Scary-smart Anglachel remarks:
The Unity
Pony
But the other animal in this contest is the Cash Cow, and this is something that The Precious
The candidate whose appeal is to the big bucks donors (and not always Democratic donors, if the attendees of his Bittergate San Francisco fundraiser is any sign) is now trying to monopolize Democratic cash flow to create the simplest and crudest of political machines, a straightforward cash-exchange patronage system. He’s done some time-honored practices like giving to large sums of money to other politicians’ campaign chests, and handing over donor lists in exchange for endorsements. The new twist (and I have to admit a certain admiration for the sheer chutzpah of it all) is to demand that his donors not provide money to any other outlet than himself so that he can be the Godfather of campaign funds, dispensing it to reward loyalty and punish defections and opposition. You do business with us and only us or else (sound of knuckles cracking). Got it? It does fit well with the bully-boy tactics we’ve seen in everything else this guy has done.
The more aggressively Hillary is demonized, the fewer independent sources of funding and the more dependent the party is upon The One.
Dean has bet everything on this one horse, not just an election but the future of the party and the cohesion of the constituencies under the Democratic umbrella. As all of the contests since early March have demonstrated, money can only buy you so many votes. The rest you have to earn.
Interesting. Oddly, or not, Cokie Roberts doesn't seem to understand this:
Since Feb. 19, seven states have voted. Clinton has won four — Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island —building up a popular-vote margin of 483,000. Yet her total gain in delegates was exactly five. In Texas, she won by more than 100,000 votes, but because of that state's ridiculous rules, she actually came out five delegates behind.
How can that outcome possibly be fair? How can it possibly benefit the party?
After asking the obvious question, this:
So why don't Democratic leaders and superdelegates face these facts and shift to Clinton? One reason is race. It's true, as Obama says, that being black in America has hardly been a political asset, given the fact that he's the only African-American in the U.S. Senate.
"One reason," Cokie writes. But she, unlike Anglachel, never gets round to mentioning the other reason, arguably more important: the money.
Sounds to me like Obama's race-boating is a genius move, fully worthy of Machiavellia: Every Hillary supporter can be smeared as a racist, the Clintons can be smeared as racists, nobody can call bullshit -- not even our famously free press nor the tribunes of the people in the blogosphere -- and best of all, anybody that got cash from Obama has a ready-made talking point to deflect all questions. It's beautiful, really. Machiavelli would have loved it.
- lambert's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- 1+[encrypted]+#b94+
Printer-friendly version
Front page
Comments
I'm sure our modern day Machiavelli loves it too
Obama should name his race-boat the "Turdblossom Special"
------------------------------------------------
“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde
x
------------------------------------------------
“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
Like lambs to a slaughter
He is not only setting up himself but also the entire Democratic Party to be slaughtered by the GOP. My God, if Obama is the nominee, and thus the head of the Party, the GOP can legitimately label the Democrats as corrupt, incompetent, guilty of playing the race card, terrorist sympathizers, and anti-American.
When they lose in a landslide during a year that is gift-wrapped for them, it'll damage the Party for a generation; not to mention the damage caused by nominating an extremely polarizing candidate who'll splinter the Party.
This isn't genius--it's madness. Again, Obama is only thinking of "winning"* the nomination, not winning in November.
*By "winning" I mean depending on the disenfranchisement of two states and a totally rigged primary system and anti-democratic delegate count.
totally
this surprised me--Cokie Roberts is one pundit who actually gets it-- "... How can it make sense for Idaho, Kansas and Louisiana to have a bigger impact on choosing the Democratic nominee than Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio? Add in the exclusion of Florida and Michigan, two crucial states that favor Clinton, and there's only one word for the Democrats' system: crazy. And Republicans are gleeful. ..." -- http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0508/cr...
oops--
posts weren't showing up before for me...
sorry for dups...
They still have an escape hatch
Obviously, you can't change the system now, but there's still an opportunity to avoid this disaster. The Democrats need not be courageous, just sane.
I want to add to my first comment: this is the reality when up against the GOP and the media. Obama as nominee would obviously become the symbol of the Democratic Party. A personality-based candidate with little to no qualifications or accomplishments to speak of is defenseless to personal attacks especially since he does have long-term associations with inflammatory figures and a corrupt Chicago machine.
Chicago
Now we know what it would be like had Richard Daily run for President.
that's what i was thinking
chicago machine
The Wal-Martization of the Democratic Party?
Pay to play.
On a national scale.
Notice that Marie Coco and Cokie Roberts have written important
articles very, very late in the primary cycle -- about things which the Hillary blogs have been writing for months now. And at a point when little will be affected by what they write. Just great.
Better late than never? Or better late than getting too far out in front of the MCM narrative and pissing off the Corporate part of Mainstream Corporate Media?
Kathleen Hall Jamison noted the incredible sexism and misogny in January on Bill Moyers' Journal. It take Coco until May?
Fie on them.
