A Day in the Life

What a day. The primary’s in Kentucky and Oregon alone were historic. And then there were two other events that made May 20 one of the most significant days in the democratic party in many years. It was truly "the best of times, the worst of times."

{1} Senator Hillary Clinton won an important primary in Kentucky, that provided yet more evidence that she represents a significant portion of the democratic party. As spring turns to summer, and we approach the Democratic National Convention, it is clear that Senator Clinton will be in a position to exercise great influence on the party’s platform. What she has accomplished will be remembered as helping to redefine the options for deciding who can be considered as serious candidates for the party’s presidential nominee.

{2} Senator Barack Obama not only won the Oregon primary, but also made a significant gain in delegates. His speech last night defined the issues that will decide the November election. He has an amazing ability to communicate not only the differences between the failed republican policies and the strength of the democratic vision, but also the skill to translate the promise of the future into an organized program that the party can deliver.

{3} It was reported that Senator Ted Kennedy has a brain tumor. Elected to the Senate in 1962, Kennedy has had one of the most outstanding careers in American political history. After events in 1980 convinced him that he would never become President, Kennedy advanced the issues which are of importance to this country in a way that has had more of a long-lasting impact than the majority chief executives.

{4} Hamilton Jordan died of cancer. He is best known for coming up with the strategy that resulted in Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976, and then serving as President Carter’s Chief of Staff. He also ran in the Georgia democratic primary for a Senate seat in 1986, and worked for Ross Perot in 1992. Jordan was a sometimes controversial figure in democratic politics, who transformed that reputation to become a unifying figure in his work on issues relating to cancer. With his wife, he founded the Camp Sunshine Retreat for children with cancer.

As a democrat, I thank Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy, and Hamilton Jordan for their service to our country.

:toast:

What a day.

Representing a "significant portion of the democratic party" that will vote repub in the GE is not an accomplishment I care to celebrate.

that many democrats will either vote for another candidate or sit out the 2008 presidential election. There will be a choice between a clean glass of democratic water, and a filthy glass of republican sludge. The public is thirsting for change, and will make the correct choice.

The percentage she won by in KY (and WV) are people who are registered democrats who vote repub.

My point is that in the November election, they will not be of any real significance.

Excellent post.

I appreciate it.

more threads that are in the spirit of reconcilliation and unity on GD-P. That's a good sign.

Hopefully the newer folks will follow suit. I'm going to keep my ignore list for a while though, until I can be sure it's mostly changed for the better.

I think one the primary is over those who are just here because they like to argue will fade away.

There are some "old-timers" from each camp who are doing a good job. And when the primary is officially over, I think that things will continue to improve.

A lot of history in one day. It was interesting to watch the MSNBC panel share their personal history as it related to Ted Kennedy and especially Hamilton Jordan.

Jordan was a gifted but controversial figure. He was really pretty young when he came up with a plan to take a relatively unknown parochial politician to the White House. Last night, he was compared by some to RFK in 1960. And, like Robert, he was considered a bit arrogant.

That's an interesting, on-going dynamic in the party: the younger generation always challenges the old. We benefit from that.

Was the question, why did he pronounce his name Jer-dan instead of the way Michael and almost every other Jordan says it. Of course I live in a glass house there, since my family does not pronounce our name the way it's spelled and the way most Americans think it should be pronounced.

Was Hamilton working for the Democrats when he worked for Perot? It was never clear to me that Perot would take votes away from Bush or Dole. As such he took away some of Clinton's mandate since a majority of voters had voted for "Not Clinton".

Being from the more conservative wing of the Democratic party, to some extent Hamilton was an opponent of those of us in the Kennedy/Jackson wing. Even the Kennedy/Jackson wing seemed to have been fractured with Mondale vs. Hart and Dukakis vs. Jackson, and the Kennedy wing has not produced a winning President since JFK. Instead it has lost with Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry. While the southern/conservative wing has won with LBJ, Carter, Clinton, and Gore.

As such, we probably need somebody like Clinton, or perhaps Richardson on the ticket.

viewed himself as working for something very different than what the Kennedy wing was doing. My younger son asked me about him, and I just spent a good half-hour talking about the events leading up to, and then after, the 1976 election. During the campaign, the Carter people never bothered to contact any of the top Kennedy people in DC. And when people like Schlesinger attempted to reach out, they were given a cold shoulder.

His strength was in running elections, rather than governing. And so his advice to Carter on policy was, politely, lacking. Carter was convinced by Watergate that the executive branch was dangerously close to being an "imperial presidency," to borrow Schlesinger's name for it, and so he was intent upon exercising less power in an attempt to restore the balance of powers. Great intentions that failed, because he not only had poor relationships with the traditional Kennedy democrats in both houses of Congress, but he had a right-wing group of republicans plotting to get the White House back in '80.

It is interesting to consider what he was thinking when he helped Perot. I suspect that you are right, that he was actually helping Clinton, who was also from a different base than the Kennedy wing of the party.

I think that most people who disliked him in the late '70s came to have great respect for who he became later.

Mondale. Were Mondale and McGovern also frozen out? Carter almost won SD in 1976, perhaps due to Mondale and McGovern. Then he slashed a bunch of water projects in South Dakota and was sorta dismissive of that mostly empty state. South Dakota went dark red in 1980 and McGovern lost his bid for a 4th term, although Daschle won his seat back in 1986. Carter ran as a Washington Outsider and apparently governed like one too.

but they were never close. A wonderful source of information on these issues is Arthur Schlesinger, Jr's "Journals: 1952-2000." He had an up-close view, and wrote some fascinating things in his private journals. (His sons published them in 2007.)

One of the most important things about the November elections (which I know you know as well as I) is that President Obama will make good selections for the federal courts. A lot of cases that involve "Bill of Rights" issues will be decided by the courts, including some of the issues involving gay & lesbian rights.

and it made me glad to have someone mention it

I liked that a lot.

What the hell is this post doing in GD-P?
I thought we were only allowed to fight amongst ourselves and name call in this forum!

;)

that the moderators may "lock" it, and say it is in the wrong forum, as a result of people "alerting" on the disturbing images it contains.

that it will simply sink, relatively unnoticed.