Hillary Clinton: The Ultimate Outsider

Veteran Democratic Party strategist (and former Clinton 2008 adviser) Peter Daou:

One of the prerequisites of Washington insiderism is disdain for Hillary Clinton. Hating Hillary is an industry among the political class and media elites…

There’s much talk of populism in 2016, of establishment versus outsiders, of Trump and Bernie. But what’s more populist than a candidate beloved by the people and reviled by political tastemakers and media elites?

Yes, Hillary is the true outsider, and yes, that statement torpedoes conventional wisdom.

It definitely torpedoes something.

Here is the number of Clinton’s endorsements*:

Cabinet officials: 28

Governors: 42

Senators: 47

House Representatives: 192

Members of the DNC: 113

By way of contrast, here is the number of Sanders’s endorsements*:

Cabinet officials: 1

Governors: 1

Senators: 1

House Representatives: 3

Members of the DNC: 7

* except for the DNC, all numbers include former and current officeholders

 

14 Comments

  1. Roqeuntin January 31, 2016 at 11:18 pm | #

    I have to admit, I am surprised at the lengths many pundits are willing to go to in order to rationalize supporting HRC. If Sanders starts does well in the primaries, it’ll only get worse.

    The single biggest accomplishment of Syriza winning in Greece was exposing how profoundly undemocratic, how fervently neoliberal, how firmly beholden to large financial institutions the entire EU was. It exposed that the Troika more or less runs the show, is elected by and answers to no one. Yes, the actual Syriza government was a disaster, but now it is almost impossible to pretend genuine democracy exists there anymore.

    It’s similar with Bernie’s candidacy. Even if he loses, in a way he still wins. Maybe HRC can still force her way through, maybe the money will win, maybe there’s still enough gas in the tank for machinery of the Democratic party establishment to cough up one more win. But even if they do, the claws are out. They’ll have to show their true colors, be exposed for what they really are in order to stamp out Sanders. That’s a victory unto itself.

  2. daniel marco summaria February 1, 2016 at 2:37 am | #

    With Sanders’ recent clarity on how he would expand Medicare for all, the Democratic leadership and their media hacks are spinning Hillary so fast and furiously that we could set an old 78 rpm on top of her head and hear Caruso sing Pagliacci.

  3. daniel marco summaria February 1, 2016 at 2:37 am | #

    let me edit that post — (thanks)

    With Sanders’ recent clarity on how he would expand Medicare for all, the Democratic leadership and their media hacks are spinning Hillary so fast and furiously that we could set an old 78 rpm on top of her head with a hat pin and hear Caruso sing Pagliacci.

  4. Virginia Blaisdell February 1, 2016 at 12:00 pm | #

    I never quite understood the magical transformation that takes place when people vote someone into office, how that person instantly becomes an “insider.” Isn’t that what we WANT them to be? Someone who would know–or could learn¬–the ropes, someone who could help us by making the system work for all of us. Why does success in a democratic system somehow de-legitimize those who have been elected?

    I think that those who call themselves “outsiders” are at a bit of a disadvantage. They are admitting that they don’t really have a close association with the nitty-gritty of government; they’re looking only at the Big Picture. But let’s face it: nobody can pay the heat bill with the Big Picture.

    Focusing on the Big Picture, in the bad old days of the late 60s and early 70s, was the basic male political stance. It was a way for the guys to avoid feeding breakfast to little snot-nosed kids and escape to the dream world of The Revolution. It made them look important. It made the women do all the hard un-glamorous work.

    Give me an Ultimate INSIDER any day—a macher, a schemer, a negotiator, a wrangler, a rule-bender. Let the bros sit around and try to drum-circle up a movement; they’d just get in the way otherwise.

    • KM February 1, 2016 at 1:16 pm | #

      The “bros”, huh? An interesting choice of words.

      • Virginia Blaisdell February 3, 2016 at 12:14 am | #

        “bros” is a reference to “Bernies Bros,” a term of art for the more aggressive component of his supporters (white guys).

        • KM February 3, 2016 at 1:35 pm | #

          Perhaps you didn’t check out my link. Or you did, and hence some possible qualifications now creep into the reformulation of your original statement (“more aggressive component”, “white guys”).

          I did say “possible” qualifications. I think I’d understand you better if you’d clarify the blanket generalisations you make. Take “… the more aggressive component of [Sanders’s] supporters (white guys)”: is this asserting that all white guys are more aggressive, or that all Sanders supporters are white guys? I’m curious.

  5. freegirard February 1, 2016 at 1:03 pm | #

    If she’s an outsider, I’ve led five different NFL teams to Stupor Bowls.

  6. lew February 1, 2016 at 3:11 pm | #

    The stuff progressives of the Left and Progressives of the right (Israeli-neocons) don’t want to hear :

    Problem with being an insider you have to accept some responsibility for the entire set of assumptions that has produced a non-working government. There is not a single piece that is competent and doing their job. EPA lets lead in the water everywhere? Bees dying because they can’t do pesticide testing? VIOXX. Military, … none of it works. Oh, yes, an educational establishment that has failed throughout the last 50 years, worse every year and with bigger budgets every year as a result, pretty standard for government institutions, it seems to those of us on the outside.

    And no none of you seem to have noticed 9/11 False Flag, the Sandy Hook hoax. Possibly I shocked you there, but those are factual, you who believe the government’s story are the conspiratory-theory believers. Begin with Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth on youtube, the facts and science and engineering are very clear, your government is willing to kill 3K of you for political power. Your news media is fully willing to help mislead you for political power, as nobody died at Sandy Hook, contrary to their reporting.

    Please, do not believe me, go look at the evidence and make up your own mind. Not looking at the evidence is intentionally blinding yourself to reality, and you cannot understand the hatred for the government you all seem to approve of. Deep State + oligarchs + crony capitalist-socialists is the reality. This government is completely illegitimate, has no relationship to the entity specified in the Constitution.

  7. Ajit February 2, 2016 at 1:34 am | #

    Peter Daou is the guy who belonged to Lebanese Forces (LF) militia during lebanese civil war. It is a fascist militia. He is proud of belonging to it and fighting for it.

    This guy who belonged to a fascist death squad militia now pretending like a democrat.

  8. jonnybutter February 2, 2016 at 8:51 am | #

    Did some of you completely lose your minds? Along the same lines, I recently learned from The Twitters that Corey is a ‘conservative professor’!

    The above post is about the absurdity of the claim that HRC is an ‘outsider’. It’s not about the merits of being one.

    In other news, imaginary DNC chair, and Clinton stooge Debbie Wasserman Schultz, last night again demonstrated her characteristic incompetence, swiping at the GOP, saying that ‘the Republican Party of Lincoln and Reagan is unrecognizable’. Lincoln and Reagan? Even Bobo wouldn’t equate Lincoln and Reagan.

  9. Stephen Zielinski February 3, 2016 at 5:01 pm | #

    A thought experiment that might clarify the insider-outsider of a candidate for President.

    If the candidate in question were elected and s/he attempted to implement her policy choices, would the security-surveillance apparatus terminate her Presidency by implementing the Allende option.

    The candidates to consider:

    Kucinich
    Nader
    Stein
    Sanders
    Clinton
    Trump
    Paul

    The apparatus might tolerate Sanders, even if big finance capital hates him, but Kucinich, Nader, Stein or even Paul?

    And, to be sure, this or that economic sector would find the left candidates loathsome.

    Hillary Clinton? Like Obama, she’s a system politician. She reflects politics such as it is. That the rightwing hates her and Obama is neither here nor there. The places where massive force and power originate have never taken issue with either.

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