Joan Walsh: Hillary Clinton is returning Dems to their liberal roots

[Skinner]

Interesting perspective from Joan Walsh at Salon. Hillary is "finally being her real self."

Hillary Clinton’s first campaign rally felt like a coming out party for a woman who’d been shoved in a closet back in the 1990s and hadn’t seen much daylight since. Wonkish Hillary, liberal Hillary; the Eleanor Roosevelt admirer; the Children’s Defense Fund attorney. That’s who promised an adoring crowd on a bright sunny Saturday, in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, that she’d bring back “an America where if you do your part, you reap the rewards; where we don’t leave anyone out, or anyone behind.”

We didn’t get to know this Hillary while her husband was president, especially after the failure of the healthcare reform project she led. She was too feminist, too liberal, too all around off-putting to be much help to her husband’s effort to rebrand the Democratic Party with a common sense centrism that wouldn’t frighten away white Southern men. The Clinton operation looked for ways to sand off the First Lady’s rough edges, mostly with her cooperation. She traded policy for writing books about Socks and Buddy, the Clintons’ pets.

We didn’t see much of this Hillary during her 2008 presidential campaign, either. She was still trying not to scare away the dwindling numbers of white working class voters left available to Democratic Party appeals.

Of course, if you don’t like her, this version of Hillary Clinton is all head and no heart; all about polling data and electoral college math that show a successful White House run requires that she consolidate the Obama coalition, and leave the (Bill) Clinton coalition behind. As an often-vexed admirer of Clinton, I see it as her finally being her real self. The question is, can this Hillary Clinton become president, or will the GOP turn her into a scary Frankenstein monster of liberalism, a cross between Eleanor Roosevelt and Barack Obama?

Read more at Salon.

[OKNancy]

1. I see this as her real self too

not the OTT version of her that I read about so much here.

[hrmjustin]

2. Posting positive news about Hillary. For shame!

[Kingofalldems]

3. Kicked, recced and tweeted.

[truebrit71]

4. That's funny...

...considering she's to the right of the President how is firmly centre-right...

[geek tragedy]

5. I agree that this Hillary is a vast improvement on 2008 Hillary.

But is she really leading Democrats to liberal roots, or following them?

As long as it gets made policy, of course, same difference.

[Tarheel_Dem]

6. K&R!

[sheshe2]

7. KnR!

[Iliyah]

8. K & R

[onehandle]

9. Interesting. Joan didn't seem so keen on another run for Hillary not too long ago.

Wonder if she is changing her mind. I wouldn't be surprised.

[Motown_Johnny]

10. So the 2008 version wasn't really her?

Then how can her supporters really support her if this is a different version? They must not know this one yet.

This just makes things worse. If she wasn't herself up until now then all the attacks about her being insincere are correct.

[leftofcool]

11. Joan finally comes out positive for Hillary. Good for you Joan!

[Exilednight]

11. More like she is following US to OUR liberal roots.

"There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader"
-Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin

[AtomicKitten]

15. Mmmmm. Fluffy.

[SheilaT]

14. What in the world does she think Bernie Sanders is doing?

[onehandle]

17. Not having a big rally and speech last Saturday.

The article was about that event and what Joan got out of it.

See photo from article and maybe read it:

[img][/img]

[arcane1]

28. Poaching other candidate's ideas and pretending she came up with them first, on her own.

You can fool some of the people some of the time...

[CreekDog]

57. Wow, what great thinking! Nobody should use ideas that Bernie Sanders champions!

How dare they???

If you get your way, not one candidate out there will support what he supports.

THEN YOU LOSE.

do you even politics? are you serious???

anyone with one ounce of sense who supports Bernie Sanders' ideas would want EVERYONE to beat down the doors to support the things he supports --THAT'S CALLED SUCCESS.

shooting yourself and ourselves in the damned foot. you don't even see it.

[Robbins]

16. Oh jesus

Hillary and liberal don't belong in same sentence.

comparing her to eleanor Roosevelt is an insult to MRS Roosevelt.

[hifiguy]

18. There have been almost as many

"new" Hillarys as there were new Nixons.

