Balls and Walnuts
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Hillary Clinton’s Internet Goon Squad Attacking Daily Kos?
Not everyone spends ridiculous amounts of time perusing the left-wing blogosphere, certainly not me. But since Doug was away in Orlando, I spent some time on Daily Kos, the flagship of internet-savvy left-wingers.
Daily Kos may be the most famous and influential political meta-blog with 200,000-300,000 hits per day. Kossacks care passionately about supporting progressive candidates and aided in the Democratic victories last November. Even if you don’t believe that they exercise significant power, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have 100,000 people contributing time and money in close elections.
That is what makes Hillary Clinton’s idiotic remark last Saturday particularly stupid. In response to persistent questioning on her vote to authorize the Iraq War, according to this NY Times article she stated:
“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from,†Mrs. Clinton told an audience in Dover, N.H., in a veiled reference to two rivals for the nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.
Not surprisingly, the majority of Kossacks took that as an official “fuck off†from the Democratic Senator from New York.
What politician willingly alienates 100,000+ voters?
In all fairness, perhaps she felt that she had nothing to lose. Daily Kos’ diarists routinely criticize Hillary Clinton. They find her cold, calculating, opportunistic, arrogant, etc. In straw polls on that site, she routinely scores at 3-4%, far behind Barack Obama and John Edwards. Still, they would have supported her if she was nominated since they hate Republicans far more than they hate her; well, at least, that USED to be true.
In the flurry of initial postings on Daily Kos over her idiotic remark, a strange pattern emerged. The first 300-400 or so comments were predictably negative. Some mentioned her apparent belief that she already has the Democratic nomination sewn up since she’s raised so much money from corporations and wealthy donors. Others thought she was following the directions of her consultants and trying to withstand the controversy with pig-headed stubbornness like a certain president we all know.
After the initial wave came the Hillary supporters. They dominated the thread with a constant stream of admiration for the strength of her character, how presidential she looked, etc. With quite a bit of repetition, they went on and on like, oh, right-wing talking points? A few even mentioned the positive editorial from the notorious right-winger, David Brooks, which they said showed how Hillary Clinton’s wonderful character has won over even a strident Republican. Excuse me? Politically active Democrats are reading David Brooks and taking his comments seriously? Hell, someone on Shakespeare’s Sister even mentioned Clinton’s strong showing in a Fox News poll.
Is it paranoid to think Clinton would use proxies to stage a counterattack on Daily Kos? On the other hand, perhaps some Republicans would like to see Clinton win the Democratic nomination – and there can be only one reason for that.
They think she’s beatable.
K.
Unfortunately, I think she is beatable. There ware still large numbers of Americans who won’t vote for her simply because she’s female. And then there are the people who don’t want her husband in office again.
And then, of course, there’s the people who don’t like the woman herself.
I’ll speak for both of us — we dislike Hillary because she represents the Democratic establishment. She’s not a progressive, and that’s who we would like to see take the nomination — which translates to anyone but Clinton, since Obama, Edwards, and several of the others are saying all the right things re Iraq. But our dream choice would still be Gore.
Yes, I would vote for her over a Republican, but I’d have a bad taste in my mouth.
I’d be pretty impressed if the Clinton campaign has hired internet organizers who could actually have that kind of impact and keep their own existence quiet.
I burned out on dKos back around the pie war/feminist bashing episodes (I used to post as wickerman26). I still follow lefty blogs, but they tend to either be good, snarky polemicists like digby, pure snark like Sadly, No! and The Rude Pundit, or eclectic sites like Making Light and Lawyers, Guns and Money. (Doug, have you spent any time at Making Light? It seems like it’d be your kind of place, what with the dinosaurs and sodomy and all. (Google it, that’s all I’ll say.))
I’ll confess – in 2000, I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Gore because of Tipper and Lieberman (not that it made a difference in Missouri – Bush’s margin of victory was quite wide). While I can’t see myself making that mistake again any time soon, I’ll definitely be holding my nose if I have to vote for Sen. Clinton. I loathe the DLC and their ilk with a passion.
youre a dipshit. the idea that anyone who says anything bad about hillary is pure and holy and anyone who defends her is sullied and acting disgraceful is dumber than dumb…jeeze – yes go vote for someone else…fuck you we will have the numbers (we undersand the math side of this stuff a hell of a lot better than you or the revered kos) but dont worry – youlll have nader to vote for again…so you will be able to consider yoursel unsullied.
[…] In response to Monday’s post on Hillary Clinton, Tim1 writes: youre a dipshit. the idea that anyone who says anything bad about hillary is pure and holy and anyone who defends her is sullied and acting disgraceful is dumber than dumb…jeeze – yes go vote for someone else…fuck you we will have the numbers (we undersand the math side of this stuff a hell of a lot better than you or the revered kos) but dont worry – youlll have nader to vote for again…so you will be able to consider yoursel unsullied. […]
I am going to laugh my head off when all the votes are counted and Hillary Rodham Clinton is declared the next President of the United States. I am going to laugh at kos and his ridiculous hateful followers, who just don’t “get it”.