About a year or so ago, when Bernie Sanders wasn’t on the radar screen and the SuperPAC Ready for Hillary was serving as a campaign-in-waiting, my late friend Ross Bates said that he wasn’t really Ready for Hillary but he was resigned to Hillary. He wasn’t an enthusiastic supporter but didn’t see any viable challengers or other significant road blocks to her nomination. That pretty much summed up my feelings about Clinton.
However, I’m starting to shift. Two factors are making me increasingly a Clinton advocate. First, the Benghazi Committee in Congress was clearly formed to attack the former Secretary of State, not to get to the bottom of anything. Admissions from Rep. Kevin McCarthy and distorted reports from Committee Chair Trey Gowdy show that the committee’s work was political instead of investigative.
Clinton has been under attack by Republicans since her husband took office in 1992. That’s been the GOP modus operandi. They dredge up dubious claims, inflaming their right flank and the media, led by Faux News, covers it ad nauseam because it makes good copy, not because it might be true. We saw it for eight years of Bill Clinton’s presidency and for the entire seven years of Barack Obama’s. Like Sanders did in the debate, we should be circling the wagons, not giving credence to Republican attacks. Liberals who buy into “the Clintons are tainted” arguments just reward the bad behavior of the conservative propaganda machine.
The Clintons certainly share some of blame for the bad press. They’ve overreacted at times, fanning the flames instead of smothering them. They’ve traded on their celebrity to become very wealthy and making money runs against the grain of many progressives, especially if some of the people picking up the tab are liberal boogiemen like bankers and multi-national corporations. And in their futile attempt to protect some sense of privacy, they’ve been less than transparent, often giving the impression they’re trying to hide something, even if what they want to hide is personal, not political.
After 23 years of public service, Hillary Clinton has made mistakes, but so has every other leader who has survived on the public stage for that long. The error progressives point to most is her vote on the Iraq War resolution but hindsight is 20-20. At the time, the vote was contentious and plenty of good liberals supported it. The debate wasn’t Democrat verses Republican. More than half of the Democratic Senators supported the resolution, including Diane Feinstein, Tom Harkin, and Max Cleland. The country had been attacked barely a year earlier and the Bush administration, less than two years old, sold us a bill of goods with Colin Powell going to the U.N. touting bogus information. She made a vote thirteen years ago based on bad information that had serious repercussions. I’m not going to disqualify her for a single vote.
That said, Hillary Clinton is the most qualified and experienced person to run for president in my lifetime. As First Lady, she took an active role in her husband’s administration, leading the charge for health care reform and getting vilified by Republicans in the process. She went to the US Senate from New York and by all accounts, was a workhorse, shunning the spotlight for most of her first term. After losing the presidential nomination, she became Secretary of State on an increasingly complex world stage. She understands the White House, the executive branch, the legislative branch, and world leaders.
The Bernie Sanders followers are the other reason I’m feeling closer to Clinton. The self-righteous navel gazing is hard to swallow. Their cries that the press is rigged against Sanders sounds remarkably like reactionary Tea Partiers attacking the Republican establishment. Their angry, zealous insistence that Sanders won the debate sounds more paranoid than reasonable. I’m suspicious of anybody who is so sure that they are right and everybody else is wrong. Their threats to walk away if Sanders isn’t nominated is turning their backs on the middle class more than Clinton or the political system.
Finally, I’m increasingly certain that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. Contrary to the claims of the Sanders supporters, Clinton is starting to solidify her support. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that Clinton widened her lead over Sanders post-debate and support for a Biden candidacy fell. Other polls show similar results. Sanders is not expanding his base but flatlining with white, educated liberals and I believe the Vice-President lost his window to jump in and alter the trajectory of the race.
After watching what the Republicans have done to North Carolina, I’m going to fight to keep them out of the White House. They’ve cut funding to our public schools and university system and shifted the tax burden onto the backs of the middle class. They’ve passed blatantly discriminatory laws, restricted women’s right to choose, and used authoritarian tactics to interfere in the democratic process. If they control both Houses of Congress and the presidency, they’ll almost certainly slash Social Security and Medicare and further burden the middle class while giving tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations. Anybody who thinks there’s no difference between Clinton and the Republicans is hopelessly naive.
