Are either of the Clintons Liberals?

[MannyGoldstein]

(not neo-Liberal, that's completely different)

55 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Both
	6 (11%)
	Bill only
	1 (2%)
	Hillary only
	0 (0%)
	Neither
	47 (85%)
	Greenwald sux!
	0 (0%)
	Other (please 'splain below)
	1 (2%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Warpy]

1. They're both pro-business, conservative Democrats

They are way ahead of any conservative or even liberal Republican because they don't take wrecking balls to the country. However, Bill has done some real damage to us and Hillary would likely follow in his steps, as she has never given any indication of standing with the people against the powerful.

If she's the nominee, I will vote for her to keep Republicans from appointing more Scalias, Alitos, Robertses and Thomases to the USSC. I won't be happy about it, though.

[Seeking Serenity]

49. Somehow, I don't think they'll care whether you'll be "happy" about it (eom)

[Baitball Blogger]

74. No, they don't care.

There was a thirdwayer on DU who smuggly thanked me for my vote when I concluded that I would vote for Hillary despite my many concerns about her political beliefs. In the end, he walked away happy because no one needs to address my concerns once they get that precious vote.

[uppityperson]

2. Define "Liberals". nt

[baldguy]

43. The OPs def of "liberal" dosn't include 90% of the population

And is manipulated for the posters' own purposes.

[MannyGoldstein]

45. The definition that the OP didn't give?

[baldguy]

51. Please provide your definition, then.

If my inference is wrong, here's your chance to correct it.

(Remember, though that your "Liberal Heroine®" Elizabeth Warren voted for GHW Bush and Bob Dole against Bill Clinton. And now that she's come to her senses, she supports Hillary for President in 2016.)

[MannyGoldstein]

59. So you want me to bias the poll

in the same way you claimed I biased the poll?

[baldguy]

71. You're as "unbiased" as Fox News.

And you use the same methods too: Start with an agenda, pick a lie, repeat the lie often, attack anyone who wants to correct the lie, then repeat the lie again. And after your audience has been saturated with the lie, you test them to see how deep your propaganda has infected them.

In your case, it's the lie that the Clintons are some sort of RW neo-con moles who've infiltrated & taken over the Democratic Party, and this poisonous, divisive attitude is by extension directed toward the current Democratic President and the current party leadership, and any incumbent Democrat - all in spite of the fact that the GOP impeached Clinton, has done everything possible to obstruct Obama's liberal agenda, is planning on impeaching him when they gain power, and will be impeaching Hillary or any other Democratic President in the future if they have a chance.

You seem to have the same objective as the RW propaganda machine also: to see the Democratic Party & their liberal agenda lose, and to have them never have influence in American politics ever again.

So your OP was dripping with bias. The fact that you fear to be honest about it - like Fox News & other RW propaganda sources - and also fear to allow your audience the benefit of having all the available information and make up their own mind. In your defense, you claim to only want liberal policies enacted, but the lie is exposed because you oppose the very people in place to act on & implement those policies (mainstream liberal Democrats), simply because (your claim) they're unable to achieve 110% of your claimed goals. You refuse to acknowledge that the US is a republic with a population with varying interests & objectives.

In short, you want a dictatorship.

Your attitude & actions being so similar to that of the very people actual liberals & Democrats in general are fighting against (the corporate oligarchs, RW libertarians, anti-govt Teabaggers, religious fanatics, & general RW fascists) I'm almost convinced it's a parody. Almost.

OTOH, I'm an open book. I don't play games. I don't evade questions. I don't pretend the situation is something it is not. Here it is straight: I will support the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in order to ensure that Republicans are defeated. Can you say the same? I doubt it. And now that Elizabeth Warren has "caved in" and "sold out" and has been agreed to join the leadership in the Senate Democratic caucus, how long will it be before you toss her under the bus? Days, I imagine.

This country needs to promote & enact liberal policy solutions. The ONLY path for doing that is via the Democratic Party. The GOP is a lost cause. Third parties are unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky fantasies, and any effort promoting them undermines the Democrats and only helps the opposition. Your phony concern, your counterfeit leftist rhetoric and your insincere wisdom is tiring, and damaging.


“An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.” ~ Buddha

[Alittleliberal]

85. Just so you know

One can vote for straight Democrats and also hold the belief that some of those democrats are not liberals. The Clinton's have always been very open about the fact that they aren't Liberals. That's okay. It's okay because As a liberal I have the right to criticize conservatives when there policies fail. Just like they should have the right to criticize liberals when ours do. That's the point of democracy.

[baldguy]

87. Thr OPs purpose is to criticize Democrats, no matter what their ideological bent is.

And especially when their liberal policies are likely to succeed.

[Alittleliberal]

89. Where did you get that idea from?

How does this post criticize all democrats?

