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Flaming Politics video blog (Episode 13): Putting Hillary's campaign to rest, and moving on
This week on Flaming Politics, Japhy puts Hillary-talk to rest (at least in his own mind) as he conducts a post-mortem on what worked and what didn't work in her campaign, no character assassination needed. Also, gay victims of the Nazi Holocaust are honored, a Birmingham, AL Mayor puts the kebosh on a pride parade and what you can do to start getting involved in the fight for equal marriage. Check it all out after the break! Submitted by on Wed, 2008-05-28 11:53. |
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Word.
Sums my feelings about Senator Clinton completely. I started out really excited about Hillary. I kept wanting her to do or say something that could make me really be for.
All I saw was someone making the same mistakes with her campaign that George Bush made with his entire presidency: Surrounding herself with loyalists and yes men instead of the very best people for the job. Taking bad advice. Assuming she could declare "Mission Accomplished" after super Tuesday and having no back-up strategy. Not beeing able to read the mood of the American people, except to play to our prejudices and fears. Trying to change the rules in the middle of the game. The parallels go on and on.
I'm more saddened by it than anything. Because I really want to like and admire Hillary.
Well Put
I could have written every word of your post myself. I'd add one other big mistake/flaw that she exhibited: making it clear that the only thing that REALLY mattered to her was winning. And she'd do anything to try to reach that goal, even if it meant intentional misrepresenting of the facts, playing to racial fears, putting more emphasis on tearing down her opponent than building herself up, etc.
I was a HUGE supporter at first, and I took absolutely no pleasure from my disillusionment. She'd probably make a fine president, but we have to move our politics away from a place where "Rove-ian" strategies and manipulations are business as usual.
Sing No Sad Songs for Hillary
afhickman
"It takes a village (to make Village People)"
I have been a loyal supporter of Mrs. Clinton for many a year, and I don't recognize her in any of your criticisms. I think this is what the Olbermanns and Dowds have programmed you to believe, through manipulation of the facts. The same thing happened to Al Gore in 2000, when he was effeminized by the press and otherwise turned into a laughing stock (he never claimed to have invented the Internet and he and Tipper really were two of the students Erich Segal had in mind for Love Story, etc, etc). Eight years later, he holds the Nobel Peace Prize. Whatever her fate in this year's election cycle, Mrs. Clinton will continue, like Al Gore, to serve her country. And if Barack Obama is the next president, he couldn't ask for a stauncher ally than HRC. She's one hell of a lady.
Sad Songs
Actually, Hillary deserves a sad song or two, for what might have been. She had everything necessary to make a great president, and it's not going to happen. I'm hoping she chooses to replace Ted Kennedy in his role as the master legislator, someone who can work across the aisle to actually get things done.
I was a loyal supporter for many years, and was passionately in her corner. I even based my novel in November (National Novel Writing Month) around a right wing plot in 2012 to assassinate President Hillary Clinton. (The plot was partially foiled by a gay college student and his roommate, after the gay student's father became part of the plot and was subsequently killed.) But I feel she did essentially betray my loyalty to some extent by her actions. I remember noticing things a long time ago. I wanted to write an indignant letter of the "don't you see what you're doing to yourself" type, but I knew it would accomplish nothing. And no, it's not Olbermann. I like him, but he's been one-sided, as has Chris Matthews. But unfortunately, she has done it to herself. The first flaw was trying to coast to the nomination. As a result she said absolutely nothing, and wouldn't take any stands. And she had no real plan following the first Super Tuesday. Then she went into attack mode, which is doomed to failure if it appears the attacks are pure political expediency. I was still for her at that point, and I remember screaming at the TV, "don't go that route! You'll just hurt yourself!" Other examples of shooting herself in the foot: the gas tax vacation plan, on which she could have no impact (and would be a pandering bad policy anyway); trying to seat the Michigan delegation when she was the only one on the ballot; saying superdelegates should vote against the elected delegates because the rules allow it, and then saying that the popular vote means more than the elected delegates, even though the rules go against that idea; playing the race card multiple times, the lying about Bosnia (more than once), etc., etc.
I think she was pilloried unfairly for the Bobby Kennedy assassination comment. But she's done enough other things to make it clear she's an old style politician at a time when we desperately need anything but old style politics. I still like her, despite the flaws, but she really only has herself to blame for losing this nomination.
I have to agree, Dennis...
Ditto
Great Post
The piece regarding the Alabama mayor highlights the deep divide that exists between the African-American and LGBT communities (not to imply that one can't be a member of both). The unwillingness on the part of those who fought so tirelessly for African-American civil rights to recognize the LGBT community's struggle has seriously undermined the strides the movement could have accomplished with their support.
The fact that the NAACP gave "A Man of the Year"-type ward to Isaiah Washington the same year he got in so much trouble for calling T.R. Knight a "Fag" merely highlights the distance left to travel.
