Most alarming thing McCaskill said about Bernie Sanders...echoes of 2003. Calls us extremists.

[madfloridian]

Now in this video Claire McCaskill does not actually call "us" extremists, but she says Bernie's message is extreme.

That is the same message that was used against another campaign in 2003. That we were fringe, extremists.

I will never forget the memos that came out in 2003 from the Democratic Leadership Council (now defunct, Third Way took its place as the policy shop.)

Howard Dean's campaign was shocking the party's establishment. They were furious with his supporters for being against the Iraq invasion. They were furious with him, though he was one of them for years.

First, Claire's words from Morning Joe this week...she was asked about the huge crowds Bernie Sanders was getting. She said:

"Rand Paul's father, Ron Paul, got massive crowds. Pat Buchanan got massive crowds.

It's not unusual for someone who has an extreme message to have a following."

Note the real extremists she chose for comparison. It was an insult.

Now back to 2003 and the memos.

The Memos

"Activists Are Out of Step" From and Reed 2003

SNIP..."These days, Democrats act as if they're so far gone they've forgotten where they're from.

Every weekend, yet another special-interest group hosts a candidate forum to pressure the presidential candidates into praising its agenda. Some of the candidates seem intent on running applause-meter campaigns, measuring success by how many times they tell the party faithful what they want to hear.

There's one big problem with this strategy: Most of those party activists the candidates are trying so hard to please are wildly out of touch not only with middle America but with the Democratic rank and file. The great myth of the campaign is the misguided notion that the hopes and dreams of party activists and single-issue groups represent the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. They don't.

The fact is, "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," as former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean likes to call it, is an aberration, a modern-day version of the old McGovern wing of the party, defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist interest-group liberalism at home. That wing lost the party 49 states in two elections and turned a powerful national organization into a much weaker, regional one.

Well, we have had massive losses the last 2 elections...just a reminder.

In 2003 Markos posted a powerful diary. It really laid out the fact that the attacks on Dean were a power play for the party's soul.

The battle for the soul of the Democratic Party

The real danger, of course, is that the establishment will try and sabotage Dean (if he gets the nomination, of course) in order to save itself. The notion of a true grassroots-generated political movement, with decentralized power nodes, threatens to diminish the need for proponents of old-school, top-bottom political structures. There are myriad consultants who may suddenly find themselves obsolete, and they're not happy about it.

The optimist in me hopes that this "establishment" will realize the power of what Dean (and SEIU in the union world) is building and embrace it, whether Dean wins the nomination or otherwise. There is no mystery as to why Dean (and Clark, to a lesser degree) have captured the fervent support of so many people, while their opponents struggle to make an impact. The establishment throws away that kind of success at its own peril.

Winning is the key, not who holds the levers of power at the DNC, DSCC, DCCC and other Democratic Party institutions. No one should lose sight of that goal.

The corporate wing of the party might try to do just what Markos said...anything to save themselves and their power.

That was not an accidental interview with Claire. It was the first major public attack, and it's an attack not just on Bernie but his message and on those who support him.

[antigop]

1. perfectly stated, mad. Thanks. nt

[arcane1]

2. Was McCaskill speaking as a senator, or as an employee of the "Ready for Hillary" Super-PAC?

I think I know the answer.

[jwirr]

3. That throws a great many of us out of the party! McGovern, Dean and Bernie supporters. I am

surprised they did not include Robert F. Kennedy in with that.

[Ed Suspicious]

18. No, they evoke Bobby Kennedy now, but only because he's no threat to the status quo.

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. Brillant observation madfloridian

that segment of her rant was planned, rehearsed and given to her by handlers.

[madfloridian]

5. After being called fringe in 2003, I am very sensitive now to being called "extremist".

I am the most unlikely to be extreme, always been moderate. It reflects on the party establishment, not on us.

It really does anger me though.

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. extremists ...Robert F. Kennedy, 1964

"What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant.


The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents." Robert F. Kennedy, 1964]

[arcane1]

6. The handlers in question can raise unlimited money and spend it anywhere (inluding paying her):

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/06/claire-mccaskill-joins-effort-to-draft-hillary-clinton-in-2016/

[Enthusiast]

20. Yes. Planned and rehearsed.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

24. They are certainly worried about him

[madfloridian]

8. Wow, they are already starting with the "emo prog" stuff. Look it up.

http://thedailybanter.com/2015/06/why-hillary-clinton-is-wisely-resisting-bernie-sanders-political-strategy/

The theme in part of this article is that Hillary doesn't need to appeal to Bernie voters, only to Obama voters. Did I read this right? Since the president is the president of all of us...I don't like the sound of that.