And especially when their liberal policies are likely to succeed.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

[baldguy]

90. The author of the OP is certainly free to clarify, as I & several other have requested.

The fact that he refuses to - and always comes up with reasons to trash Democrats, the Democratic Party & the Democratic President should give you pause to reconsider the authenticity of his stated positions.

[Ken Burch]

92. Are you trying to redbait Manny?

It's not as if actual liberalism is sharply to Manny's right.

Besides, there's nothing wrong with criticizing Democrats for being too far to the right...it was Dems moving to timid, corporate positions that CAUSED our blowout loss this year. Or, to re-purpose the phasing of the Rajin' Cajun himself, "It's the centrism, dammit!"

[baldguy]

93. "Redbait"? That's a meaningless term in this context.

The author of the OP isn't as liberal as he lets on - proof being that he always seems to attack the liberal Democrats (and their supporters) who are in a position to accomplish liberal policies, he belittles their accomplishments, cheers when they fail, and instead promotes candidates to take their place who would be weaker, who would be destined to lose, or who conveniently aren't running.

Now who benefits from such a stance? Certainly not liberals, and certainly not Democrats. It's a curious position to have at the liberal Democratic Underground.

[Ken Burch]

95. So you're claiming Manny is a closet right-winger?

[baldguy]

98. His objective is to play Democrats & liberals for fools for his own amusement.

Another poster compared him to Stephen Colbert. Just think about that for a second.

[Union Scribe]

144. "he always seems to attack the liberal Democrats"

Like the...Clintons?

[ozone_man]

155. Wait, is that a trick question?

Third way Manny is slippery, that's for sure! I think the poll is well stated. Everyone has their own definition of liberal, and they have to stick with that.

[11 Bravo]

148. Drop the mic, bald guy. Game, set, and match!

[Marr]

83. lol, no kidding.

Bizarre.

[Andy823]

60. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting

This seems to be a tactic used here to avoid saying that a liberal has to meet the standards set by certain posters which is "a liberal is someone that thinks like they do", everyone else is simply faking it. They have their own purity test that must be met, but they won't say that for some reason. Could be their agenda is not what really the same as they claim it is.

[uppityperson]

63. No definition makes the results mean only what each individual thinks it means, totally subjective.

[MannyGoldstein]

70. Which is actually what I was curious to measure.

I know what *I* think a Liberal is.

I suspect that everyone on DU knows what the Clintons are about.

With this poll, I was hoping to see how widely folks interpret the word "Liberal".

[Ken Burch]

68. uh...WHAT definition? I didn't see one in the OP.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

84. 85%.

According to recent polls, only 15% of the country is liberal.

So of course any definition thereof would exclude 85% of the population.

[baldguy]

88. Yes, the OP is certainly concerned with *labels*

But when you ask people about issues they overwhelmingly come down on the liberal side - as do the Clintons, President Obama & the great majority of the Democratic leadership.

The phoneys hate that sort of thing.

[joshcryer]

3. Of course they are.

They only hold centrist positions on foreign policy and economics. Everywhere else they hold left / liberal positions.

And yes, we can tie things like TPP and Keystone to foreign policy and economics. So if you feel bothered enough to make a list of things, remember I'd look first to foreign policy and economic ties.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. On what other policies have they been consistently

to the left of most Americans?

[joshcryer]

12. Read the Democratic Party platform.

It's about 90-95% liberal. 2016's platform should be even more so (should have marijuana in there).

I don't think there's much if anything that the Clinton's would disagree with that platform.

[MannyGoldstein]

14. They were to the right of most Americans on LGBT civil rights,

On Medicare for all, on protecting Social Security (at least Bill was), on protecting unions, and so forth.

I'm not seeing them as being to the left of most Americans. Or are most Americans Liberals?

[joshcryer]

18. I don't think the Democratic Party platform represents most Americans.

[MannyGoldstein]

21. Looking at it now... nothing jumps out as being to the left of most Americans

Perhaps you can name a few that I'm missing?

[joshcryer]

30. Look up the socialism/capitalism perceptions poll.

You may find that you aren't familiar with the positions of most Americans.

[JonLP24]

34. Maddow: Conservatives Love Liberal Policies, Except When They Learn That Obama Supports Them

I can't find it now but Maddow also showed several polls indicating most Americans support liberal policies. Obama would be a moderate Republican in the 90's but that doesn't matter to the people who oppose him.

[KMOD]

19. Most Americans don't know what they are, but they don't like sudden change. n/t

[Ken Burch]

40. They hold right-of-center positions on foreign policy and economics.

Last edited Fri Nov 14, 2014, 09:08 PM - Edit history (1)

And compared to foreign policy and economics, everything else is a safe, bourgeois side issue. Economics and foreign policy are where we LIVE...they are the things that shape our lives and either fulfill or crush our dreams.

