NARAL endorses Barack Obama and if you read the page, you'll see they're just taking for granted that Obama's the nominee and his opponent is John McCain. It seems that nobody's going to "force" Hillary Clinton out of the race, but when you have her natural allies deciding that the time's come to endorse in the Obama-McCain race you can see it's over in more than just the mathematical sense.
« Experience Again | Main | HIV Discrimination »
Closing Time
14 May 2008 02:31 pm
Comments (46)
Well, what would you expect from NARAL, those elitist, wealthy, trust-funders who oppose universal health care and... shit, I'm sure I'm leaving something out. Help, Petey!
Terry MacAuliffe just became pro-life.
We'll see if it's really over if today's fundraising numbers get announced. If they don't release the figures, they got crap money last night. No money, not more party games for Mrs. "I can't admit I got Pwned" Clinton.
The group who champions the right to choose... refuse to make a choice until the outcome is clear.
But at least the baby killers who support the right to choose but never made the hard decision about who to choose chose the cowardly baby killer who also chooses not to make the hard decisions.
Present. Pushed the wrong button. My staffer's mistake.
It's a prefect fit.
I, for one, am excited to have a primary race in which everybody in every state gets to have at least some form of say as opposed to IA, NH and the super-duper Teus. states of the South dictating it all for us.
What I dislike is the tone it has taken in some stretches (although the candidates have gotten better again). The candidates should be competing to demonstrate who's gonna be the best at taking McCain down and who's gonna be the best at utilizing the bully pulpit to nudge this country back on track -- not trying to take each other down. If this race were done right, it'd help us in Nov. by having two people effectively running against John McCain until all the primaries are over.
Unfortunately, for a while there, it looked like it was a three way race in which the Democratic candidates were being dragged through the mud by each other and their surrogates (especially HRC's surrogates were dragging Obama through the mud) so that way the GOP wouldn't even have to do so later on.
This endorsement shows how elitist Obama is. Working class whites don't get endorsements from NARAL.
That makes it excellent news for Hillary.
This is good news. But could somebody PLEASE tell Obama that it's [i]not[/i] okay to call female reporters "sweetie" in public? I mean, seriously.
Maybe "force" isn't the right word, but NARAL endorsing Obama right after WV, and NARAL officials apparently telling the press (from the AP story): "the board decided to back Obama over Clinton because he is overwhelmingly favored to win the nomination and to heal what the organization viewed as a growing rift between black voters and white female activists that the protracted Clinton-Obama contest may have caused," suggests to me this is a deliberate shot over the bow of the Clinton Campaign.
Obama can call me Sweetie anytime!
Obama can call me Sweetie anytime!
Obama can call me Sweetie anytime!
Your ignoring the possibility that they simply misspelled "Clinton", which is a far greater possibility than Clinton winning the nomination, and therefore deserving of serious consideration.
This is really is pretty cowardly; endorse when it is meaningless in any practical sense (I don't believe Super D's and certainly not voters in KY, MT, PR are going to be swayed by NARAL), but just in time to give HRC a gratuitous shiv.
If they had any courage it would have been done before PA.
The importance of this is precisely that NARAL has no, erm, guts. Were there a chance in hell that Hill could win, they would not risk this. And lots of people know that, so it's a real kick in the teeth. And who gives a shit if they have "courage"? That's not their job.
That's gotta hurt. Especially since pro-choice feminists count.
Sorry, nolaboyd, I didn't realize a political advocacy group that seeks to protect the reproductive rights of women in this country, which are under attack on a pretty much permanant basis, didn't need to have courage in making their political choices.
Just wait until everything is virtually decided, then choose. Very effective use of resources, I stand corrected.
When did that happen, Abby? I think that he called a 9-year-old girl who'd asked what he'd do on education policy "sweetie," from what I saw on C-SPAN last night. I doubt that he did to a reporter.
Elvis: see Ben Smith's post. Saying it to a child is one thing; saying it to a grown woman you do not know is, in my view, unacceptable.
