Democrats: storming the castle
Hillary Clinton has the bad luck to be the Establishment in a bad year for the Establishment.
She’s living in the castle just as peasants with pitchforks and torches storm the castle.
She took $200,000 speaking fees from Wall Street just as Democrats turned against Wall Street.
This is galling to Baby Boomers like the Clintons who forged their political identities challenging the Establishment in the 60s and 70s. Now the Boomers are in their 60s, and they don’t get why they don’t get more respect from these kids today.
The Clintons are no longer the Cool Kids of 1992. They’re now the Old Guard.
So Bill Clinton, Gloria Steinem and Madeline Albright embarrass themselves and hurt their own cause with clumsy, tone-deaf attacks on Bernie Sanders’s supporters.
The visual of the Clintons onstage after losing New Hampshire was striking. Bill Clinton looked about as old as Bernie Sanders, but not nearly as energetic. Hillary’s new slogan was “Fighting For Us,” an old Democratic standby of last resort. The too-big and too-divided Clinton political machine seems flummoxed by Bernie-mania.
It’s Sanders whose diamond-sharp message has energized Millennials. Rather than dismissing and disparaging the new generation, Clinton & Co. should pay attention. Listen, don’t lecture.
Sanders has touched a nerve with people who took on a lot of debt to go to college and then graduated into the worst job market in decades.
His message is simple: The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and it’s getting harder and harder to stay in the middle class. And the nation is being controlled and corrupted by Wall Street bankers and billionaires.
What is Clinton’s message?
Back in his prime, Bill Clinton was a virtuoso at weaving dissonant notes into a sweet symphony. But it seems that he’s lost his ear. And Hillary has always been more a grinder than a virtuoso, or even a triangulator.
Now, it isn’t time to panic. Even though Clinton & Co. probably will panic. Hillary has enormous advantages as the race moves to bigger and more diverse states than snowy, lily-white Iowa and New Hampshire.
But, still, this morning a lot of Democrats, including in North Carolina, said: Uh-oh.
Uh-oh, first, whether it’s really possible the party could again go down the path of McGovern (thanks, Baby Boomers!) or Mondale.
And uh-oh, second, whether Clinton can generate the energy and enthusiasm that put North Carolina in play for Democrats in 2008 and 2012, with all the consequences that entails in races for Governor, Senate, Council of State and the legislature.
Democrats: storming the castle
Hillary Clinton has the bad luck to be the Establishment in a bad year for the Establishment.
She’s living in the castle just as peasants with pitchforks and torches storm the castle.
She took $200,000 speaking fees from Wall Street just as Democrats turned against Wall Street.
This is galling to Baby Boomers like the Clintons who forged their political identities challenging the Establishment in the 60s and 70s. Now the Boomers are in their 60s, and they don’t get why they don’t get more respect from these kids today.
The Clintons are no longer the Cool Kids of 1992. They’re now the Old Guard.
So Bill Clinton, Gloria Steinem and Madeline Albright embarrass themselves and hurt their own cause with clumsy, tone-deaf attacks on Bernie Sanders’s supporters.
The visual of the Clintons onstage after losing New Hampshire was striking. Bill Clinton looked about as old as Bernie Sanders, but not nearly as energetic. Hillary’s new slogan was “Fighting For Us,” an old Democratic standby of last resort. The too-big and too-divided Clinton political machine seems flummoxed by Bernie-mania.
It’s Sanders whose diamond-sharp message has energized Millennials. Rather than dismissing and disparaging the new generation, Clinton & Co. should pay attention. Listen, don’t lecture.
Sanders has touched a nerve with people who took on a lot of debt to go to college and then graduated into the worst job market in decades.
His message is simple: The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and it’s getting harder and harder to stay in the middle class. And the nation is being controlled and corrupted by Wall Street bankers and billionaires.
What is Clinton’s message?
Back in his prime, Bill Clinton was a virtuoso at weaving dissonant notes into a sweet symphony. But it seems that he’s lost his ear. And Hillary has always been more a grinder than a virtuoso, or even a triangulator.
Now, it isn’t time to panic. Even though Clinton & Co. probably will panic. Hillary has enormous advantages as the race moves to bigger and more diverse states than snowy, lily-white Iowa and New Hampshire.
But, still, this morning a lot of Democrats, including in North Carolina, said: Uh-oh.
Uh-oh, first, whether it’s really possible the party could again go down the path of McGovern (thanks, Baby Boomers!) or Mondale.
And uh-oh, second, whether Clinton can generate the energy and enthusiasm that put North Carolina in play for Democrats in 2008 and 2012, with all the consequences that entails in races for Governor, Senate, Council of State and the legislature.