Needless to say, this ("Clinton Slams Democratic Activists At Private Fundraiser") was not a good move by Hillary Clinton. And here is the reaction ("this is completely unacceptable" - Jane Hamsher). And then there's this ("Clinton trashes 'activists' and MoveOn at closed-door fundraiser"). Whoops!
UPDATE: Ironically, MoveOn started with the aim of defending President Bill Clinton.
They started by passing around a petition asking Congress to "censure President Clinton and move on", as opposed to impeaching him. The petition, passed around by word of mouth, was extremely successful; ultimately, they had half a million signatures.
UPDATE: Man, how times have changed. Check this out from July 24, 2007, courtesy of Kos:
Hillary Clinton Communications Direct Howard Wolfson will go on O'Reilly's program (8 p.m.) to debate him on YearlyKos. It appears this is no longer operative. Hillary appears invested in the netroots, which is a great thing for all of us.
Ha, so much for that!
When MoveOn asked its membership whether it wished to support Hillary or Obama (after setting a two-thirds barrier to decide the question), about 70 percent voted to support Obama.
Yeah, Hillary has not been pleased with the activist Democratic base--versus her preferred local machines run by city mayors.
Maybe Hillary figures that she can now play this issue to prove that she isn't a leftist/liberal/commie/bomb-thrower, and thereby pick up a few extra votes in rural Pennsylvania. But by doing so, she also throws away any remote possibility that she could win the general election. She is now entering genuine delusional territory.
And by the way, Hillary's claim that MoveOn opposed military action against al Qaeda in Afghanistan is simply a Rovian lie, a typical Republican piece of disinformation.
At the beginning of this campaign, though I would have been happy to vote for Obama, Edwards, or Richardson, I was also willing to give Hillary the benefit of the doubt if she ran an effective campaign and ended up with the nomination. But she hasn't run an effective campaign.
I couldn't vote for McCain, but after Hillary's (and Bill's) race-baiting, negative antics of the past three months, I--and likely millions of others who regard themselves as political "progressives"--would rather sit out the election than vote for her.
No wonder Hillary is bitter and reactionary against a base she could NOT INSPIRE and could NOT COERCE. Her old school machine politics are not working on the fired up internet crowd to the effect she somewhat counted on (she counted more on her connected sphere of party insiders and money donors).
I'm not a big fan of MoveOn.org .... some of their people have been very acid on politicians if they didn't go their way (see Webb on FISA). But come on .. this is a another sign of a troubled campaign that has lost its strongest potential advocates.
I reject Hillary, Billary and their politics!! I'm an activist for something better ... and I see the best in Obama.
Go OBAMA!!! Let's put this AWAY and move on against John McCain.
Never mind that Obama has almost 1.4 million donors -- many of whom I suspect are not MoveOn members (although I'm sure no candidate would mind having financial support from MoveOn's 3.2 million members -- HRC just gave a nice rallying cry for fence sitters to throw in their time and money behind Obama's candidacy).
Never mind that Obama has pulled in a bunch of new voters who probably are even younger than the average MoveOn demographic; and that he has also pulled in independents from the political center.
More than anything Clinton's statement was just a really bizarre attempt to spin away the implosion of her campaign -- to steer away attention from the fact that even with over $150 million -- her people did not use resources wisely and completely sat out most of the mid-February contests because the campaign was broke.
Just another case of a leader who shifts blame rather than accepting responsibility. On top of it she repeats one of Rove's lies about MoveOn's alleged opposition to the Afghanistan invasion -- a statement that was a flat out lie.
I am on MoveOn's list, but I am not an active member -- I signed on a few eons ago because they were one of the few groups talking about the FISA debacle. I think the "Betrayus" ad was boneheaded politics and didn't serve the organization's ends. But even though I disagree with some of MoveOn's tactics, I don't see why any Democratic leader intent on building the coalition would directly insult 3.2 million very active members -- all ordinary citizens.
The Clinton campaign has been good at raising the negativity level the weekend before primaries, but this one is just a hugely boneheaded gaffe on Clinton's part. Last throes perhaps?
The Clinton's are living in a time capsule. In that capsule it is still 1992 and the world is theirs. They missed the revolution in the Democratic Party. They don't understand the netroots politics. They don't understand real grassroots organizing. They are of the old school machine politics school, and in their minds they still run the Democratic Party. Too bad life has passed them by. Its time they both retire or do whatever people do when they can't change with the times.
