In the wake of the extremely regrettable news that Rupert Murdoch is indeed buying the Wall Street Journal … I think John Edwards may have a nibble on the line this time: He’s asking all Dem candidates to distance themselves from Murdoch by refusing to take, or sending back their donations from him. Good for him; they should.
This could not be a more obvious jab at Hillary, who (in)famously has been the recipient of Murdoch’s largesse — to the point of his actually giving a fundraiser for her. Isn’t that kind of twisted? I understand Murdoch’s desire to cover his political bases by giving contributions to safe incumbents; that’s obvious enough. But it seems that Hillary feels that no one really cares if she’s associated with a right-wing propagandist plutocrat. Maybe she’s right, but I think the atmosphere has been changing in that regard, what with the Democrats refusing to debate on Fox in Nevada, and generally less willingness on the part of prominent Dems to validate Fox as a real news source. That’s new — really as of the last year or so, as the result of pressure from the grassroots.
For me, Hillary’s association with Murdoch reinforces my sense of her as still being stuck in 1996 triangulation mode — or perhaps more accurately, soft-money mode. Recall that Bill raised boatloads of soft money in 1996 — all the better to brain Bob Dole with TV ads — and nobody on the left seemed to care. We were all playing defense back then, and it was good to have that advantage for once.
But I think people — at least Democrats — do care a bit more this time around. The Zeitgeist feels a lot more populist these days — not surprising, given 6 1/2 years of middle-class abuse at the hands of the Bush administration. Murdoch is a convenient, genuine and recognizable villain to many primary voters. I expect that Edwards’ question may well be echoed, by the other candidates at least, and possibly the media. It’s a theme, and one of the ways she stands out from the pack … but not in a good way.
I’m not sure I have a good read on political impact in the primary, but I suspect that this relationship will come back to haunt Hillary more than she expects. It depends on how much Dem primary voters are willing to rationalize that relationship on her behalf. On the substance of that relationship, Murdoch is someone to be kept well beyond smelling distance — for any Democrat, or indeed anyone who still is concerned about a free, independent and truthful media.
My first thought is, Edwards is right, she should return the money (I assume she is the only one Murdoch gave to).
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My second thought is, why not? If he wants to fork over money to defeat the GOP, well, let him.
That picture is hideous.
and the negative impact that he should have on HC’s campaign, although I’ve been surprised at the (feigned?) ignorance about Murdoch that I’ve seen in some recent comments on BMG. Murdoch has literally financed the nexus between Atwater/Rove and Rush/Fox.
Murdoch hired Roger Ailes to create Fox news.
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Here’s more Rupert street cred:
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Maybe there’s a good reason why Hilary sidled up to Rupert. Could be she’s just trying to shore up her “moderate” base.
What does that make the Taylor family, former owners of the Boston Globe, or the Sulzbergers?
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“Corrupt, lying, commie nomenklatura,” I suppose.
…if the Sulzbergers had been commies, they never would have anointed a right wing nut case like Abe Rosenthal to be chief editor of the NYTimes. Which, of course, they did. And he, with the support of the Sulzbergers, ran the NYTimes into the ground for more than a decade.
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Is that simple enough for you? Or do I have to go into a litany of the Salzbergers’ defalcations over the last few decades. Their lies about Stalin. Their lies about Iraq. Their lies about Whitewater. Their lies about gay people. I’m sorry, but the NYTimes has no credibility whatsoever.
Didn’t read that one. How did the NYT lie about Stalin? Are you talking about Walter Durante?
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Abe Rosenthal a “right wing nut case”? Tin foil hat — ON! That’s your twisted opinion. By your standards, that makes most American newspaper editors virulent Republicans.
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Don’t forget the big decline in the NYT’s circ has been from recent mismanagement by left-wing Pinch, with help from the internet and his “Jason Blair” project. “All the news that fits, we print.”
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And, for the record raj, what is your newspaper of record? The Worker’s Daily? I’d like to know.
Stalin apologist in the 1930s. I don’t remember their “reporter’s” name (maybe others here do), but he issued glowing reports about the Soviet Union under the Communists.
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I’m sorry, but the fact is that the NYTimes has no credibility. Between that, Abe Rosenthal (the fag-basher), their publishing crap by Gerth about Whitewater, their publishing the crap by Judith “Bush malAdministration stenographer” Miller about Iraq, and yes, Jason Blair, why should they have any credibility.
