What’s Wrong With Hillary?

[Karmadillo]

Let's hope Tuesday's results will set us on a path where Hillary's many liabilities won't take the party down in November.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/hillary-clinton-2016-whats-wrong-with-hillary-213722

What’s Wrong With Hillary?
The GOP is fretting about Trump, but the Democrats’ likely standard-bearer could do just as much damage to her own party.
By Jeff Greenfield
March 14, 2016

When Hillary Clinton began her second run for the White House, it must have seemed that the road ahead would rise up to meet her. This time, there would be no political phenomenon in her way—no younger, more charismatic figure who would strip Clinton of the mantle of “change.” All that stood between her and the nomination were a 74-year old socialist from Vermont and the obscure former governor of a state whose previous best-known politician was Spiro Agnew. Back then, if you had told Clinton’s campaign that she would be outraised by that Vermont socialist, that she would be losing younger Democrats, including young women, by landslide proportions, and that she would be facing a months-long slog through every primary—you would have been accused of smoking some of that now-legal-in-Colorado product.

So what exactly is going on here? Why won’t Bernie Sanders go away? And why does Hillary Clinton’s Bernie problem pose a danger not only to her but to the Democratic Party—even if she does (as it seems highly likely) secure her party’s nomination? Three big reasons: First, Hillary Clinton commands little trust among an electorate that is driven today by mistrust. Second, her public life—the posts she has held, the positions she has adopted (and jettisoned)—define her as a creature of the “establishment” at a time when voters regard the very idea with deep antipathy. And finally, however she wishes it were not so, however much she argues that she represents the future as America’s first prospective female president, Clinton still embodies the past, just as she did in 2008 when she lost to Barack Obama. The combination of those three factors is already playing out in the Democratic primary, where younger voters are turning away from her and embracing a geriatric, white-haired alternative in droves.

The far more serious issue is whether all these factors will seriously threaten her prospects and those of the Democratic Party in November—even at the hands of Donald Trump.
True, the road ahead is still more or less rising in her direction. Clinton leads her likely opponent, Trump, by a significant margin. He—or indeed any GOP nominee—will come out of the convention with his party bitterly, perhaps hopelessly, divided. A Washington Post-ABC News poll reports that nearly two-thirds of Americans say she has the kind of experience necessary to be president. No wonder betting markets make her a nearly 2-to-1 favorite in November.

But there are other factors that make Hillary Clinton look more vulnerable than venerable, and that should give her party cause to pause. Consider the much-chewed-over finding that nearly six in 10 Americans do not consider Clinton honest and trustworthy. In last Wednesday’s debate, panelist Karen Tumulty cut through Clinton’s first explanation—it’s all that right-wing Fox News noise—to note that these doubts were held by the broader public, and by many in her own party.

more...

[BeyondGeography]

1. It's the return of the 90s-style scaredy-cat Democrat

For me at least.

Thomas Frank wrote a pretty brutal article on it last week. I always tempered my criticisms of Bill with gratitude that he had managed to defeat the Republicans, but that was over 20 years ago, before the freak show that was the Republican Party inflicted George W. Bush and eight years of Obama obstruction on the country.

Still, her first instinct is to tippy-toe around them, invoking Kissinger in a primary, overreaching at Nancy Reagan's funeral and criticizing violence at Trump rallies without mentioning Trump. She doesn't look old, but she sounds it. This is one of the risks when you're running to restore something rather than start fresh.

[silvershadow]

5. In her usual style, she will wet her finger and stick it to the political winds. Because her

barometer is broken, she will guess. She has to go just left enough to capture the win, and she will then return to her milquetoast roots, guaranteed. And we will be doomed.

I pray that Sanders wins this race handily. We need to dispose of the Third Way. Now is the time.

[Betty Karlson]

14. I don't mean to find fault with what you said, but "overreaching at Nancy's funeral"

hardly does justice to the offense she caused. That is the way a "scaredy cat Democrat" might describe the "incident", where Clinton "misattributed" a "distinction" to Nancy Reagan.

