I never suspected he’d do otherwise, but it would be nice if President Obama agreed with the author of this piece.
Former President Barack Obama’s decision to accept a $400,000 fee to speak at a health care conference organized by the bond firm Cantor Fitzgerald is easily understood. That’s so much cash, for so little work, that it would be extraordinarily difficult for anyone to turn it down. And the precedent established by former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, to say nothing of former Federal Reserve Chairs Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan and a slew of other high-ranking former officials, is that there is nothing wrong with taking the money.
Indeed, to not take the money might be a problem for someone in Obama’s position. It would set a precedent.
Obama would be suggesting that for an economically comfortable high-ranking former government official to be out there doing paid speaking gigs would be corrupt, sleazy, or both. He’d be looking down his nose at the other corrupt, sleazy former high-ranking government officials and making enemies.
Which is exactly why he should have turned down the gig.
(Hat tip to Lawyers, Guns, and Money, via Eschaton.)
On the bright side, maybe this will motivate more people to run for office.
(Not really.)
“Surprise, surprise, surprise…not!”
Past and future prominent Democrats shouldn’t spend their free time hob nobbing with the 1% and getting sucked into their vortex of interests and positions. This is when they start to develop bad ideas like entitlement reform, privatization, and bombing Assad. Or that labor and American manufacturing are obsolete and will be automated or traded away.
These are the kinds of policies that don’t help the American worker one bit, and the Davos and Vineyard jetset help develop them. Obama should come visit the schools in Roseland, a neighborhood devastated by school shootings where I’ve been volunteering. They need his voice far more than Cantor Fitzgerald.
I can’t stand that Clinton took all those speaking fees from the one percent, so I’m going to vote for the arrogant SOB who encapsulates the one percent with every breath he draws, never mind that Clinton spent a career fighting for those society has marginalized?
Perception: Clinton took many from the global elite to screw the American worker with bad trade deals and floods of illegal labor. Trump made his money honestly in business, and has so much of it he can’t be bought by Wall Street like those damn Clinton’s.
The sooner we realize behavior like this hurts our brand and helps his, the sooner we can start defeating him. Stuff like this makes me really nervous about 2020-since the Dems still totally don’t get why they lost.
I once again presumed logic where none exists – mea culpa:(
And yes, this is the shit that helped Trump. It’s not just Obama. I was contacted by an organization that a congressman in our state belongs to. It’s called New Dem Pac and its motto is “We are New Democrats!”
I was invited to a gathering in Boston later this month. The cost to me to attend would be $1,200. They said they want to hear from the voters!
I replied that I would not be able to attend, as my part time job (the only one I can find at the moment) nets me about $1,200 a month and it would be an economic hardship for me to spend a month’s wages for such an event.
They want to hear from voters who are willing to give them $1,200. Follow the money. These are the New Democrats?
Sure, a campaign costs a few bucks and money is important, but they seem to ignore the reality that Trump spent HALF of that Clinton spent and he won. He won because he had a message. He won because he placed his message before his fundraising.
Now of course he is showing his true colors, but then again, so is Obama.
And that is how we will lost the next election.
He’s not likely to run for office again, but last I checked still plans to lead an effort to undo gerrymandering that has been so unfavorable to us. He’s a private citizen and can do whatever he wants that is legal. Just because you take a speaking fee doesn’t make you the servant of the devil!
From the Audacity of Hope:
My personal highlights bolded for emphasis.
Of course I’m probably more tolerant than you of those more centrist attitudes too. Obama’s a smart and compassionate guy, but writing more as an outsider then. He’s earned the right to do this.
I fail to see the connection.
Depending on the context it has described me to some extent. It certainly isn’t rightwing.
Is chummy with Wall Street, hostile to Labor…..and that’s now called “Centrist”?
Meant to upvote, not downvote…sorry!
This man spent the last eight years of his life working 100 hour workweeks. How many moments did he miss out with each of his daughters? With his wife? It’s a crazy sacrifice, and plenty of other Americans who sacrifice that kind of time with that kind of pressure make a hell of a lot more than a few hundred grand a year, minus expenses.
