Jeralyn Merritt at Talkleft writes:
As for the speculation that Obama would convince Hillary’s supporters to vote for him if he picks another female VP candidate like Napolitano or McCaskill, I highly doubt it. There is only one Hillary Clinton. Women are not interchangeable. In fact, it would be rubbing salt in the wounds of her already disappointed supporters. Like showing off the new girlfriend to the jilted one.
But I thought any sort of language that even alluded to Sen. Clinton as a “girlfriend” were sexist diatribes from the knuckle dragging he-man woman hater’s club? Or is Merritt now one of those self hating feminists we’re told by sites like Talkleft are the only women who vote for Barack Obama?
Geez, even Wellstone gave up.
Eh, leave her alone for a while. She needs to grieve.
There’s no way Jeralyn sits by while the Supreme Court slide farther right.
Intrigued as I am at the notion of Napolitano as Obama’s running-mate — I’m from Arizona and it’s the only conceivable way McCain doesn’t take my state by 20 points — I DO think it’s a stretch. Inartful as Merritt is about it, she DOES have a point — I think that any political benefits Napolitano would bring to the ticket are benefits that Hillary would bring better. Clinton’s obviously got far better name recognition, and she IS pulling in blue-collar white votes in a way that Napolitano might not (again, based solely on name recognition; she’s done fine with that demo in her home state). Plus it would present the Democratic Party as a unified front rather than squabbling children, which is something it needs at this point.
I’m not saying this because I’m a Clinton fan — frankly I like her so little that if she were at the top of the ticket I’d vote third-party (again, I’m in Arizona and my vote doesn’t matter anyway); I FAR prefer Napolitano — but polls ARE showing there are Clinton voters who would jump ship to McCain, and putting her on the ticket would likely minimize that damage.
That said, she needs to apologize for the “hard-working voters, white voters” remark right the hell now, whether she wants a VP nod or not.
Anyway. Guess we’ll see how it all shakes out. Two months ago I was dismissing the possibility of the “dream ticket” outright, but now I can see how it might be politically expedient. Hard to say, though.
Kathleen Sebelius!!!
IOKIYAHS.
Seriously though, there are many, many female candidates who lack Clinton’s deficiencies (supported the war, DLC booster, Mark Penn, etc etc) — why not give one of them a shot?
Jeralyn is grieving. (I hope.)
Otherwise, she has really lost her bearings on Obama. Her site is sad because none of her new friends are there for any other reason than to hate Obama.
She posts (and her fellow bloggers post) Great Progressive stories on reforming Drug laws, anti-Death Penalty items, and other topics that reflect her life, and she gets a handfull of comments.
She posts anti-Obama stuff attacking him as every kind of bad person, and she has to shut down the threads.
Any non-Obama haters have long since fled Talk Left.
As I have mentioned Big Tent is Big Hypocrite, the supposed balance to the all Obama hate/all the time Programing, but except for churlishly reminding people that BTD favors Obama for his greater chance of winning in the General Election, Big Tent also hates Obama early and often and never finds anything to criticize in his neutrality for Hillary. No mention of “hard working Americans, white Americans”.
You are right to go after Talk Left because they are a joke. If Obama wins, her site will have tumbleweeds blowing through it on days when Jeralyn posts about her life’s work. To keep her audience of Obama-haters, she will have to imitate Taylor Marsh and just put up a “Welcome Shut-ins and Racists!!!!” Mission Accomplished Banner.
Sad. Sad. Sad.
That said, she needs to apologize for the “hard-working voters, white voters” remark right the hell now, whether she wants a VP nod or not.
Why is it she has not gotten the kind of reaction that Obama got with the “bitter” comments on this? I find her statement a lot more offensive.
Why is it she has not gotten the kind of reaction that Obama got with the “bitter” comments on this?
Because she’s not an uppity black man?
Because her opponent doesn’t stoop to the levels she does?
Because she’s not really a contender for nominee so what does it really matter?
“As I have mentioned Big Tent is Big Hypocrite, the supposed balance to the all Obama hate/all the time Programing, but except for churlishly reminding people that BTD favors Obama for his greater chance of winning in the General Election, Big Tent also hates Obama early and often and never finds anything to criticize in his neutrality for Hillary. No mention of “hard working Americans, white Americans”.”
tjproud, speaking for yourself only, right? /lol
Talk Left used to be one of my favorite sites.
Now the place is so crowded that nobody goes there any more.
Merritt is out of line. The whole jilted crap is just that crap. Clinton is better than that lazy shit.
America is right now at this time an antiquated insecure blob of shit wallowing issues of the 19th century crap thinking and living rather than where we should be. Striving for the 23rd century. Cutting edge leaders.
In my opinion the United States needs to turn things over to the new generations which is Obama, but that does not exclude Clinton. Merely her advisers and more avid supporters. They suck.
Here’s my take.
