Coffee Talk
Feb 6th, 2008 at 9:34 pm by Susie
Talked to someone last night who’s a big player on the D.C. scene, someone whose opinion I trust and haven’t talked to for a while. He’s a progressive who does a lot of fundraising for the national party, and I asked him who he was backing.
“A week ago, it was Edwards. Now it’s Obama,” he said.
I asked him why. Well, he said, the Clinton machine was clearly engaged in voter suppression in California “and there’s no way I can support that.” (Ed. note - This is news to me, and I don’t know of anything to back it up.)
As to Obama, “Well, he’s probably going to have coattails, which allows us to bring along more congressional candidates, he’s really bringing out the youth vote. That’s not going to happen with Clinton,” he said.
But, he stressed, there’s “no way” there will be any significant change with Barack Obama. “Everyone knows he’ll be taking his marching orders from the Chicago machine,” he said. “He’s not going to rock the boat.” Which is what I thought.
I’m not trying to piss on anyone’s parade. Well, maybe I am, but not the way you think - I just don’t want people to romanticize the candidates. It’s not good for the country because it diverts their attention. For a democracy to work, you can’t delegate your power away to a super hero. You have to watch them every minute.
I don’t think John Edwards had the best track record going in, but his wife’s illness made him much more focused and determined to do something worthwhile.
He did that. Someone recently said to me, “Real progressives never get elected. They fight for ideas and policies, they drive the debate.” We can certainly credit Edwards for that.
UPDATE: Please understand that candidates are kept well insulated from their operations and field organizations. For one thing, the candidates isn’t supposed to get involved in those details, but there’s a more practical reason: it also provides them with a certain degree of plausible deniability. Does that relieve them of the moral liability? No, but that’s the way the game is played and that’s why campaigns hire people who are known for getting the job done, any way necessary.
If you’re looking for honesty and integrity, you should probably not look too closely at politics.
For instance, the only way either of them can prevent this from going to the convention now is to keep the other side’s delegate gains to a minimum. Realistically, the only way that will happen is to plant a story about the other candidate that’s so ugly, their campaign will collapse. Will it happen? Who knows - there are several other factors in play. We’ll see.
OT–
Whilst we’re waiting for George’s Promised Prayers to roll in, down here in the Tornado-Stricken Mid-South, I might recommend some DIRECT HUMAN INTERACTION.
This Is My Best First Start To Help My Region.
As Scout Prime is to NOLA, I am to the Mid-South area (I LIVE here, and was Live-Blogging these horrible storms all night), and have started to get the help-ball rolling down here. Some of you know where I work. I started a Food Drive there today for the Mid-South United Way Food Bank.
As the area affected is so broad and detached, and everyone in the Country was distracted by politics last night, as yet, there is no central assistance hub set-up. So, at the link, above, you’ll find the two agencies with the broadest radius to help the area right now. Both take DIRECT donations.
A small-blog swarm on that (or this) post would be greatly appreciated by more people than just me. I can’t describe how wide-spread the damage is down here. It’s enormous. The Media, per usual, is only just now waking up to the situation, after their Super-Duper-Let’s-All-Wet-Our-Pants-Together- Tuesday Political Hangover. Like NOLA, these are REALLY poor folks down here, and have nothing, and nowhere to go.
A short post about this at YOUR Blog, linking either to my post, above, or directly to the two Orgs mentioned in the post above, would sure be a big help, and would be greatly appreciated by many people who are relying on help. They are all that we have right now.
I just donated a deer’s worth of ground venison, along with the 100 pounds of rice and quart-sized ziplock bags that they said that they needed at the United Way Mid-South Food Bank, when I phoned them this morning. Their pantry is BARE, and I’ll be loading them up with all the potatoes, rice, veggies, bags, and other staples that I can fit in my truck tomorrow.
This is serious Red State country, and a flood of help from the DFH Left would REALLY make a big difference in a number of good ways.
I thank you all in advance.
Click Here for more about what’s going on down here. It’s all that I am writing about right now. Help is needed.
Your humble peer,
Monkeyfister
okay, you can’t just throw out a charge of voter suppression without providing a link. are you talking about that damn oval checking for DTS voters????
Just as I don’t believe that there was any voter suppression by Clinton in California, Obama is not going to be taking any orders from the Chicago Machine.
Obama ran against the Machine when he ran against Bobby Rush in 2000 for Congress, and against Daley’s Chief of Staff in the 2004 race for Senator. Michael Madigan, the Illinois House Speaker (part of the Machine) has snarkily called Obama “the massiah”. The Machine has lined up behind Obama once he got famous, and I’m sure that they will come looking for handouts. But Cause and Effect states that Obama ran against the machine, won, and now they support him. No Quid Pro Quo.