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Here’s the link for lobbyist endorsements of presidential candidates.
Lobbyists, in Hillary’s own words… (the YearlyKos clip)
Last month, when asked by an Iowan to explain her vote to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group, Hillary Clinton lost her temper and insinuated that Randall Rolph was a plant from an opposing campaign, saying the question was something “somebody obviously sent you.” In truth, the above link would suggest that Rolph is a concerned voter who has made a point of asking honest but challenging questions of every Demcratic candidate he’s able to see.
Now, apparently unwilling to deal with the uncertainty that arises from an open dialogue with voters, the Clinton campaign has admitted planting a question at a recent Iowa campaign stop. Hillary’s handlers acknowledge they asked a college student to pose a specific question about global warming, and John Edwards compared the practice to George W. Bush’s carefully scripted rallies. It seems, then, that Hillary is rather particular about her plants - preferring a carefully manicured garden of scripted questions over the wilderness of unpredictable inquiries that come from everyday Americans.
And yes, it looks like Hillary Clinton’s flip flops come in green too: After Hillary released an energy plan strikingly similar to plans previously unveiled by Edwards and Obama, but bore less resemblance to her own previous positions on biofuels,Obama criticized her for flip-flopping on energy policy. “If she’s willing to shift this quickly on this issue, we don’t know whether she will shift back when it gets hard.”
Since Hillary has invited voters to view her candidacy as a chance to return to the nostalgic 90’s, it’s a bit surprising that her campaign wants to bring up global warming… In spite of having Mr. Inconvenient Truth himself as VP, the Clinton administration made essentially no progress in combatting global warming - and at a time when scientific consensus on the issue had been reached and carbon reductions would have been particularly useful in slowing the threat.
Video: College student explains how Clinton staffers convinced her to ask a question from an approved list.
A few weeks ago, an adviser to John Edwards pointed out a peculiar lunch date that Hillary Clinton had set up. Actually, Hillary’s role was more that of cupid - bringing together security industry lobbyists with some of the congresspeople who sit on the relevant appropriations committees. For the bargain rate of $1000 per Hillary donor or $25000 per bundler, these lobbyists got to sit down with the very people who could steer multi-million dollar federal contracts to the corporations who employ them. For a Beltway politician like Hillary, it’s just business as usual. For the rest of us, it’s an especially sickening example of a corrupted electoral process. But this time the corruption isn’t Clinton’s alone - let’s not forget the members of Congress who peddled their influence to earn favors with Hillary: Henry Cuellar (TX), Jane Harman (CA), Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX), Jim Langevin (RI), Nita Lowey (NY), Kendrick Meek (FL), Jerry Nadler (NY), Dutch Ruppersberger (MD), Joe Sestak (PA), and Ellen Tauscher (CA).
Another issue worth pointing out is Hillary Clinton’s undisputed status as the “Queen of Pork” - from 2002 to 2006 she diverted over $2,200,000,000 of taxpayer money to specific projects, and she tacked on another $150,000,000 of pork in the latest war re-authorization bill. Unfortunately though, we don’t even know the details of Hillary’s earmarks - she has refused to let the public know who she directed this money to. We do know that Hillary Clinton has sent weapons companies millions of dollars for arms the Pentagon didn’t ask for, and so maybe it’s not too surprising that Hillary Clinton has raised more campaign money from arms industry employees than any other presidential candidate (Democrat or Republican). Some of Clinton’s colleagues in Congress have been trying to curb this secretive and wasteful spending (including Barack Obama), but Hillary Clinton has voted against earmark reform, and she seems dead set against anyone finding out how she has (ab)used this practice.
Speaking of Hillary Clinton’s shady connections to the defense industry, it recently came out that her chief strategist/pollster’s PR company recently helped Blackwater prepare for its Congressional hearing (where the CEO predictably denied the increasingly well-supported claims that his mercenaries carried out unprovoked killings of Iraqi civilians). Whether anyone can clean up Blackwater’s blood-soaked image is debatable, but Mark Penn (who Edwards calls Hillary’s Karl Rove) and his company are not afraid of tough cases - they’ve helped put a fresh face on tarnished tobacco companies, and helped coach other corporations on how to stop employees from unionizing.
Video: Former U.S. Rep. David Bonior (D) talks about the Clinton fundraiser on MSNBC’s Hardball
As a public service, I’m doing my best to keep the American voter updated on Hillary Clinton’s ever-changing foreign policy views. The latest word is that Hillary has now abandoned the position she took while condemning Barack Obama’s willingness to negotiate with Iran, and returned to the position she held while criticizing George W. Bush for failing to negotiate with Iran. Naive and irresponsible to talk with Tehran? That is SO two-and-a-half-months-ago… now it’s apparently time for a fall-back to Hillary’s springtime conviction that diplomacy is the way to go.
