Rejected Slogans

The Bridge to the Future Was a U-Turn

  • We Won’t Frighten the Shit Out of You
  • A Slightly Less Abrupt Dystopian Future
  • Mailbox Full

  • America Hates Us Less
  • It’s Come to This
  • Whatever We Do, We’ll Apologize For It In Ten Years
  • Lucifer’s Choice
  • Don’t Hate, Triangulate!
  • Warren/Booker 2020
  • Settle, Settle, Settle
68 Comments

I like “Don’t Hate, Triangulate!”

It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

She’s making it easier for centrists, moderates, independents and disaffected republicans to vote for her. Not easy. Easier. She’ll get more votes from this move than she’ll lose from the Berniacs. It’s a net gain.

So, now I am doing searches on old stuff from my blog. This from 2008…

“Clinton is a consummate politician whose convictions can be found at the intersection of her ambition and the most current polls.”

… and I am thinking – Why is it a bad thing to have a president who will govern based on the polls rather than ideology? With Clinton and Ryan I expect we’ll have compromise, a semblance of bipartisanship, and – every pundits favorite mantra – GET THINGS DONE. I’m looking forward to it.

Sure she is a liar. But Trump is a bigger liar and I am comforted by knowing that at this stage, she is primarily (but not exclusively) lying to Progs.

@libertarian tool: Ryan has no power to make deals, not if he hews to the Hastert Rule — no, no, not the wrestling one — which requires a Speaker to have a majority of his conference behind him. To the degree he still harbors preznidential ambitions, he ain’t gonna upset the base.

And if Mitch is still running the shop down the hall, nothing happening there, either. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a five- or six-person Supreme Court in four years.

Remember, the Republican plan was to deny Obama credit for anything, precluding any win-win compromise. And Obama really wanted to cut deals, even when Demrats ruled both houses. I don’t see how Hillary fares any better, especially with a generation of Republican animus toward her. How do you make a deal with the Devil?

@libertarian tool: By the way, your excerpt is reminiscent of Caro on LBJ. Ambition always came first, but when it coincided with empathy, we got the Voting Rights and Civil Rights acts.

@libertarian tool: The core problem is that 67%-ish of the electorate views her as dishonest and untrustworthy, and the Corporate Dems have been warned repeatedly over the last year that huge numbers of voters all over the political map will never vote for Hillary Clinton under any circumstances. Even still, they don’t view that as a problem, which is some industrial strength denial right there. I do agree that she will become president due to the (S)electoral College, though the popular vote could be uncomfortably close.

@nojo: The country is just ungovernable, which is the simple truth. The Dems are about to nominate the candidate that drives over half the voters cross-eyed crazy with rage and will enter office with astounding unpopularity, so her ability to push legislation through a kamikaze Republican CONgress is already severely compromised. I suspect that she’ll collude with Republicans to pass the TPP, reduce Social Security benefits, further deregulate the Wall $treet/oligarch wealth transfer complex, and continue to provoke Russia in order to score some “wins.”

BoJack Horseman, s3e12: I’m desperate to spoil The Most Awesome Sight Gag in Pseudoreligious Meme History, but I must take a vow of silence.

Spotted on the interwebs today: “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the meh.” Truer words were never spoken typed.

@mellbell: I can actually tolerate a lot of Hillary’s horseshit, but hiring Debbie Wasserman Schultz in what at least appears to be quid pro quo? Come the fuck on!

@mellbell: Don’t worry. It sounds like Debbie is gonna be “committing suicide” real soon.

The official DemConvention twitter just sent the message “#DemsInPhilly please take cover.” Sure, it’s about the sever storm that just hit, causing the evacuation of the press tent, but I fear it’s an omen for the evening. Unless Shelley O and Liz Warren can calm things down and bring people together, this is going to go the way of Chicago ’68, hopefully without the violence, but with the same result for the ticket.
I’m gonna save time and just start drinking now.

@Mistress Cynica: I didn’t blame Nader in 2000; I’m keeping my counsel this year.

Bernie delivered, but we’ll see whether anyone accepts the package.

@nojo: Bernie did a great job, as did Warren, Booker, and our girl Shelley O.

Maybe they were saying “Boo-illary.”

In honor of our impending Billary administration / divided government, I’ll combine a “2 for 1” response to both @nojo and @¡Andrew! comments.

