Matt Taibbi, who’s all but on-the-record—along with many on Rolling Stone’s staff--as being a booster of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ bid for the Democratic Party presidential nomination next year, goes two-for-two in his second takedown, over the past three weeks, of stale, status quo, Democratic presidential campaign spin in a Tuesday evening post over at the magazine’s website: “In Classic Clintonian Fashion, Dems Insult Their Own Voters.”
Once again, and the reason why I can never get enough of Taibbi’s sarcastic-yet-incisive view of reality is that it is, simply, spot-on…
In Classic Clintonian Fashion,
Dems Insult Their Own Voters
After a slide in the polls, the Hillary camp apologizes
for courting the party base
By Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
June 9, 2015
Say this for the Democrats in the Clinton era: they're never boring.
From brilliant responses to sex scandals to impossible smoke-but-not-inhale policy hedges to calculated collapses on everything from gay rights to financial deregulation, the Clinton Dems over the years have proven themselves masters of messaging and political survival.
They've turned the act of choosing winning over principle into an art form.
The latest trick? Insulting their own voters at the start of a race. It would be unbelievable, if they hadn't spent decades preparing us to believe it...
Taibbi then visits
"...The background for the latest chutzpah-rich gambit..." ...A
"series of different surveys have all shown that in the wake of her email scandal and revelations about the Clinton Foundation, Hillary's negatives have jumped, and her positives are way down."
"Less than 50 percent of respondents" have favorable feelings about the candidate, as Michael Barone at Real Clear Politics put it...
Referencing Jonathan Martin’s and Maggie Haberman’s article from Sunday’s NYT, "Hillary Clinton Traces Friendly Path, Troubling Party," he summarizes the report’s introductory paragraphs as, “Hillary [is] being forced to abandon her preferred political path – as they breathlessly describe it, ‘the nationwide electoral strategy that won her husband two terms in the White House and brought white working-class voters and great stretches of what is now red-state America back to Democrats.’”
Quoting from the NYT article…
…"Instead, she is poised to retrace Barack Obama's far narrower path to the presidency: a campaign focused more on mobilizing supporters… than on persuading undecided voters.
Mrs. Clinton's aides say it is the only way to win in an era of heightened polarization… Her liberal policy positions, they say, will fire up Democrats, a less difficult task than trying to win over independents in more hostile territory — even though a broader strategy could help lift the party with her."...
But, of course, while Taibbi doesn’t use the exact words, he basically informs readers that this, too, is just another layer of spin via unnamed aides, “directly from the Clinton campaign.” With attributed quotes following, within the piece, from “Democratic operatives like David Plouffe, Dan Pfeiffer and Robby Mook.”
…So this wasn't leaked out to the Times by accident. It was spoon-fed to the paper by the party, which put this "left turn" out there to see how it plays...
Taibbi reminds us that this is political spin taken to a higher art form—where campaign sources noted that they’re adhering to the Obama campaign style of 2012, by focusing upon key states–while claiming they’re turning their back on the Bill Clinton, 90’s style of campaigning, describing it as
“…something they're only doing with extreme reluctance.”
Per Taibbi: “In other words: ‘We hate doing this, but it's the only way to win. Bear with us.’”
The dowright hilarious analogies he draws in the middle of this piece are classic Taibbi. His deliberate, over-the-top takedowns, as it were, take on a life of their own, as only Matt’s capable of writing them. And, I’m leaving his one-liners out of this post, so that you read his entire article.
As always, it’s in the closing commentary where Matt gives us his biggest dose of reality…
….the party wants big business to hang tough while Hillary slings Warren-Sanders-style anti-business rhetoric in an effort to increase turnout.
The truly crazy thing about this is that the Warren-Sanders strategy actually would be the broad bipartisan strategy, if only the Democrats would stop apologizing for it...
...
...Such coalitions have already succeeded in the House and the Senate, where politicians like Ron Paul and Sanders have teamed up to audit the Fed, and Republicans like David Vitter have teamed up with Dems like Sherrod Brown in campaigns against Too-Big-To-Fail banking monopolies.
It's called the 99 percent for a reason…
…
…If the Democratic Party had the stones to dive into that issue with both feet, they would build a true bipartisan coalition overnight and keep the White House for decades...
...
...The irony is, Hillary probably wouldn't have such high negatives right now if the public didn't have decades of exactly this sort of Clintonian face-switching and poll-chasing to stew over…
…
…But if history is any guide, that won't happen. The guess here is that Hillary and Democrats have run the numbers. They'll shake a few fists at The Man on the campaign trail, just enough to sneak by on poll day. Then, once in office, they'll revert back in office to being the shameless policy sellouts they've always been…
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