Hillary’s Voice

Matt Davies (Matt has a great retrospective slideshow of his cartoons on the 2008 Democratic primary)

Obama Meets Clinton at Feinstein’s House (by Taylor Marsh)
According to The New York Times, Senator Feinstein was asked if she heard “shouting.” Seriously? Where do they get these reporters?

Before the speech: ‘Everyone’s going to be monitoring every syllable.’ (by Lori Price at Citizens for Legitimate Government)
MSNBC’s GOP foot-soldier (and Coup 2000 palliator) Timmy Russert, speculating on whether Hillary Clinton will surrender hard enough.
Remember when Bill Clinton could never apologize enough?  I had a really bad case of déjà vu on Saturday.

Clinton Democrats (by Anglachel)
Hillary gave a brilliant, powerful, astute and compelling speech [Saturday]. It was not actually a concession speech, though that was part of the mix. It was a challenge to the media, the corrupt and co-opted blogosphere, to the petty backstabbers of the DNC, and, yes, to every rank-and-file Democrat, no matter who they supported in the primary. What we watched [Saturday] was Hillary laying out, in pitch-perfect detail, a vision of the Democratic Party that justifies its reason to exist, identifies the people it must represent, and outlines the conditions under which it may legitimately hold power. Those who hold to this vision are Clinton Democrats.
Click here to read a transcript of Hillary’s speech on Saturday.

A Great Speech (by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft)
Hillary Clinton did something that is very difficult in my opinion, she made a great speech out of a concession endorsement speech. Why? Because she conceded nothing on the issues nor in any way discounted what she and her supporters accomplished. And then she endorsed him, but the endorsement was not the standard stump endorsement. It was an intelligent, rational, respectful argument to her supporters for why she was endorsing Barack Obama. she would speak to the issues and punctuate her line with “and that is why we must elect Barack Obama President.”

They just can’t let us have our moment (by Lance Mannion)
ABC’s Jake Tapper and George Stephanopolos just interrupted Hillary’s speech to tell us that when she mentioned Barack Obama’s name they heard some boos. I didn’t hear any myself, but what does it matter if a few nitwits booed, assuming they were even booing Obama and not the idea that Hillary was finally giving up?  Apparently a lot to Tapper and Stephanopolos. As I was storming out of the room in a rage to write this post, they were still gassing on and on about what a problem Obama’s going to have uniting the party. It’s a great day for Democrats but the Insiders have to ruin it for us, because it’s important for us all to know that everything’s bad for the Democrats, even a celebration. By the way, the moment they chose to interrupt her was while she was championing the Democratic message.  Can’t have the audience thinking this election might actually be about something, can we.

So much for reaching out to us ASAP (by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
After working hard all morning accepting the support that Clinton gave him, after all of the heavy lifting he did last week by accepting the gifts that the RBC gave him, Barry went golfing.
Howard Dean, however, DID reach out to us immediately.  Within SECONDS.  To ask for money.  I told him I may consider donating to the Democratic Party once Barack Obama has crawled on his belly like a reptile to beg forgiveness of Hillary Clinton and her supporters for how he and his supporters have treated us.

“And we get?” (by lambert at Corrente)
Still waiting for the word on that from Obama.
The only reason Obama crossed the finish line first is that he was carried across by the party Clinton haters.  And that is a FACT.  Those leaders and their candidate will have to make some serious concessions before their guy gets my vote.  He’ll have to earn it the old-fashioned way—by a serious move in favor of progressive solutions, not this mealy-mouthed crap he’s been peddling.  My support beyond just my vote will cost even more.  See below, for some ideas, Senator Obama.  Your supporters have called me a whore, so I demand payment for my vote.  If you want my SUPPORT, it will cost you even more.

