Now that eGhazi! is fading into the background, Hillary Clinton has a bigger vastly more important problem to fix. First, to put it simply, she and her circle are a known commodity that much of the Democratic base, and many in the media who are sympathetic to that base, are not exactly "in love" with. Sure, she has many supporters on the left. I have been and continue to be one of those supporters. But Hillary supporters would be foolish to ignore that her detractors are many and have legitimate complaints.
Among the legitimate complaints is that the circle of people she has around her is full of people who are perceived as arrogant pricks. Many of these Clinton insider individuals were mentioned by name in recent discussions during the height of the eGhazi! media frenzy. For example, the populist writer William Greider specifically mentioned Larry Summers. Mother Jones' David Corn specifically mentioned Lanny Davis.
About Lanny Davis, Corn wrote:
His reality denial discredited him—and, by extension, the White House.
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By refusing to concede any errors—even in the face of clear evidence—he was undermining White House credibility, generating ill will, and, perhaps worse, signaling that the Clintons didn't care about the truth. Yeah, we know, this aide responded. But, he added, the Clintons were keen on Davis. They appreciated his moxie.
Corn cites similar behavior from Hillary's 2008 run:
As Davis had accomplished a decade earlier, Hillary's emissaries to the media alienated many reporters with their odd combo of thin-skinnedness and fact-stretching aggression. Did her bad relations with the media undo her campaign? Probably not. But it sure didn't help.
The problem is not merely that Hillary has irritating people around. Rather, it is that the people around her, according to Greider, have been picked for their adherence to "(t)heir center-right program—financial deregulation and “free market” globalization." He added "promising young people were excluded from governing ranks—systematically screened out by both Clinton and Obama administrations—if they showed telltale signs of leaning leftward or embracing non-conformist ideas that resonate with the party’s New Deal values."
To illustrate his point, Greider recites the now infamous discussion between Larry Summers and Elizabeth Warren:
In the first year of the Obama presidency, Warren chaired the Congressional Oversight Panel on the banking bailouts. Summers was in the White House. He took Warren out to dinner and explained with breathtaking clarity how Washington really works.
“Larry leaned back in his chair and he offered me some advice,” Warren wrote in her new memoir. ”I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People—powerful people—listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule. They don’t criticize other insiders.”
As Greider notes, Warren talked about the episode in her
book, which means she is willing to criticize Summers and thus break the rule Summers tried to establish for her.
Interestingly, Summers has had to go through a conversion experience because of the populist message that Warren and others have been sharing. Dean Baker summed up the changes thusly:
If the significance of these comments is not clear, the most important economic figure of the Democratic Party mainstream was demolishing one of the party’s central themes over the last two decades. Summers was arguing that the problems of the labor force — weak employment opportunities, stagnant wages and rising inequality — were not going to be addressed by increasing the education and skills of the workforce. Rather, the problem was the overall state of the economy.
The standard education story puts the blame for stagnant wages on workers. The key to getting ahead is education. On the contrary, Summers argued at Brookings: The blame for the economic malaise goes to the people who design economic policy. It is their fault that workers aren’t able to secure decent-paying jobs.
Summers shows some of the changes in his views as the lead author of the Center for American Progress recently released
Report of the Commission on Inclusive Prosperity . Another Clinton circle member, Bob Rubin has also been doing similar work at
The Hamilton Project.
The conversion experience of Summers is seen as suspect by Greider, perhaps rightly so. He cites the "class warfare" chestnut recently put forward by Summers:
“It’s not enough to address upward mobility without addressing inequality. The challenge, though, is to address inequality without embracing the politics of envy.”
First, Hillary needs to do a metaphorical house cleaning, or at least rearrange the deck chairs, and include new less abrasive spokespeople in the inner circle. One lesson to be learned from eGhazi! it is that her relationship with the media is worse than it needs to be. And the same can be said about her relationship with the liberal base.
But that is just the start. Hints of the message that Hillary wants to use can be seen in recent speeches. (link, link, link) Many of Hillary's detractors on the left feel that these speeches are not strong enough and that she and her inner circle still don't really get it. The fear is that they are just talking and do not see the need to fight for the middle class the way Elizabeth Warren has.
Hillary, and that inner circle, need to do more to convince her detractors that she will do more than talk about the problems. There are lots of spokespeople who could do that better than Larry Summers. Hillary needs to embrace the New Deal values referred to by Greider and start promoting other leaders who also share those values.
We need a New New Deal. Not just the same old political claptrap with a thin new coat of paint slathered over it. Elizabeth Warren gets it. It's time for Hillary and her (hopefully new and expanded) entourage to prove they really get it too.