
That’s the problem with memories — fragile and based on inaccurate observations to begin with. There really weren’t that many orange groves left by 1969 in the LA to San Diego drive corridor. Plus the major orange growing areas (Riverside and Inland Empire) had been east of that corridor and development had been replacing those orange groves during that same period as well.
Hah! For those that claim government does nothing. Also, many of the CA public colleges and universities were originally based on agriculture studies. (Some of us oldsters think more of strawberries than oranges for Orange County.)
By land mass, CA is a weak third, but what we lack in size is made up for by:
What military bases would those states take with them? Virtually everything in the Pacific. Who claims Guam, the bases in Japan, and so on? Sentimental loss of Pearl Harbor once again. What portion of the US military would secession try to seize?
A major part of agriculture goes to foreign country. And all of that tax revenue that they get in the form of transfer payments to poor states.
While they might celebrate it like Brexit, the hangover will happen quickly.
In terms of population density:
CA like Ethiopia
HI like Serbia
WA like Afghanistan
OR like Argentina
…and there’s the effective inland sea between the Left Coast and Hawaii.
It seems that both the Left Coast and the “real America” think the other hates them. I think they are both mistaken. They barely think of the reality of each other.
I don’t know about all the best megachurches. Check out the California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington megachurches on it.
Hartford Institute for Religious Research — Megachurch Search Results
We would still have New York, Boston, Chicago, the Chesapeake Bay, the “right size” mountains and “right size” trees, Great Lakes, the Rockies. Dollywood, Nashville, Nawlins, Opryland, Tanglewood, Newport, Carnegie Hall, Red Rocks, Taos, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone.
You are forgetting how much you would be cutting yourself off from by being too afraid to go see it.
“It seems that both the Left Coast and the “real America” think the other hates them. I think they are both mistaken.” Yes, it’s the East Coast and the “real America” that hate each other. In particular, New York City. Although the East Coast doesn’t hate as much as they try to ignore the Center and the South. If they do acknowledge existence it’s caricatures like the Beverly Hillbillies. I suspect most people in NYC don’t think plumbing exists South of DC or West of Philadelphia.
Here is a secret about New York from a long time former NYCer, now in exile:
Probably half the people in NYC are from somewhere else.
I think this divide is overstated.
And how many outside NYC and in NY are from “somewhere else?”
How many in FL are from “somewhere else?” With “somewhere else” including NYC.
From “somewhere else” is more distributed throughout CA. Although not as prevalent as it was in the mid-20th century decades when most of those from “somewhere else” were white people.
Details, details, details.
Japan might be fine if the US bases in its country were abandoned. Guam could choose: independence, US, or left-coast. The USG could be offered long-term leases for some of the military facilities in HI. Not many military/defense industries left in CA — moved to TX, VA, and your state; so, you’ve already gotten those goodies, but we keep Camp Pendleton. You can also keep President Trump. We may not do a lot better than that, but it would be difficult to do as badly as that (particularly if we hang a “no carpetbaggers” sign out for elective offices).
What!!!???
There are other states!!!???
AG
Heh! Could also have been said by a Texan. I know. I’ve been both (Texan/New Yorker).
… Secretary of Labor Tom Perez gained the support of four Democratic governors: Terry McAuliffe (VA), John Hickenlooper (CO), Gina Raimondo (RI), and John Bel Edwards (LA)
Gonna be curious outcome if Conservadems maintain DNC control.
She’s going for a third shot. The four-year campaign begins with her appearance at Donald Trump’s inauguration.
No, they’re keeping the bench warm for the next neoliberalcon selected one. Obama and the Clintons will be vying for the power to play the preeminent role in the selection. Kaine is possibly the only one that they could agree on. As exciting and electable as Lieberman.
btw — team Clinton was barely able to mask whatever health deficits she has this time with her light campaign schedule that had plenty of down time built into it. Won’t be as easy the second time around.
She’s a national spent force. Any attempt to revitalize a campaign around her would be laughed off the stage.
for better or worse, the Clinton’s are publically gone from the national spot light, until Chelsea decides to run <g>.
But their machine is desperate to remain relevant in the changed environment and keep those consultancy bucks rolling in, so a play for the DNC makes sense. That would give them the inside track for contracts.
Ellison is on the Tube saying all the things realistic Democrats want to hear. Haven’t seen much of Perez, unless he is working behind the scenes, as a good Clintonite. If things don’t look promising, I expect to hear the Latino Card being played and columns about the demographic future of the party.
