Let’s hear it for Sen. Clinton…or not

[JoB]

Kayleigh, my hubby and best friend would agree with you.

However… i view some of that differently. I am not sure what to think of her vote on the patriot act but i do know that one can’t look at any congressional vote as standing alone. With an act that was going to pass anyway, did she gain more in the long run from voting yes? I don’t know and i don’t think any of us does.

As for being a board member at WALMART…I personally believe that you have to invest in the system to change it. Did Hilary institute any change at Walmart? I don’t know. But i applaud her for being willing to be part of the system because i believe that is the only way to make changes. And if she did it just for money… then i hope the money she earned brought something worthwhile to her life…because she will have earned it merely by being there.

As for her corporate contributions…If you read much history, you will find that American foreign policy has always been led by American financial interests… corporations. Of course corporations are trying to buy more cooperation by donating to campaigns. But if you don’t have the money for the kind of coverage our media dependent campaigns require… you don’t get elected… and you don’t get to be president without getting elected. it’s that simple. I admire her for doing what it takes to get the job… because sometimes that is what you have to do.

No, Edwards is not getting the kind of coverage his message deserves, but he is also not spending the kind of money in political ads that the other two candidates are and his election results reflect that.

And yes, Hilary does have to “dance with the one who brung her”, but that doesn’t mean she has agreed to date rape. She can still say no when the situation warrants.

I believe that the time for doing battle with corporations as a political tactic passed with the emergence of a true global economy. We need to find a way to be inclusive of corporations… get them to the bargaining tables when “political” solutions are worked out so that they are invested in the long term outcome (the eventual larger profits … not immediate profit) of those policies.

I don’t believe we can do that by being combative.

So that’s why i support Hilary.

And i really appreciate this opportunity to clarify my thinking on why i have made that choice in spite of being pressured daily to change my mind.

Sometimes, it isn’t about the specifics. I have been known to argue any position just for the sport of it… and win… but this one is about my desire for deeper change. I believe everyone loses in a combative environment.

I believe Hilary has learned to work around that environment and i hope that this campaign will teach her to transcend it.

It doesn’t seem to be teaching Bill much… but then maybe that’s my real point:) Sexist to the core:) or maybe just pragmatic.

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[WSMom]

Dear Kayleigh & JoB:

Thank you so much for adding your views on this topic! I am gratified by the notion that in a few short months our country might actually have a President we can be proud of, whether it’s Senator Clinton/Obama/Edwards is less important to me than that it BE one of these three. I sure enjoy reading your point of view. I still may end up just drawing straws between Obama & Clinton.

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[Ken]

As long as we are weighing in… Let me offer a few opinions.

I am undecided mainly so I can run my caucus meeting fairly. I am pretty up to date on the primary wars on national blogs.

First. a few notes. Hillary worked for Walmart when old Sam Walton was still running things. He was as cut throat as anyone else in the retail business, but at that time, his motto was “buy American” and he made it a goal to stock his stores with American goods. He staved off the closing of many mills in the south by contracting with the for goods more cheaply made in other countries. But Sam died and the worthless spoiled family members started listening to wall street.

The rest is fairly recent history.

Note, Wall street investors tell Costco founders they have no business paying a living wage or keeping prices at a fixed percentage of cost. So far the founders have blown them off and I hope they continue.

Hillary has flaws, but working for walmart ain’t one of them.

Falling for the excuse that it is too late to rein in corporations IS one of those mistakes.

Corporations, at a minimum, need to be isolated from the financing of political campaigns. Corporations have fairly simple goals, some of them mandated by stockholders and some by stockholders lawyers. Profit. The pursuit of profit does not include any actions for the common good beyond what minimum their PR firms tell them they can get away with.

Corporations are also devoid of any limit that the non sociopaths among us would call a conscience. History is “rich” with the results of unregulated corporations, including some pretty recent ones that have fallen down the memory hole at warp speed.