What matters is who is to have the say about whether the resources and wealth of this land and the world are to be used for the good of the many or the good of only the few...and whether we live in a world or war or of peace.

If you are "centrist&quot or, more accurately, moderate-to-conservative)on economic policy, foreign policy, and military policy, you believe that war is our destiny and that the world exists mainly, if not exclusively, for the good of the few(and you identify with those few, even if you have nothing in common with them and no real hope of even coming close to becoming one of them).

All issues outside of those three are, in terms of their real effects on the larger pattern of our lives, window dressing. It's a more bearable world if the progressive positions on the other issues prevail, but it doesn't really change anyone's lives or break anyone's chains, if at the same time the status quo on economic policy, trade, the role of the U.S. and Europe in the "developing world" and the size of the war machine are all accepted without question.

[sendero]

57. Thank you..

.... exactly. On everything that truly matters they are right of center. On the bullshit social issues that the oligarchs couldn't care less about they are left.

I was a big Clinton fan in the 90s but after seeing the results of his legacy I am not.

[YoungDemCA]

146. yeah, LGBT rights, women's rights, civil rights, reproductive rights don't "truly matter"

[sendero]

147. If you cannot eat..

... they become quite secondary. If you are willing to trade your economic freedom and viability for that stuff you are a sucker. YOU HAVE NO FREEDOM WHATSOEVER TO DO ANYTHING IF YOU HAVE NO RESOURCES.


Get a clue.

[Ken Burch]

152. I didn't mean they didn't matter. Of course they matter.

What I meant is that they aren't worth accepting conservatism on everything else, on giving up on peace and equality.

I support all of those things, but none are life-changing and none can liberate the world, as long as permanent war and market economics are accepted as the natural order of things.

The end of apartheid in South Africa, for example, was sabotaged and made near-meaningless by the Western(and Clinton administration)insistence that the post-apartheid government pay off the debts of the apartheid regime and accept World Bank austerity
requirements that that made it impossible for the new government to make the investments it needed to make in housing, healthcare, education and jobs programs.

Or, to use a Sixties examples, why Dr. King realized that the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts would fail to cause the changes that were needed of and by themselves, and decided to organize the Poor People's March to add economic and social equality to legal individual equality.

And why it's going to cause a backlash against LGBTQ people(and the supposedly liberal "hipsters", to a lesser degree) if those communities continue to be associated(and its an unfair association, because most of them aren't a part of it but have been used as figurehead symbols of it)with neighborhood gentrification plans that end up driving the poor, working-class and elderly residents of the gentrified communities away.

The need is to keep all the struggles for justice tied together, not just let them become boutique "causes" of the upper-middle class and "liberal" corporations trying to build good feelings toward "the brand".

Does that clarify?

[joshcryer]

100. Oh, yes, social policies are "bourgeois side issues."

The reality is that the US has been long on a manufacturing decline and to uphold the low cost goods from abroad the US needs to have a monstrous and deadly militarized presence in the world. This is not, however, a policy position held by the Democrats, but rather a symptom of policies issues held in concert by Republicans since Carter. The "grand right wing conspiracy" is real, and until this is acknowledged without beating up on Democrats, nothing of portent will change.

[TheKentuckian]

44. Politics is mostly economics and foreign policy isn't small potatoes. Add in the support

for the surveillance state then the coddling and pumping up rogue police with disdain for civil liberties and what is left?

Not Social Security and Medicare, they are pro - corporate austerians.

Education? Yup, fighting deform tooth and nail as we speak. Right.

We already know where they fall on role of government "the era of big government is over!" and mass deregulation.

Liberals?!? Must be out of your gourd. They aren't in with the forced ultrasound gang and that is about it.

[MannyGoldstein]

46. But you have to admit that Hillary embraced gay marriage before

49% of Americans did.

[TheKentuckian]

62. Ok, moderate on orientation equality then. Check.

[joshcryer]

101. Social issues are inherently economic issues.

By their very nature.

[Ken Burch]

106. What the Clintons are "liberal" never leads to real change and never threaten the powers-that-be.

Only issues directly involving control and distribution of wealth and the country's role in the world can do that.

I'm solidly pro-choice and pro-LGBTQ...but neither of those issues will ever fundamentally change life, liberate the world or lead to an egalitarian democratic social order if progress there is coupled with lost ground on economic issues and acceptance of the permanent war economy.

South Africa ended apartheid, but most of the good in that change has been lost because liberation was accompanied by privatization and austerity.

[joshcryer]

109. That's crazy.

We just had the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall for crying out loud. It didn't happen because of some kind of wealth redistribution thing.

Marx is right about the overall trajectory of capitalism, I wish people would recognize that, the wealth redistribution is going to happen regardless, but you need a good social foundation for that to be the case. Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia are vastly wealthy countries where people get a monthly stipend, but you don't see those people benefiting from it, because social repression doesn't allow for it.

