Discussion for article #222672
"It's the only thing that makes sense. You don't swing down," Steve McMahon, a Democratic strategist with presidential experience, told TPM. "You certainly don't swing down as far as she'd have to swing down to hit anybody."
And that’s the front-runner attitude that tripped her up before, and will trip her up against any legitimate candidate.
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But Joe Biden is incorrect.
The decline in Union membership is often described as the decline of the middle class.
The large decline in Union membership occurred from the 1960’s through 2000.
While membership continues to erode, it certainly did not start under President Bill Clinton.
Moreover, during the term of President Clinton, the demand for jobs exceeded the creation of more than 20 million - many in the good paying high-tech industry. No President had more jobs created on their watch; unemployment for a non-war period has never been lower than the time President Clinton left office.
I like Joe & think he has been a good consigliere for President Obama. Clearly, Joe speaks his mind. But he conflated the erosion of the middle class with President Clinton and he is just wrong.
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While I agree with everything you said, there will not be a historic candidate that the media will rally around in 2016 like they did with President Obama in 2008. They will be behind Hillary in 2016 and will do their part to take down any candidate to include Democratic Candidates that could stand between her and the White House. They won’t bother with the Bernie Sanders or the Joe Bidens of the party because they know they have no chance of taking her down, but if a real challenger emerges they will go after them.
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I disagree that Joe Biden was incorrect. Yes, the middle class has been shrinking since at least the early 70’s, but the mass instability a lot of people are feeling in the middle class today because of the current job market and crap economy has it’s roots in the late 90’s. There are many factors but the best example is the repeal of Glass Steagall in 1998. Many deregulatory activities followed that directly led to the crash of 2008. Clinton does own a small amount of blame for that, but the majority of the blame falls on the Republican Congress starting in 1994.
The reality is that decline in Union membership has led to a shrinking of the middle class, but even if union membership had remained stable since the 60’s, it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference in the face of the Wall Street juggernaught created in the late 90s and early 00s. And that is why the middle class is on such shaky ground today.
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If a real challenger emerges not sure why you think the media will go after him or her.
More fucking arrogance from the Inevitable One.
I can hardly wait to see her fall on her Neoliberal face.
Because they want Hillary for a couple of reasons. One the majority of the media are center-left and they see her as the strongest candidate against any Republican that will be nominated, it is time for a Woman to be President and they, which they won’t admit, realize that actual experience is more important than a candidates rhetorical abilities.
While Hillary Clinton has her flaws and weaknesses, will Democrats, particularly women and minorities, be excited to vote for a gaffe-prone 74-year-old Joe Biden? They sure weren’t in 2008 when Biden was eight years younger. And we also saw what happened when he first ran in 1987-88.
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The media had very little to do with Hillary’s loss in 2008. It was due to 2 self-inflicted wounds:
- Her strategy of focusing on the big states and not putting enough effort in the smaller states, particularly those with caucuses was bad. She won all the big states except Illinois, yet Obama took almost all the small ones.
- Her vote for the Iraq War hurt her badly.
Neither of those were a result of the media; they were hers and hers alone.
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They like a horse race more, hence why I think you may be wrong.
actual experience is more important than a candidates rhetorical abilities. [eye roll]
The media had little to do with Hillary’s loss!!! Is that a joke? Without the media Obama wouldn’t had even been considered a viable candidate in 2008.
When Obama won the Iowa Caucus, which I grant you was do largely to his campaigns hard work, especially in flooding the caucus sites with out of state college students, that made his nomination possible but it was the media 100% positive support for him that carried the day. But what if even after that, the media had focused on experience, qualifications, instead of how his rhetorical abilities makes my leg tingle, he would have never won the nomination.
I guess we will see, if it was really about her Iraq War vote or wanting a change in Washington.
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Obama had as much experience as Lincoln or JKF did when he ran for President. And yes, Hillary’s vote for the Iraq War was a huge issue in 2008.
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Hillary’s loss to Obama was almost entirely due to bad advice and her reliance on old-school Clinton machine consultants.
