I am not asking this to make Hillary look bad, what I’m asking is lets say Hillary wins in 2016 and she is still angry that progressives supported Obama over her in 2008 and they supported Sanders over her in 2016.
Is there any risk she might be bitter about that and as a result not be as interested in progressive legislation? Or could block legislation progressives like out of spite?
Lieberman, after winning against progressives who didn’t vote for him in the 2006 primaries, opposed a medicare buy in at 55. This was presented in the progressive media as a ‘fuck you’ to the people who tried to deny him a senate seat. I don’t know if that was his real motivation, but that is what it was presented as. Lieberman supported a medicare buy in option in 2000 when he was a VP, then opposed it after progressives primaried him from the left for his senate seat and he won as an independent.
If Hillary wins, could she have resentment towards progressives who opposed her running in 2008 and 2016, and could she abandon some progressive goals just because she is upset with them?
She’ll be looking to progressives to vote in her 2020 reelection bid, so taking revenge from 2017-2019 would be counterproductive. She can be abrasive and tone-deaf, but she’s not stupid.
Why will she waste energy resenting anyone but the same Vast Right Wing Conspiracy she’s been fighting for years? Yes, some of Bernie’s fans can be annoying. But compare them to the followers of Idiot Trump & Dominionist Cruz.
“I don’t know” does not convince me. * You* aren’t even convinced.
She will need all the help she can get from the left and from the center in order to get any legislation through Congress, even supposing that the GOP nominee runs so badly that the Dems retake the House.
All she’d be doing by making enemies on the left would be handing power back to the Republicans. Yeah, she’d want to do that. :dubious:
Whatever media stated that didn’t know what it was talking about. Lieberman would have opposed a medicare buy-in option because Connecticut is an insurance state – Hartford, CIGNA, parts of Mass Mutual, and I’m sure others, are all there. He would just be protecting his lobbyists. Same with Schumer and his votes protecting the carried interest loophole, which benefits Wall Street types (I think he may have changed his position on that by now, but I’m not sure). Anyway, Lieberman was just protecting insurance companies.
If Sanders loses the primary, I will support Clinton. Hillary is not a bad candidate. However considering that progressive have functioned as a foil to her ambitions on two separate occasions, you do have to wonder if she has any resentment towards them for denying her her ambitions.
Wesley Clark, you have made the exact same question/statement what, three times already. I’m worried. You got former Rubio staff working for you?
As others have said, she is in no position to “punish” the “progressives” (if they even are a single bloc that can be punished collectively) if she wants to make it to President and stay there in 2020. Besides her path to the presidency has been obstaculized not so much by “the progressives” per se as by her own campaigns ***twice ***basing themselves on a premise that the nomination “is hers to lose” playing the sort of defensive game that leaves the field open for a challenger who’s proposing something different.
But more to the point, if the “progressive agenda” goes nowhere in a HRC presidency it’s not because she is blocking it out of spite, it’s because **she has a centrist agenda of her own (or if you will, an agenda of triangulating which way the trendlines are going and where the votes are) and that’s what will be her priority.
The deal is, that *whoever *the next Dem president is, “the progressives” are mostly NOT getting what they really want. If Sanders, because he’s going to be lucky to get anything at all through a Congress that will stay at least half Republican plus a contingent of establishment Dems, for the foreseeable future; if Clinton, because like her husband before she’s going to be very careful about what hill is it worth dying on (which as I said makes for a clumsy campaign but an effective presidency).
For reference, as it is even the Obama administration at one point complained about the bitching and moaning from the “professional left”. Passing the highly compromised Obamacare with both houses in (D) hands and a supposed filibusterproof Senate those first two years was a bloody schlep and everyone on both sides ended up even more ticked off than they started. So I find it hard to imagine the “progressive agenda” will get far before 2020 even with a sympathetic president.
When you are running as VP, as he was in 2000, you support the policy proposals of the Presidential candidate you are running under. It’s what you sign on to do. Whatever you think.
When you are running for a Senate seat you support the policies that help your district most as that is what gets you elected. It’s what you do. Whatever you think.
In any case Lieberman was by 2006 positioned outside of the Democratic side of the fence. This was less out of spite than a craven calculation of where his best future option laid. He lost the Democratic primary so became an independent. Sure he still caucused with the Democratic side but he played with switching completely over. He likely hoped for McCain to become ascendant and find a place for him. It wasn’t until he realized that he couldn’t win re-election again as either an independent or on the GOP side either that he hung it up.
If Hillary “recalibrates” her positions it will not be out of spite but out of a similar political calculus which she justifies (including I think to herself) as being in service of actually accomplishing moving in the direction of progressive goals.
I’ve seen a lot of crazy speculatin’ about HRC on this MB, but this OP takes the case. Why on earth would she waste energy on this when she’ll be fighting tooth and nail against the Republicans in Congress?
This is a deeply dumb question. Hillary will be fighting to get deeply moderate, possibly slightly conservative legislation through Congress against Republican obstinance. There won’t be any fictional progression legislation to “block” in the first place.
Yes, she is very likely to make decisions based on political considerations. That’s what politicians do. I doubt she’d block significant legislation in a snit about some election issue though. This kind of thing will show up in setting priorities and timing, and making choices among multiple options.
No,* I* do not have to wonder that. Apparently you do.
Let’s hope the Progressives are also busy ensuring their favorite candidates are being nominated & elected to Congress. (And to Governorships, while they are at it.) Those are also candidates I support–although Texas isn’t quite ready to turn Blue in statewide elections.
A President can’t do everything by herself. Or himself.
Yes. Through the years, she’s established herself as one who believes in the adage ‘don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.’
Seriously.
There’s a long history in politics of ‘just asking an innocent question’ in an attempt to smear (I’m not saying anything about WC, but it does seem fair to point out in general that this is an age-old tactic).
The logical corollary to the idea that President H. Clinton would revenge herself on all those who failed to support her, is that all Presidents (at the very least) have made it their business to revenge themselves on those who failed to support them. Unless the OP is positing some essential difference between Clinton and other Presidents, that would cause her to seek revenge where they did not…?
I have a hard time picturing a Presidential candidate as being a grudge-holding type who would block something out of spite alone. I suppose Nixon, maybe… but if HRC wanted to hold grudges against her political opponents, I would be more interested to see who is NOT on that list. Progressives would have to wait in line, I can tell you that much.