[Ken Burch]

114. The Berlin Wall fell because East European states turned "socialism" into a code word for repression

Yes, those countries you listed have deep inequities, but a movement that agreed to market economics in the name of getting what would only be mild social change would be worthless in those countries.

What matters is challenging corporate domination and war. The rest is trivial-that's why the rich are usually "progressive" on the rest.

[joshcryer]

116. I posit that the biggest challenge to that is social.

I don't think capitalism as it stands is sustainable and if we aren't knocking down social issues like trying to reduce poverty, increasing the minimum wage, addressing student loan debts, increasing quality affordable education, protecting rights, marriage equality, ending the war on drugs, universal health care, all policy positions that the Clintons agree with, nothing will change in those areas.

[Ken Burch]

120. I agree with you on THOSE issues

but none of those are the issues the Clintons are or ever could be progressive on. Neither of them could ever be opoened to theworld's suffering and pain in the way Bobby Kennedy was.

[joshcryer]

123. The Clinton's don't agree on these issues?

Do you have one quote? One?

That's so silly as to be dismissed off hand.

They're literally basic planks of the platform.

[Ken Burch]

125. We have their records in the offices they held.

Why would you ever trust them when they've always made it clear they're on the side of the rich when it really comes down to it?

[joshcryer]

127. A vote? A quote?

What the hell...

[Ken Burch]

128. We have their records in office. We know what they actually did.

Words don't matter. By their deeds shall you know them.

If you're right-wing on most major issues once, you aren't going to change...at least not while still in active political life.

[joshcryer]

129. I don't know what you're talking about.

It is genuinely unclear how they held certain positions you're ascribing to them.

Look at DOMA, veto-proof, Clinton wrote an op-ed about its unconstitutionality. Move the goal posts, he should've vetoed and been overridden. OK. Fair game.

DADT, Clinton campaigned on non-sexual discrimination for military personnel. He didn't have the votes, so he implemented the policy. It sucks.

GLBA, Clinton signed off on it, still fails to see its faults. Oh, there's one. Here, let's point to that, ha, ha, Clinton is a neocon. No, he's fallible, he's wrong. (Though I would agree GLBA wasn't the entire reason for the mortgage crisis.)

Name some stuff, I can only think of these off the top of my head.

[Ken Burch]

133. He fought for NAFTA and SIGNED the damn welfare persecution bill.

He should have withdrawn NAFTA, since he knew it screwed American workers, and he should have either made them pass the welfare bill over his veto(Democrats are SUPPOSED to defend the poor when they are put under unfair attack, and there' s no indications that anyone who wanted people on welfare punished agreed with the basic Democratic positions on much of anything else)or let it go into effect without his signature.

Nobody ever moved the goalposts on DOMA, we all always said he should have vetoed it. Signing on to that didn't give him any new votes.

It matters how you respond with core values are unpopular or under attack. And it matters that HRC was totally with him on all of that.

It disqualifies both of them.

If you're willing to throw workers, gays AND the poor under the bus, you're on the other side. End of discussion.

Why are you trying to rehabilitate these two when they have NOTHING to offer and have no capacity for growth or change?

[joshcryer]

135. Welfare passed on the third vote.

Each vote for welfare was more and more conservative. He said it was too conservative. The idea was to give people at the bottom work and education programs. The conservatives gutted it. It was a failure, not a policy he agreed with. Had he held out eventually you'd have seen even worse of a policy. ALEC would've assured that.

To say that Clinton "fought for NAFTA" is patently dishonest. The underpinnings of NAFTA were in place long before Clinton came to power. He wanted to implement stringent jobs programs. It was basically a foregone conclusion that it was going to happen.

NAFTA Krugman agreed with. It's unclear if NAFTA would've been so terrible if, say, Al Gore was the President. It's clear at least that the jobs programs behind NAFTA were not followed by Bush. NAFTA is still wrong. You'll note the OP of this thread doesn't think NAFTA was that bad either. But we're not calling him a neocon.

I don't need to "rehabilitate" them, their record is clear. What I do need to do is remind people that the right wingers conspired, literally conspired, to trash them to the ground, and that ultimately there are so called liberals ignorant of that fact, who carry water for divisive Democrat hating narratives. They win when people don't think there's a difference. There is.

[Ken Burch]

136. Maybe the welfare bill was going to pass anyway, but he didn't have to SIGN the damn thing.

It would have made a huge difference to the poor and to those who cared about poverty for him to have refused to acquiesce in the signing. Signing it meant saying it was ok.

It meant he had no standards at all.

And Clinton could ALWAYS have withdrawn NAFTA from congressional consideration, once it was clear(as it was early on)that the jobs programs he wanted in it were dead and Al Gore's "side agreements" were also dead. 70% of the country was against NAFTA-he'd have had nothing to lose.