Speaking fees of that size are absurd. They reflect a failure of our society to reign in the powers of wealth. They’re as much conspicuous consumption as Mar-a-Lago. But that’s like blaming a landlord for charging market rent in an economy with surging housing prices…
I have no objection to the President making money.
But he can WHATEVER HE WANTS, and it would be lucrative. He could write books on constitutional law, and they’d sell.
Seeing him take money from Wall Street is disappointing. I don’t blame him, and I don’t flatter myself that I wouldn’t do the same. But he has options most of us don’t, so I think it’s OK to ask him to aim higher.
I think we have no business telling him he should “aim higher” and not take a speaking from people we don’t like. We are all free to be disappointed of course.
That was the idea. I don’t presume to tell him anything, but it is disappointing.
He volunteered to run for office. He is guaranteed a comfortable life, complete with security protection as long as he lives. He will never, ever, worry about being homeless, bankrupted by illness, or behind in his bills. Never, ever.
That $400,000 came from laborers and it was acquired by the rentier class, the wealthy….and they are offering it to Obama.
How many moments of their kids lives do over the road truckers miss? How many moments with their spouses do our soldiers miss when they are in Afghanistan, Iraq, or at sea? Do any of these people get the invitation to pocket $400,000 to speak with Cantor Fitzgerald? No, because unlike Obama, Cantor Fitzgerald does not expect a quid pro quo from a soldier or truck driver…and they will get one from a former president and his connections. Shame on Obama. Shame on the Democratic Party.
Working hard for lots of money isn’t inherently nobler than working hard for barely sufficient money in my book.
It isn’t nobler. But look, if we used the “we can’t all have X, so nobody should have it” we’re in for a tough haul.
What did we do? Seriously, why generalize this?
We have not learned from our mistakes. As I posted earlier on this thread, our “New Democrats” are doing the same thing.
Because it is symptomatic of the corruption of the Democrats. Check out my old landlords, Gerald and Elaine Schuster, who held a prominent fundraiser that HRC attended last August.
The Schusters had been in the news a few years ago, when Phil Johnston refused one of their (many) contributions to the state Democrats. Johnston’s rationale was sound–the Schusters were busting a union at one of their nursing homes in Wilbraham, Mass.
The Schusters responded by trying to get Johnston fired. The state party didn’t have the gall to have Johnston thrown out while they were under scrutiny, but soon enough Johnston was gone, the union drive in Wilbraham failed and the state Democrats were back on the take.
Check the voting totals for the towns around Wilbraham. Think that the working people out there feel loyal to HRC?
And this is organized labor. Personally, I think that the Democrats should have distanced themselves from these slumlords just based on the way they mistreated me and my neighbors on Kelton Street,,in Allston. Or their shameful record at Diego Beekman project in the South Bronx. I’ve long ago given up the illusion that the Democratic party (lesser evil that it is) cares about tenants. But I thought, just maybe, that they wouldn’t sell out organized labor.
So, yeah, Obama’s sucking up to Wall Street is part of a pattern.
And he was elected by the people to work those long hours. Nobody held him at gunpoint and said ‘you have to be President’. Most people can live well off a $200,000/yr government pension-I’ll never see that as a teacher nor my wife as a nurse. Not to mention he makes a few million a year in royalties from his old books, and a reported $25 mil a book deal for him and Michelle. Stay home (at the 900k/year manse you’re renting) and write the books, or better yet, use those new high flying friends to plug the paltry $46 million hole in CPS’s operating budget and help your beloved South Side have another 20 days of school.
and build homes for the homeless.
There is a lot I did not like about Carter, but his actions after his presidency made me warm up to the guy.
I believe the book deal is $65M.
He chose to serve for eight years, and he served them. He didn’t sign a lifetime contract,
And he should lead by example. He eloquently identified the corrosive effects of monied interests on his thinking as a politician-and one would hope his post-presidency would’ve liberated him from having to chase after dollars. And it sets a poor example, as Yglesias argues, that the center left is hearing this populist anger and responding to it with empathy as well as reason. The fate of the EU now rests on an investment banker beating a populist-and I for one done want the Democratic Party to go the way of the Socialists in France or Labour in Britain.
Let’s not forget that he was already a multi-millionaire before become President. He would not have to work another day in his life post Presidency and still be wealthy.