As I said, I’m increasingly confident that Clinton will be the nominee. If I’m wrong, I will support the Democrat who is, but I want the strongest candidate on the ballot. I think that’s Clinton and I think it’s time we had a woman in the White House.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Lol. Still believe she is the ‘most qualified’? It lacks evidence when you stated it, and even now. Like big foot and god.
Barack himself admitted seven years ago that, contrary to rumor, he was not, in fact, born in a manger. Neither was Bernie.
Just not feeling the Bern.
The millenial expecations being projected onto Sanders are even more off the chart than those projected on Obama 8 years ago. The existence of disillusionment is directly proportional to the illusions adopted to begin with and are very predictable in the end.
That you support Hillary is no surprise after your previous post trashing Sanders. After consulting my navel, I do need to take issue with some of your comments about Ms Clinton. There shouldn’t be a political death sentence associated with voting for the Iraq debacle, But, if it was clear this deep in the woods (and to Bernie Sanders, by the way) that the WMD story was full of holes, it strains the imagination to explain how savvy people in DC failed to see it. Of course we hillbillys didn’t have to be afraid of being tagged as soft on terrorism. Sanders at least deserves a look for his prescient prediction on the eventual chaos from his prediction. At the debate, Hillary picked the Republican Party as her worst enemy. She was right about that, but since the Replicans count on hatred to secure their base and have even begun to hate each other, neither of the Dem. canddates can expect cooperation from Congress for their programs. In that case appointments become important. In both Clinton and Obama administrations, Wall Street insiders have had too much influence on policy. I believe that will remain under Clinton, end under Sanders. Furthermore,Mrs Clinton a doesn’t learn from past mistakes and still fails to address charges against her frankly and directly. Neverthe less, I’ll vote for her if she wins the election.
And that brings me to my main point. You insist that Bernie is unelectible. If Sanders doesn’t have the support of those voting in the Primaries, he won’t be the candidate in the election. If he can win the Primaries (toward which I will work) he will win the election.
Hilary is not inevitable. The young people know that she is not to be trusted. She will protect the people who donate to her Superpacs, the financiers, insurance industry, the fossil fuel industry, the military-industrial complex, agri-business. As Dick Gregory once said: “…to be forced to vote for the lesser of two evils is really to have no choice at all…Under such circumstances the only real choice a person has is to exercise his right not to vote, to boycott the polls and refuse to participate in a process that mocks the concept of free elections.”
You will see a massive disappearance of potential Democratic voters and Independent voters if Hilary gets the nomination.
But she won’t. Remember the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1948 with the picture of Harry Truman holding up the paper with the headline “Dewey Defeats Truman”
Republican to Democrat: “You’d vote for Satan if he/she was running as a Democrat.”
Democrat to Republican: “Not in the Primary.”
I will vote for Hillary Clinton if she wins the Democratic Party’s nomination because the status quo is better than going back to the stone age. But, while I have the rare chance to vote for someone of substance who has a real vision, who is independent of Wall Street, the energy industry, the pharmaceutical industry, agri-business and the arms industry I will not only take that chance, but work as hard as I can to see that person to victory. Obviously, that person is not Hillary Clinton, It is Bernie Sanders.
Such is the power of his truth and integrity that despite the denial of the mainstream news media, the Clinton Campaign and lightweight pundits, Sanders has become the center of political gravity in the nation today. The power of his message and the grassroots movement building behind him has already dramatically shifted the political discourse in this nation. Because of the Sanders campaign Hillary Clinton herself has been compelled to reverse herself on major issues and re-define her agenda completely on issues ranging from the Keystone XL Pipeline, the TPP, public college tuition, criminal justice, campaign finance reform, banking reform and so much more. Sanders has been the Sun compared to Clinton’s comet in our political solar system.
I doubt that the fading influence of Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s Democratic Party will be able to withstand the enormous gravitational pull of the ever-yet-growing grassroots revolution the nation is about to experience as the powerful waves of Sander’s performance in the debate and in the ever-growing public awareness of his message continue to reverberate and penetrate the population and we watch all the paper tigers in the media and in the halls of Congress fall to the ground around us.
I’d love to see Hillary Clinton join Bernie Sanders in his call for a federal investigation of Exxon/Mobile for their now documented deliberate public misinformation campaign on climate change. Unfortunately, she shares political lobbyists with Exxon/Mobile.
I yearn to see Hillary Clinton join Bernie Sanders in calling for breaking up banks that are too big to fail. But, unfortunately those banks are major donors to the Clinton campaign. Not gonna happen.
