I mean, I’m not on her Christmas card list or anything, but you can’t expect me to buy that she said that. This statement of hers has to have been garbled.
“We’re in the best position,” said Hamsher, “when the person in the White House has to care what we think.” But making Obama care meant, basically, constant intensity.
Jane’s Old School: she knows as well as I do that you make a politician or political party care by scaring them. ‘Intensity’ uncoupled to anything merely makes them greedy and dismissive.
Seriously. Do you think that the Republican establishment was more attentive or less attentive to the Tea Party’s issues and opinions after Bennett got beaten in the Utah primary? Or when Rubio came from behind in Florida? Or Rand Paul in Kentucky? LePage in Maine? The answer is ‘more attentive,’ of course; which is why progressives tried themselves to impose their ideology on the Democratic primary. They of course failed – weak reeds, and all that – but the principle is sound; party leadership isn’t going to just give out respect. You have to take it, usually after laying party leadership out on the ground a couple of times.
Metaphorically, of course.
Moe Lane
They couldn’t even knock off what’s her name in LA.
For what it’s worth, in Florida, Republican women pushed hard for Rubio. Many were infuriated over the anointing of Crist, and once the tangle Jim Greer got into surfaced, well there was a lot of anger and a lot of re-directing of funds to Sen. DeMint’s conserv fund. I took personal pleasure in helping with that here.
Right now, there’s a lot of anger in the grassroots in this key state (I’m in Florida) because there seems to be a second anointing of Romney, and a complete lack of understanding about what he will face if he is the nominee, starting with global warming and that’s on top of the healthcare boondoggle.
The DNC managed to get a Democrat mayor elected in one of the most conservative cities in Florida, Jacksonville. That came about in part because of party fractures and a 3-candidate GOP Primary that turned out to be pretty disastrous. DNC had move on here and OFA. I did a column about it (some politicos and the daily paper scoffed at the idea move on and OFA were here); anyway, today, reading that column was the Exec. Office of the President USA. Search string was something like Move On + OFA +Alvin Brown (our mayor). If by chance Dems take the vote here, they will probably take Florida.
Bottom line: I hope we get a solid candidate who can go toe to toe with Obama. Otherwise, Obama won’t have to worry about those NutRoots types.
Addendum: I know the pres office was reading the column because the stat tracking program i.d.’d it as such. They read there from time to time.