A Message to Hillary Clinton, Part 1: "Don't Look Back"
You make think that what your supporters want is "fight," but what we want is leadership.
And a president who will get up everyday and fight the important fights. Sometimes the unwinnable fights are important -- (healthcare, education, jobs, civil rights) -- and sometimes they are not -- (4 votes from a committee who were really doing their honest best to make chicken salad out of chicken shit).
So please ignore the voices that are encouraging you to make a fight over the 4 delegates left on the table.
There are two primaries to go. And then it is Decision Day for the rest of the delegates -- the superdelegates. There are some good arguments for you left to make to the superdelegates who must make their decision based on who they want to be the nominee.
I just read the polls on RealClearPolitics.com. They say that in a general election matchup you beat John McCain in a majority of the 19 targeted battleground states more easily than Barack Obama can. In 5 key states, you can beat McCain and so far he can't. He only beats McCain in 3 states that you lose.
I personally believe that Barack Obama can beat John McCain in November too. But the polls show, at least for now, that you would give us a more comfortable cushion for the inevitable ebb and flow of campaign politics.
For the next 24 hours, make your case based on the electability argument. It may be persuasive. Democrats really want to win this election in the fall.
Don't stir up our base with anger and the irrationality of the "if onlys." Let the Rules and Bylaws Committee decision go. Those 4 delegates don't matter at this point.
You are a great leader. Lead your supporters with the right argument.
Follow Hilary Rosen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hilaryr
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I don't think that anything said today or even for the next few days means very much. I think Hillary Rosen has given wonderful advice that reflects a mature line of thought. The "if only" thinking she refers to is actually driven by self pity, part of the normal grief that any team experiences when losing a really hard fought contest. No true honest sports fan that loves the game would rub salt in the wounds of the Patriots after the Giants staged an amazing come back. The Clinton team is filled with a pile of hurt and everyone needs to step back a give them the enoromous respect they deserve. Nobody has fought harder, longer or tougher. Every member of their team, their supporters and especially, Hillary Clinton deserve a standing ovation. Only in recognizing the great effort of Team Clinton are you able to validate the accpmplishment of Team Obama. When dismiss Hillary and her Team, you trivialize the accomplishment of Team Obama.
I do feel badly for Hillary Clinton's supporters and they are entitled to their frustrations but I refuse to honor Clinton's campaign. Look at the sad results - characterized by the baseless vitriol that we saw on Saturday and read on this website. If we are to analogize the Clinton with a football game I would say that is marked by countless unnecessary roughness penalties.
The best example of the difference between the Obama/Clinton campaigns is when we hear the candidates praise the other candidate in a speech, Obama's audience claps and cheers and Clinton's audience boos. It is just sad.
Politics is a rough go. Period. However, there is also a decorum to political debate which has been absent throughout this primary. I can objectively say: Obama supporters (if they aren't republican implants) do not understand political debate decorum. To use 15 year old republican talking points to slander Hillary Clinton, to employ the type of contumelious behavior that has been typical of Obama supporters on these online blogging sites and to be a part of a plan to fracture the democratic party beyond repair is beyond comprehension. If uniting the party is Barack's main goal, he has a VERY LONG and uphill battle to do so after his surrogates and supporters have acted in such a poor fashion in their interaction with other democrats.
Does anyone honestly think that there is a superdelegate who has not yet heard the "electability" argument? They didn't find it persuasive the first 1,000 times they heard it, but right after the final contests when Barack Obama will probably be within a dozen or so delegates of clinching the nomination even without the superdelegates, this is when they are finally going to be swayed?
They aren't undecided any more. They just haven't committed yet. Very soon, many of them will. And there is nothing new under the sun that you can tell them. And Barack Obama is going to be the nominee.
...con't
Hillary's biggest argument is that she is more electable with "white hard-working Americans" voters (translation: racists *wink wink*). Let's give her that (even though it's very arguable). Barack has an equal argument (that he hasn't made, btw) that he is more electable with sexist voters. If sexism is as far-reaching as Hillary claims (enough to be the basis for the "conspiracy" against her - Bill's words), then that offsets her racist support, doesn't it? And if it doesn't, then that disproves her other theory that sexism is the "highest and hardest ceiling to break through" because that would mean there are more racists than sexists. Either way, Senator Clinton (and Ms. Rosen), your logic sucks.
I hope she does keep pressing this electability argument, because it is the shovel with which she is digging her own political grave. Know when to say "when", Hillary.
I have never read a more logical post! throw away all blogs, its all in this persons post. I'm a neutral observer, apolitical, and one of my many virtues is Righteousness. If I were to pick a candidate, it will be Obama. Why? Everything.
