Don’t piss on the base and tell us it’s raining
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.
–Edgar Allen Poe, “The Cask of Amotillado”
Let me make one thing clear: I am not a Hillary hater. I almost voted for her on Super Tuesday in February and I have spent much of the past sixteen years defending both her and her husband from what I have felt were unfair attacks. But statements like this are unacceptable (via HuffPost, which has the audio, for full context):
Moveon.org endorsed Barack Obama– which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down. We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn’t even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that’s what we’re dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it’s primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don’t agree with them. They know I don’t agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me.
The calculation here is pretty simple: putting down the activist base in your own party may help you as a candidate, but it hurts the party and it hurts your cause. Why should any progressive want to vote for a candidate who hurts the progressive cause?
I’m no big MoveOn fan, but they have every right to “flood the caucuses” - others might call it “exercising their right to vote”. This statement smacks of entitlement and elitism — I guess caucuses only count when certain kinds of people vote.
Your criticism of them is that you feel they are ineffectual in terms of their tactics. She’s criticizing them for being too effective.
And I don’t even think she’s right — the Obama campaign had its own grassroots efforts in caucus states. I’m sure MoveOn contributed, but it was the Obama campaigns ability to register new voters and turn them out that clinched the caucuses, and the nomination, for them.
We all know that if the caucuses were going Hillary’s way she would be loving them. Remember when they were talking about redoing Florida and Michigan? She said that she would not accept a caucus. That’s fine - but we all know why she didn’t want one. Obama has crushed her in the caucus states.
I had a friend that went up to New Hampshire and campaigned for Hillary. When he came back, he said Hillary’s organization was very average. He praised the Obama campaign because they ran a true, organized and grassroots effort. That was back in January. The same holds true now.
As for the MoveOn remarks, they were insulting. Insulting especially if you consider that MoveOn was started to defend her husband. Thanks for nothing, I guess.
But she is clearly out of touch with the base of the party that, if she is the nominee, she will need to work the hardest for her. The activists would have fought for her. They would really work hard to ensure that a Democrat became president. As Tom Green once said, it is better to be pissed off than pissed on. Hillary did both to me with her remarks.
Will I vote for her if she is the nominee? Maybe. I wouldn’t vote for McCain. After her remarks, I can guarantee one thing: I’m not going to work with her to make sure she wins in November. She can stick with her establishment friends and hope they work hard to win in November.
I’m not sure I’m willing to quite that far, but at this point I would much rather see Obama as the nominee.