This is how the unity pony works…. (by garychapelhill at The Confluence)
Obama has consistently told those of us who have been loyal democrats our whole lives one thing: “you’ll get nothing and like it”. He expects us to vote for him without even paying lip service to us. The cries of “what about Roe v Wade” and “McCain wants to stay in Iraq 100 years” are all we hear. They want to make us feel guilty about not voting for him rather than address our concerns as loyal party members. In fact, they have actively purged many of us to satisfy their new base of African Americans and liberal elite.
With Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, they could stop whatever they wanted to stop, even with McCain as president.

Well, Senator Obama, the ball is in your court now (by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
Did you get the message, Barry? We have principles, issues, causes. We are not yielding one inch. You may have gotten to nomination with the help of your frat boys and your Villagers and your libertarians and your theoretical-liberals-as-long-as-we-don’t-have-to-live-in-the-same-neighborhood-*sniff* fauxgressives and ignorant young college students who don’t remember the nineties. But you aren’t going to win it unless you get down on your knees and convince *US* that you are willing to adopt her causes as your own. She just told you that you will have to work hard for a change. She just told you to be inclusive. She just told you to accept responsibility. Can you do it?

Sorry Gang – I’m Just Not There Yet (by Alegre at the Democratic Daily)
I just can’t do it – not yet. I respect Hillary more than words can say and I know she did what she had to do [Saturday]… I’m not saying I won’t ever get there as far as voting for the guy goes. At this point BO might (might) get my vote in November if he ends up being our nominee. But he’s going to have to work damn hard to win my vote after the way he lied about Hillary, and remained silent as the media and even his own supporters and staff attacked her with some of the most bizarre and misogynistic load of garbage I’ve ever heard. As for Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi et al, I don’t think the DNC realize just what a serious problem they’ve created after the way they’ve treated Hillary. We don’t support a party that throws our candidate under the bus in favor of another. And unless they work their ass off to undo the damage they’ve done, they’re going to be hard-pressed to get our votes.
Oh, but Alegre, haven’t you heard?  We’re now dead enders (see below).  And according to some of the comments I’ve seen, we should be eating crow.  We should immediately turn on a dime and support the anointed candidate because you KNOW that’s just what THEY would do if Clinton had prevailed.

3 A.M. For Feminism (by Michelle Goldberg at The New Republic)
Clinton dead-enders and the crisis in the women’s movement. [Emphasis added.]
Also, Mike Finnigan was so kind as to name me specifically as a dead ender.  Thanks for the unifying epithet, Mike.  Why don’t you just take me into a room, and only you come out?  That’s what your candidate says he will do to Congress.

[Whoopin’ ‘em] (Political Radar, ABC News)
[A]t a town hall in Bristol, Virginia, … Obama met a 95-year-old African American man, whose daughter told Obama that he had waited his whole life for this moment. The man wobbled slowly to the stage and presented Obama with a maple wood walking stick as a gift. The presumptive democratic nominee, clearly feeling his oats, took the stick and said, “If members of Congress don’t pass my health care bill - I’ll whoop ‘em, I’ll whoop ‘em. That’s right, you better not mess with me, and I’ll have that stick.”
Of course, the Transcendent candidate already confronted Lieberman quite forcefully, so let’s see how well that kind of conciliation worked out.  See below.

Lieberman to head pro-McCain ‘organization’ (by Steve Benen at Crooks and Liars)
It’s hard not to get the sense that Joe Lieberman is just taunting Dems at this point. Lieberman doesn’t want to just burn the bridge to the ground, he wants to pour salt in the earth around the wreckage. Wednesday, Lieberman joined a conference call coordinated by a right-wing House member to bash Barack Obama. Yesterday, he announced the creation of what he calls a “new grassroots organization,” called, “Citizens for McCain.” From the letter the McCain campaign distributed today (no link available):

