The dynamics of the Democratic Party have changed over the past 6 years. The most noteworthy shift has been the discrepancy over where the base lies, which factions in the Democratic camp are more vocal and better funded, and how that ends up affecting who the big time candidates are blowing kisses to.
Today the far left wing of the party are the best funded and best organized, and through the use of mass media and the internet exert an enormous amount of control over what the talking points and agenda for the party will be. Long gone are the days where Daniel Patrick Moynihan (a former Democrat Senator from New York, and a man I've always felt was truly brilliant and a credit to the political class) is electable. We now live in the days where the big Presidential candidates skip the DLCC conference, which is the largest group of grassroots political organizers in the country and have always been regularly attended by Democratic candidates, only to attend utter drivel such as YearlyKos. The reasons why are appalling - it has to do with money and which group has more of an ability to affect the campaigns negatively. What the candidates haven't realized is that they snubbed the actual base of the party, who do the dirty work to get candidates elected, only to placate the self-important, delusional people who blog therefore feel they influenced an election.
Take a quick look at our political class - we have no more people like Daniel Patrick Moynihan in Congress. Granted, Senator Moynihan would not be electable these days despite his brilliance, because as a New Yorker he supported restricting abortion, but nevertheless our current political class consists of, in comparison, people who are relative embarrassments. Its a sad time for those of us who take politics very seriously because the net effect is that we lack leadership during one of the most critically dangerous times in our country's history.
FDR is a man who did some extraordinarily controversial things to protect our nation - some of which would have gotten him impeached had he been President today - but without leaders like Churchill and FDR, would we have been better off in the fight to stamp out the Nazis? Without talismans like these two men, I think we would have lost. At this point in time, we desperately need a talisman again! The question is, who will that be? I see no viable candidates.
Hillary and the anti-war left - is the honeymoon over?
Last week, while responding to (e:dcoffee), I suggested in his comments (and in my own journal on previous occasions) that Hillary will almost certainly throw the anti-war crowd under the bus once she gets the nomination. Lo and behold, here is your first taste of a very bitter beer -
What happens when you ask the Queen a question she isn't comfortable responding to? She accuses you of being a plant, accuses you of being ignorant about the legislation you are referring to, then quickly apologizes once she realizes that she indeed just acted bitchy and dressed down an honest voter in public. Its rare to see Hillary step out of the character her campaign has put her in, but there you have it. Towards the end, she did manage to put it back together.
Woe be to those who don't step in line. I actually feel really bad for the guy - although I doubt I agree with him on anything, I think he has a right to put Hillary in an uncomfortable position if in fact she is doing something that people who might vote for her don't like.
It is clear to me that Hillary has been using her husband's "triangulation" strategy to perfection ever since she announced her candidacy. Now that this has happened, and the press is bound to be horrendous, I am predicting a very strong anti-war, "we're getting out of Iraq ASAP once I'm elected" sort of message - which I've been warning you anti-war liberal types, is a complete and utter lie. Do not believe Hillary when she says this - I'm being honest and not Machiavellian about this. If you are anti-war and think Hillary is going to pull all of the troops out, you'll be deeply regretting your choice. Also, do not think for a second that Hillary will take military options off the table against Iran (or anyone else, for that matter), which is what the poor sod that she berated was worried about. Granted, I think literally the only people who are paranoid about us attacking Iran are the netroot kook types that she placated at YearlyKos, but these mixed messages are clearly beginning to make anti-war folks nervous... and to be honest you should be if you are so inclined.
Where the anti-war left get it utterly wrong is when they accuse Hillary of being a war monger. For God's sake, I'm not asking the world of people to be able to discern the difference between being a war monger and refusing to eliminate military options against a dangerous state. Taking part in the latter does not make you the former.
Now, the particularly entertaining part of this read is the comments in the bottom of the blog. Some people accuse the media of being sexist because of how the headlines are phrased (laughably absurd), some actually believe that the guy was a plant (paranoid clintonoid), some accused the questioner of being sexist himself (riiiiiight....), some people are just getting in shots because its easy (Republicans, or possibly Obama supporters). Reading Dem on Dem violence, I have to say, is a very weird experience.
Politics is becoming more of a sport/soap opera every day.
Have you seen the critique of this online that someone wrote for a class?
:::link:::
"This blogger goes under the pseudonym Senator Joshua. Josh is just a citizen with an opinion, he is not a politician."
Hillary is a tool. I wish she wasn't, I'd be proud to have someone besides a white-male president. But I can't vote for Hillary. She is the Queen of status quo. Her reforms are mild, her friends are lobbyists and big money, she speaks in poll tested soundbites instead of what she really thinks. She's a classic politician. And on the war, she's not the slightest bit concerned about getting out of Iraq, she'd rather "control a key part of the global energy supply" than establish peaceful global relations.
Oh, and about leaving Iraq, why are we constructing a 21 building, fortified American city within Baghdad? I'm talking about the US Embassy in Iraq, the largest on the planet, larger than many cities. What the hell are we going to do with 21 buildings in the heart of Baghdad? Oh, I'll take a guess, control Mideast Oil Supplies! So much for withdrawing troops. :::link:::
By the way, the embassy was expected to cost $592 million, it's $144 million over budget, due to "poor planning, shoddy workmanship, internal disputes and last-minute changes" Your tax dollars at work. I'm sorry, don't we have anything better to spend our money on? Like Healthcare!!
