Archive for the '2008 elections' Category

Yesterday, I pointed out that Vilsack's war opposition was ridiculous given he was the leader of the DLC -- an organization that has existed the past five years to attack anti-war Democrats.

In the comments, Big Tent Democrat asked:

why would Hillary admit her mistakes if all she'll get for her trouble is reactions like this one?

Hillary is in trouble in Iraq. She has no out. The time to change her position in Iraq should've been when it wouldn't look like clear pandering, before she stubbornly dug in her heels. Which is why she now has no choice but plow ahead while trying to blur the distinctions on Iraq (blame Bush, not those who give Bush his blank check).

I don't want people who do the right thing for political expediency. I want people who do the right thing because it's the right thing to do.

Part of my equation when looking at the presidential candidates is their judgment. I know supporters of candidates who fucked up on Iraq want to gloss that over. But I don't want people who find religion before their presidential bids. I want people who got it right the first time.

And if that's not possible, then I want people who used their positions of authority to acknowledge their mistakes and actively work to limit the damage.

Vilsack led an organization which has mocked and attacked anti-war Democrats for years and did nothing. Then seven months ago (or so), headlining the DLC's national convention, he still did nothing. And as the DLC put out official decree after official decree deriding Murtha and other anti-war Demcorats, he did nothing.

Where was the leadership?

Vilsack ain't going anywhere, so it's essentially a moot point when it comes to him. But leadership means doing the right thing even when it isn't popular. And while Vilsack may have turned against the war last year, he didn't do anything about it because it would've been unpopular with his DLC patrons. Nothing he says now can change that. The die is cast. He failed to show leadership when it mattered.

Same with Hillary (who, remember, is still part of that DLC leadership). Though to her credit, she has told that those of us like me who demand good judgment and clear leadership from our elected officials to look elsewhere. At least she's honest that she won't be providing those things.

Iraq won't be the last crisis to face this country. If they screwed up this one so badly, how am I supposed to feel confidence that they won't make similar mistakes the next time?

Update: Hillary scores big coup! Joe Klein has her back.

Last weekend, Hillary told me that I should look elsewhere for a candidate to vote for.

“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,” Mrs. Clinton told an audience in Dover, N.H., in a veiled reference to two rivals for the nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

That was nice of her, and I promptly took her up on her generous offer. But, alas, it doesn't end there. The war in Iraq is of such import, that it's important we continue to swat aside efforts from pro-war Democrats to pretend that unsavory episode never happened.

Mrs. Clinton’s advisers have been split for some time about whether she would be better off if she apologized for the vote. Mark Penn, her chief strategist, who was also Mr. Clinton’s pollster, carries considerable influence within the campaign, and he agrees with her that she should keep the “mistake” onus on Mr. Bush and turn her attention to finding “the right end” to the war, as she says.

Foreign policy advisers say they have made similar arguments: look to the future, not the past, and stand by a vote that was based on military intelligence that was widely accepted at the time.

The "mistake" onus is obviously on Bush, but also on everyone that helped make it happen. And Hillary's vote (along with every other Democrat who went along to look "tough") didn't just enable Bush, but it also fueled efforts to marginalize and mock those of us fighting Bush's war. If even the liberal Hillary Clinton supported Bush's war, then those of us opposing it had to be real wackos way outside the mainstream!

We might not be talking about finding the "right end" to the war if she hadn't helped make it a reality in the first place.

Over the next year many of us will try to determine who can best lead us in this time of great strife. And part of being a good leader is 1) exhibiting good judgment on issues of great import, and 2) being able to acknowledge mistakes and adjust accordingly to minimize the damage.

And on this, Hillary has come up far short. While 23 Senators and lots more House Reps saw through the administration's smokescreen and refused to authorize Bush's war (and anyone who voted for Bush's authorization knew damn well it was a carte blanche for him to invade, no matter how many promises he gave about the UN yadda yadda yadda), Hillary was one of those who did.

Now many who voted for the war authorization, most Democrats and even some Republicans (including Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones) have acknowledged the mistake. But Hillary refuses to do so.

So we have a top-tier Democratic candidate for the presidency who showed abysmal judgment on the biggest issue to face our nation in decades, and then has refused to acknowledged her role in helping to make it happen.