I eagerly await Clinton’s call for a Constitutional Amendment that will end “corporate personhood” and reverse the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court so that political candidates will no longer be bought and sold on the open market.
When a political columnist unprofessionally resorts to attacking the grassroots supporters of a candidate, rather than the candidate himself, and gives that as his reasons for choosing another candidate, it means that rationality and integrity have been abandoned. This is not a meaningless football game in which we are choosing sides to cheer for our own emotional gratification. The stakes in this political season are nothing less than the nature of our democracy and the ability to address global and national issues in a manner that benefits humankind best for coming decades. If you doubt the sincerity of Bernie Sanders and/or his supporters in their motivation then you aren’t yet listening and understanding the issues that are at stake. Your mind is still in football mode.
Yes, it is long past time for a highly qualified righteous woman to be elected President of the United States. Unfortunately, Elizabeth Warren isn’t running.
Now that we know that Biden is not going to run, and that there is no love lost between Biden and Clinton. Biden will not endorse Clinton, because of his legacy with Obama. He will, if and when Clinton gets the nomination. She needs to come to him and talk about the issues, she has already been pushed by Bernie… to go against the Keystone Pipeline and TPP. Can she take that back? Don’t think so, she will pay for those decisions, she better start making amends with Obama and Biden. Here is the problem, Hillary is such a chameleon, she changes with the wind. Her truth is what is needed now, not a steadyfast reasoning of principles. People keep writing that Bernie will not be able to get any of his proposals passed if he were President. I see no way, Clinton could do any better, unless the Democrats take over the Senate and House. Or and this is the big question, would she suddenly decide that Keystone and TPP were OK, that Wall Street didn’t need anymore regulations, etc. That is the reality, where is the trust and truth? Do we really think that Clinton is going to try to change Citizens
United , if she become President ? It is always Hillary and Bill, first.
“Their angry, zealous insistence that Sanders won the debate sounds more paranoid than reasonable. I’m suspicious of anybody who is so sure that they are right and everybody else is wrong.”
The assertion that Sanders won the debate is based on ordinary mainstream measures that are asserted in politics all the time, i.e. focus groups and polls.
So Thomas, when did you stop believing in empirical evidence, and automatically dismiss standard political measuring devices like focus groups and live polls?
Whenever that was, you essentially gave away all of your credibility as a political analyst.
You can’t just make stuff up without supporting evidence. NOT ONE POLL showed Clinton winning the debate, yet ALL media outlets proclaimed it to be so without any supporting evidence. That’s the kind of reasoning you should expect out of the USSR or Nazi Germany, or any state that is dominated by propagandists that can assert anything they want without evidence.
That’s a real story that needs real reporting and political analysis. Why is mainstream corporate media so OUTRAGEOUSLY biased in favor of Clinton? What do they expect to receive in exchange for their support – for CNN reporting a 75% to 18% loss as a big win?
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I missed all the debate polls that showed Clinton winning. How about you post them here for all to see?
In the meantime, let’s review what we actually know:
http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/10/14/despite-cnn-propaganda-polls-show-bernie-sanders-blow-out-beating-hillary-78-to-13/
Despite CNN Propaganda, Post-Debate Poll Shows Bernie Sanders Crushing Hillary, 75% to 18%
Last night’s coverage and panel analysis of last night’s Democratic Debate on the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) was proven correct once again.
Despite the Democratic Debate host CNN and other mainstream media outlets claiming the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had ‘won the debate’, the polls numbers told another story – of an absolute rout by Vermont’s US Senator Bernie Sanders over the embattled former Secretary of State.
The CNN Facebook post-debate poll Tuesday evening at one point showed 80% of voters choosing Bernie Sanders as the winner, with the final figure settling in around 75%. Hillary Clinton came in with a poorly 18%. Embarrassed by its own futile attempt to inflate Clinton’s poor showing last night in Las Vegas, CNN only flashed its Facebook poll result up on screen once, and only for 3-4 seconds, before flushing it down the memory hole.
Other major polls reflected this same result. At the end of the debate last night, Time Magazine showed 64% favored Sanders, and the leftist outlet MSNBC showed Sanders blowing out Clinton, taking 84% of the winning endorsements, while liberal outlet The Slate gave Sanders 75% of winning votes. Hillary registered only slightly higher than unknown Maryland governor Martin O’Malley.
