If you wish to attribute irrationality to a poster, do it in the BBQ Pit. Do not post personal insults in this Forum.
And this sort of comment does nothing to raise the tone of this board, either.
[ /Moderating ]
That is an excellent analysis.
We hear a lot of detailed this and that, mostly describing how she sort of waffled over time from the up-‘n’-at-'em leader ready to go on Day One to the beer guzzling gal next door. But seldom do pundits give Obama his due in her losing the race. You see it in sports all the time, when the losing team comes out and whines that they didn’t play well, or they didn’t execute their game plan, or whatever. Rare it is when a coach comes out and simply proclaims, “They were the better team, and they whupped our ass.”
Incidentally, in contrast, Obama did not morph over time. He began as the candidate for change in Washington and ended as the candidate for change in Washington. All this talk from snake oil salesmen like Pat Buchanan and Bill Kristol (trolls, really, who could hardly give a rats ass about what they would call “Democrat politics”) on how Obama wheezed to the finish line ignore the simple accident of geography. She got her one really big win (as opposed to his half dozen) at the end of the process because the people who voted there — as they themselves openly admitted — were ignorant and bigoted bumpkins who didn’t like his name, or thought he was a Muslim, or just don’t like negroes.
I didn’t intend to insult him, tomndebb and am sorry if it came across that way. I find language like “post-menopausal” and “harpie” to be highly inflammatory and (given his politics) irrational. That was the intention–not personal insult.
I’m sorry that you feel that way and , I confess, just a bit surprised. But since I have no desire to open any threads on the matter and I’m sure that moderating this forum is a very difficult job indeed I’ll just have to accept your judgement and thank you for your time.
Well, this is the SDMB where we value well considered debate and punish logical fallacies, baseless rants and so on.
HRC’s campaign was far more of the baseless rant/made up sort of style. Her penchant for picking on soundbites and casting them wholly out of character to hang around her opponent’s neck. To change the rules mid-stream as regards FL & MI when she and her cronies were far more responsible for that state of affairs then Obama was (but to cast it as if he was stealing the election and trying to disenfranchise voters). Add in her campaign’s rather creative use of mathematics. Or her non-concession speech to the point of strongly hinting at a floor fight in August. Add in that she lost due to (supposedly) rampant sexism/misogyny.
I think it is safe to say many Dopers take exception to that sort of flagrant mis-handling of facts and it gets a lot of our backs up.
As to the sexism I agree it was there, under the surface, to an extent. I in no way feel nor have a seen anything to suggest it was a major factor. Certainly Obama’s race trumped sexism as a bogus feature of voter choice in this race (as noted before racism can be pointed at as a distinct cause of Obama’s loss in some states where you cannot do the same with sexism).
The link to the video with all the sexist remarks is scary but how much of it is representative of her coverage? Much of it was from FOX which is about all you need to say on that. Additionally, that handful of comments are a drop in the ocean of total coverage. While vile and inappropriate I think it would be stretching it to say it had a large effect or was in any way a feature of the campaign.
I also might note that some of the sexist remarks in the video I am not sure are actually sexist. Commenting on her attire is not wholly beyond the pale. McCain was busted up in the media rather thoroughly for his choice of a green background (I saw one report likening it to cottage cheese in lime jello). Add in his rictus of a smile. I have seen Obama’s choice to never vary from a suit, even when bowling. So, attire seems on the table and commenting on HRC’s I am not sure denotes sexism/misogyny.
As far as Obama’s suit wearing, there’s been a few pundits; Morning Joe comes to mind, that felt that he was “too GQ looking”, for hard working white people to understand.
Which seems beyond the pale…Obama can wear a suit well; but in the mind of some of the pundits, that’s a negative; proved he was ‘elitist’ and seems to me to be on the same level of commenting that Hillary’s make-up was good that day.
And if I wanted to, I could easily spin those comments about Obama’s style into racist ones.
Obama definately caught crap for the suit when he visited the “working Joe” types.
“Haha! He’s feeding a cow… in a suit! He’s bowling… in a suit! He’s having a beer… in a suit!”
Which, again, doesn’t excuse folks worrying about how much of Clinton’s boobs are showing on a given day but I don’t think every clothing remarks is immediately sexist.
Joe Scarborough is another pundit troll, gushing on and on about how much he loves Hillary. Check Wiki for his Congressional record and you can see that she would despise everything he stood for. Had Hillary been ahead, he would have pulled for Obama. What the pundit trolls — Republicans who took favorites in the Democratic race — wanted was nothing more than to create a shitstorm out of nothing and prolong Democratic agony.
