As you may or may not know, I am member of the local Democratic Town Committee (DTC). We have a listserv. People periodically share things of interest on the listserv. (I’m a regular contributor.) Earlier this week a member shared a column by the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza:
FWIW — Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza’s take on Clinton’s position as the Dem candidate:
[It’s too late for Democrats to start rethinking Clinton’s 2016 viability]
Cillizza’s first paragraph:
Dear Democrats: It’s too late to start over.
As in, there’s no replacing Hillary Rodham Clinton as your party’s front-runner for the presidential nomination. Not with Vice President Biden — even if he runs. Not with former vice president Al Gore. (I mean, come on.) Not with your ideal rich-person-with-no-record-and-a-fresh-faced-appeal.
He goes on. I won’t quote him but you should read it purely for the spectacle of his inside-the-Beltway view of the world. I read it in its entirety. It hit a nerve so, since the piece was shared in the spirit of “for what it’s worth”, I decided to share with the DTC my assessment of it’s worth. My contribution to the listserv:
Cillizza is part of the problem. Good lord, what piece junk that column is.
Let’s rent it asunder paragraph-by-paragraph:
Dear Democrats: It’s too late to start over.
Which Democrats would those be? He doesn’t identify any. I haven’t met any who express an interest in starting over. Names please.
As in, there’s no replacing Hillary Rodham Clinton as your party’s front-runner for the presidential nomination. Not with Vice President Biden — even if he runs.
Why would/should rank-and-file Democrats prefer Biden over Clinton? Please provide a list of pros and cons. The latest poll I saw has Biden pulling a whopping 10 pct. Very few people give a shit about Biden. In contrast, the same poll has Clinton at 49 pct and Sanders at 30 pct.
Actually, there’s not a lot more to pick on in Cillizza’s column because there is no there there. It’s all spew. Oh, wait, I spoke too soon. There is more to criticize.
If Democrats wanted a serious primary fight between Clinton and someone else — it’s hard to imagine who — that decision needed to have happened a year ago.
and
The race is the race. It’s Clinton as favorite — wounded but not mortally — with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont as the liberal alternative and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley leading a pack of also-rans and never-will-bes.
Fuck you, Cillizza, you worthless sack of shit.
If Cillizza doesn’t care for Sanders or O’Malley or Webb or Chaffee then so be it but to call a candidate (Sanders) who’s pulling about 1/3 of the vote and was leading Clinton a recent NH primary poll an “also-ran” is just obnoxious. [Ed.: I realized afterwards that’s not correct. Cillizza did not refer to Sanders as an “also-ran”. See Note 1 below.] It’s particularly obnoxious in light of his column being completely substance-free. There is not one sentence which addresses anything that Clinton or Sanders or any of other candidates are proposing. For example, both Clinton and Sanders recently put out proposals to make college more affordable. What about those? Can you provide us a reality-based assessment of how feasible those plans are, shithead Mr. Cillizza? Please compare and contrast their respective positions on the TPP: Sanders has an outspoken critic while Clinton has declined to take a position. What might we infer about how they act on trade agreements as President? Clinton has a wealth of foreign policy experience. Sanders has essentially none. How much of a concern should that be to Sanders supporters such as myself? Has anyone asked Sanders any tough foreign policy questions? If so, I haven’t read about them. What about action on climate change? (That’s the issue I care about the most.) Can Clinton be a leader while supporting what is essentially an “all-of-the-above” energy policy? In contrast, Sanders is anti-Keystone-XL and pro-solar. Would he provide more effective leadership when it comes to cutting CO2 emissions? There’s no shortage of substance to address and Cillizza addresses none of it.
[The DTC member who shared the link to Cillizza’s piece later] wrote:
I believe Cillizza’s point is that … he thinks the Political System with its primary actors — monied and campaign staff — is so much the essence of today’s elections that they will, in the end, be determinant.
No, that’s not his point. His point is that he’s not happy with the current Democratic candidates. He quite obviously doesn’t care what rank-and-file Democrats think. If did care then he’d compare and contrast Sanders, O’Malley and the others with Clinton. In contrast, he quite obviously does care what all the cool kids think. It disgusts me. “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” He’d be doing the world a favor if he quit his job and became a shoe salesman or otherwise engaged himself in activities having nothing to do with politics.
He’s not alone in blowing off substantive issues because they’re not sufficiently sexy though. In last weekend’s NY Times Ana Marie Cox (a.k.a. Wonkette) interviewed Sanders. It was a one-pager for the Magazine. It would be nice to make every column inch of that one page count. Unfortunately, the bottom quarter-page is this:
Cox: Do you think it’s fair that Hillary’s hair gets a lot more scrutiny than yours does?
Sanders: Hillary’s hair gets more scrutiny than my hair?
Cox: Yeah.
Sanders: Is that what you’re asking?
Cox: Yeah.
Sanders: O.K., Ana, I don’t mean to be rude here. I am running for president of the United States on serious issues, O.K.? Do you have serious questions?
Cox: I can defend that as a serious question. There is a gendered reason —
Sanders: When the media worries about what Hillary’s hair looks like or what my hair looks like, that’s a real problem. We have millions of people who are struggling to keep their heads above water, who want to know what candidates can do to improve their lives, and the media will very often spend more time worrying about hair than the fact that we’re the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people.
Cox: It’s also true that the media pays more attention to what female candidates look like than it does to what male candidates look like.
Sanders: That may be. That may be, and it’s absolutely wrong.
At the risk of stating the obvious, Cox and Cillizza are part and parcel of the media that’s giving undue attention to things that shouldn’t matter. Sanders’ response to her hair question was spot on. Jeezus f-ing christ, if I could have one wish granted to me it would be that people stop paying attention to things that don’t matter and pay more attention to things that do. (Bye, Facebook. Bye, Twitter. Bye, Instagram.) The way to switch the conversation from frivolous things to substance is not to remark to one another “Gee, isn’t it awful how the media and a large fraction of the electorate don’t pay attention to things that matter.”; the way to switch the conversation is to start talking about things that do matter. So let’s have at it!!
[End of my post to the DTC listserv]
So far no one has taken up the “Let’s have at it!!” challenge but it’s early yet.
Notes:
- In the interests of accuracy, Cillizza referred to Sanders as the “liberal alternative” to Clinton not as an “also-ran”. Mea culpa. Writing that Sanders does not represent a “serious primary fight” is still obnoxious for the reasons cited however. Those things stated, I did err in calling Cillizza a worthless sack of shit. A sack of shit can be composted, compost is good for the garden, fertilizing shrubs, amending soil, etc., ergo it is not worthless. If I had a taken more care in thinking it through I would have written, “Fuck you, Cillizza, you obnoxious sack of shit.” I apologize for my oversight.