Pretty good for a subject line teaser, eh? No this isn't about fighting between Clark and Edwards, or fighting between Clark and Edwards supporters. It's about which Democrats will stand up and fight for us when the chips are down. And to be more specific, it's about a blog by Matt Stoller at MyDD.com by the name of "The Bar Fight Primary". In it he says mostly nice things about both Wes Clark and John Edwards, and less nice things about some other potential Presidential candidates. It's his blog, you should read it, I'll leave the link below. I agree with a lot, but not all, of what he says. But I absolutely love Matt's basic premise. So here is your basic three paragraph snippet:
"The way to gain my support in 2008 is to show that in a bar fight, your sympathies are with liberals and are set against the bullies that have been running the country for so long. You can run on anything you want, you can talk of unifying the country or any sort of conventional wisdom chatter. You don't have to speak to me directly all the time with everything you say. You can pander on video games or ethanol, or whatever you need. But you have to speak on some critical point, some piece of entrenched power, and promise that you are going to gore that conservative ox.
The key point about the progressive movement that has emerged over the past eight years is that we are a group of people that feel deeply betrayed by our elites. We feel that bullies have run roughshod over our country, and many of us bought your line that compromise with these bullies was the right strategy, until it became clear that you can't do business with these people. In order to unify the country, these bullies need to be pushed out of the way, corrected for, and only then can the healing start. Just as Reagan said he'd unify the country by pushing the liberals out of the way, we need someone who will unify the country by pushing irresponsible right-wing power centers out of the way. They crushed our unions, we need to crush their talk radio, you know, that kind of thinking...
...There are two candidates who can pass the bar fight primary. One of them, Wes Clark, passes the test clearly. He is a genuine liberal, and has fought the right clearly and consistently for the last four years, most recently in Connecticut when he was the only real surrogate against Lieberman. I don't see how Clark can seriously compete, but this willingness to be on our side in a bar fight, recognizing the institutional challenges posed by the right, explains his continuing netroots support. And then there's John Edwards. I think Edwards is split. He's spent much of his time working with unions, on the road, in low-key meetings. Elizabeth Edwards has done outreach to bloggers, so there's at least acknowledgment of the dirty hippy crew. He's announcing in New Orleans, which is dog whistle politics on our issues. He knows he was wrong on the war, and feels our betrayal. Unlike Clark, though, I still haven't seen him stand up for us in a real way. I haven't seen him attack McCain, for instance, or go after the politicians who supported the Bankruptcy Bill. I haven't seen him challenge any right-wing interests in a serious way, and so while I acknowledge he's in the ball park, he's not there yet."
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/12/18/115944/24OK, since I clearly am a Clark supporter, I'm not pleased that Matt wrote "I don't see how Clark can seriously compete." And I bet a strong Edwards supporter will disagree with Matt that Edwards is "not there yet", and can challenge him over why. But Clark and Edwards are actually the two likely Democratic Presidential candidates who Stoller is most positive about, when it comes to taking our side in the bar room fight that he thinks the next Democratic President will face. That's his opinion, others will differ.
My question is, even if you differ on his assessment of the individuals, does Stoller, in the big picture, have it right? Here is his closing challenge:
"It isn't the job of the next President to have all the answers, that's up to the American people. It's up to the next President to show that he's going to clear the way for us to take back our country.
So that's my test for the primary. Who's with us in a bar fight? And if that's not your test, then you need to explain to yourself why you think the right-wing and the media are going to lie down and go to sleep after fifteen years of increasingly malignant civic behavior."
So, what do you think?
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
