I'm listening to Ed Schultz, and he caught my attention about the new 527 that Clinton's supporters are forming to help her beat back the Obama support around the country. I've read a little bit, but the first thing that came to mind is how far the mighty have fallen.
The second thing that came to mind is anger. The Democratic Party is coming back from the dead. The 1980's really hurt us, and the response from the people in power was to reach out to the high level donors and ask for help. The result was the DLC, which won the 1992 election by moving the party towards those money interests, closer than it ever has been before. Campaigning as a progressive, Bill Clinton got into office and tried to implement some progressive ideas. But during the 1992 election he had failed to build the party from the bottom up, and thus when he needed the help of the grassroots, we were not there. Heck, I was in the Navy, ignoring everything political at that point.
Bill Clinton's approval rating didn't suffer during the hell years. The harder the Republicans hit him, the higher that approval seemed to go. He is one of the most popular people on the planet, and I'm being serious.
But what he wanted in 1992 wasn't to present progressive solutions, it was for power. The power to change things, yes, and sometimes even an intention to change things for the better. But his goal was power.
It doesn't seem to have changed. And now Hillary, someone with a lot of potential, has been blinded by the light of power. They're now willing to have their friends form a 527 group to go negative on Obama. How much does that advertising time cost again?
I think it's a waste of money. I think it's a complete waste of resources.
Take a look at this:
http://left.wikia.com/...
This is a list of all of the counties in the United States that I could find information about through a long series of searches. I think the only state that doesn't break results out by county is Alaska. There are 3,113 counties listed on that page, and John Kerry won 583 of them. Every single county has a Democratic Party organization starving for resources. 32 counties lost by less than a single percentage point. 167 by less than 5%. I'm still collecting information about how those counties did in 2006 in Senate or Congressional races. That will be interesting.
But here's my point and how it relates to the Clinton campaign. How much money would some of these counties need to win for the Democratic Nominee? How much money is this "Leadership" 527 going to waste in the upcoming primary states while these county party organizations starve? Sure, the DNC is helping the state party organizations. But I know from working at the ground level of the party for the past 4 years that the state parties are worthy of help but not the people on the front lines. That's local parties. That's county chairs. Where is the help for them? Where's the 3113 county strategy from the coordinated campaign and where is the @#$% brains in the Clinton strategic plan to make sure that we win more than 583 counties in 2008?!
I better quit before I reveal my presidential preference at this point in the race...