The Audacity of Hopelessness
When people one day look back at the remarkable implosion of the Hillary Clinton campaign, they may notice that it both began and ended in the long dark shadow of Iraq.
It’s not just that her candidacy’s central premise - the priceless value of “experience” - was fatally poisoned from the start by her still ill-explained vote to authorize the fiasco. Senator Clinton then compounded that 2002 misjudgment by pursuing a 2008 campaign strategy that uncannily mimicked the disastrous Bush Iraq war plan. After promising a cakewalk to the nomination - “It will be me,” Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in November - she was routed by an insurgency.
The Clinton camp was certain that its moneyed arsenal of political shock-and-awe would take out Barack Hussein Obama in a flash. The race would “be over by Feb. 5,” Mrs. Clinton assured George Stephanopoulos just before New Year’s. But once the Obama forces outwitted her, leaving her mission unaccomplished on Super Tuesday, there was no contingency plan. She had neither the boots on the ground nor the money to recoup.
That’s why she has been losing battle after battle by double digits in every corner of the country ever since. And no matter how much bad stuff happened, she kept to the Bush playbook, stubbornly clinging to her own Rumsfeld, her chief strategist, Mark Penn. Like his prototype, Mr. Penn is bigger on loyalty and arrogance than strategic brilliance. But he’s actually not even all that loyal. Mr. Penn, whose operation has billed several million dollars in fees to the Clinton campaign so far, has never given up his day job as chief executive of the public relations behemoth Burson-Marsteller. His top client there, Microsoft, is simultaneously engaged in a demanding campaign of its own to acquire Yahoo.
Clinton fans don’t see their standard-bearer’s troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naïve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work.
But it’s the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidate’s message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating.
The gap in hard work between the two campaigns was clear well before Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton threw as much as $25 million at the Iowa caucuses without ever matching Mr. Obama’s organizational strength. In South Carolina, where last fall she was up 20 percentage points in the polls, she relied on top-down endorsements and the patina of inevitability, while the Obama campaign built a landslide-winning organization from scratch at the grass roots. In Kansas, three paid Obama organizers had the field to themselves for three months; ultimately Obama staff members outnumbered Clinton staff members there 18 to 3.
In the last battleground, Wisconsin, the Clinton campaign was six days behind Mr. Obama in putting up ads and had only four campaign offices to his 11. Even as Mrs. Clinton clings to her latest firewall - the March 4 contests - she is still being outhustled. Last week she told reporters that she “had no idea” that the Texas primary system was “so bizarre” (it’s a primary-caucus hybrid), adding that she had “people trying to understand it as we speak.” Perhaps her people can borrow the road map from Obama’s people. In Vermont, another March 4 contest, The Burlington Free Press reported that there were four Obama offices and no Clinton offices as of five days ago. For what will no doubt be the next firewall after March 4, Pennsylvania on April 22, the Clinton campaign is sufficiently disorganized that it couldn’t file a complete slate of delegates by even an extended ballot deadline.
This is the candidate who keeps telling us she’s so competent that she’ll be ready to govern from Day 1. Mrs. Clinton may be right that Mr. Obama has a thin résumé, but her disheveled campaign keeps reminding us that the biggest item on her thicker résumé is the health care task force that was as botched as her presidential bid.
Given that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama offer marginally different policy prescriptions - laid out in voluminous detail by both, by the way, on their Web sites - it’s not clear what her added-value message is. The “experience” mantra has been compromised not only by her failure on the signal issue of Iraq but also by the deadening lingua franca of her particular experience, Washingtonese. No matter what the problem, she keeps rolling out another commission to solve it: a commission for infrastructure, a Financial Product Safety Commission, a Corporate Subsidy Commission, a Katrina/Rita Commission and, to deal with drought, a water summit.
As for countering what she sees as the empty Obama brand of hope, she offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This must be the first presidential candidate in history to devote so much energy to preaching against optimism, against inspiring language and - talk about bizarre - against democracy itself. No sooner does Mrs. Clinton lose a state than her campaign belittles its voters as unrepresentative of the country.