Sanders’ lack of appeal to black voters makes him the de facto candidate for a strong block of white Democratic voters who either reject, or place a very low priority, on policies like police reform, voting rights, and immigration. He’s also the beneficiary of a political media that’s eager to take Hillary Clinton down several pegs, and will hype any bit of good polling news to do it.

The fact is, though, that Bernie Sanders cannot hurt Hillary Clinton, only Hillary Clinton can do that. There will be no disappointed Bernie Sanders voters who will end up voting Republican in 2016. There may be some who stay home if Hillary is nominated, but I doubt there are very many. The Obama coalition that she needs to turn out in 2016 are far more numerous than the white emoprogs who will sit out if Bernie isn’t nominated.

On the other hand, if Hillary undermines the fragile trust she has rebuilt with President Obama’s supporters by changing course in the face of polling pressure, all bets are off. So far, she’s been too smart to let that happen. Here’s hoping that resolve remains strong when Sanders does well in those early white states, and the media pronounces Hillary’s candidacy dead.

Ha, here's one meaning of emo prog.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=emoprog

[Enthusiast]

19. That's for sharing that, madfloridian.

I really do not like right wing Democrats.

[MisterP]

9. the "Scoop Jackson Dems" were in fact created in the early 70s because they blamed primaries

for McGovern's loss (this was why Jeane Kirkpatrick left the party--too many commoners): to them a primary is as much "sabotage" as a third party

in the late 80s the DLC was formed on the notion that the party's failing was that it didn't have money and to thus court business--now entrenched with Reaganomic reforms that neither party wanted to question (and partly out of the notion that Dukakis was too lefty): then a lot of Dixiecrats jumped ship '94 (but Clinton had swung right)

fast forward a decade: they could only blame Nader for so long, especially when the IWR passed on Dem votes, and soon they were out of excuses for that too ("they HAD to do it because they weren't in safe seats" was an especial stinker, since "yea" voters lost elections more than "nay"--though of course that was taken only as further proof of concept--the "yea" MCs had been in such perilous seats they HAD to vote Bushite)

for '04 the talk was whether the queers or the Deaniacs would throw the vote by "staying home": Ohio happened and was studiously ignored

in '06 they started spreading rumors that with enough seats the Dems could shed some deadwood and that the knives of the Purity Purge were at our throats: while their underlings pretended this was the threat, the party bosses squeezed out Cegelis, Lamont, McKinney, Halter, Romanoff, Sestak, Grayson, Kucinich, Buono, Lutrin, Rev. Sykes, and Weiland--they in fact showed that, for all their rhetoric about "win first, complain later," they'd rather run an incumbent behind in the polls than allow a challenger who polls better: they'd rather lose than win

'08-10 is a whole new phase: we have what they call a "veal pen" to keep voters and party foot soldiers' needs from being made into law and just string the loyal cadres along; with '10 they already were pre-blaming the gays and young people

for '14 the pre-blaming was against some mythical "abstentionists" who would be responsible for any lower turnout: even normally brainy DUers were thrown into a flat panic; Wasserman-Schultz, of course, is perfect and thus untouchable: it's the voters' fault if they didn't respond to the brilliant neglect (though some loyalists said '14 should've emphasized how much the Dems have done to help the people recently, like get them into a lot of MENA wars)

always the trend is to make a machine that takes in money and spits out votes: politics stops at the smoke-filled room and the poll-booth curtain

[madfloridian]

27. Found it...some of Scoop Jackson's former staff members pushing Iraq Invasion..

The list of former Jackson staff members reads like a who's who of foreign-policy experts.

• Richard Perle is an adviser to the Defense Department and considered a major influence on Bush administration foreign policy.

• Doug Feith is undersecretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon.

• Elliott Abrams, special assistant to the president focusing on Middle East affairs, worked as special counsel to Jackson.

Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense and one of Bush's Iraq policy experts, never served directly under Jackson. But they had a long relationship that began when Wolfowitz, then a 29-year-old graduate student, helped Jackson prepare charts when the senator wanted to persuade fellow lawmakers to fund an antiballistic-missile program in 1969.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040112&slug=jackson12m

[MisterP]

31. Jackson was one of the many nuclei of the neocons

we also have WACLites like Singlaub, and he's tied to Ollie North (Project Phoenix butcher) and the Argentinean and Bolivian juntas (and their various cartel and occult fascist ties)

then you have the Old Boys in the CIA (directors) and pretty loose cannons (Shackley selling C4 to friggin' Qaddafi while we were at war comes to mind)

[blm]

10. My view is that From was lying all along and knew he was lying, because Dean governed

as more of a center-left centrist than most of his opponents, something of which From was fully aware, but, because of Dean's perceived anti-war stance (though he was FOR the Biden-Lugar version of IWR, as was Kerry) and his great campaigning style, many of his supporters were from the left.

