The Chicago Tribune: "Hillary Clinton's weaknesses hidden by Republican chaos"

[Attorney in Texas]

Here is a link to the thoughtful analysis in today's Chicago Tribune, "Hillary Clinton's weaknesses hidden by Republican chaos," and here's an excerpt:

There's cause for concern in Hillaryland, the constellation of Democratic advisers, supporters and politicians counting on the former secretary of state to lead the party to a sweeping victory next November.
...
The worries of some Clinton insiders are focused on the general election. There is an "enthusiasm gap." She doesn't excite important constituencies: young people, independents, possibly even minority voters.

... Clinton has a striking problem with young voters. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed a solid plurality of young voters has a negative view of Clinton. She did even worse in Bloomberg Politics national poll.

Here's a result to unnerve her Brooklyn campaign headquarters: Both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton get a 60 percent favorable rating with 18- to 29-year-olds. She gets 35 percent approval and 57 percent unfavorable.
...
Clinton also has big problems with independent voters. In the nomination contest, she's running well ahead of her chief challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. But she loses to him among Democratic-leaning independents. Over all, independents are negative about her by a margin of better than 3-to-2.

If Clinton supporters spent less energy attacking Sanders, I believe the campaign would be running more smoothly.

[vadermike]

1. ok then

Instead of whining about it, the DNC needs to fix these problems and fast .. otherwise we are gonna have Hitler 2.0 and it wont be pretty.. DNC wake the f up!!!

[Warren DeMontague]

2. It's not even attacking Sanders, it's calling his supporters names and going "neeener neeener"

I swear to fucking god, the number of cranky 65 year old toddlers just blows me away.

[Cali_Democrat]

4. Calling his supporters names and going "neeener neeener"?

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Uh, yeah.

A casual readong of GDP over the past couple months, one might be forgiven for thinking "sanders supporters" were on the ballot somewhere, given the number of threads started delinieating their volvo-driving, white supremacist, purple shirt wearing, etc. character flaws.

[Cali_Democrat]

10. The volovo driving meme originated from Howard Dean's former pollster who penned an op-ed

It was in an article I posted. No Hillary supporter on DU attacked Sanders supporters for driving volvos. That's a myth.

The white supremacist thing came from the two people who interrupted Bernie in Seattle. Nobody on DU called Sanders supporters white supremacists. Another myth.

The purple shirt thing.....I'm baffled by that one. Never heard it before.

[Warren DeMontague]

13. Oh baloney. Hillary people have been running full-court-press against "Sanders Supporters"

Sanders supporters are X! Sanders Supporters are Y! Sanders supporters ("Berniebros&quot are libertarian communists who love Hugo Chavez and Ayn Rand (yeah, ? --- exactly). I'll never vote for Bernie because his supporters bargle yargle bargle blah!

Etc etc.

I remember the Volvo ad, which is why it has been extra-disconcerting to see team Hillary here pick up those tactics.

[Cali_Democrat]

16. Again.....the Bernibro meme originated from an op-ed written in the Atlantic

The first time the article appeared on DU, it was actually posted by a Bernie supporter.

Hillary supporters on DU weren't the ones who started that meme either.

Bernie supporters love Hugo Chavez? Never heard that one before. Didn't he actually die before Bernie and Hillary announced they would be seeking the Democratic nomination?

Bernie supporters love Ayn Rand? Never heard that one before.

Bernie supporters are libertarian communists? That isn't even possible as libertarians are right of center and communists are left of center.

Anyhoo......

[Warren DeMontague]

26. Yes, that's why I said that- "libertarian communists". It's fucking ludicrous, but that hasn't

stopped that sort of nonsensical ad hominem, cognitive dissonance inducing bullshit being thrown non-stop at Bernie supporters here for months.

Okay, maybe you haven't seen it. I have.

[Jim Lane]

39. Have you heard the "unhinged" meme?

Sanders supporters were collectively assessed as being "unhinged" in a post in the Hillary Clinton Group -- a characterization that was kicked and recommended by one of their esteemed Group Hosts.

Oh, pardon me, did I call it the Hillary Clinton Group? My mistake. I should have given it its correct title, the "Normal People Group", to distinguish it from all those weirdos who are so benighted as NOT to support Clinton. (Note how many of the Clinton stalwarts joined in high-fiving the creator of this new term.)

So there you have two examples of nasty attitudes on DU that are not myths; they're backed up by links.

As for purple shirts, I didn't know that that had been applied to Sanders supporters -- maybe just in substance and not in those terms. The reference, I assume, is to a problem in the philosophy of law posed by Lon L. Fuller in his book The Morality of Law. In an imaginary country, a group that was partly political party and partly organized thuggery managed to take power. They were called the Purple Shirts. The problem Fuller addressed was how the decent people should act once the Purple Shirts were ousted. In particular, what if anything should be done about the "grudge informers" who exploited the Purple Shirts' authoritarianism to harm people they (the informers) disliked? The problem is stated in more detail here.

[hootinholler]

37. Which part of that are you having trouble understanding?

Seemed pretty straight forward to me.

[FlatBaroque]

12. cranky 65 year old toddlers

LMFAO

[wendylaroux]

29. that is funny!

[AtomicKitten]

20. +

[villager]

28. Evidently you *can* go home again -- at least as far back as jr. high

...based on those same "neener neener" posts which keep proliferating...

[Cali_Democrat]

3. If Hillary is weak, then Bernie must be even weaker

He's down 25+ points to a weak candidate.

What does that make him?

[frazzled]

14. This right here ^

That is the problem with these analyses. Yes, Clinton has problems--what candidate doesn't? But if she could have a tough fight in a general election, think what Sanders would have. If she's "old hat" he's even older hat. He also has his personality foibles, too, just like Clinton. But his are a tendency to shout, to wag his finger a lot, to lose focus and shut down when he's unable to talk about the 1% or anything else off his economic script. And then there's the eating alone thing, the dislike of shaking hands, the few friends in Congress.

Both of them have their deficits, but at least I can see Clinton winning a bunch of states beyond Vermont. It would be a much closer fight.

[pangaia]

32. well. I would rather have a president who chooses to eat alone,

rather than one who votes to start a war based on lies and misdirection..for whatever reason.

[tk2kewl]

15. less well know, not funded by the establishment and virtually ignored by their propaganda outlets

that'd be my guess

[Cali_Democrat]

17. Bernie is a politician in his 70's and he's been in Congress for nearly a quarter century

If people don't know him by now, they will never get to know him.

The fault is Bernie's.

[tk2kewl]

19. can you name all 100 senators?

[pangaia]

33. Can cali name 20 Senators?

[tk2kewl]

41. i replied in the wrong place...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=842793
D'oh!

[AtomicKitten]

22. we have a winner

[Romulox]

5. Her supporters seem to believe that they have only to defeat Sanders. nt

[ibegurpard]

6. yup

Good luck with the majority of the public that doesn't like her.

[riderinthestorm]

23. +1 nt

[tk2kewl]

34. I didn't mean it as a dig

most of us here would be hard pressed to even name a majority of the senators and we pay pretty close attention. Your average person would not be likely to have know Bernie before recently. But for better or worse, everyone knows who Hillary Clinton is, if not what she stands for.

[tk2kewl]

40. this was suppose to be a reply to reply #19...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251842213#post33

don't knowhow i ended up putting it here

[JoePhilly]

8. Mom, Hillary is making faces at me again!!!!

[dogknob]

9. I'll vote for Jill Stein before I cast another hostage vote.

2012: I voted to keep LDS out of the White House.
2008: I voted to keep Palin away from the White House.
2004: I voted for anybody but Bush.
2000: I voted for anybody but Bush.

Nominate Hillary and you might end up with Rubio.

[Metric System]

11. "If Clinton supporters spent less energy attacking Sanders" DU is a cesspool of Hillary bashing.