Enron was not the first company to fudge books, ignore laws or rely on political donations to consolidate their monopoly, merely one of the recent ones. Most of the rest were clustered in that doppelganger time period between 1920 and 1929, coincidentally also the last major housing bubble.

If we do not “combat” the corporations in several areas, all the good will and well meaning politicians will have no effect on our current trajectory.

Each of the Dem candidates is deeply flawed in some way. But the Republicans are bull goose loony and cannot wait to get ahold of the accelerator on the highway to feudalism and theocracy.

I prefer anyone but Hillary but I will work for the election of the nominee whoever it is.

If I had advice for the candidates it would be:

John Edwards = Change the damn stump speech before you drive the national press any further insane. They were not in your corner in the first place and now they are taking any opportunity for payback that comes within their grasp. You have the best ideas and policies, but your killing your own messengers.

Hillary = Learn the difference between mandatory insurance and universal health care. Quit pretending they are the same thing. And get some vocal coaching. If I have to listen to that chalkboard screech for four years I will stick knitting needles in my ears. Modern electronics can modulate it easily. I suspect the sound engineer is a republican plant.

Obama = Republicans are not your friends. They are not even you peers. They are not happy with a solution where everybody gets something they want. If no one is left crying, bleeding and broken in a negotiation with a Republican, then it was a failure from their point of view. Also, now that SC is behind you, put God back in your pocket and button the flap. Most southern republicans over 50 don’t even think you have a soul. Democrats mostly care more about whether you can keep Him out of the decision loop when reason and science are needed. Reassure those people. The theocons are not going to vote for you anyway.

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[JoB]

ken, i would agree with your advice to the candidates… even to my favorite candidate.

As a woman with one of those voices that tends to go all high pitches i would bet that she has already had some coaching tho:)It’s a difficult thing to control. she should reflect on poor Dean whose one outburst and uncontrolled voice cost him any chance at the presidency… for good or bad, who knows.

However, she can control her stance on health care and she should come down on the side of universal health care. I think America is finally ready to talk about that option.

As for corporations, we need to roll back deregulation for sure, but i am not sure how to keep them out of campaigns.

I just read a totally unrelated book about Helga and Clara Estby’s walk across America (Bold Spirit) which mentioned the Bryan/McKinley campaign and that the campaign contributions of just two corporations for McKinley exceeded those of Bryan’s entire campaign($500,00 from JP Morgan and Standard oil.). McKinley won.

Corporate involvement in campaigns is not news and any attempt to keep them out of it has just resulted in the exploitation of loopholes.

As for our current concern with corporate greed, let me quote Wiliam Jennings Bryan’s campaign slogan, “Wall street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people for the people, by the people but a government of Wall street, for Wall street, and by Wall street.”

This too is nothing new. In reading history it seems that there were only a couple of times when Wall Street seemed to get the need for investment in anything other than making money and that was during the industrial revolution and the period after World War II when it became apparent after our investment in Germany and Japan under the Marshall plan that we had better do some investment of our own here or American Corporations were going to be left in the dust. Both times, investment was crucial to their own self interest… better a little now and a lot later than none now and nothing later. And both times America and Americans prospered.

I feel that concentrating on the injustice of corporate greed (including their involvement in our elections) we are missing the boat that would lead to a realization of the importance of actual production for profit…

just as America missed the boat on health care when they worried about the govt rationing health care when the insurance companies were exceeding anything our government could have done. At least the govt had public opinion to contend with.

We need to find a way to focus on the real conversation which is about actual production… even in service industries which have forgotten they relied on service to create their business.

I believe that Hilary has a grasp of that concept… and that is why i am supporting her. It may be a vain hope, but there you go.

:) In closing, I can’t resist mentioning Bold Spirit again and that these two women walked across America during a time when only one state (Wyoming) actually granted women the right to vote… a little more than a hundred years ago. Something to ponder.