What FROM really wanted, we all know now, was for ANY Dem candidate in 2003-4 to be diminished publicly as a matter of course - the course being the one set by Terry McAuliffe back then - Hillary2008.

[madfloridian]

11. Dean would have messed up plans.

You are right.

[blm]

13. ANY 2004 candidate would mess that plan.

From was just throwing fuel on the primary fires to make sure the party stayed divided.

[madfloridian]

21. Yep

He was. He was not fond of party activists. He wanted control. Heck they even threatened Clinton that he would not be re-elected if he crossed them.

[Ichingcarpenter]

14. Gary Hart and Clinton

See Partners in Power by Roger Morris (pg.433-434).


(Morris is a highly respected public servant, who worked for Dean Acheson, Lyndon Johnson, and Walter Mondale, before resigning from the National Security Council (He had been appointed by LBJ) over Nixon's invasion of Cambodia. Morris also called for other civil servants in to resign to protest the Bush administration's policies.)

Hart and Clinton

Hart's problem was
1) He had previously hired, and then laid off, a guy named James Carville, and
2) He hired a media consultant named Ray Strother (also from Louisiana) who made the mistake of working for two men who both wanted to be President.

Ray Strother did Hart's media ads in his '84 campaign. After Hart's success in '84, Clinton hired Strother and his protege, Carville. Strother didn't see a conflict of interest in working for two men who wanted to be President. With Hart riding high in the polls, Clinton pushed Strother to get him a meeting with Hart about being named Hart's V.P. As Strother wrote in his book "Falling Up", after the interview Hart told him that Clinton had no political "core" values, and "doesn't believe in anything". Hart's words made it back to Clinton likely through hack James Carville, who was a protege of Strother. (Carville would later use an almost verbatim quote about Clinton, but attribute it to Ken Starr.)

After hearing that news, the Clinton's set out to sabotage his campaign, and cut their own deal with Dukakis. Remember Clinton's filibuster of a keynote speech at the 1988 convention? Gary Hart needed a press pass to get in to that convention and was escorted around by security guards.

James Carville is the former Hart adviser who told Newsweek that Hart had a problem "keeping his pants on". (Twenty four years later, not a single woman has come forward by name to claim she had a sexual affair with Hart.) Carville is now married to Bush and Cheney confident Mary Matalin.

In short, the Clinton camp preferred for the party to lose the election rather than to see someone else win the general election in 1988.

As previously stated above here at post 10, Hart did not challenge anyone to follow him around. He had already been followed by an agent of a political rival from within the party in 1986 while giving the national Democratic response at a radio station. He was then harassed by whispering campaign originating from James Carville. As a matter of fact, Gary Hart and Donna Rice were not acquainted before she was brought to the yacht at the dock and introduced as the friend of Eagles singer Don Henley, who was a Hart supporter. The trip was intended to be campaign related. Ray Strother was originally scheduled to be on board as well for that trip, but he was called away at the last minute for work for another Dem client.

Again, after all of his years in the public light, there has never been a woman who has come forward by name to claim any kind of sexual impropriety from Gary Hart. Both Gary Hart and Donna Rice have denied since 1987 that their relationship was sexual. The Miami herald had stalked Donna Rice, then lost her before resorting to hiding in the bushes and peeking in the windows at Hart's Washington, D.C., townhouse, where his wife had never made her home. The Miami Herald never followed Gary Hart anywhere, nor were their actions done in response to any challenge.

That story is and was pure propaganda.


Hart may have been the best President this country never had, after RFK.

[Enthusiast]

17. Thank you for this information. I had no idea. I always suspected some sort of dirty subterfuge.

I do not like James Carville or his wife.

[madfloridian]

23. I did not know that. Thanks so much for that post.

James Carville is the former Hart adviser who told Newsweek that Hart had a problem "keeping his pants on". (Twenty four years later, not a single woman has come forward by name to claim she had a sexual affair with Hart.) Carville is now married to Bush and Cheney confident Mary Matalin.

Carville played a nasty role in the 2004 primaries as well.

From 2006:

Daggers Drawn - DLC versus DNC

[Admiral Loinpresser]

34. Carville has always been a scumbag.

When he came to our university to speak for a fat stipend, I asked him why the FelonGate scandal in Florida in 2000 was reported in Europe but not the US and he dodged the question.

[blm]

39. Parts of this are true, parts are not. Carmichael completely distorts Kerry's

position, his campaign and his post-candidacy. Kerry was the first to support Dean as chair and donated the first million to DNC. They weren't the enemies that some perceived them to be, mainly because of spin masters.

Carmichael is one of those who DID run with the spin he wanted to believe even as he decried other spin.

