The New Republic

This would provide perspective to the mad hatters on this website except that perspective means nothing to cheap moralists.

- liberal reformer

June 5, 2008 at 6:50pm

Humor of the day: liberal reformer calls other posters "cheap moralists."

I'm kidding, of course, libref. I know you've got a master's degree in conventional wisdom, and I respect the academic achievement involved.

- rhubarbs

June 5, 2008 at 7:10pm

I wonder, though, if it's worth considering the degree to which Clinton has herself marked out this years as special by assuming she had a nearly absolute right to the nomination and implicitly dissing Obama as an upstart.  This isn't a battle between two candidates who, ultimately, would support each other no matter who gets the nomination.  Our situation this year involves a candidate who has already said publicly that the presumptive Republican nominee is better qualified to be president than the other Democratic candidate.  I don't recall that happening in earlier years.

- ironyroad

June 5, 2008 at 7:12pm

Nope, doesn't mean a thing to me.  I'm a cheap moralist.  Context is everything.  The Democrats lost the elections in 1980 and 1984 --  not very good precedents, are they?  I will admit that I don't remember the 1976 primaries very clearly, but we did not have super-delegates at the time.  As such, once the primaries were over, there was literally nothing more to fight about, even in theory.  As well, I don't think any of those races were characterized by quite the behavior we observed in this one which I shall not bother to recount again.  Nor was the country such a mess and in such desperate need of a Democratic victory, even post-Watergate.  I could go on, but Im sure you all get the cheap moral point.

Above all, I don't think we have previously seen a candidate claiming to have won the vote when she lost the vote.  In the days before Clinton and Rove, no one would have imagined they could say such a thing without being hounded out of public life.  That alone is confusing enough and leads many who don't read blogs at TNR to believe that the nomination is being "stolen."

- roidubouloi

June 5, 2008 at 7:20pm

Bill Bradley.

- mmathog

June 5, 2008 at 7:54pm

David Greenberg ,

There is no point to reason with Obama cultists. It's a lost cause.

- jacobt1

June 5, 2008 at 8:03pm

My, LiberalReformer is becoming increasingly... I'd say "unhinged", but he probably wouldn't think that that is very nice...  so on to my point.

My objection to Hillary's speech Tuesday night was not her unwillingness to concede.  I don't think anybody rational would have expected an immediate concession.  I objected to her rhetorical tone that she was in fact the candidate that "the people" had chosen.  That she was, or should have been, the rightful winner.  

- drwohl

June 5, 2008 at 8:04pm

Yup, liberal reformer -- amazing, isn't it? Perspective intrudes in TNR's Obamaland....UMF (United Misogynist Front)is not amused...

- LISAH

June 5, 2008 at 8:10pm

Hey, if Obama's closest cronies keep getting convicted and going to jail, he may have to give the nomination back at Denver anyway.

This is the longest primary with the most people voting ever and it was a virtual tie, except for the delegates.

If I were she, I wouldn't be in any damn hurry to concede with 18 million people behind me.

- ChanRobt

June 5, 2008 at 8:36pm

It may be that historically campaigns have lasted past the primary. But that was before cable news. Before the rise of talk radio. Before the internet. Before youtube. I think that makes this different. And except for 1976, the Democrats lost those elections. And 1976 shouldn't have been as close as it was.

- adamvaught

June 5, 2008 at 8:56pm

Yeah, LISAH, the misogynists forced Clinton to stay in long after the day a male would have been forced to leave the campaign because of the impossibility of catching up in delegates.  Unlike those people who treated Huckabee so softly that they just let him get out when he believed he could no longer win, the misogynists in the Democratic party wouldn't let her out.  They kept feeding her lies about how she could win if she could only get the popular vote.  And then they told her she only had to get the white, working class vote, and she would have the nomination sewn up.  Boy, they really messed her up by forcing her to stay in.

- anonevent

June 5, 2008 at 8:58pm

as Channy pointed out, this has been the longest primary season ever. I wish Dems would institute a rule to tighten it up. No more announcing earlier than a year before election day. And push Iowa back to March.Hillary announced in Jan. 2007! Familiarity breeds contempt.

And Channy, one guy is not exactly a parade.

- blackton

June 5, 2008 at 9:06pm

@jacobt: "There is no point to reason with Obama cultists."

This is so insanely self-contradictory and hypocritical that if I didn't know better I'd say you were pulling our leg. But knowing that you wrote it with a straight face only makes it more hilarious.

And also sad.

- sullydog

June 5, 2008 at 9:19pm

You're raising a serious question, adamvaught...to what extent does and should today's and future media coverage determine candidate decision-making during and after a primary season -- or general election. Given Greenberg's examples, e.g., why should cable channels and other 24-hour outlets force a candidate to immediately drink the hemlock? In this case, why shouldn't Clinton be able to hold on as long as she can to leverage her strength to get concessions, agreements, whatever? What about the people who voted for her-- who are, after all, half of those who cast primary and caucus ballots...? What's the impact on democratic process of this phase we're muddling through?

- LISAH

June 5, 2008 at 9:23pm

If you take away enmity toward liberals and red-baiting, I'm not sure what the other side has.

- mmathog

June 5, 2008 at 9:27pm

Dem process needs some tweaking, no doubt, the candidates agreed to the rules before kickoff however.

- mmathog

June 5, 2008 at 9:29pm

nmathog -- they ain't gonna take away liberals and red-baiting, or all the other stuff they're cooking up in their nasty little backrooms..and yes, .McCain is vulnerable on many things, but don't underestimate him.....It'll be a long and ugly fall....

- LISAH

June 5, 2008 at 9:53pm

Sure Lisah, I know the world of no red-baiting doesn't exist, I was just pointing out how little else they have. It's all this old shit, calling Obama a commie and talking about Jimmy Carter, too many people who might even know what the fuck that all even means are dead.

McCain will do his Harry Truman impression and a bunch of cutouts will act like hysterical racists.... I guess it's a campaign strategy.

- mmathog

June 5, 2008 at 10:05pm

so, if the other candidates in the past committed hari-kari is that what Clinton should do?

Aren't we supposed to learn from our mistakes? And doesn't she owe a little more to Obama's campaign given the first RNC campaign ad is using clips of her claiming that the Republican nominee is more qualified that Obama?

And, hasn't this primary gone on longer than any other? And haven't we known for months that she couldn't possible accumulate enough delegates to take over the lead? She didn't lost this on a Tuesday in June. She lost it in a Tuesday in February. She's had 4 months to plan her concession. Instead she has used all this time to continue to discredit the nominee of her proclaimed party.

If you're going to look at historical precedence, at least get the contexts aligned.

- asnevitt

June 5, 2008 at 10:35pm

That lays it out as clearly as can be asnevitt.  She's been stalling for four months and using the time, under cover of "in it to win it" to try and cost him the election.  No one in the Democratic party owes her a damn thing, not another 15 seconds.  If Hillary had the "right" to stay in, the senior members also had the "right to tell her to get off stage already or they would just abandon her.  

And Lisah, you really have not a single thing to say other than to accuse everyone who doesn't like Hillary and/or her behavior of being a misogynist.  So I assume you wouldn't mind if you were called a racist on account of that opinion, would you? Are you?

- roidubouloi

June 5, 2008 at 11:07pm

So much for that "Hillary holding out to the very last minute to concede" meme. If anything, she's leaving early. But the Obamessiah's acolytes will tolerate no other saviour but their Kwisatz Haderach. ...

- Anonymous

June 5, 2008 at 11:09pm

I say, if the party bigwigs have the power to push her out, they should just go ahead and do it.  And now they have.  If you want to think of that as early, exurban, why go right ahead.  The sooner the better from my point of view.

- roidubouloi

June 5, 2008 at 11:45pm

David Greenberg writes : Despite what you may have heard, there is nothing slow or delayed about Hillary

- Anonymous

June 6, 2008 at 12:33am

I hate to repeat something I said earlier (eh, no I don't, but I have to cover my ass with that kind of stuff) but I'm not sure if we've ever seen a performance like Clinton's over the past two months.  For one Democratic candidate to say openly that she and the presumptive Republican nominee are qualified to be president and her principal Democratic opponent isn't -- surely that goes beyond normal heated primary rhetoric?  Or?

I don't want to push this beyond the normal parameters (yes I do, but I have to protect myself with pre-emptively defensive "I don't want to" kind of crap) but I think we have something rather dangerous and rather unusual here, and I'm wouldn't be so certain that the Clinton machine has been parked safely for the rest of the year.

Hence parallels with previous Democratic primary seasons are only superficially illuminating.

Obama may be right to be nervous.  If he's nervous.  He probably isn't.  But I am.

- ironyroad

June 6, 2008 at 3:02am

There's a big difference between waiting a few weeks to formally concede and repeatedly saying that 1) Your opponent (the presumptive Democratic nominee) is unqualified to be President; 2) Your opponent will almost certainly lose in the fall; and 3) Your opponent basically stole an election that you rightfully won. Perhaps our resident historian Mr. Greenberg can point out instances (or even one instance) where Udall, Hart, or Kennedy made such scurrilous assertions to nationally televised audiences.

Also, I'm trying to decide whether to change my login name to "CheapMoralist," "ObamaCultist," or "UMF." Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

- marcellusw101

June 6, 2008 at 9:41am

"And Lisah, you really have not a single thing to say other than to accuse everyone who doesn't like Hillary and/or her behavior of being a misogynist.  So I assume you wouldn't mind if you were called a racist on account of that opinion, would you? Are you?"

Ah, roid -- poor boy -- no sense of humor, and so ready with the R-word....exactly how full of BS are you? Calling me a racist, which you've essentially done with this -- uh -- riposte, is sinking pretty low, even for you.

I'm no feminist, no kind of joiner of anything;  -- but you little boys in the sandbox are so clearly using anti-female smoke bombs along with spouting current wiberal-weft-wing prejudices and nonsense that I just feel some points must be tossed back. Sigh -- and now you'll be calling me a right-winger, I guess...

- LISAH

June 6, 2008 at 10:59am

"Obamessiah" is my favourite so far.  And so original, it hurts.

- icarusr

June 6, 2008 at 11:13am

You completely missed the point lisah -- and then you made it for me.  I don't think you are a racist, and I wasn't calling you a racist.  But even the mere suggestion that you MIGHT be called a racist for your opinions was enough to be considered by you a low blow.  Yet, I was only painting the analogy for you so that you would understand that this is exactly what you are doing

How is that then that you think labeling everyone who disagrees with your views about Hillary (whether you support her or not) as part of the United Misogynist Front is acceptable, either as a matter of rhetoric or manners?  It isn't.  Get it now?

- roidubouloi

June 6, 2008 at 11:15am

marcellus,

I'm claiming "cheap moralist" so consider that taken.  Pick something else.

- roidubouloi

June 6, 2008 at 11:17am

Okay, roid -- you and I don't get each other..I did consider that that's what you were doing, but.it was a really bad attempt at analogy...if anything, it makes the point that it's okay in these times(!!) to be a misogynist, but not okay to be a racist. Which is essesntially what keeps me answering you -- you make the point for me -- that much of what's been/being tossed at Clinton is anti-female, which is more okay than tossing racial time smoke bombs at Obama. Point is that neither is okay, but that it's more okay to be anti-woman than anti-black. This whole rotten primary process this year has made that clear.

In any case, I do have a serious question for you and some others: The Clintons are pols with an effective (or not so effective, given the outcome political machine). Obama is a pol with an effective political machine. Why the sheer visceral hatred here on TNR blogs against Clinton? I really don't get it...and I'm saying this, again, as someone who really, deeply, didn't want either one of them. But I don't throw hate bombs at either of them...pols are pols: what's your problem with Clinton?

- LISAH

June 6, 2008 at 1:07pm

Exurban League: Hillary announced in January 2007, 17 months is quite enough for a losing candidate, don't you think? And what is it with the Dune reference? Are you saying HIllary is the giant worm? Or a Bene Gesserit witch?

- blackton

June 6, 2008 at 1:25pm

"Why the sheer visceral hatred here on TNR blogs against Clinton? I really don't get it...and I'm saying this, again, as someone who really, deeply, didn't want either one of them."

LISAH, it seems to me that one major problem is that you tend to ask the plaintive question, while failing to grasp that the assumption underlying your apparently reasonable question is a totally unfounded one.  I can't answer your question, speaking just for me, because I haven't seen any "visceral hatred" against Clinton.

I have seen opposition, dislike, hostility, bemusement, horror, and at some moments disgust.  None of those are hatred.  The reasons why the general attitude toward HRC started to turn negative -- even if you don't agree -- are pretty easy to guess at as they have been listed by many posters on this site, many times, and occasionally even in direct exchange with you.

They involve such tricks as (a) attempts to delegitimize Obama for the general election (giving the impression that she didn't care what happened if she didn't win the nomination), including saying openly that only she and McCain were qualified to be president, (b) suggesting by various ruses and oblique remarks that Obama is a kind of foreign exotic entity, not one of us "hardworking white Americans," (c) trying to overturn party rules on states' primaries that she had originally agreed to, (d) nurturing a dangerous rumor about the "secret muslim" thing on TV while blandly pretending to dismiss it, (e) suggesting that Democratic caucus states didn't count because it's *only* elitist activists who participate, and finally (d) acting as if the party had an unshakeable obligation to present her with the nomination, and that it was down to sexism if that wasn't happening.

Do you get it?  Not hatred, but anger and disgust.  I'd say that all those together tried a lot of people's patience, whereas perhaps one or two might have just passed by without too much notice.  Finally, nobody claims that Obama is some kind of ethical paragon, but it's very difficult to find anywhere in his campaign where he tried to suggest that Clinton wasn't fit for the White House because she was a woman, for example, or where he took the low road of pandering to still-active popular bigotry and inverted snobbery.

- ironyroad

June 6, 2008 at 2:07pm

LISAH, why can't I hate Clinton for Clinton and not because she is a woman. I hate Guiliani and it has nothing to do with his being a man or an italian. Do you like Bush? He has had a very effective political machine, why the visceral hatred here at TNR against him? I hate Clinton for the same reason I hate Bush, they both represent polar ends of the same partisan process. George Bush was Republicans saying FU to Democrats, and Hillary would be an FU right back a them. And Bush Clinton Bush Clinton, you don't see anything wrong with that? As though only 2 families can govern? Another  woman, fine, 8 years for the Clintons are enough. I am anti-dynasty, certainly not anti-woman. And what is wrong with that?

Given my choice, I want Elizabeth Edwards for Pres. and Barack for VP

- blackton

June 6, 2008 at 2:14pm

Sorry, that last (d) should be an (f).

- ironyroad

June 6, 2008 at 2:50pm

ironyroad -- first, with thanks for the answer,  I don't do plaintive. Now, as for the rest -- well, I saw nothing outside typical political mudslinging in anything that went on in this campaign from either of the 2 campaigns. Guess my tolerance for expected crap is higher than yours, and others on TNR. None of the things you mention is outside the legitimate range --  and insofar as any of us not on the inside actually know what dirt/slime/etc. either campaign aimed at the other, there's no really good way to judge any of it for sure. You have your assessment, I have mine. As for your list of bemusemment + horror + dislike + whatever...well adding up all of that, plus the language often used --- if we did a content analysis of posts on these threads over the course of the campaign, in my book it adds up to hatred. We don't agree. Leave it at that.

blackton -- hatred isn't useful in these kinds of discussions -- sure in my secret little soul (or what's left of it these days) yeah -- guess the likes of Bush, Giuliani, Cheney and the the rest of them are worth hating...One major reason I didn't want Clinton was exactly the dynastic -- uh -- imperative, to say nothing of not wanting the first woman running for president to get there on her husband's coattails...and the general antagonism towards both of the Clintons from the right -- to say nothing of what's been tossed at them from Democrats, and moderates, and "liberals." And like it or not, the misogyny has been unmistakable -- sorry guys if you don't agree. Some, maybe even much, of it is because she's who she is, but more is just plain anti-woman, any woman.