And the worst things about folks defending this saying he’s not President anymore is that is how the scam works. You take care of the business interests while you are in office and they take care of you afterwards – it’s a payback for “services” rendered.
Just like when heads of agencies go to work, after leaving office, for the very industries they regulated for high salaries with do nothing jobs.
It’s the cycle of corruptions writ large.
…then the answer is to repeal the 22nd amendment and let Barack Obama run for a third, and fourth, term and possibly beyond. He’s 55 years old. James Carter and George H.W. Bush are both 92. Bill Clinton is 70. Obama could legitimately be a player for the next 35 years or more.
What is he supposed to do for those 35 years? Go on vacation, more or less, constantly?
I don’t think the founding fathers envisioned a POTUS-emeritus, but that’s essentially what is happening. The suggestions of cupidity and/or ethical failures are just a petulant tantrum at the world.
The 22nd amendment was put in place by sore-loser Republicans and it has been harming America ever since.
I don’t know if Dwight Eisenhower would have prevailed had he been able to run for a third term, or what the consequences might have been.
I do know that Bill Clinton would have handily defeated George W. Bush. We would not have invaded Iraq. We would not be fighting ISIS today. Similarly, Barack Obama would have creamed Donald Trump. We would not be living in fear of imminent nuclear catastrophe brought about by having an incompetent, ignorant, insecure tyrant in charge of humanity’s most powerful arsenal EVER.
Repeal of the 22nd amendment is at the very top of my list of required changes to the US constitution.
What is he supposed to do for those 35 years? Go on vacation, more or less, constantly?
Ask Bill Clinton about what he did before the Republicans attacked his wife’s foundation.
Or, ask Jimmy Carter about his “vacation”.
Not a bad idea
Interesting post.
What’s the over-under on how much he’ll earn in the coming years? I’d put it at $15 million.
The “low” might be, say, 20 speeches a year at $400k. So $8 million.
But if he takes advisory shares in a hedge fund, a unicorn start-up, a PE fund…seems like north of $20 million per year, easily. One would think billionaires will shower him with offers like that.
Also: I’ve wondered about President Obama’s stated interest in owning a piece of an NBA team.
It might work like this:
When NBA teams are sold, A-list ownership groups compete with each other to be chosen by the other NBA owners. Steve Ballmer beat out David Geffen/Oprah Winfrey for the last one.
Obama would put up a nominal (but probably undisclosed amount of money). Say $10 million out of a $2 billion bid.
But nothing would block the majority owner from giving Obama, say, 5% ownership. $90 million gain overnight.
The billionaire principal owner would get 2 things in return for gifting that equity. One is the chance of that particular bid being accepted goes way up. The NBA would try to grease the skids, as his affiliation would help the whole sector. That alone might be worth it.
The second upside for the billionaire is a lifelong close relationship with a former President, with all that entails in terms of access and political relationships, to perhaps help his non-NBA business interests.
He is right about all the arguments about why Obama shouldn’t take this money but he’s wrong about a core point – this is who Obama is. (It is also who the Clintons are.)
Yup. Nothing hid save it shall be revealed.
phenomenal service for Wall Street?
That’s pretty surprising.
The current number — only 28 percent think the party is in touch — has been noted elsewhere, and that number is concerning enough on its own: It’s 10 percentage points less than the number of people who think Trump is in touch and 4 percent less than the number who think the GOP is. But what hasn’t been commented upon is even more worrying for Democrats: In 2014, 48 percent of voters felt the party was “in touch,” a 20-percentage-point collapse in just three years.
By the way, on a Elizabeth Warren fan base Facebook page, I brought up the matter of Obama and the $400,000. Far too many Democrats see nothing wrong with this.
And that’s why we lost the house, senate, White House, and a majority of state governments.
… that
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.”
And this may be the case for the electorate as well as for the elected.
… I wouldn’t do in his position.
People want to hear what he has to say, so he’s charging a fee to say it.
Like Hillary Clinton, I’m not at all concerned that Obama will kowtow to the so-called elite, in fact I’m fairly convinced the price tag is an indication of the kowtowing going in the other direction. The so-called elites are the least secure peoples going.
