Sunday, January 13th, 2008...9:22 pm
Barack Blowback
The first bit of fallout has been measured from the governor’s endorsement of Barack Obama. Many of the women who form the backbone of Janet Napolitano’s organization here in Pima County are the staunchest of Hillary Clinton’s backers. They are, shall we say, less than pleased.
I spoke to one Clinton supporter a few weeks back who was confident that although Napolitano had tried to remain neutral in the race, she knew “how she really feels.” They, apparently, thought that Napolitano, a fellow female centrist, would naturally gravitate to Clinton’s candidacy.
Over the last couple of days, there has been a great deal of angry e-mail traffic and complaints to Napolitano’s people about what they see as a betrayal. I don’t know if this will actually result in any political damage to Napolitano, who this group lionized up until Friday.
26 Comments
January 13th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Yes, because a woman has to support Hillary Clinton, just like an African-American has to support Barack or an Italian-American has to support Rudy.
Not like it matters anyway, she won’t need to worry about these people when she’s the Vice President in an Obama Administration haha.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Atticus, you hit it right on. I find it insulting that they just assumed she would support Hillary because she is a woman and same that every black person automatically supports Barack. More likely, yes, but not automatic. Democrats get 90% of the black vote but that still leaves 10% voting Republican. To quote Under Siege 2 : “assumption is the mother of all fuck ups”
January 14th, 2008 at 7:28 am
“So that’s where the Democrats’ fifty years of identity politics have gotten them: If Hillary loses, the party is sexist. If Obama loses, the party is racist.”
— Ace, on his Ace of Spades blog.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:37 am
I have nothing to add - you guys (no sexism intended) summed it up perfectly!
January 14th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Perhaps the Governor just believed that Obama would make a better President?
January 14th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Hillary Clinton is perhaps the best-qualified candidate we have ever had running for President. Never before have we had the chance of electing a President’s partner to the Presidency. That is why I am supporting Hillary Clinton for President, and that’s why I am very disappointed in our Governor’s choice in this election.
Experience matters!!! We’ve just had almost 8 years of an inexperienced person in our highest office and we can’t afford more on-the-job training! It would seem our Governor would recognize that.
Certainly I have a sentimental attachment to electing our first woman President — but I have the same sentimental attachment to electing our first African-American President, so the two emotional pulls for me pretty much cancel each other out.
It just keeps coming back to who is best suited to lead this country out of the mess the current administration has dragged us into. Hillary Clinton is that person.
Pam Sutherland
January 14th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
“Hillary Clinton is perhaps the best-qualified candidate we have ever had running for President”
Sorry- I couldn’t get past this hyperbole. When you find yourself making statements this over-the-top, I think you should take a step back and reconsider your beliefs.
What experience exactly do you think that Clinton has that Obama doesn’t? Elected years in office? (Obama: 12, Clinton:8) Major legislation achievements? (Both are freshman senators with few remarkable achievements, Clinton’s healthcare plan failed).
Experience is only a useful trait when it leads to good judgment. Clinton voted FOR the Iraq invasion despite her experience. Perhaps the solid knowledge of history that Obama exhibits, his openness to new ideas, and his already-stellar array of advisers tell us more about his potential for success than a simple tally of # of years in politics.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I’m an Obama supporter, because it is his record and experience that has prepared him to address the major challenges that we face.
After graduating from Columbia, Barack could have gone on to take a corporate job in New York or gone to work for Democrats in Congress. He didn’t. Instead, he spent three years working on the south side of Chicago as a community organizer with African American and Latino families. From 1982 to 1985, he earned $12,000 a year and worked with community members to fight for environmental justice, increased after school programs, created new playgrounds, and won more funding for job training efforts.
Contrast that to the experience of Hillary Clinton, who, at almost the same time, spent 6 years on the board of Walmart earning $15,000 a year for attending 4 meetings annually.
On the experience of who has the best experience to address health care, let’s look at the records. It is Senator Obama that has actually succeeded in the area. While in the Illinois Senate, Sen. Obama passed legislation that gave 150,000 parents and children health care. His experience as a community organizer taught him to bring people together and that enabled him to actually win a victory on one of the major issues that we face today.
Contrast that to the experience of Hillary Clinton. Her experience in partisan battles led her to not share information, to not work with Republicans in 1993. We might have solved the issue, but Hillary’s experience led her to plan behind closed doors and alienate everyone who wasn’t one of her close confidants.
We need to end the partisan battles in Washington, not exacerbate them. Hillary has a tremendous amount of experience. I believe it is the wrong experience for this moment in our history. We need someone willing to work with Republicans and Independents to solve the major issues that we face.
We can’t have 8 more years of partisan battles. Look at what 16 in a row has done for the country.
Joel Foster
January 14th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Pam,
I feel compelled to point out that “having a chance to elect a President’s partner to the Presidency” is about as stupid a reason as I can think of to vote for someone.
Being a “first lady” is generally not considered to be political experience as it relates to public policy. Same goes for campaigning for your husband.
I will admit that Hillary was tasked with national healthcare in Bill’s first administration and her failure is legendary.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I know that people like “Pam” who are stumping for candidates do not read what other people have to say.
