Yes!
If we get rid of the media enablers, we can start to focus on the media.
It scares me that she herself doesn't see the disconnect, that as good a person as she is trying to be in her life (and I do actually believe she has tried to make good changes happen for others in her life), Sen. Clinton can't get off the consultant train...
but I hope this is a continuum, and that Gov. Dean's campaign was a first chance, and that this process is accelerating...
I have to disagree. It is not all consultants, it is her consultants. Paying some schmuck a million bucks a month who is not giving you a return on that investment is the problem, not that professional communicators are working on the campaigns. And having worked with politicians, they are some of the least knowledgeable communicators you will ever meet... they think people are wonks and read every word in an ad. A politician thinks the more you cram into an ad the better.
These consultants aren't advertising experts they are politician handling experts. They are not professional marketers and probably should be. Triangulation is not a communications move, it is political consultants pap mixed into the communications work.
Unfortunately a national campaign is a mass media event. Some one needs to make serious decisions about media buys and what message works best where.
AMEN
I find Hillary likeable enough. Although my wife, a Latina and an Obama delegate in Texas, absolutely despises her.
Where she has always given me pause is with the people she surrounds herself with. And it isn't just Hillary, Bill had the same problem. I worked for a Federal environmental agency in DC and Alaska during the entire Clinton Admin and the first half of the Bush Admin and there were some seriously incompetent political appointees running things in both administrations in my little part of the world.
Penn is just a symptom of a wider problem I think. There are a huge number of aging Democratic operatives out there who just can't wait to get back into power. The first time around they were eager and full of idealism. Now it just seems cynical.
In any event, what has astonished me in this campaign is how clueless both campaigns have been when it comes to the debates. They keep going back to the same old idiots like Russert to "moderate" with his idiotic gotcha stuff.
Imagine for a minute a real Democratic debate set up by real Democrats, not media handlers. With real Democratic moderators asking probing questions on Democratic issues like health care, the environment, global warming, the war, education, etc.
I just know if we have more debates they'll trot Russert or Blitzer back out to make us cringe again.
Kent, that's one reason why I'm so grateful to have been at YearlyKos' candidates debates last year: I think that debate was better than the ones I've seen on TV, because the candidates took the time to answer questions, and seemed to be really thinking about the answers...
Sorry. But between her and her husband I've been called a N*gger too many times to like her (and b4 someone complains I know not literally) so I'm more than happy to see her lose...consultants or not.
One of her principal problems is that she believes in these snake-oil peddlers the way Jesuits believe in the Holy Trinity.
Remember a guy by the name of Nikita Sergyeyevich Khrushchev? He is still seen by quite a few Russians and Ukrainians as a real reformer whose heart was in the right place. He was sure as hell better than his predecessor.
What wrecked him was his inability to smell bullshit when it was being shoveled his way. Yeah, the Cuban Missile Crisis didn't help. But the USSR followed the same basic rule all nations do: If you fuck up domestically, where people have to look at it, you're 10 times the bum you would be if you only fucked up on other people's real estate.
For example, Khrushchev completely failed to understand that Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a malicious little fraud posing as a geneticist. It wasn't until Khrushchev himself got the boot that Lysenko's little fiefdom came apart. Read Lysenko's Wikipedia page. The effect of Khrushchev's ouster on Lysenko's career was immediate, ruinous, and irreversible.
The thing that wrecked Khrushchev was the "Virgin Lands Campaign". Look that one up on Google. He was listening to the snake oil peddlers again. Collectivization in the 1930s had already massively damaged Soviet agriculture. There was no more room for mistakes left for them. Their agriculture in 1955 was in the same sort of shape that the Spanish Army was just before Rocroi, or the Roman army was in just before Adrianople.
"One more fuckup and you're toast."
The implosion of the Virgin Lands Campaign forced the USSR to buy the grain it needed to feed its people grain from Canada.
I look at Hillary and sometimes, I see Nikita.
>>Imagine for a minute a real Democratic debate set up by real Democrats, not media handlers. With real Democratic moderators asking probing questions on Democratic issues like health care, the environment, global warming, the war, education, etc.>>>
I don't have to imagine it. i went to one. Yearly Kos, last year. 7 candidates answered the questions of the people. it was a sight to see.
One of her principal problems is that she believes in these snake-oil peddlers the way Jesuits believe in the Holy Trinity.
[Sigh]
I don't dislike Hillary either (and--as with her husband--many of the people who hate her are so scummy, their enmity is practically an endorsement)(1), but when she says she has experience, this is the sort of thing she means: Not that she's married to an ex-president or she used to live in the White House, but that she's been in the Beltway long enough that she's bought into this crap. She's like all those congress members and journalists who think of themselves as "Washington insiders" when they've only succeeded in turning themselves into courtiers.
(1) Not Mrs. Kent, obviously.
Hillary (DLC NY) hired these people and they work for her and this is HER intention in this campaign. My gawd. That $3M doesn't include the value fox/cnn shills which has far more value than $3M can buy.
This rev. wright stuff triggers her "defenders". Murdoch saw to that. Only it was starting to die down a little so then she trotted ferraro out there again yesterday.... only oops that little passport matter got her off the headline. Aw. So rather than have this be about Obama, we get the "I'm Spartacus" marginalization from who ever is behind this bit.
She's all over the map. Michigan is meaningless to Michigan is the true test of a candidates validity. Huh? Its just crazy what she's doing. And we'll see more crazy to fill the coffers too. She's just exhausing. They've debated enough already. Her "leadership" is showing every day.
She sure doesn't seem to manage money very well at all.
I gotta agree with everything you say, Hubris Sonic.
Senator Clinton was always my least favorite Democratic candidate. I always used to say that I didn't mind any of them except her. And now I will tell why.