BTW the hostility progressive have for the Clintons has nothing in common with right-wing Clinton hatred. The right hates the Clintons because they won elections the right thought IT was entitled to win. The left despises their actions because they were, in almost all cases, closer to what the wealthy wanted than they were to being in the interest of the Democratic base.

Generally, there is a difference between Dems and Republicans. In the presidential election of 1996, there wasn't. Is it asking too much to make sure we NEVER end up that far to the right ever again?

[joshcryer]

137. So he doesn't sign it.

The next version that comes up is even more conservative than the three attempts before it. Then what? At what point does he say fuck it? It seems for Bill Clinton 3 times was enough. What if it was 2 times? Well, we'd have got the third iteration. What if it was the 1st time? Well, we probably would've got the third iteration anyway since it "proved" he wasn't willing to compromise.

Most progressives and liberals and leftists and even socialists and, holy shit, communists are supportive of the Clintons (Hillary was endorsed by communists in her Senate run, amazingly enough!). You are in what I shall coin right now the "apolitical bubble." You're not actually out there, on the ground, in the face of other people, you are posting on a forum, and your ideas are based upon other interactions on said forum. In the real world, the idea that the Clintons are vilified and hated by the left is beyond ridiculous. In the real world context matters. On forums, not so much, they can pick and choose MSM soundbytes and FOX News style hit pieces.

Oh, yeah, I saw that the whole "Clinton snubbed by liberals" meme was originating from Brietbart and Fox News and somehow it got posted here under Politico and some fools actually think that it is a left wing "critique." Ah, nah, that's not how it works.

[Ken Burch]

138. He could have left the welfare bill become law without his signature.

He didn't HAVE to sign it.

No, most leftists don't support HRC for president. The fact that some people like Bill's charity work in Haiti doesn't equate to endorsement of his presidential record OR her candidacy.

You're carrying water for the most anti-progressive figures in the Democratic Party. Why bother? Why not just left them be part of the past and let us have a candidate for 2016 that's free of the past?

I want the party to win and for that win to actually matter. A HRC presidency wouldn't matter...it would just be the Nineties again, and that can't be worth a damn.

[joshcryer]

140. Hillary Clinton was more liberal than Elizabeth Warren.

Her candidacy and Presidency will be the most liberal since Carter. The naysayers be damned.

[Art_from_Ark]

121. The fall of the Berlin Wall had a lot to do with economics

By the late 1980s, the Soviet Union was in such poor economic shape that it was no longer able to maintain its Eastern Bloc empire. As the threat of Soviet invasion (a la Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968) subsided, the ruling puppets in the Eastern Bloc could no longer count on the USSR for military support, the local people became emboldened to throw out the ancien regime.

[joshcryer]

122. Cultural influence eroded the Eastern Bloc.

We were literally exporting rock stars...

But there's no question that the USSR was a failed state economically.

[Art_from_Ark]

126. I had a couple of professors who were very knowledgeable about the USSR

One of them visited the USSR in the mid-1980s through Intourist, and came back to report that the USSR was in very bad shape, despite Intourist's best efforts to keep him from seeing the stark reality of life in that country. The other professor was a specialist in Soviet politics, and in mid-1989 he predicted that the collapse of the USSR and its client states was imminent because the economy was in shambles-- as he put it, it was essentially "factories making spare parts for other factories". I don't think he was at all surprised when the Berlin Wall came down just a few months later.

[TheKentuckian]

141. So, by your previous logic that Clinton is only conservative on economics and foreign policy

your argument is she is also conservative on social issues as well?

I don't know if that is fair, I see her as more a moderate.

[Dawson Leery]

4. Two baby boomer culture warriors who went to Yale

and fought for civil rights. Of course they are liberal. The triangulation was a result of the era in which they governed.

[polichick]

7. Or their response to the era.

[joshcryer]

16. Precisely. Read Hillary's thesis.

People shame her for working for Wal-Mart or working for the Rose Law Firm, they fail to mention she worked with communists at Treuhaft, Walker, and Bernstein.

If you read her thesis it's clear that she (and Bill) are practical (as in pragmatic) progressives. They make mistakes. DADT, DOMA, NAFTA, repealing Glass-Steagal, IWR vote, Patriot Act, etc, all bad mistakes.

[KMOD]

17. Don't ask, don't tell,

everybody hates it now, and yeah, it's finally gone.

But it was the stepping stone needed to bridge the gap.

People want liberal ideas to happen overnight. I do, too. But, as always, it takes time. Education and information are always the key. It takes baby steps to do it though, in this country.

[joshcryer]

20. It's a nice feature of our democracy.

Things go slow, slow is good. Dictatorships things go fast, fast is bad. It sucks when you want good things to happen but it's good when you don't want bad things to happen.

[MannyGoldstein]

22. Things went fast during FDR's tenure as President

The frst 100 days was a whirlwind.