…Except it’s worth noting that Hillary had just finished undermining her commitment to diplomacy by voting for a very hawkish resolution by former Democrat Joe Lieberman and far-right Republican Jon Kyl threatening Iran. This amendment, which Senator James Webb called “Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream” and could be viewed as a green light for military strikes against Iran (if not “war”), expressed the “sense of the Senate” (or lack thereof) that Iran’s army should be declared a terrorist group. Apparently, the Senate’s Republicans (and some Democrats, including Hillary Clinton) have been so persuaded by the president’s excuse that the sorry state of the Iraq War is all Iran’s fault that they now see themselves as better able to identify terrorist groups than the State Department. But surely our “war-on-terror” president wouldn’t use this vote as an excuse to attack the forces labeled as terrorists?
Here is a politician who rarely makes a clear statement except to contradict herself. Combine this hopscotch on Iran with the fact that Hillary has never apologized for her Iraq vote, and has never promised to withdraw from Iraq within her first term if elected, and Democratic primary voters may start to notice just how much wiggle-room she has left herself to change positions again for the general election. At this point, however, the Clinton strategy has already shifted into “say nothing mode”. As one columnist noted after the debate at Dartmouth College: “This is an excellent example of how to string together the maximum number of weasel words in one sentence. It was also pretty typical of Hillary’s entire evening.”
Please check this site frequently, as Hillary’s position may change again at any moment.
Democratic strategists are cringing and conservatives are salivating at the thought of 2008 U.S. House elections if Hillary Clinton leads the Democrat ticket. A poll conducted by the Democratic Party and leaked to the media shows Hillary Clinton trailing Rudolph Giuliani by 10% in a general election matchup in key swing districts, while Barack Obama is effectively tied with Giuliani among the same voters. Aside from the dire concerns about Hillary Clinton’s own electability, the Democratic Party has good reason to be concerned about its presidential candidates’ popularity in “swing districts” and not just “swing states”…
Fresh off their convincing victory in the Congressional elections of 2006, Democrats are anxious to defend their majorities in the House and Senate. Democrats hold only the narrowest lead in the Senate, but here things look good for the blue team in 2008 - Republicans are stuck defending a larger number of seats, and these include some vulnerable incumbents. In the House, the Democrats’ 31 seat advantage might seem to offer breathing room, but here the Democrats must defend some fragile 2006 gains in Republican-leaning districts, and here is where the “down ticket effect” comes into play. It’s fairly obvious that each party’s presidential nominee can influence the fortunes of their Congressional, state, and local candidates - not only do they represent their party in a very public way, they also have a strong effect in determining who shows up to vote. A Democratic candidate who energizes the party’s base (as Obama or Edwards might) can mean extra votes down the ticket for other races, while a nominee who is strongly disliked by Republicans (like Hillary Clinton) will guarantee a sky-high Republican turnout even in the absence of a strong GOP candidate.
By now it should be clear that Hillary Clinton could lose more than just the White House for Democrats. One Democratic lawmaker from Indiana predicts that a Hillary Clinton candidacy would drag other Democrat candidates down by 3 or 4%. So you can see why the conservative “National Review” is eagerly awaiting this “Hillary drag” effect, and eying the list (prepared by a red state Democratic strategist) of 37 Democratic House seats that could be lost if Hillary is nominated. Republicans would need to take just 16 of these seats, while defending their own incumbents, to seize control of the House. Maybe this explains why Republican and FOX News owner Rupert Murdoch has been hosting fundraisers for Hillary Clinton, and why George W. Bush and Karl Rove have both publicly endorsed the media perception that Hillary already has the Democratic primary all wrapped up with a cute little bow on top.
In an interesting article, Jeff Cohen touches on the perils of a second Clinton White House, and cites the strong opposition of the “netroots” to Hillary Clinton’s candidacy - but raises the question of whether they can thwart Hillary’s media coronation in the Democratic primary. He also notes the lack of a unifying candidate for these hyper-informed bloggers to rally around - they united behind Howard Dean in 2004, but this time around their support is split cleanly in half between John Edwards and Barack Obama.
Blogger David Swanson supports Dennis Kucinich, but citing Cohen’s analysis, he calls on Obama and Edwards to join forces for the sake of defeating Hillary and preventing a Republican romp in the 2008 presidential race.
