While the democratic party primary officially started a couple weeks ago, this past weekend it really got off to the races. For the first time, all the prospective candidates met on stage in Iowa, Netroots Nation (as always) held promise and peril, and a significant meme got reinforced.
Follow below the squiggle for something of a roundup.
There were a fair amount of significant events that happened this weekend that bear mention, beginning with Hillary's Town Hall in Dover, New Hapmshire on Thursday.
The benefit of First In The Nation events like these is that it allows candidates to directly interact with voters in the different FITN states. Contrary to many haters, Clinton took over a dozen questions from the audience, ranging from climate change to - of all things - telemarketing. The climate change question was particularly instructive, as it came from 350 Action activists in the audience, who for a time shouted her down, but then moved off to the side with a banner.
About 10 other activists stood up and began chanting “act on climate” before being escorted to the corner of the hall to hold up a banner reading “ban extraction on public land.” The action was emblematic of the freewheeling nature of primary campaign town halls, and earned plenty of coverage.
The question in particular was with regards to fossil fuel extraction on public lands. Though I disagree to a certain extent with her response - in as much as she suggested it would go on and be phased out over time (with the potential for increased royalties from extraction and things of that nature), it was the right answer. She very well could have pandered to the audience (something she is often accused of being guilty of), but she didn't - and acknowledged that.
Clinton said no, and returned to the original question. “I know what the right answer in terms of getting votes would have been,” she said, referring to taking a more hard-line stance on fossil fuel development on public lands.
Nevertheless, she handled the interuption with aplomb - engaging the protestors and pivoting not in order to demean their concerns, but rather, to the larger question of climate change itself and the United States' role in reducing its impacts.
That was thursday.
On Friday, Chaffee, Clinton, O'Malley, Sanders and Webb got together for the Iowa Democrats hall of fame dinner. Lysis covered this earlier, so I won't go too much into detail about it, but I found this Iowa Starting Line headline instructive...
No need to bury the lede here: Hillary Clinton didn’t win the Iowa Caucus with just one speech, but she came damn well close on Friday night. Her feisty, passionate barrage of policy issues, one-liners and hits on Republican candidates stood out amongst the crowd on an exciting night full of great moments. Clinton didn’t only give one of the best speeches she’s ever delivered, but one of the best Iowa Caucus speeches Starting Line has seen
Suffice it to say, it went very well for Hillary. Chaffee and Webb disappointed, to a certain extent - Chaffee with a 6 minute speech and little else, and Webb being, well, Webb. O'Malley also improved his standing, probably gaining the most from the event.
Can't forget Sanders though - and he had a good speech - and a very vocal table contingent. But suffice it to say, the Iowa Democrats were not #feelingtheBern
But Sanders may need to consider what his best approach is for the nomination. His attack on the TPP trade deal didn’t get the overwhelming reaction from the entire room that it does at his own events. His corner of the room cheered wildly, but again, if you watched the crowd very closely, it wasn’t like the response to Clinton and O’Malley. He got considerable applause from the full room, but not the same type of standing ovations. Sanders gave a very dramatic and, at times, angry speech – it appealed to people already with him, but it may not have picked up many new supporters.
All for Friday - and moving on to Saturday and Netroots Nation
I don't really want to get into all this - the site well knows what happened. Bernie and O'Malley were shouted down/refused to engage with activists at their individual Q&A events, giving rise to #BernieSoBlack and a significant amount of defensiveness from the Sanders campaign. The fallout of this was pretty interesting to watch as well. Despite being shouted down, O'Malley spent the rest of the day meeting with #BLM activists and other youth engaged in the issue, whereas Bernie... did not.
Around the same time, Sanders was scheduled to meet with a small group of activists supporting Black Lives Matters. The senator has been focused with great intensity on the message driving his campaign — income inequality — and the idea behind the meeting was to “get Sanders on track with the conversation about issues around racial justice,” according to Elon James White, who is the founder of This Week in Blackness and was invited to attend the gathering. “His campaign was completely oblivious to the Black Lives Matter campaign and what’s been happening around the movement.”
Later, Sanders angered members of the Arizona Democratic Party, when he canceled 40 minutes after his scheduled speaking slot, according to Alexis Tameron, the chair of the party. The reason given to Tameron: “logistical issues,” she said. “That was it.”
Suffice it to say, Sanders probably didn't make many friends during the day - but I'm sure the 11k that came out to see him at night probably cheered him up, even if it didn't really address the problem he had earlier.
To O'Malley's credit, however, his "All lives matter" comment struck a nerve - one which he recognized and spent the rest of the day trying to address.
After the forum, O’Malley was out in the crowd. He hurried to tell a reporter that his response to the protest — white lives matter, all lives matter — had been a “mistake.” Then he ran around the conference center: He did an interview, held a roundtable, stopped by a forum, held another forum. And by 1:45 p.m., he was in his second interview of the afternoon — this one with the media outlet, This Week in Blackness.
Finally - Hillary's Saturday night was a little less eventful, but perhaps a bit more meaningful. Arkansas democrats have had some problems recently - you may recall the wiping out we got in 2014? So to help out, Hillary headlined a Dem. Fundraiser in Little Rock Arkansas - giving some real, genuine moments, and helping the Arkansas Dems raise money for the
battles ahead.
For many Arkansans, no matter how many times Mrs. Clinton visits, the prospects of a Democrat winning the state in 2016 seemed slim, but having her name on the ticket could help lift down-ballot Democrats in local races. “There’s no doubt she helps to energize the Arkansas Democratic base,” said Will Bond, a former chairman of the state’s Democratic Party who is running for state senate.
And that's the weekend! I figure this has probably gone on long enough, so I'll leave it here.