Bill Clinton knocked states that hold caucuses instead of primaries because “they disproportionately favor upper-income voters” who “don’t really need a president but feel like they need a change.” After the Potomac primary wipeout, Mr. Penn declared that Mr. Obama hadn’t won in “any of the significant states” outside of his home state of Illinois. This might come as news to Virginia, Maryland, Washington and Iowa, among the other insignificant sites of Obama victories. The blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga has hilariously labeled this Penn spin the “insult 40 states” strategy.
The insults continued on Tuesday night when a surrogate preceding Mrs. Clinton onstage at an Ohio rally, Tom Buffenbarger of the machinists’ union, derided Obama supporters as “latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust-fund babies.” Even as he ranted, exit polls in Wisconsin were showing that Mr. Obama had in fact won that day among voters with the least education and the lowest incomes. Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Obama received the endorsement of the latte-drinking Teamsters.
If the press were as prejudiced against Mrs. Clinton as her campaign constantly whines, debate moderators would have pushed for the Clinton tax returns and the full list of Clinton foundation donors to be made public with the same vigor it devoted to Mr. Obama’s “plagiarism.” And it would have showered her with the same ridicule that Rudy Giuliani received in his endgame. With 11 straight losses in nominating contests, Mrs. Clinton has now nearly doubled the Giuliani losing streak (six) by the time he reached his Florida graveyard. But we gamely pay lip service to the illusion that she can erect one more firewall.
The other persistent gripe among some Clinton supporters is that a hard-working older woman has been unjustly usurped by a cool young guy intrinsically favored by a sexist culture. Slate posted a devilish video mash-up of the classic 1999 movie “Election”: Mrs. Clinton is reduced to a stand-in for Tracy Flick, the diligent candidate for high school president played by Reese Witherspoon, and Mr. Obama is implicitly cast as the mindless jock who upsets her by dint of his sheer, unearned popularity.
There is undoubtedly some truth to this, however demeaning it may be to both candidates, but in reality, the more consequential ur-text for the Clinton 2008 campaign may be another Hollywood classic, the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy “Pat and Mike” of 1952. In that movie, the proto-feminist Hepburn plays a professional athlete who loses a tennis or golf championship every time her self-regarding fiancé turns up in the crowd, pulling her focus and undermining her confidence with his grandstanding presence.
In the 2008 real-life remake of “Pat and Mike,” it’s not the fiancé, of course, but the husband who has sabotaged the heroine. The single biggest factor in Hillary Clinton’s collapse is less sexism in general than one man in particular - the man who began the campaign as her biggest political asset. The moment Bill Clinton started trash-talking about Mr. Obama and raising the specter of a co-presidency, even to the point of giving his own televised speech ahead of his wife’s on the night she lost South Carolina, her candidacy started spiraling downward.
What’s next? Despite Mrs. Clinton’s valedictory tone at Thursday’s debate, there remains the fear in some quarters that whether through sleights of hand involving superdelegates or bogus delegates from Michigan or Florida, the Clintons might yet game or even steal the nomination. I’m starting to wonder. An operation that has waged political war as incompetently as the Bush administration waged war in Iraq is unlikely to suddenly become smart enough to pull off that duplicitous a “victory.” Besides, after spending $1,200 on Dunkin’ Donuts in January alone, this campaign simply may not have the cash on hand to mount a surge.
Frank Rich is a regular columnist for The New York Times.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Ralph is in!
Forget about the three corporate candidates:
Obama, Clinton, and McCain are all against:
single payer
cutting the military budget
decreasing troop levels
following international law when it comes to fighting terrorism
opposing corporate influence on political campaigning
stopping lobbyists from running Washington
opposing free trade
I’m not sure that even Ralph can help Americans drowning under the debt of corporate plunder.
