For the first time we're reading that some persons close to Hillary Rodham Clinton don't think she should run for president. Apparently they see through the hype and recognize that she could take big hits from pols in her own party. I suspect, though there's no evidence for it, that the main thing propelling her forward is her hubby's itch to take back the White House and get his hands on some levers again.
It has also been suggested now that her seemingly unrivaled status has only amounted to the fact that persons who will eventually run have been avoiding early scrutiny by letting her have all of it, "using her as a human shield", as someone put it. Who might these aspirants be? I've nothing to base my answer on except who looks to me to be attractive, ambitious, and progressive. Try Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon. Try Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island (surely a name from Providence!). And Maryland's Governor O'Malley isn't working as hard as he is to get known nationally because he hopes to be Hillary's running-mate.
One illusion that was meant to be a self-fulfilling prophecy has just bit the dust. That is that her prospective candidacy would clear the field of Dem contenders. It's been made explicit now that she stands a real chance of being challenged for the nomination by a candidate who can't be ignored although he isn't even a Democrat. The media don't seem quite sure what to make of him.
Senator Bernie Sanders is 72, outspoken, and seemingly healthy. His popularity in Vermont hovers around the 70% mark. An independent, he caucuses with the Dems, who support him when he runs for re-election.
He calls himself a democratic socialist and makes it clear that his socialism is that not of North Korea but of Scandinavia: that of a mixed economic system that works better than ours does.
He started out working for civil rights and peace. He moved to Vermont, organizing politically, running unsuccessfully several times for statewide offices, then becoming mayor of Burlington, the state's largest city, and running it cleanly and well and for everybody. He got elected to the U.S. House, then to the Senate and is his state's one towering political figure.
His position is that, while he has nothing against Hillary personally, somebody has to take progressive stands. He hints that he might stand aside for someone who did.
He has indicated that if he runs it will be as a Dem. Is he viable? I don't know. It could be a plus for him that he stands for what the Democratic party stands for without being caught up in its pandering and sellouts and influence peddling and pathological timidity.
A friend (who's Jewish) says Sanders is too Jewish, too Brooklyn, too old, and too radical to win. Maybe at first blush. But I'm not convinced that anyone would oppose him who wouldn't also oppose Hillary or O'Malley or Whitehouse, Merkley, etc.
Everybody knows that his forebears weren't New Englanders, weren't sea captains, and weren't Congregationalists or Unitarians. But as you look at his halo of white hair and his weathered face, he seems to come across subliminally as one of those old-time flinty New England independents who are incorruptible and who stick around long enough to become institutions.
Why did he show his hand this early? Maybe because he wants to spike the Hillary bubble. Maybe to spur other progressives to get in motion and not be fatalistic.. Or maybe he likes the idea of being the Dem nominee and is putting some fear into other progressive candidates. His being in the race could split their vote. So it may have been a preemptive move, to get in first and make them think twice about competing with him.
Sanders' age could actually work for him, I'd think. It's said that each generation parts company with its parents and shakes hands with its grandparents. The young - and they're the soul of the Democratic party - always hope to find wisdom in elderly people. They sure as hell aren't finding it in middle aged ones. Sanders has acted with consistent integrity and vision throughout a long public career. It's possible that the newest political generation will respond to that.
Youthful voters may seem complacent so far. If they feel resigned to Hillary and four more years of agony, that can't be what they want. And we recall that the young, rallying to Gene McCarthy's insurgent candidacy in 1968, made Lyndon Johnson retire. If somebody inspires "the kids" and gives them hope, things may change.
And this is about not only idealism but realism. We're facing major, major crises including a broken economy, climate change, and an oligarchic situation that's strangling democracy. The only way we're going to have an effective administration is if we elect a candidate with a mandate to do specific and difficult things, who will tell the whorish members of Congress: "You'll do right or, by God, I'll put the hurt on you. Every bill of yours that comes to me will get vetoed if you won't listen to the people and take real action."
Hillary's strength is also her weakness: that she doesn't really stand for anything and has never really done anything, however hard she has worked. Once somebody starts pointing out that she's a bullshit candidate who represents a corrupt and unsustainable status quo, I think young Americans will realize, if they haven't already, that it's so.