Clinton will get the blame regardless of what the PUMA movement does, and she has nothing to do with the organizing of people who feel that they have been told by Donna Brazile that their votes aren’t needed and (too late) by Howard Dean that OMIGOSH there was sexism in the coverage! That needs to be stopped! (Yeah, months and months ago. Good going, Howard.)
The unhappy former Clinton supporters are fed up with party leadership and they believe that if they settle quietly for voting for Obama that nothing will change. I have seen many, many statements that say it’s beyond Clinton and Obama now - it’s about making the party hear their voices and feel the impact of losing their votes.
I know this isn’t a popular viewpoint, but if Obama supporters really want to win, they’re going to have to stop with the Clinton demonization. That might, MIGHT, win over the people who are offended by the Obama supporters. But it’s probably too late for the ones who object to the actions of the party leadership and those who have true objections to Obama for legitimate reasons and feel that McCain is an acceptable alternative. Just because you feel their reasons aren’t sufficient isn’t enough to make them switch to your side.
If the harsh words on the PUMA blogs and those like them offend Obama supporters, perhaps they would be best served by not visiting there in the first place. People go there to vent their anger; maybe you should just let them get it out, since many of you seem to believe that a cooling off period will fix things.
Oh, and Dorothea Book? Thank you; you understand, regardless of whether or not you agree.
Suse, I understand what you’re saying, but at this point it seems like it’s all emotional, not necessarily logical. And that’s part of the big frustration for many of us who support Obama.
I don’t believe Hillary’s supporters who are angry with “Party Leadership” would be angry with them at all, had Hillary not riled them up with false allegations of “disenfranchisement” when she saw she needed the states her advisors and supporters were responsible for penalizing in the first place.
It’s misplaced anger, and it’s entirely Hillary’s fault. Personally, I think she owes her supporters, Democrats in general, and Barack Obama an apology for her gross mischaracterizations of the whole debacle that was Florida and Michigan. I think her taking responsiblity for orchestrating the anger surrounding those states’ primaries would go a long way towards healing the anger her own supporters are feeling. How can we heal those wounds when we didn’t create them?
But yeah, the invective needs to stop now. On both sides.
One small supporting anecdote: I only know one mildly-upset Clinton supporter (by no means white-hot-furious), and we’ve only had one brief conversation on the subject. But her points were:
- I can’t believe what the Democratic party did to Hillary.
- What’s up with Michigan & Florida – how was that fair?
- And what was with those states where they don’t really have elections? Who votes in those? Why did they count? (she was referring to caucus states)
This is virtually verbatim. So that may be the level of informed voter we’re dealing with.
There is a feeling that caucuses in general are biased against the voter who is not able to take time off to attend - including those who cannot get time off work for a caucus, those who cannot afford to travel, those who cannot get childcare, those who are disabled and unable to leave their homes, for example. All those people are the ones the Democratic party claims to be working for.
The voters in Michigan and Florida are unhappy. Once again, it’s not about Obama - it’s about party leadership. It doesn’t matter which candidate agreed to what rule; the voters didn’t get a choice in the matter and they are angry. Brazile and Dean’s missteps had nothing to do with Clinton inciting anger, either.
People see the Democratic Party as leaving them - that their votes aren’t wanted, their viewpoint isn’t appreciated, and their voices are being silenced. This is a real and legitimate concern and must be addressed by the leadership of the party. Leave your base feeling that they’ve been insulted and told to shut up and take it and you won’t have a base any longer. And right now, that’s exactly how they feel, and that’s why so many are defecting to McCain regardless of what they think about his policies. He shows them respect and welcomes them.
First, I wonder why Hillary supporters, and Hillary supporters alone, seem to be so upset about this concept. Is it perhaps because the candidate herself got them all riled up to think that caucus states don’t count or were inherently unfair, only after she lost most of them?
Second, the previous argument against caucuses was that they favored “party activists,” who usually turned out to be overwhelmingly weighted towards the candidate with more contacts and pull in the party. I wonder which candidate that applies to in this primary process? Do you think that might be why she thought she coud basically ignore them and maybe still win?
Hillary Clinton’s campaign acknowledges that they overlooked the caucus states. Barack Obama studied them, organized in them, and got his supporters to participate in them. Is this not a clear indication that he’s a more thoughtful, more prepared leader than she is?