No?

[KMOD]

26. Not quite the same as now though.

Everybody was suffering then, and terribly.

This recession sucks, but to compare it to the great depression is wrong.

[tularetom]

91. That's a plot of bad mistakes

Admittedly getting rid of DADT and DOMA are social matters that people can support without too much trouble but NAFTA, Glass-Steagal, IWR, Patriot Act are all bread and butter foreign policy and/or economic issues that basically impact everyone's lives and the Clintons were on the wrong side of all those big ticket items.

They may indeed as you suggest, be "pragmatic progressives" in that deep down, I suspect they still retain some of their 1960's idealism, but they aren't about to let the "progressive" part of that title get control. Getting elected is what they're all about and screw the people who voted for them if they can get a few more bucks from their big money buddies.

[Ken Burch]

94. And those "mistakes" are bigger than any small bits of good they may have done or ever could do.

Those two stand with the oligarchy on every issue that truly means anything, anything affecting actual lives.

And I feel quite certain(based on what she helped do to Aristede and the people of Haiti and what she made sure happened in Honduras as SOS, that HRC, had she become president in 2009, would have, at the very least, abetted coups in Venezuela and Boliviaand pushed even harder for antiworker "free trade" deals than Obama did(not that he's a saint or anything).

If you fought to drive the left out of the party at one time(as the Clintons did by building the DLC-or "Democrats for the Leisure Class", as actual Dems always called it), you are ALWAYS going to be on the anti-progressive side.

[joshcryer]

97. Yes, people are fallible.

Krugman supported NAFTA and still supports it to this day. Does that make him not a liberal because he was wrong about the negative effects of NAFTA?

[Ken Burch]

103. Krugman made one mistake. They made right-wing choice after right-wing choice.

Don't we have the right to have SOME standards?

[joshcryer]

107. What choices?

Pull out the list and we can easily see other politicians, who are considered liberals, have made similar mistakes.

It's the same half dozen or so things of things actually passed, not policy positions that may or may not pass in the future, things that they actually did, voted upon, etc. Not talk, not bluster, actual actions. For Hillary Clinton we have her IWR vote. We forgave Kerry for his vote, and the other liberal Senators, for that matter.

Of course, we have all of her actions as SoS under Obama who was instructed to do certain things (she did not act alone on anything as SoS).

[Ken Burch]

112. No sigificant number of progressive politicians agreed with the Clintons on the bulk of those issues

And if HRC silently went along with all of that then, it's not possible for her to be better on those things now.

BTW, a lot of us never really forgave Kerry for the IWR thing...it's just that Kerry was made a juggernaut by the party insiders andthe rest of us were told that the party HAD to nominate him and HAD to approve a platform that surrendered to Bush and Cheney om Iraq and said nothing specific or worthwhile on anything else.

[valerief]

6. Was signing off on Gramm-Leach-Bliley a liberal thing to do?

[Zen Democrat]

8. Both are Liberal Republicans.

Just like Ed Rendell, Harold Ford, Jr. and the usual suspects.

[KMOD]

9. Yes, they are both liberals. n/t

[Rex]

10. I would say they are both moderates.

They both know how to appeal to a large crowd of people. They are to the right of Jimmy Carter as far as liberal goes imo. I think they are more conservative than Obama.

[frazzled]

11. At least they weren't Republicans till age 46

worrying about supporting "the markets" and the government being "too activist."
You should make a poll about whether that's liberal.

[MannyGoldstein]

15. Go for it.

It would be an interesting poll.

[baldguy]

73. Manny is a little myopic when it comes to ID'ing Republicans.

People that have been actual liberal Democrats for nearly their entire adult life are "conservative Republicans", but people that have been actual conservative Republicans for nearly their entire adult life are "liberal Democrats".

[zappaman]

82. You better believe it!

[darkangel218]

13. Of course not.

But you already know that by now.

[Ykcutnek]

23. They might not be liberal, but they've done more to advance and preserve liberal causes

than just about every critic on the left who opposes them.

[MannyGoldstein]

24. What would you consider to be their greatest Liberal successes? Nt

[KMOD]

31. I'm gonna throw that question back at you,

what were their downfalls?

Also, who could have done better in that era?

[Ken Burch]

67. Signing that evil freaking welfare bill.

Pushing NAFTA through on Bush's terms.

Fighting to repeal Glass-Steagall.

All three unnecessary and over-the-line unforgiveable.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

86. Don't forget 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and DOMA. nt

[Azathoth]

25. They're cynical self-promoters whose political ideologies center around advancing their own careers

They occasionally find liberal policies useful for that purpose. Hillary seems to harbor some genuine liberal social convictions leftover from her school days.

[Jeff Rosenzweig]

27. Him, mostly not.

Her, maybe a tad more.

You?