The reason why Obama failed and Clinton(s) succeeded (will succeed) in “getting things done” is that that they understand what Obama never did. Under divided government a President “gets big things done” – not by letting the opposition fine tune the President’s policy initiatives, but instead by accepting and fine tuning opposition policy initiatives (essentially giving Congressional majorities what they want) and fighting their own party to get it passed.

This was the lesson of Reagan (immigration reform, nuclear arms reductions, tax reform that included spending, deficit and debt increases). This was the lesson of Clinton (NAFTA, financial deregulation, welfare reform, criminal sentencing, pay-as-you-go balanced budget). They both had to strong arm opposition from their own party to pass those initiatives. By first co-opting opposition party preferences, along the way they could also cut deals for their own policy initiatives.

Bob Woodward’s reporting showed Obama was unwilling to fight Dems on the deal he already cut with Boehner for the “Grand Bargain” and the subsequent last minute changes blew up the deal. That said, in pursuit of his legacy, he might be prepared to apply that lesson now. His final “big thing” may very well be passing TPP during the lame duck session to save Clinton from backsliding (again) to pass it.

Which brings me to Andrew’s fears for the next Clinton administration. I agree, but would characterize it a little differently… I look forward to Clinton supporting free trade and the TPP (if Obama doesn’t do it first), putting Social Security on a firm financial footing with means testing and rational benefit cuts (like increasing retirement age) to protect the program for future beneficiaries, swing the pendulum back on regulations intended for big banks but that are instead putting unreasonable burdens on regional banks, support the NATO alliance and help arm Ukraine to resist Putin aggression. Who knows? We might even get another balanced budget. I have a lot of HOPE™ for the Clinton/Ryan years.

@libertarian tool: Seems hard to imagine that they’ll give Obama a TPP victory since they’ll be enraged and vengeful after losing the presidency again (and to Hillary Clinton no less!). Otherwise, I’d say your insights are spot on, though you may want to keep them on the DL unless you’re enthusiastic about having your balls chewed off by Her more strident supporters.

Also, while I’m sure Clinton would love for events to play out exactly as you described, outside affairs may intervene. Another financial crisis in which Wall $treet nukes itself and the economy again, for example. Then we’ll see where Clinton’s loyalties really lie.

I’m sorry – did Bubba just compare Hillary to Bobby Kennedy?

And I wish we were live blogging his speech

@JNOV: He might wanna walk that one back if so.

Well, she also supported Obama when he was nominated. Um…didn’t she hang onto her delegates a bit too long?

@¡Andrew!: He said she won the Senate seat once held by another outsider, Bobby Kennedy, and she hasn’t let him down.

He’s speaking as if he has dentures.

Change Maker sounds like a MMA name. Naw. More WWF.

“Those of us who have more yesterdays than tomorrows…” That’s good.

Despite mentioning Dallas, he seemed to gloss over BLA and the vet with PTSD shooting the police.

Damn, Meryl Streep is boring.

Alicia, doing her controversial (seriously) no-make up thing, does NOT get the party started. I have no idea why she’s performing.

Why is she just staring into the camera like that?

Wait. Beat our swords into plowshares?

@JNOV: Live tweeting instead, but yeah.

@nojo: Bummed. I quit Twitter years ago. Who’s speaking tomorrow?

@libertarian tool: In both Reagan and Bubba’s cases, they had partners.

Ronnie & Tip is tiresome political lore. And when Bubba wasn’t calling Newt’s bluff on shutdowns, he was triangulating the shit out of things to squat on what he perceived as the shifting middle.

Also, you forgot DOMA and Don’t Ask.

And we probably disagree on these, but here we go…

NAFTA: I cede the floor to an Andrew Rant.

Financial deregulation: I’m in the camp that says lifting Depression-era banking laws in the 80s and 90s was a precursor to the shit that went down in 2008.

Welfare reform: A political solution to a nonexistent problem that made life worse for the people it purported to help.

Criminal sentencing: Aren’t we just now digging out from that one, since it had a racially disproportionate affect? Not to mention the consequence of prison privatization, where it’s now corporate interest to keep as many folks locked up as long as possible.

And again: Your comparative examples are cases when both parties sought (poltical) win-win solutions. But modern Republicans sought to deny Obama any win whatsoever, even (and especially) when he agreed with them. Obamacare, after all, was a Heritage Foundation joint, first implemented by Mitt.

Finally, I’m open to Social Security financial reform, starting with removing the income cap for taxes. If the actuaries still have issues after that, we’ll talk.