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[Ken]

Just to clarify: The regulations on “free markets” were made after the crash of 29, to save capitalist and the corporations they invested in, from themselves. The boom and bust cycles throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, were the result of manipulation of most investors by the few insiders. Every cycle relied on a new crop of investors that could be roped into another “once in a lifetime opportunity”. Note they occurred at approximately generational intervals. Sometimes the unregulated businesses caused ecological disasters. The Dust Bowl of the 20’s could never have happened without wheat speculation during WWI driving investors to lease Midwestern grasslands sight unseen and pay crews to plow up the grass and plant wheat. After two years most of it reverted to it’s normal dry state, the wheat market crashed and the newly exposed dirt took to the winds in storms that brought darkness at mid day as far away as Washington DC.

Deregulation loosed these same actors on the public again and it is foolish to think any corporation will police itself. History can only teach us when it is not ignored.

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[JoB]

sometimes saving them from themselves is the only way to save us..

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[Kayleigh]

I’m baffled as to why some of you are letting Hillary off the hook for Wal-Mart. It’s an assumption that she voted against the reeeealllly crappy stuff that Wal-Mart did–and even if she did, it’s a failure of leadership on her part, because they did the reeeeallly crappy stuff anyway.

Wal-Mart’s greedy suppressive acts didn’t begin with buying cheap sweatshop goods in China.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0207-34.htm

I guess it’s OK to be a corporate greedmonkey if you have ovaries? Ovaries are now a get-out-of-jail-free card?

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[JanS]

kayleigh…I guess we all have our opinions. Ovaries are only a part of the package…but those without haven’t exactly done a bang up job in recent years, now have they? And if that’s the deciding thing that can put a candidate in there to beat whoever the Repubs put out there, then idealism may just have to sit in the second seat on the bus.

They are ALL politicians…they ALL have something or other from their past that’s not exactly the best thing for some…Hillary has Wal-Mart…others have other things. Mr. McCain has a not too wonderful past, too, despite his Vietnam service and imprisonment. Do his body parts( or that imprisonment) give him a get-out-of-jail free card? I think not…just MHO…

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[Ken]

Jonathan Tasini (author of the above link) was defeated by Hillary Clinton in New York’s Democratic Primary in 06.

The piece seems a bit long on allegation and short on links to supporting documents.

Hillary is my last choice but lets stick to her very real policy problems and current DLC affiliations.

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[Kayleigh]

The past matters to me, Ken, and I’m not going to change my mind about Hillary. Until she shows me real, progressive plans and ideas that make sense, I won’t vote for her at all, even if she gets the nomination.

I’m so disheartened by the type of thinking here in this thread (and elsewhere in the country in the Democratic party), I’m tempted to not attend the caucus at all. We have a real opportunity to turn the country around with John Edwards–to really make gains in things like health care and income equality. The poor, working,and middle classes have already lost so much in the last decade. It’s time get some of those things back, not to compromise.

The Democrats have given Bush way too much of what he wants and gotten little in return. When are they going to stand up and fight for the people they’re *supposed* to represent?

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[Ken]

Kayleigh:

I am firmly ABC, (anybody but Clinton) and have been from day one. But I base my opposition on disagreements I have with many of her stated goals and published policy papers. There are some places where she says the right words but I don’t believe she means them.

She is indeed the most likely candidate to sell out to the corporatist in my opinion. But I do not put any faith in hit pieces which cannot cite any sources in an era where news reports, SEC filings and the archives of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette (I pay for a subscription to get at the archives) are online.

The tactic is almost identical to the Clinton haters of the 90’s smear campaigns.

The left is not immune to the tactic. The nation magazine, counter punch and several authors who post at commondreams.org have created baseless smears attacking every candidate that is not Dennis Kucinich or Ralph Nader.

Matt Tabbi, now at The Rolling Stone, has written many good articles this year, but I still remember the vicious hit pieces he wrote in 03 against several Dems in the 04 primary race. I take his pieces with a grain of salt unless I have a second source.