As well, in defiance of the unspoken notion most of you are peddling that Obama’s being paid to be obsequious, I think Barack Obama has the cajones to look ’em in the eye, take their money and tell ’em what’s what, straight, no chaser. Might be the only way they will have to sit and take it.
Please, Petr, you are smarter than this. If Cantor Fitzgerald wants to hear what he as to say, they can read his books, follow him in the news, read over his years of speeches.
My guess is that Cantor Fitzgerald would not mind if President Obama went to the podium and recited the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. They are handing him $400,000.00 and they expect to get something in return in the future. What that is will be to be determined and my guess is that we common folk will never know.
With Barack Obama’s voice, and in his cadence… that might be quite a thing to hear. Why do you dismiss that as the least effort, least value thing that he could deliver?
The underlying thesis you posit is that, of course, Barack Obama will give them what they want.
Why do you think so little of him?
What they will get is what Barack Obama decides to give them. Everything I know about Barack Obama suggests to me that if they were to ask him to do something unethical he’ll tell them to go piss up a rope. Their money entitles them to sit down, STFU, listen to what he has to say and then ponder it in the privacy of their own thoughts.
If someone has wealth, they thereby earn HATRED, and nothing more, period ever.
This is where the UK Labour Party is going,and it seems the left wing of the Dems want their party to follow.
Check back in mid-June to see how well it worked in the UK.
Labour will likely lose this election, but it’s interesting to see their popularity among people under 40, especially women.
Why? Because they are going full Red Revolutionary, which was already tried and found wanting. Not unlike the way our newly empowered left wishes to return to Great Society liberalism, as if that very thing didn’t kill the Democrats for 40 years.
The left is in my view almost too dumb to be allowed. In both countries, the left most hates the only successful politicians that they have produced in fifty fucking years. It’s too bad Trump didn’t win 80% of the popular vote and sweep the electoral college– then Hillary might get some love.
The left is fundamentally incapable of political success, because they loathe any politician capable of achieving it. It has had zero policy achievements in close to 60 years other than these New Left diversity policies which betrayed the real working class. Sixty years. Zero wins. Why would anyone ever listen to these navel gazing nitwits, even if they got all fired up by an old white guy from Brooklyn?
The most popular party among young people is going to be extinct? Ok, sure.
Successful at what? Successful at winning elections and pushing center-right policies, sure.
I don’t disagree that the Left has been unsuccessful but I do think there is a reawakening recently, especially among the young. A $15 minimum wage was a fucking pipe dream a few years ago and now cities and states have passed it and a new bill in the Senate has 22 co-sponsors – and all with almost zero high profile political supporters until very recently.
There is a good argument to be made that Blair permanently eroded the working class base of the party which has defected to UKIP in the Midlands and SNP in Scotland. The unpopular Iraq War matched with fiscal centrism has lead to the erosion of grassroots support for Labour while the elite defected quite easily to the Tories under Cameron. Now their entire system was shocked by Brexit and while May can glide to a comfortable re-election, it will only be because she has move her party farther to the right to do so.
Corbyn is a joke, but the grassroots of the party wants a populist-and Labour would be wise to nominate one who also believes in the EU and deterring Putin.
Blair ruined Labour MUCH MORE than Corbyn.
Even on the Iraq war I always felt better about it after listening to him make the case than I did after hearing GWB make the case. I think he also appropriately updated the Labour Party to fit current circumstances both political and economic.
Blair was a great salesman. He was similar to Clinton, I think. He had a great persona for a while and things were going well, but he was pushing a neoliberal agenda (the awful Third Way) that would erode the base (and other things) over the medium term. Unlike, Clinton, however, he also got mixed up in the Iraq lie and disaster. It’s not hard to see why Labour lost so much trust.
I think that has been proven incorrect.
You use the term “awful” to modify Third Way whereas I most emphatically do not. I agree he was similar to Clinton – that’s probably why I like him so much.
He wants his deep thought back.
Take a look at the recovery from the recession. His administration bailed out Wall Street and NO ONE went to jail,or even for prosecuted. Seems like he gave them what they wanted then, why stop now?
It’s more of a tremendous disappointment. I like him. I just an saddened and close to heartbroken that he has not done more and has instead, gone after money.
Where were you the last years??? This is hilarious.
No one said Obama is being paid to be obsequious.
He’s being paid to rent out his prestige. THAT is what I object to, because if $400K is the market rate, most of us are priced out.
For the record I have the same problem with $1,000 fundraisers where $15K gets you to a cocktail reception so you can avoid the poor folks who can only afford a grand. If we object to big money in politics, and I think most of us do, this is part of it.
That’s it in a nut shell. That’s what’s wrong with the Democratic Party as well. Well said.
I’m perfectly happy being ‘priced out.’ I’ve never been POTUS. As noted earlier, If I ever find myself in Barack Obama’s position, I’d do nothing differently than he.
Where would you have him draw the line? Cantor Fitzgerald is one of the most important bond trading firms. They’re fine, they do their job. But they are as “Wall Street” as one could get. The proverbial optics are bad.
I assume you’d object if the President became a lobbyist for the Taliban. So where’s the line? Can he work for Roger Goodell? How about Roger Ailes or Roger Stone?
…Speaking TO Wall Street is not speaking FOR Wall Street. Your analogy reveals more about what you think than anything else: you think speaking to is equivalent to speaking for…
I certainly would not object to Barack Obama being dispatched upon a diplomatic mission to Afghanistan to speak TO the Taliban, which I think is a cleaner, though not entirely clean, analogy. If the Taliban invited him and offered him money, I would not object. The difference is that I do not equate that with lobbying.
The optics aren’t bad: you, and others, refuse to see anything but what you want to see. That’s not a problem of the optics. That’s a problem of you.
And I’ve exposed my “hand” in every comment I’ve made on this thread.
I was positing extremes, to make a point.
Speaking TO Wall Street is something Obama can do whenever he wants. Getting paid $400K BY Wall Street is speaking FOR Wall Street, no matter what he says during the speech.
I decline to reply further. Last word is yours if you want it.
I would have helped the homeowners more than he banks during the recession recovery. I would have actively investigated and prosecuted members of the banking establishment. I would not accept a $400,000 “gift” from the banker after my retirement, not when so many Americans are without adequate wages and as our middle class continues to shrink…
But that’s me.
…critiques of past actions, which I may or may not agree with, are not germane to my statement made in the present tense about the present situation. Calling forth such critiques suggests an unfocused rage over past situations further suggesting that no present action on the part of Former President Obama would ‘scape the fusillade of your anger.
… because Yglesias pretty clearly laid that out. It is the entire rationale for the piece and anybody who approvingly cites this piece, such as yourself are saying that Obama is being paid to be obsequious.
I dispute your interpretation.
Maybe he could have a lecture tour where he charges $5 a ticket, kids under 12 get in for free. He could go to a dozen cities where inner city kids need to have tangible role models. Donate the profits to the Boys and Girls club in the area. Some corporation will sponsor it, choose wisely.
A parent in the city would be able to bring their kid to see and hear someone they’ve seen on tv for years.
Maybe he could launch a non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of millions of men, women and children world-wide. Maybe he could tour the country giving guest lectures at colleges and universities, while greeting the public afterwards. Maybe he could work to provide affordable homes.
My takeaway is the Barack Obama will be the target of viciously brutal attacks for the rest of his life — from both Democrats and Republicans — whatever he does. Just like Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were treated.
I think he should continue do whatever he chooses. I encourage him to continue to privately offer an uplifted middle finger to the naysayers — the only appropriate response, in my book, to the kind of undeserved and unbridled hostility that every Democrat has faced for the last forty years from “Democrats” and Republicans alike.
We can’t even object to this anymore? If we do, we get “Democrats” in quotes?
Not helpful.
Clinton was incredibly awful. He deserved it.
I admit that is a trollish response.
The problem is not criticizing certain actions by these men (or anyone else) completely normalizes them. The experience of 2016, I would think, should lead us to not want to normalize these things and allow the Democrats to easily be seen as a party that doesn’t care about people.