[leftofcool]

18. I'd say with a double digit lead in 48 states, she is doing just fine.

[Todays_Illusion]

21. It is more than that, this is part of the move to a one party government in the U.S. led by

our anti-democratic libertarian billionaires. Elections just don't serve them very efficiently.

[Baitball Blogger]

24. Before I read that article I would have said that trust is for the young.

But it doesn't look like the young trust Hillary Clinton, either.

For now, it looks like the people who support her don't care about breaking up the stinkin' banks, and don't want to fight the stinkin' oligarchy, and don't care about stinkin' single payer. So, maybe trust has nothing to do with it.

Though, I see trust is a factor with one major voter group. I see members of minority groups voting for her based on trust that she will undue all the institutional racism measures that resulted from the crime bills of the nineties. You know, the ones that she and her husband supported back when Bill was president.

Still, I feel bad for the young, but I guess it's never too early to learn how frustrating our political system is.



http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/the-tragic-politics-of-crime/392114/

[Godhumor]

25. Considering HRC is already pivoting to the General Election

I'd say her campaign is going just fine.

[DCBob]

27. Be patient.. once the GOP clown is selected the fight will begin.

I have no doubt Hillary will come out on top in this one.

[ibegurpard]

35. Hillary's weaknesses are hers

They have nothing to do with the Republicans.

[DCBob]

36. She can beat any Republican.

With or without any perceived weaknesses.

[Martin Eden]

30. Gotta disagree with your last line, AiT

This has very little to do with Hillary supporters, and everything to do with their candidate.

[MBS]

31. This article articulates exactly what worries me about the GE

Also check out this column. There's a link to this article at the article cited in the OP:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-hillary-clinton-barack-obama-bernie-sanders-john-kerry-1115-20151113-column.html

. ..Obama has also refused to be panicked into reckless military action against Syria, Russia or Iran. Compared with what his critics demand, his steps against Islamic State have been cautious and small-scale. Obama has been willing to brave criticism for alleged weakness, appeasement and isolationism. As Harvard scholar Stephen Walt wrote for Foreign Policy, he has shown "an appreciation not just of the limits of U.S. power, but also of the limited need to exercise it." No such restraint can be expected of Clinton. As secretary of state, she pressed for what turned out to be one of Obama's biggest mistakes: the air war against Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, which led to the chaos that has engulfed the country.

She met resistance from then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who told Obama, "I don't think we ought to take on another war" and considered resigning over the decision to intervene. Back when that intervention looked good, her emails reveal, she was eager to ensure that she got credit. Lately, though, the left-wing In These Times noted, "Clinton has tended to lay the decision to go into Libya squarely at Obama's feet." Admitting she was wrong? That's not happening. Her hawkish approach has been consistent. Clinton was far less committed than Obama to reaching a nuclear deal with Iran — which was ultimately concluded by her successor, John Kerry. She advocated a bigger surge of troops in Afghanistan in 2009 than Obama finally authorized.


Obama's first instinct is to steer clear of foreign conflicts. He can be persuaded to step in, but he needs a good reason. Clinton's first instinct is to intervene, whether through air power or ground troops or weapons. That is often her second and third instinct too. Obama sees no compelling reason for the U.S. to remain at war indefinitely. Clinton sees no grounds not to. Her basic approach has a lot in common with that of George W. Bush.

. . .
The president has drawn some powerful lessons from Iraq and elsewhere about the costs of war, the perils of plunging into places we don't understand and our modest capacity to shape outcomes in foreign crises. Clinton has not drawn those lessons. She stated a very different credo in 2010, referring to America's role in the world: "We do believe there are no limits on what is possible or what can be achieved." How long will we be at war if she becomes president? "No limits" is what I heard.

I will vote for the Democratic nominee - absolutely, no question - but I admit to anxiety about the GE.

[ChiciB1]

38. Oh My, I Hear Feathers Getting Ruffled!

I keep hearing from people of all age brackets, they like what Bernie has to offer!

I like when they say that to me!