My first diary!
This IS a big endorsement! He has already stated that he would be loyal to Hillary throughout the campaign. What changed his mind? Take a look
This just in! Labor Secretary in Bill Clinton's 1st term to endorse Obama!!.
Big surprise?! YES! Even tough he has stated that he supports Obama, even criticizing Hillary after Iowa and South Carolina, he said that he would remain loyal to Hillary and that he would vote and support her... WHAT made him change his mind?!
Clinton's negative ads of course!
So what's changed? I asked Reich.
"I saw the ads" — the negative man-on-street commercials that the Clinton campaign put up in Pennsylvania in the wake of Obama's bitter/cling comments a week ago — "and I was appalled, frankly. I thought it represented the nadir of mean-spirited, negative politics. And also of the politics of distraction, of gotcha politics. It's the worst of all worlds. We have three terrible traditions that we've developed in American campaigns. One is outright meanness and negativity. The second is taking out of context something your opponent said, maybe inartfully, and blowing it up into something your opponent doesn't possibly believe and doesn't possibly represent. And third is a kind of tradition of distraction, of getting off the big subject with sideshows that have nothing to do with what matters. And these three aspects of the old politics I've seen growing in Hillary's campaign. And I've come to the point, after seeing those ads, where I can't in good conscience not say out loud what I believe about who should be president. Those ads are nothing but Republicanism. They're lending legitimacy to a Republican message that's wrong to begin with, and they harken back to the past 20 years of demagoguery on guns and religion. It's old politics at its worst — and old Republican politics, not even old Democratic politics. It's just so deeply cynical."
The Clinton campaign will, no doubt, shrug off the Reich endorsement of Obama. (And hey, who knows, maybe James Carville will get into the act and declare Reich a Benedict Arnold!) They will say that it's unlikely to move any votes, and that, since Reich is not a super-delegate, it does nothing tangible to move Obama even one inch closer to the nomination.
More on the endorsement here!!!
Awesome stuff!
Is he alone? Of course not..
In his disgust with Hillary's increasingly harsh tactics, Reich is hardly alone. Indeed, the feeling seems to be spreading more broadly in the party with every passing day.
Let's hope the little conversation Edwards had with Hillary today on the Colbert Report was actually about how Obama had already bought him some Jet Skies, hehe.
Follow up!:
Heres what Reich was saying on March 6, for reference. He has been leaning Obama, but was sticking with Hillary none the less! thanks for Aqualad08 for the heads up!:
Stephen Colbert does a wrap up from Tuesday’s Semi-super Tuesday primaries and wishes his buddy a Huckabye-bye.
Robert Reich, former Clinton Labor Secretary, appears to give his enthusiastic endorsement of the democratic process and to dismiss Colbert’s charge that the Democratic party is destroying itself from within, but just won’t give an enthusiastic endorsement of a specific candidate, no matter how many ways Colbert tries to wheedle it out of him.
SC: Are you endorsing Hillary Clinton?
RR: No, I decided not to endorse this round.
SC: So, you’re endorsing Barack Obama?
RR: No, I’m not going to endorse anybody. Because I’ve been a friend of Hillary...
SC: But you’re leaning, you’re leaning towards Barack Obama...
RR: ...for so many years, I don’t want to endorse anybody, I think that would be inappropriate.
SC: Okay, let me put it this way: if we were at a restaurant together and the waiter brought around the dessert cart, and the choice was ladyfingers or Black Forest cake, which way do you think you’d lean?
RR: Quite seriously, either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would make a great president.
SC: Let me put this a different way. If I were a waiter and I were to offer you two different slices of pizza, and one was half-Hawaiian and you weren’t entirely sure what it was going to taste like. And the other was plain with cheese and had been under a heat lamp for 35 years, I mean, it had seen everything. Which would you go for?
RR: I don’t think I’d be terribly excited about either of those slices.
SC: Which movie would you rent? "Big Momma’s House" or "Medea’s Family Reunion"? Be careful, they are both about strong women who are actually black men.
RR: Um, gosh. I think I’d try both of them out.
From Crooks and Liars!
THANKS for the REC! Top 10!