That's straight from the "George Bush" style of leadership. And if there's one thing this country had learned, it's that we can't afford another one of those.

The front page of today's Washington Post features a long lamentation for poor, embattled Ellen Tauscher. Tauscher, who represents a solidly Democratic district in the Bay area, is a classic case of a Democrat who is out of touch with her district, and has become one of the top targets for a primary challenge in '08.

Tauscher was reelected with 68 percent of the vote, but she said she takes this threat seriously; she has already used it in fundraising appeals. And though she has always highlighted her independence -- shortly before the election, she warned Democrats not to "go off the left cliff" -- she's now emphasizing her party loyalty.

She was once the only California Democrat to oppose Pelosi's campaign for leadership, but she now marvels that the speaker's performance has been "absolutely perfect -- and she looks so beautiful doing it!" Tauscher's Web site no longer features photos of her with Bush or Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), who lost a Democratic primary of his own last year but won reelection as an independent.

Those photos survived in Google's cache; bloggers have dubbed one shot that appears to show Bush's hand on Tauscher's thigh "The Caress," an allusion to "The Kiss" -- video and photos showing Bush embracing Lieberman after the 2005 State of the Union address -- which dogged the senator in his fight against insurgent Ned Lamont. Tauscher donated and has helped raise a total of $2 million for Democrats over the past decade, and since 2003 she has voted with her party more than 90 percent of the time. This year, she has marched in lock step with Pelosi. But to Net-roots sites such as Daily Kos, Firedoglake, and Crooks and Liars, she's Lieberman in a pantsuit.

"I don't think it's a fair comparison," Tauscher said. "My colleagues look at this and say, 'If they're going after Ellen Tauscher, holy moly!' "

Marching lock step with Pelosi is a start for Tauscher. But scrubbing her Web site of pictures with Joe and Bush doesn't really answer the point of whether she's really representing her constituency, and how she is reacting to a potential primary challenge.

Here's the big question. Is Tauscher going to run against us, as she appears to be doing by fundraising using the threat of the netroots, or is she going to take this threat as wake up call to evaluate whether she's faithfully representing her constituency? When she does a gut check, will she end up being a Joe Lieberman or a Jane Harman? At this point, if her reaction to being challenged is any indication, she's leaning toward the former.

Let's review Tauscher's record here:

In 1996, Tauscher ran for Congress as a pro-business, pro-environment, pro-military centrist against Bill Baker, a conservative Republican she portrayed as too far right for his suburban swing district. Pelosi supported her, and she won. But when Pelosi ran for whip, Tauscher supported moderate Hoyer, a close friend. And later in 2001, Tauscher accused Pelosi and her allies in the California Senate of redrawing her congressional district as payback. The new district was much more Democratic, which made it a safer seat for the party, but not necessarily for Tauscher -- unless she followed Pelosi's lead.

That's why Kos has promised "a vicious fight for her seat." He's often portrayed as a raving ideologue, but he's really a savvy strategist; he has no problem supporting conservative Democrats in conservative districts, such as new Rep. Heath Shuler (N.C.). But he sees no need to tolerate a DLC type in Tauscher's district, where Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) received 58 percent of the presidential vote in 2004. And he said that primaries are the only way to force incumbents with safe seats to pay attention to constituents.

"We're creating real democracy," he said.

As we tried to do in Connecticut. While we didn't get rid of Joe Lieberman, we helped to effectively marginalize him. He's now stuck to a failed and disastrously unpopular president, and is in a no-man's land of politics--useless to the Republicans because he won't support many of their pet causes, and a pariah in his own party. Contrast that to Jane Harman, as Markos does in this story:

But Kos points to Harman as a perfect example of how the Net roots can keep Democrats in line. He said Harman used to be a constant irritant, a go-to quote for reporters looking for a Democrat to tweak liberals -- until she had to fight off a primary challenge from the left in 2006. "She's been great ever since," he said. Now Harman even writes on the liberal Huffington Post blog.

Kos can imagine a day when Tauscher still holds her seat but is no longer distasteful to the left. "That's what victory would look like -- a more responsive representative," he said. So when Tauscher praises Pelosi as "perfect on substance, perfect on optics," it's hard to know if that's a result of personal evolution, political trends, or blogospheric pressure, but it's music to Kos's ears. It's helpful to Democratic leaders, too.

If Tauscher takes this challenge to heart, and becomes more responsive to her district, then it would truly be a victory for the everyone, us, her district, and Tauscher herself. That's real democracy.

The closer we get to the primaries, the more Hillary will realize that she can't escape her Iraq dilemma.

One of the most important decisions that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton made about her bid for the presidency came late last year when she ended a debate in her camp over whether she should repudiate her 2002 vote authorizing military action in Iraq.

Several advisers, friends and donors said in interviews that they had urged her to call her vote a mistake in order to appease antiwar Democrats, who play a critical role in the nominating process. Yet Mrs. Clinton herself, backed by another faction, never wanted to apologize — even if she viewed the war as a mistake — arguing that an apology would be a gimmick.

I don't want her to apologize. I want her to say, "I made a mistake." Edwards did it. Just about every other Democrat who idiotically trusted this president and supported the war has done it. Had Hillary done this last year, the issue would be moot.

And does she really want to argue that her vote wasn't wrong?

Apparently so.

[Y]esterday morning Mrs. Clinton rolled out a new response to those demanding contrition: She said she was willing to lose support from voters rather than make an apology she did not believe in.

“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,” Mrs. Clinton told an audience in Dover, N.H., in a veiled reference to two rivals for the nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

Thank you, Hillary. I think I will.

With California moving up its primary, my vote will actually matter next year. And now I can officially narrow down my choices to Edwards, Obama, and Richardson. [Update: Clark as well, if he ever decides to run. Some of the others could be possibilities. Hillary joins only Kucinich and Biden on my "no way" list.]

Her campaign knows Hillary's stubborness means trouble, though they're trying to spin it best they can:

Her decision not to apologize is regarded so seriously within her campaign that some advisers believe it will be remembered as a turning point in the race: either ultimately galvanizing voters against her (if she loses the nomination), or highlighting her resolve and her willingness to buck Democratic conventional wisdom (if she wins).

Ha ha ha ha. No one truly believes she'll actually gain votes in a Democratic primary by saying she made the right call by voting for Bush's war. Like I said -- spin.

At the same time, the level of Democratic anger has surprised some of her allies and advisers, and her campaign is worried about how long it will last and how much damage it might cause her.

Not only is the Clinton campaign pig-headed, they are also remarkably out-of-touch. They are "surprised" at the anger this war is generating? Has she been living in a cave the last four years (yes, the Senate apparently is a cave). The last thing we need in the White House is another out-of-touch, tone-deaf Bush-style presidency, unable or unwilling to admit mistakes and change course as a result.

Hillary will now see her campaign events hijacked by anti-war protesters, with people demanding she defend her vote at every corner. Iraq will dominate coverage of her campaign, and she's on the wrong side of the issue. And by going this far without admitting her mistake, she has painted herself into a corner. Any attempt now to back off and apologize would be met with the proper scorn.

For Hillary, No amount of nuance will make this issue go away.

Today she lost my potential vote. I doubt I'm the only person in this position. Thankfully, as Hillary so helpfully pointed out, the rest of the field 1) didn't make the mistake to begin with, or 2) aren't afraid to admit their mistakes

The Hill spotlights the early scramble for "voters" in the Capitol Hill primary:

Take note, presidential prognosticators: Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) may have earned a rousing reception at the California GOP convention last weekend, but Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) has more public supporters in Congress.

And while Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) plans to refrain from an endorsement until her party chooses a nominee, one Democratic candidate quietly has lined up not one but two backers in the House leadership - Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.).

Does it mean anything? I dunno. And neither do they, really. But here's some recent history:

Months before the 2000 Iowa caucus, Vice President Al Gore found himself keeping one eye on the general election and the other on former Sen. Bill Bradley (N.J.) when the Democratic dark horse won the endorsements of then-Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) and the late former Sens. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) and Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.). In that year's Republican race, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush picked up early fiscal-conservative bona fides from former House budget chief John Kasich (R-Ohio) that came in handy later in the cycle....