The vote on Iraq defines her candidacy. I honestly believe that she is an intelligent person. Which makes me believe that the AUMF vote on her part was entirely politically motivated. The price of her being a viable presidential candidate in her eyes six years later was only 1 million dead people. And that is the mentality that needs to end.
The fact that she has never truly apologized just compacted this fact. She has the same weaknesses in leadership that Bush has shown us- a deafness to everyone outside their select group.
I can also honestly say that my support of Barack Obama has been trending inversely proportional to my opinion of Senator Clinton. We've had a longer time to observe Obama here in Illinois and I can honestly say that I wish he was much more out in front on the issues that matter to me(especially on the Iraq War). There are many issues in which I fundamentally disagree with him(his continuing promotion of private healthcare insurance primarily), but the man seems to have a brain in his head.
He seems to be almost the opposite of an impulsive hothead. He seems to be very secure of who he is. Hell, the only thing wrong about him seems to be that he is running for President(usually a characteristic of egomaniacs or sociopaths). I honestly can't say the same about Clinton or McCain and Bush is a psychoanalytical study all in himself.
I just hope Obama is the start of something different.
I would also add that Obama has been quietly supportive and very involved in arms control with Senator Lugar of Indiana. This is an issue that I take personal interest in and which has been summarily ignored and destroyed by the Bush administration.
John McCain doesn't seem to care much about it.
Word.
The biggest problem I have with her is also the people around her. Do people forget what Terry McAsshat did to the DNC and the state parties? Who wants to go back to that?
Not me. Obama is running a fifty state strategy and that is going to pay off big down the road.
Nicely said, HS. Based on their awful performance, it's mind-boggling that these expensive consultants are still around. Hillary isn't all that patient with junior staffers, and she must have included some basic performance expectations and metics in Penn and wolfson's multi-million dollar contracts. By even basic standards, both these clowns should have made their "spend more time with my family" announcements more than a month ago, and the funds applied to more useful and cost-effective ends.
So why are they still with the campaign after so many bad decisions? It's likely a reflection of Hillary's management style -- not a flattering one. Bad and arrogant managers tend to engage, and keep on, bad and arrogant consultants. In business, many supposed "sure things" -- like Hillary's nomination -- have been scuttled by both.
This meltdown should teach Democratic candidates a thing or two about hiring empty suits like Penn and Wolfson to play to other empty suits like Tweety and Lil Russ, in the hope that they'll somehow reach the nebulous lowest common denominator of voter. The Democrats ought to leave that tired top-down Beltway and TV rubbish to the GOP -- it's a better fit for them, anyhow.
On the other hand, judging by his 50-state ground game thus far, his Web site -- with its direct appeals to multiple liberal constituencies -- and the conspicuous public absence of expensive consultants, the Obama campaign seems to have learned the lesson well in advance of this test of a lifetime.
I've often heard you can get a good sense of a person by the company they keep. Looking at the company Hillary keeps, I'm not interested in having her running my country, thank you very much.
Yes, and yes, and yes!
There has to be consequences to running this kind of campaign. Consequences to moving so far to the right there ISN'T any goddamn difference anymore. Consequences to running what looks to me like not just a negative campaign, but a campaign that gets down in the dirt. I can understand smacking someone around on their vote or their opinions.
But, at the least, playing along with racism attacks on a Democratic candidate really tore it for me.
What wengler said.
The thing about the consultant culture is that is not, and never was, about winning. These guys don't give a shit if the candidate actually wins. They get paid based on how much money they spend. Can you think of any other industry in which profligacy by individuals, in which building overhead costs gets you REWARDED? It's pay for NON-performance.
That a Clinton victory means a return of Terry McAuliffe and the "Let's let the consultants run things, let's bring in candidates like Tammy Duckworth instead of proven progressives like Christine Cegelis, and let's only try to compete where we know we can win" mentality.
And we see how far that's gotten us.
The one PROBLEM with the "I won't vote if [fill in the blank] is the nominee is the downticket races. There are people like Eric Massa and Donna Edwards and such who won't have a chance if people don't show up at the polls.
But that said, we simply cannot return to letting the hacks run this party, because they've shown that they are perfectly OK with being a minority party and eating the scraps off the corporate/Republican groaning board.
The one PROBLEM with the "I won't vote if [fill in the blank] is the nominee is the downticket races. There are people like Eric Massa and Donna Edwards and such who won't have a chance if people don't show up at the polls.
I doubt this will be an issue. For people who feel that strongly, there are always safe and effective ways to "spoil" the upticket whilst voting for good people on the downticket.
I also doubt that Hillary's bid would survive such spoilage to the same degree that Obama's would.
Your main point is correct, though. Whether we like the Presidential nominee or not, we have to show up and support the downticket when real liberals are running.
speaking of consultants... this is a nice piece of work....
ick
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost...huffpost/
092892
James on the Richardson endorsement.
Jill:
Can you think of any other industry in which profligacy by individuals, in which building overhead costs gets you REWARDED?
Ooh, pick me, pick me...
I believe the DOD calls it "cost-plus contracting". When you can compare that to political consulting, what else do you need to say?
>>One of her principal problems is that she believes in these snake-oil peddlers the way Jesuits believe in the Holy Trinity.
totally OT but the Jesuits priest who was my mom's college prof told her point blank that the Bible was a myth.
Hmm.
I wonder *how* *much* of the Bible your mom's prof was talking about. I was raised Catholic, and I've always presumed that the Holy Trinity was pretty much an article of faith for Catholics. That's how I was taught.
I sort of assumed that'd go double for Jesuits. But then, if there was any outfit inside the church who promoted "thinking outside the box" with an above average amount of intellectual integrity, it'd probably be the Jesuits.
Maybe I could've come up with a better analogy there. *grin*
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