Part of the plan
The GOP is going to push the injustice of the nomination big time heading into November. They are laying the ground work for saying that the Democratic "leadership" cheated Hillary out of the win in their effort to reach out to women, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and the working class. It will probably be very effective.
Remember Republicans like Cokie Roberts and even Fox News aren't sympathetic to Democrats for purely altruistic reasons. I know I'd be pushing those buttons if I were on McCain's campaign.
Only tyrants rig elections.
Not the GOP - their media lapdogs
The meme will be "Obama stole the nomination"
It will be weird to see the media ostensibly on Hillary's side for once, but only after her candidacy is officially dead.
------------------------------------------------
“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde
x
------------------------------------------------
“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
Exactly right
From what I've gathered from family members who work for the GOP, the right plans on delegitimizing Obama as the nominee as early as September. They won't racialize it by calling him the "affirmative action" candidate (right wing talk radio will do that), but they--via the media--will demonstrate that the nomination was stolen from Clinton, emphasizing MI/FL and how the superdelegates were bought off. This all sets up the nasty narrative about corrupt Chicago machine politics.
The media will reveal the ugly truth behind Obama once he's given the nomination. They will justify the harsh scrutiny of Obama as repentence for previous fawning coverage. Obviously the objective is to: disillusion his supporters, inflame Clinton supporters, and rile up the right-wing base for McCain.
That is a theory so paranoid...
... it has to be true.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Ha! I wish I were paranoid
Seriously. I pray that I'm hopelessly wrong, but the GOP would be absolute fools not to take advantage of the situation.
The *really* paranoid part
is that this meme was completely predictable. By allowing the fiasco of MI/FL to play out the way it did, the DNC has left open the gate for the GOP to bray to the highest heaven "Their party didn't even want to hear from 2 of the states!!! You call that 'The People's Party'??"
It's almost as if they didn't want to win this one...but did want to keep around the highest fundraising potential...
Paranoid or obvious?
If you were a GOP operative trying to court disaffected Hillary supporters who are women, Hispanics, Asian Americans, the Jewish vote, well pretty much every demographic except African Americans and elitist "creative class" folk, wouldn't you be thinking about that strategy?
Only tyrants rig elections.
Even paranoids
have enemies
------------------------------------------------
“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde
x
------------------------------------------------
“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
When that happens
the oborg will blame Clinton for Obama's defeat in November. "If the bitch had quit, this wouldn't have happened."
The damage to the party will live on for a long time.
Not too late
"And at a point when little will be affected by what they write."
Too late for Hillary and the Democratic party? Maybe.
But not too late for Cokie and Marie's corporate masters.
They will DESTROY Obama if he is the nominee. They're just waiting until he is. They're so eager they are finding it difficult to hold back.
------------------------------------------------
“A true friend stabs you from the front” -Oscar Wilde
x
------------------------------------------------
“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
NARAL, Unions, and others
complicate it tho--some orgs are obviously not being shut out and are being rewarded--because they represent demographics where he's weakest?
Or is it just that all money should flow thru him to orgs he alone chooses?
As Dr. Johnny Fever said,
"When everybody's out to get you, paranoia's just good thinkin'."
all those media talking heads...
who were eagering pushing the "the Clintons are running a racist campaign" theme are going to suddenly discover how absurd it is to think the Clintons are racists, how dishonest the Obama campaign was about it, and of of course they're trying to do the exact same thing to John McCain....
The GOP can have an entire orchestra playing dog-whistles, and get away with it because of what Obama did to the Clintons... At worst, it will be described as "McCain is doing to Obama what Obama did to the Clintons..."
Paul, that's my main fear
Having cried wolf too many times for nothing, the Obama campaigned has overplayed its hand. And now, when the GOP or the McCain campaign or the fever swamp on the radio or the Internet are going to ACTUALLY be racist, it's going to be ignored.
What will the Big Blogger Boyz and their commenters do then? Whine and moan in vain at the unfairness of it all.
Smearing the Clintons as racists, again, was an amateurish and short-sighted strategy to win the nomination, with no concern for the GE.
At what point do we get to say "we told you so"?
Go Global!
The Party of Bush
The only reason the Repub party is in the toilet is because they allowed themselves to become the "Party of George W. Bush" by latching on to him and following him in "cult-like" fashion.
All we had to do was to drag Bush down (with plenty of help from him) and the entire Repub party is on the verge of collapse.
Let this be a lesson to Obama and his band of worshiping sycophants. Tie your fortunes to one person and you can lose everything. The party should be bigger than one person for it's own sake. I personally do not think Obama is man enough to withstand the blistering attacks he is subjecting himself to. He's in way over his head.
OxyCon
The Funding Blunder
Couldn't agree more oxycon.
The money clampdown is a lock on power and insurance against insurgency.
Really funny that the Obama Revolution is to consolidate the grasp of the establishment. More like a counter-revolution to beat down the Bubba faction. You know, the last faction that actually won.
We like to add a little abject stupidity into the mix.