Endorsement counts during the 2004 race, however, illustrate the limits of strong support inside the Capitol. Heading into the 2004 Iowa caucus, former Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) boasted greater lawmaker support than both Kerry and then-frontrunner Gov. Howard Dean (Vt.), reflecting his status as the party's longtime House leader. Both Pelosi and current House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) endorsed Gephardt, in contrast to their neutrality during this cycle - but Gephardt ultimately dropped out after a fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucus.

Of course, what "comes in handy" cuts both ways:

Just as presidential hopefuls chase congressional supporters, [Center for Responsive Politics exec. dir. Sheila] Krumholz observed that lawmakers with ambitions outside the Capitol may seek out the candidate most likely to repay their gesture after getting elected.

"It's a tit-for-tat game they play," she said. "Yes, [White House rivals] are looking for [members'] endorsements, and then members of Congress will be looking to collect chits for themselves."

Missouri Republican Sen. John Ashcroft endorsed Bush in 2000 after abandoning his own briefly held presidential hopes, only to become attorney general in the following year's administration. After winning the Democratic nomination in 2004, Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) openly vetted friend and endorser Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) for a future secretary of state position.

So who's got the most? That'd actually be Mitt Romney, with 26 Congressional endorsements. Among Dems, it's Clinton, with 13 -- all but two are New Yorkers. To be fair, though, that's the way it is with almost all of the Dems who've lined up such endorsements. That is, it's mostly a home state crowd. Romney, though, has no Congressional Republicans from Massachusetts to lean on. All his support comes from elsewhere, and they can't all be from Utah.

You can check out The Hill's list here (PDF).

Why don't we all take a look, and then meet back here to strangle one another over the implications?

I'll throw the lists over the fold put the lists in a space-saving chart, for those who hate PDFs:

Seems John Edward's choice of blog coordinators has met with the disdain, and very public criticism of one of those hypocritical bigots who have far too great a megaphone in the traditional media:

The New York Times and Associated Press have both reported criticism by Catholic League president Bill Donohue of two bloggers hired by John Edwards' presidential campaign; Donohue contends that the bloggers are "anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash-talking bigots."

But neither the Times article, by reporter John M. Broder, nor the AP article, by writer Nedra Pickler, included any mention of Donohue's own history of vulgar, trash-talking bigotry -- or of Donohue's decision to dismiss anti-Catholic bigotry on the part of a key anti-Kerry operative in 2004.

I hope the Edwards campaign reviews all of Media Matters' work on Donohue, and for that matter Glenn Greenwald on this issue. Do you see anywhere in the traditional media questions about John McCain's blogger, Patrick Hynes? Greenwald's been following him:

Let's begin with Patrick Hynes, the paid consultant for John McCain's presidential campaign. Hynes continuously blogged about political matters, including ones involving McCain and the GOP field, while concealing that he was on McCain's paid staff. That was not the first time Hynes has been caught using deceitful tricks to manipulate the blogosphere into writing content on behalf of his undisclosed clients....

Hynes' public writing is devoted to pure religious divisiveness -- he focuses almost exclusively on the claim that Christianity is superior and that those who attend church live better lives, and specifically to the belief that the Republican Party is the true party of those who believe in God and that Democrats are "anti-Christian." He wrote a book entitled In Defense of the Religious Right, and in an interview about that book in July, 2006, this is what he said:

Miner: Is it fair to call America a "Christian nation"?

Hynes: Yes. America is a Christian nation. As I write in my book, "Is America a Christian nation? Of course it is. Don’t be ridiculous. What a stupid question.

Ah, the civility of the far right. Why aren't intrepid New York Times reporters dogging Patrick Hynes? Maybe the story is just too complicated for them. It is Nedra, after all, on this beat.

But the ultimate point is that bowing to the kind of bigotry of Bill Donohue and Michelle Malkin (Donohue's assistant in this little research project), would be a serious mistake, both in terms of Edwards and his netroots outreach (which has been terrific thus far) but more in letting these haters have any more sway in national politics than they've already got. Weather this minor storm and stop letting the hypocritical bigots on the right dictate the terms.