We now have a promise that an uncompromised progressivism will play a role in 2016. That's a huge advance over where we were only a few weeks ago.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
HANDY DANDY ANDY
Vlad "The Impaler" Putin, barbarian of all the Russias and would-be emperor, has just done a gigantic favor for New York's not-very-liberal governor. He has made him relevant at last. Or so it appears to me.
Hillary Clinton's much-hyped ascent had stymied Andrew Cuomo's presidential hopes to the extent that he had to seem not to be running. He joked in a phone interview not long ago that he couldn't hear a question about him becoming a candidate and that the caller was "breaking up". He has not even the skeleton of a national organization, and he hasn't been visiting other states. For as long as New York and the country are giving Hillary the benefit of the doubt, he's the forgotten man.
But Hillary has just taken another hit, along with the revelations about things she has said privately. It was she who pushed our attempt to get along with Putin. She wasn't wrong to do that, but her doing it now makes her look "soft" on Russia and naively optimistic.
When dealing with a sociopath like Putin, you have to do two things at once. One is to effectively block what he tries to do; the other is to let him save face and give him a means of backing down. This was precisely our policy toward the Soviet Union, and it succeeded in keeping the peace.
Because Mr. Obama hasn't been bellicose toward Putin in the Ukraine crisis and has been wisely keeping his moves under wraps, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina just accused him of being "weak" and "indecisive". To continue the Republican campaign to destroy the president's authority in an hour of crisis when the country has to have some confidence in him is one inch from committing treason. Yet I haven't heard a single Democrat say anything like that. That's what's wrong with the Democratic party.
This kind of thing is why it would be a good idea for somebody military or highly accomplished in business to be a candidate in '16. Getting somebody who unarguably can play hardball into it may be necessary just because the Repubs are always going to portray the Dems as wimps if they can.
And this brings us back to Andy Cuomo. Even before Putin made his reactive move after losing his foothold in Ukraine, Cuomo was positioning himself as an implacable warrior on behalf of preserving our fast-eroding social and economic gains. He wasn't talking about foreign affairs, but his tough-guy moves believably can extend to that sphere by implication.
The likeliest Repub nominee for New York governor this year is Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who straddles tea party values and the presumed credibility of a conventional office-holder in an important job. Astorino is running. And Cuomo is running at him, playing offense rather than defense.
Liberal bloggers have made it known that they'll take down a Cuomo presidential run if they can. As long as he didn't seem to be after the White House, they held back. Now he'll have to answer them and drown them out.
Several weeks ago he made what may have seemed an impromptu remark about there being no room in New York for extremists who are anti-abortion, anti-gays, etc. This created a big stir, but he didn't back down or soften it.
He reportedly followed that up a few days ago in a meeting with top state Republicans, warning them that if they ran a social conservative like Astorino against him, he would, in effect, tear the guy's arm off and beat him to death with it. That is, he'd go all-out on social issues, about which New Yorkers generally agree with him.
The Repubs might hope to talk about other things; but because Astorino holds to those right-wing stands, Cuomo is saying they won't be able to do it. He'll make such a candidate radioactive.
If the Repubs had it more together, they might be able to come up with an attractive businessman who was kind of a muttering moderate on social issues. Then they'd lose the backing of the Conservative party, but they could get a decent vote by attracting some independents. But Astorino is their course of least resistance.
Cuomo figures to win big anyhow. Running up the score by breathing fire on social issues won't hurt him in the state and will make him seem a champion of established social liberalism nationally. That's not to say that he's ready to do anything about the emergence of our oligarchy or the disappearance of our middle class. On those things he'll play it safe like Hillary. But he'll be seen as aggressive, a gut-fighter.
Assuming Hillary runs, he won't find it hard to come up with an excuse for opposing her. Meanwhile, he can afford to wait while she bleeds out, thumping his manly chest all the while.
As with Hillary, he's a hard person to warm up to. It looks to me as though the I-just-don't-like-the-guy factor that dogged Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon may work against him. In the Northeast the tepidness of his progressivism is a problem for him, while in the rest of the country he'll be mistakenly seen as very progressive as well as being an "ethnic". It might have helped him if his ancestry had been Spanish rather than Italian. So, even apart from the Hillary factor, he has much to overcome.
But he now has a road ahead. By playing rough this year, he can be the General Patton of sellout centrism and not just another governor.
Hillary Clinton's much-hyped ascent had stymied Andrew Cuomo's presidential hopes to the extent that he had to seem not to be running. He joked in a phone interview not long ago that he couldn't hear a question about him becoming a candidate and that the caller was "breaking up". He has not even the skeleton of a national organization, and he hasn't been visiting other states. For as long as New York and the country are giving Hillary the benefit of the doubt, he's the forgotten man.
But Hillary has just taken another hit, along with the revelations about things she has said privately. It was she who pushed our attempt to get along with Putin. She wasn't wrong to do that, but her doing it now makes her look "soft" on Russia and naively optimistic.
When dealing with a sociopath like Putin, you have to do two things at once. One is to effectively block what he tries to do; the other is to let him save face and give him a means of backing down. This was precisely our policy toward the Soviet Union, and it succeeded in keeping the peace.
Because Mr. Obama hasn't been bellicose toward Putin in the Ukraine crisis and has been wisely keeping his moves under wraps, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina just accused him of being "weak" and "indecisive". To continue the Republican campaign to destroy the president's authority in an hour of crisis when the country has to have some confidence in him is one inch from committing treason. Yet I haven't heard a single Democrat say anything like that. That's what's wrong with the Democratic party.
This kind of thing is why it would be a good idea for somebody military or highly accomplished in business to be a candidate in '16. Getting somebody who unarguably can play hardball into it may be necessary just because the Repubs are always going to portray the Dems as wimps if they can.
And this brings us back to Andy Cuomo. Even before Putin made his reactive move after losing his foothold in Ukraine, Cuomo was positioning himself as an implacable warrior on behalf of preserving our fast-eroding social and economic gains. He wasn't talking about foreign affairs, but his tough-guy moves believably can extend to that sphere by implication.
The likeliest Repub nominee for New York governor this year is Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who straddles tea party values and the presumed credibility of a conventional office-holder in an important job. Astorino is running. And Cuomo is running at him, playing offense rather than defense.
Liberal bloggers have made it known that they'll take down a Cuomo presidential run if they can. As long as he didn't seem to be after the White House, they held back. Now he'll have to answer them and drown them out.
Several weeks ago he made what may have seemed an impromptu remark about there being no room in New York for extremists who are anti-abortion, anti-gays, etc. This created a big stir, but he didn't back down or soften it.
He reportedly followed that up a few days ago in a meeting with top state Republicans, warning them that if they ran a social conservative like Astorino against him, he would, in effect, tear the guy's arm off and beat him to death with it. That is, he'd go all-out on social issues, about which New Yorkers generally agree with him.
The Repubs might hope to talk about other things; but because Astorino holds to those right-wing stands, Cuomo is saying they won't be able to do it. He'll make such a candidate radioactive.
If the Repubs had it more together, they might be able to come up with an attractive businessman who was kind of a muttering moderate on social issues. Then they'd lose the backing of the Conservative party, but they could get a decent vote by attracting some independents. But Astorino is their course of least resistance.
Cuomo figures to win big anyhow. Running up the score by breathing fire on social issues won't hurt him in the state and will make him seem a champion of established social liberalism nationally. That's not to say that he's ready to do anything about the emergence of our oligarchy or the disappearance of our middle class. On those things he'll play it safe like Hillary. But he'll be seen as aggressive, a gut-fighter.
Assuming Hillary runs, he won't find it hard to come up with an excuse for opposing her. Meanwhile, he can afford to wait while she bleeds out, thumping his manly chest all the while.
As with Hillary, he's a hard person to warm up to. It looks to me as though the I-just-don't-like-the-guy factor that dogged Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon may work against him. In the Northeast the tepidness of his progressivism is a problem for him, while in the rest of the country he'll be mistakenly seen as very progressive as well as being an "ethnic". It might have helped him if his ancestry had been Spanish rather than Italian. So, even apart from the Hillary factor, he has much to overcome.
But he now has a road ahead. By playing rough this year, he can be the General Patton of sellout centrism and not just another governor.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
STARS OF 2016
Mitt Romney says "No no no no no no" if you ask if he's running for president. But, watching him, I'd bet he's running.