I have every belief the Obama Foundation will do a lot of good, and I was one of the few Hyde Parkers excited to have the library in Jackson Park. Paired with the Tiger Woods gold course and Theaster Gates really cool art and restaurant spaces, it will do a lot of good reviving a very depressed area that can use all the investment it can get. And unlike the Olympics, the Obama library design is very sensitive to keeping these spaces open to the public. I can’t imagine how inspiring it will be to have such a great historic archive so close to the community he got his start in.
I am not even that incensed by the book deal-he is a damn good writer and sales will likely generate a profit large enough to justify that advance. At least he is getting paid in that instance for sharing his ideas with the general public. And the book could also be a good way to recast the message of the Democratic Party along with his redistricting work.
Paid speeches to tell Wall Street how great it is are not my idea of a lasting contribution nor is this the image we want of our party. FDR was an aristocrat who hobnobbed with working people. Increasingly our party nominates working men who live like aristocrats after they leave office. Yglesias is exactly right that Obama’s personal popularity came from the high ethical standards to which he held himself in office-standards he should continue to uphold now that he is a private citizen again.
As the “Jackie Robinson” of politics he always had the bar set higher than others and always will. His behavior as President, particularly while also being a father of two young kids was outstanding. His politics aside you couldn’t find a whiff of personal scandal and he should be commended.
His legacy for personal integrity has been untarnished and I can’t imagine taking fees from Wall St will help, write another book. People I talk to think of Carter as inept but honest, Clinton was crooked but popular. Obama was presidential ….. and ,it hasn’t been long enough for the second adjective.
He gives ONE speech (and yes, I understand there could easily be more coming) and he can’t also do humanitarian things? He has lots of free time and lots of years ahead of him. Politically, I look forward to his activism regarding gerrymandering.
There was a player on one of the opposing teams, a real dirty player, an enforcer, a big brute who took out our smaller, more talented skaters with cheap shots and huge hits…most of which were totally legal according to the rules of hockey.
We hated him. This was not how hockey is played.
Then one day, our team traded a few players and what do you know, that goon was now on our team. Several of my friends cheered, rejoiced, not WE have the goon and WE are going to start winning!
But he was still a goon and with him on our team, we would give up demanding how hockey should be played in favor of Winning!
No, President Obama is not a goon, the $400,000 is.
Next, you folks will be channeling Bernie and start calling him an unqualified Olygark.
You’re right. He was/is perfect and everything he did/is doing is the ideal path forward for Democrats.
According to the famous Princeton study from a few years ago. We have a laughable revolving door between Wall Street, K Street, and Capital Hill. Candidates for office spend 90% of their time meeting with donors, meeting with lobbyists, or raising money from either.
And yes my friends, Mr. Sanders and his truth telling about oligrachy actually reaches the voters in the parts of the country Hillary Clinton lost.
And this isn’t even about Obama, it’s about the symbolism of the last two term Democratic president spending his free time with Romney supporters instead of his own.
I wouldn’t go as far as you did, calling Sander’s serial Clinton bashing “truth telling.” But, as we all saw, Republicans ate it up.
Bernie’s “attacks” were tame af.
Going after an opponent’s biggest and most obvious weakness during a race is somehow unfair. This thinking is incredible.
We’ve already tried Clinton’s path and it failed for her-twice. People seem to forget that Obama was the more liberal candidate running to her left on foreign, economic and social policy in 2008. And jettisoning the Grand Bargain and returning to his progressive roots saved us from a Romney presidency.
Nobody here has campaigned in the Rust Belt-I have. I can’t tell you the number of blue collar white males I encountered who loved this President and thought he had their backs. And they sure as hell knew Romney didn’t have theirs in 2012. And they are the ones who carried Bernie in MI and WI during the primary. Two states Hillary lost and didn’t even bother campaigning in.
Mike Bloomberg on 60 Minutes conceded his mix of politics is toxic with a vast majority of Americans-the ones who live outside the Acela Corridor. Why can’t the Democrats get that there are no fiscally moderate/socially moderate unicorn swing voters anymore? Why on earth would we we respond to this loss by trying to continue winning over “moderate” Republicans and Wall Street? Clinton had plenty of allies in both of those camps and they didn’t deliver any of the states the campaign promised.
The way forward is an inclusionary populist message aimed at restoring the prosperity middle class Americans have lost. Ask Liz Warren why her populism did better then Coakleys business liberalism. Voters are mostly the same-they are sick of the culture war and they want the American way of life back. Unions and progressive economics are the only path to get there. Trumps is an absolutely false and deceitful path that divides Americans in a zero sum game where non-white prosperity is a threat to white prosperity.
And too many Democrats respond by agreeing to Trumps framing! That it is a zero sum game and white working class voters deserve their lot. That black working class voters will be motivated by the threat or Trump alone and don’t need an uplifting economic vision for their communities. This is so tone deaf to the realities on the ground. Latinos in Chelsea are largely undocumented and terrified of Trump-but their main complaint is the rent is too damn high. Same as all my white relatives who fled Cambridge. A racially conscious form of class mobilization can bridge these divides. The SEIU has a great track record of intersectionality you can’t get on a fuckin campus. It’s time the liberal establishment got woke and took its heads out of the classroom and onto the streets and towns that feel equally decimated by both parties.
She won 2.8 million more votes and was deprived of the presidency thanks to a constitutional fluke and an assist from James Comey. The latest theory I’ve heard as to why Comey blabbed about investigating Clinton, but not Trump, is that he too assumed she would win and thought it was more important politically to make sure people knew that. I know of no Democrat making the argument that the working class deserves their woes.
Yes she did. She was not an effective candidate and did not run an effective campaign. This was a layup against the least qualified and worst candidate in history. She’s not president. It’s more her and her campaign’s fault than anyone else. And I hope we learn this lesson rather than going forward thinking that only outside forces did her in (also, the email server was a colossal and stupid unforced error).
I’d bet you a clean centrist like Booker loses to Trump. I would bet you 2016 Warren loses to Trump (but 2012 and maybe 2017 Warren has a fighting chance). A guy like Tom Periello, Sherrod Brown or Al Franken could beat him.
I assume she won’t run again, but honestly the only person I can think of who gets my blood really flowing is Hillary Clinton. In my lifetime there has hardly been anybody better prepared for and more deserving of a chance at the presidency. It upsets me greatly that she will likely have to settle for a place among what I call the “Great Almosts” of history, a list that would include people like Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, or more recently Bob Dole. I’m sure once any of these people actually starts campaigning I’ll make a choice among my actual options, but I still wish you wouldn’t be so pessimistic. I say Trump gets effectively beaten in 2018 anyway rather than 2020.
N/T
(I couldn’t resist)
It takes more then two or four years to remake the political landscape. The last time it was done — by the right-wing forces that still dominate our culture — the effort began with Barry Goldwater’s landslide loss of 1964 and did not affect the federal government until Ronald Reagan’s surprise win of 1980. That’s sixteen years — a generation.
I suggest that we need to be organizing and influencing at the neighborhood and block level. We need to infiltrate and retake the organizations that the right wing took over — religious groups, chambers of commerce, Rotary Clubs, etc. We need preachers, priests, rabbis, and imams across America to be advancing our values at every service. We need passionate Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims demonstrating outside businesses that oppress workers and women. We need police organizations loudly opposing police violence and demonstrating against DoJ harassment of immigrants.
Politics is a lagging, not leading, cultural indicator. We need to change our culture first, knowing that political change will follow.
I’ve been encouraging my non-religious friends to join those intermediating institutions like Rotary or even a church like the UUA that welcomes any belief. But like minded people need places to gather and influence their communities through service and outreach and it’s critical the center-left looks beyond the political organizations to also reach out to those intermediaries.
That’s exactly how the conservative movement gained its foothold. Goldwater loss and Reagans win are also good instructors that if the center can shift rapidly to the right in a generation-the reverse can be true. Its up to all of us to do the work.
At our Wakefield Town Election on Tuesday we elected 2 progressive Democrats to our School Committee and 1 to our Board of Selectmen.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Those are the communities right here where progressives need to get active.
You just might want to walk that back a bit…
You’ve been one of the few willing to listen here and your insights have been fundamental to my own. And you called out the Clinton problems in MI and PA before I did.