Barack Obama is a genius at grassroots politics AND at using the internet to build a political movement and manage a campaign. Its only fitting that the movement which has been building with Howard Dean's 50 state strategy would find the perfect marriage with the Obama candidancy. One can see this in the fact that Obama too is running a campaign based on a 50 state strategy. What he and Dean understand, and what the Clintons don't, is that you must build a base which can get a Democratic Congress to Washington. Otherwise your presidency will be paralyzed.
So with the implosion of Hillary Clinton's campaign we are really seeing the implosion of the old style of Democratic politics and the emergence of the new Democratic Party. This is a huge change and I believe it is the hope not only of the Democratic Party, but of the country as well.
Maybe after all the primaries, Senator Clinton will attack democracy for injuring her campaign.
1) She though she would have the Nomination sewed up on Super Tuesday, due to her name recognition and her (at the time) superior edge in large states.
2) Obama comes in, and through the Caucuses and small primaries, not only avoids defeat, but actually comes out ahead. How DARE he win states like Idaho, Colorado, and Utah like that by huge margins!
3) Her carefully laid out (but flawed) plan comes ravelling apart, as she sees that Obama has been busy organizing in other states post Super Tuesday (like Virginia, Maryland, Wisconsin and others). And she looks at the that only way he can be beating her is with money.
Where is he getting this money? Netroots. that HAS to be the answer. Deans' people were Netroots in 2003 when he raised all that money, they MUST be the people who are propelling Obama into contention.
But she is wrong. the Netroots may be contributing to his campaign, but far more average citizens are contributing. Over 2 million people donating? Come on!
Hillary has been waiting since January for Obama to give a "Dean Yell" to kill his campaign, and it will never happen. Too many people are invested in the Obama Campaign.
Where's the apology from all those so-called Democrats who only a few months ago carped endlessly that "Obama supporters" were "repeating right-wing talking points?" They were wrong. Don't expect them to admit it, though. They follow the Clinton/Bush mantra: never apologize, never explain.
This debate is about nothing less than the heart and soul of the Democratic party. It is about democracy. The party, and the country, belong to the voters, not to the cynical operatives who engineered Hillary Clinton's failed campaign.
This won't get national media play like the Obama's remarks about bitter voters. Who really cares if she dissed the 'roots. The media certainly doesn't.
*The Chicago Tribune
*The New York Times ("Mrs. Clinton created a controversy of her own Friday evening when disparaging comments she had made against the liberal group Moveon.org were made public.")
*The LA Times
*The Wall Street Journal
The irony here is that "Bittergate" and this Clinton statement are IDENTICAL in terms of the circumstances. The substance is the same as well -- i.e. behind closed doors a politician says something that might insult a segment of voters.
The difference here is that huge disconnect that exists between Clinton's public and private statements on this issue -- and the near complete absence of media coverage of the statement.
I thought BitterGate was blown out of proportion -- and actually probably helped Obama in the short-run. But it looks like cable news is employing it's "b.s. controversies" standard selectively. Business as usual.
Also, thanks to DailyKos we now know that Hillary Clinton is not a Democrat.
It is heartening to know that all these folks that call themselves Democrats or progressives would sit by and allow John McCain to be elected president if somehow in the unlikely scenario that Hillary would win the nomination.
It doesn't take a genius to see why Democrats lose elections.
I would not put simply winning re-election as his greatest achievement.
Also, let's be honest -- he was terrible for the manufacturing sector. The deals he cut with Mexico, Canada, Vietnam, and China have played no small part in the loss of good paying American jobs.
In terms of middle class issues -- especially for those with college degrees -- he was on balance pretty good. His foreign policy contained a few stumbles in the first term, but he did a pretty good job during his second term.
Last time I checked though there was an intervening 8 years between his presidency and the current contest.
It is equally true -- as best I can see -- that his name is not on this year's ballot.
Hillary should be judged on her merits. Bill on his.
In the 90s Bill talked about Hope. Hillary ridicules that notion -- just words apparently.
We're talking about ghosts though at this point -- the Clintons have become a shadow of their former selves. The demands of 2008 are not the demands of 2000. Nostalgia has its place, but a lot has taken place between the intervening years between 2000 and 2008.
Anyone who thinks it would be better to have McCain elected as opposed to Clinton can't see the forest for the trees.