Holy crap - is this the way to win an election or what? Senator Clinton just lost 1,000,000 supporters in order to gain a few more votes in a state she was already going to win handily.
Clinton has been leading Obama by anywhere from 5-20 points over the last few weeks. Most people expect that the really close polls are outliers and that the margin of victory lies somewhere around 12 points (especially with the amount of undecideds and how they generally go for her in the last couple of days). (The only way this margin changes is if we call and donate, btw.)
So last night, we see a post on Huffington Post (where Bittergate broke) that Senator Clinton, a private fundraiser (oh god), told MoveOn that they could go to hell.
"Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors. "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me." -Hillary Clinton
Knowing the political minds of Hillary and Bill Clinton - can anyone else expect that this leaked right before the PA primary for anything BUT a further alienation of the "latte-drinking, volvo-driving" liberals?
Senator Clinton is clearly trying to (1) distort MoveOn's record, (2) tie Obama to them and make them all "crazy liberals" and (3) prove to PA "blue-collar" voters that she's not elitist.
So where did the 1,000,000 supporters come from? Well, MoveOn did endorse Barack - but only after a vote of the members of MoveOn. She lost 70.4% to 29.6 of the 3.2 million members of MoveOn. These party activists, which she would need in a general election, were just told that they weren't important by the Clinton camp (again - for a few extra voters in a state she's already predicted to win handily).
So in a GE against McCain, she's pissed off large members of the following voting blocs:
- Black voters
- Young voters (18-35)
- MoveOn.com members
- Caucus state Dems
- Red state Dems
- Small state Dems
- Progressives and liberals
- Who else?
People she's already thrown under the bus (plus the above groups):
- Bill Richardson
- Robert Reich (surely after yesterday's endorsement)
- Blogosphere
- The internet group created to defend her husband (MoveOn.org)
- Anti-war activists
- Al Gore and John Kerry
So the question is - if she got elected, who else would she throw under the bus? Would she be like Bill and throw GLBT rights away? I already think she'll be a strong military hawk for fear of being painted as weak. And if she's faced with a Republican base going after her and re-elect in 4 years, she'll be as middle of the road as she can be. Let's get a REAL progressive Democrat in the White House instead of an
unvetted Hillary Clinton.