[randys1]

27. Wow, now we are comparing Hillary to Nixon....

[hifiguy]

29. Only in her multiple reinventions and repackagings of herself.

I should have said David Bowie?

[randys1]

31. You should compare what a Hillary administration would be like compared to Scott Walker

and then promise to RACE to the polls on election day even if she is the nominee.

[hifiguy]

35. As I see it, the wars will probably be the same ones with either of them

but we frogs in the pot would be boiled just a bit more slowly with HRC, though boiled we assuredly would be.

That's honestly the way I see it and I am not gonna start an argument. I believe Bernie would be far better for far more of the average people.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

47. Hillary = Nixon is definitely an invalid comparison.

Nixon only deleted 18 seconds of audio tape but was bounced out of office for it.

[Purveyor]

53. Oh my and spot-on at that!~

[truebluegreen]

60. fwiw 18 minutes...

but he couldn't get to all of them.

[CreekDog]

58. You know who is going to call Hillary a liberal and who isn't going to listen to you ? Republicans.

So they are going to call her a liberal and the media along with them.

She's gonna get called that, you want her to repudiate it or go with it?

Some of you are so pure...

[kenfrequed]

19. Hmm...

Feels more like she is responding to Sanders than doing anything terribly authentic.

[MoonRiver]

20. (Way) READY FOR HILLARY!

Can't wait for her inauguration!

[SunSeeker]

21. K & R

[Duval]

22. I hope she is being

her "real self". I need to hear more about "how" she is going to change things. Also, I didn't hear her talk about the Big Banks. Guess we all will have to wait and see. We definitely want a Democrat in the White House, and Bernie is consistently clear on issues we care about, and I do trust him. Is he electable? Good article for us to begin a discussion, Skinner.

[99Forever]

23. Ever notice just how gullible they think we are?

It's disgusting, actually.

[Marr]

37. +1

[heaven05]

24. too many

people know what and who Hillary really represents to be swayed by this.......

[MoonRiver]

25. You are so wrong.

That's why she is ahead of Sanders by 50 pts. Get a grip.

[heaven05]

38. got a grip

on reality and who really represents our needs and it ain't her. It's still early. May the better candidate win. I'll vote for one happily, the other with justified reservation(s).

[tblue37]

45. At this point in a general election cycle, name recognition counts for A LOT.

This is from April 29, 2003--Almost the same number of months before the 2004 election as we are from the 2016 election:

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll on the 2004 presidential election, based on a national survey conducted April 22-23, finds Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman holding a slight edge over the field of nine Democratic candidates that will meet in South Carolina this weekend in the season's first nationally televised debate. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt follow close behind <emphasis added>.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/8302/lieberman-leads-field-nine.aspx

[arcane1]

26. Funny, from here it seems liberals have been impatiently waiting for her to catch up.

[mmonk]

30. Doesn't work with me. Joan is a microphone for the present Democratic Party establishment.

[Maedhros]

32. I just don't see it.

There has been a massive re-branding effort to convince Democratic voters that Hillary is liberal, and Walsh's article appears to be part of that effort.

[KamaAina]

33. Is this The Onion?!

[Nuclear Unicorn]

48. It made me cry, if that's what you mean.

[KamaAina]

56. Thread win!

[DCBob]

36. I totally agree with this. I think her better angels are starting to emerge.

[winter is coming]

39. Hillary hasn't been "her real self" before now? How do we know that "now" is any more real? n/t

[BKH70041]

40. And I think most Democrats will agree.

The part of the party (who really need to leave and form their own party) who view her as RW is so far to the left they think the left is the right. They should and will be ignored. They'll likely vote for Clinton anyway when the time comes because "lesser of two evils" and "where else can they go?" will come into play. If they actually have the backbone to hold to their beliefs and choose not to vote for Clinton, then good for them. But I don't see them having the spine to do that. They'll fold. That's their nature.

[Fumesucker]

43. Indeed, those to the left didn't have the guts to vote to invade Iraq

If you didn't have what it takes to send someone else's kids to fight the greatest threat to America since Hitler and Tojo, Saddam, then you have no right to call yourself a Democrat.