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Apparently, the Sulzbergers would like us to believe that their shit don’t stink (to coin a phrase) but it does.
And, for the record raj, what is your newspaper of record?
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Some of us are polyglots. As I believe I have made clear, my primary newspaper is the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, out of Munich. I also read the FAZ–the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The first is a center left newspaper, the second a center right, and both are independent (unabhaengig, meaning by that, that they are not owned by any political party, as many newspapers in Europe used to be). I don’t do French, but many of the SZ’s stories are in part from the French press agency AFP (some of them are also from the Deutsche Presse Agentur–dpa–and also the AP).
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I also use the Guardian web site out of the UK, and also the Times of London (!) web site. It was primarily via the latter that I figured out that Rupert Murdoch, after he had bought the Times, wasn’t so much interested in ideology, as he was in money. And I don’t begrudge him that one bit.
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BTW, I read Der Spiegel religiously. We have an e-paper subscription to it, and download it weekly. It is what Time and Newsweek used to be, but better.
Charley, you’re exactly right. This is just the Clintonian way of cozying up to the business elite, an effort to emphasize triangulation, and a perfect example of the tepid DLC politics we need to rid our party of.
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What is a Democratic candidate for president doing having Rupert Murdoch holding fund raisers for her?
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Edwards deserves credit for speaking out on this so quickly.
Looks like John Edwards has disqualified himself too.
Seems John Edwards has 800, 000 reasons why he should be aware of where his family jewels are before walking around. Seems as if he has stepped on his dick once again. John Edwards is like John Kerry: The gift that keeps on giving.
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Looks like the Hillary/Obama ticket is almost a reality.
Should Democrats refuse all donations given to them by corporations owned by right-wing CEOs? If not, why not?
…CEOs usually don’t own corporations, they merely run them on behalf of the corporations’ shareholders and, not incidentally, their employees.
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That point appears to be overlooked by many people in the USofA. Until self-described “progressives” understand that fact–particularly the part about the employees–their beating on the CEOs ain’t going nowhere.
but thanks anyway.
It was colloquial…
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…it was a way of thinking. You wanted to demonize a particular individuals or set of individuals, without recognizing that there were other individuals (the line employees) who were also relying on the corporation for their livelihood. I seriously do not comprehend how you can belittle that fact.
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That is the main reason why sHillary’s health care activity foundered. She, in her infinite lack of wisdom, did not realize that there were people who worked at these companies whose livelihoods were threatened by her proposal. Her proposals threatened those livelihoods, and, if the proposals went into effect, what were they going to do? Collect welfare? Yeah, right.
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sHillary’s lack of understanding about that is one reason why I have always given her a “G” (far below an “F”) on her administrative experience. Her only claim to fame is that she was the wife of Billary, another snake-oil salesman.
Given that my comment was actually getting at what I saw as a problem with the diary and some of the comments — the fact that Clinton is being criticized for taking contributions from News Corp. while plenty of other right-wing led corporations donate to Democrats everywhere — you apparently missed my point.
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The problem isn’t taking contributions from certain sources — it’s taking contributions and then acting a certain way directly based upon those contributions. I have no problem with Hillary’s actions here. I’m not convinced that these contributions from News Corp. have made her into a Fox News right-wing lackey.
you apparently missed my point
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your previous comment referred to demonizing CEOs, and that was what I was responding to. I presume that you missed that.
Though I doubt Hillary will become a News Corp lackey, we might wonder about what she does relative to media ownership, the fairness doctrine, etc.
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It might matter; it might not. I don’t understand it well enough.
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In a media age, it’s easy to mistake moral posturing for moral behavior and I’m curious too as to how this one is answered in this specific case.
And lets give credit where credit is due to Barack Obama who has only received individual contributions the bulk of them from individual donors like me, and yes granted a lot of 2k cheques from celebrities, actors, and the vast Harvard Law alumni network (they helped Deval tremendously as well). And he supports campaign finance reform and public financing so more cudos.
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While I am a fan of free markets and a centrist economic policy I am not a fan of corporate welfare or the rising corporatist state both parties are creating which are antithetical to free markets and free peoples. So I oppose Clintonian (Reagan-lite) bullshit and one of the big reasons I do not want to see Hillary nominated. The DLC has been a terrible corporate mouthpiece, endorsing our misguided adventure in Iraq, anti-gay, practically anti-choice, in a very lame way trying to be pro-religious and pro-gun, it shows everything thats wrong with the Democrats post Reagan. Reagan was a charismatic figure that could have been a socialist and beaten Jimmy Carter, his ideology didnt matter and shouldnt be emulated by Democrats.