You clearly live in self-deception if you consider yourself neutral.
Repeated polls bore her argument out, and still do...Obama loses in swing states she wins, and remains at the same level of competitiveness as her in states he won...in other words, he is clearly unelectable AT THIS POINT...
Actually, some polls show Clinton at an advantage, some show Obama at an advantage, and some show McCain at an advantage. Isn't it funny how polls work? And, gee, isn't it amazing that the polls were terribly wrong all primary season? What, exactly, does that prove?
By the way, did you know that JFK lost the Florida, California and Ohio primaries? What, exactly, did that prove?
Ooh, the holy gospel that is the polls. Why don't we just scrap party primaries in the future. Caucuses are so unfair anyway! Let's just pick candidates from polls.
Who cares that Hillary was leading the pack 20-30 points 6 months before the party primaries began?
Who cares if this would mean name recognition and star power would become more relevant than credentials and qualifications? Who cares if this means fresh blood will find it next to impossible to get the nomination?
Only the polls NOW matter.
Ms. Rosen, the problem with any argument that Hillary makes right now to advance her candidacy is that it incorporates flawed logic because...she has the lead in nothing: popular vote, pledged delegates, superdelegates, fundraising, etc. The only thing she has going for her is that some polls say she could beat McCain in the fall. But so what? I could beat McCain. You could beat McCain. A tree could beat McCain. Why pick the candidate that has only 1 of the 5 winning criteria when the Dems can pick the candidate that has all 5? At this point in the race, all of Hillary's "electability" theories have been disproven. Barack isn't underperforming in any demographic that would he doesn't more than make up for in another demographic. Also, if her unfavorable ratings are higher than his, that means he has a better chance to "make nice" with her demographic than the other way around.
con't...
I honestly don't know what Ms. Clinton (usually quite brilliant) was thinking when she decided to engage in a primary campaign guaranteed to create bitterness, resentment and vitriol within the party. But, I'm guessing it had something to do with February 5th coming and going without things wrapping up as she had planned.
The time for maintaining goodwill in a campaign of honest disagreement were passed over in favor of victim politics, whining, maneuvering, legalisms, backstabbing and conspiracy-mongering. Even today, as Mr. Obama continues to shower Ms. Clinton with praise and admiration, she can't seem to help herself in knocking him down.
Even so, I think many could (re-)embrace Ms. Clinton; but as Lucy would say "there's some 'splainin to do."
It was normally Desi ("Ricky"), not Lucy, who said there was "some 'splainin' to do".
Also: There is quite a difference between being knowledgeable and being brilliant. Mrs. Clinton may be quite knowledgeable on certain topics, but she has displayed no particular original thinking of the sort that would justify labeling her "brilliant". Too many of her policy votes and campaign tactics have been commonplace for her to be seen as an original. In fact, the failure those tactics are more reminiscent of another product of her (latest) adoptive state than of any truly brilliant legislator.
In other words, there's far more in her of Tom Dewey than of William Fulbright or Barbara Jordan.
LESSERFOOL:
Sen. Clinton's campaign has been to marginalize Sen. Obama. If the Clintons can not win they do not want any other democrat to win. Just ask Al gore and John Kerry.
Sen. Clinton's campaign has been working behind the scene with republicans to discredit Sen. Obama and the Clinton's will continue to do so while pretending to assist Sen. Obama.
As a matter of fact Sen. Clinton spent so much money and made additional loans to her campaign so that Sen. Obama would have to waste his resources for the general election paying off Hillary's campaign debt. What a way to show party loyalty - trash the nominee, spend what you don't have knowing that in doing so would mean less resources for Sen. Obama in the general and claim that you are the rightful nominee who had more popular votes and the election has been stolen from you and offer up that the nominee does not want every vote to count and wants to disenfranchise Americans. GEE CAN THE CLINTONS BE MORE SUPPORTIVE?
NOT!
I think it started when she was labelled a "racist" for claiming that civil rights needed LBJ to become law.
Ms. Rosen, I have really enjoyed your perspective. I don't always agree with you, and there were definitely a couple of times you seemed to be holding the two candidates to a different set of rules for each
but for the most part, you have been a very sane and rational and intelligent Clinton loyalist.
thanks
Hillary’s camp claimed to take the high road fighting for “disenfranchised voters” in FL & MI even though her campaign leaders were key decision makers in the decision to penalize those states. To make matters worse, she claims to be fighting for voters while her camp is concurrently trying to disenfranchise Texas voters who selected Obama because the Dem party leadership there had to move a caucus to a day that provided a better venue. If she had won that caucus, you can be sure she wouldn’t be fighting to disqualify those delegates.
The fact is, regardless of the massive turnout this year in our primaries, we haven’t even begun to fully tap the Democratic vote. We need to get on to the important business of winning the GE, and we can’t do that while Hillary is still running against Obama.
I find it amazing that she can say with a straight face that she is ahead in the popular vote that does not count and then tries to disenfranchises all of the caucus states which do count.
I also find amazing that people would put their countries future based on sex. That is what the radicals want is a woman in the white house no matter what she believes in. The way she behaves makes me think she would be a good VP for McBush.
Add up all the votes in all the states..... and Hillary has the most.
It is not deceitful to say so.
It is simple addition.
Thanks, Hilary Rosen, for asking Hillary to take the high road. At this point, the Clintons are either trying to scarf up more donations to retire their debt, or show superdelegates that they still have power in order to press for a unity ticket. If the latter is their game plan, they have to show enough political clout to push for Hillary on top, Obama as VP, otherwise he could simply select a better qualified/more electable VP.
Hillary’s electability claim is just that, a claim. No one knows how people will vote in the GE, especially since neither Obama nor McSame have selected running mates. The DNC got themselves in this mess by trying to control which states have a greater say in the Democratic nomination. They made a mistake by not realizing it would be a close race that would go well past Super Tuesday. Obama complicated the situation by removing his name from the Michigan ballot, which likely was a campaign strategy designed to get votes in Iowa and New Hampshire. Hence, the need for the DNC to try to evaluate how people would have voted had he been on the ticket, given the 30K+ Obama write-ins and the uncommitted votes. It’s not a perfect solution, but they did what they could to salvage the mess.
I feel sick from the recent decision by the Rules and ByLaws committee. How dare they penalize voters by taking away their vote. How dare they sit as partial witnesses to their own grievenses. How dare thet vote in bias to their candidate.
It ain't over till the lady with the fat thighs sings.
Now we are the laughing stock. The Republicans can now rejoice in the Democrats hypocritical behavior on the issue of vote counting. We have proven ourselves to be no better than they.
Hillary should keep on fighting because she knows she is the best for the country at this time in history.
We cannot win without both Obama and Hillary on the ticket. Hilllary should be on top and obama can learn much from Bill and Hillary. He will be taught by the best.
This race was different than most in recent history because both candidates are so loved by their supporters. People didn't love Kerry in the way Hillary and Obama are loved.
I feel like, that if Obama is the nominee,and doesn't have Hillary on the ticket, I will vote for McCain and the whole country can go straight to hell.
The voters of MI and FL are lucky to have any representation, at all. I think deep down they know that.
Yes, the rules and the bylaws committee was out of line to give Obama those undecided votes plus 4 more to Obama. It is enough to make a lot of us go to vote for Mc Cain. Hillary should be the top of the ticket because she can and would win the election. Heaven knows that Obama;s lack of experience, truth telling, hypocrisy, and deceit will be brought out by the Republicans and then he will be toast.
If you're really going to vote for McCain just because the committee "gave" Obama 4 votes that make no difference to the outcome of the Democratic primary, then you obviously aren't for the things Clinton claims she wants for our country.
Apparenty, you resent the fact that Barack, with a platform very similar to Hilary's, waged a brilliant primary campaign and beat the Clintons at their own game. Hey, that's politics. What's important is to vote for what you believe in. Do you believe in what John McCain is selling, or do believe in the changes proposed by Obama (which are very similar to those set forth by Hillary Clinton)?
I can't tell if you guys are being sarcastic or serious? We are talking about 4 delegates right? And that's only after Obama offered an olive branch by giving Hillary more delegates than the committee was willing to give?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/01/dncs-brazile-says-clinton_n_104553.html
I'm leaning on the side of sarcasm...
You would send the whole country to hell out of spite?
This just in: McCain has majority of support within the Revenge & Sour Grapes demographic.
McCain 2040!
mccain will win. this election is about competent governance, not race relations. obama isn't proven and will lose every state. mcgovern won in mass. obama lost.. he had no reason to run--he had no policy differences with hillary--he just wanted to look good without really working at it. thanks for nothing.
Competent shouldn't be used in the same sentence with McCain, the man is old and forgetful. He pretends to know what's going on in Iraq, because of his POW status, but the truth is, he keeps slipping. In fact, he only talks about Iraq. The American people want to hear about a better economy, and if he doesn't change his message soon, he is doomed in NOV. We are tired of hearing about Iraq and Iran. His campaign had better change their message, because Americans are hungry for change.
Way to prove the comment to which you are responding.
That's the funniest post I've seen in a while. Thanks.
haha
I'm a white male. I voted for Bill Clinton twice. I was for Kucinich, I thought he was closest to the issues I thought were important. When he lost went for Edwards with some questions over his commitment to the issues he said he was championing. Hillary never won me over on the issues. I had problems with her Iraq war vote, I had problems with her and Iran, her support for lobbyists, the flag burning issue and the residual of Bill Clinton left me hoping for something more.
I've watched Hillary Clinton play the gender card and the race card. More than any candidate I have ever seen in any campaign she has self destructed. I think a lot of people who are saying they won't vote for Obama and will vote for McCain instead are hiding from their own bigotry.
I completely agree. Any person seriously concerned for the future of our children (and their children) will vote for Obama and give him the chance to bring his magic to the White House. The newly Dem controlled (still makes me smile) Congress and Senete will hopefully set aside petty differences, at least for the big issues.
His Magic to the White House ?
.Please we're just getting rid of one bunch of people living in their own world of fantasy. Isn't it about time for someone who's got their feet on the ground?
I voted for him for different reasons but now you're scaring the hell out of me.
Ms. Rosen there is no tomorrow for Hillary Clinton. Hillary lost this election because some where on the path to a $ 100 million plus household income Bill and Hillary lost touch with the American public. Hillary had no ideal how much the voting public has been hurting. She had no ideal how many families felt left out the process. Her Johnny come lately argument for change was phony and her vote for the Iraq war proves just how out of touch she was. The fact that Hillary was the first woman to run for president was a big part of the reason that she got what little support she got. If there had of been other women who had ran for president before her she would of been out of the race six months ago. I never envisioned my mother supporting a candidate who voted to send her sons and daughters off to fight in Iraq. That was the number one reason why she didn't support her. Some say what about Hillary's health-care plans she knew Americans wanted health-care I say so did many other politicians. Its time for Hillary to show some respect for Mr. Obama and his supporters and get out of the race now!
It's not about Hillary Clinton any longer. She has lost the election and if she has any sense of decency she'll walk away before she casts aside the last shred of dignity she has left. She didn't lost because she's a woman, or because Obama is an African American. She lost because she ran a pathetic campaign predicated solely on having the nomination wrapped up by Super Tuesday. She couldn't conceive of the idea of somebody else coming along and capturing the imagination of the people who vote. She entered and ran her race out of a sense of entitlement that she had never earned and was never able to support. She was banking on her "experience" as First Lady, yet never gave thought to the notion that the rest of America wouldn't consider her any more experienced than a first-term Senator who had a relatively lengthy record of local service experience.
Her campaign people totally let her down. The core message seemed to change weekly. Her reliance on pools has been reprehensible - the American people want somebody with their own rudder, not someone who is going to constantly cite polling to support whatever position seems most popular at the time.
The amusing thing is, had she not been First Lady she would have not made it past the first few primaries and would have been cast aside with the Dodds and Bidens.
I have pondered that same thought many times. At first I avoided the belief that she was riding on her name alone, but now I see the Clinton brand was her strongest card. To bad she and Bill self destructed so early, they may have taken the nomination.
Had there not been a stained blue dress, there would not have been the pity vote for Hillary and the democrats would not have supported her becuse she stood by Bill
.
Had she not been First Lady she would not have been the senator from NY.
Don't stir up our base with anger and the irrationality of the "if onlys." Let the Rules and Bylaws Committee decision go.
======================
Thanks for being a voice of reason among Clinton supporters. In the past few days, Clinton supporters have been unfairly portrayed as lunatics.
The 'electabliity' argument is the only one left. But it is not persuasive. Nor is there any sign it is working.
Tomorrow you may know if your candidate of choice can be a true Democratic leader. Or not.
Ms Rosen encourages HRC to “please ignore the voices that are encouraging you to make a fight over the 4 delegates left on the table “. And she offers ego-boosting blandishments such as “You are a great leader. Lead your supporters with the right argument.”
Sounds reasonable. Sorta.
In a previous blog Ms Rosen has encouraged HRC to fight on for "Women who have felt powerless to change or even complain about their own lives because they are just too damn busy keeping it together for everyone around them." And for "every woman who has spoken up in a meeting and was greeted with silence only to have a man say the same thing and be praised. . ."
Sounds plenty selfish and self-serving.
From my personal point of view: to be cheered on with blind loyalty and empty praise while I am getting my face kicked in (metaphorically speaking of course), is not what I need in a friend (supporter). No. I want friends (supporters) with the strength of character to fight their own battles and with enough wisdom to know when my actions are causing more harm than potential good.
I do not believe that a true friend or supporter would martyr me to their cause. And for that matter, neither would a great leader.
But then, that’s just me.
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