But that comment about having a chance to elect a president’s partner really is the most stupid thing I have read yet about Hillary and I thought I had heard it all.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Oh no!!! Janet Napolitano won every county in Arizona in 2006, and that means having some Clinton supporters in Pima County angry at her means her political career is over!!!!
January 14th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Here’s a good one from the 1-14 broadcast of “Democracy Now:”
“Clinton Allies in Nevada Sue to Stop Caucuses in Vegas Hotels–Meanwhile supporters of Hillary Clinton are being accused of trying to disenfranchise some Democratic voters in Nevada ahead of the state’s caucus on Saturday. Six Nevada Democrats and the Nevada State Education Association teachers’ union have filed a lawsuit to block the Democratic Party from holding caucuses inside Las Vegas strip hotels in order to allow casino and hotel workers a chance to take part in the caucus process. The suit was filed just days after the influential Nevada Culinary Workers’ Union endorsed Barack Obama. The teachers union has not endorsed a candidate but the union’s deputy executive director–Debbie Cahill–is a member of Clinton’s Nevada Women’s Leadership Council.”
Democrats seem to have learned a lot from the 2000 presidential election. Now they can eat their own.
January 14th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
While I doubt Pam will be reading any of these comments I just can’t help myself. She says that experience matters and that we have just had almost eight years of inexperience? Correct me if I am wrong but Bush was the Governor of Texas, no? I don’t think experience is really his problem, just that he is a psychopath moron with a bunch of crazy cronies helping him drive our country to rock bottom. This also begs the question, if being a governor doesn’t account for experience, what is that implying about Mrs. Clinton’s husband? I just found that all a bit odd.
January 14th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Okay folks. I’m an Edwards supporter — and I’m not the only one. I hope that neither Clinton’s nor Obama’s supporters expect me to be happy about their conduct. No Democratic candidate has yet gotten 40% of any state’s voters.
And I can’t say I’m pleased with the governor. Since it was a Clinton who appointed her to her first political position, in my view of politics, loyalty requires her at least to remain neutral. Plus, the environment isn’t on her list of”issues” in her “state of the state” announcement.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:07 am
I’ll say it again. All’s fair in love, war, and politics.
Betrayal? Loyalty? This ain’t the mafia, folks, this is democracy. Democracy is about making choices and having the freedom to make choices. Granted, this also gives us the freedom to complain about said choices, but equating free political will with disloyalty or insisting that loyalty trumps conscience simply doesn’t fly.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:25 am
Politicians make decisions based on where they see events leading, what benefits them and what aides their constituency. Endorsements are less personal slights than they are the result of that political calculus. We are discussing this issue as if Janet Napolitano, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are middle school kids embroiled in some kind of playground feud, trivializing the fact that the outcome of elections play the central role in their lives and careers.
Whereas I am certain this was a tough choice for Napolitano because of her prior relationship with the Clintons, she is in a brutal business where it’s her job to make tough calls. No one understands that cold reality better than the Clintons, who have a long record of using friends and associates for their political needs and casting them aside as those needs change. The journalist Joe Klein once famously referred to them as the “Tom and Daisy Buchanan of American politics,” comparing them unfavorably with the wealthy and self-centered married couple in The Great Gatsby.
Frankly, I think it’s about time that Janet Napolitano has put the hefty amount of political capital and popularity she wields on the line in a contest where she must pick one side over the other. I hope she shows the same will and moxie in this year’s budget battle. Her willingness in the past to position herself between Democrats and the GOP leadership in the Legislature has led to compromises on taxes that are at least partly responsible for the current massive deficit.
January 15th, 2008 at 8:45 am
I agree with Liza when she said that Pam Sutherland’s reasoning for supporting Clinton is stupid. It’s also pretty hypocritical when you think about it.
Would Sutherland be so gung-ho about electing the first female president if she were running as a Republican? Of course not.
Would she be excited to have the chance to vote Laura Bush as president to get the opportunity to elect a president’s partner? Heck no.
Also I highly doubt that Sutherland has an equal sentimental attachment to electing a black president considering she posted Gloria Steinem’s ridiculous op-ed on her blog.
Others here have already eviscerated Sutherland’s “experience” nonsense, so I won’t belabor that point.
Fact is, Ms Sutherland, if that’s all you got to support Hillary, it’s no wonder Janet supports Obama.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:09 am
One fact that has been overlooked is EMILY’s list. They solicit money to help women who run for federal offices. They helped Janet get elected and without EMILY’s list, she might not have won. But then we have the first woman ever running for president who is highly qualified and Janet turns her back on EMILY’s and all the women who supported her just because of a promise from another candidate. Janet has definitely put her life and hopes above everyone and everything else so that she might become the next vice presidential candidate. It just shows how truly selfish she is. Obama probably promised her the moon so she would support him. And I can’t really belive she thinks he is the best candidate, but she believes he will give her a higher position than Hillary would promise her. I have lost all respect for Janet because she should have stayed neutral. She hurt herself by taking sides. Now, what if Hillary does win. Janet’s out in the cold. And if Obama does win, we will be stuck with Jan Brewer as Governor for the rest of her term after she resigns. There is a lose-lose here.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
J.C. said: “One fact that has been overlooked is EMILY’s list. They solicit money to help women who run for federal offices. They helped Janet get elected and without EMILY’s list, she might not have won.”