If Obama wins the nomination it would be wise of him to not have Clinton as Vice President. She has more talent, more skills and more charisma to where putting her in a position that presents the United States as a 21st century nation moving forward is more in line with her skills and what America needs. Excluding the outdated, antiquated bitchy whiny insecure shithead republicans. They can whine on their own time. The VP works with congress and I’d rather see Clinton presenting and working towards presenting the United States as the 21st century nation moving towards the 23rd century we should be.
Clinton is freaking smart, savvy, has the connections, has the experience so get her out in the world negotiating and having an impact. The United States has an image issue of being antiquated and fucking stupid. Hillary Clinton has the background, skills and talents to help repair what Bush’s fucking idiots have damaged.
Obama is not as tone deaf as the republicans and their insecure asses and if he does not pay attention to what Clinton has to say, well his ass will be tagged and hounded. America is done with the bloviating pontificating fat asses that fuck up more than they achieve. The new generation of Americans are more aware, more informed and more informed than our older generations that relied on the failed traditional media.
I’d recommend Clinton leaving her campaign advisers and most avid supporters at home. They suck. Clinton has much to offer both United States and the world. Her path is world wide. The United States needs her to be world wide. We have been too old for far too long.
Because she’s not an uppity black man?
Because her opponent doesn’t stoop to the levels she does?
Because she’s not really a contender for nominee so what does it really matter?
Well, yeah, all of that. But I’m talking about the press. Was it the Clinton camp that made such a big stink about “bittergate” or was asshats like Wolf Blitzer and Drudge? Why won’t they hold her to the same standard?
Backing up a hair — where did the Napolitano talk come from, anyway? I’ve bounced the idea around in my head, but that’s mainly because she’s my governor; who else is putting her forward as a consideration?
Don’t get me wrong, she has a hell of a lot going for her; she’s one of the most powerful governors in the nation, and also happens to be a popular Democrat in a solid-red state. I’m just not sure how she’d do outside my backyard. (As for INSIDE my backyard, as I said before, she is literally the only person who can put Arizona into play in this election.)
Commenter tjproudamerican is absolutely right, and I’m the proof. I’m someone who cares deeply about criminal justice reform, and who came to TalkLeft because of it. I’m also an Obama supporter, but a politically realistic one whose optimism over what he might do as president is a cautious optimism. I have no problem at all with reasoned support for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy — even now — or with reasoned criticisms of Barack Obama.
Unfortunately, the election-related content on TalkLeft in quantitative terms overwhelms the criminal justice content, and as some have expressed here, TalkLeft’s election-related content is a sad joke. While TalkLeft does have categories and RSS feeds set up for many different criminal justice subtopics, they don’t have one feed set up that I know of to get all of the criminal justice stories in one place. And so it has become impractical for me to follow even the worthy criminal justice writing that Jeralyn still does. And so I am now a former TalkLeft reader instead, at least most of the time.
Even more unfortunate is that she has allowed her extremely biased approach about the candidates to infect her commentary regarding their criminal justice records. Not completely, but somewhat. She has not claimed that Hillary Clinton is better on criminal justice, fortunately, but she has taken the position that they are pretty much the same. Well, maybe that case could have been made before Clinton came out against retroactive application of recent crack sentencing reductions passed by the US Sentencing Commission. Maybe that case could have been made before Clinton criticized Obama for his opposition to mandatory minimums overall (not just opposing mandatory minimums for nonviolent offenses, as Clinton also does). But Jeralyn made that case, or tried to, shortly AFTER both of those things happened. I don’t consider either of statements by Clinton to be insignificant, and I’m concerned that any public statement by a powerful elected official against retroactivity could have a discouraging effect on the judges who ultimately have to sign off on letting anyone out. This is a real difference about policies, and even more so about approach.
Obviously Jeralyn understands mandatory minimums and crack cocaine sentencing as well as anyone, and there’s no question that her views on those issues are unchanged and are the good ones. Nevertheless, I’d be willing to give her a pass for not criticizing her favored candidate very strongly for taking bad positions on them during the heat of an election. But she’s gone a little beyond just giving Clinton a pass on them, and I don’t think that’s good at all.
Sadly, I have to agree with the general thrust of comments about Talk Left.
I was a regular reader and fairly regular commenter there but a few months ago I wrote to Jeralyn to say that the site had become “unreadable.” It seemed, I said, as if every other post was given a pro-Hillary slant, producing in comments a lot of whining from Obama supporters which in turn generated even more whining from Clinton supporters. “I’ll be back when one of them drops out,” I wrote.
Which at this moment I still intend to do. I just hope that once there is an actual nominee and the primary fight ends, the snarling, sniping, and smearing will end as well.
Did she ban you for that, Larry?
Duros -
Sorry for the delayed reply; I’ve been nursing a broken rib so online stuff has been limited.
The message I sent was via email, not by posting a comment. I have no idea if I was banned or not; as I said in the email, I’ve not been to the site since.
I do doubt I would have been banned for that, however: It caused no disruption on the site and I certainly don’t believe Jeralyn is that vindictive.