There is a code we follow in the netroots during the presidential primary season. It's our bulwark against the inevitable jostling and elbowing that comes with the race for the Democratic nomination. (And there have always been sharp elbows during the primaries...always...always.)
We pledge to support the eventual nominee.
In doing so, our intention is to not poison the well. Our intention is to make clear that while we believe in hard fought debates on substance we have no patience for the politics of personal destruction.
We don't want to do the GOP's dirty work for them...
Clearly, something exciting is happening on the Democratic side. Our turnout is not just huge...it is record setting. Something happened in Iowa and New Hampshire that bodes well for Democratic candidates running for every office, at every level.
Voters are engaged, voters are showing up, new voters are being brought into the process at every turn.
That trend is an unquestionably good thing. It augers well for our chances in running challengers in the Senate and the House, for Governor's races, State legislatures and local races in 2008. This huge increase in turnout also begs the question, just what are the factors that are bringing so many new voters to the polls?
Before I explore that I'd like to follow up on the title of this diary and turn some scrutiny to the words and rhetoric of our victor from New Hampshire.
I think there's a need for some accountability here.
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I have so many opportunities from this country and I just don’t want to see us fall backwards as a nation. You know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political. It's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it. And some people think elections are a game. They think it's like who's up or who's down. It's about our country. It's about our kids' futures. It's really about all of us together. You know some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country. Some of us are right some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready, and some of us are not. Some of us know what we’ll do on day one and some of us haven't thought that through.
HRC, January 6th 2008
We don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered, the best way to know what change I will produce is to look at the changes I've already made.
HRC, January 5th, Democratic Debate
Just because of the sanitizing coverage that’s in the media doesn’t mean the facts aren’t out there. It doesn’t matter that ‘I’ started running for president less than a year after ‘I’ got to the senate after the Illinois senate. ‘I’ am a great speaker and a charismatic figure and ‘I’ am the only one who had the judgment to oppose this war from the beginning – always always always...
The idea that one of these campaigns is positive and the other is negative when I know the reverse is true and I have seen it and I have been blistered by it for months is a little tough to take...
Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairytale I’ve ever seen.
WJC, January 7th Speech
I would point to the fact that that Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in peoples lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished.
HRC, January 6th Speech
I don’t think it was by accident that Al Qaeda decided to test the new prime minister. They watch our elections as closely as we do, maybe more closely than some of our fellows citizens do...
Let’s not forget you’re hiring a president not just to do what a candidate says during the election, you want a president to be there when the chips are down.
HRC, January 6th speech
What were Bill and Hillary Clinton doing with the above quotes? What were their intentions?
False hopes. Fairy tales. Some of us are right and some of us are wrong. They watch our elections as closely as we do. One of these campaigns is positive and the other is negative but I know the reverse is true.
These are strong statements. But, for the most part, they are simply not debateable on substance. Think about it. You can go back to Barack Obama's voting record in Illinois and point out that he cast his "present" votes according to a strategy outlined by Planned Parenthood. You can ask Senator Obama about why he pulled that speech from his website in 2004 and he will tell you that it was in deference to the Kerry/Edwards campaign and to show unity in the lead up to the 2004 elections. You can verify that Senator Obama's New Hampshire campaign manager is a State not a Federal lobbyist. (Link, 1:42) And, for good measure, you can compare how Obama and Edwards have treated donations received from Federal Lobbyists with what Senator Clinton has done.
All those topics are verifiable, substantive, par for the course. (And, yes, in each case the Clinton campaign stretched the truth and used innuendo to make their points.)
But to talk about "False Hopes"? To raise the specter of a terrorist attack on the first day of an Obama administration? To call Barack Obama's campaign the "biggest fairy tale" you've ever seen? To say you've been "blistered" by attacks from Obama's "negative campaign"? To characterize the civil rights struggle as relating to the work of Lyndon Baines Johnson versus the unrealized "dreams" of JFK or Martin Luther King, Jr.?
There's not a substantive response you can make to these "points." All you can do is ask the Clintons to elaborate on exactly what they meant. And, in my view, that's what we should do going forward. There needs to be some accountability here. I don't think any of our candidates should get a free pass.
I would like to know exactly what false hopes, specifically, the Obama campaign is spreading. I would like to know specifically, what Bill Clinton meant by his "fairy tale" comment. I would like for Senator Clinton to elaborate on her statement about Gordon Brown and the abortive terror attacks in England. Does she have information we don't? What specifically was she trying to imply? If Barack Obama is "wrong"...well, how is he wrong? If he's "not ready" and "doesn't know" what he's going to do, why does Hillary say that? Where's her evidence? And, finally, if we are supposed to look at the changes that Senator Clinton has "already made"...well, what are they? Let's use this next month to get down to brass tacks!
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You see, to bring this home, we know that something is happening in the electorate.
There is a revolution in participation going on out there. And we in the netroots know it firsthand because we've been a part of it. What we've seen in the last two election cycles...2004 and 2006...has been electrifying.
By all measures the 2008 election cycle looks to put that trend over the top. That's a good thing.
I leave you with this question: Does that energy, that excitement, that revolution in participation have something to do with the campaigns of Barack Obama and John Edwards? Does it have something to do with a desire for change and reform? Does it have something to do with real, authentic hope for change in Washington?
Most certainly, in my view, yes.
But we leave New Hampshire with one campaign that has been about casting aspersions of "false hopes" and "fairy tales." Is that the campaign to lead us forward in 2008? Is that the rhetoric we need to seize this moment of energized participation? Is that what we expect from a Democratic nominee? Is that what will carry us over the top in 2008?
I don't know. We should ask Senator Clinton the tough questions.
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We in the netroots follow our code for a reason. We pledge to support the nominee because that allows us to stand up for our ideas and, yes, our hopes for this nation during the primary season. The very least we expect of our candidates is that they reciprocate our commitment to support the nominee by their willingness to back up their critical rhetoric with substance.
When we say we will support the nominee that doesn't mean our candidates get a free pass. In fact, it means exactly the opposite.
That's not false hopes and fairy tales.
That's sane politics.