This web site is not here to endorse Edwards or Obama, or to call on either of them to withdraw and support the other. But as pointed out in a previous post, Obama and Edwards agree on the key issue of minimizing the corrosive influence of special interest money in Washington, while Hillary blithely accepts money from corporate PAC’s and Washington lobbyists. There may be advantages to having two strong anti-establishment candidates at this point in the race, but eventually all Democratic primary voters who want to break the Bush-Clinton dynasty will have to unite behind a single candidate. Until it’s clear who that candidate should be, I encourage backers of both Edwards and Obama to educate their fellow supporters in each camp on the fatal flaws of the Clinton 2008 campaign (such as her frequent position-switching, suspicious campaign funding, and unelectability - as described in previous posts here). Some may find it difficult to criticize even a bad Democratic candidate, but if we shy away from speaking against Hillary now, we may find the only question left to be answered in 2008 is whether the presidential election will bring a loss or a hollow victory.
Are Cohen’s fears of the netroots being a “paper tiger” justified? Even if progressive bloggers aren’t a representative sample of the Democratic Party, they may represent its leading edge. And our success in the race to stop Hillary Clinton will likely hinge on how fast information can spread through the American electorate. So please forward this web site to anyone you know who might need help deciding who to vote for in the Democratic primary (that means registered Democrats AND Independents in many states).
The media are continuing their relentless drum beat of national opinion polls, most showing Hillary Clinton with a solid lead over her nearest opponent. Surely, then, the coronation of Hillary as the Democratic Party’s nominee is all but complete, and anyone who supports another candidate might as well throw in the towel months before the first primary - right?
Well, maybe not. First, there are reasons to cast a skeptical eye toward at least some of these polls. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Rupert Murdoch organized a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, and I’ve noticed that his FOX News polls sometimes give Hillary a considerably larger lead than other polls. You might think CNN is a safer bet, but CNN has contracted their polling to infoUSA’s Opinion Research. infoUSA is run by Vinod Gupta, an ardent Clinton supporter who infuriated his own shareholders by giving Bill Clinton millions of dollars of infoUSA’s money in the form of trips to Acapulco and generous “consulting fees”. infoUSA is also the subject of a federal investigation for helping con-artists target vulnerable senior citizens. Trusting a CNN/InfoUSA poll to tell you about Hillary Clinton’s popularity seems a lot like trusting a (Republican-activist-run) Diebold voting machine to tell you whether George W. Bush just won a close election.
Bill Clinton and Vinod Gupta
Now, I’m not willing to say that all of the national polls are biased - the overall picture they paint might be roughly accurate. But the bigger question to me is whether these national polls are even remotely relevant to predicting the outcome of the nomination. Right now all of the candidates are focusing intensely on a few early voting states - namely Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. And in these states the race is very tight. A recent poll in all-important Iowa suggests a three-way tie for the lead. And recent polls have suggested a tie between Obama and Clinton in New Hampshire, and a come-from-behind lead for Obama in South Carolina.
Thus, the situation in the only states where the candidates have truly presented themselves to the voters contrasts sharply with the media’s depiction of Hillary Clinton as the dominant frontrunner. Surely, many in the media must realize that national polls are mainly just registering prior name recognition, and yet they keep slapping us with the same red herring.
Video clip: Zennie Abraham says USA Today’s Gallup polling guy wanted a “do-over” after Obama tied Clinton in their national poll.
And no, in spite of the cartoon, I’m still not even referring to her metamorphosis on the Iraq war. Less than two weeks ago I wrote about Hillary Clinton’s odd double standard on foreign policy: first George W. Bush was wrong for not meeting with the leaders of Iran, then Barack Obama was “irresponsible” and “naive” for siding with her previous position. Now she’s done it again - taking both sides in order to criticize Bush and Obama for their opposing positions.
This time the issue is nuclear weapons - Barack Obama had recently said he would not use nuclear weapons against targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Clinton immediately criticized him, saying “I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons.” But as it turns out, Hillary had been happy to issue her own ‘blanket statements’ ruling out nukes when she criticized the Bush administration’s posturing against Iran.
According to the Washington Post article: “Her campaign spokesman, Phil Singer, said the circumstances for her remarks last year were different than the situation Obama faced.” Now, I realize that if she can’t remember what she said a month ago, it’s probably quite unfair to expect Hillary to have any consistency from one year to the next, but then again, some of us are looking for a candidate whose core principles don’t change with the political circumstances.
