This is as ridiculous as it is predictable. Sure, there are those who hold a grudge over 2008, but the numbers couldn’t elect the mayor in your local town. However, there are plenty of disgruntled Barack Obama voters who think his Republican policies, especially on economics and foreign policy, is not worth voting for again, though these same people are still likely to hold their nose to vote Democratic if right wing politics is the only other choice.
But grudge match articles remain the fall back fighting position of the Right. But it’s a very narrow story, even if Tucker Carlson and others won’t tell that side. Of course, it comes from Daily Caller, though it could have been from Drudge:
“After 2008 [Clinton voters] were basically told get over it, and they haven’t gotten over it,” Amy Siskind, president of the feminist advocacy group The New Agenda, told The Daily Caller.
Women, however, did vote for Obama in droves with the hope that he would tackle the issues important to them once in office. This has not been the case according to many Hillary Clinton supporters.
“Barack Obama wasn’t the women’s candidate in 2008 and he is not the women’s president midway through 2011,” Diane Mantouvalos, a 2008 Clinton supporter and co-founder of HireHeels.com (“a forum of power chics for Hillary”) noted.
According to Manatouvalos — who pointed to a March 2011 Bureau of Labor Statistics report that showed 90 percent of recovery jobs had gone to men in the prior 12 months as proof — Obama has hardly been the women-friendly executive so many thought he could be.
Indeed, while women did vote for Obama by a margin of 13 percentage points over the GOP in 2008, Democrats lost the women’s vote to Republicans by 1 percentage point during the 2010 elections, based on exit polling.
Pres. Obama wasn’t on the ballot in 2010, but the disastrously marketed health care bill was. So, the 2010 numbers were real, including that women split evenly, as did seniors. You’d think with the war on women the GOP is waging across this country there would be less of a worry in 2012. But today, economics trumps abortion rights advocate issues, with the feeling people have about the economy a lot more troublesome for Obama than the numbers.
From the comments I received after my summer newsletter went out yesterday, one comment in particular represented those I’ve received lately, revealing that some Hillary voters, of which I have a newsletter list of thousands from 2008, are wondering a lot about what might have been.
“after skimming the entries about netroots nation, just wanted to ask if you could comment–regularly–on how Hillary would have/might have been different on various issues. people must learn from their mistake in 2008. there isn’t enough–any–conversation on how it happened. I was an Edwards supporter but I switched to Hillary and appreciated your fierce partisanship. On some issues, I’m convinced she’d have been better, others, I wonder. would love to hear what you and others think.” – Lauren
Two questions from my newsletter were, one, if Obama’s base will come out for him; two, what’s the most pressing political issue on your mind? Part of Lauren’s response was “grief that we have no one speaking nationally for us.”
That last item in bold is the most common thing I hear. That the Democratic Party no longer speaks for many people who voted for Obama in 2008. Richard Trumka leads this pack, which is powerful. In California, Trumka is working with liberal Republicans, though it will be interesting to see if he can replicate it eleswhere.
Now, again, rank and file election centric Democrats don’t really care what the Democratic Party stands for and doesn’t fight for political principles. These people are zombie voters on which the party leadership depends, which includes some of your favorite political writers who always push party over political principle. It’s the lesser of two evils strategy that gets us Democrats like Obama who were against the Bush tax cuts as a candidate, then for them as president, then against them when reelect is on the horizon. Still, the evidence that Pres. Obama has the loyal support of At Least He’s Not Republican Democratic voters is overwhelming.
The issue oriented progressives and Democrats, as well as those who gave Obama a chance only to see him mimic George W. Bush, well, not so much, but they’re a minority. However, we are living through an era where close presidential elections can be swayed by the fickle, the fallen away, and the fed up.
It all depends who the Republican nominee is.
As for so called “Hillary voters,” in Pennsylvania right now, a state that loves both Clintons, but not so much Barack Obama, there is little evidence that with the current choices Republicans can beat Obama yet. From Quinnipiac, June 15:
In possible presidential election matchups, President Obama tops Romney 47 – 40 percent and leads Santorum 49 – 38 percent. Independent voters back Obama, 41 – 37 percent over Romney and 46 – 35 percent over Santorum.
But that won’t keep sites like Daily Caller from running the anti Obama Hillary voters story. Rehashing mythic tales is the stuff of election seasons.
As for Lauren’s “what might have been” question, if you have thoughts she wants to hear them.
Photo: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza, with Pres. Obama walking around Buckingham Palace, circa May 2011.
