More Of This Hillary Crap-- Time To Move Forward And Stop Dwelling On Mistakes

When The Hill's Alexander Bolton contacted Bernie about the self-indulgent, savage and gratuitous attacks made on him by the failed 2016 Democrat Wasserman Schultz stole the nomination for, he brushed off her criticisms, saying he's not interested in playing the blame game. "My response is that right now it's appropriate to look forward and not backward." While Clinton is still wallowing pointlessly in self-pity and, Bernie has moved on to work for the issues he believes in. (Yesterday Elizabeth Warren announced that she will be co-sponsoring his Medicare-For-All legislation.)

"I'm working overtime now to see we overturn Trump's decision on DACA, pass a $15-an-hour minimum wage, and next week I'll be offering a Medicare-for-all single-payer system," he said.

Sanders said he wants to focus on the legislative challenges at hand and not debate who is to blame for President Trump's stunning electoral upset of Clinton, the Democratic nominee, in November.

"Our job is to go forward," he said.

"God, I wish she would go the fuck away," a congressmember who endorsed her and supported her told me yesterday morning. "Putting herself back into the spotlight is completely counter-productive to what Democrats are fighting to accomplish in these most trying to times... I can't understand why she doesn't see that." Friday's NY Times carried an OpEd by Thomas Edsall, The Struggle Between Clinton and Sanders Is Not Over, in which he frets over how "center versus left disputes within Democratic ranks have surfaced on several fronts, even as Democrats of all stripes have come to recognize the devastating costs of the Trump-era Republican attack on the nature of truth and the parallel rise of 'alternative facts.'"

The internal battle over how to maximize the political strength of the party reflects the fact that it is made up of a coalition of multiple, sometimes overlapping, factions with an intense desire to win, but in constant competition with one another. These factions include economic populists, led by Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, along with Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown; increasingly influential women, including Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Warren; an equally influential group of African-American politicians, including Cory Booker, Deval Patrick and Harris; Hispanics determined to gain power, including Julián and Joaquín Castro and Xavier Becerra; and a still strong but often challenged white male Democratic establishment that includes Joe Biden and Terry McAuliffe.

Many of the current conflicts enlarge upon the ideological divisions that dominated the 2016 presidential primaries, with Hillary Clinton representing the centrist wing and Bernie Sanders the progressive wing.

The debate going into the next election cycle raises the question of whether the Democratic Party will be most successful with continued-- or enlarged-- support from a segment of the white working class: 34 percent of non-college white women and 23 percent of non-college white men voted for Clinton in 2016. Can these numbers be maintained or improved or should Democrats look elsewhere-- for more votes from minorities and deeper support from women, along with continued improvement among upscale whites-- to piece together victory in 2018 or 2020?

There is an argument to be made that the party has in fact already moved sharply in a leftward direction.

In a phone interview, Mark Longabaugh, a senior strategist in the Sanders campaign, cited data from the Pew Research Center showing that the percentage of Democrats describing themselves as “liberal” grew from 27 to 48 percent from 2000 to 2017, while self-identified Democratic moderates fell from 45 to 36 percent. Conservative Democrats dropped from 23 to 16 percent.

“The party is still this wrestling about its identity,” Longabaugh said. He suggested that Democrats are stalled by what he described as “a sort of rubbernecking, watching this 15-car pileup in the Republican Party” on the other side of the road while “we are stuck in traffic, not moving forward.”

...Buzzfeed reported that in an interview, [Our Revolution head, Nina] Turner described the D.N.C. as “dictatorial,” “arrogant,” “pompous,” “superficial,” “tone-deaf,” “tone-dead,” “out of line,” “insulting” and “absolutely insulting.”

...In theory, the selection of a nominee loyal to the left-liberal wing in the 2020 general election would test the political viability of a Democratic Party that explicitly challenges corporate power-- and indeed the capitalist system itself. Victory would legitimate the arguments of the Sanders-Warren wing.

In practice, such a victory would leave the party in ideological limbo. Could Sanders or one of his revolutionary offspring actually govern? Could such a politician win against a candidate other than Donald Trump? Can the leftward movement of Democratic voters find an echo among independent and moderate voters in the general electorate?

These fundamental questions are very hard to answer. Trump or no Trump, they will continue to plague the Democratic Party, not just for the next two election cycles, but on into the foreseeable future.

Yesterday, Hart Research released positive/negative polling results for August for various political figures.