PACs have contributed at most 1 measly percent of total contributions to any of the big four Democratic candidates (opensecrets.org). How much do you think anyone is going to sell out for such a tiny amount? And are union PACs on your banned list as well?
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A far bigger problem is “bundling”, which Bush exploited beautifully and comes across as individual contributions in finance reports. Obama has spoken against this practice, though he now employs Oprah Winfrey who Senator Gravel says is one of over 100 bundlers he has (he also took PAC money throughout his political career until this campaign).
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Do you believe that Hillary’s political ideals are similar to Reagan’s, and will you volunteer for her should she win the nomination?
Under no circumstances will I give my time, money, or vote to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Democrats should refuse all corporate donations and PAC money. PERIOD
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…of Willie Sutton’s famous comment on why he robbed banks. He is reputed to have said “That’s where the money is.”
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Dems take corporate donations and PAC money because that’s where the money is. In advertising driven media such as you have in the US, you have to have money to do the advertising. Individual donations just don’t cut it.
The DLC is no longer the vibrant thing it was. It’s time is past. Isn’t it fair to say that it was once popular among politicians but never had a popular base? Did NAFTA have a popular base? The Iraq misadventure has barely detectable support in the vanishingly obscure corners of the Democratic Party only visited by pollsters. The reasons you dislike the DLC are probably the reasons lots of people dislike their political prescriptions.
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As policy, triangulation was terrible, but, in the 90s, as politics it worked well for Clinton. (For the Democratic brand, it was a disaster.)
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Times have changed.
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The public has swung behind most Democratic positions, even the war on terror. Independents are drifting Democratic. Younger voters are overwhelmingly Democratic. The Congress is Democratic now and will be more Democratic in 2008. There’s no Gingrich to maneuver around.
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We will see stuff from a Hillary Clinton that we don’t like. (We will see such stuff from any White House.) It’s unlikely that triangulation will be the cause of unpleasantness.
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1999 vanishes over the horizon in the rear view mirror.
Here’s a piece about it:
http://www.desmoines…
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Not accepting federal PAC money in a primary is a campaign tool to make you look less like a politician. It’s an Axelrod hallmark.
why John Edwards is absolutely right. Take a look at this article from The New York Times regaridng the ties to Giuliana and Fox News. Certainly it is hard to begrudge him a friendship with Ailes but making Hannity and Colmes the in-house organ of the campaing is a bit much.
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Murdoch is trying to buy influence to make sure his corporate empire can grow as far and fast as he wants without pesky regulation. It should be anathema to those who believe in the free exchange of ideas which is critical to the health of a democracy.
site anymore for Hillary supporters. Thanks alot. I liked this site during Patrick’s election. Too bad you are so blatantly against Hillary. May as well visit redstate.com.
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By the way, who cares? There is no quid pro quo here. He’s a constituent and he made a huge bundle smearing her, so who care if she gets a little of it back? She’s not doing him any favors.
but seriously, no whining please. It doesn’t help your causes, that’s for sure.
Anyway, melanie, is there a fief of the blogosphere that is actually friendly to Hillary? Dropping her name in a thread is the only thing that provides the Obama and Edwards people a break from tearing out each other’s eyes.
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This place is as good as it’s going to get — we have one editor who speaks consistently well of her, and a couple supporters here.
there’s “Hillary acting Stupid”, or a picture of Hillary w/ Murdoch. But, maybe it is just my bad luck. I didn’t know there was an editor who cpoke well of her. As for the blogosphere, no. I just thought she might be a little more popular in a North East blog. Apologies.
I try to defend Hillary Clinton whenever I can even though her politics and mine are not in alignment.
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There was a lot to be learned from the 2000 election — especially with its huge character attack on Al Gore. If I had more time, I would read Somersby’s archives for their excellent analysis of Gore’s undoing and look at how similar things are happening to Hillary Clinton. IMHO, the attack on Hillary Clinton’s personality is relentless, unfair, and only lightly factual.
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Saying that, take a look at this diary from the front page of Daily Kos that helpfully compares energy policy from four top Democratic candidates. There are a lot of boxes reading “No Policy” in the Clinton column.
not all of her stances.