R
Not so sure about that “laughed off the stage.” Assuming that she really is healthy enough (or recovers from whatever temporary health issues she has had), losers in presidential elections tend to flirt with another run. ie. Romney. She does have a larger and more passionate base than most losers. And unlike Gore, her base extends to the party apparatus. Can the Clintons hold onto their power among the party insiders and elites? Too soon to tell if they are working that or have passed their batons on to their loyalists.
If Trump goes splat, the temptation for another run will be even greater.
However, there could be an internal power struggle. Unlike after 2000 when the DP (read Clinton) kicked Gore to the curb, there are two former, two term Democratic Presidents (neither of whom relished leaving office) and a spouse of one of those former presidents that won the popular vote this year. The Clintons need to keep the bucks rolling into their foundation and the other is looking towards raising a billion dollars for his foundation/library/monument.
One of the real truths here is that the consulting class relies on its staying power from donors, and not support from the party.
David Brock can raise money and this pack can raise money.
Unfortunately that makes them relevant when they really have no business being so.
The consulting class relies on various institutions for their staying power. TV, radio, and newspaper appearances (although as guest appearances that doesn’t pay the bills.) Academia, both public and private, foundations and “think tanks,” both public and private, lobbying positions and contracts for corporations and non-profits, appointments to government positions, and corporate boards and positions as corporate officers. Many revolving doors to choose from, and that doesn’t even include the option to sign on to a political campaign here and there and a stint with one of the political parties. Some also get book deals not lucrative for more than a few.
What do you make of this? Some big donors are wanting Hillary Clinton to run for mayor of NYC so that she is still visible for a 2020 presidential run.
http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/01/rumor-hillary-clinton-planning-to-run-for-nyc-mayor.html
FakeNews. Or some of her big donors are dumber than I thought.
Hillary would first have to carpetbag her way to NYC. (Guess they’re not wild about Chelsea.) And even empty carpetbags are really heavy.
Careful! That’s a forbidden subject.
My guess is that her health deficits are fairly typical for a woman of her age with an under-active thyroid and minor blood clotting issues. On the job, she would certainly have been as active and engaged as GWB was and don’t think she and her team were hiding deficits anywhere near as serious has what Reagan and his team hid. However, when given a choice between being openly honest about shortcomings and a pretense of being perfect, she always goes with the latter and she and her team get outraged when cracks in the pretense surface and blame her enemies for attacking her unfairly.
BTW, I saw on CNN this morning that Dems and the media are still trying to make an international incident and possibly a war out out of John Podesta’s falling for a phishing scheme that
anymost High School students would have ignored or reported as phishing spam. Are we actually going to kill people rather than admit that the Democratic elite are brain-dead stupid?Inwardly laughing my ass off watching Democrats swap places with the John Birch Society rather than admit that their top echelon should not be running a kid’s birthday party.
You KNOW I am unrepentantly anti-Soviet. You KNOW that I see Putin as the second coming of A.H. Even I don’t beleive that this crude story.
Also inwardly crying that Democrats who used to believe in Julian Assange and Wikileaks are now attacking him and whistle blowers in general just because he exposed the rot at the top of the Democratic Party. Maybe it’s not just the top that’s rotten.
It’s not the same thing:
link
Sad to see you take that line of thinking just because it’s Podesta and Clinton.
Likewise.
Non responsive to the fact that your “14 year old” line is pure bullshit.
When did I say anything about 14 years?
Your response was pure partisanship.
Voice wrote most “most High School students would have ignored or reported” not that a High School student did this.
What? Hillary’s finally a forbidden subject here?
Thank God!!! Maybe she can finally retire.
Oh.
Wait a minute!!!
You mean her health!!!
Oh.
Nevermind.
Yore freind…
Emily Litella
Michael Whitney tweet
Tarheel got it right up above:
That “war room”? That’ll be for making war on
us
, not on the right wing.
Same people doing the same thing:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/priorities-usa-positions-itself-as-center-of-gravity-for-the
-left-in-the-trump-era/2016/12/20/046d2cea-c6c8-11e6-bf4b-2c064d32a4bf_story.html?utm_term=.803f5138
d2c6
Any side that a superPAC is on, I want to be on the other side.
It’s all coming out, how the Democratic Party has been gaming it’s voters and campaign workers for the benefit of 0.01% They don’t believe in liberalism any more than the Republican controllers like the Bush family believe in Conservatism. No wonder Bill Clinton had Thanksgiving dinner with the Bush’s. They are on the same side. Bill Clinton was born one of us, but was determined to become one of them. Hillary Clinton must have been called Princess so often as a girl that she came to believe it.
Center of gravity? Nay, the border fence, rather.
If you still have a sense of humor about DNC Dems, this will make you shake your head…. https:/essentialopinion.wordpress.com/2017/01/03/nascent-anti-trump-coalition-already-fracturing
Oh for god’s sake:
The American left is so marginalized by the two parties and media that it’s amazing they continue to exist at all. The only “outsiders” that the media has any interest in are weird characters like Perot, Carson, and Trump. Whatever made American feminists put all their political chips on Hillary to become the first female POTUS for twenty-four years? First a spouse succeeding a POTUS was an exceedingly old-fashioned and non-feminist idea. Second, once Hillary had flopped as an policy mover and shaker, the idea should have been dropped. Third, her retrenchment to a traditional and undistinguished FLOTUS role was a big clue that she didn’t have the right stuff. That was exacerbated by feminists choosing to defend Bill’s personal shenanigans and ignoring his horrible policy positions. Then they continued to ignore Hillary’s subsequent horrible policy positions.
In ’08, with significant support in the party and among large donors, she lost the nomination to an inexperienced black man. Never occurred to them that a candidate that required monolithic party, institutional, media, and money support to win the nomination might just be a very weak candidate. Now they’re stuck with — Hillary couldn’t possibly have lost to someone like Trump. No, it must be Putin/Russia, BernieBros, Comey, etc. that did her in. And they’re going to fight back in Hillary’s name because she’s the extraordinary woman that should be POTUS.
Twenty-four freaking years squandered on pushing one not deserving in her own right woman to the top. Instead of building a solid bench with many potential qualified women. One or more of whom, with able assistance, could have made her own way to the top. But no — let’s squander more years on Hillary.
With that comment, you just hit a home run with bases loaded.
I was only aiming for a solid single base hit.
In real time — 1992 — I thought it was a joke. And one that died within two years. Didn’t get that they were serious until mid-1999. If I had correctly perceived it earlier, I might have dropped my principles and said, “Oh, just let them convict and remove Bill from office — I can live with Gore as POTUS.”
Retrospectively, the 2000 election and aftermath is easier to read if one inserts Hillary as the chosen Democratic successor POTUS. In real time, I didn’t get that until the DP summarily dismissed/exiled Gore and team Clinton took it from there. With Hillary penciled in for 2004 and then erased as she built up her warmongering bona fides (to avoid one of the handicaps that had dogged Bill) for 2008. Must have given them a scare when Gore technically won and Kerry came very close to winning. As Kerry was able to brush off that Iraq War sticky-wicket, who could have predicted that it would come back to haunt her in 2008? Or that playing the race card in the 2008 primary could possibly hurt her in the 2016 general election against such a blatant racist like Trump?
She went to Yale Law, you know.
Of course so did Pat Robertson.
In person I have found her rather charming. She is not a natural politician, but then I have known others that weren’t as well (Hart, Gore).
I remember Shaheen telling me that every morning the Clinton people get up and think “they are not going to get us today”. It was her way of describing the siege mentality that surrounded her. In a way it was her undoing: it made her into a very risk adverse politician and prone to interpreting all criticism as a personal attack. You can even see that tendency in her supporters online.
I don’t hate Hillary.
I just think that she was a very bad fit for this cycle in particular.
I would add I think that in many ways her candidacy had a Sunset Boulevard quality to it. The enthusiasm just was not there in the way it should have been. I saw it at the first event in New Hampshire and the last event in Iowa.
In neither event was the turnout particularly good. So much of it just seemed like everyone – her, Bill, and the crowd were just going though the motions. Part of this might have been the sense that she was destined to win.
The events I went to – the final night at the convention being a notable exception – seemed to me events for someone who was past their prime. She won a nomination long after the causes and ideology that brought Bill to power had passed from the political scene.
Maybe this makes no sense – but it seemed to me to pervade her entire campaign.
My good friend – and old Kennedy operative – says it reminded him of the ’80 Kennedy campaign. Still another, and older Kennedy aid suggested it was really like Humphrey’s ’72 campaign.
I’d go further as to Hillary not being a natural politician. She’s a poor decision maker. Saw it often enough in business among those that couldn’t properly and objectively synthesize and weight what I’d call “yesterday, today, and tomorrow” in a decision. Nobody is perfect on this, but some are better than others.
This – Clinton people get up and think “they are not going to get us today” – illustrates both too much ego and too much “yesterday.” Completely consistent with her private e-mail server decision.
Nobody likes Mr. or Miss Perfect. In part because nobody is and in part because they are boring. But mostly because others don’t have much use for lies, excuses, blaming others when errors or mistakes are exposed. GWB’s and Trump’s “so what?” straddled the line between being a child and an adult that owns his/her mistakes and in the future handles accordingly to no repeat it. Not good.
I have some empathy for HHH, as I do for all those that are essentially decent people, including those that lose it later in life in favor of their peak quest. Made harder by LBJ who had humiliated him and who had himself been humiliated by JFK. Great leaders don’t do that to those they select to have serve with them but instead draw from the best those on their staff have to offer and let them shine. (On this one measure and with one subordinate, Biden, Obama has done this better than any other prior POTUS. OTOH, he chose Biden because he didn’t expect him to aspire to his job after eight years which made it easier for him to be generous towards him.)
US politics would be a lot more interesting and less staid if intra-party challenges to an incumbent weren’t so frowned upon by the parties and generally a majority of primary voters as well. There was no authentic enthusiasm for Kennedy in 1980 because he wasn’t personally in a healthy enough place to be the challenger. This mindset is also what makes it difficult for a challenger to a sitting VP running for POTUS, a starting position that dampens enthusiasm.
Also, it helps to have a reason other than “I want the ultimate power”. There has to be a policy reason or a factional reason, something other than personal hunger for power.
Helps? Excluding Sanders, presidential candidates not primarily running on “I want the ultimate power” (in my jargon it’s “I want to BE POTUS”) with an aside “to DO whatever my elite backers tell me to” is all we’ve seen in the modern (TV era) presidential races.
All the campaign discourse has been at an extremely low level. (Again with the exception of Sanders who did raise the bar for himself.) But 2016 was the lowest ever. Metaphorically a pissing contest over who had the bigger “hands.”
Jeannie said that sometime in 2015. I had dinner with her at ’13 inauguration – and she said that night she would be for Hillary again. In between then and when she said that in 2015 she had started to see something she didn’t like. But she had no idea the NH defeat was coming and didn’t see Bernie coming really.
It was the first time in my experience she was ever really wrong about anything in Democratic Primary politics.
I think the Clinton experience made them great believers in the idea that negative politics solves everything. It is just a matter of the right phrase to take the opponent down.
It’s why they are so sure Bernie could never win. They had lost their belief in positive politics.
And of course the Clintons regarded people like Sanders as losers their entire lives
It is why I believe they lost.
She didn’t notice Hillary’s negative campaign in ’08?
The closest I personally ever got to NH politics was having known a man that later was involved in NH Dem politics and worked with Gallen and I thought Sheheen but that information came to me second hand.
As she was governor in 2000 and GWB was running on “restoring honor and dignity to the WH” didn’t she recognize that there was a wee bit of a problem with the public opinion of Clinton when Gore lost NH? All the focus on FL that year masked the fact that NH would have given Gore the win.
I was living in Florida at the time – I don’t remember talking to her about why NH was lost in the general – though at the the time I don’t think it was thought of as leaning Democratic. Clinton won it by about the same margin in ’96 as he won nationally.
I think it is fair to say she is not in the same wing as I am within the Democratic Party. Part of that is because she ran statewide at a time when NH was more conservative than it is now, but you can argue she has always leaned right.
When she talks though – I listen.
I will confess my knowledge of NH politics mostly begins and ends with the Presidential Primaries, though I have learned a fair amount since ’14 and did work on the NH Governors race in ’96 a little.
If the implication is that Kennedy caused poor Lyndon to later mistreat his own VP, that’s way off the mark. LBJ was a bully from the outset and always belittled and abused those who worked for him until they showed absolute loyalty, and even after that in most cases. In the VP context, Kennedy usually treated him well personally, as Johnson then and later acknowledged. But Bobby hated him, and some of the other on JFK’s staff — at times going against the president’s orders to treat Lyndon with kid gloves — didn’t always take care to carefully coddle and flatter him, as Lyndon had a very sensitive ego.
I think the record shows that by the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when word got back that Johnson was going around telling people Kennedy hadn’t been tough enough, that JFK finally got fed up with Lyndon. Loyalty was important to the Kennedys too. I’m of the view that he was going to dump Johnson from the ’64 ticket — and Lyndon thought so too. In addition to the disloyalty factor, Kennedy was just tired of having to deal with him.
No, I didn’t imply that. I merely stated a fact and it was not only disgusting but also counterproductive for both JFK and LBJ to have done that to their VPs. In that way both were small men. A difference is that JFK had a life of privilege and hadn’t been publicly humiliated; whereas, LBJ had experienced humiliation as a child and adult and it took personal grit and determination to move somewhat beyond that — somewhat because public humiliation never goes completely away, the sore/tender spots never completely heal.
Understanding does not equal rationalizing or excusing. As the Cuban Missile Crisis came long after JFK’s administration excluded and humiliated LBJ, whatever LBJ did or didn’t do after that doesn’t explain, much less justify that humiliation. But nice try in never missing an opportunity with me to praise JFK and trash LBJ.
(I don’t share your obsession with the “would he or wouldn’t he dump LBJ” question. It’s both unknown and unknowable. But IMO it would have been a dumb move. Even FDR knew better than to dump Garner who wasn’t even on the same page as FDR on any policy matters.)
And I tried to show, briefly, why JFK wasn’t really the responsibly party for humiliating sensitive Lyndon. Fact: Johnson himself always acknowledged Kennedy treated him well. It was Bobby hating Lyndon and vice versa, and also some Kennedy family members and staff who LBJ overheard at parties belittling him. But not JFK himself, who had put out orders to staff to always treat Lyndon with the greatest courtesy. Therefore it’s simple untruthful to assert as you do that JFK humiliated LBJ.
Johnson however was always oversensitive and paranoid about any perceived slight, especially at the outset. Into the second and then final years of the admin however, Kennedy had learned Lyndon was just a great deal of trouble to deal with. This started right away when the VP-elect sent Kennedy a note asking for an extraordinary range of powers normally held by the P. Kennedy wisely didn’t respond. After a while, Kennedy thought it better to get Lyndon outside of DC so he wouldn’t have his sad-sack face around.
But he did agree to give him charge of certain areas, including Nasa, as well as nominating/ veto power over any nominee coming from the state of TX. But he wasn’t going to let Lyndon become, as Johnson wanted, a co-president. This was clearly a forced marriage as was not working out. Even the mostly sympathetic Rbt Caro concludes that Johnson was probably going to be dumped from the ticket.
I remember the rumor (true or not) that he was going to replace Lyndon with loyal Richard Daley. When I read that I thought that even Republicans would vote for that ticket, just to get Daley out of Illinois. Illinois was a swing state at that time (except for Chicago).
In Ted’s defense, it was the only time he ran for president, compared to Hubert’s third try by 1972. Heck, by 1968 Hube was already an old shopworn pol, thx to Lyndon forcing him to defend an immoral and losing VN War policy.
And at least Ted not only didn’t have that war to defend, but he also stuck to his liberal principles. But for Jimmy C and some weak tea Dem leadership in that era that began taking the party centrist, and of course Ted’s terrible sit down with Roger Mudd and the Iran hostage crisis, Ted’s message might have gotten far better traction with the public.
He was also a better orator than Hillary, though as a communicator both suffered in comparison with a famous brother and spouse. Ted and Hillary also both tended to shout for emphasis, as if the microphone did not yet exist.
Both also, importantly, ran their campaigns from a defensive posture, owing to highly negative media coverage, at the crucial outset when perceptions were being formed and when the first primaries were held.
If fresh-face Bernie had been 10 years younger and maybe had just called himself a progressive independent rather than a democratic socialist, it’s entirely possible he could have beaten her, though it still would have been close. I think a large number of Dems still were eager to check the Woman box, even if the one they got was less than ideal.
Carter should have been challenged for the 1980 nomination. Ted was not the right person to do it at that time. If ever. Chappquiddick was a huge black mark; perhaps too big ever to consider running for POTUS. He and his wife had been separated for several years and she was an alcoholic. Ted was a functioning alcoholic, not the best quality for a POTUS.
He was always a decent enough Senator and became better over the decades. But except for his early two year stint as majority whip, his absence in a Senate leadership position is telling.
I was just pushing back against the notion of Ted 1980=Hubert 1972 and wanted to add some context. Hubert by 1972 was truly a badly worn retread representing the Dem Old Guard, the anti-Kennedy pro-war establishment wing of the party. Ted by contrast had some major personal negatives working against him, in addition to some bad timing from external events. It would have been hard enough, even for a popular Kennedy, to unseat a sitting president even without all the other baggage, but he persevered and by the latter half gave a good accounting of himself pre-convention. Hubert was never a serious threat.
No one doubts Ted had flaws, personal and otherwise. He was not quite in the political class of either of his two older brothers. Family members by 1962 expected probably Bobby to become the next president from the family. Ted was expected to become a senate lifer.
The comparison of Ted to Hillary came from Ted’s former press secretary. I suggested that parallel myself earlier in the year – no one has ever blwon as large a primary lead as Ted Kennedy. The comparison of Ted to HHH came from another former Kennedy staff person.
They all share this in common – they were basically unprepared to answer why they were running. You hint at that yourself. Both Clinton and Humphrey had run and lost before. Both were tied to a previous Democratic Administrations. Both were carrying baggage, and so was Kennedy. Both were tied to support for an unpopular war their opponent had opposed.
You can read some of what Hunter Thomson said about HHH in 1972 and see similarities with how the left in the party viewed Clinton.
Everyone I know who was a part of the 80 campaign will admit is was a disaster out of the gate. They hadn’t thought what they were about, something that was painfully obvious in the Mudd interview.
Unlike HHH in ’72, Kennedy and Clinton began the primary season with enormous leads that melted. Both struggled in early primaries.
There are differences – sure. But I think there are similarities.
Agree for the most part on your Ted-Hillary similarities, and appreciate your thoughts and interesting insider details. I was reacting more to the Ted-Hubert comparison.
On blowing a lead, Ted and H, it’s a bit unfair to take those artificial pre-primary contest polls, often months before IA and clearly wildly overoptimistic, to find fault with the candidates. In both cases I felt it was rather clear those very early high numbers had nowhere else to go but down. And Ted couldn’t have predicted the Iran hostage crisis, which automatically caused public support to shift to rally around the president.
As for the Mudd interview, my understanding is that Ted and his team had expected a very friendly, easy chat from a reporter they’d come to trust and like from his favorable reporting on Bobby’s ’68 campaign. Perhaps the worst would be one brief unavoidable question on Chappaquiddick, without follow up, which Ted would be prepared for. They didn’t expect Mudd to be rather aggressive about it.
On the reason for running matter: recall this interview was held before Ted had intended to announce; I believe he’d already decided in the affirmative, but the campaign team had a later date to actually announce. He hadn’t expected Mudd to do much more than ask him if he was going to run and then move on. He was annoyed — and looked taken aback on camera –when Mudd pressed him on his reasons to run as it was all premature, and the question unexpected and thus not properly prepared for.
Ted ended up looking stupid, but really it was more a negative reaction to Mudd getting too far ahead of Ted’s game plan. HIs muddled response also might have been avoided if his top political aide had been present in Hyannis Port prior to the interview, but my recollection is he was out of town, as the Mudd interview, again, was not expected to be much more than a friendly sit down.
http://blog.4president.org/2016/2017/01/the-democratic-national-committee-announces-moderators-addit
ional-details-for-dnc-future-forum-serie.html
Guess Ralston disseminating lies about Bernie supporters in NV raised his stature in the DNC. He’s trashed his credibility with me, but he wasn’t alone in totally compromising himself for Hillary.
Alex Nichols The Agony and the Ecstasy of Kurt Eichenwald.
There’s some bias in the article, but it’s mostly factual. And I can’t disagree with his concluding sentence:
I’m personally always wary of Republicans that shift left after the age of twenty-four. Not always wary enough because I bought David Brock’s crisis of confidence, “come to Jesus” shtick. Few people authentically turn left and even fewer fully do so.
(I’m unfamiliar with Alex Nichols or his previous writings, but he’s been published in Curent Affairs (a new publication that possibly should get more attention from liberals).
“At Vanity Fair, he adopted a particularly myopic form of liberalism that demanded unconditional loyalty to the Democratic party.”
My, my, bet he has some fans on this board that don’t even know it.
Yes, fans here with their mind-reading skills to tell others who and who isn’t a Republican and Democrat. They have a single criteria for a Democrat: unconditional support for and voting for Hillary. Those that weren’t/aren’t Hillary devotees are thus, Republicans because the world is that black and white. One could have voted a straight GOP ticket for decades, but as long as they were with HER, they aren’t real Republicans. Bernie is a Republican because he dared to challenge HER. And anyone that doesn’t share Hillary and Obama’s loathing for Putin/Russia is a Trump lover, Hillary hater, and Putin/Russia stooge.