I have to admit i’m enjoying Hillary’s shooting herself in both feet. It is payback time for hubby bill’s selling of “us” out to the corporations. At least Obama is beginning to talk about standing up to corporate abuse within our government. The rest seem to take it for granted.
Nader has always been my favorite. But this time I’m voting for Obama. I’m impressed with his get-it-done “mean machine”. I laughed when Hillary belated learned about Texas’ nutty primary-caucus allocation of delegates. I knew about it weeks before she did, and I’m sure the Obama campaign had informed themselves about it long before. If each of them runs a presidency the way they run campaigns, it’s obvious which one of them we’re better off with.
kathyodat
Rich’s analysis is a little stale, as usual. Next week he’ll be talking (again) about some other analysis he read in comments on some blog somewhere. Loved the slate video, though.
formernadervoter,
You’re gonna’ take some heat today from the nader haters. I, like Nader himself admitted on Meet the Press, know he’s insignificant in the race in terms of actually deciding it one way or the other. (Yes, I think the Republicans are in that much trouble.)
Nader has some things to say, I suppose, and if he gets enough support could impact the debate in a good way. I just doubt he has much left in terms of organization. It’s not just about your perspective on issues. It’s about the kind of organization we can build on a vision that not only meets the needs of families (read disenfranchised), but speaks to our values and engages folks to really participate and demand action.
I really love Nader. but, this time around we cannot afford four more years of a Bush-on-steroids like McCain.
Thank you, Frank Rich, for your extremely longwinded endorsement of future President Ralph Nader.
Headlines America will never have to suffer:
“Presidential candidate Nader Explains Iraq War Vote”
“Presidential hopeful Ralph Nader Had Sex With A Lobbyist and then Did What She Paid Him To Do”
“Nader Votes To Extend Illegal Wiretapping and also to Grant Immunity To Telecom Companies That Clearly Broken Dozens of Laws Millions Of Times”
“Nader Warns Of World Wars III, IV and V If Congress Doesn’t Let Him Spy On Everyone Without Any Oversight Whatsoever”
The Ron Paul for our side.
Nader won’t make a dent because this time around America knows it has everything to lose and nothing to gain from a McCain/3rd Bush term while Obama has none of the bloated self-entitlement Gore displayed then.
There was no such sense of danger and disaster in 2000.
As a woman, but never a Hilary hater or supporter, I went to bed last night thinking of her latest “Shame on you, Barack Obama”. When I saw the clip of that I knew she was over because women can’t get mad on the podium. She sounded like a mom. It doesn’t work. I have a thousand feelings about this. It took me 35 years to start dealing with my every day anger. On one hand I think that no matter what she says, Hiliary always sounds scripted. If, on the other hand, this is her being truly angry, I cringed, not totally sure why, but I cringed.
I really liked Mr. Rich’s Iraq/shock and awe analogies.
“If the press were as prejudiced against Mrs. Clinton as her campaign constantly whines…”
A shoddy carpenter always blames his tools, his apprentice, his truck, his wife…everthing except himself…[herself] It should be obvious by now to the average amerikkan; Hilliary is a totally unpresidential whinging bitch and hence totally outclassed by the Obama mean machine…
PS: Oh I nearly forgot fancy dudding herself out of 5 million dollars for a dodgy illconceived nomination…ouch
a good article that highlights clinton’s errors in approaching this campaign; she assumed it would be an extended 6 month coronation, not a contest with a talented politician who was offering a different course. i will vote for obama in the general, unless some unforeseen tragedy descends upon us. i respect mr nader (voted for him in 96, 00) but i believe his voice would be better represented in a congressional seat (like cindy sheehan). it’s an opportunity that is a real opportunity (one that could be attained), the race for for the presidency is not a real opportunity (except to draw attention to yourself,). there’s only one independent socialist in the US senate (sanders). sanders achieved this distinction by meeting the people in vermont and establishing the grass roots over time in a progressive state. nader has none of this organization, it’s beyond dreaming to imagine this network will manifest itself in the next 8 months. nader is really expressing his discontent with other progressive organizations like PDA and move on who have endorsed obama. progressives should unify behind a candidate (obama) and influence that candidates positions. fracturing the progressive voice will bring us no favors in 2009, after the election.
oh yeah, governer tim pawlenty (R) just said you (mr nader) absolutely have the right to run for president
please donate to kucinich and sheehan……………….
