sorry Tom (Vilsack): Stop Hillary!
Mon Mar 26, 2007 at 12:09:46 PM PDT
Tom and Christie just sent out a spam email endorsing Hillary's candidacy.
Sorry, Tom and Christie (I can drop the "Gov." given their email's informality), but Hillary's Presidential bid must be stopped. No more DLC manipulation.
No matter which Democrat among the top 8 wins the Primary, they will go on to win the General Election in 2008. (Gore, Richardson, Edwards, Clark, Dodd, Biden, Obama, Hillary.) So "electibility" is not an issue this time around. Not that it was in 2004, either, as proven by John "Flip-Flop" Kerry. Besides which, Bill Clinton won in 1992 because Ross Perot took 19% of the vote (and 7% in 1996), dividing Bush Sr's vote and derailing Bush's campaign as he fended off another Texan businessman competitor. Not because Bill compromised Democratic values to appease corporate-America. Bill never won a majority of the national vote, he was always under 50%.
Tom Vilsack was the DLC Chair.
So, Hillary = Vilsack = DLC = Koch Industries. No, thanks.
2008 is more like 1976, post-Nixon: the public has awoken to the fact that business-as-usual is broken inside Washington, DC's Beltway. The fact that some conformist DLC insiders are lining up like slaves-in-chains to help Hillary's campaign is all you need to know to oppose it. (The insiders with more integrity are with me: anyone but Hillary.) The fact that Hillary has vindictively let the rumor spread that anyone who works on another campaign will not be offered a (high-level) position if she wins is proof of the foul-pudding.
She is not looking out for Democratic values. She is looking out for revenge, for herself and the pain she has suffered, and is "in to win" no matter what it takes. That's not what we need in this election.
As in 1976, we need someone to sweep clean the Aegean Stables. Not the ultimate insider-Senator. You can't clean out the Culture of Corruption if you are the most dependent on it to get elected in the first place, you will be beholden to your corporate-sponsors. (My current rank-order preference is as listed above, but that's not my point; any of the other seven candidates would be fine.)
Gore scares the DLC because he will implement policies to save the planet. (Gosh, wouldn't want that, eh Exxon?) Edwards scares the DLC because he supports consumer rights against corporations. (Eek, General Electric/MSNBC/NBC News, better run more stories about "tort-reform"). Richardson scares the DLC because, well, I don't know, maybe because he's so competent that they can't control him?
Of course Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton's other sexual dalliances are a campaign issue (much as they might not be in an ideal world). Wake up to reality. Do you really think that Hillary will be effective in achieving Democratic goals (if elected) with this baggage chained to her neck? As if her opponents, both domestic and foreign, won't use every conceivable way to needle and undermine her? Sure, Hillary gets icy (frigid?) whenever Bill's blow-jobs are mentioned, so what? I feel sorry for her on a personal basis, but she has chosen to enter the race for control of the most powerful empire ever created, so nothing is forbidden. Since when does a single candidate get to dictate the terms of international political discourse? Will Putin respect these delicate wishes of Hillary? Sunni insurgents? Shiite foes? Will the Republican opposition at home? The right-wing media that we dKosians all know and hate? Swift Vets and other 527s? No way. (Btw, do you really think Willie is tamed?)
[Fwiw, I ardently defended Bill Clinton against the "politics of personal destruction" throughout the 1990s. I publicly spoke out and wrote articles about the precise definition of "sexual relations" (it means coitus), pointing out that Bill was quite careful in his lawyerly choice of words. He misled the public, and having a sexual affair with a 22 year-old intern is not a good role model for a husband and father, but he did not lie under oath.]
I am a feminist. I denounce glass-ceilings for women in business and politics. I support public and corporate policies to promote this. I'd be happy with mandatory gender balance in the House and Senate, for example! As well as more realistic policy goals, like better day-care, maternity and paternity leave, research funding for women's health issues, preserving choice, health insurance, etc. Therefore I do not want to see the first woman President come riding in on the coat-tails of an ex-President husband. Just what kind of lesson does that set for my daughter? "Marry an ambitious man, and you could get power through him, too?"
I've worked in the Fortune-100 corporate world. I expect these firms to look after their own interests and I know that their employees face incentive-structures to do the same. Because of this, I look for real leadership in my political candidates. (Did you know, for example, that the Fortune 500 employs fewer people than female-led small businesses, alone? Not to mention male-led small-business? The only reason for deference to the Fortune 500 is because their interests are concentrated and organized.)