In yet another apparent reversal (is Hillary Clinton officially the Imelda Marcos of foreign policy flip-flops yet?), this video clip (by the same author as the previous two used here) juxtaposes Hillary’s recent criticism of Obama’s willingness to strike at terrorist havens in Pakistan, with her own previous comments that “If we had actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden or other high value targets were in Pakistan, I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured.”
Gotta love that line: “You shouldn’t always say everything you think when you’re running for president”. Normally Hillary seems to follow her own advice on that quite religiously, but maybe she should have kept that mantra in mind when the topic turned to lobbyists (see previous post below).
Something special happened this weekend at the YearlyKos bloggers convention, something that chipped into the rotten core of the Clinton 2008 campaign. The magic moment came when Hillary Clinton was questioned about her practice of accepting campaign money from Washington DC lobbyists, and she not only defended the indefensible, she did it in a such a bizarre, clumsy, and offensive manner that the issue is bound to haunt her campaign from this point on.
When first confronted with a question about her controversial fundraising habits, she came out with this memorable quote: “I don’t think anybody seriously believes I’m going to be influenced by a lobbyist.”
At this point the audience promptly booed her, and loudly. And rightly. Does Hillary Clinton seriously believe that after decades as a Washington insider, not one American suspects that the lobbyists donating money to her campaign have her ear on policy issues? And does she expect every one of us to believe that corporate lobbyists are lining up to support her just because they think she’s a real swell candidate and they’re passionately concerned about the future of our country? Maybe that *is* what she expects us to believe, since she went on to give a bewildering defense of lobbyists and their influence in the halls of power, when asked (for a second time) whether she would continue to take money from lobbyists:
So there we have it, the world according to Hillary, a world where lobbyists are salt-of-the-Earth folk who stand up for ordinary Americans. Some of her Democratic rivals, however, don’t seem to share her “everything is wonderful here in Washington” worldview. You can watch some of the candidates’ responses in the video clip below:
Even before Hillary Clinton suddenly became too “experienced” to consider diplomacy with Iran (see previous post below), I’ve been noticing some strong parallels between Bush II and our would-be Clinton II. Dynastic succession aside, the strongest similarities I see between Hillary and ‘W’ are their abilities to divide and polarize the American electorate, and their unwillingness to admit mistakes.
As for the first point (polarization): While disingenuously claiming to seek national unity, Bush has stubbornly projected his own narrow ideology, infuriating the left (and later alienating the center) while threatening to turn America into parallel red and blue republics. Hillary Clinton already has half the country against her (see first post below), and while she may not be adored by liberals, the firestorm she would spark among conservatives would mirror America’s deep divide under Bush.
A related point is the dogged partisanship shown by both politicians. Republican unity has so far been a given under Bush, as has the lack of any real compromise with Democrats. On Hillary’s end, to paraphrase a quote from her that I remember reading during her husband’s administration (around the time of the White House travel office scandal) “I think what’s good for the Democratic Party is what’s good for America.” Now I’m not here to debate the virtues of the Democratic Party, but a candidate who is willing to equate partisanship with serving the nation may fail to earn much support outside her own party, and the polls support that concern for Hillary.
The second Bush-Hillary connection, stubborn failure to admit mistakes, has been especially obvious for both of them on the issue of Iraq. Of course, Bush wanted this war from the start of his presidency, and no matter how many times he has to reinvent the motive for the invasion, we all know he’s not going to admit any error in his decision to make war or his handling of the occupation: there was “bad intelligence” before the war, and now it’s all Iran’s fault that we can’t stabilize Iraq. Hillary Clinton voted for the war, and even though she’s been forced to reverse herself and criticize the decision to attack, she still refuses to admit that she made any mistake in her vote: instead she was misled by the Bush administration (and apparently by the intelligence documents which she allegedly did not even read).
My hope is that Democrats will choose a candidate capable of re-uniting America (and not just re-uniting the Republican Party in opposition), and a candidate who has the integrity and maturity to admit when he or she has made a mistake. Eight years of arrogant stubbornness and polarization is more than enough.
And no, I’m not even talking about her about-face on Iraq…
This week, when Hillary Clinton lashed out at Barack Obama’s willingness to pursue diplomacy with foreign leaders as “irresponsible” and “naive”, she not only echoed George W. Bush’s stubbornly undiplomatic policies, she also contradicted her own recent remarks. As it turns out, just a few months ago Hillary Clinton was raging against Bush’s unwillingness to meet with the leaders of nations like Iran. I could go on, but Clinton’s own words do the best job of highlighting her hypocrisy, so check out the above link, or watch the video clip below.
