Saturday, November 02, 2013

WHAT THE HELL IS CHRIS CILLIZZA TALKING ABOUT?

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, like a lot of members of the "liberal media," is giddy at the thought of Chris Christie's likely big victory in the New Jersey governor's race. Yesterday Cillizza wrote the following in a post titled "Is Chris Christie the Republicans' Bill Clinton?":
Christie is increasingly seen as the one candidate who might be able to bridge the divide between the establishment and the tea party that is in the process of ripping the [Republican] party apart. In that way, Republicans are hoping that he can do for their side what Bill Clinton did in the early 1990s for a Democratic party that was similarly divided -- heal what looks to be an un-healable wound through force of personality and a demonstrated record of success as a governor.
If you're old enough to have been there at the time, do you remember the Democratic Party being "similarly divided" in the early 1990s? Do you remember it having what appeared to be "an un-healable wound"?

Funny, I don't recall the Democrats having a left-wing Ted Cruz raising money for groups that threatened to take down fellow senators who weren't liberal enough. I don't recall Democrats living in fear of primary challenges from the far left even before this mirror-image Cruz came on the scene, primary challenges that regularly defeated incumbents and put unelectable crazy lefties on the Democratic line on November ballots. I don't recall Democrats shutting down the government in George H.W. Bush's presidency because the Democratic congressional delegation was made up of crazy lefties and people who cowered in fear of a crazy-lefty primary challenge, all spurred on by media voices whose sole purpose in life was to make Democratic voters into even crazier lefties.

Yes, you could say that the '92 Democratic primaries came down to Jerry Brown on the left and Paul Tsongas on the right, with Bill Clinton winning in the middle. But Tsongas was a fairly conventional New England Democrat apart from his deficit hawkery -- a "Massachusetts liberal," if you will. Jerry Brown, bizarrely, advocated a flat tax. However, just the fact that a deficit hawk could be as surprisingly strong as Tsongas was is proof that the party was not like the modern, litmus-test-imposing GOP. It would be like an Eisenhower Republican getting to the late stages of the GOP primaries now with a platform of massive economic stimulus.

If anything, the '88 race between Dukakis and Jesse Jackson was the real ideological battle, with Jackson advocating pure progressivism and Dukakis ultimately telling voters that his campaign "isn't about ideology -- it's about competence." But Democrats were unified coming out of the '88 convention; Dukakis lost not because of Democratic rifts, but because he had a couple of positions that were easily exploited by the nastiest presidential campaigners in postwar history up to that time, and he never fought back. He lost because he wasn't ready for a back-alley knife fight.

I'm not even going to get into the question of whether Christie, one of the Koch brothers' favorite governors, is the Great Moderate Hope for the GOP. My guess is that in 2016 he's either going to win the nomination as a wingnut or lose it as the bipartisan huggy bear he's turned himself into in the ads running relentlessly on local TV right now. He's a few inches to the left of the GOP crazies right now, and I think he's going to inch rightward after he wins -- although he may spend too much time listening to Morning Joe pundits and stop before he goes all the way to the right. In which case he'll lose.

21 comments:

Victor said...

Also, I question how competent Christie was prior to Hurricane Sandy - after which everyone rallied to his side, like we did to W's after 9/11.

I'll say this much for Christie, he didn't immediately decide to piss-off half of the people in his state who'd rallied to him, because of agenda's ideology, and politics.

W's agenda after 9/11, was to invade Iraq. And anyone who stood in his and Cheney's way, became labeled as a treasonous traitor.

Christie's agenda was to get the best deals done, and fix his state.

Other than that, you might be hard-pressed to tell any big difference between him and Scott Walker, and other Republican Governors.



Also too. Steve:
Clean-up in the previous comment aisle!

You know who threw-up some letters, and pooped-out word-turds.

Steve M. said...

I did the cleanup. Thanks....

BH said...

Excellent piece, Steve. I was a Jackson county convention delegate in '84 and went down with Simon (and then Dukakis) in '88. It's alarming to read such a shallow rewriting/misreading of history as Cilizza's - a perfect example of (re)writing facts to fit an a priori thesis, in this case Christie-idolization.