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[JoB]

corporate greed monkey? well i suppose that’s one way to characterize working on WalMart’s board years ago…while she was supporting a political husband and a daughter.

I like Billary better with the implication that she too will run after interns and lie.

Or, we could call her the screecher after what ken and others say is her voice.

or we could follow the press and label a misty eyed moment when she talked about her ideals as an emotional breakdown.

or we could talk about nepotism ignoring the fact that a politician’s wife certainly gets a political education and that she has used hers to work tirelessly for the Democratic party and has successfully (on her state’s terms) carried out her responsibilities as a senator.

or we could simply comment that she should have gotten bill a puppy sooner and should get him another to occupy him now.

Good grief!

How about we talk about policies and what we hope our candidate will or won’t do once elected?

Or let’s talk about the sex thing. Why is America more comfortable with it’s first viable black candidate than with a woman? (Probably for the same reasons that black men got the vote before women.)That would make a great conversation.

ok, so today i’m feeling a bit frustrated, but i have already stated that i am not in favor of combative politics (i think she should send bill home unless he can find something positive to say)…

and if the only way to support your candidate is to dig for the opponents weaknesses then i think that you have to re-examine why you support your candidate.

i could and have found good things to say about the other two democratic contenders… i just don’t think their good points trump hillary’s good points.

Ken disagrees with me.

That makes for discussion that actually uncovers some of the issues…

as for folding your tents and going home if your candidate isn’t our nominee… that’s one sure way to get a republican elected… and have you looked at their “corporate greed monkey” credentials lately?

Have you checked your house’s current market value? are you sure that you or your spouse are immune from the economic downturn that is headed our way? Do you like where your tax dollars are being spent? Are you in favor of corporate immunity and bailouts? I could go on and on.

Anger, bitterness and disappointment… along with a little graft and fraud… have put us where we are today. If we are stupid enough to fall for it again, we deserve what we get.

Regardless of who is the democratic nominee, it is out best interests to support them fully. And it might be a good idea to start remembering that now before we have blown bridges we can’t repair.

LOL… if we can be this divisive with the quality of candidates we have for nomination… imagine what we would be as republicans;-) no wonder they still feel confident that they can and will win.

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[WSMom]

JoB: Woo hoo!! You go girl!!

Like I’ve said before, give me Obama or Hillary! We could do much worse (like Romney or McCain)! We have to win this one. I can’t live through another 2004 election depression in 2008.

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[Kayleigh]

JoB, I don’t vote Republican ever ever ever; no worries there.

I am heartbroken at Edwards’ decision and at the direction my party is taking. Am I supposed to come to the caucus to say, forlornly, ‘I wanted Edwards’? Not real helpful at this point. I guess I could come to support Obama, who I believe is a better choice than Hillary, but he hasn’t touched either my brain or my heart (Edwards did both).

Any ideas (effective ones) on how I can let the party know of my dismay? Serious question.

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[JoB]

Call them..

and you may not have to. I hear that the party is calling around trying to get people to donate. my friend had a long talk with the person who called her and was given a “special” number to call to voice her concerns.

i don’t now if the caucus is a good place to talk about platform issues, ken could tell us… but if so, that’s a great reason to attend. At the very least, you would have an opportunity to meet someone who you could talk with about platform issues.

and even if your candidate is no longer viable, the reasons you supported that candidate are… so keep talking to anyone who will listen to you about what matters to you. talking with people and actually listening to what they say is the most subversive act possible. that’s why i like it so much:)

and of course, vote. even if the democratic candidate was not the candidate of your choice… vote. and encourage everyone you meet to vote.

we need to pull out a landslide vote. regardless of who gets the nomination, the election of the democratic candidate is not a given and as democrats, we need to send a clear message to those democrats currently holding office that we care about our issues and we expect them to care too.

and you might want to come to support obabma if that is your second choice. We only get to choose out of those left standing when we make our choices clear. you wouldn’t want to end up stuck with hillary because you didn’t stand up for obama when you had the chance:)

yup, you read that right.. i encouraged you to come out and support obama even though i am a hillary supporter.