That being said, I don't think you do yourself any favors comparing an African-American man to someone best known for their fried chicken. Obviously, this wasn't your intention, but still, it leaves you very vulnerable to claims of racism.
www.thebittersuite.blogspot.com
Alabama Gay Pride Parade - On Again!
Great video post Japhy. By the way the Alabama Gay Pride parade will go on. Alabama State Representative Patricia Todd spoke with Mayor Langford on Saturday morning and the mayor assured Representative Todd that the parade permit WILL be issued with no issues from his office.
If By Gay You Mean Totally Freaking Awesome, Then Yeah, I Guess It's Pretty Gay
--Des Ark
bridging communities
While I think that leaders in both African-American and LGBT communities might work better together (and of course, it would be nice to see leaders in both either commuities who are members of both), the NAACP and/or NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund have both been supportive of marriage equality in the past, in various ways, including filing briefs supportive of marriage equality before state high courts in NY and CA.
As for Clinton, meh. I'm Obama-biased (and, now, evidently, anti-feminist), so I can only say that I'm not sad to see her and her family's style of politics (which I see as, in many ways, the precursor to Bush II politics) left behind.
She'll make an excellent Senate Majority Leader someday soon.
Thanks for pointing out the
Thanks for pointing out the support for marriage equality by certain African-American organizations.
A lot of people turn a blind eye to our allies of color & instead focus on those who are our opponents, as if the latter are representative of their entire group.
Lest They Forget--Again
afhickman
"It takes a village (to make Village People)"
We're probably never going to agree on what happened to the Hillary campaign, but I do want to thank you for mentioning the new memorial to the gay victims of Naziism in Berlin. I plan to see it at Christmas. Of course, it won't get much press anywhere else, and that's a shame. In fact there has been a memorial to the gay victims of Naziism in Berlin for a decade, and no one has ever taken much notice. It's located at the Nollendorfplatz subway station and reads: Totgeschlagen / Totgeschwiegen / Den Homosexuellen Opfern des Nationalsozialismus (Struck dead / Struck dumb / To the homosexual victims of National Socialism). I have posted a photo on my flickr site. If it looks a bit neglected, that's probably because it's practically hidden from view: http://www.flickr.com/photos/afhickman/4180735/
Can Obama take the heat in a general election?
If Obama thinks things have been hot thus far in the campaign, wait until the general election when the conservative groups start attacking. They are already beginning to launch some "swift boat" attacks on numerous "questionable" questions about him.
Some of these may range from the absurd to the questionable, but remember the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry?
Should be an interesting election year.
Maybe We Just Don't Like Her
While I agree with much of your post-mortem analysis on the failed Hillary campaign for the Democratic nomination, you neglect to mention the fundamental reason why voters rejected her bid: we just aren't that into her.
And the reasons why we don't like her are numerous, and have nothing to do with her strategic blunders in the campaign but fundamental issues concerning both her substantive policies and personal character: (1) she authorized the war in Iraq, and then later irresponsibly threatens to totally obliterate Iran; (2) during her husband's administration she developed a strategy to demonize every woman who came forward with charges of sexual assault against Bill -- a strategy which was more mysogynistic and sexist than anything that was leveled against her; (3) Hillary supported her husband's homophobic policies of DADT and DOMA, and even now she only supports a partial repeal of DOMA; and (4) she has a long history of scandals including, among others, filegate (she inexplicably lost subpoened billing records from the Rose Law Firm where she was billing partner only to later find those files mysteriously placed on her White House desk), travelgate (firing the White House travel staff to replace them with her Arkansas cronies) and pardongate (Hillary's brother accepting contributions to deliver pardon requests to the desk of Bill).
In short, there are plenty of substantive reasons why the voters rejected Hillary that have nothing to do with her mismanaged campaign by which she apparently snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and she simply cannot accept the fact that we don't like her, we really don't like her.
Interestingly Enough
There was a story recently in The New Republic--a survey of Clinton staffers--about what went wrong in the Clinton campaign...what derailed the candidate that just 6 months ago was the odds on favorite to be the Democratic nominee.
The staffers point to a lot of things, many of which are repeated in this vlog: Mark Penn, egregious spending, a poor field strategy that was non-existent after Feb. 5, etc.
And, like this vlog, not a single one mentioned Iraq.
Iraq, which was the single greatest impetus behind an Obama run--greater even than change or hope (certainly any Democratic candidate could've adopted that plank). Simply put, had Clinton been less hawkish on Iraq (even after she voted to authorize the invasion), Obama's whole reason for running would've been gone and I have no doubt, she'd be the nominee today.
Early in the nominating process, Clinton said, "If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from." Looks like the majority of Democrats took her advice.