[MannyGoldstein]

32. Me? I'm a Glenn-Greenwald Libertarian. nt

[Jeff Rosenzweig]

35. Ah.

Thanks.

[KMOD]

37. Thanks, it all make sense now.

I can't see how a libertarian could be happy with either the Democrats or the Republicans. Neither party quite fits for you.

I know many like-minded as you. NSA should be a big issue with you, no mandates on insurance, etc.

I do sympathize that your core beliefs aren't represented completely by either party, but, you're still in the same boat as the rest of us. Pick your poison.

[Luminous Animal]

81. You are new-ish so I'll help you out. Manny was joking.

[KMOD]

99. ahhh, thanks.

[djean111]

41. Bwahahaha! I love it when you Colbert someone, I really do! n/t

[MannyGoldstein]

47. Yeah, but from now until I'm banned,

Last edited Thu Nov 13, 2014, 10:19 AM - Edit history (1)

I'll have to keep reading about how I'm an admitted Libertarian.

"You admitted it! On a Democratic web site! Why are you allowed here!?"

[SolutionisSolidarity]

77. Burn the Witch!

nm

[Andy823]

76. Who the truth comes out. nt

[Old and In the Way]

108. So, Greenwald's running for President?

You crack me up. Hey, l like Philip K. Dick....but that doesn't mean I'm voting for a dead man as President. Is Greenwald running? Maybe your job on DU is fooling enough people to follow the 2016 Pied Piper? Keep posting your progressive agenda that assures Republicans continue to win...cuz we are all conservative Democrats that have no skin in this game, asshole.

[Prophet 451]

28. Personally, I don't think so

Admittedly, I'm judging that more on Bill's record than Hillary's because I know more about Bill's. But Bill oversaw financial deregulation, DOMA, NAFTA and the disgracefully immoral gutting of welfare. In fairness, I may be being unfair to Hillary, she might be more liberal than Bill.

[Half-Century Man]

29. They belong to the Clinton Party.

It's small but presents a unified front.

[Thinkingabout]

33. There seems to be radical lefts along with radical rights, too far is not good.

[KMOD]

36. Yup, and people despise both.

It is, what it is.

[OnyxCollie]

38. Is media consolidation liberal?

[GeorgeGist]

39. Neo.

[eridani]

42. Liberal on social issues, conservative on economic issues n/t

[HereSince1628]

58. Exactly. It's how 3rd was is described here and internationally

It's not an either or proposition.

But the isolation of social and economic issues under different attitudes is why when Hillary was asked to explain how it is that the rich don't create jobs she couldn't.

In her head she holds what are essentially irreconcilable approaches to social issues and business practice. She's not able to see investing to meet perceived consumer demand is the key factor in why capital would expand employment.

It's apparent that, like most conservatives, her approach to government involvement with the economy is simplistic aimed at obstacles to profit. She doesn't hold in her head anything like a comprehensive Keynesian model of economics, which because of it's capacity to include labor, consumer, and environmental issues as well as issues of investment/capital allowed it to successfully guided socio-economic policy decisions from FDR to Reagan/Thatcher.

[Seeking Serenity]

48. I voted "other"

They're "liberalish"

[pampango]

50. Rising wages, declining unemployment, advancing social causes. Bill made mistakes so he is not a

pure liberal, but still a liberal.

I seem to recall that Hillary is rated as liberal overall by most organizations and issue grids. My memory may be wrong on that.

[joshcryer]

104. Hillary Clinton was 13th most liberal Senator.

Elizabeth Warren is currently 19th. About as liberal as Third Way Mark Udall.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/pictures-video/the-15-most-liberal-senators-20140206

http://www.nationaljournal.com/2013-vote-ratings/why-elizabeth-warren-isn-t-the-most-liberal-senator-20140206

http://thatsmycongress.com/senate/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=160x1830

Pretty interesting, isn't it?

[baldguy]

111. They're not going to let facts get in the way of a good hate-on.

The current narrative is that the Clintons, Obama & all of the Dem Congressional leadership are all "RW 3rd-way DINO Republicans" no matter what the reality is.

[Douglas Carpenter]

52. on social issues like abortion and gay rights - yes

On economics they are modified Reaganites the way Tony Blair in the UK was a modified Thatcherite.

[LWolf]

53. neo-liberals both. nt

[TBF]

54. They are neo-lib. nt

[hrmjustin]

55. They are good Democrats. They maybe more centrist than Warren or Sanders but they are

still good people.

[JoePhilly]

56. Burn the heretics!!!!

Why ask the masses when DU's High Priests of Liberalism have already decided.

[Ken Burch]

134. The masses don't WANT our party to be to the right of where it is now.

The races we lost this fall were the ones where we nominated the most right-wing candidates possible(not just the South, but the governor's race in Wis Freaking Consin, where we nominated a bland centrist for NO GOOD REASON WHATSOEVER, given that Wisconsin has no center).

