If you apologize to monsters like the Clintons, they just go in for the kill more. Once you blink in a war with them, it’s over. A reader suggests an alternative Power statement:
"Obviously, I am deeply sorry for calling a career public servant like Senator Clinton a name. It was disrespectful and downright immature. But it wasn’t untruthful. Listen, a lot of people including myself have devoted immense time and energy to the Obama campaign because we firmly believe that a different kind of politics is possible. And Obama’s lead in victories, delegates and votes makes us hope that this time, this year, after all of the swiftboating, that the old negative tactics aren’t going to win the day. So when Clinton runs fearmongering ads about sleeping children and when her husband dismisses Obama as a merely black candidate, when Senator Clinton herself says that John McCain is more qualified to be commander-in-chief than her Democratic opponent … it just seems monstrous to me.
And that sort of behavior is monstrous, it’s a sickness of our political system, one that we desperately hope to cure through our efforts in this election. Perhaps these despicable tactics will, once again, win the day, and perhaps I have contributed to their victory with my regrettable outburst. But that doesn’t make them any less deplorable."
By saying that only she and John McCain are qualified to lead the country, particularly in times of crisis, Hillary Clinton has broken that rule, severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party’s nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power. She has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates her.
That’s Gary Hart. What the Clintons are doing to Obama on national security will be Karl Rove’s trump card this fall. They know this. They don’t care. What the Clintons always do is reduce everyone to their mediocre, hair-pulling level. It’s essential that they drag the promise of politics down to their empty, careerist, poll-driven cynicism – or else they lose. That’s why, I think, Obama is right actually to resist any personal negative campaigning. The rest of us have to do that for him. If he is reduced to the Clintons’ level, the Clintons – and all they represent – win.
This is a generational struggle – although plenty of older folks get it completely. As such, it usually does take more than one insurrection to move past the past. Usually, we might wait for the forces of reaction and inertia and cynicism to fade away. The trouble is: we cannot afford more Rove-Morris politics given the enormous dangers we now face at home and abroad. And if you give the Clintons any power, we know they will use it to destroy – not just limit – any threat to them. They know the threat Obama and his politics present to them and their machine. They will never forgive his presumption. And you cannot assume they will at some point allow him to take over. The battle really is now.
I’ve always been politically engaged (although this is the first time I’ve ever volunteered/organized/donated significantly to a presidential candidate), but I swear to Zeus, I can’t handle the thought of another 4 or 8 years of dynastic, cynical, politics-as-usual BS. Bush’s 2004 re-election already threw me for a major loop, and I think I will have to disengage from the process altogether if Hillary somehow wrests the nomination out of Barack’s hands. Mentally and emotionally, it’s like I can’t afford to care anymore. Even the thought of it is gut-punchingly devastating.
"I said to a producer once that I wanted to do a reality show called Project Britney instead of Project Runway, where I would take Britney for the next six months and I would do hair, makeup, wardrobe every day for her and become her personal staff every day. And then of course I would be, hello, the thanks that everyone has to give for saving Britney, ‘cause I would totally save her whole image and – oh my god, it would be flawless," – Christian Siriano, Project Runway winner.
If Clinton wins the nomination, there will be many Obama staffers, particularly mid-to-high-ranking aides, who will refuse offers to help with the general election. The walk-away rate will be unprecedented.
And let me add – since I am not an adviser, since I have kept a very long distance from the actual official campaign, since I am not a Democrat, since I cannot be accused of being a closet Bush-supporter, since I am just a blogger.
Samantha Power is right. The Clintons are monstrous. Samantha has quit because she told the truth.
"I have a simple prediction. It will mean a mass flight from the process. It will alter the political consciousness of an entire generation of young voters – against any positive interaction with the political process for the foreseeable future."
Mass flight from the process, Andrew, isn’t a tactic. It’s the point of her campaign. The point is not a mandate. The point is not actually governing. The point is 50% plus 1, 270 electoral votes, and the power that comes with it for its own sake. The Clinton’s know how to win that fight, both in the nomination and in the general. That generation of young voters is what Rumsfeld would have called an "unknown unknown" and is inherently uncontrollable. They have no use for that at all.
