[US2008] Primaries #19 - To the streets of Philadelphia

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Topstrateeg Clinton treedt af

Gepubliceerd: 7 april 2008 13:28 | Gewijzigd: 7 april 2008 13:28
AP

Albuquerque, 7 april. De topstrateeg van de Democratische presidentskandidaat Hillary Clinton is gisteren afgetreden. Mark Penn werkte sinds 1996 voor de Clintons, toen hij president Bill Clinton op basis van opiniepeilingen van advies begon te voorzien. Als reden voor Penns terugtreden noemde campagneleidster Maggie Williams de ophef die is ontstaan over zijn lobbywerk voor anderen, maar zijn vele botsingen met andere campagnemedewerkers worden algemeen als dieperliggende oorzaak gezien.

Vorige week kwam Penn in opspraak toen bekend werd dat hij als topman van pr-bedrijf Burson-Marsteller een opdracht van de Colombiaanse regering binnenhaalde om te pleiten voor een vrijhandelsverdrag met de Verenigde Staten – iets waar Clinton in haar campagne juist tegen is. Zowel Clinton als haar rivaal Obama is kritisch over zulke verdragen, omdat ze tot banenverlies in de VS zouden leiden. Pennsylvania, waar over twee weken de eerstvolgende voorverkiezingen zijn, is een van de staten waar veel banen zijn verdwenen.

Vrijdag bood Penn al z’n excuses aan voor zijn werk voor Colombia; gisteren was hij niet beschikbaar voor commentaar. Volgens Clintons team besloot Penn zelf terug te treden, andere campagnemedewerkers zeiden anoniem dat hij ontslagen is door een woedende Clinton.

Penn stond al langer onder druk wegens zijn lobbywerk. Burson-Marsteller is vertegenwoordiger van onder meer het particuliere beveiligingsbedrijf Blackwater, dat onderwerp is van FBI-onderzoek wegens het doodschieten van burgers in Irak. Een andere klant is Countrywide Financial, dat de subprime-hypotheken verkocht die nu ten grondslag liggen aan de huidige kredietcrisis.

Penn zal wel opiniepeilingen voor Clinton blijven houden.

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Op maandag 7 april 2008 20:29 schreef Evil_Jur het volgende:
Clinton calls on Bush to boycott Olympics _(CNN)

Stevige uitspraak van Hillary, maar ik betwijfel of ze net zo'n harde toon zal zetten als ze zelf in het Witte Huis terecht zou komen.

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Op maandag 7 april 2008 20:29 schreef Evil_Jur het volgende:
Clinton calls on Bush to boycott Olympics _(CNN)

Stevige uitspraak van Hillary, maar ik betwijfel of ze net zo'n harde toon zal zetten als ze zelf in het Witte Huis terecht zou komen.

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Op dinsdag 8 april 2008 01:59 schreef Da_Ripper het volgende:

[..]

alsof Bush dat zo erg zou vinden.

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Op donderdag 10 april 2008 13:24 schreef Apache4U het volgende:
Goh, zag net op de drudgereport iets interessants..de kijkcijfers van news shows in Amerika.
Ik schrok er nog al van, en snap opeens ook waarom bijvoorbeeld Bush herkozen is:

CABLE NEWS RACE TUES, APRIL 8, 2008
VIEWERS

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 2,676,000
FNC HANNITY/COLMES 2,084,000
FNC SHEP 1,577,000
FNC GRETA 1,418,000
FNC HUME 1,376,000
CNN KING 1,136,000
CNN DOBBS 1,000,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 994,000
CNN COOPER 849,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 756,000
MSNBC ABRAMS 735,000
CNN BLITZER 719,000

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Op donderdag 10 april 2008 14:16 schreef Sloggi het volgende:

[..]

1. Oké.
2. In Nederland zijn er ook heeeel veel nieuwsprogramma's.
3. Goedemiddag .

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Op zaterdag 12 april 2008 05:26 schreef Perico het volgende:
... en Clinton niet

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Op zaterdag 12 april 2008 05:26 schreef Perico het volgende:
Hij maakt geen nieuwe vrienden in Pennsylvania nou hij zegt dat de katholieken waar hij maar geen vat op kan krijgen (30% van de staat) "bitter zijn en vasthouden aan hun geweren", omdat ze niet op hem en masse willen stemmen.

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OBAMA: So, it depends on where you are, but I think it's fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre...I think they're misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class don't wanna work -- don't wanna vote for the black guy.' That's...there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it's sort of a race thing.


Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).

(...)

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

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Okay, this McCain-Soros story just keeps on giving.

McCain sent out a fundraising letter yesterday attacking a planned third-party Dem effort because it's being funded by George Soros, a reliable villain for many on the right. But as I reported below, a group that McCain co-chaired also was perfectly happy to benefit from Soros' generosity.

(...)

So by my count, Soros has contributed a total of $450,000 either to a group co-chaired by McCain or to defending McCain's pet legislation.

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The McGovernization of Obama [Victor Davis Hanson]

I still believe that by August, Obama, the half-term rookie Senator, will have become the second George McGovern. Cf. his latest declaration to the Marin County faithful (coming on the heels of the crazy anti-Semitic rant of Rev. Eric Lee, a prominent LA Obama supporter):

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Let us count the ways that this is a disastrous declaration:

1. “Nothing’s replaced them”? As someone who lives in a small rural town that saw a lot of closed plants and farm depression in the 1980s, a lot has “replaced them”—explaining why for much of the last decade the national unemployment rate has been below 5%.

2. “They”. This evokes Michelle’s similar “they” (as in the “they” who raised the proverbial bar on the Obamas), and likewise suggests both hostility and a certain us/they contempt for a slice of America that the Obamas apparently know very little about—but for the first time in their lives are rapidly discovering.

3. “They cling to guns or religion”. This is revealing for two reasons: one, Obama has been trying to finesse his position on guns to appeal precisely to gun owners and thus we start to see that his repositioning is cynical to the core; two, “cling to religion?” No rural Pennsylvanian clings to religion more than Obama himself, who for 20 years sat silent in the pews, while a hate-spewing minister damned his country and most everyone else. The question is not why Pennsylvanians “cling to their religion”, but why do the Obamas still cling to the Trinity Church that seems far more extreme than anything I’ve seen in rural America.

4. “antipathy to people who aren't like them”—as in the case of Rev. Wright’s views of Jews, whites, Italians, or Americans in general? In short, Obama accuses rural Pennsylvanians of a racism that they haven’t expressed while contextualizing the racism that his own Rev. Wright has.

5. “Anti-immigrant sentiment”? As in wishing that drivers’ licenses are not issued to those here illegally, or that we insist that those who immigrate to the U.S. do so legally?

6. The worst hypocrisy, of course, is Obama’s charge that these small towns in Pennsylvania express “anti-trade sentiment.” It was not George Bush or John McCain, but Barack Obama himself who tried to salvage Ohio by demagoguing NAFTA and opposing a free-trade agreement with Columbia. His entire campaign is predicated on showing more anti-trade sentiment that the Clintons.

7. Let me get this straight: Obama goes to the Bay Area to an affluent liberal enclave to give a condescending take on the supposed poor fools that he is currently trying to court. This is not just hypocritical, but abjectly stupid. All of Pennsylvania surely is asking today what is so hip and sophisticated about the Trinity Church and Rev. Wright?

So here we have the essential Obama, a walking paradox between the postmodern hip-Ivy-Leaguer who sneers at middle-class America’s supposed prejudices and parochialism, while at the same time courting an anti-Enlightenment, prejudicial demagogue like Jeremiah Wright. For free trade or anti-free trade? For 2nd-amendment rights or not? Post-religious or pious and fundamentalist? For public campaign financing or not? A uniter of various groups or someone who sees America in terms of “they”? Straight-talking or someone who evokes "context" to explain away the inexplicable?

Again, we will see more and more of these condescending statements of the Michelle Obama strain, more and more of Revs. Wright, Meeks, Lee and others peddlers of division like them, and more and more clues to a long hostility to Israel—in what will eventually become the most disastrous chapter in recent Democratic history.

And pundits keep wondering why Hillary won't give up?

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Op zaterdag 12 april 2008 23:19 schreef PJORourke het volgende:
Obama blundert, onderweg naar de afgang:
[..]

Wat is die vent toch een pisvlek.

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Op zaterdag 12 april 2008 23:59 schreef Lyrebird het volgende:
Je begint je echt af te vragen waar de Democraten deze minkukels (Obama, Clinton) vandaan halen. Nou is McCain natuurlijk een top loser, maar tegen Hillary of Barry geef ik hem echt wel een kans.

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Op zaterdag 12 april 2008 23:59 schreef Lyrebird het volgende:

[..]

Je begint je echt af te vragen waar de Democraten deze minkukels (Obama, Clinton) vandaan halen. Nou is McCain natuurlijk een top loser, maar tegen Hillary of Barry geef ik hem echt wel een kans.

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Op zondag 13 april 2008 00:14 schreef popolon het volgende:
Bush 3 zit echt niemand op te wachten toch? Of ben ik nou zo raar?

McCain is een oude lul, een clown met z'n warmonger ideeen. Totaal ongeschikt als president. Dan nog liever Chelsea Clinton of de hond van de overburen dan deze verlopen ouwe graftak.

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Op zondag 13 april 2008 00:16 schreef PJORourke het volgende:

[..]

Hij is toch wel wat anders dan Bush 3. En de "fuq Iraq, let's surrender"-taktiek overtuigt mij nou ook niet bepaald.

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Op zondag 13 april 2008 00:19 schreef popolon het volgende:
Mijn belastinggeld gaat naar die bodemloze put, die van jouw niet.

Ik heb liever dat ze het in de VS zelf besteden, er is genoeg mis in dit land.

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Op zondag 13 april 2008 00:24 schreef wart het volgende:
12 reasons 'bitter' is bad for Obama

Nog tien dagen voor de primary in PA en Obama verspreekt zich op zo'n pijnlijke manier... De 'rural voters' weet-ie zo natuurlijk nooit voor zich te winnen.

Misschien moet Obama nog maar eens een speech geven over 'klassenverhoudingen'.

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Op zondag 13 april 2008 00:24 schreef PJORourke het volgende:

[..]

Ik wed dat je hoe dan ook minder betaalt dan ik... ruilen?

Bovendien is het helaas allemaal op de pof.

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Op zondag 13 april 2008 00:26 schreef popolon het volgende:
Als je in een rijtjeshuis zit dan pas ik.

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Op zondag 13 april 2008 00:24 schreef wart het volgende:
12 reasons 'bitter' is bad for Obama

Nog tien dagen voor de primary in PA en Obama verspreekt zich op zo'n pijnlijke manier... De 'rural voters' weet-ie zo natuurlijk nooit voor zich te winnen.

Misschien moet Obama nog maar eens een speech geven over 'klassenverhoudingen'.

quote:

OBAMA: So, it depends on where you are, but I think it's fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre...I think they're misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class don't wanna work -- don't wanna vote for the black guy.' That's...there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it's sort of a race thing.


Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).

But -- so the questions you're most likely to get about me, 'Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What's the concrete thing?' What they wanna hear is -- so, we'll give you talking points about what we're proposing -- close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama's gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we're gonna provide health care for every American. So we'll go down a series of talking points.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you'll find is, is that people of every background -- there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you'll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I'd be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you're doing what you're doing.

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Op zondag 13 april 2008 00:57 schreef PJORourke het volgende:
Het gaat er niet om of het waar is

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het is gewoon oliedom om de kiezers waarvan je het moet hebben te beledigen. En dat deed Obama.