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Why the Cult Critique of Obama Backfires
This will be pretty short, but I just had to put it out there, specifically after Joe Klein's (and others, but <a href=http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1710721,00.html>this piece</a> seems to cover it) seeming endorsement of the "Obama Cult" theory.
While I understand that the HRC camp really wants to win, and has to do something to attack Barack in order to make that happen, I'm pretty sure critiquing his supporters and pushing the "you all are cultish fiends line"* backfires. I was loathe to vote for Hillary before, even in a general against the GOP, since she's tacitly endorsed calling me a mindless fool, I'm pretty sure I have no motivation to turn out for her if she does win the nomination.
This is a problem. The woman has fully 40-45% of the country that does not like her. At all. She cannot afford to have numerous party activists stay home because she needed to win the primary. If she wins with this line of argumentation it isn't merely that she loses the new turnout youth vote (although, that would be devestating too. With the number of new people Barack is bringing into the process, we could turn OH, PA and FL just on turnout...that's significant and they only turnout for one person) it's that she and her team are alienating parts of the party's base apparatus. The part that gives money. The part that mobilizes to phone bank, knock on doors and just generally GOTV.
There are only two possibilities.
Either she suffers from such a delusion of grandeur that she really believes she can call people mindless and still get their vote, or she is so desperate to get her shot at the presidency that she's willing to put herself in an untenable position vis a vis winning, totally ignoring that it may put the GOP in the White House, because she feels it's owed to her somehow.
Neither option is good. I am sick of leaders who suffer from delusions of never being wrong and entitlement. I am equally appalled that one would run a campaign on a strategy aimed at ridiculing a substantial portion of the base of the party.
While I understand that the HRC camp really wants to win, and has to do something to attack Barack in order to make that happen, I'm pretty sure critiquing his supporters and pushing the "you all are cultish fiends line"* backfires. I was loathe to vote for Hillary before, even in a general against the GOP, since she's tacitly endorsed calling me a mindless fool, I'm pretty sure I have no motivation to turn out for her if she does win the nomination.
This is a problem. The woman has fully 40-45% of the country that does not like her. At all. She cannot afford to have numerous party activists stay home because she needed to win the primary. If she wins with this line of argumentation it isn't merely that she loses the new turnout youth vote (although, that would be devestating too. With the number of new people Barack is bringing into the process, we could turn OH, PA and FL just on turnout...that's significant and they only turnout for one person) it's that she and her team are alienating parts of the party's base apparatus. The part that gives money. The part that mobilizes to phone bank, knock on doors and just generally GOTV.
There are only two possibilities.
Either she suffers from such a delusion of grandeur that she really believes she can call people mindless and still get their vote, or she is so desperate to get her shot at the presidency that she's willing to put herself in an untenable position vis a vis winning, totally ignoring that it may put the GOP in the White House, because she feels it's owed to her somehow.
Neither option is good. I am sick of leaders who suffer from delusions of never being wrong and entitlement. I am equally appalled that one would run a campaign on a strategy aimed at ridiculing a substantial portion of the base of the party.
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Don't feel bad, Joe Klein is well known as a Clinton apologist, I think it is in his DNA. That being said, the latest anti-Obama bents about "cultists" and "plagiarism" are thankfully all the MSM and Clinton PR machines can conjure. I say "thankfully" because it shows that there really is no "beef" to these "stories". They are just fluff; in the weeds.
It's best to just ignore them and let them go away and if Joe Klein's editors start to notice that he is not really earning his paycheck, maybe they will do the same for him; what an idiot.
February 19, 2008 6:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why in the hell is this the Clinton campaign's fault? When is the last time Joe Klein said anything nice about ANY democrat, especially the Clintons? This came directly from the MSM and in particular CNN's Wolf Blitzer who did a segment on this on Feb. 15. Joel Stein/LA Times, a supporter, calls him "Steve Urkel with a better tailor" and this is a so called supporter. David Brooks/NYT calls the supporters "Hare Krishnas while Joe Klein/Newsweek notes the "messianic following and Jake Tapper/ABCNote calls it "Helter Skelterish". I won't even go into Charles Krauthammer's remarks which are always unhinged but seem to have gotten worse or that wackjob Maureen Dowd who can write a column based entirely on quotes she made up herself.
You claim you can't vote for Clinton because of this, and yet you're too lazy to check out the source of this story or do even a modicum of research to verify it. This is what the MSM has been doing to democrats for the last 15 years - marginalizing, insulting gratuitously, twisting statements and words out of context and in some cases down right lying about them. (I might point out TPM's story that Clinton wanted Shuster fired, which was completely false and they haven't printed a retraction or apology which goes to show the Pavlovian behavior of the press corp. Clinton = bad!) Instead of blaming democrats for this why don't you do a little research, maybe read a few books, peruse a few news sites and see what has been happening for the last fifteen years?
This is exactly, and I mean EXACTLY, what the press corp did to Al Gore. He was "ruthless" he'd "say anything, do anything to get elected", he was "desparate" and "a liar" and played "the race card" with the Willie Horton issue.
You have one commenter who claims Joe Klein is a "Clinton apologist" which is so far from reality that even a cursory glance at the past few months columns, (not to mention his book "Primary Colors" which was hardly a flattering view of the Clintons even fictionalized) would prove that false. Democrats are their own worst enemy.
February 19, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did I miss something? When did Clinton call anyone "mindless?"
Kind of funny actually...people won't vote for her becasue they think she's called them mindless, when in fact she hasn't... kind of a self fulfilling prophecy there, huh? ;^}
February 19, 2008 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink