Hillary's Only Hope To Tame Worst Habits: A Real Primary Challenge - Preferably From Elizabeth Warren

[Segami]

Last edited Sun Mar 8, 2015, 07:53 AM - Edit history (1)

~snip~

The obvious challenger, the 1 with a true chance to sharpen Hillary’s candidacy if not derail it totally, is Elizabeth Warren. What we learned this week, by way of the New York Instances and Connected Press, is that Clinton deliberately set up a private e-mail method to use for all of public small business she conducted as the nation’s chief foreign policy officer. She did so despite explicit rules prohibiting that behavior. When asked to turn over documents to the State Division, her aides combed by means of and turned over thousands of pages. What was held back? Or altered? Or erased? We have no thought. And with every single passing day, suspicions of her motives grow darker. Technologies authorities now say her private e-mail program gave her the potential to delete messages. It opened her communications to hackers that State warned were a threat. Most shocking is the truth that her secretive e-mail address seems to have enabled Clinton and the State Department to evade Freedom of Info Law requests from journalists. This law is 1 of the triumphs of liberalism, meant to safeguard the public’s ideal to know when a government official refuses to give up information and facts. Due to the fact she used a private address, such requests by The AP to the State Division came up empty for a year. The organization is now deliberating no matter if to sue. In spite of the cascade of bad news, the Clinton camp’s predictable reaction to such revelations is to hunker down and attack the messengers.


~snip~

Taking a web page from Hillary’s playbook, Brock appeared on MSNBC to blame the scandal on an anti-Clinton media. I suppose he would have us think that the Washington Post is biased against Clinton. That should be why the Post was 1st to report that at different times, the Clinton Foundation has accepted millions of dollars from foreign governments, including Hamas-supporting Qatar and Saudi Arabia, an ostensible ally with strong hyperlinks to radical Islam. Is it Republican paranoia to be concerned that such countries might use the Clinton Foundation as a backdoor to seek favors from a future President Clinton? But the fallout to the e mail bombshell must once and for all place the lie to the “right-wing conspiracy” theory. The complete liberal cast of MSNBC, from Mika Brzezinksi on “Morning Joe” to Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell, have sounded aghast all week that Hillary is once again behaving as if she is above the rules that apply to ordinary humans. I am not a Hillary hater. In reality, I would be overjoyed in 2016 to see the first face in the Oval Office that appears like the other half of the American population. And I believe Hillary Clinton has the intellect and the experience to be a great President. She has earned the respect of leaders all more than the world. As a tireless diplomat, she did her very best to restore trust in the United States while George W. Bush’s unnecessary war and futile occupation of Iraq wound down. But even those of us who might help her candidacy have to face a painful question: In at least a single significant way, is her character flawed?


~snip~

Quite a few sources who have worked inside Hillary’s bubble have told me how formidable and intimidating she can be. “When she says ‘Fix it!’ or ‘If there’s a challenge, fire ’em!’” she does not appreciate how she can make persons jump,” Sherburne told me. “Hillary lacks self-awareness of this trait and how it affects persons.” These perpetual and deep-seated problems make it all the a lot more required that a prominent Democrat keep up the political stress on Hillary — at least to discipline her worst instincts, if not to serve as an understudy in the occasion her candidacy implodes. I don’t imply Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont or former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. They’re decent enough politicians but without the need of the required chops. Joe Biden would be much more formidable, but he’s too closely yoked to the Obama years. The only one who has the political argument and individual fire to make a powerful stand is Sen. Elizabeth Warren. The liberal Democratic heroine was asked last week by the Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s “Politics Nation” no matter if Clinton would be a “progressive warrior.” Warren’s reply was cool as the snow blanketing her dwelling state. “You know, I feel that is what we gotta see,” Warren responded. “I want to hear what she wants to run on and what she says she wants to do. That’s what campaigns are supposed to be about.” Bill Clinton, I am told by a Warren insider, is the a single who sees Warren as a threat — a all-natural politician who excites the base in approaches that Hillary cannot seem to do. Ex-Sen. Clinton herself was nervous sufficient to attempt inviting the common freshman Sen. Warren for a cozy chat at the Clintons’ Washington property last December. She tried to persuade the fiery populist to abandon her own national platform as a media darling who fights for operating households. Wouldn’t she favor to take the veil as one particular of Clinton’s 200-plus friendly insiders? Not on her life. “Elizabeth is a rock-thrower,” says a close advisor, who insists on being nameless as do all on Warren’s group. The senator even keeps a bowl of rocks on her desk. When an advisor offered to send a lot more rocks from a New Year’s gathering of mostly liberal political junkies, Warren responded, “Don’t bother, I have a lot.”


~snip~

Warren, people today tell me, has small regard for Hillary. In 1998, the then-Harvard law professor met with the former Initial Lady and gained her agreement to help fight for working households against “that awful (bankruptcy) bill,” as Clinton called it. But Bill Clinton was not ready to pick a fight with the banks. As a presidential candidate-in-waiting, Hillary has shown her conflicted stance, as a single who talks challenging on redressing the erosion of middle-class wages whilst she gladly accepts huge speaking charges to sweet-speak Wall Street titans. Warren is nothing if not impassioned. As she admits in her memoir, “A Fighting Possibility,” she wasn’t born with a lot of talents. She wasn’t particularly pretty, didn’t have the highest grades, didn’t play a sport or sing. Her a single talent was she could fight: “not with my fists, but with my words.” In her memoir she writes of the day she grew up, at age 12, when her daddy had a heart attack. Quickly immediately after, the family members lost their station wagon. Then they lost their property. Her father’s job selling carpets for Montgomery Ward was taken from him, and when little Elizabeth asked her mother why, she was told his organization robbed him of some thing he had worked for all his life. But why? The kid wanted to know. The answer came: “They feel he’s going to die.” Her mother walked to Sears Roebuck to interview for her initial job. She was 50. Protecting operating households who are struggling to discharge debts, locate relief from student loans and gather youngster assistance from debt-buried spouses is personal with Warren. And it would produce a great contrast with Clinton who, when push comes to shove, appears to side with the effective, or reflexively defend her own interests. Warren insists she won’t run. Clinton’s polling position — 56% of Democrats say they’d help her at this exceedingly early moment — leaves Warren 42 points behind. So why not stage an unconventional, rogue major campaign that is suited to her message and character? According to a Warren insider who also worked with the Clinton White Property, “Elizabeth couldn’t be happier with her function — she loves pushing Hillary on economic difficulties. She’ll get all of Hillary’s responses on the record and play this out to the final possible moment, till Hillary decides.” Warren is wildly ambitious, this supply says, not for her private success, but to alter the direction of the nation. This just might be her moment.





cont'

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/gail-sheehy-hillary-hope-article-1.2140351

[RiverLover]

1. Really, really interesting article, Segami

Big thanks! (Now maybe everyone will stop with the ridiculous "Warren loves Clinton & wants her to run" line.)

If you have the time, would you mind cross-posting this in the Elizabeth Warren Group here?

Again, thanks!!!

[Segami]

2. "...If Clinton wants to rebuild trust with voters..

"....and win the White House, she needs to sideline her arrogant instincts. She must show humility. It’s time she speaks candidly about her mistakes and what she has learned from them.

None of this is going to happen unless someone makes it happen.

That someone won’t be her husband or a reporter. It can only be a credible Democratic challenger for the presidency who can create clear contrasts and finally explode the myth that attacking Hillary is always an act of partisan warfare.

The obvious challenger, the one with a real opportunity to sharpen Hillary’s candidacy if not derail it entirely, is Elizabeth Warren...."

[RiverLover]

3. Its too bad Media Matters is run by Hillary's David Brock.

I count on them to call out FoxFiction on their lies & propaganda, but they're unreliably biased when it comes to HRC.

Former chief of staff to president Bill Clinton John Podesta provided office space for Media Matters early in its formation at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank which Podesta established in 2002.[23] Hillary Clinton advised Media Matters in its early stages out of a belief that progressives should follow conservatives in forming think tanks and advocacy groups to support their political goals.[23][24] Wiki

In early 2014, Brock was named to the board of Priorities USA Action as the super PAC also announced its support for a possible Hillary Clinton presidential run in 2016.[14] In February 2015, Brock abruptly resigned his position with the super PAC.[15]
Wiki

...Democrats and outside allies of the Clintons read that as an invitation to deride the investigation. Media Matters and Correct the Record, two of David Brock's organizations—one that occasionally defends Hillary Clinton, and the other that does nothing but—have repeatedly called the e-mails story "false" and an extension of the "Benghazi hoax." They've maintained that line of argument as conservative groups tumbled over one another to enter the e-mail fray....

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-05/democrats-see-a-familiar-pattern-in-the-clinton-email-story

[Segami]

4. David Brock reflects on his Clinton evolution

"...Hating the Clintons has long been an industry, complete with books, movies and paraphernalia dating to Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential run. It was within that industry that Brock first developed a career.

Brock, now 51, was a conservative reporter and writer who famously penned a book casting doubts on the credibility of Anita Hill, who accused now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. He later did reporting that first introduced America to the name Paula Jones, the woman who, in the scandal known as Troopergate, accused Bill Clinton of harassment during his days in Arkansas, where he served as governor.

But then came his efforts to write a book about Hillary Clinton, who once complained of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” working against the couple. He intended the book as a hit piece, but the project converted him instead to a Clinton supporter, and soon he publicly disavowed his earlier attacks on the pair.

Brock declined to discuss his relationship with the former president or the former secretary of state, who lost out on the White House to Barack Obama in 2008. Yet his appearance in Little Rock on Tuesday is further evidence of how far inside their orbit he has traveled since becoming an ally after Bill Clinton left office. He is known to have close ties to some top Clinton aides and donors..."



~snip~

In the interview with POLITICO, Brock said his own research eventually changed his mind about the Clintons.
“What led to my change of views about the Clintons was working through the research and writing on the book on Hillary,” he said of the 1997 book, which other conservatives viewed as treating the then-first lady too gently.

“And I went into that with a very negative agenda and after doing all the work on it for a couple of years I came out of it with a much more positive view of her, and so the transition … really worked itself out through that book.”

After "The Seduction of Hillary Rodham" was published, Brock wrote an apologia in Esquire magazine, saying he was finished with the career he’d led in the 1990s. A year later, he wrote a follow-up piece apologizing to Clinton (he ultimately did the same with Anita Hill).


http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/david-brock-bill-clinton-hillary-clinton-104976.html

[nashville_brook]

5. that explains a lot. transactionalism at its best.

[RiverLover]

21. I was really surprised when I learned that, from a fellow DUer

& yeah, once you find out, its becomes really clear. Transactionalism. Perfect way to phrase it.

And this is a media outlet designed & trusted by many to call out media manipulation. It's a bummer.

[nashville_brook]

22. i'm sure there's a historical narrative about Brock's switch from conservative to

progressive that might owe to the Clintons. it's been years since i've read his Blinded by the Right book, but likely there's hints in there.

[phantom power]

6. Hillary already had a real primary challenge in 2003. So real, she lost.

[groundloop]

7. Unfortunately Warren is NOT running..... we need to get that fact into our heads

No matter how much we close our eyes and wish, Elizabeth Warren is not running, she's made that abundantly clear. If we want a viable candidate not named Hillary we need to get behind someone who IS interested in running, otherwise we'll be lost in our fantasy world and possibly let a goper slip into the White House.

[Cryptoad]

15. I want a viable more progressive candidate

But it is starting to look like noone is going to arise. If not what are our options.

Help to elect a Republican Prez [I can't go there]?
this could take the form of from no voting , to working for a third party candidate, to working directly for the Republican nominee.

or, Help elect Hillary in a manner that if she is elected she might feel an obligation to Progressives for their help.

[nashville_brook]

8. Segami, here's my thing on Hillary...

and the Clintons in toto.

When they came along in 92, after 12 years of Reagan/Bush that style of "new democrat" win at all costs felt like, well, WINNING! holy crap that felt good. So what if some businesses prosper? A rising tide floats all boats, amirite? YAY Clintonian optimism! Bring on the Globalism. Bring on NAFTA! It's a "New Age" for Democrats I thought.

Remember the "peace dividend" that was going to fund homeless and healthcare and the fucking "bridge to the 21st Century" after the Cold War and after all the covert Reagan/Bush wars? This was supposed to be the trade-off. We were entering a new era when all our spending on nukes and military excursions could be repurposed to NATION BUILDING at home. I was on board in a big way.

Then, like some kind of magic, the investigations started and that's all we heard about -- and of course good democrats like myself turned our attention AWAY FROM policy and toward protecting the personalities who were supposed to protect our policy. Thing is, we held up our part of the bargain, and what did get in return? The repeal of Glass-Stegall, the deregulation of telecommunications -- death by the thousand TRIANGULATIONS. All of the energy that was supposed to go to building that confounded bridge to the 21st Century was spent on transactions with the right-wing to keep the investigations at bay...or keep new ones from emerging. By the time the blue dress and the definition of what "is is" came along, I'd just had it. Seriously? This is how we're repaid for all the blood sweat and tears we put into this? Is it any wonder that the WORST policy that came of the administration came after the embarrassment of Monica Lewinsky?

It's not difficult to figure out that the problem here is that the Clintons make themselves a target with the way they do business, and the Clinton Foundation combined with the latest public records scandal is just a reminder of what that's like.

I would love nothing more than to have a *slam dunk* democratic nominee who will get into the White House and fight like hell for the policy that matters to working families. But we have to be realistic about BOTH. Can Hillary actually beat a strong GOP challenger? and WOULD Hillary actually fight for our policy? If she's dogged by typical Clinton scandal, there's little she's going to get done. The time will be spend horse-trading and triangulating...and that means Americans who are suffering will get nothing but excuses: "well, if it weren't for the nasty Republicans dragging her into investigations..." blah blah blah.

I'm sick of it. Give us a straight arrow. Give us someone with a few tons less baggage. Give us someone who can actually get something done.

[ellennelle]

9. most excellent!

could not have said it better myself!

(are you in n'ville?)

[nashville_brook]

10. actually moved to Flori-duh :)

lived in Tennessee for nearly 20 years, though.

[Nay]

12. Couldn't have said it better myself. Even if I thought Ms Clinton would fight for the

average family (which I don't), there are still the problems with the Clintons as a pair that you mention. I personally think that if she is the nominee, she will lose to the Republican challenger. I think the RW Wurlitzer will crank out all the bullshit lies from the Clinton years and people, esp the big class of non-motivated voters, will be just as susceptible to it now as they were then. And even if she won, I can't see her being any more effective for the 99% than her husband was or Obama is. The RW is simply not scared of her at all; they have no reason to be.

I want a nominee that scares the shit out of Republicans -- one who calls them on their bullshit right out loud, with no filters. And you know what? Voters would get excited about such a person. We are ALL sick of how this country is going down the tubes.

[nashville_brook]

16. if the voters aren't excited about the nominee...if it's just "her time"

then we'll lose. we win when there's momentum and when there's a reason for people to get out and vote.

i was at an event yesterday where polling numbers of *non-voters" in 2014 where shared. the number one reason people didn't vote is b/c they were cynical. "no one is going to represent me -- they're in for themselves."

of those who didn't vote, the majority who would have voted Dem was the majority.

the takeaway here is that Dem voters can smell a transactional Frank Underwood type a mile away, and they're not having it. give them someone who will fight for them, and they'll show up.

it's not rocket science.

[Nay]

25. Agreed. It's not hard to see that Dem voters aren't showing up because they feel

no one represents them. If Dem leaders cared, they'd look at your poll results and say to themselves, "Why, here's a problem! We aren't doing what our bedrock constituency wants, and that's why they're not voting for us. Maybe we should go back to our progressive roots!"

But they don't do that. In fact, they are still running away from the stuff Warren and Sanders say every day. Why is that, I wonder? IMO, it's because they are, philosophically, not progressive or liberal any more. They are something else, and all that hippie stuff makes them uncomfortable because their friends in high places don't like it.

Look at the Republicans. They can lead their band of ignoramuses straight off a cliff. The dem base is not stupid enough to follow anybody who displays a D after his/her name; if we were dumb, we'd be Republicans. Dem leadership actually has to offer to work for something we want, AND be credible in their presentation so that dem voters will actually believe that that person will work hard to deliver on it. I thought Obama might be the one, but when he had a RW preacher to speak, and then appointed Geithner, I knew he was a go-along pretender. Now, the dem base is looking deeply into the backgrounds of all Dem contenders. If they can't show a definite progressive attitude in their associations, their promotion of progressive policy over 1% policy, etc., in their lifetime of public service, then we won't vote for them.

[Segami]

14. Agreed. And too think..

...Hillary has yet to 'officially' announce her candidacy. Once that day arrives, she will be met with a 1000' tsunami wave of rightwing attacks (old & new).

"...It's not difficult to figure out that the problem here is that the Clintons make themselves a target with the way they do business, and the Clinton Foundation combined with the latest public records scandal is just a reminder of what that's like...."

How would most people feel if they heard their local priest or minister say:

"...Yes, the Mafia gives us money. Do we agree with everything they do? No, but they're helping us build a new refectory for our church including a new church school bus. . . . Lets tell our churchgoers how the Mafia earn their money (extortion, prostitution, drugs, murder, etc..) and let our churchgoers make their own judgements."



Yesterday, Bill Clinton had this to say about The Clinton Foundation donations:

“We do get money from other countries, and some of them are in the Middle East,” former President Bill Clinton said, after being prompted on stage in a question and answer session. “The United Arab Emirates gave us money, do we agree with everything they do? No, but they’re helping us fight ISIS and they helped build a university with NYU. . . . My theory about all this is, disclose everything, and let people make their judgments.”

http://time.com/3736368/hillary-clinton-foundation-foreign-donors/

[nashville_brook]

17. oppo research on the Clintons is a corporate endeavor at this point.

and they've got what, a year to get this in motion -- in addition to the work that's already been done.

we need to see this for what it is -- it's TRANSACTIONS. every little knick that the oppo teams can make, that's a "pawn" we lose. call it healthcare or schools or fair taxes...they are the pawns that're going to be traded away to keep the opposition at bay.

[Cryptoad]

11. What is next on DU

repost of Breitbart articles

[Savannahmann]

23. Imagine being in a fight with your worst enemy.

It's a cage match, to the death. Your opponent has spent the weeks leading up to the fight studying all available training film on you. He's been studying your sparing matches, and working his ass off to make sure he's ready for you.

You refuse to view any film on your opponent. It's available online, and you not only refuse to see it, but you fire and insult people who watch the films as traitors to your victory. Before the announced match, you were both pretty evenly matched, with your opponent a little stronger than you, and you were considered a little smarter.

Who wins? The answer almost certainly is, your opponent. Because Your opponent crafted his fight for you, while you crafted yours to the imaginary fight you hoped to have with them.

So what you ask? So what does this have to do with Politics? In 2014 Democrats were counting on the Republicans to make a mistake like in 2012 with the famous Real Rape quote. The Republicans instead focused on paying lip service to issues while the Democrats were sticking with their place holder campaign plan War on Women. Republicans studied the polling, realized that issues were what the people wanted to hear about, and talked about those issues. Democrats ignored the issues, planning instead on the winning strategy from 2012, wait for the Republicans to self destruct. Then on election day, the Democrats were astonished to see the Republicans take the Senate, and keep taking control with a four seat comfort zone. Ten seats in all after the runoff in Louisiana, ten invaluable seats that we could have won, if we had watched and learned our opponents obvious plans.

So the preparations for 2016 are on. We're training up. Once again, the Republicans are watching us, studying our moves, and planning on how to counter them. We are again refusing to even look at the opponent for fear that we'll see something we don't like. Once again we're going into the match hoping that the Republicans will oblige us and fight the way we wish they would, while they intend to fight us the way we're going to in reality. They learned from 2012, and we haven't learned from 2014 yet. The question is, will we learn?

I don't know. Einstein was asked about the difference between Genius and Stupidity. Einstein said that Genius has its limits.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins148851.html

[HereSince1628]

13. I don't want a 'curbed' or 'reined in' candidate by any name

I want to vote for a person who identifies problems facing the nation in the same way I do. And I want that person to be well qualified to create solutions to those problems.

I DO NOT want a politician who would solve the housing crisis by doing something " pragmatic" as striking down Glass-Steagall to make possible widespread reckless predatory lending.

[sadoldgirl]

20. The problem as I see it is

that a deal was struck with the Party, so that
HRC would not engage in a huge floor fight at
the convention.

Thus not we, but the party has the say. The fact
that the Dems in the Senate gave her a more visible
place, and a new task indicates that the party has no
wish to support her running for higher office.

They are not worried about Bernie at all.

[Vinca]

18. I think if Elizabeth Warren chose to get in, she would be a viable contender.

Last edited Mon Mar 9, 2015, 07:25 AM - Edit history (1)

She's the only person out there who might replicate the "Obama magic" and end up the winner over Hillary and any Republican contender.

[RiverLover]

24. Exactly!

I couldn't agree more.

2 MILLION Facebook Views in a Week! How Elizabeth Warren Turns Boilerplate Viral (TIME)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12652917

[ND-Dem]

19. this is *the* gail sheehy? has she no editors? are all papers computer-generated these days?

this reads like it was published in another language first then run through a computer translation program and printed without anyone reading it

the then-Harvard law professor met with the former Initial Lady and gained her agreement

she does not appreciate how she can make persons jump,” Sherburne told me. “Hillary lacks self-awareness of this trait and how it affects persons.”

Bill Clinton, I am told by a Warren insider, is the a single who sees Warren as a threat — a all-natural politician who excites the base in approaches that Hillary cannot seem to do.

Ex-Sen. Clinton herself was nervous sufficient to attempt inviting the common freshman Sen. Warren for a cozy chat

She tried to persuade the fiery populist to abandon her own national platform as a media darling who fights for operating households.

[Thinkingabout]

26. Same old same old, nothing new here, nothing here to promote Warren, nothing for anyone to put their

Teeth into and get behind her.

[Agnosticsherbet]

27. In 2012, the New York Daily News endorsed Romney

Which was a hugh departure form their 2008 nomnation of Obama.

So what is their current editorial policy?

Grain of salt may be needed.