Monday: Obama Pod People (by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
We last few remnants of the “shrieking band of paranoid holdouts” are now under attack… In the past day, The Confluence, Corrente, Reclusive Leftist, Anglachel and others have seen a number of pod people showing up in the comments.  They *say* they are regulars but for some reason, they speak the language of the converted… But this is forced.  It comes from some external source.  It takes on our identities but it is not one of us.  There’s no emotion.  It’s empty… [W]hy go the psychological warfare route?… Why not try to win us over with the force of the policy proposals, committments to our causes, understanding and acknowledgment of the principles we hold dear?…

But here’s an even better question?  Why bother at all?  We’re just little asteroids floating along in the blogoverse, our carbon footprints barely noticeable amidst all of the bigger and more numerous pieces of space debris.  The amount of attention now dedicated to bringing us into compliance seems inversely proportional to our importance. Or is it? Maybe you guys need us after all.

Speaking of the math and the RBC…. (by lambert at Corrente)
Is this right? “…[Clinton] had over 100 delegates from Florida and 73 from Michigan. If he got zero from Michigan and both states had been able to seat with full strength, she could have added over 86 delegates and he would have lost 59. Hmm, that brings her total to 1725 and Obama’s to 1707.” [Emphasis added.] Looks to me like the SDs did their job in the sense that they exercised their judgment, and awarded the nomination to Obama. That doesn’t make their decision illegitimate, I suppose… But the system that structured process that enabled decision? About as legitimate as the system that enabled Bush v. Gore in 2000. Start with the undemocratic nature of the caucus system, and end with stealing votes, and it’s hard to see how, over time, people — other than Villagers and the “creative class” [cough] can hold their noses hard enough or long enough to avoid the stench of decay.

If they really are the victors………………..  (by The Red Queen at Elizabitchez)
… then why are they trolling like jilted, psychotic ex boyfriends? It’s not just my blog that has had to turn the comments mod on because of trolls and stalkers… The fact that you continue to squall and fuss about Teh Rulz indicates that you know very well that the circumstances of his nomination are artificial. You need to accept that there is a big, fat asterisk next to Obama’s name in the history books… Threats, harassment, obsessive trolling, occasional moments of clarity where they try to act nice only to blow up the second a problem with the legitimacy of the campaign is mentioned. Mostly they act like assholes in the hope that eventually they will wear us down so we will give them what they want. Legitimacy and their manhood back. And the more they use these measures, the more entrenched we girls become in our decision to leave. And so they push harder, troll more, threaten more. And we become more entrenched.

Dean and Pelosi Sabotaged Hillary (by Reba Shimansky, via email)
On “Meet the Press: [Sunday] on “Meet the Press” Chuck Todd NBC`s political director said that Hillary`s campaign was sabotaged by Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi because congressional democrats believe that the Clinton brand is bad for the party. This is ridiculous since Bill Clinton is the first democrat to serve 2 full terms since FDR and left office with record high approval ratings because times were good during his administration. And Hillary running for the Senate saved a democratic Senate seat from going Republican.

That is why the super delegates flocked to Obama while Hillary was running primary after primary during the last 2/3`s of the race. Hillary did not lose -Obama was anointed by the establishment. The Democrats have made a value judgment that the Obama brand is superior to the Clinton brand and therefore this is why I consider myself a former democrat.
Click here to read the MTP transcript.

I heard from a friend attending the Texas state convention that the Clinton supporters didn’t let the Obama supporters walk all over them.  The Obama folks seem surprised!  We’re supposed to roll over and play dead, don’t you know?  We’re supposed to capitulate immediately.  We’re supposed to relax and enjoy it.

DNC RALLY FOR DEMOCRACY in Denver, Colorado to coincide with the Democratic National Convention, August 24-26 2008
As Democrats, Republicans and Independents, we believe we have witnessed a DNC who, in their quest for power, has abandoned all democratic principles, and in doing so, has attempted to substantially weaken our Constitutional Rights, slapped the faces of those who founded, fought for and died for our great nation, and subjugated millions to their elitist left-wing agenda.
Actually, I think they’re wrong about the DNC supporting a left-wing agenda in choosing Obama, although we really don’t know for sure.  Obama’s past associations are with radical leftists and separatists.  But the vast majority of his campaign advisers are right wingers.  His policy prescriptions are derivative of other Democrats’ proposals with right-wing shit thrown in.  It’s quite a confusing mish-mash.