I think it is important for all of us to make ourselves heard. Investing in the process is the greatest gift we can give to our children/grandchildren/nieces/nephews/neighborhood kids/ourselves.

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[Ken]

Kayleigh:

You are not alone. If you had looked at the King Co Dems website over the last few months, Edwards caucus training and meeting info was prominently displayed. The 34th Dems were very enthusiastic about Edwards and you will not be alone at the caucus if you try to get people to choose to join you for Edwards. It may not go anywhere since by the rules I think you can only choose delegates for candidates that have not dropped out… I will have to check.

But you could round up the Edwards people in your precinct and vote for a delegate for “uncommitted”.

I might do the same in my precinct if there are enouogh uncommitted for a delegate. It depends on how close the super tuesday stuff goes.

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[Kayleigh]

I’ll give it some more serious thought.

Thank you, everybody. You made me think and consider…not an easy task with stubborn type like me. ;-)

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[JoB]

thinking is good!

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[JoB]

tonight’s exit polls are interesting.

turns out the “old farts” are voting Clinton and the “kids” are voting Obama.

As one of those voices of experience, i have said plenty about why i think we desperately need the experience of a Hillary Clinton presidency… but more than that, we need the hope and exuberence of the young along with the steadfast experience of the old supporting whoever earns our nomination.

Because it looks like they are going to earn it.. the old fashioned way.

There won’t be any losers in this one. Their platforms are similar enough that we can all embrace what they stand for.

I am feeling so incredibly lucky to be a democrat tonight.

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[k]

looks like washington state WILL matter this weekend. those of you who are participating, please think long and hard about which candidate you believe can truly help us during the upcoming recession. we saw again today (Macy’s) that times will be getting tougher. it will take experience to tackle all the battles that lie ahead courtesy of our current idiot. let’s not make a mistake here. let’s get this election right and take back the white house. we don’t have time for on the job training. let’s set us up for long term control of the white house, not a 4 year stint. GO HILLARY GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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[JoB]

Wow.. i just finished watching the hillary speech on a King 5 webcast.

Her plan for universal health care alone is worth electing her.. and it’s doable.

Would you like to have the choice of the Congressional Health plan regardless of what insurance you currently have? She would make that possible. Premiums would be subsidized for those who couldn’t afford them… but the same plans would be available for the rest of us.

Think of it. Our current insurance companies would have to compete in both premiums and service to keep our business.

The customer would once again become nearly as important as the stockholders. what a concept!

And that wasn’t her only good idea tonight…

I will still watch Obama.. at the key arena or at home by webcast… but i have to say.. i don’t see how he could possibly offer America more.

Yes, i think she could do it.

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[k]

She WILL do it! Obama would be a great VP. He’s just not ready yet. His resume is weak compared to Clinton. We need her now! We don’t have time. Tonight was great! It was a diverse crowd that made me proud.

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[charlabob]

Anybody else in Precinct 1418? If yes, or if you caucus at Lafayette School, I’ll see you there…Look for the aging chick with the purple cane. Last time Dean brought us out — and I have to say the caucus was beyond cool. It really does represent democracy. We lived in Iowa when they first implemented the Iowa Caucus and our precinct caucused in our living room (because I didn’t want to go out in the snow.) Wa. caucuses have all of the drama and none of the ice and snow — at least so far. See y’all there.

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[Kayleigh]

Hillary’s health care plan keeps the insurers in the play, yes? Keeps the profit in the picture–profit that could go to curing and healing people?

(asking)

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[charlabob]

Kayleigh — yup; no matter how often they say, “Universal Health Care” they all support Universal Health Insurance. Barack says he would have favored single-payer back when it started but now it’s too big a leap.

As I understand it, Hillary’s plan mandates insurance (everyone has to buy–it’s like Romney’s plan in Massachusetts!); Obama’s plan is optional.

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