Well, really, why should NARAL have picked between the two of them? Is there any real difference in their positions on reproductive rights? They've waited until the nominee is clear to everyone but Hillary, and so now they're helping Obama close the deal so we can get to the GE and beat McCain. Seems like eminently smart politics to me. If there had been some genuine principle in play -- a principle regarding reproductive rights, that is -- that forced a choice between the two, then you could argue about their "courage," but otherwise, it would have just been stupid to risk backing the wrong horse.
nolaboyd has a point: given NARAL's recent history of moral cowardice in endorsements, it's like the kid who puts the boot into someone on the deck.
I hope the Obama campaign treats it as such, given that you'll read accounts with the phrase '...also endorsed Joe Lieberman'.
Naral evidently doesn't see a whole lot of benefit to be gained from Clinton's running on through the summer. Given her newly minted 3-balled social conservative form, that's pretty reasonable.
What Glenn said. When there is no difference between the candidates on their issues it is good for a grouop like NARAL to not endorse one over the other.
Good points, Glenn. Their statement sounds like loading up the gun for the general, rather than much of a statement about the primary.
Obviously Glenn is correct: NARAL would have been fine with either Clinton or Obama, which is a reasonable position given their interests, and they have a strong preference for Obama over McCain, which is also reasonable given their interests. So, waiting to endorse until the general election matchup was settled makes ample sense for them.
That said, on that basis they could have done this either before or after now, and as noted above I don't think the timing was arbitrary.
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!
Forget about NARAL. Are we about to see the Peteydammerung?
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/05/edwards-to-endo.html
Seems like eminently smart politics to me.
For them, perhaps. But hitching themselves to the Obama wagon now just smacks of pure, pure self-interest. NARAL already has a reputation for putting its institutional interests over the issues it's meant to advocate, and this fits the narrative.
This isn't about NARAL: it's about NARAL wanting to claim relevance.
The honourable thing would have been to say 'we endorse the Democratic nominee'.
Damn typist.
This isn't about Obama: it's about NARAL wanting to claim relevance. That is, it's NARAL thinking about what an Obama endorsement does for them, not for what it does for Obama.
so now they're helping Obama close the deal so we can get to the GE and beat McCain
There's just two problems with that. First, it surely has occurred to the Obamatons by now that endorsements haven't done a single thing to bring along the contingent. NARAL won't bring any women who weren't already drinking Obama's Koolaid, and in fact, will probably lose a ton of money and support for moving against Clinton.
Moreover, the inevitable backlash will make the news, revealing just how beggared all of these attempts are, and how deep and genuine the rift is. So instead of the storyline being "The feminists are now falling in behind Obama!" the story will be "NARAL made a move for political expedience and they're going to pay a huge price."
Is anyone else looking forward to seeing Petey cry when Eddie formally endorses Obama tonight?
Forget about NARAL. Are we about to see the Peteydammerung?
Yeah, I was wondering about that myself.
Petey will just say that the ambulance-chasing scumbag is against "universal health care", and prefers the current system where only the rich get health care and everyone else lays around in agony on the sidewalks.
Is anyone else looking forward to seeing Petey cry when Eddie formally endorses Obama tonight?
Yes.
Re: Obama/Edwards: Check this out, from the comments at ABC News:
This is truly a disappointment. Edwards was very respectable, but now he's lost any chance of running for president.Hillary '08
Posted by: Jonath | May 14, 2008 5:13:22 PM
Kinda explains a lot, doesn't it?
Petey's love for John Edwards preceded his love for mandates, but he's spent the last several months with only mandates to sustain him, so I'm not sure where he'll end up when the dust settles. I imagine he'll disappear for a few weeks to retool, and then re-emerge with new talking points supporting Obama, and pretend that he didn't spend the last three months calling Matt a "trust-fund scumbag," etc.
I imagine he'll disappear for a few weeks to retool, and then re-emerge with new talking points supporting Obama, and pretend that he didn't spend the last three months calling Matt a "trust-fund scumbag," etc.