[JoePhilly]

142. Actually, the GOP put forward the most right wing candidates possible.

And won.

Now, I'd love to see more progressive candidates everywhere ... but these mock purges of the heretics who are not pure enough, isn't working ... I mean, this has been going on here at DU for at least 5 years ... are our candidates getting more liberal?

[Ken Burch]

149. This thread isn't about purging anyone. It's asking a legitimate question.

The alternate to threads like this is to just take what we're given without question.

And obviously, this isn't all Manny or the rest of us do.

[Ken Burch]

150. Yes, the GOP put forward right-wing crazyheads and they won.

What that proves is that it doesn't work for us to try to blur the differences by moving further right ourselves. It proves that it's impossible to "out-Republican the Republicans", so we shouldn't keep trying that.

[RobinA]

61. Other

I believe that both Clintons used to be liberals. But the Clintons are nothing if not pragmatists who are quite well aware of what side of of their bread holds the butter. They probably originally thought they walk the center in public while getting liberal stuff in while no one was looking. Unfortunately, the dissonance this causes seems to lead to one of two places in life. Ultimate Kool-aid drinking on the one hand to quiet the disconnect, or getting so sick of what you are doing that is so far from what you set out to do that you get off the bandwagon completely. The Clintons, not being the types to jump ship for ideological reasons, chose Kool-aid and, although they started out as liberals, they now love the game and are good at it. Especially him, who appears to have been a politician long before he even knew what a liberal was. I'm talking childhood here. And I say that with the utmost respect. Bill Clinton happens to be my favorite public character of my age. And I don't mean I agree with his politics, I am taking about him as a character in our national narrative.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

64. They're "liberal" in the same sense that anyone who wears cowboy boots is a cowboy.

[Orsino]

65. How liberal is liberal?

Poll options suck.

[hunter]

66. Not by my measure, but few people are.

.

[treestar]

69. to say they are not, you have to be in a liberal bubble

i talk to people who would call them socialists, commies, and the like.

[Baitball Blogger]

72. Liberal in their personal lives, but conservative in execution of their public work.

[mylye2222]

75. I think they are mostly conservatives.

[Starry Messenger]

78. To me, liberal means centrist, so yes.

[zappaman]

79. Not as liberal as Nixon!!!

[SolutionisSolidarity]

80. They don't even self identify as liberals.

You don't call yourself a New Democrat unless you are trying to deny being one of those horrible Old Democrats like FDR.

[fadedrose]

96. Just looking at this poll....

how can the polls say that Hilary's nomination is inevitable?...

She could not win the nomination if she ran for President in DU...

[leftofcool]

119. Good thing DU represents about 0.0 percent of Democrats, eh?

[fadedrose]

132. Depends on your outlook.

[baldguy]

105. United we stand, divided we fall.

Why are the OP & like-minded so interested in seeing us fall?

[Old and In the Way]

110. Because this guy is slicket and smarter than most GOP operatives.

He is so friggen corrosive to the spirit of this board....I would have TS'd his righteous Republican ass off here years ago.

[baldguy]

113. Corrosive ... that's a very good description.

[Old and In the Way]

115. He'll be flagging t his post soon.

With the right jury, I'll be in the doghouse...again. Oh well. Until I get a tombstoned, l will be supporting Democrats on this board.

[baldguy]

117. That's today's DU for you: The Democrats get TS'd and the Democrat haters get kudos.

Ah, well. Cheers, anyway!

[joshcryer]

118. Just edit or self-delete.

Not worth it.

[Old and In the Way]

130. Why?

Could be wrong, but I don't know why.Could be right, so what's the point?

[Number23]

131. +a million and another million after that. But I agree with Josh, you should self delete or edit

[PeteSelman]

124. Hahahaha! No.

Was Reagan a liberal?

[woo me with science]

139. Nope. Neoliberals and corrupt to the core.

[MisterP]

143. yes, in the same way as Justo Rufino Barrios or the guys who destroyed Canudos

[YoungDemCA]

145. Of course.

Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty (which is especially stressed in classical liberalism) and equality (which is more evident in social liberalism).[1] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas such as free and fair elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade, and private property.[2][3][4][5][6]

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

No, Liberal =/= Socialist.

[JeffHead]

151. 159-31 say no. what does that tell you?

[BillZBubb]

154. It tells me on DU this poll attracted VERY LIBERAL voters!

[JeffHead]

158. Well this is kind of a VERY LIBERAL website, So what did you expect?

[ozone_man]

156. I think it says that DU is more savvy then the general public. n/t

[YoungDemCA]

157. I don't agree

nt

[BillZBubb]

153. They are both liberals to an extent.

One some issues they are conservative, on others moderate, and some liberal. They are both on the rightish side of liberalism.