That’s quite a feat considering she’s never run for federal office.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Also, JC, Janet ran as a Clean Elections candidate and couldn’t take EMILY’s List money.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Your whole point, JC, seems to be that Governor Napolitano has cut some kind of deal with Barack Obama. That is just wild speculation on your part and it is not clear to me how you feel you can make this character judgment based solely upon your own speculation.
The governor is a smart lady, but she hasn’t got a crystal ball, and she can’t tell you right now who will be the next president. To suggest that she is making endorsements to advance her career is fairly ludicrous.
Janet Napolitano will advance her career on her own steam. Politicians of her caliber are rare and she is not likely to be overlooked.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Liza, Janet got where she is because Bill Clinton helped her. After whoever gets elected president, especially if it’s Obama, keep your ears open and find out for yourself what Obama has promised Janet. You said she is a smart lady - agreed! Smart enough to deal for a big job with who she thinks will win this. This is not pure speculation - it’s logic. And I also read that Janet had a private meeting with Bloomberg - that she is possibly hedging her bets in case he decides to run for President. Hillary can’t promise any woman the vice presidency - two women on the ticket would have a difficult chance of winning.
Tedski, EMILY’s list helps in other ways other than giving money. They have a huge network of women and men to whom they can suggest who to support in any race. The Governor’s race was very important to women - do you really think Ellen Malcolm would have stayed out of it?
You all aren’t thinking very logically. Remove your rose colored glasses for one minute and really look at what’s happening. Why in this world would a woman governor choose to support a man against a woman when they are both qualified? Promises, darling, promises.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
JC, Janet’s appointment by Clinton was in 1993. She has since won state elections in 1998, 2002, and 2006 with 2006 being a landslide. At this point, with her reputation, she will have any number of opportunities without cutting deals.
Perhaps, unlike you, she does not think that Hillary Clinton is as good a candidate as Obama. Perhaps she REALLY BELIEVES he is the better candidate.
However, I will promise you this. If Janet changes her mind and endorses Bloomberg I will definitely start thinking more logically the way you do.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Yeah, exurban jon, the GOP’s brand of identity politics is much less complicated. You just pretend the only people who exist are rich white men.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Janet may or may not have been promised a slot with Obama, but I think her endorsement has more to do with pragmatism and looking at the big picture. Napolitano, like so many of us, probably recognizes what a down ticket disaster Hillary is. If someone other than McCain is the nominee, she may squeak out a presidential victory here but we’ll be fighting to keep Harry and Gabi, never mind actually picking up CD1. Oh, and kiss all those statewide and local races goodbye. The Lege, Corp Com, county sups, school boards, etc will be chockablock wingnuts. Without Hillary at the top of the ticket, we have a good chance for pickups because more of the wackadoos will stay home. If McCain is the nominee in that scenario, he’ll win AZ because of moderates and independents but we still have a good shot at all those local seats.
For the love of all that is holy, Clintonistas, pull your heads out of your asses and realize that Janet is only telling you what you need to hear.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
J.C.,
There is a little matter known as the ‘record.’
I support candidates because they best reflect my values and view of the world. Regarding Hillary Clinton specifically, I was excited when she was elected to the Senate in 2000, having read some of her books and believing that she was a progressive, much more than her husband who was a disappoint to me. My support was hers to lose.
But she lost it. She lost it specifically by voting for NCLB, the Iraq war, Patriot I and Patriot II, the bankruptcy bill, etc. Very often when it mattered, she lined up with the enemies of the things that matter to me. She’d pretty much lost it by last year, but she had a chance to convince me that she had changed, in reference to the Iran vote last year that appeared to be the Bush administration trying to grease the skids for another war. But she once again voted with the Bush administration. I don’t expect every politician to vote 100% for what I wish they would, but she’s just plain too conservative for me.
Now granted, Janet Napolitano is not a liberal on many issues, but isn’t it just possible that she finds that Obama’s position on issues that matter might be more in keeping with how she thinks about them than Hillary’s are? Or maybe she just has confidence that he can get things done. She has the right to decide who she will support using whatever logic she uses, and you have no right to tell her that she doesn’t have that right.
Using your logic regarding qualifications, none of us should make any endorsements, since there is no question that Clinton, Obama and Edwards (as well as Richardson, Biden, Dodd, Kucinich and Gravel) are all qualified, having held high level elected office.
Your suggestion (and those of others) that a female should support a female simply because she is a female is insulting on so many levels. What would you say if, for example, a male endorsed a man and said ‘because of his gender?’ You’d be outraged, and rightly so. So why is it any different for women? For that matter, I am a Mormon. Does that mean I am obligated to support Mitt Romney? Hell, no! Everything he stands for is alien to me so I wouldn’t vote for him in a million years.
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