I have seen quite a few reactions of shock and dismay concerning Clinton's closed-door trashing of MoveOn and activists in general. I don't get it. Why is anyone surprised?
Hillary Clinton has already marginalized and dismissed activists, and she did so back in February, right after the Maine Caucuses on February 10:
Solis Doyle's departure capped a rough weekend for Clinton after she lost the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska, Washington state, Maine and the Virgin Islands to Obama.
She said she never expected to do well in any of those contests, even though she had been favored to win Maine. Clinton repeated her criticism that the caucus system is undemocratic and caters mostly to party activists.
Now, in case anyone has trouble reading between the lines and needs it spelled out in the most explicit terms possible, here goes.
If you say that you expect to lose contests because they are dominated by party activists, you're implying one of two things:
That activists don't support your campaign, and that's a bad thing because activists are important for winning elections;
or
that activists are a bunch of loathsome, frothing-at-the-mouth dirty f***ing hippies who can be legitimately dismissed as not the type of people you want supporting your campaign, so it's perfectly acceptable and necessary to excuse contests in which "activists" may have a deciding role.
Clearly, however, if you're willing to make that statement in public--and reiterate it, according to the article presented above the fold--it shows that the former possible explanation must certainly not be the case.
The question at this point then becomes why activism--which I would choose to define as being knowledgeable about issues and then actively making sure that one's voice and opinion about those issues are heard--is viewed by the Clinton campaign with such antipathy. If she believes, as she seems to, that she is the strongest candidate to be able to tackle the issues that are important to the American people, such as the Iraq debacle, or especially healthcare, then she should have been legitimately concerned that "activists" do not support her campaign in nearly the numbers that they supported the campaigns of Barack Obama, and previously, John Edwards.
Hillary's campaign has not only dismissed activists, but has in fact claimed that the exact opposite of activism is the key measure of who merits the Democratic nomination:
"There have been well documented instances of intimidation in the Nevada and the Texas caucuses, and it is a fact that while we have won 4 of the 5 largest primaries, where participation is greatest, Senator Obama has done better in caucuses than we have."
What Wolfson has said here--and this point has been oft repeated by various surrogates in more places than I care to research and link--is that the ultimate qualification for winning the Democratic nomination is, rather than who appeals the most strongly to high-information, motivated voters in smaller states who could be most successfully reached by retail politics, the important thing is, rather, which candidate can grab the highest percentage of low-information voters in huge states that can be most successfully reached by a combination of basic name recognition and mass media advertising.
And if you don't mind my saying so, this political worldview is elitist and oligarchic.
Keep in mind that in none of this am I implying that Hillary doesn't actually want to end the occupation of Iraq or reform our healthcare system for the better. She may, in fact, sincerely desire these outcomes. But given the degradation of our democracy over the past 8+ years, it is readily apparent that how these things are accomplished is just as important as the accomplishment of them if our system of participatory democracy is to endure in the form in which it was intended.
Hillary's view of the way our political system should work seems that the plebeians should show up to vote every four years for the next person in the line of succession for today's aristocratic dynasty in the belief that their benevolent overlord and his/her inner circle is keeping them and their children safe by answering red phones at 3am, and then go shopping and watch reality TV until it's time to repeat the process four years thereafter.
Any threat to this political feudalism is severely challenged, no matter which quarter it comes from. If a challenge comes from motivated citizens who dare to exercise their right to make their voices heard in a legitimate Democratic contest, those contests are dismissed as irrelevant. If, however, the challenge to the shadow oligarchy comes from the very leadership of the Party that the oligarchs claim to want to represent, the sustenance of the Party is threatened in no uncertain terms by those same moneyed interests, and the entity that defends the Party is those very activists--who certainly have not had such a rosy relationship with the Party in the past--who have been previously ignored, marginalized, and scorned.
Obama has become a popular hero of sorts who has had the skill, the fortitude and the ability to stand up to one of the greatest political machines in American history and all of its allies--including what has turned into a complicit media stabbing him in the back. And despite all the disadvantages, he has triumphed in this fight. And the only thing we're asking the old guard of the party to do now is:
