Obama's Anti-Clinton Spin At Odds with DNC

...Or, how Democrats Eat Their Own.

Talking Points Memo has an article up describing Obama's latest mailer attacking the Clinton Presidency:

In what may be Obama's most direct and aggressive criticism of Bill Clinton's presidency yet, the Obama campaign dropped a new mailer just before Super Tuesday that blasts "the Clintons" for wreaking massive losses on the Democratic party throughout the 1990s.

"8 years of the Clintons, major losses for Democrats across the nation," reads the mailer, which goes on to list the post-1992 losses suffered by Dems among governors, Senators and members of the House of Representatives. The mailer was forwarded to us by a political operative who told us it was sent to Alaska, though it was probably sent elsewhere, too.

link: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/obama_directly_attacks_bills_p.php

So, being the curious blogger I am I was wondering what the DNC's official take on the Clinton years was. Below is their take on Bill Clinton's legacy, taken from their website (my emphasis added):

In 1992, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd President of the United States. President Clinton ran on the promise of a New Covenant for America's forgotten working families. After twelve years of Republican presidents, America faced record budget deficits, high unemployment, and increasing crime. President Clinton's policies put people first and resulted in the longest period of economic expansion in peacetime history. The Deficit Reduction Act of 1993 — passed by both the House and Senate without a single Republican vote — put America on the road to fiscal responsibility and led to the end of perennial budget deficits. Having inherited a $290 billion deficit in 1992, President Clinton's last budget was over $200 billion in surplus. The Clinton/Gore Administration was responsible for reducing unemployment to its lowest level in decades and reducing crime to its lowest levels in a generation. In 1996, President Clinton became the first Democratic president reelected since Roosevelt in 1936. In 1998, Democrats became the first party controlling the White House to gain seats in Congress during the sixth year of a president's term since 1822.

In the 2000 elections, Democrats netted 4 additional Senate seats, one additional House seat, and one additional gubernatorial seat. Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote for President by more than 500,000 votes. In 2001, Democrats regained control of the Senate under Majority Leader Tom Daschle, while Democrats swept to victory in races all across the country, including races for Virginia Governor and Lt. Governor, New Jersey Governor, and 39 out of 42 major mayoral races including Los Angeles and Houston.

link: http://www.democrats.org/a/party/history.html

So, Obama's message on the Clinton years: we didn't get enough done because the Democrats lost seats due to how divisive the Clintons were. The DNC's message on the Clinton years: we got a lot of things done, including ripping the mantle of "fiscal responsibility" away from the GOP, and we didn't need Republican support to get there. Heck, we even ended up with more elected Democrats at the end of it all.

While both versions of history have some validity, the overall problem with Obama's recent mailer is this: it is at odds with how the Democratic National Committee wants to view itself during the Clinton years. That's a bad thing.

Being officially agnostic on Hillary versus Obama, I'm not going to claim the Clinton years weren't divisive. They were (now, whether or not that was actually the fault of the Clintons is a matter that could be up for discussion). And if Barack Obama wants to hit Hillary hard on being a divisive figure, I say have at it. Not only is this a valid line of attack but there's more than enough polling data to actually, factually back that one up.

However, when Obama's messaging on the Clinton years starts to directly conflict with the DNC's, it's time to throw in the penalty flag. The Democratic Party, as an entity, has a vested interest in pointing out that Bill Clinton (and by association the DNC) left the country better than they found it, because they can make that same pledge to voters this year in the general election. "It takes a Democrat to clean up after a Bush" should be the rallying cry come November.

But it can't be if Obama takes away that rhetorical goose that could lay all of those golden soundbite eggs.

If Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to destroy each other in the primaries, fair enough. That's not something I'd prefer but with stakes this high I can see how that one can happen. *But when they start to go after the effectiveness of the Democratic Party and its messaging, it's time to reign in that line of attack.*

We all want to elect more Democrats this year. Let's not lose sight of that goal.

The Shining City Upon A Hill Is A Gated Community

It isn't class warfare to talk about this - this is the truth. --John Edwards, DNC Winter Meeting Speech

But story, or legend, he described the atmosphere, the strain, the debate, and that as men for the first time faced the consequences of such an irretrievable act, the walls resounded with the dread word of treason and its price -- the gallows and the headman's axe. As the day wore on the issue hung in the balance, and then, according to the story, a man rose in the small gallery. He was not a young man and was obviously calling on all the energy he could muster. Citing the grievances that had brought them to this moment he said, “Sign that parchment. They may turn every tree into a gallows, every home into a grave and yet the words of that parchment can never die. For the mechanic in his workshop, they will be words of hope, to the slave in the mines -- freedom.”--Ronald Reagan, The Shining City Upon A Hill

John Edwards is delivering the long-overdue Democratic response to Reagan's speech, The Shining City Upon A Hill. Long lauded by conservatives as one of Reagan's seminal speeches, it interlaces an American nostaglia steeped in mysticism with concepts now foreign to the GOP, things like "even a land as rich as ours can't go on forever borrowing against the future", and a reverence for the Constitution as "probably the most unique document ever drawn in the long history of man's relation to man", and "never again will young Americans be asked to fight and possibly die for a cause unless that cause is so meaningful that we, as a nation, pledge our full resources to achieve victory as quickly as possible." Talk about the party of flip-flops!

But I digress.

Reagan also presents in this speech the case for trickle-down economics being in the best interest *of working men and women*:

Standardization means production for the masses and the assembly line means more leisure for the worker -- freedom from backbreaking and mind-dulling drudgery that man had known for centuries past. Karl Marx did not abolish child labor or free the women from working in the coal mines in England – the steam engine and modern machinery did that.

snip

One-half of all the economic activity in the entire history of man has taken place in this republic. We have distributed our wealth more widely among our people than any society known to man. Americans work less hours for a higher standard of living than any other people. Ninety-five percent of all our families have an adequate daily intake of nutrients -- and a part of the five percent that don't are trying to lose weight! Ninety-nine percent have gas or electric refrigeration, 92 percent have televisions, and an equal number have telephones. There are 120 million cars on our streets and highways -- and all of them are on the street at once when you are trying to get home at night. But isn't this just proof of our materialism -- the very thing that we are charged with? Well, we also have more churches, more libraries, we support voluntarily more symphony orchestras, and opera companies, non-profit theaters, and publish more books than all the other nations of the world put together.

Reaganomics was always framed in terms of the benefit to the *common man*. Reagan himself pitched people on its acceptance as choosing "freedom over security".

Recent history has proven him wrong. In all aspects of the abject failure of "small government", ranging from the failure to rebuild Iraq, the still-muddled response to Katrina, the mortgage crisis, the almost-weekly announcement of another toxic substance in your toddler's apple juice or lead paint on his beloved toy, history has shown us the problem of pursuing Reagan's myth-filled vision to its logical conclusion.

Now is the time to deliver the Democratic response to Reagan's flawed policies. This past week, John Edwards did exactly that, both at the DNC Winter Meeting and at the Heartland Presidential Forum:



Edwards is answering nostaglia with reality. The Shining City Upon A Hill has become a gated community, excluding most Americans from its promise:

There's a wall outside Washington and we need to take it down. The American people are on the outside. And on the other side, on the inside, are the powerful, the well-connected and the very wealthy. That wall didn't build itself or appear overnight. For decades politicians without conviction and powerful interests gathered their bricks and their stones and their motar, and they went to work. They went to work to protect their interests, to block the voice of the American people, and to stop our country's progress. They went to work to protect, and defend, and maintain the status quo.

snip

Every single day, working men and women see that wall when they have to split their bills into two piles, pay now and pay later; when they watch the factory door shut for the last time; when they see the disappointment on their son or daughter's face when there's no money to pay for college. Every single day they see that wall when they have to use the emergency room as a doctor's office for their son because they can't afford to pay for healthcare.

And the Republicans, the party of Reagan who once at least at one time connected with working men and women? Where are they now?

In denial. They've been living inside that gated community for so long they've forgotten there's a world that exists outside its walls:



Now isn't the time to only ask ourselves, "who can beat the Republicans". Don't get me wrong, I would like to see a win for the Democrats in 2008 just as much as many other people in our party.

There's a deeper, more fundamental question that we have to confront: who can undo the harm that the Republicans have left us with? Who can reverse the extremist philosophies that have eroded the promise of America for so many of its citizens?

John Edwards is showing a clear, competing vision to extremist neocon doctrines that have ruled the GOP and our country:

We have a choice in this election. We can keep trying to shout over that wall. We can keep trying to knock out a chink here and there, to punch little holes in it and hope to get our voices through. We can settle for baby-steps, or half measures and incremental change, and try and inch our way over that wall or toward a better future.

Or we can knock it down.

Let's knock that wall down, together.

Draft Gore to Endorse Edwards: A Write In Happening

Today's (well, technically tomorrow's) WaPo hints that Al Gore may endorse a Democratic candidate before the end of the primary season:

"...Former vice president Al Gore's pronouncement that he is likely to endorse one of the Democratic candidates for president before the primary season is over has set off a slew of speculation about who his choice might be.

Truth is, the courting of the "Goreacle" began many months ago. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Gore huddled in Nashville in December, and Gore has also met with former senator John Edwards (N.C.). Gore and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) conferred as recently as last week..." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2007/09/08/AR2007090801458. html)

So, I'm asking everyone's help in a "Draft Al Gore to Endorse John Edwards" write-in happening.

John Edwards is right on the environment. He is right on alternative energy. He is right on terrorism. He is right on Iraq. He is right labor.

Before I launch into a laundry list of items that Edwards correctly supports, here's the real reason why Al Gore should endorse him for President: unlike the other candidates, Edwards has a clear, concise holistic vision of this country. It is the Big Idea that Dan Balz in WaPo recently stated Dems did not have (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail /2007/09/07/democrats_make_new_blogger_f ri.html).

It is the idea of America. We are a country founded on an idea, captured on paper in the language of all men being created equal. The idea is expressed in working men and women saving and scrimping so they can afford that extra well-baby visit. It lives and breaths in co-workers being called into active service in Iraq, where they try as best they can to stop an administration's bad foreign policy from becoming an unmitigated disaster on the ground.

It is an optimistic belief in the good of all of us, that somehow we can all pull together to build a future that truly is better than the present we have now. It involves sacrifice, and hard work. But we are ready.

We can be patriotic about something other than war. After two disastrous terms of the Bush administration, we need the right leader to put us on that path.

John Edwards is that leader.

Please write Al Gore and ask him to endorse John for President.

Vice President Gore does not have a public email address, but he does receive snail-mail here:

Honorable Al Gore
2100 West End Avenue
Suite 620
Nashville, TN 37203

Big Media's Push Poll...and why history is on Edwards' side

Have you heard that this could be an historic election, because Hillary Clinton maybe the first woman elected President and Barack Obama may be the first African American man elected president?

Are you aware that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, respectively, lead in national polls?

Are you aware that Barack Obama has raised more money than Hillary Clinton, and that both of them lead the other candidates in the "money primary"?

Have you been following the debates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have had over foreign policy?

Which Democratic candidate do you support for President of the United States?

The above is an example of a "push poll", a tactic used by a campaign to elicit a targeted response after a series of biased questions.

Here's another great example of one:



Whether intentionally or not, the media have thus far been conducting one large "push poll" on the American populace, by focusing on the Hillary and Obama dynamic. How much money did Hillary raise? Who won the "foreign policy" squabble - Hillary or Obama? Is Obama less "presidential" than Hillary?

And yet...this dynamic was played out before. Four years ago:

"...In sheer numbers, however, Kerry had fewer endorsements than Howard Dean, who was far ahead in the superdelegate race going into the Iowa caucuses in February 2004, although Kerry lead the endorsement race in Iowa, New Hampshire, Arizona, South Carolina, New Mexico and Nevada. Kerry's main perceived weakness was in his neighboring state of New Hampshire and nearly all national polls. Most other states did not have updated polling numbers to give an accurate placing for the Kerry campaign before Iowa.

Heading into the primaries, Kerry's campaign was largely seen as in trouble; the key factor enabling it to survive was Kerry's mortgaging his own home and lending the money to his campaign. He also brought on the "magical" Michael Whouley who was Al Gore's national field director and would later become the Democratic National Committee's National Field Director for Kerry-Edwards. Whouley is widely credited with helping bring home the Iowa victory the same as he did in New Hampshire for Al Gore in 2000 against Bill Bradley..." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry_presidential_campaign,_2004#Campaign_history)

For all of us Edwards supporters - does any of this sound familiar? A campaign that the media has written off before the Iowa caucuses? A campaign that hired new staff to craft a new message?

...How about, against all pundit expectations, a campaign that won in Iowa and went on to win the nomination?

Are the current polling numbers correct...or is there a bit of the media push poll effect reflected in them?

We'll find out soon enough.

The Debate They Needed Him to Lose

The historic irony: Edwards, the Man Who Courted the Labor Vote, Loses it to Clinton. Puts the nail right in the coffin right there, don't it?

And, historic ironies always make great headlines.

So, it's no wonder initial reports from Big Media put Edwards as a "poor performer", and Hil as the winner (more historic irony as the Woman Behind NAFTA Gains the Labor Vote).

Again, it begs the question: what's up with that?

Here's the deal: all of us working people who thought Edwards hit a home run were listening for one thing, and all of the chattering classes were listening for another.

Check out this early analysis on MSNBC (host of the debate):

"...If this debate is remembered for anything, it will be for the moment that Joe Biden turned into Hillary Clinton's surrogate. He went after Obama on foreign policy and targeted Edwards on how sincere his labor stances are.

In fact, Dodd seemed to also take part in the attacks on Obama (less so on Edwards). But clearly, the old guard of Washington are not taking kindly to either Obama and Edwards. The problem for the two chief Clinton challengers, though, is that they are fighting to be the same person, the anti-Hillary. And Clinton, now, has a lot of supporters on stage with her, including Dodd and Biden. It's a fascinating dynamic that I think is developing in this primary. But how long can Edwards and Obama be allies and how comfortable will Dodd and Biden be carrying Clinton's water?..." (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/).

What is important to Big Media in this debate? Strategy. Politics. Hillary vs Obama. Who's supporting who?

Now, for all the rest of us working folks, and the fifteen thousand union members who showed up to this debate, this is what this debate will be remembered for: a retired steelworker with a camcorder, plaintively asking a blank screen, "Why?" Why was my pension cut? Why can't I pay for my wife's health insurance?

His age-scarred voice near to the breaking point, he simply asked, "What will you do about it?"

Edwards' answer was spot-on. Make CEO pensions tied to your own. Provide universal healthcare so you're not punished for the sins of your employer.

This is why folks stood outside, with rain threatening a desolate stadium on a muggy Chicago night. They're not there because they care about the personality politics of the Democratic party.

They care about health care. Their pensions. Their futures.

Any network that can't grasp that one has failed in understanding what their viewers want from their government, and in turn, what they want for themselves.