Never Ben Better said...

Ah, but BH, it's a magnificent example of "both sides do it" punditing, with the added benefit of avoiding any hint of danger that the author might have to acknowledge just how insane today's GOP has become.

Gadfly said...

In 92, as today, Brown was as much a neolib as the Slickster. His original California gubernatorial record, like today's, is proof.

Would that the Democrats DID have somebody even halfway approaching Cruz.

Of course, that's why I'm not a Dem, and haven't voted for a Dem presidential candidate this century.

And, don't let the door hit your tuchis on the way out, Dennis the Troll Menace.

madnessofjack said...

"Funny, I don't recall the Democrats having a left-wing Ted Cruz raising money for groups that threatened to take down fellow senators who weren't liberal enough. I don't recall Democrats living in fear of primary challenges from the far left even before this mirror-image Cruz came on the scene, primary challenges that regularly defeated incumbents and put unelectable crazy lefties on the Democratic line on November ballots."

Funny, but its been done....so what does that say about you and your ignorant rant?

http://www.nysun.com/national/new-coalition-aims-to-keep-democrats-loyal/47214/
New Coalition Aims To Keep Democrats Loyal to Populist Issues
By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press | January 23, 2007
SNIP
"WASHINGTON — Looking to instill discipline among Democrats, a coalition of labor, trial lawyers, and liberal groups is launching lobbying and campaign organizations this week to keep Democratic lawmakers from straying on populist issues.

Democrats who don't hew to this agenda could find themselves facing well-funded primary opponents — an aggressive strategy to counter moderate and conservative blocs within the party.

The groups have organized as two entities — a lobbying wing called They Work For Us and a campaign arm called Working for Us PAC."
SNIP
""Our PAC will encourage Democrats to act like Democrats — and if they don't — they better get out of the way," Steve Rosenthal, one of the coalition's main organizers, wrote in a memorandum describing the organization."
SNIP
"Mr. Rosenthal founded America Coming Together, a political organization that mobilized Democratic voters in the 2004 presidential election.

In addition to Mr. Rosenthal, the two groups are led by some of the most influential organizers in labor and liberal politics, including the secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union, Anna Burger; the executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action, Eli Pariser, and a senior vice president at the American Association for Justice, formerly the American Trial Lawyers Association, Linda Lipsen."

madnessofjack said...

SOROS HELPS CREATE TWO NEW PRO-DEMOCRAT GROUPS

Just two months after the Democratic Party had won control of both houses of Congress in the November 2006 elections, George Soros and then-SEIU president Andrew Stern created Working For Us (WFU), a pro-Democrat PAC. This group does not, however, look favorably upon Democratic centrists. Rather, it aims “to elect lawmakers who support a progressive political agenda.” Originally proposed by Stern as a way to prevent moderate Democrats from gaining too much influence over the party, WFU publishes the names of what it calls the “Top Offenders” among congressional Democrats who fail to support such leftist priorities as “living wage” legislation, the proliferation of public-sector labor unions, and the provision of government-funded healthcare for all Americans. Targeting congressional Democrats whose “voting records are more conservative than their districts,” WFU warns that “no bad vote will be overlooked or unpunished.”315

In an effort to promote large-scale income redistribution by means of tax hikes for higher earners, WFU advocates policies that would narrow the economic gulf between the rich and poor. The group's executive director is Steven Rosenthal, a longtime Democrat operative with close ties to the Clinton administration and a co-founder of Soros's America Coming Together. According to Rosenthal, WFU “will encourage Democrats to act like Democrats—and if they don't—they better get out of the way.”316

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=977

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7342

Steve M. said...

You're joking, right? You have to go back six and seven years to find stories about groups hardly anyone has heard of or read about, and I'm supposed to think they impose conformity the way Heritage Action and the Senate Conservatives Fund do because you yell "SOROS!!1!1!" and cited Davey Horowitz's McCarthyite operation? Give me a freaking break.

toma said...

This 'Madness of Jack' fellow is a complete moron.

After 8 years of Ronald Reagan, after which there was no way his vice president could get elected, then he got elected, we would have voted for a bowl of oatmeal as long as it didn't hate black people and hand what's left of the store to the oil barons and bankers.

If Bill Clinton united any two factions, it was the center-left and the center. Mr. 'Sister Souljah Moment' made it clear that the left, as usual, could go pound sand.

Ten Bears said...

BWAHAHAHAHAHahahahahahh, another "conservative" drunk on the Ambien, Prozac, Viagra and crotch-shots on CNN/Fox Kool-Aid drooling Pavlovianly while sprawled across a couch out of the back of a nineteen sixty-nine Chevy Suburban enters the fray.

Busted my bun ROTFLMAO.

Ahhh, Jack, madness is mental illness.

No fear.

Pops said...

I can not believe you are just noticing Cillizzas stupidity. He entered the Nooney Tunes Post Menopausal area a long time ago.

madnessofjack said...

Oh dear....the lithium deprived progs dont like being contradicted.

Awww, proglydites, ism monocultural, insular bubble being threatened?
I'm only too glad to rock your pathetic little worldview.

Ta ta progs, see you soon

madnessofjack said...

Hey Steve M(ythomaniac troll)


I linked my articles both from a "right wing" source AND an online commerical newpaper out of NY.
Prove me wrong....and link it or source it so I can see it for myself.

Unless, of course, you are too intellectually lazy and pathetic that a moronically lame ad hominem is all you can muster.

madnessofjack said...

another one for SM.
You said
"You're joking, right? You have to go back six and seven years to find stories about groups hardly anyone has heard of or read about,"

Lets see.....when was you starting reference building your point?

"If you're old enough to have been there at the time, do you remember the Democratic Party being "similarly divided" in the early 1990s? Do you remember it having what appeared to be "an un-healable wound"?

But you have a problem with "6 and 7 years ago".....Really?......Seriously?

Steve M. said...

I linked my articles both from a "right wing" source AND an online commerical newpaper out of NY.

The "newpaper" was you're referring to was New York's neocon paper until it did us all a favor and folded.

madnessofjack said...

http://www.nysun.com/

Doesnt look folded to me.
Doesnt look "neo-con" either.

Dark Avenger said...

The New York Sun was a politically conservative[1][2] weekday daily newspaper published in New York City from 2002 to 2008. When it debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of an otherwise unrelated earlier New York paper, The Sun (1833–1950), it became the first general-interest broadsheet newspaper to be started in New York City in several decades. Since 2009 the Sun has operated as an online-only publisher of political and economic opinion pieces and occasional arts content.

Cause we all know that being online is exactly the same as publishing a paper edition every week or so.

Get some sleep, troll, this blog is straining your brain too much.

Examinator said...

left, right is great for marching or
when trying to recover from a spinal or brain injury...but as a philosophy?
Let's get real here Extremes, that proffer absolutes IS the problem.
The Tea Party (sic and sic-er, it's neither a party nor does it stand for any values that the 'tea party' did it's emotional title cover their lack of meaning, competence, relevance, intellectual substance.)is one such extreme.
It is a case study in the and hysterical reactionism of the conservative mob rule the founding fathers were frightened.
That doesn't mean that the left/liberals (sic and sic) don't have their extremists only they tend to be less organised. Neither does it mean that the right/TP don't have real issues. True to any mob reason is left at home.
As for my paper is better than your paper ... really ? if the source of wisdom/information/morals come from the turgid cesspool of 'entertainers for money' (a.k.a. Journalists working for MSM)...all I can say "you can't make a silk purse from a sows ear" and good luck

Steve M. said...

I'm still trying to figure out how a group formed in 2006 proves that Democrats were having a civil war in 1991.

Victor said...

Steve,
Time travel, and shape-shifting.

What, you thought Obama invented them?

Steve M. said...

Clowntime is over, Jack. You're banned.