INFLATED: The media are trying to prop-up Hillary’s falling popularity, but according to the polls, Bernie had the last laugh.
Clinton poor polling numbers are validated by a nonpartisan poll conducted by Reuters in the week prior to this debate, which shows Clinton on a downward slope. From October 4 to October 9, Clinton’s support dropped ten whole points – from 51 to 41%.
CNN: Manufacturing ‘Consensus Reality’
Even after its own polls showed Sanders crushing Clinton, CNN still sticks to its PR directive from the DNC, running with the inflated headline, “Hillary Clinton’s big night on the debate stage.”
CNN were not alone in the effort to pump-up a phantom victory for Hillary Clinton…
The Huffington Post’s morning email blast read, “Hillary Clinton Dominates at First Democratic Debate”. An incredible headline, considering what really happened.
In addition, the Guardian also got it wrong, leading this morning with skewed headline, “Hillary Clinton rises above controversy – and a Sanders revolution.” Hardly.
Again, another example of the establishment media propping-up the Clinton regime – just as the very same media cartel has been working overtime to sabotage GOP outsider Donald Trump’s presidential run by instead propping-up failing GOP runners like Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorini and Marco Rubio.
Back in 2008, and in 2012, the establishment media, in collusion with the RNC, intentionally omitted polling and voting results, before eventually sidelining popular GOP candidate Ron Paul, whose campaign eventually ended by supporters and delegates being physically locked-out of caucus meetings and party conventions, again, showing the depths of corruption that is systemic in the American two party system.
Readers should know by now after watching how the establishment media goes out its way to distort reality and public opinion – in effect, using their weight to fully interfere with and distort the ‘democratic’ process in the West – that the West has a very long way to go before it can claim that it’s above Third World countries when it comes to lessons modernity and eliminating corruption in its own oligarchical ranks.
CNN: The Election Fixer
To anyone who has been paying attention over the last 12 months, it should come as no surprise that CNN is actively trying to twist reality in the 2016 US Presidential Election, as its been campaigning for Hillary 2016 right in the face of its audience..
In a shameless exhibition of media electioneering and poor journalism, CNN has been regularly hosting one its shows, ‘Erin Burnett: Out Front’, from the event headquarters of the Clinton Global Initiative foundation (pictured above). It’s hard not to notice that CNN is deliberately co-branding these TV shows with the Clintons. This should show even the most ardent skeptic just how in bed the network is with the Clinton campaign.
Here, viewers can see CNN’s Erin Burnett engaging in gushing sycophantic ‘interview’ sessions with Hillary’s husband and former president Bill Clinton – all part of a wider effort to try and rehabilitate sex scandal-ridden Bill’s poor public image and lack of trust worthiness.
Among other high-flying political money laundering activities, the Clinton Global Initiative has also been caught accepting “donations for access.” It was revealed earlier this year how Clinton Foundation donors like Saudi Arabia received weapons deals – while Hillary Clinton was head of the US State Department.
Considering Saudi Arabia’s horrific human rights and women’s rights (non-existent) record, it’s a wonder how so many American Democratic Party women are willing to turn a blind eye to the Clinton’s under the table dealings with a regime that sits at the very bottom of global morality league table. Based on its obvious alignment with the dubious foundation, to call CNN a partner in that corrupt enterprise would be 100% accurate, and to call Clinton a hypocrite on this issue would be a gross understatement.
How long will the media try to inflate the Clinton brand? If they succeed, how much money will have been spent to engineer her into power?
Why can’t election regulators step-in to resolve conflicts of interest, like we see between CNN and the Clinton campaign?
If Big Media is allowed to continue operating like CNN is, then Democracy in America is in big trouble.
Chris, you’re wrong. Every poll shows she gained post debate: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/20/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKCN0SD2EJ20151020, http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clinton-widens-lead-in-primary-race-wsj-poll-shows-1445335201, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/clinton-rebounds-democratic-race-gaining-sanders-biden-alike/story?id=34580456
These polls are from a week after the debate – after the mainstream media talking heads had pumped up the “Hillary Won” meme non-stop. Sanders won ALL focus groups and ALL polls the night of the debate.
As CNN notes, the only candidate that gained a bump in the polls immediately following the debate was Sanders, who jumped 5 points (of course, they still say Hillary “won”):
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/19/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-poll/index.html
What you are pointing out is the fact that the mainstream media successfully spun a big debate-night loss into a week-after-debate win – solely through their own opinion journalism / propaganda.