Personally, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Edwards have been the only people I really would've liked on the ticket.

But I'm voting for Obama. There is no choice.

- LISAH

June 6, 2008 at 3:02pm

lisah,

I don't hate Hillary.  That, for me, is a very special category reserved for the truly heinous, people who visit unspeakable violence or suffering on other people.  Although I haven't ever bothered to make a point of it, I too regard it as way over the top to characterize much if any of the opinion about Hillary as hatred.  After that, there is not much to discuss.

I will allow that I detest her, which, to me at least, is rather different, a combination of extreme dislike combined with strong disdain.  Leaving aside all of her recent campaign antics because they only reinforced the view that I already had of her, my reasons are those that I wrote about the other day at length.  I think she is a user and a cynic who has no devotion at all to the cause of the Democratic party but sees it, largely by happenstance, her marriage to Bill, as the vehicle for her personal ambition.  I think she is willing to sell out the party at any moment that it seems expedient for her career to do so and I think there are many instances, especially since the start of the campaign, where she has done so.

I won't reprise all the specific instances because I am bored with repeating them as everyone else must be.  But it did occur to me the other night that part of why I have such doubts about whether she even has bona fide political principles is the fact that she has been all over the map politically, from Goldwater Girl to rad-lib speaker at Wellesley, to her time with a radical left law firm in CA, to a left-center Democrat to something of a right-center Democrat.  I realize that some people migrate politically over the course of their lives.  But in Hillary's case she has been all over the lot from a point in her life when she was old enough to have some reasonably well-formed political views.  That does not strike me as someone with a conscientious set of beliefs.  Rather, it strikes me as someone who is constantly adopting new political clothing to appeal to whomever she thinks her audience (or power base) is at the moment.  Her conduct during the campaign, both in her tactics and her rapidly evolving political persona, have dramatically reinforced that view.

Accordingly, I simply do not believe that she is really a Democrat at all and I do not observe that she works for the good of the party.  That is why I detest her.

- roidubouloi

June 6, 2008 at 3:15pm

"None of the things you mention is outside the legitimate range"

Interesting pov, Lisah -- in that case, perhaps you could enlighten me as to when, in the last, say, 30 years, a Democratic candidate in the primaries made a public statement to the effect that the presumptive Republican nominee would be more qualified to become president than the candidate's main Democratic opponent?

Btw I didn't mean to yank your chain with "plaintive," and I withdraw it readily if you don't like the term; but I was trying to find a word to capture your tone in e.g. "I really don't get it...and I'm saying this, again, as someone who really, deeply, didn't want either one of them."  It seemed as if you were metaphorically throwing up your hands in despair, and I was trying to point out that the problem might come from the assumption buried in the question, rather than from other posters.

- ironyroad

June 6, 2008 at 4:18pm

LISAH, we both agree on both Biden and Elizabeth Edwards. Now she is truly one classy woman. I truly couldn't praise her enough.

Yes, and hatred is a strong word, but I hate Hillary the way I hate broccoli, and certainly not the way I hate Bin Laden so I appreciate your reservations about the language. I think it is mostly harmless venting. While I agree society has a lot of misogyny, I don't really see it here.

As to myself, I voted for Christie Todd Whitman, half of my bosses in my life have been women, I truly would have no reservations voting for a woman as President. Anyone who does is basically an idiot.

- blackton

June 6, 2008 at 5:20pm

Of course the difference here is that Obama is black.  HRC has been keeping the brother down, every day since after Supoer Tuesday, when she should have dropped out.  Kennnedy and Hart weren't running against a candidate whose very nomination is a historical and SPIRITUAL milestone.  Right?  

- gurdjieff66

June 6, 2008 at 6:00pm

It turns out Hillary Clinton's supposedly delayed concession isn't so delayed after all, historically speaking. Clinton and Barack Obama were "laughing" and "getting along well" after their secret meeting last night, said Sen. Diane Feinstein, who hosted

- Anonymous

June 6, 2008 at 7:49pm

Blackton: Eloquent post.

- liberal reformer

June 7, 2008 at 5:24pm