[BKH70041]

49. So in the GE, which is it for you?

A) lesser of two evils
B) where else can I go?
C) both a & b
D) Neither. I'm going to maintain what integrity I claim to possess and never vote for anyone who is regarded as a "corporate" candidate.

Because, you see, unless she dies or becomes gravely ill, Clinton will be the nominee.

[Fumesucker]

50. I live in a red state

Hillary makes my neighbors hair stand on end, they would crawl naked through poison ivy to vote against her, if she is the nominee who I may or may not vote for won't make any difference at all as this state will be going Republican.

I recall when Hillary was leading that black feller with the funny name, Olama or something, whatever happened to him?

[TM99]

55. I'll answer that question

as an independent.

A) Never again as both evils suck!
B) Go? In a two party system with the deck stacked, it means third party or not voting.
C) Neither
D) Yes, this is the principled, boundaries, and adult choice.

If Clinton is the nominee for the Democrats, the GOP has won.

[Nite Owl]

41. And how do we know

if she won't turn back to being the other Hillary if she becomes President?
She needs the left now but later she won't. Just like Obama did.
I'm going for someone with a record, someone who knows who he is and has fought the fight for decades.

[hootinholler]

42. This is an insult to the liberal lions of recent years

One of whom is running in the primary and has been a steadfast ally of the poor and middle classes, but others come to mind as well.

Note the assumption that Hillary is ordained to win the primary, and haters gonna hate hand waving.

Does Joan not realize why the "the dwindling numbers of white working class voters" were in fact dwindling?

I mean meatloaf is fine, but the other guy is serving NY Strip at the same price point. I'll have mine medium rare please.

[tblue37]

44. Actually, Warren and Sanders are doing that—and dragging the centrists along with them.

Last edited Mon Jun 15, 2015, 09:23 PM - Edit history (1)

I also think that OWS laid the groundwork for the liberal resurgence that Warren and Sanders are using to support their progressive agenda.

I think Hillary is genuine a social liberal, and I do admire her in many ways and for many things.

Unfortunately, though, she is too often unwilling to stand on principle if she thinks the political winds are blowing in the other direction. Instead, she ducks and weaves to avoid taking a clear stand on hot button issues. Or she will actually take a position she doesn’t even want to take, simply because she fears doing otherwise will close off her political options.

I honestly do not believe she is a hawk, but I think she voted for the IWR because the Republicans deliberately set the Democrats up so that they truly feared losing their seats if they didn’t go along with the CheneyBush program—and at the time the immediate political danger to many Democrats was quite real.

However, I also think that Hillary was primarily acting to protect her presidential aspirations. As a woman she believed that she especially needed to appear "tough," and that her voting against the IWR would be used to “prove” that women are too weak to make the hard choices that a president must make about deploying troops.

I bet that she, Kerry, and many of the other Dems didn’t really want to vote for the IWR at all, but were stampeded into doing so anyway.

Similarly, I suspect she would rather not have to amass such a huge war chest by cozying up to the same criminal types that tanked the economy in 2008 and that are still ripping off the workers who actually produce value—as well as destroying the environment we need to survive. But she knows that wealth is power in our oligarchy, and she doesn’t believe that she has any hope of getting to the White House without all that money—or without the good will of all those corporate and bankster sociopaths.

I think she honestly means well and hopes to help regular people if/when she becomes president, but like Obama, she will probably find herself blocked at every turn. When asked after he left office what surprised him most about being president, Jimmy Carter said he was surprised at how little power the president actually has.

Carter had very little influence in DC because he was seen as an outsider by both the Repubs and the Dems, and the career politicians in both parties deliberately kneecapped him. I worry that even if Bernie somehow manages to get elected president, he would encounter the same sort of intransigence.

Hillary is probably hoping that her many, many years of building and reinforcing close connections with the movers and shakers in DC and around the world will give her a real chance to do some good in office; but she will continue to be the target of insane hatred, both because she is a Clinton and because certain troglodytes will no more accept a woman president than they would accept a black president. Just as Obama discovered, she will find that Republicans would rather destroy the country than allow someone they hate to get credit for any significant accomplishment.

I am furious and puzzled about Obama’s push for that horrendous trade agreement, and especially for fast-track authority that can so easily be abused by a right wing president—but I am also amazed at how much he has managed to accomplish despite outrageous and unprecedented Republican obstructionism.