VERY POSITIVE

• Obama- 35%
• Senor Trumpanzee- 22%
• Bernie- 21%
• Bush- 17%
• Hillary Clinton- 13%
• Democratic Party- 11%
• Republican Party- 7%

SOMEWHAT POSITIVE

• Bush- 28%
• Bernie- 23%
• Democratic Party- 23%
• Republican Party- 22%
• Hillary Clinton- 17%
• Obama- 16%
• Senor Trumpanzee- 14%

SOMEWHAT NEGATIVE

• Republican Party- 21%
• Democratic Party- 19%
• Bush- 17%
• Hillary Clinton- 15%
• Obama- 13%
• Senor Trumpanzee- 12%
• Bernie- 12%

VERY NEGATIVE

• Senor Trumpanzee- 40%
• Hillary Clinton- 38%
• Republican Party- 24%
• Obama- 22%
• Democratic Party- 21%
• Bernie- 18%
• Bush- 13%

Meanwhile, Gabriel Debendetti reported for Politico that Señor Trumpanzee "may be the only person in politics truly excited about Hillary Clinton’s book tour." Democrats are dreading the prospect the way children dread going to the dentist. One congressman remarked that "at least you get something positive about the dentist office office... This is going to be another self-inflicted wound from her. Doesn't she know she's done enough damage to the Democrats already. Can't she just stop?"

Democratic operatives can’t stand the thought of her picking the scabs of 2016, again-- the Bernie Sanders divide, the Jim Comey complaints, the casting blame on Barack Obama for not speaking out more on Russia. Alums of her Brooklyn headquarters who were miserable even when they thought she was winning tend to greet the topic with, “Oh, God,” “I can’t handle it,” and “the final torture.”

Political reporters gripe privately (and on Twitter) about yet another return to the campaign that will never end. Campaign operatives don't want the distraction, just as they head into another election season. And members of Congress from both parties want the focus on an agenda that’s getting more complicated by the week.

But with a new NBC News poll showing her approval rating at 30 percent, the lowest recorded for her, Clinton kicks it off on Tuesday with a signing at the Union Square Barnes & Noble in New York. She’ll keep it going all the way through December, all across the country.

“Maybe at the worst possible time, as we are fighting some of the most high-stakes policy and institutional battles we may ever see, at a time when we’re trying to bring the party together so we can all move the party forward-- stronger, stronger together,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, a Democrat who represents a Northern California district. “She’s got every right to tell her story. Who am I to say she shouldn’t, or how she should tell it? But it is difficult for some of us, even like myself who’ve supported her, to play out all these media cycles about the blame game, and the excuses.”

In a tweet late Tuesday night, Huffman pleaded with Clinton to stop blaming Sanders for her loss, as she partly does in the book, according to excerpts that leaked ahead of its release. Huffman said the tweet had gotten a lot of "likes" from his colleagues-- albeit in private conversations with him.

“There is a collective groan,” he said, “whenever there’s another news cycle about this.”

Asked whether she was excited about Clinton’s book tour, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), one of Republicans’ top 2018 targets, responded first with, “Beg your pardon?”

Asked again, she started shaking her head, walking away.

...Even among some of Clinton's former aides, there's an exhaustion of not wanting to have to defend her anymore. They’ve spent the past two weeks chattering among themselves about the rollout, including frustration over the sheer number of Twitter jokes about Clinton visiting Wisconsin on the tour-- something she famously didn't do during the general election.

Republicans and Sanders-aligned Democrats quickly started mocking the high cost of entry to some events-- “VIP Platinum” tickets to her Toronto stop, for example, run up to $3,000 and include a meet-and-greet-- that reminds them of the paid speech controversy that dogged her throughout the campaign.

Many also believe the party has largely moved on from 2016, and that this is a selfish endeavor more about Clinton’s own feelings than helping the party or country take their next steps. Others worry about the sections on Obama, including Clinton's speculation in the book about what would have happened had the former president done a prime-time address on Russian interference in the election. Clinton also takes a swipe at Joe Biden for criticizing her since the election.

And many current candidates don’t want to be anywhere near her. After the initial book tour schedule was posted last month, one Democratic operative working on 2018 races notified 15 campaign clients that Clinton would be within 500 miles of them, warning them to prepare: "The more the focus is on us, and not Trump, the harder 2018 is going to be."

Republicans, on the other hand, love pointing out that with their own party tearing itself apart, nothing unifies them like the opportunity to attack Clinton.

Many GOP pros are relishing the book tour, eager to tie Democratic candidates to their unpopular former nominee and take the focus off their own president and party rifts.

Yes, better than Trump... now go do something useful