She showed herself to still be the homophobe she has always been, and never stopped to be.

[BeyondGeography]

20. On the other hand, her instincts on ignoring certain unappeasable critics are still pretty good

Not to find fault with what you say.

[Betty Karlson]

21. Given how far right she is from the political centre, the number of

"unappeasable critics" is growing by the day. The direction in which she moves, tells me it's not MY fault I joined their ranks.

[artyteacher]

2. isnt jeff greenfield a right wing hack...?

[marew]

8. I guess if you call a former speech writer for Robert F. Kennedy a right wing hack.

Maybe you do. I certainly don't!

[Octafish]

31. Thank you.

It's why history.

[Jim Lane]

33. The new definition of "right-wing hack" is "anyone who says anything negative about Hillary" (n/t)

[NJCher]

12. no, he came to speak at my campus one time

I will never forget it, because the guy was so sharp. I recall thinking there's a reason he's achieved what he has in life.


Cher

[Punkingal]

15. Greenfield has always been very astute....

After the Clinton impeachment, he was just about the only pundit who was saying the Republicans were in danger in the mid-terms because of it. He was right, they lost a lot of seats. I remember this because I was always telling my husband that was going to happen, and Greenfield was the only one saying it, too. And we were right.

(Not saying I know things others don't...I just had a gut feeling about that election.)

[Ivan Kaputski]

32. OFFS

[SheilaT]

3. Hillary is a creature of old time Party politics.

She's stuck in the 1960s or '70s and hasn't a clue to what extent the world has changed. It shows up in things like her inability to even check her own email when she first became Secretary of State. She operates in a world where the party machine rules all. But that machine has been crumbling for a while, and is ready to come to a grinding halt.

I don't believe she is a bad person, but she is a person who has lived inside a bubble for a very long time. Maybe that bubble will finally burst when her campaign comes to a sad end, but I doubt it. She still will have a great deal of personal wealth, will spend the rest of her life among the privileged, and will never quite understand what what wrong.

[Punkingal]

17. You're right...she will never understand what has happened, win or lose.

There will be rationalizations and excuses, but not insight.

[grasswire]

27. her sense of victimization will kick in

history has passed her by, but she will blame others for her inability to keep up.

[SheilaT]

29. And none but her most die-hard supporters

will give a flying fuck for her "victimization". History hasn't so much passed her by as she's not understood how the world is very different from what it was when she was first Lady of Arkansas.

[Waiting For Everyman]

4. Quote: "The problem for Clinton... "

"The problem for Clinton, however, is that, should she be facing Donald Trump, she would be facing an opponent who may be uniquely capable of turning her experience into a liability … not to mention exploiting her other vulnerabilities."

That's a no confidence vote about her vs. Trump. The pundits are catching up with what we've been saying here.

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. Thoughtful. Excellent. Well worth reading every word of the full text. n/t

[underpants]

7. Yes it was n/t

[m-lekktor]

9. I thought so. nt

[Fast Walker 52]

10. Go Bernie!!!

[amborin]

11. Bernie has gone easy on her all along; but the repugs would not; lose in landslide

[PatrynXX]

13. where younger voters are turning away from her and embracing a geriatric, white-haired alternative

nevermind I know people who are married with age differences between the too are bigger

[Skwmom]

16. Ignores the #1 Reason: THe DISASTROUS policies which have devastated the working class and is

eliminating the middle class (and destroying this country in so many other ways). People aren't buying the phony b.s. anymore.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. However weak she may be, she has mastered the art of misspeaking and obvious attempts of CYA.

[BernieforPres2016]

19. Good column by Greenfield but why he did he pull his punch at the end?

The obvious conclusion at the end, based on everything he wrote, is that Bernie is the better Democratic candidate against Trump. Greenfield just left it as a question about whether Hillary was the right candidate. He should have gone ahead and answered his own question and the answer is obvious.

[Arugula Latte]

22. Too bad they didn't listen the first time we rejected her. She's an awful, awful candidate

and she's inflicting great harm on our party and demoralizing a great chunk of the base by continuing to push her DLC/Third Way/corporatist/DINO crap.

