MoveOn declines to take the bait
So Tasini jumps up and down for weeks on end, thinking MoveOn will Lamontize him; but no such luck. From an email sent out by MoveOn today:
Dear MoveOn member in New York,
We wanted to let you know, MoveOn won't be making an endorsement in the U.S. Senate Democratic primary. In voting over the last day, neither Hillary Rodham Clinton nor Jonathan Tasini garnered the two-thirds support from MoveOn members necessary for an endorsement. The margin in our online vote was 56 percent for Clinton and 44 percent for Tasini.
The MoveOn election effort in New York and across the country will stay focused on beating vulnerable Republican incumbents in House races—working to end one-party Republican rule in Washington.
Thanks to everybody who voted and look for more about how you can get involved.
–Eli Pariser
Executive Director, MoveOn.org Political Action
Friday, September 1, 2006
That's right: not even a majority. Perhaps people didn't quite buy the idea that Hillary started the Iraq war all by herself.
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2006 Elections | New York | Democratic Party | Hillary Clinton
Hear! Hear!
Submitted by Liza Sabater on 2 September 2006 - 5:21pm.
By the way : I don't get these numbers. What does a majority constitute for MoveOn.org? I mean, 56% is more than half!
What I love is the fact that Tasini, with no backing from the party, has garnered 44% of the MoveOn.org's constituency's attention. That is no small pickings.
Good work to the Tasini crew.
The e-ballot
Submitted by sidnora on 2 September 2006 - 7:36pm.
noted that a 2/3 majority would be required for an endorsement.
Some bait!
Submitted by mmhirsch on 2 September 2006 - 8:22am.
Moveon.org's Great Oz dithered for weeks before allowing a vote. Now, if the members don't see a need to endorse Tasini--and note they didn't endorse Lady Macbeth either--that's fine.
As to your smarmy crack that Hillary's critics say she did the deed all by herself: when was participation in a criminal conspiracy grounds for exoneration? She's the sitting Senator from NY who faces no real risk of losing in November. She is complicit in the war. She's a hideous centrist whose social policy options do real harm. Moveon.org members deserved a vote, and she deserves a primary challenge. Like the fact that her nibs wasn't dethroned? We disagree. At least have some grace in victory.
Grace?
Submitted by Bouldin on 2 September 2006 - 8:59am.
I'd say I'm displaying more grace than Tasini's attacks on a fellow Democrat ever did. "Hillary Clinton has the blood of Iraqi children on her hands" and all that.
Maybe it's time to turn that around: "Jonathan Tasini, by running a freakishly absurd campaign and getting crushed as a result, has weakened the anti-war movement and thereby prolonged the war, making him directly responsible for the deaths of innocents".
Howdya like dem apples, he?
Stiil restrained
Submitted by mole333 on 2 September 2006 - 9:18am.
I don't have the same anger you do towards Tasini. I may even have signed one of his petitions in a moment of protest. But I will note to the person commenting above that even now you are still being restrained. THe Michael we all know and love would surely have used the d-word by now.
Restrained? He's a bloviator with a keypad
Submitted by mmhirsch on 2 September 2006 - 10:25am.
...and a party hack, too. Attacks on a fellow Democrat? It's called a primary. Isn't that Bouldin's day job, or did Batson can his ass? And why should Hillary get a free ride? Is she any more saintly than the despicable Ed Towns? His advice to the anti-war movement: Shut up about a leading hawk in your own party. Strengthen the anti-war movement by making it a pull operation for an quisling Wal-Mart ex-board member. Great advice, Bouldin. But fine, believe that the Bush regime is so hideous that the only wise move is to hunker down and wait for Hillary. We don't agree. But must you be so thoughtless and 'tude-laden about it? Mole333 does some reporting. Agree or disagree; he gives some description and some information. So far, all you've done is monger gossip. And slander better people.
Pathetic
Submitted by Chris (not verified) on 2 September 2006 - 12:12pm.
This post is a typical example of the so-called "netroots" increasing tendency to ape the very Democratic Party establishment they claim to oppose.
Try this little thought experiment:
"We wanted to let you know, MoveOn won't be making an endorsement in the U.S. Senate Democratic primary. In voting over the last day, neither Ned Lamont nor Jope Lieberman garnered the two-thirds support from MoveOn members necessary for an endorsement. The margin in our online vote was 56 percent for Lieberman and 44 percent for Lamont."
---
Maybe it's time to turn that around: "Ned Lamont, by running a freakishly absurd campaign and getting crushed as a result, has weakened the anti-war movement and thereby prolonged the war, making him directly responsible for the deaths of innocents"
I like Tasini, but he is no Lamont
Submitted by Liza Sabater on 2 September 2006 - 5:30pm.
Seriously.
To say Tasini is in the same boat as Lamont is to be in total denial about the realities surrounding Joe Liberman and Hillary Clinton.
Hillary did not vote to have John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court.
Hillary Clinton did not sign a "nuclear option pact" and wave it as a bloody tampon on Democrats faces like Lieberman did.
You little men don't get that WOMEN have made the Lamont win possible. That it is WOMEN who are sick and tired about reproductive rights appeasers like Lieberman. Yes, he has had a decent records accounted by NARAL and Planned Parenthood. But it's his ass kissing of Bush PLUS his involvement in the Roberts/Alito fiasco that has earned him a lot of disgruntled voters and donors.
I'm going to start wearing a t-shirt that says : "It's not just a war, stupid".
ummm...
Submitted by Chris (not verified) on 2 September 2006 - 6:30pm.
I don't think this is a "little man" versus "(little?) woman" thing. Its actually about a lot more than that, and you're doing the debate a disservice by reacting in such a way.
Its NOT just the war. Its at least partly about the overwhelming desire of bulk of the liberal "netroots" to WIN. And this is both good and bad, but its more complicated than Alito.
OK, so I'm PMSing
Submitted by Liza Sabater on 2 September 2006 - 7:33pm.
Sorry about the "little men" comment but Tasiniites are getting me really testy. I met the man. I like him. I'd love it if he came to blog for us. But I am being realistic.
Tasini is not just going to loose.
Tasini needs to loose ... but by a small margin.
Hahaha!
Submitted by Bouldin on 2 September 2006 - 12:22pm.
Well, mmhirsch, you've certainly made my day. I've been waiting to finally be called a party hack.
I'll have to put up a little post going into that; stay tuned.
Made my day?
Submitted by mmhirsch on 2 September 2006 - 2:34pm.
Stay tuned? What is this, bloody high school? You've made arguments Fox News would be embarrassed to broadcast, then you threaten to ratchet up the noise? I don't know that you are a party hack; I just know you write like one. Read your own posts. Jonathan dares to challenge a party member, one with a rotten past, lousy positions and a dubious future. What a crime! Now I have to wait for your retort. Flame war, eh? That's what this list needs. Even less news. Even fewer informed commentaries.
One more time. Moveon.org members have good reasons to decline to back Jonathan. I do not agree with those, but they are rational perspectives and the members have spoken. Putting your political capital into Hillary in hopes of stopping the Republican juggernaut is not my idea of a winning strategy, but we can disagree that another round of Clintonism is the necessary next stage in human evolution. What is galling is your smarmy attitude that the question of what to do now is so obvious and so closed that your critics must be toads. Well, no. Not this one. So if you have some argument to make, make it. My first post here--back in the day some weeks ago--was in response to your oily insinuations about Jonathan's motives. They're still oily, still a threat to the eco-system. We're stuck with the O'Reilly's and the Limbaughs. We don't need an ankle-biting Democrat, too. Certainly not one who thinks criticisms of the problematic HRC are by definition off the table or a that challenge to Hillary is by its nature braindead. They are not. Nothing is settled. The Bush administration's greatest enemy is itself and our current party leaders, with some exceptions, have done nothing to position themselves to be a governing party, if even winners of an election. This is about OUR party's future. Why not encourage that discussion? Add something to it. It would surely beat your playing Blogger blowhard.
Did Move-On Count All the Votes?
Submitted by Advocate (not verified) on 2 September 2006 - 1:55pm.
The one thing that disturbed me about Move-On's poll is that it didn't allow the option of casting a vote for "no endorsement."
I believe that Taisini is doing Clinton a favor.
By challenging her on the war, She has nothing to fear from him, at the same time tlhat his challenge is validating her centrist credentials for a Presidential run
I cast a blank ballot in the Move-On poll precisely because they did not provide the option of a "not endorsement" position. Yet the final tally added up to 100% of the total for both candidates, indicating that Move-On voters had no other position. Are they stating than an insignificant number of Move-On members in New York State don't want to help Clinton by supporting Taisani?
vulnerable incumbents
Submitted by rwallnerny on 2 September 2006 - 2:06pm.
the key word in moveon's statement is that they target "vulnerable incumbents" Hillary is not vulnerable. So what would be the point in using moveon's assets against her?
I take issue with mole's assertion that hillary has "failed to be a leader" Is being a "leader" defined as voting the correct way on every single issue? She has clearly been a leader in the senate on many things, if not the Iraq issue. You have to look at the big picture. The difference between Hillary and Lieberman, is that Lieberman's been "appeasing" the republicans on a number of issues, not just the war, whereas Hillary has been on most things reliably progressive. Tasini is oversimplifying things if he expected that moveon would look at Hillary and see Lieberman and at him and see Lamont.
I usually agree with your comments,
Submitted by sidnora on 2 September 2006 - 2:37pm.
but not this time.
Is being a "leader" defined as voting the correct way on every single issue? She has clearly been a leader in the senate on many things, if not the Iraq issue. You have to look at the big picture.
No, she doesn't have to be correct on every issue, but this isn't just any issue. This is THE issue, both morally and politically. Not only did she get it wrong and contribute to the deaths of tens of thousands(not to mention all the other aspects of the mess), but she got it wrong while also ignoring the wishes of millions of her constituents. So did Schumer, and it's gonna be a cold day in hell when I forgive them for those votes.
You don't have a "big picture" without Iraq hogging the foreground.
[quote]You have to look at
Submitted by Liza Sabater on 2 September 2006 - 5:34pm.
[quote]You have to look at the big picture. The difference between Hillary and Lieberman, is that Lieberman's been "appeasing" the republicans on a number of issues, not just the war, whereas Hillary has been on most things reliably progressive.[quote]
Exactly.
I have this in perspective, Liza
Submitted by sidnora on 2 September 2006 - 7:56pm.
In no cosmos would I ever confuse Hillary with JoeforJoe.
Actually, Joe's voting record on social issues is very acceptable - his non-war problem is his compulsive public enabling of Bush and undermining his erstwhile fellow Dems. Anyway, he's getting sucked deeper into the Bush vortex with every passing day. He's now got a group called Vets for Freedom running ads for him, put together by the likes of Bill Kristol and Dan Senor.
I have a number of issues with Hillary as a presidential candidate that haven't been touched on in this thread, but in November, when she's running against a Republican, I'll have no trouble voting for her, and she's not my first choice, but if she bests the competition for the nomination in 08 I will not merely vote for her, but will work very hard for her, just as I did for Kerry, though he was not my man either.
The war
Submitted by rwallnerny on 2 September 2006 - 2:47pm.
Remember that the vote on authorizing the war was made based on false information and lying from the Bush Administration. It is easy to look back now with 20/20 hindsight vision and think the decision should have been obvious. I would have voted against it. But you have to look at the information they had to go by, that Iraq had WMD's .etc. Also the vote was to authorize Bush to make one of a number of possible decisions, of which military action was one. Clinton and the others who voted for this had no way of knowing how badly this would be handled, how much would go wrong. She made a bad decision on that vote, as did Kerry and others. But you can't judge somebody by one misinformed vote on one issue, particularly with all the lying and deception that was coming from the white house.
Hm.
Submitted by sidnora on 2 September 2006 - 3:23pm.
You would have voted against it, had you been in her shoes. So would I, and so would millions of other New Yorkers. It was as obvious to me then as it is today. How could I have known better than they how badly it would turn out?
We really need to ask ourselves, why was this so hard for our elected officials, supposedly so much better equipped to deal with foreign policy issues than we? Why was the highly questionable nature of the Bush Adminstration's claims, and their unseemly rush to shove the inspectors out of Iraq and the UN out of their path to war, such plain red flags to me (and I presume you), but either invisible or untrustworthy to our senators? I have asked myself this question many times in the last 3 1/2 years.
Coincidentally, a conversation with a friend earlier today may have finally provided me with some sort of answer to this, and it's not terribly comforting. She posited two reasons:
one, that the Democrats who voted for the war thought they had learned the lessons of Vietnam, and this time they were going to see that it was done right. The idea that there is a way to "do Vietnam right" belongs to people who put ideology above intelligence (in both senses). How many times do we need to learn this lesson? An infinite number, apparently.
and, two, that, in return for their support, they expected to be able to influence the course of the war. This is at least as baffling to me. By the eve of the war, it seemed pretty obvious to me that when it came to giving the administration input on the war, or anything else for that matter, No Democrats Need Apply. But apparently Hillary, Chuck and all the other pro-war Dems were too convinced of their own indispensability to believe that they'd be treated like Kleenex.
And then there's the third reason, which is the one I've believed all along: they have aspirations to national office, and they were just too afraid of looking insufficiently belligerent for the Great Middle. Otherwise known as c.y.a. - pure politics.
I'm sorry. I knew better than they did, and so did you. No free pass on this one.
nwallnemmy wrote: > But you
Submitted by mmhirsch on 2 September 2006 - 3:09pm.
nwallnemmy wrote: > But you can't judge somebody by one misinformed vote on one issue, particularly with all the lying and deception that was coming from the white house.
Pelosi
Submitted by Albanius (not verified) on 2 September 2006 - 9:04pm.
For the record, Mike, Pelosi got it right the first time. She not only voted against authorizing Bush to use force in Iraq, she led a majority of House Dems voting that way in the face of the pro-war position of then Minority Leader Gephardt.
Party Hacks
Submitted by Gatemouth (not verified) on 3 September 2006 - 5:06pm.
Don't know why I'm coming to Bouldin's defense, as he's lately taken to calling me every name in the book and implying I'm psychotic, but this thread is just too ludricrous for words. Michael Hirsch is calling Bouldin a "part hack". Michael Hirsch?
Query: which of these two gentlemen used to be a flack for Howie Golden?
Hillary deserves some opposition...
Hillary has failed to be a leader and has basically triangulated a "safe" and therefore mediocre line. However, she certainly has not been a bad Senator. With over 90% positive ratings from groups like AFL-CIO, LCV, NARAL, etc. no one can say she doesn't vote the right way most of the time. She also drives right wing nuts into a tizzy routinely and that is always good for a laugh.
MoveOn.org's people are not fools. They recognized the value of Al Gore long before anyone else did and it was to MoveOn that Gore gave his initial speeches after winning the 2000 election. MoveOn has been influencing key races, like IN-2, through targeted advertisements. They are savvy. Tasini was not their style.
I am glad Tasini is making the run and I hope he makes Hillary sweat just a little. But I am also glad MoveOn is focusing on other things.