When Will the Party Turn Its Back on Her?
Forget, for a moment, how outraged, hurt, embarrassed, or whatever we are at Hillary’s latest statements. What I’d like to talk about is the recklessness of her attacks on the very people whose support she needs the most: party elders in the DNC and the more timid elected superdelegates who're afraid to take any position that might offend either candidate's supporters. Using the A-word, comparing the DNC to Mugabe and its rules to the disenfranchisement of women and blacks before suffrage--it’s as though she were running not against Obama, but against the Democratic Party. You can only bite the hand that feeds you so many times before you get slapped on the muzzle.
And so my thesis: When the DNC decides that her continued hostility will alienate its base and simply withdraws its support for her continued campaign, she'll truly become irrelevant. Hillary may be willing to swing wildly until August, but party leaders have got to be thinking that her escalating attacks on the DNC itself will endanger their prospects in the fall, and will take decisive action to freeze her out.
The uncommitted SDs are the very ones who need a DNC flush with cash to support their campaigns. They want big coattails to ride on to get a super-majority that can enact a Democratic agenda and make right the mistakes of Bill Clinton's first term. Clinton might have a long history with the party, but right now Obama's the hot ticket: a commanding lead in fundraising, resistant to scandal, and with a steady flow of supers into his camp.
So, does anyone else the party turning on the Clintons? And if so, when and how?
And so my thesis: When the DNC decides that her continued hostility will alienate its base and simply withdraws its support for her continued campaign, she'll truly become irrelevant. Hillary may be willing to swing wildly until August, but party leaders have got to be thinking that her escalating attacks on the DNC itself will endanger their prospects in the fall, and will take decisive action to freeze her out.
The uncommitted SDs are the very ones who need a DNC flush with cash to support their campaigns. They want big coattails to ride on to get a super-majority that can enact a Democratic agenda and make right the mistakes of Bill Clinton's first term. Clinton might have a long history with the party, but right now Obama's the hot ticket: a commanding lead in fundraising, resistant to scandal, and with a steady flow of supers into his camp.
So, does anyone else the party turning on the Clintons? And if so, when and how?
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Whenever folks realize that it's either Hillary or the party, and the two are now mutually exclusive. I think that realization is coming rather quickly.
May 25, 2008 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
May 25, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like blowing the Congressional majority. Like squandering an opportunity for health care reform. Just to name a few. Like making the Republican Contract for America sound pretty good compared with Clinton's legal troubles.
We were all delighted and amazed by the balanced budget, but as soon as the bubble burst it became clear that WJC was riding the wave of unrealistic expectations. I know, that means facing the fact that not all our financial woes can be blamed on the Shrub.
May 25, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
It takes two to tango, but 16 years to teach us a lesson.
May 25, 2008 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Noone ever accused the American electorate of its brilliant perception of its own self-interest. If they did, they were probably pandering.
May 25, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because we all know the House Banking Scandal, the House Post Office Scandal, the fact the Speaker of the House was suing his constituents, the previous Speaker resigning to his novel book royalty arrangements had nothing to do with it. Nope. Not at all.
Not to mention that the party in the White House typically loses seats during the mid-terms (which is how one wag proved that Gore won in 2000 since the Democrats lost seats in 2002).
Yup, it's all the Clintons' fault.
May 25, 2008 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
The party won't turn its back on her. It will not align itself with her, but -- despite her hallucinatory accusations -- the party will never tell her to stop. And she will continue to make a spectacle of herself until the country gets tired of watching. At that point, and that point only will the lights go out.
May 25, 2008 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could you explain why it is that you believe the DNC would commit such mass suicide?
I'm a great believer in cognitive behavioral therapy. The idea is to identify thoughts that are founded in neurosis or mood rather than reality.
For example: I went to the rabbi's house to watch the Superbowl; I was all full of new-found zest for Obama based on my gut-level responses to both candidates. Intellectual that she is, she challenged me to articulate Obama's policies and offered the same kinds of attacks on his experience and character as Hillary was at the time. A few of us there stood up for Obama, but frankly none of us could articulate why at the time. She admonished me that if I was going to support a candidate I damned well better know why (my words, not hers).
So I went online, pulled up both health care plans, etc. on a split screen, and started comparing their policies. I read articles and blogs. I came here. With time I was able to say why I support Obama and why I think he's the stronger candidate.
Moral of the story: always question your most disturbing thoughts (and many of your least disturbing ones).
Because:
May 25, 2008 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Constantinople, I agree it's not all the Clinton's fault, and ruling party leads sometimes go down during midterms. But they rarely get completely obliterated.
What I mean to say, and probably didn't say clearly, was that the tech boom can't be attributed to WJC. He helped with the economy, but as I said, he was riding a wave. He rode it well, but he himself was not the wave.
May 25, 2008 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeesh, I'm just not reading what I'm writing anymore. Wasn't entirely attributable to WJC.
May 25, 2008 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink