People who question a HRC nomination are just as committed to "winning" as HRC supporters.

[Ken Burch]

We all want to win in '16.

It's just that some of us want the victory to matter, to be a victory for a reason.

And that we reject the idea that the party can ONLY win with an "entitled" pre-appointed frontrunner as nominee.

The country is moving AWAY from the Right, away from militarism and a subservience to the rich. Nominating HRC would mean the party was denying those trends and choosing to move backwards instead of forwards.

We don't need to assume that progressive, humane values only have minority support to win in 2016.

HRC can make a positive choice here...she can choose to engage with the large number of Democrats and possible Democrats who have issues with the right-wing aspects of her positions. If she does that, her victory in the fall would be a certainty.

A strong primary showing by a genuine progressive could help move her towards that engagement, and bolster her chances, were she to be nominated, if only she were willing to take it as a chance to demonstrate personal growth in the way that, say, Bobby Kennedy used his words and deeds to show the party and the world that he had grown after 1964.

Or her supporters can go on just trying to "win ugly" to simply see the nomination as "what is rightfully hers"-and, in doing so, they can turn what is a likely victory for the party under ANY nominee into a defeat that doesn't have to happen(as Lyndon Johnson forced Hubert Humphrey to do in 1968).

It's up to her. And it's up to those who want not just a victory in name, but a victory in meaning.

[msanthrope]

1. Can you prove that statement? I think back on every "McGovern lost, but won on principle" post

on this board, and think you wrong.

Just ask this question of yourself----

Would you rather run McGovern and lose, or Hillary, and win?

[Ken Burch]

2. You've forgottten CREEP the Nixon "dirty tricks" squads of '72

McGovern's defeat was caused by that, by the Nixon China trip, and by the fact that the party regulars stabbed the guy in the back when he'd done nothing to them. Issues were irrelevant to McGovern's loss.

The fact is, NO Democrat would have won in 1972, and we all know it. There was never any polling showing that a Democrat who backed staying in Vietnam(like Scoop Jackson)would have beaten Nixon. Or that a Dem who was totally anti-choice(and thus automatically right-wing on everything else, since there were no anti-choice liberals or even moderates in '72)would have done better.

And your attitude is part of the problem.

The country is moving away from the Right. If it wasn't, Obama would have lost to Romney in 2012. If it wasn't, Democrats wouldn't have beaten Republicans in the congressional race voting by a million and a half-votes.

Any Dem could win in 2016. It's not HRC or sure defeat.

The problem is that you've given up on the country.

[msanthrope]

3. I haven't. I just pointed out a prime example of ratfucking not a day ago--

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4081709

And Muskie would have won. You know why he gave CREEP the shits and they took him out before they went after McGovern? Remember...the Canuck letter was long before the McGovern attacks.

Because he would have taken Maine. Maine, which ain't no hotbed of liberalism. And with Maine, so goes New Hampshire, and the whole enchilada.....

So remember your CREEP history, Ken....they took out the candidate that would have swung the moderates FIRST....and went after McGovern.

Those who don't learn from history are destined to repeat it.

[Ken Burch]

9. OK, Muskie would have won. But he was taken out by CREEP, not McGovern

Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2013, 08:44 PM - Edit history (1)

I actually supported Muskie before McGovern(I was eleven, but had an early interest in these things)...but his defeat was caused solely by the Nixon people(and by Muskie's failure to get an effective national campaign organization in place), and it's silly for you to be angry at McGovern over Muskie's defeat in the primaries. The kind of people who'd back Warren or Bernie Sanders in this era weren't the ones who were trying to stop Muskie in '72. And McGovern and his campaign didn't do anything dirty or unfair to Muskie...McGovern ran a pure, honorable, issues-based campaign and built his support on the merits...and the last thing Muskie would have wanted was for the party regulars to secretly leadpipe McGovern and guarantee Nixon an undeserved landslide. McGovern's main mistake was not realizing that the regulars would be more fixated with getting payback against him and the Sixties activist types who worked for him than they would be in trying to take back the White House. He assumed they'd be loyal to him, as he had been loyal to Humphrey in the fall of '68.

Muskie was also clearly a progressive...he was AGAINST the war...so you can't compare him to HRC, would(based on her present positions)would have run a "we can do it better" campaign on Vietnam that would have made electoral victory meaningless, since staying in the war would have made any liberal policies impossible. In the 1972 analogy, HRC is only comparable to Scoop Jackson, who lost simply because most Democrats honestly didn't ever want him nominated. She has nothing in common at all with Edmund Muskie.

[msanthrope]

12. That's exactly what I said--the ratfucking went after Muskie first, because with his ability to draw

in moderates, he was the bigger threat. I'm not angry at Senator McGovern--far from it.

[Ken Burch]

14. But you're confusing the issue by comparing it to the question of HRC now.

Muskie might have won(although it's likely the Nixon people would have found some way to destroy anybody we nominated that year)but McGovern's positions on the issues had little, if anything to do with his loss.

If the party regulars had done what party regulars are SUPPOSED to do, and backed the damn nominee, McGovern would have made a respectable showing at the polls. But their decision not to had nothing to do with McGovern being liberal(a lot of them would have preferred Humphrey, who was also liberal on some things). It had much more to do with a bunch of middle-aged hacks(and I'm now a bit older than middle-aged myself)being more concerned with sticking it to some kids who had organized and kicked the hacks' asses in the primary than it did with any stance on any issue.

The majority of the country was against staying in Vietnam in '72. The majority was pro-choice on abortion and backed the ERA. McGovern's views really weren't all THAT out there.

[msanthrope]

16. I am not confusing anything. nt

[Butch McQueen]

5. I think the country is so different than it was in 72

In 72 we still had a thriving middle class that felt safe and secure in their livelihoods and standard of living. We had a middle class that could look to the future and see opportunity for themselves and their children. McGovern represented change in that era and by and large folks were happy with where their lives were at. I may be wrong, but I'd like to believe that if you ran that election over again with today's economic realities in place that McGovern (or a McGovern type candidate) would handily defeat Nixon (or a candidate like him) regardless of the ratfucking. But then I'm an optimist!

Butch

[ucrdem]

4. A strong primary challenge would leave a lot of blood on the tracks.

Also she'd have to run right to survive and then there goes the ball game. Anyway I know it's still pretty early and all but ... who did you have in mind?

[Beacool]

6. Groan............

First, no one knows yet whether Hillary will run in 2016.

Second, who in hell is saying that there won't be several candidates running in the primaries? The ones who keep calling her "inevitable" are the same ones who were doing it in 2008: the media.

Third, which supporters are trying to "win ugly"? Her supporters think that she's the best and most qualified candidate. Those of you who don't agree can vote for someone else.

What's with these constant threads and concerns about a Hillary run? She's as entitled to run just as anyone else. Furthermore, I think that if she does run, she will win.

The only thing I see as "ugly" are the myriad of threads that people feel compelled to post three years before an election, bashing a person who no one knows yet if she'll run. This constant negativity against a fellow Democrat is wearing thin. Meaning that if this is the ugliness that we can expect on this site for the next three years, then we will have a very divided party indeed. 2016 won't be like 2008 where any Democrat would have won the WH after the Bush years. It's going to take some effort to keep the WH in 2016.

Also, it wouldn't be up to Hillary to decide who else is running in the 2016 primaries. That should be a decision made by the politicians who decide to throw their hat in the ring. Once all candidates declare their intention to run, I'm sure that she will engage them (again, if she does choose to run). That's what debates are for, aren't they?

[Whisp]

13. ''constant negativity against a fellow Democrat is wearing thin''...

oh, you didn't........... ha!

[Ken Burch]

15. My intent here was dialogue, not bashing.

I was trying to talk about some things HRC might do that would ease the concerns and suspicions that a lot of good Dems have.

Like any other candidate, HRC should be willing to embrace the idea that it's not wrong to listen to other views and change...she'd gain a lot on that especially on the "free trade" and foreign policy fronts.

I know you back her, but you should see the problem with her "status quo" positions on those issues. And the positions she takes(big war budget, staying in the Middle East militarily, being open at times to actually bombing Iran, pro-globalization, which is an objectively anti-worker and anti-woman whatever her intents on that last one)aren't even all that popular.

It looks like she's trying to prove that militarism and greed are somehow going to liberate the sisters, and that hurts her.

[Iggo]

7. 2014.

[Major Hogwash]

8. 2020.

I want to go even farther ahead in time so I can say, "I told ya so" 7 years from now!

[hrmjustin]

10. Where do you see her supporters trying to win ugly?

[Capt. Obvious]

11. She has no shot. For the good of the party she should not run.

No need to get into another protracted battle with the eventual nominee, Biden.

[Whisp]

17. Bill Maher described the Clintons the best:

If you are a Democrat, the Clintons are a pre-existing condition.

Here is a short clip on Maher's opinion on Bill opening his big vegan mouth about ACA. Funny stuff. Short tho.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/11/16/maher_rips_bill_clinton_if_youre_a_democrat_the_clintons_are_a_preexisting_condition.html