I would think that you are familiar with this effect by now, considering how many times we’ve seen it over the years, but, if not, I think Gawker explains the situation best:
http://gawker.com/did-hillary-clinton-win-the-debate-1736498207
Ready or not, Hillary is being crammed down our throats, and in today’s furious political climate, that is NOT going to end well. And insulting the victims for being paranoid, or unrealistic, makes a very bad situation even worse.
It’s not paranoia when they REALLY ARE trying to “get you”. Mainstream media has made no secret of who they want to win the Democratic nomination. The question we must all ask ourselves is “Why?”
Chris is correct, Thomas Mills. All real time polling and focus grouping during and immediately after the debate showed massive numbers for Sanders versus Clinton and the other candidates. It wasn’t even close. We’re talking 30, 40, 50 percentage point margins! However, after a non-stop three or four day pro-Clinton barrage by the Dem Party establishment and media pundits, who apparently would have considered anything other than a Hillary faceplant during the debate as a win, subsequent polling began to show a shift toward Clinton and now the revisionist history is that Clinton won. I’m not contending she did badly. She acquitted herself quite capably. But claiming a Clinton win is pure Emperor’s New Clothes stuff. I say, stop trying to put the fix in on this primary race and let the thoroughly corporatist Clinton take her lumps. Unlike Bernie Sanders, who’s been consistently on-message (and proven right) for 30 years, Clinton may proclaim one thing today and six months later proclaim the exact opposite with equal gusto. Perhaps with some prodding competition from Sanders, by April or May we’ll have a better idea of what Clinton actually believes. Is Clinton preferable to each of the Republican candidates? Of course! To suggest otherwise would be ludicrous. But that does not change the fact she’s simply a representative of the status quo. And simply maintaining the status quo is not a win for America.
Not too angry and zealous, are you, Chris?
Anybody who isn’t angry, isn’t paying attention.
Hillary Clinton is a Corporatist and a vote for her would be turning their backs on the middle class, especially with her indecisive flip flop position on the TPP. There was no need for the email attacks by the Republicans when any democrate has to do is look at her past voting history to be turned off. I’m really questioning this authors credibility..
Thomas: That is a good, rational analysis. Senator Sanders is really setting an agenda which he would not be able to implement but Secretary Clinton might be able to do so. Vice President Biden is a real disappointment and I think his painfully dragging out his decision (using his family and son’s tragic death) is disgusting from every political, professional and personal point of view. Of course, it is always possible (for us cynics) to believe that this is an elaborate plot by Biden and Clinton to delay his decision until it is too late and then have Joe pledge his undying support of Hilary’s candidacy. That would, of course, send Clinton’s poll numbers soaring.
Biden had the support of Delaware voters for many years in the Senate and the votes of many Americans in his job as Vice President. He is in danger of losing that respect and reputation in a hopeless chase for the presidency. Sad.
“Biden had the support of Maryland voters for many years?” Thought he was a Senator from Delaware.
Glad to see some rational thinking about HR, especially re the vote on the Iraq war. While I was absolutely convinced that the Bush administration was lying at the time, I also heard daily from my very liberal friends that I was wrong. But I don’t hold one vote as an absolute disqualification for anyone. When I become perfect, then I will insist on others being so, but until then, a bit of tolerance is in order. As for the rest of the daily dose of the HR so-called dishonest behavior, I have reached the point where my language is becoming very unladylike to those who sprout that junk around me.
Oh, for pity’s sake…”Blah Blah Blah I’m Ready for Hillary because tribalism.”
That’s what you just said.
“The lady doth protest too much methinks” seems to fit the situation – and by “the lady” I mean Trey Gowdy. His responses to comments by Reps. McCarthy and Hanna and by his committee’s investigator, Major Bradley Podliska – that they should shut up and they don’t know what they’re talking about – are the classic knee-jerk semi-violent defensiveness of a human being caught in the wrong.
As the semi-loathsome Bill Maher said this week, we must remember that if we can’t have the fish (Bernie Sanders or some unicorn-like Democrat that has yet to ride onto the scene), we MUST remember to select the other option come voting time. The stakes if a Republican makes it into the White House are too dire to contemplate, much less allow through inaction on voting day.