So far his opponent for the not-insane Repub vote is Jeb Bush. But Jeb will probably take firm stands that reveal him as being in what today's unbelievably sick climate passes for a "moderate" conservative. Mitt, on the other hand, will pander to the extremists, then segue into someone seemingly reasonable, then revert, and so on - back and forth in a nimble dance. We saw it when he was caught telling a room full of rich monsters that 47% of us aren't pulling our weight and should be set adrift, then blithely informed the world that that was "completely wrong". His shamelessness and his ability to get away with it are his qualifications for the nomination. Can he get it again? Possibly, but I wouldn't put down any money yet.
On the Democratic side we now have Governor Jay Nixon of Missouri saying that he may run if Hillary doesn't. He's a successful governor, formerly a longtime state attorney general, and a tough guy. No particular charisma, but he seems solid. He may believably believe that he couldn't compete with Hillary because both are centrists.
Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland is another matter. He also more-or-less says he'll pass it up if Hillary goes for it; but don't believe it. He's running now. He has to be hoping she'll stand aside, in which case he won't have alienated the Clintons. But he'll run whether she does or not. Where he'll stand on the ideological spectrum, and how sincerely, remain to be seen.
Brian Schweitzer will be a commentator for MSNBC, which will help him become known nationally. He says the Dems aren't always right and the Repubs aren't always wrong. It's a good line, tends to open people's minds. But, apart from his positions for guns and for "clean" coal, he's very progressive. He also remains highly popular in his own state. And in important respects he's the Anti-Hillary: an outsider, a fighter, and a charmer. It's being insinuated that he doesn't have to be taken seriously. And he may end up not going for it. But he can't be counted out.
In a previous posting I said something truly dumb, and I apologize for it. What I said was that Joe Biden can't dissociate himself from the administration's record. Of course he can - and he is. A recent article about him mentions that he told a friend that he's more a populist than the president is. I've no doubt that was leaked. He doesn't really have to worry about anything besides where Hillary stands. And he can run to her left because, hey, conditions change and you have to look ahead. Will he try for it? Well, what does he have to lose?
My Spidey sense tells me that the Hillary-is-inevitable consensus is being orchestrated by Clinton and Obama loyalists, some of them journalists, who are the Dem establishment of today and who want to retain their connections, their influence, and their sweetheart deals even if it means that we get another lame president. And I think their secret fear is that someone they have no ties to is going to show up, make them an issue, and take it away from her.
Why shouldn't it be Hillary? Try these reasons:
~She's a neoliberal and an unabashed ally of Wall Street, when the Dem electorate is the reverse of that.
~She's a neocon in foreign policy, voted for the Iraq And Afghan wars, and even favored Mr. Obama's abortive plan to attack Syria.
~She's elderly, when the Dem nomination will be decided by the young and restless.
~She has no personality. None.
~She's a weak campaigner.
~She's old news with plenty of baggage.
~Her own words make her out to be masculine in outlook, power-hungry, and vindictive.
Are those reasons enough to look elsewhere? What more would you want? Well, try this.
I've said before, and I think it's a major point, that her indifference to her husband's infidelities will hurt her. An American president isn't just a chief executive but the head of the family, as it were; we want to be able to look up to him or her. There aren't many wives out there who would shrug if they caught their hubbies shagging other women. They'd want to be able to identify with Hillary, not only in public life but in her private attitudes. They don't accept an open marriage as anything but depravity. Added to that, we have the tabloids now attributing to her numerous affairs with persons of both genders. If she wants her reputation to remain intact, the way to make that happen is to bow out of the race soon.
The poll that showed her with 73% of the Dem primary vote means less than nothing this far out, when she has no challenger to serve as contrast with her and to controvert her empty wonderfulness.
I well recall that I said confidently that President Obama would be challenged for the '12 nomination. And he should have been, not least so since he's now nominating conservatives to be Federal judges. But Hillary isn't an incumbent, no matter how resolved some are to portray her as one.
The idea that no one of substance would get in against her is ludicrous. It goes against everything we've seen in American politics. For a number of prospective candidates it'll be now or never. They owe her nothing. And they want it "so bad they can taste it".
Angry young guys out of the military and self-confident billionaires are two groups that could produce a candidate for Dems who've had enough. The pain and frustration of the Obama years are probably sufficient to precipitate the nomination of a fresh face. That candidate's biggest attractors will be progressivism and an eagerness to slug it out with the reactionaries.
Keep watching the margins.
So far his opponent for the not-insane Repub vote is Jeb Bush. But Jeb will probably take firm stands that reveal him as being in what today's unbelievably sick climate passes for a "moderate" conservative. Mitt, on the other hand, will pander to the extremists, then segue into someone seemingly reasonable, then revert, and so on - back and forth in a nimble dance. We saw it when he was caught telling a room full of rich monsters that 47% of us aren't pulling our weight and should be set adrift, then blithely informed the world that that was "completely wrong". His shamelessness and his ability to get away with it are his qualifications for the nomination. Can he get it again? Possibly, but I wouldn't put down any money yet.
On the Democratic side we now have Governor Jay Nixon of Missouri saying that he may run if Hillary doesn't. He's a successful governor, formerly a longtime state attorney general, and a tough guy. No particular charisma, but he seems solid. He may believably believe that he couldn't compete with Hillary because both are centrists.
Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland is another matter. He also more-or-less says he'll pass it up if Hillary goes for it; but don't believe it. He's running now. He has to be hoping she'll stand aside, in which case he won't have alienated the Clintons. But he'll run whether she does or not. Where he'll stand on the ideological spectrum, and how sincerely, remain to be seen.
Brian Schweitzer will be a commentator for MSNBC, which will help him become known nationally. He says the Dems aren't always right and the Repubs aren't always wrong. It's a good line, tends to open people's minds. But, apart from his positions for guns and for "clean" coal, he's very progressive. He also remains highly popular in his own state. And in important respects he's the Anti-Hillary: an outsider, a fighter, and a charmer. It's being insinuated that he doesn't have to be taken seriously. And he may end up not going for it. But he can't be counted out.
In a previous posting I said something truly dumb, and I apologize for it. What I said was that Joe Biden can't dissociate himself from the administration's record. Of course he can - and he is. A recent article about him mentions that he told a friend that he's more a populist than the president is. I've no doubt that was leaked. He doesn't really have to worry about anything besides where Hillary stands. And he can run to her left because, hey, conditions change and you have to look ahead. Will he try for it? Well, what does he have to lose?
My Spidey sense tells me that the Hillary-is-inevitable consensus is being orchestrated by Clinton and Obama loyalists, some of them journalists, who are the Dem establishment of today and who want to retain their connections, their influence, and their sweetheart deals even if it means that we get another lame president. And I think their secret fear is that someone they have no ties to is going to show up, make them an issue, and take it away from her.
Why shouldn't it be Hillary? Try these reasons:
~She's a neoliberal and an unabashed ally of Wall Street, when the Dem electorate is the reverse of that.
~She's a neocon in foreign policy, voted for the Iraq And Afghan wars, and even favored Mr. Obama's abortive plan to attack Syria.
~She's elderly, when the Dem nomination will be decided by the young and restless.
~She has no personality. None.
~She's a weak campaigner.
~She's old news with plenty of baggage.
~Her own words make her out to be masculine in outlook, power-hungry, and vindictive.
Are those reasons enough to look elsewhere? What more would you want? Well, try this.
I've said before, and I think it's a major point, that her indifference to her husband's infidelities will hurt her. An American president isn't just a chief executive but the head of the family, as it were; we want to be able to look up to him or her. There aren't many wives out there who would shrug if they caught their hubbies shagging other women. They'd want to be able to identify with Hillary, not only in public life but in her private attitudes. They don't accept an open marriage as anything but depravity. Added to that, we have the tabloids now attributing to her numerous affairs with persons of both genders. If she wants her reputation to remain intact, the way to make that happen is to bow out of the race soon.
The poll that showed her with 73% of the Dem primary vote means less than nothing this far out, when she has no challenger to serve as contrast with her and to controvert her empty wonderfulness.
I well recall that I said confidently that President Obama would be challenged for the '12 nomination. And he should have been, not least so since he's now nominating conservatives to be Federal judges. But Hillary isn't an incumbent, no matter how resolved some are to portray her as one.
The idea that no one of substance would get in against her is ludicrous. It goes against everything we've seen in American politics. For a number of prospective candidates it'll be now or never. They owe her nothing. And they want it "so bad they can taste it".
Angry young guys out of the military and self-confident billionaires are two groups that could produce a candidate for Dems who've had enough. The pain and frustration of the Obama years are probably sufficient to precipitate the nomination of a fresh face. That candidate's biggest attractors will be progressivism and an eagerness to slug it out with the reactionaries.
Keep watching the margins.
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