………………peace………………
Another thought on Nader’s run (tho this has nothing to do with Frank Rich’s article):
Nader will be constantly hammering the war and its real economical price, thus seriously helping deflate the McCain/Bush III vote.
How much right wing Repuglican money has Nader been promised this time?
His last campaign was financed by Bush backers. Now? Since McCain could be out of money over his financing problems(Loan secured by public campaign funds)
I campaigned for Nader in 2000. I feel it was the right thing to do for several reasons:
After Welfare Reform, Cutting SSI disability benefits, NAFTA, allowing media companies to consolidate, unnecessary bombings in Iraq and Serbia, and many other things the Democrats needed to be held accountable, and know we wouldn’t just rubber stamp them because they were not Republicans.
Al Gore was a well known quantity. He was one of the architects of Welfare Reform and would give us more of the same (I still feel this way even though he’s received such a superficial love fest for being in a movie). Let’s not forget that he wouldn’t even fight for his own election win and left the Black Caucus out to dry.
Nader was the Green Party Candidate. This may be the most important reason. Nader couldn’t win but in every state where Nader won at least 5% the Greens would be recognized by the state as an established party and would no longer have to petition to get on the ballot. This could have been a first step in creating an alternative party to the Democrats.
This time though it’s different. Bush has done too much damage. We will be lucky if over the next 4 years we are able to stop things from getting worse let alone achieve progressive change. We must make sure that more conservative Judges are not appointed or for another generation the courts will be controlled by the most radical conservative majority ever. Clinton like Gore is a Republican in Democratic clothing. Obama is not great, but he is not as chummy with corporations, and appears to have flexibility. He will be more likely to respond to peaceful but aggressive movements, and to let his economic conservatism go in the event of massive poverty caused by a recession. I do not know if he will pull us out of Iraq, but he is much more likely to fold under public pressure than Clinton, who will never disobey her corporate masters. Obama also may challenge a stolen general election, Hillary won’t.
Then there is Nader himself. Nader is no longer a Green, and voting for him would not serve to set up a third party. In 2000 at the last minute most Nader supporters panicked and voted for Gore; not only were state Green Parties not established, but Nader did not get enough votes to scare Democrats in congress. Nader will not even get the 2% he got last time, nothing will change that. Also, I and others were disappointed that Nader did not challenge the stolen election of 2000. Even as the looser Nader could have made a difference and strengthened the Greens by using his celebrity to demand a recount, and even publicly explain all the fraud that was not talked about in the corporate media.
I believe we should still try to build third parties, and find more progressive candidates at the local and national level. However, we are on the edge of totalitarianism. This is not the year. Sometimes we must take a step back so that we can move forward in the long run.
Clinton gets the nomination and loses by a landslide to McCain… Nader will not hurt her one iota.
Obama gets the nomination and WINS by a landslide. Nader will not hurt him either.
case closed
Cynthia McKinney looks better everyday. I love that lady.
I often wonder whether or not Nader is being paid by the forces he claims to be against. His run for president in 2000 was the best thing for those he purports to protect us against - the corporations and others who abuse power - war, global warming, economic collapse - thanks Ralph! As for the Billary show, it has become comic.
Hillary just doesn’t get it. Are you better off then you were 16 years ago, when she first rose to national prominence? The answer for many people is “hell no!” You can’t let the train jump the tracks and then claim you should be promoted to chief engineer. If her “experience” meant anything, we would have seen the results by now. That’s the way politics should work; if I can’t see how you’ve improved my life or my country, you’re outa here.
It’s not that a vote for Nader will hurt the Democrats; it’s that it won’t achieve anything. In 2000, even though he could not win voting for him could achieve certain goals, or be a step in achieving those goals. It would achieve more to campaign or vote for the Green Party Nominee, and local Green candidates. It could be a step in forming a lasting third party. Now that Nader is not connected to a party he stands for no one but himself.
If Clinton is Vice President Obama will be shaking hands with JFK, RFK and MLK in short order.
A racist will be the Patsy this time.
Obama may be soft on Neoliberalism… but not soft enough.
“If Clinton is Vice President ” : dumb idea if ever there was one, yet another continuation of the Iraq-tainted Bush Lite House of Billary.
Clark or Webb for VP.
It is racism pure and simple. If Barak Husein Obama was not an African American with an Islamic name, he would not be getting all of this support. It is so unfair. These black people have had absolutely everything given to them, and this is just the latest example.
I think it is time for some affirmative action for all of us over educated rich fat white folk.
- - - overeducated???
Good Folks: It ain’t about Ralph or Cynthia winning anything or spoiling anything. It’s about keeping their immeasurably intelligent personalities and personae and IDEAS out in the public eye. Without alternate views we in the USA are doomed. When the manure comes down we will re-organize, re-prioritize and rebuild, and its not going to be possible without the steadfast patient work of progressive people who are doing what they do without concern for reaching any particular immediate goal… Our votes will be largely meaningless at any rate,this time around, unless we somehow OVERWHELMINGLY show ourselves and the world that WE WILL CEASE AGGRESSIVE WAR, TORTURE, GOVERNMENTALLY SANCTIONED DISAPPEARANCES, GULAGS, MILITARY AND ECONOMIC HEGEMONY, ETC… Any ideas for such a turn-around?
With Obama?
After the Kucinich lockout a long bout of hopelessness ensued until this day, it seems there’s a reason to hope again. Thank you Ralph for making the decision to make a difference! Love, Ruthie
As Nader said on Meet the Press this morning, if the democrats can’t defeat McCain then they don’t
deserve to win. I’m glad Ralph is in, if nothing else, he may push Obama alittle more to the left.
If Clinton should somehow win the nomination, I’ve now got Nader to vote for, it would be my
third vote for him.
You can always depend on the New York Times for brilliant insights into the campaigns! Hundreds of campaign workers consume four or five boxes of donuts every day! $40 in donuts on Tuesday alone!!!
No wonder Clinton is out of the race!
estebandido
Every single person who posts here, or even reads these posts, should write a passionate letter to the Obama campaign demanding all of the things we are demanding to each other here:
Get out of Iraq completely and unequivocally, no training, no mercenaries, no Green Zone, no enduring bases.
A UN/Mideast consortium to help rebuild Iraq.
Single payer health care
ETC,ETC
I would never vote for a corporate backed candidate. I voted for Nader in 1996,2000 and 2004.
But this time, I’m voting for Cynthia McKinney. She is working to build the Green Party, and she has the background to prove that she is on our side. (Just like Nader does, of course).
If Nader wants to work for a party that stands for non-violence, environmental wisdom, social justice, and grass roots democracy, he can run on McKinney’s ticket as Vice President.
If he chooses to run on an unafflilated ticket, he will still be an anti-war, pro-justice, pro-working class candidate.
More power to him!
joneden: “It is racism pure and simple. If Barak Husein Obama was not an African American with an Islamic name, he would not be getting all of this support. It is so unfair. These black people have had absolutely everything given to them, and this is just the latest example. I think it is time for some affirmative action for all of us over educated rich fat white folk.”
Who the hell are you? What planet do you live on? Do you actually KNOW any black people who have had things handed to them because they are black and have Islamic names? LOL Go back to your Rush Limbaugh reruns.
Yeah, $1200 for doughnuts doesn’t sound like a lot, depending on how many people you’re feeding and over how many days. But maybe they were all for Bill Clinton in one helping!
If Hillary Clinton somehow managed to be nominated, I’d definitely jump overboard and drop into the Green Party rowboat. I felt the same way about Obama a month ago, but now I’m not so sure. Consider that FDR was as little a true progressive or liberal as Obama, but having him in the White House rather than Hoobert Heever [misspelling intentional] made a big difference to those who really were liberal. And imagine if Barry Goldwater had somehow managed to win the 1964 election instead of LBJ. Eewwwww! Vietnam War without war on poverty or civil rights.
joneden,
“It is so unfair. These black people have had absolutely everything given to them, and this is just the latest example.”
Tongue-in-cheek or head up the ass?
Either way, it’s precious.
my2sense
Relax. Don’t worry about joneden, he’s being sarcastic. In fact his post is a foretaste of what we’ll be hearing ad nauseum from the likes of Limbaugh for months ahead. Except they will use a lot more words.
The advantage of either, is that if someone opposes their opinion that person can be labeled either sexist or racist.
A message to Naderites and other progressive purists who read this site: If you consider Obama just too close to the center to vote for, please pull the lever for Cynthia McKinney. At least you’ll help to shore up the Greens.
A vote for Ralph is a meaningless gesture at this point. What’s more, it feeds his ego instead of reminding him what a powerful force he used to be for us ordinary people vs. the giant corporations. I hope against hope that he will go back to what he does best (and it’s not being a politician!).
joneden: overeducated? You can’t even spell Barack Hussein Obama’s name. This is the second time you’ve showed up with the same comment. Now you’re sounding like a broken record, stuck with a one track mind.
kathyodat
remember that big media controlled who got to say what during the expo’s that made these two the only democratic ‘candidates.’
Hamster, you hit the nail on the head. This is what drives Ralph Nader. Our politicians believe that they can’t speak honestly about issues if they are to be elected. So they mouth words to profess things that you hope they don’t really believe.
To add to your list, why not say openly that we must recognize a socialist Cuba? Why accept Israel’s never ending addition and expansion of settlements in Palestine? Why not a sincere attempt to pursue nuclear disarmament? Why not shift expenditures from a record build up of military might to peaceful pursuits? Why not seriously tackle global warming before it is too late? Why not address changes in wealth distribution in America to restore a fairer middle class society? Why not scrap Star Wars and accept that the skies belong to everyone? The list is endless.
Frank Rich`s longwinded tirade about Hillary and Clintons in general certainly does a lot of good to the country. If he thinks she is any problem after the last seven years of destruction, better think again. It would seem that his comments would be more appropriate on the Fox Republican news, or being a guest on Limbaugh or O`Reilly.
wonder6789 February 24th, 2008 3:00 pm
“Nader will be constantly hammering the war and its real economical price, thus seriously helping deflate the McCain/Bush III vote.”
curmudgeon99 February 24th, 2008 3:00 pm
“How much right wing Repuglican money has Nader been promised this time?”
Interesting thought: Nader takes 2x votes away from McCain. X votes go to him, but x votes go to the Democratic candidate, because x voters know Nader can’t win. Nader takes 3x votes away from the Democrats. All of which go to him. Thus, in the final equation, he takes 2x votes away from both the Republicans and the Democrats and doesn’t change the election at all.
A few have taken jabs at Al Gore. Pompous, perhaps, and professorial, probably.
But I have his movie on DVD and his book “Assault on Reason” on audio CD, both most inspiring, leaving me to longingly ponder what might have been.
What “W” will do in film and literature leaves me “w”ondering.
Ray Kondrasuk, if it’s my post you’re refering to, it was about Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, which resembled Hillary’s present one: hallow, out of touch.
Since his “defeat”, however, Gore’s found his real self, and has been one of the great freedom fighters of the Bush reign.
He was my A1 choice of candidate, and I wrote him a passionate letter urging him to run. Which he answered!
Since neither he nor 2nd best Edwards turned up, I’ve reconcilled myself with Obama’s decent candidacy, which gets better as he is gradually picking up the anti-war Left of MoveOn, Kucinich, Edwards.
