The Nation's Ari Berman responds to TPMCafe's Rosenberg's questions on his article, Hillary, Inc."

[flpoljunkie]

Italics mine.

The Hillary Exception

By Ari Berman Thank you to MJ for highlighting my recent Nation magazine article about Hillary Clinton and her circle of advisers, “Hillary Inc.” And thank you to the TPM Café staff for giving me a quick chance to respond. Regarding the corporate ties of Hillary and her advisers detailed in the article, MJ asks: “I wonder if any of this is unusual. I mean, you do not get to be a Senator and Presidential candidate without all kinds of corporate baggage.” A number of people have asked me the same question. Let me briefly address it.

Yes, all major presidential candidates, Democrat or Republican, these days have significant ties to corporate America. It’s a sad fact of our political system (and the reason why we need public financing of elections). What I write in my article is that Hillary is more reliant on large donations and corporate money than her Democratic rivals. The average donation to Clinton is the first quarter of this year, for example, was roughly $2,000, compared to $300 on average for Barack Obama. That means the bulk of her campaign money is coming from wealthy donors; people like Morgan Stanley CEO (and staunch Republican) John Mack. Moreover, the advisers in her inner circle are closely affiliated with a host of strange bedfellows, including unionbusters, GOP operatives, conservative media and other Democratic Party antagonists.

Take the example of Mark Penn, her chief campaign strategist and pollster. Over the years Penn has polled for the US Chamber of Commerce, the oil industry and Silvio Berlusconi. He is CEO of a huge PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, that is actively anti-union. Can you imagine a top Republican political consultant working for, say, Segolene Royal, the AFL-CIO and Greenpeace? Of course not. Yet somehow the work of Hillary’s advisers is written off as standard Democratic fare when in reality, it is not.

Because George W. Bush has been such a terrible president, many Democrats have developed a sort of amnesia about the Clinton era. They forget that Bill reneged on his promise not to sign NAFTA without significant environmental or labor reforms, pushed for the Telecommunications Act of ‘96, which drastically consolidated the media, leading to Clear Channel and the like, and cleared the merger of megabanks. The coziness between politicians and big business did not start with President Bush.

There’s no evidence of daylight between Hill and Bill on these type of issues. If anything, the scarring defeat of healthcare reform has made her even more cautious, poll-tested and predictable. She’s been a diligent, effective Senator but she has rarely been out front on controversial issues. Advisers like Penn reinforce the incrementalist, business-friendly path she’s taken.

Now that she’s in the thick of a Democratic primary, Clinton is trying to run as a pseudo-populist, talking up her support for organized labor and commitment to “working families” (another term coined by Penn). But who she keeps around her—and what she’s been willing to fight for to date—says more than any campaign speech. She may talk about change, but the connections she’s developed over the years point to more of the same.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/specialguests/2007/may/22/the_hillary_exception

[blm]

1. "rarely out front on controversial issues" - as Senator she has NEVER been out front

on controversial issues.

The Dems doing the heavy lifting could have used more prominent voices sticking their necks out alongside them over the last 6 years.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

3. At least she led on Wal-Mart's anti-union policies while on Wal-Mart's board

Oh wait...she was a self-serving follower even then...

[ElizabethDC]

4. She wasn't a follower on the Walmart board

she pushed for (and got) better environmental policies at Walmart and also pushed for the hiring of more women and minorities in leadership positions. Based on the NYT article about her time on the Walmart board, she was the leading voice on both those issues on the board. It's not like she was sitting there and doing nothing.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

5. She was a follower on the fundamental issue of Wal-Mart's anti-union policies

[ElizabethDC]

7. She didn't have enough clout to challenge them on that

she wasn't on the board for very long and their anti-union policies were so entrenched that she would have had no influence whatsoever, and it would have lessened her influence on other important issues (e.g. environmental policy and women in the workplace - neither of which Walmart seemed quite as dead-set against).

[draft_mario_cuomo]

8. She was the wife of the governor of Wal-Mart's home state!

That offered her plenty of clout. You say she wasn't on the board for long but she was on it for six years...

[ElizabethDC]

9. Well, here's what the article says

Though she was passionate about issues like gender and sustainability, Mrs. Clinton largely sat on the sidelines when it came to Wal-Mart and unions, board members said. Since its founding in 1962, Wal-Mart has fought unionization efforts at its stores and warehouses, employing hard-nosed tactics — like allegedly firing union supporters and spying on employees — that have become the subject of legal complaints against the company.

A special team at Wal-Mart handled those activities, but Mr. Walton was vocal in his opposition to unions. Indeed, he appointed the lawyer who oversaw the company’s union monitoring, Mr. Tate, to the board, where he served with Mrs. Clinton.

During their meetings and private conversations, Mrs. Clinton never voiced objections to Wal-Mart’s stance on unions, said Mr. Tate and John A. Cooper, another board member.

“She was not an outspoken person on labor, because I think she was smart enough to know that if she favored labor, she was the only one,” Mr. Tate said. “It would only lessen her own position on the board if she took that position.”

link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/us/politics/20walmart.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

Even the wife of the governor wouldn't have had enough influence to change their position on labor unions, and Hillary knew it.

[rinsd]

6. Yes she should have been out front and leading on issues like IWR!

If only she had been a cosponsor and wrote and oped that the State Dept had on their website!

[rinsd]

2. Is Ari Berman fact challenged or does he simply like to distort?

"The average donation to Clinton is the first quarter of this year, for example, was roughly $2,000, compared to $300 on average for Barack Obama"

Clinton and Obama raised roughly $25M in the 1st Q with Clinton having 50K contributors and Obama 100K+

$25M / 50K = $500 per contribution for Clinton

$25M / 100K = $250 per contribution for Obama.

"They forget that Bill reneged on his promise not to sign NAFTA without significant environmental or labor reforms, pushed for the Telecommunications Act of ‘96, which drastically consolidated the media, leading to Clear Channel and the like, and cleared the merger of megabanks."

Clinton pushed for the Telecomm bill?