If you want to talk about congress, it used to be less divided. Yea, Republicans and Democrats used to eat lunch together, and ask about eachothers families and such. Today, not gonna happen. There's so much antagonism between the parties it's practically crippled the government. Take the Jim Webb ammendment, just wanted to give the troops as much time at home as they spend in battle, like we used to. But only 4 republicans voted for it. Because if you vote for a Democrat sponsored bill, next time you go down the halls of the capital some of your Republican buddies will taunt you with things like "If you love the Democrats so much, why don't you marry them!! Once you legalize Gay Marriage! Homo!"
The government has become a game of Us vs Them, and I'm sick of it, I'm sick of two parties. We need the Ron Paul Republicans to get pissed off at the World Domination Neo-Cons and form a 3rd party. We need the Kucinich Democrats to abandon the we-don't-want-to-be-called-names-on-tv, timid Democrats. And we need the public (you and me) to say this election system is a corrupt, worthless excuse for democracy. We need to abolish the electoral college, and adopt Instant Runoff Voting, if we ever want to have politicians that speak for us again.
Hillary makes me want to move to Canada.
PS - I haven't made my decision on who to support for President yet.
To be fair, I don't think Congress was a love-fest before the Republicans took over. Nobody would mistake the early 90's Congress for a competent, by the books organization either. They got lazy and corrupt, and rightfully got the boot.
When the Republicans won, at every stage there was always a ready made meme. Newt was parodied in the media as the Grinch and Scrooge. Over time, the Republicans became just as incompetent and corrupt, if not more so, overconfident because of the Democrats' ineptitude, and they rightfully got the boot too. That batch was just unbelievable, and I don't mean that in a good way.
Congress is not going to get any friendlier. Wait until a Democratic tries to nominate judges, especially another Ginsberg or Stevens. The roles are going to be reversed. Things are going to get worse, not better.
Hillary is a fraud, and it boggles the mind as to why people continue to fall for her act. The only thing you can be sure of about her is her desire to be President. She will not end the war, and for that matter probably none of the candidates will outside of Kucinich. None of them want to be the one to tuck tail and run away, even though they talk a big game.
I've always been against the idea of Iraq, if not for anything else, for the reason that we should have stayed on the path of ridding the world of Osama. I wish we could just be like Europe, in that they only pretend to give a shit about the weak and oppressed, do business with the tyrants, and almost never offer up their own sacrifices. Iraq was one of the worst strategic blunders in our history, but not one that we're going to get out of anytime soon, regardless of who wins the White House (Kucinich or Ron Paul have no prayer, sorry).
I have to admit that I have in the past put some hope in Hillary. Not necessarily because I thought she was the best, but because I thought she could win and I wanted her to be somebody that she is not. The thought of her winning makes my stomach turn. I agree that if you want out of the war you should not vote for Hillary. She made a truly fatal mistake by authorizing the President to go to war. She makes up some B.S. response like "If I knew then what I know now.".....whatever. If your that ignorant then I'm sorry you do not deserve to be promoted. Whatever hope that I had in Hillary in the past was because I didn't know where to direct that hope. Now I know it is not in her.
On another note. I'm not so sure that being anti-war is strictly a liberal issue. Aren't you against this war that we are in? Out of curiosity, who are you leaning towards in the Republican Party? Are they going to pull us out? Is there anyone who is going to get us out within five years?
The last centrist that was elected was William J. Clinton, but prior to that, when was the last time a legitimate centrist was elected... JFK?
I think the rise of the left has to do with their realization after 2000 that the infrastructure to compete against the GOP simply wasn't there. After 2004 I remember hearing comedian Lewis Black complain that Democrats didn't know how to "play the game" as well as Republicans, and that was generally true up until the past couple of years.
What has happened, and I actually think its remarkable, is that the left has managed to trump the GOP in terms of creating an infrastructure using the internet and a focus on grassroots organization. Its sort of ironic to me to see the Democrats using methods that Karl Rove came up with! For years, Democrats were organized very, very poorly - that has changed, and incidentally where the money comes from has also changed, which I highlighted.
I think you are on to something (e:jim) with regards to the rise of the left being a response to the rise of the right. What really set things off for the GOP occurred back in the 80's and the rise of organizations such as The Moral Majority. I don't know if it was a huge rightward shift, more than it was an organization of what was already there... the GOP has been dominated by conservatives practically forever. Similarly, far left folks have been around for a long time as well, and in the 60's were organized until the Vietnam war ended... the general purpose for their being went away and so did their political relevancy. However, this was the same time that many social changes were going on, so I think its interesting that despite the right coming to prominence in our country, the most long lasting changes in our society have actually come from the left.
The reason that the left has is getting louder is in response to the huge rightward shift over the last 20 years in the Republican party. If you've got a Far Right, and you try to meet in the middle, you just get totally screwed and look like wimps. If centrists are no longer electable, that's the fault of 12 years of divisive 50%+1 Republican rule.