Reba Shimansky Talks to The Page (Mark Halperin at The Page, Time Magazine)

“I am very angry at the way Hillary has been treated by the Democratic Party during the last three months. When Hillary was winning the majority of the primaries, the superdelegates were flocking to Obama. The Democratic professionals wanted to please Obama more than Hillary because they valued his supporters more than Hillary’s. I have said that I would do anything in my limited capacity to destroy Obama’s candidacy (who I do not like because of his trashing of Bill Clinton and his accomplishments as president) and the best way to do that is to vote for McCain. It is an emotional not rational vote. My loyalty is to Hillary not the Democratic Party.”
Reba Shimansky is a renowned… Democratic pundit and activist.

Partisan (by Anglachel)
What did Hillary’s speech focus on? Getting power and retaining power in order to do right by her constituents. It really can be boiled down to that… To be partisan is to pick sides and fight for advantage in pursuit of a goal. Voluntary relinquishing of that power, which is what we have watched Pelosi and Reid do time and again, is simply stupid… So I chose to remain in my party and be a gadfly, returning fundrainsing letters with diatribes, nagging my Congress critters, making my dissatisfaction known, and being involved in thwarting the current corrupt regime… The Democratic Party leadership is acting in ways that damage the ability of the party to expand its power. In the end, all personalities aside, that is what matters. They appear to enjoy engaging in Republican tactics agaisnt their own members while getting screwed over by the Republicans on matters that affect ordinary people’s lives. It’s time for Democratic partisans to come to the defense of their party.

Don’t tell me how to hold my nose (by katiebird at The Confluence)
[O]n November 3, 2004 I promised myself that I was never, ever going to hold my nose and vote again. All those months we defended Kerry — all over the country Democrats just like me trying to explain to our friends and neighbors “what Kerry meant.” And for all I know getting it all wrong. ‘Cause who the hell really ever knew what he meant? And now Obama. Even without knowing if “The Tape” exists, I know exactly what it would mean to hold my nose for Barack Obama. It would mean spending the next five months explaining why Barack Obama’s shady friends are meaningless compared to the danger of electing John McCain… And if we can get past the shady connections, how do we explain his utter lack of qualifications? Somehow Obama managed to get through this entire campaign without any public acknowledgment that this will be his first serious job.

Keeping the pace to the finish line is a win for Clinton (by Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune)
Thank you, Hillary Clinton. Thank you for not quitting before it was time… For her candidacy to matter as much as it might, for it to genuinely advance the possibility of a woman as president in some year before the ice caps melt, she needed to keep the pace all the way to the finish line, even if she didn’t cross it first… Hillary has not been a perfect candidate… What she has been is a tough, smart, energetic, passionate campaigner who attracted almost 18 million voters and ran neck-and-neck until the very end… This week CBS News released a poll on Clinton. It showed that seven in 10 voters think her candidacy will make it easier for other women to run for president. Seventy-six percent of Democrats said it would. So did 63 percent of Republicans. If she’d quit the race before now, those numbers wouldn’t be so high.

She Was a Front-runner, and She Stood Up For Women’s Rights (by K.A. Geier of The G Spot, writing at The American Prospect)
Clinton has always been staunchly pro-choice, but her feminist agenda went far beyond that. Clinton has been a strong advocate of expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act, guaranteed paid sick leave, promoting workplace flexibility, and outlawing workplace discrimination against parents. She has also championed universal pre-K and high-quality child care, providing reproductive and other health care services for women in the U.S. and greater access to reproductive health care overseas, fighting AIDS in the U.S. and globally, and expanding women’s opportunity as a tool for global economic development. But the part of Clinton’s feminist policy agenda that I particularly appreciate has been her efforts to strengthen anti-discrimination legislation… If Barack Obama wants to win the support of Clinton’s legion of female supporters, the best thing he could do would be to wholeheartedly adopt Clinton’s feminist policy agenda, and speak out frequently and forcefully in favor of laws and programs that protect the rights of women.