As a “swing state” Independent voter who does not want to see any of George W. Bush’s failed policies dragging on past 2008, I feel compelled to offer Democrats my two cents on the next presidential election. And I hope that Democrats will listen, not just to me, but to Independent voters in general, because the votes of Independents will ultimately decide which party’s nominee will become the next President. My point here is simple: Hillary Clinton does not represent the change that Independent voters are looking for, and we will not make her the next president. This is not simply my own perspective - polls have shown that, although voters would prefer a Democratic president in 2008, Hillary Clinton does very poorly in head-to-head matchups against all of the major Republican contenders. For example, a recent Zogby poll indicated that Hillary Clinton would lose against Giuliani or McCain, while Barack Obama would defeat any potential Republican candidate. And when Independents choose among Democratic primary candidates, Obama leads Clinton 31% to 22%. The message from the American electorate is quite clear: if Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton, Republicans win in 2008 and the White House is GOP-occupied territory until 2013.
Even if Democrats insist on ignoring polls like these, there are other practical reasons why nominating Hillary Clinton would be a strategic disaster. One concern is that she has already alienated far more voters than the other Democratic contenders. Polls have shown, for example, that 52% of American voters say they would definitely vote against Hillary Clinton. A more serious concern yet: no other Democrat’s candidacy has as much potential to re-unify the GOP and mobilize the conservative base in opposition. For that reason, the head-to-head polls may even underestimate the difficulty that a Hillary Clinton ticket would face in 2008.
Hillary Clinton has long been despised by Republicans, but more recently she has lost the support of most liberals (by voting to authorize the Iraq War and the Patriot Act, for example), and the polls above suggest she isn’t very popular with Independents either. The only group that seems to like her are Democrats who don’t belong to the passionately anti-war bloc. This support may make her a serious competitor for the Democratic nomination, but when it comes to the general election, Hillary Clinton’s narrow support base renders her unelectable.
Aside from the pragmatic arguments, there are deeper issues that make me doubt that Hillary Clinton is the best candidate for her party or for the country. I realize she often does a good job of talking the “party line”, but when the money is on the line, will she stand up for everyday Americans or will she shift with the winds of political expedience? I think one good predictor of Hillary Clinton’s loyalties as president can be found in her fundraising - to whom would she owe her election?
Revealingly, Hillary Clinton relies on relatively fewer but larger political contributions than her Democratic adversaries. She has taken more of her money from $2300+ donors than any other candidate from either party, and her percentage of money from small donors (<$200) is lower than Obama, Edwards, or Richardson. Still more disturbingly, unlike Obama and Edwards, she freely accepts money from corporate PAC’s and lobbyists. Clearly these donors must believe that Hillary Clinton will support their interests if elected. And while Hillary Clinton did try to reform the health care system 15 years ago, the fact that she has now become the largest recipient of health industry dollars in the senate makes me wonder if she would act with much boldness on that issue as president. But perhaps the most worrying source of Hillary Clinton’s recent fundraising is none other than the owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, who hosted a fundraiser for her last summer. I can understand it from Murdoch’s point of view: of course he’d prefer to have a Republican win in 2008, but that looks difficult, so it makes sense to also support the Democrat who is least threatening to his ideology and interests.
Of course, Hillary Clinton’s ties to conservative corporate elements don’t end there. She served on the board of directors of WalMart from 1986 to 1992, a time when that company was expanding, along with its union-busting policies and dismal wages without health care. And it’s said that Hillary Clinton “was a part of those decisions”. The campaign staff she has surrounded herself with are even more entwined in the interests of big business. Her top pollster, who has worked on Enron-style energy deregulation, continues to work for a very un-progressive PR firm which has helped tobacco companies fight new regulation and coached companies on how to resist unionization efforts. Can Independents be blamed if they view Hillary Clinton as a continuation of the same dysfunctional and special interest controlled government that we have endured for much longer than just the last seven years?
If the picture I paint above seems to contrast with the public image Hillary Clinton has tried to cultivate, that’s a big part of the problem. Who is the real Hillary Clinton? Character and trust go a long way toward winning the votes of many Independents, and I think this is where many people are uncertain about Hillary Clinton. From her I hear carefully rehearsed and crafted soundbites, lacking in both substance and sincerity. I would like to see a woman president in the near future, but I think American women deserve a better first president than Hillary Clinton. Even though I don’t like any of the likely Republican candidates, I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton either, and the numbers suggest I’m not the only one who finds her lacking in authenticity. Hillary Clinton is unelectable as a presidential candidate, and probably for good reason. I hope that Democrats will think very carefully about the merit and the consequences of nominating her in 2008 before they make their decision.