The Clintons have, of course, never won 50 percent of the national popular vote – not even in 1996, for their second term against Dole.
The new meme is that politics has returned to normal and that this election will now be run by Clinton rules. Many are relieved by this. You could sense the palpable discomfort among many in Washington that their world might actually shift a little next year. But if elections are primarily about fear and mud, and who best operates in a street fight, Beltway comfort returns. This we know. This we understand. This we already have the language to describe. And, the feeling goes, the Clintons can win back the White House in this atmosphere. What she is doing to Obama she can try to do to McCain. Maybe Limbaugh will help her out again.
What I think this misses are the cultural and social consequences of beating Obama (or McCain) this way. I don’t mean beating Obama because the Clintons’ message is more persuasive, or because the Clintons’ healthcare plan is better, or because she has a better approach to Iraq. I mean: beating him by a barrage of petty attacks, by impugning his clear ability to be commander-in-chief, by toying with questions about his "Muslim past", by subtle invocation of the race card, by intermittent reliance on gender identity politics, by taking faux offense to keep the news cycle busy ("shame on you, Barack Obama!") and so on. If the Clintons beat Obama this way, I have a simple prediction. It will mean a mass flight from the process. It will alter the political consciousness of an entire generation of young voters – against any positive interaction with the political process for the foreseeable future. I’m not sure that Washington yet understands the risk the Clintons are taking with their own party and the future of American politics.
The reason so many people have re-engaged with politics this year is because many sense their country is in a desperate state and because only one candidate has articulated a vision and a politics big enough to address it without dividing the country down the middle again. For the first time in decades, a candidate has emerged who seems able to address the country’s and the world’s needs with a message that does not rely on Clintonian parsing or Rovian sleaze. For the first time since the 1960s, we have a potential president able to transcend the victim-mongering identity politics so skillfully used by the Clintons. If this promise is eclipsed because the old political system conspires to strangle it at birth, the reaction from the new influx of voters will be severe. The Clintons will all but guarantee they will lose a hefty amount of it in the fall, as they richly deserve to. Some will gravitate to McCain; others will be so disillusioned they will withdraw from politics for another generation. If the Clintons grind up and kill the most promising young leader since Kennedy, and if they do it not on the strength of their arguments, but by the kind of politics we have seen them deploy, the backlash will be deep and severe and long. As it should be.
He has a million little donors. He has brought many, many Republicans and Independents to the brink of re-thinking their relationship with the Democratic party. And he has won the majority of primaries and caucuses and has a majority of the delegates and popular vote. This has been a staggering achievement – one that has already made campaign history. If the Clintons, after having already enjoyed presidential power for eight long years, destroy this movement in order to preserve their own grip on privilege and influence in Democratic circles, it will be more than old-fashioned politics. It will be a generational moment – as formative as 1968. Killing it will be remembered for a very, very long time. And everyone will remember who did it – and why.
Before we all fall hopelessly prey to our own emotions and the daily spin surrounding the opposing camps at play in the Democratic Party, is it possible for us to pull back a bit from our ever-hardening positions to see what is really going on this election year, and (dare I say the words), to enjoy the process and be thankful for its meaning?
We are watching the American genius to determine by what and by whom our nation is to be led in all its gloriously-messy splendor, and for the first time in many a year, we are free of the boredom of knowing who the standard bearer will be for the Democratic Party way in advance of the election. For the first time ever, we have the real possibility that our President will be a black man or a woman, and for the first time since the Supreme Court took the power of the ballot box away from the Florida voters in 2000, we have the opportunity to openly debate and determine how best to address the dilemma of full voter enfranchisement versus the problem of ‘not playing by the rules’ so that the ideals of Democracy win instead of which candidate will benefit most.
I know that it’s asking a lot, but if we could just not be such slaves to the latest poll and pundit or to our own prejudices, and admit that maybe, just maybe Hillary is not as evil and self-centered, nor Barrack as much the shining Savior as their supporters and opponents make them out to be, and if we could understand that in all the struggle, uncertainty, lies, truth and hoopla of this contest there is the wondrous evidence of our ongoing vitality as inheritors of the Declaration of Independence, we could more dispassionately contribute to the issues at stake without malice and irritation, and thus enjoy and be part of what has become a very thrilling ride.