One of the problems with Hillary was she was a victim of sorts of Bush/Clinton fatigue. People want change, not a continuation of the Bush-Clinton Dynasty, even though the shadow dynasty of Shultz-Baker-Brzezinski (Kissinger/Rockefeller) will continue.
The other thing that hurt her was her votes on Iran and Iraq, and her unwillingness to commit to pulling troops from Iraq before 2012 early on in the campaign.
Her lack of passion in her speeches was an issue. She sounded like a Barbie doll reading from a script with low batteries at times.
I wouldn’t write her off yet, as scandals have brought down many front runners, but if nothing comes up, he seems to have the momentum and if he wins Texas it will be all over for Hillary, except as his running mate (might happen if Bloomberg gets in the race as an independent).
Well, this article points out the best reason why Obama is a better choice than Hillary is for the office of President that I’ve ever seen: if he can extrapolate his skill at running his campaign into running the country, he really could be a good President.
So, I guess the question is, if Obama wins, will he use his organizational skills to help We, the People, or will he use them to help They, the Big Corporations?
Damned if I know.
Welcome to the two-parties theater of the absurd. Mr. Rich, you endorsed Ralph Nader, you just don’t realize it yet.
Frank rich writes: “Given that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama offer marginally different policy prescriptions - laid out in voluminous detail by both, by the way, on their Web sites - it’s not clear what her added-value message is.”
Shouldn’t Mr. Rich have added: “nor is it clear what Obama has in mind when he appeals to hope and change. And why isn’t he telling us what the hell he’s talking about?”
At least threaten to not vote for these corporate candidates. Withhold your vote until he promises something real. Make him do it! Why would he move to the left if he doesn’t have to? If you think he will once he’s in office, you are fooling yourself. He needs our help. It’ll be for his own good and certainly ours. VOTE NADER!
Ray Kondrasuk: I also have read Gore’s book, He is not the same Al Gore who was once V.P. As I
said in another post a few days ago, I think Gore should be on Obama’s list as a V.P. candidate.
No one agreed with the idea. Maybe there are two of us now.
“The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done.”
“Mr. Obama’s organizational strength.”
“the Obama campaign built a landslide-winning organization”
Gee even a black guy can buy his way into the White House these days. Campaign spending limits now!
My dream scenario.
Obama wins earned delegate count, popular vote.
Clinton takes it away at Dem convention by brokering w/ superdelegates.
Obama runs independent.
Bloomberg jumps in.
Ron Paul and Huckabee stay in.
So, it’s [left to right] Nader, Obama/Clinton, Bloomberg, McCain, Huckabee and Paul.
That would be fun.
A Clinton vice-presidency would drive me headlong into the greenery, and I’m still not sure if I wouldn’t vote McKinney over Obama anyway. If BHO moves a little more to the left (closing Guantanamo, pushing single payer, pursuing telecommunications criminals), I’d vote for him, no question.
I like Britney Spears for Vice-President on the Obama ticket.
She brings the emotion, he brings the android.
Obama-Spears 2008!!!
This isn’t the first time you’ve sounded like a racist, zazmo. Your colors are showing.
kathyodat
Nader’s a smart man. He’s the nail in Hillary’s coffin. and I don’t think he will hurt Obama at all. I’m a Nader voter from way back, but I’m still willing to vote for Obama this time around. Nader will improve the political discourse, however. Could use some. Unfortunately it also brings the Nader haters out of the woodwork as well. Oh well, what’s life without splinters?
I think John F. Butterfield has it right.
kathyodat
TheMan February 24th, 2008 3:00 pm
“We must make sure that more conservative Judges are not appointed or for another generation the courts will be controlled by the most radical conservative majority ever.”
The reason the court has a conservative tilt is because the Democrats in Congress refused to stand up to the Republicans and filibuster the appointments of Roberts and Alito, not because anyone voted for Nader. If you want to scaremonger then at least put the blame where it belongs.
