2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHillary Clinton’s Secret Weapon Is Bernie Sanders’ Colleagues
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/02/hillary-clinton-al-franken-friendshipClinton's final pitch to New Hampshire voters is as much about the people she surrounds herself with as it is the former secretary of state herself. On Friday, four woman senators were there to co-opt Bernie Sanders by arguing that the "revolution" America needs is electing the first woman. Stefany Shaheen, daughter of the New Hampshire senator, warmed up the crowd in Portsmouth by name-dropping celebrity backers Lena Dunham, Gloria Steinem, Abby Wambachproof she's not only experienced, but maybe cool. Franken was there to follow-up on a subject of intense debate over the last weekwhat it means to be a progressive.
"Let my clarify something: why they let a guy up here," Franken began, flanked by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, Gov. Maggie Hassan, and the former secretary of state. He didn't waste any time invoking the legacy of the late Minnesota senator, a progressive icon who died in a plane crash in 2002 shortly before the midterm elections:
I'm Al Franken, I'm a Senator from Minnesota, and I hold the seat that Paul Wellstone once held. And I can point to someone on this stage whom I wouldn't be senator from Minnesota [without], and that is Hillary Clinton. My first election was kind of close. I won by 312 votes. Hillary Clinton came twice for me, once in October and then I got a call from her the Sunday before the election, she said "I'm coming out." And we did a big rally in Duluth and got more than 312 votes at that rally, I gotta tell you. I'm a Paul Wellstone progressive. And let me tell you what that means: Paul said, "We all do better when we all do better." Now if I knew what a haiku was, I'd say that was a haiku. But evidently I'm told it isn't. But Paul knew that we all do better when we all do better.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)virtualobserver
(8,760 posts)Sounds like he is hoping that....in a few years...we will finally begin the Al Franken Decade.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)and you are right, Hillary is that same sort of politician, only progressive when it's easy or when it benefits a tight little circle of religiously defined worthies.
'We all do better when we all do better, but those gays should not be allowed to marry'? I just don't get it. How can straights use the words 'we all' when they also pass laws to say 'not you people'?
I'm a Harvey Milk progressive, a Bernie Sanders progressive.
I try not to tell what Paul was like because so many have a crush on him but fuck, I really thought of him as a backward and bigoted man, he seemed to sincerely oppose the rights of others on the basis that his sort was superior and he said so in many ways.
So yeah. Hillary is exactly that sort of progressive, Al. The kind who votes for DOMA like Wellstone did.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Thanks for pointing it out...
Alfresco
(1,698 posts)Establishment thru and thru.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)but that was his choice, he used Wellstone and said Hillary is like him. Wellstone voted against te rights of minority groups he felt were his inferiors. That is basically why I am for Bernie, I do not care for the DOMA branch of the Party which Al still celebrates.
UglyGreed
(7,661 posts)in it..........
tokenlib
(4,186 posts)When Debbie Stabenow went to a few Democratic Party events after she voted in favor of the Bankruptcy Reform bill.. she got indignant and bent out of shape when she found out how pissed off many of her constituents were that she sided with the banks. Stabenow has gotten my vote as the lesser of evils...but when it comes to the big banks.. I know whose side she is on...
I seem to recall Klobuchar is a bit more "New Democrat" than progressive as well...and I'm sure I could go on....
I'm not too impressed with what they think at this point.
Gothmog
(145,667 posts)DrFunkenstein
(8,745 posts)Denise Rich and her close associates have been bringing in millions for the Clintons ever since her scum husband was pardoned for his well-documented crimes, including massive contributions for this campaign.
Donna Shalala is a long-time Clintonista who took below rate loans as a "Friend of Angelo" (Mozilo, the disgraced CEO of Countrywide - a predatory mortgage lender that Clinton rails against on the campaign trail, even though she helped contribute to the deregulation that made such criminal activity a legal one). She was recently chosen to be president of the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
Lanny Davis is another Clintonista who, like James Carville, became a lobbyist for Latin American oligarchs. The difference is that Davis led efforts to secure $100M in funds to the military coup that toppled the democratically-elected President of Honduras, funds that the Obama administration wanted cut off but was ignored by the Clinton led State Department.
Don't know too many "Paul Wellstone progressives" that would count them as close associates.