Why is the nature of caucuses being used as a battering ram against the candidate who did a better job at winning them? How is it his fault, or the fault of “Party Leadership”, that Hillary Clinton’s campaign had the exact same opportunity to organize and mobilize in caucus states as Barack Obama, yet chose not to?
Again, it’s all about feelings and not facts.
Some of the voters in Michigan and Florida are unhappy. Some of them understand what happened and why, understand that there is no “right to vote” in a party contest, understand that it was within their states’ control (even if in a minority!) to reschedule their primaries to dates that fall within the rules and chose not to. The people who get it, aren’t pissed. It’s the people who don’t who are.
“Leadership” doesn’t always mean “cowtowing to the whim of every individual.” Sometimes leadership means standing up for the rules in place when the offenders thumb their noses at them.
Brazille and Dean didn’t make any missteps. Hillary Clinton’s Chief Strategist, Harold Ickes did! He sat on that Rules committee, and with a majority of Hillary Clinton supporters, voted to strip Florida and Michigan of 100% of their delegates. The only dissenting vote came from the only Obama supporter on the panel. But Hillary’s supporters thought she’d have her campaign wrapped up by Super Tuesday and wouldn’t need Florida and Michigan. And anything to keep her competitor from being able to actually campaign in those states was just a bonus, seeing as how she had the name recognition and was sure to carry the votes. That way, when they challenged them later, they had sure winners!
And none of this – none of this – would be any concern to her supporters if she either hadn’t “won” those primaries, or if she hadn’t stirred up their anger over them once she figured out she needed them. Before that, it was “clear [to her] that this contest they’re having [wasn’t] going to count for anything anyway.” <shrug> Why wasn’t she pitching a fit back in August when the ruling was made? Why only after she started losing?
She deserves sole credit for turning this entire situation into a circus. And the fact that I, the DNC, and all the other Obama supporters need to coddle her supporters at the possible expense of serious damage to our country, is more than a little off-putting to say the least.
The hell of it is this and the other issues (discussed below) are in no way Obama’s doing or even really the DNC’s doing as such. The caucus states have been caucus states for 30 years or more (not sure on when they all went to a caucus system but it is not new).
Clinton knew the deal in those states perfectly well. This was no surprise thrust upon her. This was no new methodology imposed to thwart her. She had precisely the same opportunity there as Obama did. Her campaign strategy chose to largely ignore them and she, predictably, suffered for that. Obama went and worked those states effectively. In hindsight Obama simply played the hand dealt in a fair game better than Clinton did.
To suggest that the caucus states somehow ripped off Clinton is not only patently wrong it is rather offensive to those states. They have as much a right to vote as anyone else and they did.
But it DOES matter which candidate agreed to what rule. The deal in FL & MI were, again, well known prior to the elections starting. More to the point Clinton had something like 12 cronies on the committee that voted to remove the FL & MI vote…Obama had one. The vote was also unanimous. All candidates started the primary season with this as the understanding and ALL having agreed to it to the point of a signed agreement to not campaign in those states.
Then, when Clinton does not like the vote tallies she tries to change the rules mid-stream. Clinton DID incite the anger of FL & MI. Obama stayed pretty quiet on all of it not really saying yes or no despite it being absolutely unfair to all of a sudden just hand her votes that had not been fairly contested (he was not even on the MI ballot). Clinton riled them up to force the DNC into accepting their delegations.
There just is no other way you can cut it. Clinton fanned the flames of disenfranchisement and hysteria over that for her own ends despite it being in absolutely no way fair as the system was laid out at the start.
The ironic thing here is I believe the Republican party was the prime motivator in moving the FL elections ahead and for whatever reason, IIRC, I think the FL democratic party got on board although not sure they could have stopped it (not sure about how it played out in MI). The states were told in no uncertain terms by BOTH parties they would be sanctioned if they did that. They did it anyway and, shocker, they got sanctioned.
The DNC as well as the RNC sanctioned those states. They had to. How can organizations like those run if their rules are ignored?
But, to really get you FL & MI were offered a chance for a do-over. On more than one occasion I believe. They both chose not to.
Then comes Clinton beating the war drum on how unfair it all is. How they were disenfranchised.
They knew the penalty for breaking the rules. They did it anyway. They were offered chances to make good, they ignored those chances.
So where, in ALL of this has the DNC or Obama done something wrong?