What Hillary Won (by Gail Collins)
Nobody is ever again going to question whether it’s possible for a woman to go toe-to-toe with the toughest male candidate in a race for president of the United States… Her campaign was messy, and it made some fatal tactical errors. But nobody who sent her a donation could accuse her of not giving them their money’s worth. For all her vaunting ambition, she was never a candidate who ran for president just because it’s the presidency. She thought about winning in terms of the things she could accomplish, and she never forgot the women’s issues she had championed all her life — repair of the social safety net, children’s rights, support for working mothers. It’s not the same as winning the White House. But it’s a lot.
I often disagree with Collins, but she’s spot on here.

Clinton’s Real Victory (by Marie Wilson, founder and president of the White House Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that aims to advance women’s leadership)
Clinton’s candidacy has brought unprecedented visibility to women’s leadership. We may at times have disagreed with her campaign tactics, her voting record or her political maneuverings… But whether we liked Clinton the person or Clinton the candidate pales in comparison with this unassailable truth: Her candidacy has helped change the political game forever. Now it’s up to the rest of us to do our part — by encouraging women’s leadership in every shape and form… This race does not end with Hillary Clinton’s campaign. By helping to fill the pipeline with a critical mass of diverse, well-equipped women, Clinton’s candidacy has changed everything about the future of leadership in this country. And that is a legacy of which she — and our nation — should be proud.

Vital election courtship (by Jill Zuckman, Chicago Tribune)
[A]fter wrapping up the Democratic nomination in a long and bruising battle against a popular female politician, Sen. Barack Obama will begin his general election push trying to attract women voters who feel a keen sense of disappointment that Sen. Hillary Clinton will not become the first female president next year… [A]ccording to a new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Obama’s image among white women has declined dramatically as he has clashed with Clinton. Just 43 percent of them hold a positive opinion of Obama, compared with 56 percent in late February.
To me, the galling part is not that Hillary could have been the first woman nominee or president, it’s that she was pushed out of the race, and her male opponent given extra points by the supposed referees, in order to beat her.

Clinton Bloc Becomes the Prize for Election Day (by Jodi Kantor, New York Times)
With Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s ending her campaign for the Democratic nomination, the presumptive nominees are moving to claim her followers, especially her signature bloc, the millions of women who cast primary votes for her. Senator Barack Obama’s campaign is positioning itself as the rightful heir to these Democratic voters… “The wounds of sexism need to be the subject of a national discussion,” the [party] chairman, Howard Dean, said in an interview… [Long-time feminist Gloria] Steinem advised that Mr. Obama deliver the same sort of ambitious speech about sex that he did on race. An aide said the campaign was considering such an address.
You know, I REALLY don’t want Obama to deliver a speech on sexism.  He has run a purposefully sexist campaign, and I’d think a whole lot less of him (hard to imagine, I know) if he did that.

Come up with better reasons or shut up. (by John: south of Melrose at Liberal Rapture)
Clinton supporters came to her initially because of her experience. We liked her. We did not - in large part - become fervently committed to her until the media and Obama’s campaign began to trash her… As the dust settles it is entirely possible that some Clinton voters will re-look at Obama. As the year went on it became clear that Clinton voters wanted meat and potatoes answers. All the massaging by the media after Iowa did not change that in some states Obama must have in November… Even with all those wins, there is little evidence that Obama convinced any voters beyond those who “consume” politics on the most basic level. In fact, Obama, the man, has not been sold. Obama, the myth, has been. It worked in caucuses and a few primaries. It will not work on the most committed Clinton voters… I don’t know who will win the election. I do know this: unless you can give me legitimate reasons why I should help elevate this man to the White House - I wish you’d just shut up.

