When will Hillary Clinton give up her candidacy ?

War Is Coming To The Democrats: Why Clinton vs. Sanders Is About To Getting <sic> Very Ugly - Salon

A pro-Hillary super PAC has introduced a new level of hostility to the 2016 campaign. What's next?
Jack Mirkinson - Salon
Tuesday, Sep 15, 2015 12:30 PM PDT

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A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how Hillary Clinton’s vow to avoid negative attacks against Bernie Sanders would evaporate if Sanders starting causing Clinton any real problems. Sanders is now sailing past Clinton in some key polls, and so the attacks have begun.

Correct the Record, a pro-Clinton group which—despite the laughable lack of information you will find about it on its website—is run in coordination with the Clinton campaign by Media Matters chief David Brock—has started going after Sanders. That’s not too surprising, but what’s notable is the way Correct the Record is doing it: by trying to link Sanders to Jeremy Corbyn, the newly elected leader of the Labour Party in Britain.

Correct the Record sent a detailed email to the Huffington Post yesterday about just how similar it thinks Sanders and Corbyn are. From the HuffPost account:

“The email, sent to a Huffington Post reporter in response to an article about Corbyn and Sanders without any agreement that it would be off the record, was meant to flag Corbyn’s “most extreme comments”…The email uses those comments to pivot to “similarities” between Corbyn and Sanders…The “similarities” between the two, according to the email, include Sanders’ introduction of legislation to terminate the United States’ nuclear weapons program, comments that NATO’s expansion into former Soviet states is dangerous because it could provoke Russia, opposition to more U.S. funds for NATO, and saying he “was concerned” that proposed new NATO members had shipped arms to Iran and North Korea.”


It must be noted that there are some fundamental differences between Sanders and Corbyn: The latter has been a truly radical activist politician and a thorn in the side of his party for decades, whereas Sanders, while a stalwart champion of progressive causes, has stayed much more resolutely within the lines of the Democratic hierarchy. Despite the email’s attempt to link them on foreign affairs, they diverge on key issues there too—especially on the question of Israel. Corbyn is a staunch pro-Palestinian, while Sanders has struck a decidedly more cautious path.

But what’s most revealing is how much the Clinton campaign’s first line of attack against Sanders reflects her hyper-hawkish foreign policy. What’s more, she’s essentially aligned herself with David Cameron’s Conservatives, who have warned that Corbyn represents a threat to national security, and with the right-wing press in Britain, who have been battering Corbyn relentlessly.

That Clinton’s instinct is to reach for the same sort of invective as Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids says quite a bit about her campaign’s values, and her own. It also gives us a good sneak preview of what’s to come if Sanders continues his unexpectedly robust challenge to her quest for the Democratic crown...

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Link: http://www.salon.com/2015/09/15/war_is_coming_to_the_democrats_why_clinton_vs_sanders_is_about_to_getting_very_ugly/

Lincoln Mitchell: Clinton is too conservative for a Democratic primary electorate
For the Clintons It Is Always 1992

Even Ms. Clinton’s supporters have their explanations for why her campaign is stumbling. These tend to revolve around the media treating her unfairly or gender bias because she is a woman. The media has not been very nice to Ms. Clinton; and she has rarely been a media favorite like, for example, John McCain was in his 2000 campaign or Barack Obama was in 2008, but Ms. Clinton is not experiencing treatment by the media that is significantly nastier that that confronted by many presidential candidates. Ms. Clinton’s gender may be the source of some of the media and other animus she has confronted, but it is also the source of her most enduring base of support.

The most likely reason for Ms. Clinton’s struggles may be the most obvious one. She is too conservative for a Democratic primary electorate that has moved leftward over the last decades. This problem is exacerbated because in Clintonland, a universe of which Hllaryland is only a subset, the 1992 primary and election remains the seminal event-the Ur campaign. In that primary, Bill Clinton won by being a conservative Democrat at a time when Democrat officials had finally recognized that nominating good northern liberals was a losing strategy. Even as President, Mr. Clinton was essentially a centrist. During his Presidency, Mr. Clinton’s most impressive progressive credential was not any legislation he passed, but simply the extreme rancor he drew from the right, something that Ms. Clinton in one of her most memorable turns of phrase referred to as a “vast right wing conspiracy.”

If the Democratic primary electorate were the same today as it was in 1992, Ms. Clinton would easily drub Mr. Sanders despite any scandals or awkwardness as a candidate. Back then, white southerners, more socially conservative labor union members and others who propelled Bill Clinton to the nomination were more important blocks of Democratic primary voters. Today, white liberals and non-whites represent ever larger segments of the Democratic primary electorate. It would be understandable, somewhat, if Ms. Clinton were running for the first time and had been unable to adjust to the new reality of Democratic primaries, but she ran eight years ago and, although starting out as the frontrunner, was defeated from the left. Allowing that to happen again would be a mistake largely of her own making.

I'm not convinced that the picture painted by Lincoln Mitchel above is entirely accurate. It is clearly his opinion, but how widely held is it??

Certainly the enthusiasm Bernie Sanders has indeed generated indicates something like that is going on. However, he's been in the Senate a long time and we hadn't seen it before.

To what extent might it represent latent reservations among Democrats about the annointing of the "preordained" winner, queen Hilary and/or reflect a disquiet with politicians as they are that is analogous to what subsequently evolved with Donald Trump ? I think both are possible factors here.

An additional related factor is that the far left of the Democrat party and the far right of the Republican one may be more or less equally animated by frustration with the centrist policies that have dominated the respective parties over the past decades. Lots of discussion about "Tea baggers" among Democrats, while at the same time the seriously "progressive" wing of their party has become frustrated by the timidity of their leaders in a similar way.

I believe all of these factors are likely part of the Bernie phenomenon, though I don't claim to know in what proportion.

To my way of thinking, if I'm thinking at all, the so called "Bernie phenomenon" is just the result of a generation, or more, of voters growing up in a "nobody loses" society, from kindergarten to college. Entitlement is the mantra. Everyone gets a goody bag. It is just the 21st century version of "a chicken in every pot," in my opinion.

News reports today about Biden's "real committment" to running for the Democrat nomination and of some cancellations of support for Clinton fundraising by establishment Democrats. Meanwhile Hillary is out there in a number of well scripted media events demonstrating her "sense of humor, personal warmpth (sic!) and confidence in the success of her campaign.

leading indicators ????

When you first started this thread, I disagreed, but I have to admit you are proving to be right about her level of support if not right about whether it is deserved or not. I wish she would just step down already and give someone else a chance who doesn't have such a "hate following" going back decades.

But for a frontrunner with lots of money and a considerable following to give up based on repeated hate attacks would set a precedent for US politics. President Obama kind of set the opposite precedent. Billionaires spent big sums and got little results. Bringing down Clinton before the first vote was cast would make the point that big spending is completely effective in driving candidates from the field.

Interested to understand your last statement.



If Clinton is the one benefitting from big spending - and the one running her from the race is a guy who won't take SuperPAC money, how is big spending driving HRC from the race?

I don't think the right thinks Clinton will be a weak opponent. therefore, I think that they have not stopped spending money in efforts to thwart her.
Big money.

I hear you, but to me - what's taking her down is from the progressive wing of her own party. I guess you and engineer attribute that to slime efforts from the right. I just don't think that's where it sources.

But, thank you for clarification.

No, not entirely from the right - certainly some if not most of her opposition is from people who want some other Democrat. But some opposition is coming from the right, I'm sure. I mean, why would they stop now?

Becasue you don't need to spend money on something that's happening organically?

she's the one they need to beat. Anyone else, they could take with strategy. As much as I don't love her, lots of Americans still do.

If I end up supporting Hillary it sure won't have anything to do with loving her. I suspect a lot of other Americans' support won't be out of love but out of a coldly pragmatic decision to support who can push a Democratic agenda forward.

The totally natural and positive (and organic) competition that has taken the form of the Bernie Sanders campaign has not stopped people who do not like Hillary from launching daily invective at Hillary. There is no reason to believe it would stop those who launch money-backed attacks.

my FB page shows lots of people with absolute love for Ms. Clinton
they admire her, they want her, they've been pushing her for years
it's a bit disconcerting at times

Needed to be said again...and emphasized!

Precedent or not, right now all we are getting on Hillary from the media are negative headlines and her poll numbers are reflecting that.

Hillary Clinton Is Stuck In A Poll-Deflating Feedback Loop

BTW, he doesn't count her out but its more negative than it had been in the past. If the big donors go, then chances are, Hillary goes too.

Agree.

Hillary will predictably have trouble in the first test in Iowa due to her backing of Monsanto and GMO use.