Sen. Clinton a Political Force for Years to Come

When Sen. Clinton stood up and voted no to the Senate’s version of the FISA bill yesterday; whereas, the Democratic Party's newly selected presumptive nominee, Barack Obama, caved and voted yes, the news was blasted around the world.

Once again, we were harshly reminded that the Democratic elite in collusion with the media had forced the more reliable and better-qualified candidate out of the race to hand the nomination to Obama.

But according to the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, Clinton is wasting no time in gearing up for the future:

“Hillary Clinton has reconstituted her political action committee -- another sign that she plans to remain a political force for years to come.

“Clinton has asked Capricia Marshall, a long-time Clinton friend and former White House social secretary, to be HillPAC's executive director. In that role, Marshall will coordinate Clinton's extracurricular political activities, including her fundraising for other candidates and non-Senate-business political travel.”

Ambinder reminds us:

“In its time, HillPAC was one of the most active PACs on the planet; it went dormant during Clinton's primary campaign and today, its website features a only an e-mail sign-up and a contribution solicitation. When Clinton closes out her campaign account, several staffers and advisers will transfer over to the HillPAC operation. They won't have to move: part of the campaign's Arlington headquarters will become HillPAC central."

Ambinder suggests that fundraising is now the critical issue:

“Fundraising begins soon; the PAC has only about $5,000 cash on hand, according to OpenSecrets.org.

“A Clinton spokesman did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment, but two other Clinton insiders confirmed Marshall's role and the PAC's impending re-opening. Clinton fundraisers have circulated an e-mail asking donors if they wanted to transfer their donations to Sen. Clinton's general election account to the PAC.”

Clinton boasts a considerable following. Ben Smith at Politico recently commented on her powerful email list. Referring to former presidential candidates, Smith reported:

'“It’s Clinton, however, who is the most imposing new member of the legacy candidate club. Aside from her e-mail list, she has direct access to even more supporters on social networks that didn’t exist in 2004. She has more than 158,000 'supporters' on Facebook and more than 191,000 'friends' on MySpace."'

Keep in mind that although the Democratic primary was artificially concluded in June, few if any of Clinton's 18 million supporters have agreed to sit down, shut up, and get with the program dictated by the party elite and its media allies.

Liberal Blogosphere Outraged at Obama

Posting at the Caucus (NY Times) this evening, Michael Falcone reports:

“It should come as no surprise to Senator Barack Obama that his vote today in favor of expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is drawing cries of outrage from many corners of the liberal blogosphere. After all, the senator’s own campaign Web site had become a focal point for his supporters to express their displeasure with Mr. Obama’s stance on the bill.”

Falcone includes samples of the above outrage at the one the Left thought it had been waiting for and offers in passing a brief word of acknowledgment for Hillary Clinton for having the courage to vote no on the bill. As usual, Clinton receives only grudging respect from the Left, no matter how badly the once idealized Obama has betrayed its members.

Read more:

Women’s Rights Advocate Tears Up Her Invitation to Obama Fundraiser

As women’s rights advocate Gloria Feldt explained at the Huffington Post today, she has joined the chorus of those who have been experiencing misgivings lately about supporting Barack Obama. In fact, Feldt says she just tore up her invitation to an Obama fundraising event this evening, having decided not to donate $4600 to his cause.

Feldt had initially found her way to Obama from Hillary Clinton’s suspended campaign :

“I supported Hillary Clinton in the primary because I believe she's the most capable of meeting the enormous challenges the next president will face undoing the damage to women's rights, health, and justice caused by Bush. Still, I've admired Obama since I met him at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Later, in Washington after he was elected to the Senate, I sensed he was genuine in his commitment to women's equality. So, despite my still-raw feelings about Hillary's concession, I was prepared to go forward this week and commit full support to Obama.”

The former Clinton supporter describes her gathering misgivings about the Dems’ recently selected presumptive nominee:

“During the last two weeks, the thunderclouds of doubt have gathered ever more ominously until they cast Obama's character into serious question. First there was a distant rumbling in his sudden support for FISA, followed by his support for the Supreme Court's ruling expanding the right to handguns. His statements about religion in public life and intentions to expand faith based funding programs were nervous making, though he did temper his comments with talk of Constitutional protections for church-state separation.

“By the time he spoke to an evangelical group, sounding for all the world like he was withdrawing his long held opposition to the Federal abortion ban by running, not walking, down the slippery path of parsing what reasons for abortion the law may deem acceptable or not -- infantilizing woman and devaluing their moral capacity and human right to exercise it -- I was seriously questioning whether this man would have the necessary mettle to withstand any challenges at all. Or worse, is he just another politician swaying with the winds and running for cover at the hint of a little thunder?”

Feldt says the last straw for her was Obama’s quote about sex education as it appeared in Relevant Magazine:

“Obama: I have repeatedly said that I think it's entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don't think that "mental distress" qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions...”

Feldt concludes:

“In the big picture, Obama's character begins to appear as someone who is quick to deflect, demur, defer to his challengers. The dreaded flip-flopper, whom voters always see as a loser. When the frame is focused on reproductive rights and health specifically, we see a candidate who is either uninformed (not likely) or speaks with an unacceptable lack of moral center about abortion, sex education, and family planning.

“I truly hope Obama will have sense enough to come in out of the rain of his self-induced controversy and recognize that he's a lot more likely to persuade women like me to support him than he is to get the votes of those who press for him to betray his previously stated pro-woman principles and will almost certainly abandon him at the ballot box anyway.

“For now, he has a long way to go to convince me my $4600 would be a good investment.”

Obama’s Left-Wing Supporters Playing Tough

Bob Ostertag at Huffpo this afternoon has had it with Obama’s reversal on FISA, and he wants to teach the straying-to-the-right presumptive nominee a lesson. Ostertag’s saying let’s reward the good guy Russ Feingold for leading the filibuster against the compromise FISA bill by giving him the donations we would normally direct toward the Obama campaign.

Ostertag points out:

“Imagine how inspired you would have been if, instead of turning and running, Obama was interrupting his campaign schedule to fly to Washington and lead the filibuster against the FISA legislation. Take the money donate it instead to Russ Feingold, the senator who is leading the struggle. Then tell everyone you know to do the same.

“This will be simple and effective:

“This won't be a vote against Obama. It will be a vote for the US Constitution and for political courage.”

Ostertag concludes with a request:

“If you have a moment, come back to this column after you make your contribution and leave a comment stating how much money you gave.

“OK. Let's see what happens. I am logging off to go put my $100 in the Feingold campaign. Join me if you can.”

If you want to read Ostertag’s entire post at Huffpo, just Google it. As you know, I don’t link there.

The Heads of Obama’s Base About to Explode!

Photo credits: MSNBC

Obama’s sudden metamorphosis from rock star idol of his extreme left-wing base, anchored in the blogosphere at big-name sites like Huffington Post and Daily Kos, to Mr. Flag-Waving Average Guy sauntering down the center line of the roadway to Denver has left his most dedicated supporters in disarray.

At the Huffington Post this morning, Allison Kilkenny is taking no prisoners. She leads off her piece titled ironically “Pray Yourself Better: It's The American Way!” with these words:

“Ideological contortionist, Barack Obama, marches toward his personal goal of causing one million progressives' heads to simultaneously explode.”

Kilkenny points to Kos:

“He {Obama} obtained an essential first step toward this aim when he capitulated on FISA, a move so contradictory to the core of the Progressive movement that outraged midget, Markos "Dailykos" Moulitsas, yanked a generous contribution from Obama's bony fingers as punishment for the sneaky, immoral maneuver. Moveon.org was also unhappy with Obama, all of which brings to mind the ancient expression: If You Wrong The Progressives, Protect Your Crotch.”


Kilkenny’s litany of Obama’s sellouts continues:

“These burns aren't going to heal any time soon. John Kerry turned out to be an empty shell of a candidate, but Barack Obama had real potential, or so the Progressives thought. They sunk their time and money into Obama, and as thanks, he turned around and bit the hands that fed him.

“Selling out his Progressive base on FISA was bad enough, but then Obama followed up his gradual tumble toward triangulation when he recently vowed to expand Bush's faith-based programs.

“Defenders of Obama's latest selling-out point claim churches are an essential party of American society because the institutions provide basic services like feeding the poor. Except, churches have no business substituting for the government in anti-poverty campaigns.

“If churches hold the occasional bake sale to help the Harper family pay for Little Matty's liver transplant, that's all well and good. However, any politician seriously claiming churches should substitute for government programs needs to have their head examined. It's the job of the state to care for its citizens, namely because the state is Constitutionally secular, forbidding government agents to deny care on the grounds of theological loyalty.

“In a way, asking the church to step up and care for the poor in lieu of a comprehensive, meaty welfare program is like abandoning the American post office in favor of using FedEx. It's yet another dig at the innards of the American infrastructure. It's yet another way to privatize a normal function of the government. Of course, in this case, it's selling out pro bono because the church claims to operate without the explicit intent of profit. I guess we're not counting those basket donations...

‘“Even if Obama proposed the expansion as an accessory program where the church just gets to ‘come along for the poverty ride,’ the idea is still worse than dumb, it's downright insulting. When will a progressive candidate have the courage to admit they have no business dictating moral values? When will a progressive acknowledge that triangulation brought us to this place, where the American people have no bargaining chips left? They're poor, they're losing their jobs because of triangulating land mines like NAFTA, and those jobs are not coming back. They have no health care, their food and environment are poisoned, and Barack Obama tells them to go to church and pray for a miracle.

“And that's the progressive talking. Just imaging the steaming pile of shit resting on John McCain's tongue.”

Kilkenny’s not having any of Obama’s excuses:

‘“The challenges we face today ... are simply too big for government to solve alone,’ Obama explained when confronted by foaming-at-the-mouths Progressives.

“Um, what? So let me get this straight: We pay taxes for a government unable to do its job. We elect representatives, like Barack Obama, to overhaul a broken system that has abandoned its own constituents, and instead of creating a bold, radical agenda, Obama perpetuates the status quo. Obama chooses to invest his trust in the church instead of in the political system that has invested in him this great and rare opportunity to fix an ailing society. He chooses to entrust a brothel of fairy tales with the safety of the people instead of a responsible, secular government.

“What the hell is he thinking? Unless there's a business model somewhere where "priest molestations" plus "dangerous ignorance" equals "profit" that I don't know about, this appears to be yet another grave error from the Obama camp.”

Nor is Kilkenny having any excuses from a few hangers on among progressives:

‘“More surprising than Obama selling out his progressive base is the stubbornness with which some progressives have reacted during these gradual moves toward triangulation. One such supporter explained to me, ‘You can't drive the bus without the keys,’ meaning Obama is just faking his way into the White House with these ‘moderate’ moves and bushels of ‘compromises.’

“But this kind of logic ignores Quid Pro Quo, where Wall Street lobbyists, who have sunk nearly twice as much money into Obama as they have McCain, will demand favors in exchange for their generosity.

“Obama is already in debt, but the progressives seem to think he'll experience a kind of miraculous spell of transubstantiation during his inauguration where his past corruptions will turn into delicious wine and universal health care. It ain't, as they say, gonna happen, folks. At least, it won't happen without the motivation of a seriously pissed-off base.

It should be obvious by now that believing Obama was the second coming was misguided faith on the part of progressives:

“Of course, the motivation of his pissed-off base was supposed to have been what was going to keep Obama on track in the first place. With that not working, progressives have few options left, and their trust is waning in the last great savior for the so-called progressive movement.”