White Male Pundit Power (by Ari Melber, The Nation)
It’s still all about the white men. Hillary Clinton’s loss has renewed critiques that American political media is slanted, sexist and dominated by men. While Clinton and Obama broke barriers in the Democratic primary, swiftly dispatching white male Senators with more government experience, the race was still refereed, scored and narrated by white male commentators, an influential constituency in presidential politics. Pundits talked a lot about gender and racial progress during the campaign, of course, but the elite opinion media continues to employ, groom and promote a commentators corps that is disproportionately white and male.
Yes, and that very situation applies to The Nation, as well, despite the fact that it has a female editor in chief.

Signe Wilkinson (reprise)

Wall Street Bets on Obama for President (Capital Eye)
Wall Street seems to have selected Barack Obama for its own major investment this election cycle. Traditionally an industry that gives to Republicans, securities and investment companies have been pouring money into the coffers of both the Illinois senator and former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, giving nearly $15 million combined to the two, according to Reuters, citing data from CRP.

A Dollar Deluge (by Steve Soto at the Left Coaster)
One of the benefits of developing a 1.5 million member donor list is that you can drown your GOP opponent in a two-month general election sprint. Politico.com ran a good story yesterday pointing out that Obama can use that list and those small donors to gather upwards of $300 million to smother McCain’s lackluster fundraising, even if McCain changes course and ditches public financing. Worse yet for the GOP, if Obama and Clinton were able to merge lists and allow Obama to pull large and small donations from the larger combined pool of Democratic donors, Team Obama could set up large operations in purple and even red states and force McCain to spend critical money just defending his electoral base.
Three problems with your theory, Steve.  One is the assumption that all the Clinton donors (lots of us small guys, too) will donate to Obama.  I, for one, will not.  The other assumption is that blitz advertising will work, without question.  I think Clinton’s victories in Indiana and some of the other states where she prevailed, despite Obama’s huge media buys, disproves that assumption.  The third difficulty is that all of you keep forgetting that George Bush will be using every area of government he has control over to get John McCain elected.  No paid media blitz can counter the effects of the full force of government used on behalf of one candidate.  It’s really distressing that no one will pay attention to me on this issue.  For example, see below.

Joschka Fischer: Why Israel will attack Iran this year (by lambert at Corrente)
[V]ia RGE Monitor… Good to know. Maybe this is why all those Air Force guys were fired…
Anyone following the press in Israel during the anniversary celebrations and listening closely to what was said in Jerusalem did not have to be a prophet to understand that matters are coming to a head. Consider[:]… “While Israeli military intelligence is on record as saying that Iran is expected to cross the red line on the path to nuclear power between 2010 and 2015 at the earliest, the feeling in Israel is that the political window of opportunity to attack is now, during the last months of Bush’s presidency.”

Rev. Wright dominated media’s presidential primary coverage. (Think Progress)
The Project for Excellence in Journalism has officially crowned Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) relationship with his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, “the dominant media story of the entire” presidential campaign, “by far.” Wright’s comments “received four times more coverage than any other theme or event throughout the campaign.” Reports of the superdelegate role and Obama’s so-called “bitter” comments were the second and third most covered stories, respectively. However, “[n]o other story line came close to attracting as much coverage as the Wright-Obama association, and most of it was negative.”
But that negativity didn’t affect Democratic voters much.  We’ll have to see how much it affects the general election—IF it continues.

On education, McCain & Obama may not be far apart (On Politics, USA Today)
Two top education advisers to Republican presidential contender John McCain and his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, took the stage together today in Washington at an event sponsored by the Association of Educational Publishers.

Lots more really good stuff at MakeThemAccountable.com.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com