“the evidence that Pres. Obama has the loyal support of At Least He’s Not Republican Democratic voters is overwhelming” — TM
I think that’s accurate, as is that those of us on the liberal / progressive side of things who are critical of and/or not supporting Obama are in the minority. I think it’s a growing minority, with at least the potential to become something more, and with a good number of people who are expressing their displeasure. But whether it grows into something more is very uncertain, and as much as I hate to say it, probably unlikely. Not impossible, but unlikely. And that’s about both the manipulative power of the two party system, and the less than energetic nature of much of the electorate. It’s too damn easy to shrug our shoulders and vote for more of the same. Which, of course, is one of the things both Dems and Reps rely on.
And as I know I’ve already said several times lately, you can tell the 2012 cycle is ramping up when you start seeing more of the “you bad people just never got over Obama beating Hillary” as one response to criticisms of Obama’s time in the WH. Along with, of course, the “lesser of two evils” argument.
Again repeating myself — I think independent, third parties are needed because we need challenges from outside the two party system. I’m not unrealistic, and know it’s an up-mountain climb. But I won’t play the two party game, not even if it’s as a piece in a sophisticated game of 11 dimensional chess
“Third parties” are a fantasy until the Electoral College is addressed.
To become full-fledged parties, that’s true. But I think the efforts now are a part of the process that at least does something to challenge the existing system and structure.
Of 25 people who in the Bay Area who formed a group campaigning for Hillary and who all saw what the Democrats did to her during the primaries (which woke us all up to many many things), not one voted for Obama. Out of 25, 23 of us registered Independent or Libertarian. Of 25, NONE will be voting for Obama. If that is typical of people across the country, the stories are real.
The democratic primary of 2008 was historic.
Talk about a clash of the Titians!
All of us Hillary supporters can take pride and some comfort in the fact that Hillary put up the fight of all fights against the biggest political phenom of our lifetime. All while being attacked, smeared and just plain screwed by the Obama campaign, the democratic establishment (super delegates) and the mainstream media.
And she technically received more votes than any other presidential primary candidate EVER – yes, those votes in Florida and Michigan were real votes cast by real people in real elections whose results were certified by the state’s Board of Elections.
Nobody was more disappointed or angry than me at the final outcome but regardless of the fact that I still believe that Hillary would have been a better President than Barack Obama, I also know that Barack Obama will be better President than any GOP alternative.
Women’s rights, gay rights, civil rights, the Supreme Court, etc.
So like the VAST majority of Hillary supporters, I will vote to re-elect Barack Obama because he will be clearly better, smarter and more deserving than whoever ends up as the GOP nominee.
So like the VAST majority of Hillary supporters, I will vote to re-elect Barack Obama because he will be clearly better, smarter and more deserving than whoever ends up as the GOP nominee.
Bingo.
…and thanks for chiming in.
You can’t beat somebody with nobody:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/president_obama_vs_republican_candidates.html
Progressives may be disappointed that the Health Care Law didn’t include a public option, but legislation is the art of compromise. Too many Blue Dog Conservative Senate Democrats (Bayh, Lincoln, Liebermann, Nelson of Nebraska) would have joined senate Republicans in filibustering to death any health care bill that included a public option.
When FDR passed the social security act as part of the new deal he didn’t have enough votes until he agreed to write the Social Security Act that won him southern segregationist Democrats support conditional on the Act being written insuch a way that would exclude most blacks and Hispanics.
Like FDR’s Social Security Act, The Affordable Care Act is not set in stone, it can and will be amended over the years and eventually would have to include a public option.
Oh, puh-leaze. It had nothing to do with Lincoln et al. It happened as it did because Obama made back room deals with private insurance industry and never intended on making the case for the public option.
What happened May 31, 2008 is still relevant today. That’s when the Democrat party gave delegates from voters that went for Clinton to Obama who hadn’t even participated in the elections just so he could claim he had clinched the nomination. Since that very un-democratic act, the Democrat party has devolved into simply another war-industry subsidiary without even the pretense of a party that stands for working class people and democracy.
I’m not going to vote for Repub-lite, because the “other” side is scarier. I’ll let you vote for Evil, lesser or not.
To people without a job, Mawm, it is most definitely not relevant.
Mawm, you proved that you are not now a Democrat and I’m willing to bet you never were. There is NO “Democrat Party,” and there NEVER has been. That was a weasel-word coinage of a bunch of right-wing ultra-conservatives who chose to highlight the last three letters of the Party’s noun formation.
The Party’s name requires the adjectival form–Democratic. A person who is a member of that Party is a Democrat.
You may be upset with the Party over its treatment of Hillary, but that doesn’t entitle you to malign the Party’s name, especially in a form that’s been used by right-wingers for the last 2 decades. I wasn’t happy with how the DNC treated Hillary, but I refuse to perpetuate the Republican slander that you casually (and callously) use.
Hillary herself remained a loyal Democrat and campaigned fiercely for the Democratic Party and its Presidential slate. You dishonor her with your slander (okay, technically libel since you wrote it).