“Also, I and others were disappointed that Nader did not challenge the stolen election of 2000. Even as the looser Nader could have made a difference and strengthened the Greens by using his celebrity to demand a recount, and even publicly explain all the fraud that was not talked about in the corporate media.”
And why should Nader challenge the stolen election? It wasn’t stolen from him, it was stolen from Gore. Why didn’t Gore stand up and challenge it?
Of course I guess you can blame Nader for anything if you’re willing to stretch reality and the facts enough.
“However, we are on the edge of totalitarianism. This is not the year. Sometimes we must take a step back so that we can move forward in the long run.”
I’ve heard that argument for 25 years, no election year is ever the right year to stand up and vote for what you know is right according to the two main parties whose goal is to remain in power. The definition of insanity is to repeatedly continue the same act, voting Republican or Democrat while each time expecting a different result.
Lobo Gris
What implosion? For reasons of their own, the media have decided that Obama is the most newsworthy candidate with the best narrative to generate headlines. But Hillary and he are both more or less identical representatives of the country’s second business party. Unlike Nader they would happily drive around with the bumper stickers “The business of America is business” on their expensive cars. Why aren’t people like Rich supporting candidates with a genuinely radical platform, rather than plumping for the candidate with the juiciest story line?
And why aren’t they out there sniffing out fraud in the ballot machines and ensuring that the election can’t be stolen again? If this were journalism, not churnalism, that’s exactly what they would be doing.
Both parties need new leadership. Obama is inspiring people, we haven’t seen that in a while. I still don’t see any one on the GOP side that can do that. I don’t know what Nader wants. He does not inspire me.
Nader zombies. Hunh. Talk about drinking the Kool Aid!
Is there a difference between Democrats and Republicans? Yes, but unfortunately the difference is marginal. Neither party advocates non-profit universal health care, immediate withdrawal from Iraq, decreasing the military budget or going after corporate crime as vigilantly as our law enforcement agencies chase pot smokers.
I am voting for Ralph Nader because he is the only candidate left standing again who truly represents a legitimate threat to the corporate mafia that rules over Washington D.C. His chances are dismal only because of an unenlightened public whose ignorance is constantly reinforced by corporate media. Nevertheless my conscience doesn’t allow me to vote for the status quo. We will never “overthrow the bastards” if we keep electing them to office!
I respect Ralph Nader for the positions he takes and agree that he could be helpful somewhere in the White House. But if Dennis K couldn’t do it running on exactly the same theme, with at least the Democratic umbrella to give him some traction, how will Nader? Aside from the obvious. Oh, and for Mr. Nader’s judgement? How about in 2000 when he said there was no difference between Bush and Gore? Good call Ralph.
I expect Nader to be no more than the equivalent of an annoying housefly in the general campaign. He certainly can’t expect better coverage than the MSM gave to Kucinich or Edwards. He’s a complete non-starter, without even the money (and subsequent clout) that Ross Perot had to force himself onto an equal footing in 1992. People talk about “Clinton fatigue”, so get ready for “Nader fatigue.” I feel it already…
Well we witnessed the beginning stages of Hillary’s own personal meltdown over the weekend. Her “Shame on You Barack Obama” is the beginning of the end for her campaign. Actually her campaign has been in free fall ever since the Feb 5th primaries (since her campaign team thought they would have the nomination sewed up by then). She could bow out gracefully with class, but expect a brutal fight until the bitter end. Expect nothing less than Clinton Inc. destroying the fabric of the Democratic Party.
“This is not the year”. That’s a worn out idea. There is no such thing as “the year”. The corporate oligarchy will see to that. I suspect that if Obama lets us down, there will be an uprising of disappointed no longer apathetic people. With the way this country’s headed, we’ve gone from pathetic to desperate. Putting our faith in Obama amounts to a Hail Mary. Which might pay off. I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think so. Since the rest of the country isn’t ready for a revolt, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
kathyodat