Hillary might manage to get some good things done, too, even though she is bound to face a lot of the same sort of crap that has undermined Obama’s best efforts. The vast right wing conspiracy has only grown vaster and more malicious in the years since her husband left office.

As for the connections she has so assiduously built and nurtured—unfortunately, they might well do more harm than good.

In the marvelous but underrated film The Seduction of Joe Tynan, Alan Alda plays an idealistic politician who must make many deals and compromises in order to reach a position of power. Once in that position, though, he is hemmed in on all sides by those deals and compromises, so he has no choice but to go along with the corrupt status quo that he entered politics to overturn.

I will vote for Bernie in the primary, and then for whichever Democrat is nominated as our presidential candidate.

Although I support Bernie, I worry that he might not be able to get anything done even if he does make it into the White House, but I also worry that Hillary might be too tied down by her close connections with the corrupt moneymen to escape their control if she wins.

I think that she is smart enough to manage some end runs around the bad guys, just as Obama has done, but I shudder at her close ties to the criminal banksters and the corporate sociopaths.

I do have one real hope, though. The only way Bernie has any chance of winning the nomination and the general election is if he provokes such an enormous groundswell of populist support (including a huge number of eager new voters) that he ends up with coattails long enough to flip the Senate and maybe even the House, and if that groundswell makes even the worst of the Republicans more scared of the voters than of the oligarchs—too scared to block policies that are overwhelmingly supported by a newly engaged voting populace.

Certainly such an outcome is unlikely, but it’s not impossible, so I am going to keep hoping for it.

[quickesst]

46. this is my take

"Ooooh, she said something good about Hillary? she's bad. Oooh, she said something bad about Hillary? She's good. He said something bad about Hillary? He's good. He said something good about Hillary? He's bad." Good or bad? Depends.
And so it goes as it is in this thread and any positive thread concerning Hillary Clinton. Predictable.

[YOHABLO]

51. If anyone has enjoyed watching "The Roosevelts" on PBS, you come to understand much about FDR

Especially, that his programs and over-arching concern for the dire living conditions of the American people during the Depression, would not have all happened without the advice and tenacity of Eleanor Roosevelt.

[Bonobo]

52. If this is true, perhaps some regret over "dismantling the Welfare State"?

It doesn't SEEM very liberal-rootlike or Roosevelt-like.

I think that would be a good starting place, no?

[marmar]

54. At least until Jan. 20, 2017, when she'll return them to Robert Rubin.

[Damansarajaya]

62. +1 well said!

[PowerToThePeople]

59. ..

[Damansarajaya]

61. The irony is almost physically crippling . . . nt

[Orsino]

63. Psst. No one tell Walsh that Sanders is running. n/t

[betterdemsonly]

64. Obama would be a has-been if it had not been for antiwar liberals breaking for Obama

as a result of her IWR vote. You have to remember his career took off in iowa where there are no urban minority groups. When antiwar liberals gave him victory in Iowa, the minority rights groups jumped from Clinton to Obama. Obama's coalition was a coalition of antiwar liberals and urban identity politics groups. Since she has doubled down on her neocon beliefs by promising to defend America from traditional threats, it is not true she is trying to appeal to this coalition. She is only appealing to the minority rights voters, who were originally in her camp but jumped on the Obama bandwagon after Iowa. She is not trying to appeal to Obama's coalition. She is trying appeal to the part that cares about minority rights and nothing after that.

The Clinton Coalition were a coalition of old economically conservative bluedog Southerners, a group that are mostly dead, and minority rights groups. She couldn't appeal to them if she wanted to because those bluedogs are mostly dead.

She is not trying to appeal to the Clinton Coalition but she also isn't trying to appeal to Obama's coalition. She is attempting some new synthesis. This would be a coalition of socially liberal economically conservative, Techies, Wall Street types, and people who care about minority advancement and nothing after that.

The wild card are still minority rights activists since most of them care about minority advancement but probably also care about other things. African American's hated the Iraq War too, so jumping on Obama's bandwagon was easy for them. I also believe many of them care about economic justice, so they may not be a steady demographic for her this time.