He magnanimously (and foolishly in hindsight) took them off the table in the first debate. A favor with which the Clinton team has repaid him with blame and sniping. Had Bernie recognized the Clinton team conceded NH earlier and gone after her more directly in the beginning he might’ve won IA. Literally a few coin flips the other way and he would’ve been the front runner after IA and NH.
Bernie’s mistake was playing to make a point and not playing to win-his campaign didn’t scale quickly enough to take advantage of his surge. So I’ll concede to the criticism that his campaign for the nomination wasn’t as well run as hers-but it also was designed from the outset to be a message campaign and not a viable path to the nomination. By the time Weaver recalibrated it was too late. One silver lining for 2020 is that we will have far more candidates to choose from.
Hopefully.
…many on the left “ate up” much of the rightwing framing regarding the Clintons from over the past generation.
MoveOn got started to attack the right and help the Clintons. But it endorsed Bernie because it’s membership felt he was more progressive. The right wing didn’t force them to conceal their emails, take millions from Wall Street and shady foreigners, etc.
“But Trump is far worse” is valid but attacks against him on groping women, taking money from foreign governments, concealing information from the public might’ve landed if the Clintons hadn’t been accused of engaging in similar activity. Trump was an order of magntitide worse, but it gave the media an opening to paint them as equally corrupt and out of touch. That is not an argument that could’ve sunk Bernie or Biden or O’Malley.
Those that say Bernie was too left wing have a point-we do not know how Wall Street would’ve reacted or if the Koch money would’ve been used against him (it wasn’t against Hillary). But that’s not an argument for her-it’s an argument for Biden or O’Malley. Guys with her politics that didn’t have her baggage.
Biden wouldn’t have skipped out on the UAW or taken MI and WI for granted. Biden has a great personal story that perfectly contrasts to the horseshit mountain that is the Trump Empire. But Obama and nearly every major Democrstic delegate locked out serious competition for Hillary which made her a weaker candidate in the general. The fact that Bernie gained so much traction as because independents liked his honesty and progressives wanted a champion.
I for one never blamed Bernie or the left for any weaknesses in HRC’s candidacy, just for believing the parts that were NOT true about her (and Bernie personally is exempt from the latter as well).
I was talking to a Republican friend of mine, a guy who attacked Obama with phrases like “Obey the Constitution” and so on. He also screamed each time Obama signed an executive order. Now he’s “okay” with Trump’s clear violations of the emoluments clauses and happy with the executive orders because, his guy is in charge.
In a different but similar universe, I listen to Democrats defending Obama turning his government credentials into a cash machine, earning more in one speech than most Americans will make in eight years because “He’s our guy”.
I say bullshit to both. Both.
is very active in the Treasury security market and has historically handled a significant percentage of the transactions in such market. If the Treasury Department of the US government wants to be able to issue securities in order to finance government spending then it makes sense to have a good working relationship with Cantor Fitzgerald and other such financial firms that ensure a functioning Treasury security market place.
Cantor Fitzgerald is also the firm that lost a significant portion of its workforce in the 9/11 attacks and was very active in charitable efforts to help the victims of such attacks – I recall that they gave a significant portion of their own profits to benefit the widows, widowers, and orphans of their own employees as well as to benefit other victims. I know “Wall Street” is viewed as some sort of bogeyman by some but this particular firm has a solid reputation and a track record of doing good things.
Cantor Fitzgerald is paying President Obama those fees to increase the prestige of their own conference, to increase the profile and reputation of their firm as one that can attract a former President to their events, and to ultimately attract more clients and increase business. The idea that Preaident Obama will be forever in debt to an evil monolith named “Wall Street” because of one speech at a Cantor Fitzgerald conference strikes me as very silly and naive.
Silly and naive is the way this place rolls.
That would indeed be silly and naive. Of course, no one on this thread had said anything remotely like that, but let’s not let that get in the way of our point.
Thanks.
I’ve been meaning to run some ideas by you
Yup, count me as against this one, for the same reasons Hillary’s Goldman speeches were dumb.
Obama’s got to realize he’s still in the public eye and still a representative of the Dem party. Part of the Dems problem is *internal* (i.e. intra-left) marketing.
Nobody needs $400k for a speech. That’s nuts. Sell books, be a college president, run a foundation, whatever. Just don’t be *greedy.*