[jillan]

23. This!! " It’s almost as if her brain and tongue were on a seven-second delay". And this -

25 years in the most rarefied circles of political life, countless speeches—where an hour’s work earns you five years’ worth of a middle-class income—a multimillion dollar wedding for your only child, and friendships with every manner of celebrity does tend to make that “establishment” label fit.

Scathing and honest article about the many reasons why at least 1/2 of the Dem base cannot support this woman.

[earthside]

24. A pointed message in a very good article.

Back in my youth, Jack Newfield and Jeff Greenfield wrote a little book titled 'A Populist Manifesto: The Making of a New Majority'.

That book oriented my political views from the moment I finished reading it to this very day.

It is about people power and building an economic system in this country for the benefit of average working folks.

In 1972, when this book was published, we still had a New Deal Democratic Party. That started to change in 1977 when Carter was elected, but the takeover by the corporatists has sadly been nearly completed in 2016.

If the Democratic Party doesn't get its bearings back, then we will most assuredly witness the Democratic Party becoming the Republican Party of Nixon, Ford, Reagan and George H. W. Bush -- i.e., country club pro-banker, pro-corporations, elites who always know what is best for all the rest of us.

Hillary Clinton is not a populist, she is not one of us.
She really is possibly the worst opponent to put up against a candidate like Trump.

We simply cannot take the risk of traveling any further down this oligarchic corporatocracy path ... either with Clinton or Trump or Cruz.

Please vote or caucus for Sen. Sanders!

[H2O Man]

30. Very good.

Thank you.

[hobbit709]

25. What's not wrong with Hillary is a much shorter list.

[Todays_Illusion]

26. My dislike of Hillary is very simple. I want to vote for a liberal, Hillary is a conservative.

[PATRICK]

28. Another article assuming Hillary is still the One

The main fault belongs to party Leadership- or lack thereof. Maybe Obama cut too much slack to get clinton's support in 2008 and way too far beyond but everyone is to blame for creating a non competitive primary in an OPEN SEASON. How well that worked out for Gore with only a little challenge. After 8 years of Democratic incumbency the GOP smells blood in the water while Dem party central seem to relax and say with their body language- it's your turn if you can.

Even more the reason because Hillary lost last time and still has much to prove. Without the Bernie acid test we might have had to wait until November to see that there is no resolution to her various problems, as unmerited as some are and and changeable as others might be with a better campaigner.

The party could have run a slew of young star centrists and swamped the old liberal as they did Kucinich, Dean and others. Instead they chose the arrogance that springs from idiocy and the present privilege of power and the overriding influence of well heeled donors, corporate special interests.

It has been the height of party stupidity also finding its match its more "honest" incarnation in Trump, who true to his name has laid the winning card down on the infantile sturm und drang that passes for GOP substance. Stupid.

And the pressure cooker drama continues mainly because Bernie's two-fold threat is a more experienced, financed and supported Clinton machine and the party leadership left, by their own fault with an alternative that they oppose.

Now the polls are trying to pimp the message that Bernie only has indies- to explain the blowouts that may be coming. Mark my words, despite all their preaching and hand-wringing about infighting they will start selling ANY strategy to deny Sanders, even a brokered convention. You can already see names being proposed- in this time of gut panic. And they will- not for the first time- have a grudging hard time bringing the machinery and leadership into line for the fall under Sanders- bemoaning constantly about the lack of corporate investors and Dem reps on the auction block.

[elleng]

34. 'If we are going to nominate someone who 50% of our people can't stand,

we will lose.'
Marco Rubio (Goes for both parties.)

[Lorien]

35. What's NOT wrong ith Hillary would be the much shorter answer

We've tried for months to get a straight answer from her fans on why they support her. So far it comes down to:

Branding by the right wing hijackers of the party

Gender

Celebrity

Traditional Freeper values and belief of her old time conservative supporters

Beyond that there's nothing.