PS: In his own article Carmichael doesn't pick up on blatant clues - If Kerry WAS the DLC candidate, the DLC would have been made sure his primary candidacy was well-funded. Instead they made sure Kerry's fundraising was drying up back in Nov2003 and by December some Dems were on TV publicly saying Kerry should drop out of the race altogether.

Kerry's success in Iowa was based on his OWN money, his strength of character, his actual record and relentless work on the ground.

Carmichael is DEAD wrong whenever he makes reference to Kerry. It's apparent he blinded himself.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

12. Wanting fairness for working families isn't extreme

in fact most of Bernie's policies are fairly mainstream in my eyes.

[Enthusiast]

16. Bernie's policies are mainstream.

For the most part the American people agree with Bernie's policies. What better determining factor could there be? Mainstream.

[madfloridian]

29. Yes, his policies ARE mostly mainstream.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

35. Yes, I wish we had more of a

Naomi Klein leftist available to support, from a policy point of view. For example, it might be necessary to nationalize the big oil companies to mitigate climate change and head off the Tar Sands and fracking projects.

That said, Bernie's incredibly high integrity and quirky charisma make him a helluva candidate.

[Enthusiast]

15. Claire was just plain nasty when she said that.

[SoapBox]

22. Our house wants "common sense"...

As it seems to stand now, even the "common sense" spectrum has shifted so far to the Right, that it's no wonder we are now (again) called extreme and fringe. And besides it's all the Krazy, DINO and KKK Heads have...extremist, socialist, fringe...it's old and tired.

DINO's like Claire don't want any rocking-of-the-money-boat...DOG forbid that anyone threaten the Banksters and their ilk. To me, she's no better than many of the PukeBaggers.

No more! It's now time, before it's too late, to try to turn this around for the vast majority of Americans.

It's early but with these early attacks, I say we fight back on behalf of Bernie...some one MUST fight back on attacks like this. That fight back should be easy because of Bernie's message but the fight needs to be large and loud.

My biggest concern is exposure. The lame media coverage is going to be a problem until he gets too big for them to ignore...in the mean time the net, social media and good old foot work are going to spread his message like fire!

GOTV and Feeeeeel the Bern America.

[fadedrose]

25. You folks know a lot more than I do-or did-or will

but I fell hard for Dean in 2004 because of his anti-war stance. I thought he couldn't lose. Celebrities from Hollywood were hightailing it over to Vermont to hear him...

Then came Iowa. People from DU who attended the caucasus saw Dean was doing well until Clinton arrived and started the "unelectable" bull and made people afraid to vote for him. So they didn't

Those from DU verified what I saw with my own eyes. A group of DLC "candidates" were all over Howard Dean at a debate, and only Barbara Lee did not specifically target him. The "scream" came after he lost to cheer up disappointed people like me. When he lost Iowa, I made my first political contribution to show support for him.

The link above ("The Battle..&quot that shows how the DLC was at war with Dean and lots of other liberal politicians we liked was written in 2004. I could never understand how Dean could support HC this primary season after the Clinton's DLC was responsible for his losing.

Now I see he may be running again this season. Is he the old Howard Dean that I loved (had his avatar for years until this year) or a "radicalized" Howard, a remake of the DLC?

Does anybody know? or even care?

I thought that republicans played dirty.

[haikugal]

26. Very good post and information in the thread!

This is bookmarked for further study. We need to remember '68 and why it happened.

[madfloridian]

28. It will be huge mistake to alienate "activists" this time around.

There has been no learning curve from 68 and any time after that.

They are apparently still listening to the same advisers who are telling them that the people of the party are not very bright.

[winter is coming]

33. It will be a huge mistake... and yet, I fully expect the Clinton campaign to make it.

They're certainly not getting off to a good start.

[madfloridian]

36. It's going to happen.

I will speak out against it whenever I see it.

Went through enough of being called fringe, extremist as a Deaniac in 2004.

[FloriTexan]

30. Kicking and Recommending

[CanadaexPat]

32. I think Bernie's got that covered.

He's not just ranting about the 1%, he's offering concrete, do-able proposals, e.g., small tax on stock trades, increase estate tax for over $3.5m estates, etc. this in contrast to the campaign that has made vague incendiary statements like, we need to topple the 1%. If they keep up this rhetoric it will backfire - people will ask, what's so extreme about asking the wealthy to pay a little more, probably less than they paid historically?

[madfloridian]

37. Messages like this were all over TV in 2003, 2004. Some ugly stuff in 2008 as well.

It makes it sound like liberals are not welcome in the party...or even left leaning. It's not healthy.

[Bonobo]

38. Efforts to link to Ron Paul, white populism are coordinated

Coordinated and filthy and dishonest.

[madfloridian]

40. .....