Since Elizabeth Edwards isn't part of the joint endorsement, I suspect we'll soon have Petey channelling the worst Kausian dreck.
But he still won't explain where Hillary's healthcare-passing Senate votes will come from.
Is anyone else looking forward to seeing Petey cry when Eddie formally endorses Obama tonight?
I'm looking forward to him denouncing Edwards, b/c Petey is more Catholic than the Pope.
Cal
Well said!
The Democratic primary has turned into a fixed prizefight. By throwing the race in Obama's favor, the Democrats have lost the trust of a large coalition of voters needed to win in November.
Obama blocked the revote in both MI and FL. How does that demonstrate his leadership as a uniter? It shows how divisive and small minded he is. His main goal is his blind ambition.
No need to worry, McCain benefits from the deceitfulness and stupidity of the Democratic Party.
Poor EWard. This one's gotta sting.
It was Hill's advisors who participated in stripping their delegates (and good for them) for trying to disenfranchise Nevada and South Carolina. And Hill approved it. That's one hell of a "fix."
The "blind ambition" bit is sublime, though. Keep dropping by EWard -- now that Petey's head has exploded, the position of crazed incoherent anti-Obama ranter is open. You'll need to come up with a nice insult/slogan like "trust-fund scumbag" to really secure the spot, though.
It's reasonable to believe that a protracted primary fight will hurt the Democrat and help McCain, who will appoint anti-choice judges. Ergo, the endorsement, timed to take Hillary's win in WV out of the news cycle, makes perfect sense. The "how dare you ask her to stand down" group is going to face cognitive dissonance eventually, if not from NARAL, or from Edwards, then (in all likelihood) from Hillary herself. Still, there will be some bitter holdouts, especially if she doesn't try very hard to heal the party. Some people will find a way to rationalize seeing Obama as a villan or McCain as not so bad, and make those anti-choice judges more likely.
At that point, when reason has left the building, all you can do is shrug and let them go, because they aren't going to get it. Which is too bad, because "we not me" shouldn't be a controversial proposition for the 'party of the people, not the powerful'. Guliani was a man in search of a balcony... sometimes it seems like certain Hillary partisans (Taylor Marsh et. al.) are people in search of a balcony that they can relate to more than people who see the balcony as a problem in and of itself.
We are nowhere near that point. Hillary can fix the party in time for the convention, and it is in her self-interest, as well as the interest of causes she supposedly holds dear, to do so. And at that point the Hillary fans currently in a pissy mood will have to shit or get off the pot. I wish they'd just get it over with.
Oh yes the Great and Masterful Ben Smith. From the great minds at Politico. Not like Politico is one of the GOP propaganda wing or anything. Not like Ben Smith has had a biases or anything.
Dear lord, the blog over at NARAL has blown UP, as in at least a couple thousand posts of sheer, seething, almost incoherent rage.
Kind of like how I've felt about Emily's List but without any of the logic or reason.
When the "sweetie" quite obviously from her tone was NOT, and then re-established that in the rest of her reporting, I'd say brushing her off with "sweetie" was the right move for Obama.
"What are you going to do for the worker?", indeed.
Did she ask Clinton that question in the same tone?
Thought not.
I'd think more of him if he'd said, "Don't get your panties in a bunch, bitch, we'll deal with you later. For now, STFU."
Again, NARAL is endorsing to help Obama against McCain, not Obama against Clinton. In that sense, they don't have to persuade any of Clinton's strongly pro-choice supporter to prefer Obama over Clinton. They just have to remind those people that they should still prefer Obama over McCain.
Actually, Richard, I think the bon mot for this week would have been "sit yo ass down."
Comments closed May 28, 2008.
| 
Heads in the Sand
Fuck NARAL. As with the CT Senate race, they're putting precisely fuck-all on the line, in the hope of keeping their privileged insider status.
Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 14, 2008 2:41 PM