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Thursday, May 18, 2006

Derailing the Hillary juggernaut
Posted by Jill | 6:49 AM
At a time when this country has never been so polarized, there is one thing that the Christofascist Zombie Brigade, libertarian conservatives, the progressive netroots, and even the Pacifica left can agree on: we all dislike Hillary Clinton.

I hate to be so hard on the woman. I remember the viciousness she endured for eight years -- the comments about her thick ankles, her hairdos, her cold demeanor; the snarky speculation that she's really a lesbian (Lynne Cheney, call your office); and that's BEFORE we get to her marital problems being spread all over the mainstream media while the talking heads salivate with glee. She hasn't had an easy time, and I give her credit for not losing it on national television and getting to the point where she's even CONSIDERED a presidential contender.

But none of that means I have to support her.

I will not support Hillary Clinton for the presidency for one plain and simple reason: I will support NO ONE who voted for the Iraq war, particularly someone who is unrepentant about that vote. Like a short guy who swaggers around like John Wayne and rattles his saber at whoever will listen (George W. Bush, call your office), Hillary's more-bellicose-than-thou support not just of the Iraq war but also of expanding the war into Iran is enough to disqualify her in my book. Add in her endless chasing of ever-more-rightward positions on ridiculous issues like flag burning and violence in video games, and she looks more and more like Joementum in drag.

For the last year, it was a foregone conclusion that Hillary, with her huge war chest (insert your own snarky comment here), was the inevitable nominee. The Democratic Party has even adjusted the primary schedule to ensure her early wrap-up of the nomination. But there are rumblings now that the same party hacks who decided, and are still deciding that Howard Dean Must Be Stopped (Paul Begala, call your office) are rethinking their stand on the Inevitability of Hillary.

Bob Herbert:

A WNBC/Marist Poll released this week found that 60 percent of registered voters in Mrs. Clinton's home state of New York believe that she will make a run for the White House. But 66 percent of the voters do not think she will be elected president. Even Democratic voters seemed skeptical. Fifty-seven percent of the Democrats surveyed said it was "not very likely" or "not likely at all" that she would be elected.

Numbers like that coming out of New York, a heavily Democratic state in which Mrs. Clinton is extremely popular, are a recipe for anxiety. "It might give Democrats pause," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll. He said the numbers might indicate that she had some "repair work" to do on the all-important matter of electability.

She has other problems.

Democratic voters, fed up with the policies and the incompetence of the Bush administration, are looking for genuine leadership this time around. They are tired of Democrats who seem to have mortgaged their core principles and put their courage in cold storage.

So they worry when Mrs. Clinton, in an era when civil liberties are being eroded in the United States, goes out of her way to co-sponsor a bill that would criminalize the burning of the American flag. And they worry about her support for President Bush's war in Iraq. And they really worry when they hear that Rupert Murdoch, of all people, will be hosting a fund-raiser for her.

It's way early. The presidential primaries are more than a year and a half away. But whether it's fair or not, the candidate perceived to be in the lead gets the closest early scrutiny.

When the crunch comes, the toughest issue for Mrs. Clinton may be the one that so far has been talked about the least. If she runs, she'll be handicapped by her gender. Anyone who thinks it won't be difficult for a woman to get elected president of the United States should go home, take a nap, wake up refreshed and think again.

Being a woman will cost Mrs. Clinton. How much is anybody's guess. In a close race, it might be two percentage points, or four, or more.

The curtain has already gone up on this drama. And while the strategists may claim that this or that development is inevitable, the only thing we can really be sure of is that history is full of surprises.


On Monday night I went to the book signing/roundtable for Crashing the Gate in Hoboken, and I was gratified to see that Kos has abandoned his short-lived but ominous "democratic unity" leanings and returned to the netroots where he's been most effective. He noted, in response to my question about when the Democrats are going to give up on this ridiculous "electability" meme, that Hillary Clinton is seen less and less as "electable".

It grieves me to be so vociferous in my opposition to an accomplished woman who in terms of intelligence, at least, is eminently qualified to occupy the White House. But if the Democrats think that progressive women are going to show up in droves just to see a woman in the White House is ridiculous. What the Hillary boosters fail to recognize is that Bill Clinton wasn't elected because he "ran as a centrist", or because he triangulated, or because he surrounded himself with people like James Carville and Paul Begala and Mike McCurry and Donna Brazile -- sellouts who are now themselves raking in the corporate cash. Bill Clinton was elected for two reasons: because he was running in a three-way race against an unpopular and inarticulate incumbent, and because he was Bill Clinton -- the most charismatic politician since John Kennedy.

Hillary will have neither of these luxuries in her favor. Her handlers and the pundits seem to think that she can thumb her nose at the netroots as if we were pesky flies buzzing around the church picnic. Matt Stoller notes that Hillary is betting that because we haven't yet been successful in turning out the vote in any significant way, she can continue to thumb her nose at us. But as Stoller points out:

My guess is that she will be able to get through the primaries without progressives, but it will be difficult for her to draw upon us when she is swift-boated in the General election campaign. After years of not reaching out, and possibly a bunch of Sista Souljah moments (she is paying attention to Bill's advice, after all), bloggers are not necessarily going to want to defend her from salacious attacks inevitably involving Bill and their marriage.


The way the 2008 Democratic race is shaping up so far looks alarming like 2004 -- a netroots-supported progressive candidate (Russ Feingold) makes a strong showing in the early primaries, but is unable to overcome the money disadvantage, because he won't be able to generate the [corporate] funding in the face of a clear front-runner. The Hillary camp delivers the knockout punch by Iowa, and then it's clear sailing from then on. Once she's the nominee, we get to re-live the greatest hits of the Clinton Scandals 24 x 7, as the screaming heads of wingnut radio are re-energized and Paula Zahn tries to prove her Fox News credentials by obligingly running an endless tape loop of the infamous Monica Lewinsky Rope Line Hug. Afraid of being perceived as shrill, Hillary decides to take the high road and not fight back -- and by the time election day comes, 62% of Americans believe she kidnapped the Lindbergh baby, masterminded the 9/11 attacks, and crucified Jesus. And she gets her ass kicked. And the Democrats STILL will not have learned.

But Bob Shrum and Mandy Grunwald and Harold Ickes and Ann Lewis will be grinning as they take their suitcases full of percentage-of-ad-buy money all the way to the bank.
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