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For example on buildings:
Hillary Clinton introduced Zero Emissions Building Act of 2007 which directs federal agencies to immediately require that all new federal buildings or major renovations reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent as compared to a 2003 baseline. In 2010, and every five years after that, the emissions reduction level would increase by 10 percent, until new federal buildings become “zero-emissions” buildings in 2030. The legislation would also apply to major renovations of existing federal buildings.
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When you say her politics do not align wih yours do you mean her policies? I find alot of people don’t know all that much about her policies. I don’t require a laundry list of policies anyway, frankly. It takes Congress to get anything passed so I often distrust too many promises. That said, I think she will be very friendly to pro-environment policy, and I think she will be pro-active.
I’m loath to spell out the ways in which Senator Clinton is not my first or second choice. I have not made up my mind yet on who to vote for in the 2008 presidential primary and I’ve taken more of an interest in local politics until September 2008 anyway.
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What makes me itch is the media-abetted effort to tear down the personalities and reputations of Democratic leaders. I’m happy to comment about where she is being treated unfairly.
melanie, if you don’t think clinton is fairly represented on this blog, may i suggest that you write up and post your own pro-clinton diary? lay it all out for us – what she stands for, how she stands out, why she is your choice.
Hillary has the best attendance of all Senators running for president. As you can see
here, Obama missed almost 6X the number of votes that Hillary did, while McCain missed 147 votes to Hillary’s 10, which was 3% of the total votes taken.
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I was a bit surprised to see that in the House of Representatives, Kucinich had the best attendance record of the four reps running (missing 8% of the votes), one third of the number missed by Duncan Hunter.
As you can see here, Obama missed almost 6X the number of votes that Hillary did…
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In the past, at least, it was not unusual for two senators, on opposite sides of an issue, to “pair off,” that is they would agree that neither would vote on an issue while conducting “business” elsewhere, because their votes would merely cancel each other. Perhaps that is what you are seeing with Obama’s not voting on certain issues.
Right…Obama’s not voting in certain issues. That may be whether he “pairs off” with a Republican colleague or not. I’m just saying Hillary’s there for the votes, and Obama, Biden, and Dodd are not.
…the issue is whether he needed to be on the Senate floor in order to get his vote to mean anything. If he “paired off” his vote wouldn’t mean anything since it would have been cancelled by the vote of the senator that he “paired off” with.
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I’m amazed that you apparently do not understand that. Analyze the statistics better.
Leave the condescension at home, raj. This isn’t about what I “apparently do not understand”, it’s about dodging the work one is paid to do. Obama/Dodd/Biden are not being paid to vote when convenient, but at all times.
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By your logic, we only need about 20 Senators in chamber, and the other 80 can pair off. Clinton has the option of pairing off with some Republican, but she chose not to take it. Clinton consistently chose to come into work, which includes but is not limited to voting in the chamber. Do you think Clinton is a sucker for doing her job, instead of pairing off with McCain or someone else whenever she can?
By your logic, we only need about 20 Senators in chamber, and the other 80 can pair off.
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It isn’t logic, it’s reality.
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BTW, regarding Obama/Dodd/Biden are not being paid to vote when convenient, but at all times. they aren’t paid to vote at all. Check your copy of the US Constitution. They are paid to be Senators. Their payment is not on a per-vote basis.
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And, yes, as long as there is a quorum (more than half the Senators, even though that is subject to the rules of the Senate)) available on the floor, a vote can be taken.
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Now, tell me again, how many of the votes that Obama did not take were because he “paired off” with another senator?
You’re kinda cute raj — giving me the snotty little “check the Constitution” line. I guess I’m not paid to teach students, but I’m paid to “be a teacher”. Wicked. I guess firefighters aren’t paid to put out fires, but to “be a firefighter”. Geez..I hope I can get a job where I get to “be a CEO”.
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Clearly you’re fine with people slacking on their job as long as they find a procedural dodge to justify it. Please let me know if you’re ever hiring.
I mostly find them irrelevent, and sabutai even if Hillary gets the nomination her attendence record will get substantially worse as did John Kerry’s in 2004. Id say Senators wanting to be President should resign, as Bob Dole did, but most of them like our own love their job security.
would resign, risking tipping the balance of power to the other party. if all the dem members of congress running for president made a gentlecritter’s agreement to resign with their repub counterparts, who dya think would be left standing along on the capitol steps, holding the “i’m a chump!” sign?
…no fool would resign, risking tipping the balance of power to the other party.
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These “didn’t vote” statistics are meaningless.