It is THIS that gets Obama people in such a froth. Clinton supporters, as you would have it, feel mishandled and abused yet if you bother to look at it none of it was anything but their own doing. They have no one to blame but themselves. Yeah, I know, perception is reality but they are actively delusional about it all.
Besides, I am not sure any count of FL & MI would have saved Clinton. They got in a fuss about four delegates from MI Clinton feels were stolen but that does not change the outcome anyway and giving him zero delegates from MI would have been a true miscarriage of justice any way you look at it.
I was going to respond to the caucus state point, but Shayna beat me to it while I was having network problems. So I’ll just elaborate on the sports analogy: Obama read the rule book and devised a better game plan; Clinton is complaining that the refs stole the game. It’s no wonder that her fans are plagued by doubt and paranoia.
Oh, and when it comes to disenfranchising voters the candidate who actually did so was…Clinton.
Clinton sued Nevada to keep a certain group (whose union had endorsed Obama) from voting.
I just said “However, I do read the posts here, and here the anti-HRC hatred has gotten out of control.” and I offer this up as a perfect example. Thank you sir, you have proved my point far better than I could myself.
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The people had no choice at all in the matter.
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Doing another election costs a bundle, and the DNC wouldn’t pay- besides- they are going to keep voting until they come up with an acceptable result? They voted.
And Obama agreed their votes should count. Or don’t you respect his decisions?
I’m at a disadvantage here, as I am being asked to argue a viewpoint that isn’t my own in terms of the caucuses and MI/FL. The Brazile and Dean comments did piss me off.
I agree that the caucuses aren’t new, and no one is claiming that they are. What I am hearing is that people do not like the system, and realizing that they are not going to be listened to they have decided to leave the party. Their choice.
No one’s asking you to coddle anyone. Just leave the Clinton supporters alone; stay off their blogs with the taunts and insults. (Not YOU specifically, Obama supporters in general, at least the ones who invade the Clinton supporters’ blogs. What is the point in that? Do they really think that insulting Clinton is going to win hearts and minds?) Just let them be and let them do what they need to do, which is vent.
It’s their own doing because…? Because they didn’t ‘see the light’ and embrace Obama? Please.
I never wanted Hillary Clinton to run, as I didn’t believe she was electable due to the over-the-top Clinton hatred that I’ve seen and heard for the last 16 years. I voted for Obama on issues. But I don’t think he’s the be-all-and-end-all so many here seem to believe, either. This year has been a hold-the-nose-and-vote situation once again for me as it has been for many years. I can sympathize with the Clinton supporters because as a middle-aged woman and feminist I am tired of being told I’m irrelevant and my time is gone, because as a working-class person I am tired of being told that the Democratic Party doesn’t have to earn my vote since they consider me an idiot who will automatically push the button for the Demo candidate whoever they may be. Come November I’ll vote for whomever I think the best choice is at that time. I would expect all of you to do the same.
Can we just extend the same respect to the (former) Clinton supporters? Or is even that too much to ask?
The question was asked about ‘why the anger’? I tried to answer it with as much perspective as I can have without holding all the same opinions.
- Well, to lift a piece Shayna put around a few times:
The Florida public seemed to have spoken. They certainly could have mailed, emailed, called, started petitions, whatever to send a message to their officials that they wanted a new election. Mostly they did not do that and it seems those that did said no anyway.
Additionally these are their elected officials. While Floridians may not have a direct say presumably by letting their wishes be known those officials would try to accommodate them.
Besides…if not them who else’s feet would you lay this at?
2) I agree…they knew the results of moving their election forward. The DNC stripped them of their votes and they could have pushed it back but they chose not to even though they knew it would not count. Complaining after the fact, despite abundant time to rectify the matter before it was even an issue is no one’s fault but their own.
That said I find the vote suspect. Since none of the candidates got to campaign in the state (by their own agreement) Floridians were deprived of a chance to see the candidates up close and make a more informed decision (whatever that decision may be). But that is neither here nor there I guess.
3) I respect Obama’s decision because it is the same decision I would have made in his shoes. But I would not have liked it. It was unfair in the extreme to change the rules mid-game because you do not like the results. But there was no reasonable way for him to protest without looking worse. Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t.
These threads here show the truth of that. Despite being the SDMB and a place for rational thought you (among other) proclaim those pointing out the distinctly unfair nature of it all…with proof and cites and everything…as being shrill Clinton haters. If we come across like that here with honest debate what chance could Obama have in the public at large? All he could do is let it roll no matter how much it stunk.