Clinton's Embarrassing Iowa Flop Exposes Key Democratic Leadership Myth

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/11927

Clinton's Embarrassing Iowa Flop Exposes Key Democratic Leadership Myth
Hillary Clinton
by Dave Lindorff | January 4, 2008


The real message of the Iowa caucus yesterday was that the long-operative Clintonian/Democratic Leadership Council assumption that the independent or unaffiliated voter bloc is composed of conservative-leaning, dim-witted and easily manipulated people has got it all wrong.

In fact, in Iowa, where unaffiliated voters are free to participate in either a Democratic or Republican caucus, 41 percent of those people voted not for the conservative, tough-talking "centrist" Hillary Clinton. They voted instead for the black, nominally anti-war candidate, Barack Obama. Another significant percentage of independents went for another progressive-sounding candidate, John Edwards. Clinton only got an embarrassing 17 percent of the unaffiliated vote.

The implications of this failure on her part are enormous when it comes to next November's general election.

snip//

The truth is that those independent voters who turned out for Obama and Edwards are simply not going to vote for Hillary Clinton in November '08. If it were to become a choice between Clinton and McCain, Clinton and Giuliani or Clinton and Huckabee, they will sit the election out--or even vote Republican. And she's not going to get the other independents either--the ones who really are conservative leaning. If they vote at all, they'll go Republican, offered the choice between Republican or Republican lite with a few liberal bells and whistles.

Fortunately, Iowa's Democratic and independent voters have made it clear to the rest of the country that voting for Hillary Clinton is to commit Democratic Party suicide. Her whole campaign has been based upon the notion that she is the most "electable" candidate in the Democratic field--a notion that now stands exposed as a pathetic farce.

If Democratic primary voters in the rest of the country are paying attention, they will quickly send her packing back to New York, where she can continue her role, with colleague Chuck Schumer, of Wall Street lickspittle.

The rest of the Democrats seeking office or seeking re-election next fall should take heed. There is a frustrated, angry and very large bloc of people out there--independent voters--who are looking for progressive candidates who will not just talk in buzzwords, but who will act to restore some semblance of Constitutional government in America, and who will end the damned war in Iraq. If they're lucky, those voters might giver them one more chance despite the wretched betrayal of November 2006.
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To any third party candidate that has a decent shot at even 3% of the vote might be a smarter way to go than to ignore that candidate.

No matter how you dice it,Populism won the Night.

Edwards has had a clear and consistent Populist Message.
The GOP has been Spastic and in convulsions because Huckabee
is populist.

Even Obama in the last couple of weeks sounded almost as populist as
Edwards

Who won --Obama Huckabee and Edwards came in 2ond beating HRC.

The Elites have driven the People to sound off. Populism wins

the people are tired of the champions of corporate interests who sell us out every day.

has more power over the process and nominee than I knew.

I for one am SO HAPPY to hear of fall of the DLC! I only hope they don't have some strangle-hold over the process that keeps them in power.

away in the Delegate Count. There was a thread on this. You may
quickly peruse earlier posts today.

The Democratic National Convention, where the Democratic presidential ticket is formally agreed upon, has 796 superdelegates. Superdelegates to the Democratic Convention include all Democratic members of the United States Congress, various additional elected officials, as well as members of the Democratic National Committee.

A candidate needs a simple majority of the combined delegate and superdelegate votes to secure the nomination. Democratic delegates from state caucuses and primaries number 3,253. This means that the total number of votes is 4,049. The total number of delegate votes needed to win the nomination is 2,025. Superdelegates account for approximately one fifth (19.7%) of all votes at the convention. Delegates chosen in the Democratic caucuses and primaries account for about four fifths (80.3%) of the Democratic convention delegates.<1>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdelegate

If you get 2025 delegates in the primary/caucus process, you are in regardless of what the superdelegates do.

through the Bushie Lie Machine and Cable TV Infoganda.

Filthy Little Nobodies don't rule ourselves, we drink six-packs and obey! Or at least that is what the Bushies and the "little Imperial family" Clintons have believed for so long.

I won't believe it until I see it, but maybe We the People can turn this thing around.

NEVER give up.

Riiiiiiight.

Like everyone else, I swim in this new toxic stew of Bushiganda and a calliope circus of an MSM. It is as much a part of my thinking as it is yours or anyone's. It is as much a part of our surroundings as the air we breathe. There is no escaping it fully, as it works on the subconscious level.

One can either be unaware of it, deny it exists, or try to mitigate it whenever possible.

Self-awareness. You should try it sometime.

My "spew" is calling it like I see it. I thought it up myself, after watching in unfolding horror for 25 years and praying I was wrong about what I saw.

We have been betrayed by both sides.

Not that I am advocating voting Third Party - with the Bushies we have no chance, and even with Sen. Clinton, who won't directly take on the crimes of the Bushies same as Pres. Clinton let them off the hook for Iran-Contra, Iraqgate, BCCI, and others "for the good of the country" :puke: , she will represent a brief respite from Bushie Totalitarian Vampirism, another slowing of the Fall, and that is paradise compared to now.

Hell, John Edwards could be blowing smoke up our asses, too, and could be the same and do the same as I strongly suspect Sens. Clinton or Obama will be as President. But at least he's talking like he wants to FIGHT for us against the status quo that is eviscerating the Middle Class and democracy itself, and that's a damn sight more that Sens. Clinton and Obama are talking.

Saaaaay, that's SOME propagandistic spew, questioning my own candidate evenhandedly along with the rest.

I'm a tricky one, eh?

:silly:

What a failure their strategies have been, for our country and party both.

Obama isn't that far left. If he's to the left of Hillary its not by much. Edwards is the candidate of the far left and he only got 30% of the vote. Edwards didn't draw in big numbers of independents either.

Ideology didn't show up much in entrance polls. Most of the people chose Obama because they wanted a change or liked Obama.

obama's appeal is not in the message, but in the delivery.

which is unfortunate because the major premises are correct enough. It gets even simpler to say that personality and inspiration are tilting to the better and more forceful speakers with Clinton further handicapped by the DLC policy caution that would hug sure things that are anything but when you generally turn off voter excitement in some very key areas(not all though). She is weighed down in the advantages packed in the baggage and cannot match the simple glamor(charisma?) contest anymore than the passionate visionary speech-making.

It is not that Iowa is really significant or momentous in every ideological judgment, it is that the vulnerability Hillary always had has been hit. The vulnerability that the nonsensical DLC philosophy has shown with multi-layered disastrous thinking is getting its proof again. Lesson: if your want to succeed as Republicans try the real GOP on for size. There you will find anything works that is allowed to work and none of their smart co-option works there by its star on the forehead merits. The mysterious Indies that get paired down to less than 2% of fog truly leave one in the roadkill zone blaming everyone in the majorities.

The left is where it has always been, but this time charismatic leaders are moving ahead they can fall behind, small thanks to the disunity and lack of capitalizing on the abdication of ALL national and people interest(including access to reality truth) by the power establishment. A real left would have purged the worst elements of its friendly DLC corporatists(among whom I don't believe Hillary is the worst by any means). Down to earth pols caught in the mess have shown the inability to get out from under the contradiction of running to the people as opposed to the favor of party and national "leadership".

We expect this to all "come together" under any single, charismatic candidate? If success blinds us to the fact that this grand opportunity is being approached as an awkward beginning we won't start to get the real jobs done, even now. The party is carrying the baggage of having to pretend to play in a massively corrupted electoral process overall. The people are also hindered. And business as usual in the wild and woolly primary system makes this a scary brew that excitement may make us want to forget.

Hillary had(has) a legitimate shot. In the judgment of many it was unsustainable, vulnerable, even if the GOP laid down and died and could not exploit it. It also surrendered much of the power of the Dem agenda if not the planks at a truly critical time in our history. The left has united around no one even yet and in one tiny puncture of the Clinton strategy survived with the votes split to have a couple of decent candidates at least, though the loss of other candidates so prematurely is appalling to the democratic principles of America.

Things have not changed but asserted themselves against elitist insanity. As far as the election goes, you will have people voting on personality, direct confrontation with Bush dangling his puppets almost totally unspoken, a huge array of aggressive fraud similarly not taken head on, a purposeful media warp that turns the nation deaf, dumb, and blind to anything crucially important, and money dominating all.
In this The Nation will be the continuing critic of even the purest progressives, denying the left any smart political role in advancing the agendas they believe in. (Re)Publications like "Human Events" will fall lockstep behind any loony stooge who will betray conservatism for a buck and slash and burn any Dem by any means imaginable.

Does it take a Depression just to give the initial slap in the face to this drunken nation? there is no guarantee that the happy results of an FDR could ever necessarily see the ghost of a chance. The people who would have overthrown FDR to join us hip and thigh to world fascism have control over raw power in this nation. And we think this typical party jockeying and routine flirtation with democracy is really that momentous to match the real world, its lights set on dim? Not yet. Not by a long shot.

they would rather lose than bite the hand that's going to make them a CEO, lobbyist, or major stockholder.