The better, more-principled appointees of the Bill Clinton Administration will not go back in if Hillary wins. They've had enough. What we'd be left with is syncophantic, third-string, incestuous, lousy policy-makers. The clearest example of this was Mary Matalin's husband, James Carville, clamoring for Howard Dean's resignation on November 8, 2007, after Dean's 50-state strategy successfully reclaimed both the US House and Senate, against all odds of a year ago. The DLC had spent two years attacking Dean for not raising enough money and for spending too much of it. After Dean's triumph in the 2006 election the best the DLC could come up with was that he didn't borrow enough! *laf* I'm not making this up: the DLC/Carville critique was that Dean didn't borrow the maximum on a $10 million credit-line.
(dKosians know this from upteen diaries: Dean's picks for Congress fared better than Rahm Emmanuel's, despite the latter's shameless chutzpah on Nov. 8 trying to claim credit. Give Gov. Dean credit for rising above this intra-party split, putting oil on the waters, and graciously sharing credit all around. But also don't forget: contrary to the pre-election fears of some that Rahm's fundraising was what mattered most, this turned out not to be true.)
Knowing how ineffective a President Hillary would be, I will continue to do everything I democratically can to prevent that from happening. She would be that bad for Democrats. The thought of hearing her voice as President for four years makes me cringe.
Here are some excerpts (in context) from what Tom and Christie wrote me:
When I make a decision, I go all in and follow through. Hillary Clinton has the same determination...
Bfd. We don't want unprincipled ambition, we're better than that.
By standing with Hillary now we'll help show that we are strong enough to win back the White House
Bullcrap. Standing up for our values is the only strength we'll need this election. By caving-in and joining the dynastic Hillary charade, we sacrifice all the political lessons we've learned the past six years.
Christie and I plan on spending the next 10 months helping Hillary win the Iowa caucuses
Govern much, Tom? This is pretty telling: his DLC corporate-sponsors are so afraid of people like Edwards, Richardson, Gore etc. that he will devote 10 months of his life to Hillary.
of all the candidates running, she has the best ideas
Oh, please! She is the ultimate opportunist. She surrounds herself with sell-out loyalists. She has virtually no new ideas.
the most energy
Are you kidding? Have any of you shaken hands with her, seen her up close? She is chronically exhausted. Her face is already heavily-lined (despite the pancake makeup) from the campaign rigors and the race has barely begun. She briefly gears up for a public appearance then needs to crash for hours or days (protected by Mignon and other longtime aides).
the values and vision to lead our country in the right direction
The right-wing direction, maybe. C'mon, this is not 1992, we've had fifteen years of research and understanding. The once-vaunted "third way" (including Will Marshall's "Regressive Policy Institute" has been exposed as the corporate-shills they are. They are not "centrist" (centered between which two strawmen?), they are pro-corporate. Follow the money. Cui bono. Whoever pays the piper calls the song.
She's going to put an end to the war in Iraq.
Oh, horse-manure! (Iowa's a farm-state, Tom, you understand the fertilizer metaphors.) She's already announced publicly that she will keep troops in Iraq for years to come. *sheesh*, Tom, do you think we don't read the news? Do you think we don't see Hillary bending over backwards to pander? Do you think we don't recognize that she is not a real leader, she is a follower of whichever groups she thinks she needs to appeal to? Do you think we don't know that she introduced a Senate Bill to make it a Crime to burn an American flag, because it might "intimidate" anyone? (Co-sponsored by Utah's Republican Senator Bennett, just great.) Supported the invasion of Iraq (as did the DLC's Rahm Emmanuel). Do you think that Hillary can pander to the right and not be compromised by this if elected? (This is the clearest lesson from the Gore and Kerry candidacies: you cannot sell-out and expect to win an election, nor to govern effectively if you do.) Voters are looking for a real leader, who will re-frame and reshape the agenda, not pander to corporate-media. Go back to your corporate paymasters and re-think, Tom.
She's going to make sure every American has access to affordable health care.
So why is her plan so much weaker than Edwards', Richardson's, etc.?
the critical March 31 FEC deadline [for contributions] is just five days away. We must show the magnitude of the grassroots support for this campaign in the next five days.
No! The real reason Hillary is reaching out now is she needs to demonstrate numbers of grass-roots support, in order to bring down the average size of her contributions. Most of her backers have already maxed out for the Primary (giving over $2,100 each). So she wants little donations ($5) in order to reduce the average. Tricky, eh?
Instead, now is the time to do the opposite of what Hillary wants: please give even $1 to all the other campaigns! (Please give more if you can, to cover their costs of printing. And please volunteer for them -- it's not glamorous stuffing envelopes or replying to emails, but volunteers are what make campaigns work.) Pull back the curtain on Hillary's corporate-funding.
Christie and I are going to travel around our state and the country, introducing Hillary to our friends and talking to everyone we meet about why Hillary is the right choice for Iowa and America.
Say, Tom, are you and Christie going to announce that you were the Chair of the DLC and that it gets all its funding from large corporations? Or -- as you travel around the country -- are you going to hide this inconvenient truth, too?