The Obama Team, Plouffe, Ax, Jarrett, and many more realized early on that Howard Dean’s electrifying run and Kerry’s unbelievably good recovery and performance against Rove and W in August 2004 were due to Joe Trippi’s grasp of the Web and Social Media as a new way of tapping youth, women, and other key demos thru new, Web 2.0 outreach and GOTV.
The Obama Team beat Hillary with superior media management, like Will.I.Am’s viral YouTube piece, carefully crafted and focused messaging, and tireless dedication that made the most use of their limited budget and maximized Obama’s advantages in youth, minority, reform, and anti-Iraq stances.
Hillary’s team was totally unprepared for a duel in that arena, an arena that was carefully selected and crafted by and for the Obama Team.
Her Senior Team people like Mark Penn and Patty Solis Doyle and Mandy Grunwald and Howard Wolfson were too slow, too old, tired, and lazy to fight the Obama Team’s New Media war. By February 2008, when Hillary began to see the Obama express train coming out of the tunnel headed straight at her and replaced most of these people, it was just too late.
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Well, there is some truth in Biden’s statement about middle class insecurity. Bill was the one who helped set up the country for the eventual economic crash by going along with axing Glass-Steagall, an act which had protected the country for decades. And he did it not all that long after the country had gone through the 1988 savings and loan scandal.
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Both Lincoln and JFK had far more experience than Obama did. Lincoln was a leading voice within the Whig and then the Republican party for twenty plus years before he became President. JFK was a Naval Officer, a Congressman for 6 years and a Senator for 7 years before he was sworn in. Why do have to others less in order to validate Obama? The fact is he was and hopefully will always be the least experienced, ill-prepared and unqualified person ever to be nominated by a major party.
And yet he has done just fine:
- He got his healthcare plan passed and implemented. Hillary never even got hers out of committee.
- He turned a financial panic that by all rights should have produced a Depression as bad as the 1930s into a recession-a severe one to be sure, but nowhere near what would have been expected based on the fact that bubble of the 2000s was as bad or worse than that of 1920s and was in an area, residential real estate, that is more fundamental to the average person than the stock market.
- He oversaw the end of the Iraq War and the Afghan War is now ending. Neither country is a paradise of course, but when in the last 3000 years were they?
Not so bad…
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The problem with many liberals is, we shoot ourselves in the foot. Here we have a sure thing. Hillary Clinton is a candidate who might be a little conservative for some of us, but she will win. She will be an effective leader, although we might not get single payer or a real crackdown on the billionaires. Even so, she would keep back the certain disaster that would ensue from a Jeb Bush administration and a Republican Congress.
Unfortunately, too many of my learned colleagues on the left will take the bait again. They’ll think a third party candidate actually stands a chance, or worst-case, they will throw their vote away on Bernie Sanders in order to “punish the Democrats” for not being sufficiently liberal.
That is just wrongheaded. In the harsh realities of our political system, a vote for a third-party liberal candidate is, in effect, a Republican vote. Don’t give in to the Koch/Rove propaganda.
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Biden and Hillary are both keeping their options open as they should be at this point. If Dems do relatively well this November,Biden may run and if he does,I think Hillary won’t run. Regardless,I don’t think Hillary runs if Biden does. Biden’s the sitting VP. The nomination is his if he wants it.
If she runs, it will be my fourth opportunity not to vote for a Corporate Whore Clinton con artist, on the grounds I only vote for Democrats. Biden is entirely right with his comment. The Arkansas Ridge Runner screwed us with NAFTA, screwed us with the repeal of Glass-Steagal, screwed us with the appointment of Robert Rubin as Secretary of the Treasury, screwed us with “welfare reform,” screwed us with “the era of big government is over.” I didn’t know till he came along that you could pile bullshit to a height of 6 feet 4 inches without it toppling over. That story about his “long con” with the draft was a “tell” about what kind of an empty suit he was, and everything he did for 8 years proved it. And she’s no better. You want Wall Street to continue to bend you over and ram it up? Vote Clinton! Remember how they came into office in 1992 not rich, and now they’re in the One Percent? That tells you everything about their prioties.
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