@JNOV: Kaine (yawn) and The Preznident of These United States.

@nojo: What VP pick would you have liked? A potted plant would do.

Why is she such a shit campaigner? Maybe if, back in the day, she’d kept Rodham and didn’t inch backwards from who she is and move onto pantsuits and blowed out hair – I think she forgot who she is.

Why can’t a person be stilted? Why don’t we allow that?

@JNOV: Well, it’s not the VP I have issue with…

But Hillary’s nothing if not a political calculator, and I presume Kaine buys votes where they need to be bought. Maybe — maybe — a more robust speaker might have helped her cause, but I don’t want to second-guess her strategy.

And sure, a person can be stilted. But then you get Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry… We don’t allow it because Americans like inspirational speakers, and the President is a ceremonial as well as political position. Democrats lose when they run wooden planks, and they’ve run them more often than not in my adulthood.

@nojo: Yeah, I was thinking about those guys and HWB, who was elected because of Reagan.

I’m wondering about the media’s role in pre-TV, not everyone has access to a radio or newspaper campaigning. I mean, sure, I’ve seen the Jefferson/Hemmings racist flyer, and yeah, only landed white men could vote, and the runner up was VP (I can’t remember when that changed), the country was younger, and the electorate was smaller until probably the voting rights act. No conventions, the party chose the candidate; things have changed a lot in 240 years. I doubt Lincoln was a great campaigner, though.

@JNOV: Pre-radio/TV: Whistlestops and stemwinders.

There was no other entertainment, so politicians could speak in marathons, and the public loved it. Electronic media changed the terms — projecting your personality through a microphone is an art — but broadly speaking, the table had already been set.

And oh man were there conventions, real ones with real drama, which lingered into my youth. (The convention as coronation was a Reagan invention.) It’s primaries that barely existed — the system as we know it is basically post-1972.

It was certainly possible to win as a doormat — but Coolidge is the latest example I can think of, and he straddled the dawn of radio. We’re living in FDR’s world.

@nojo: The only event that could derail Her at this point is a major terrorist attack or another financial crisis.

Deutsche Bank is in major trouble–its stock keeps hitting new all-time lows, yes even lower than 2009–and the stocks of the largest global banks are all down an average of about 24% year-over-year. That’s almost half a trillion (with a t) dollars in equity capital that’s vaporized in just 12 months. DB is probably insolvent already, which matters because it holds trillions of dollars of credit default swaps on its books, with the Wall $treet banks as counterparties of course, thus guaranteeing mutually assured destruction if/when DB implodes. Thank you, Bill Clinton and 90s Congressional Republicans.

Hillary wins the nomination and several major newspapers (Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post) run pictures of Bernie or Bill. Hmm…

@mellbell: It’s bizarre how corporate news editors can completely lack situational and social awareness, since that is their job, albeit one they don’t do very well apparently.

@mellbell: Can’t go with you there. The Dems put an ex-Prez on stage in Prime Time, and the nominee on a closed-circuit monitor following a song. They got the photos they wanted.

@nojo: Enh. I get what you’re saying, but USA Today, of all things, managed to keep the focus on Hillary, where it should be.

@nojo: Like, this was the moment when Hillary became the first female presidential nominee of a major party. That’s now a big part of our history, and if journalism is the first draft of history, then several key players fell down on the job here.

@mellbell: AND they failed to tell us who Bill was wearing.

Maybe Russian spy agencies do have Clinton’s damn emails, since the FBI doesn’t know shit.

“I try cheeken parmesan recipe she recommend. Iz good yah? Nookleeur launch codes even bettur.”

Biden referred to Michelle as “kid.”

Cancel Thursday, and it’s a lock.

@nojo: She doesn’t have to give a better speech than Barry, Joe, Cory, Bill, or Michelle. Which is good, because she won’t.

Her speech just has to be better that Trumps.

It just has to be Sane & Competent™

WTF Katy Perry? Will lasers shoot out her nipples tonight? Back-up dancing dolphins?

I’m up to my eyeballs with all the breeder-centric mother/grandmother shit. Enough already.

Well, the pantsuit is nice. Really. Looks good on her.

I’m starting to like what I’m hearing. Hope to keep hearing it for four years.

@nojo: White is a good color for her. She must have a cool skin tone. Mine is warm and bright white is not my friend.

@mellbell: Someone on Twitter pointed out that white is a suffragette color, and Ferraro also wore white for her veep speech. If the choice was deliberate, kudos.

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