The reason I wrote my book was to tell a piece of history. It was to set the record of events out for people to read and connect. The Hillary Effect gets another big boost from recent reporting that bolsters the case I make, which is backed up by the facts I offer.
Available in print at Amazon.com
A memo revealed by Ryan Lizza in “The Obama Memos”, printed in The New Yorker, proves a main thesis in my book and does so beyond any doubt whatsoever.
“Change we can believe in” and other Obama slogans were mythmaking of the first order, which I prove, with character assassination the only weapon they thought could work when Obama got up against it. Because it wasn’t as if Hillary had an affair with Monica, or was responsible for NAFTA (it was proven conclusively she was against it), and Obama and Clinton had the same votes in the Senate on foreign policy (minus the Iran vote he ducked).
The reality from Lizza’s important article:
Another hard-edged decision helped make him the Democratic Presidential nominee. In early October, 2007, David Axelrod and Obama’s other political consultants wrote the candidate a memo explaining how he could repair his floundering campaign against Hillary Clinton. They advised him to attack her personally, presenting a difficult choice for Obama. He had spent years building a reputation as a reformer who deplored the nasty side of politics, and now, he was told, he had to put that aside. Obama’s strategists wrote that all campaign communications, even the slogan—“Change We Can Believe In”—had to emphasize distinctions with Clinton on character rather than on policy. The slogan “was intended to frame the argument along the character fault line, and this is where we can and must win this fight,” the memo said. “Clinton can’t be trusted or believed when it comes to change,” because “she’s driven by political calculation not conviction, regularly backing away and shifting positions. . . . She embodies trench warfare vs. Republicans, and is consumed with beating them rather than unifying the country and building consensus to get things done. She prides herself on working the system, not changing it.” The “current goal,” the memo continued, was to define Obama as “the only authentic ‘remedy’ to what ails Washington and stands in the way of progress.”
Obama’s message promised voters, in what his aides called “the inspiration,” that “Barack Obama will end the divisive trench warfare that treats politics as a game and will lead Americans to come together to restore our common purpose.” Clinton was too polarizing to get anything done: “It may not be her fault, but Americans have deeply divided feelings about Hillary Clinton, threatening a Democratic victory in 2008 and insuring another four years of the bitter political battles that have plagued Washington for the last two decades and stymied progress.”
Neera Tanden was the policy director for Clinton’s campaign. When Clinton lost the Democratic race, Tanden became the director of domestic policy for Obama’s general-election campaign, and then a senior official working on health care in his Administration. She is now the president of the liberal Center for American Progress, perhaps the most important institution in Democratic politics. “It was a character attack,” Tanden said recently, speaking about the Obama campaign against Clinton. “I went over to Obama, I’m a big supporter of the President, but their campaign was entirely a character attack on Hillary as a liar and untrustworthy. It wasn’t an ‘issue contrast,’ it was entirely personal.” And, of course, it worked.
The entire traditional, elite and many new media outlets sucked up the Axelrod theory with a straw. Put more bluntly, they picked a side.
The result is the disillusionment you have among many American voters who trusted the marketing message of “change we can believe in,” but also trusted the press, which was in collusion for one candidate over another, a scourge that continues to run through our media, especially on cable, but also in new media, where if you don’t pick a side readers can’t figure out what you’re saying. That’s how used to the partisan pabulum people have become. The case I make in my book lays it out in detail.
The Obama memo details from David Axelrod emphasize what Neera Tanden is quoted saying. The only way Barack Obama could beat her was a character assault on Hillary Rodham Clinton, even if her character was really not the issue. The issue was Barack Obama not having what it took on his own.
It’s nothing new under the political stars, but it is emphatically evident it was far from the preening, above it all persona the Obama campaign pushed.
The critical component remains the media who laid the groundwork, which I prove conclusively in my book, which covers close to 20 years.
This illustrates the importance of reporters in outlets like The New Yorker to history, people who get access to historic information to which independent authors aren’t privy. It’s a lot harder for people like myself to get heard, because I’m outside the establishment, so nuggets like what Rizza offers are critical.
The New Yorker has done something very important, for which I’m grateful, because I wrote a fair, fact based, true account of the most important political contest in modern history, from a point of view that had not been heard before.
The relevancy of The Hillary Effect has never been more real and now has one more piece of historical testimony to add to its truths.
Lizza’s bit on when they redrew obama’s sen dist line sis telling- obama got into his dist some of the richest in america to help boost him later- very smart. the relationship bw obama and hillary is strong- when obama went austerity hillary wrote him and told him not to touch state dept funding but increase it. and obama did listen and spared her agency.
The financial section, too. It’s a must read piece.
The part on State has been known for some time, but it’s nevertheless very important. Hillary’s been an incredible advocate for the foreign service, as has been talked about from the beginning.
When people were pointing out what Obama was doing at the time, it was – as you know, of course –immediately denounced in typical campaign style. And personal attacks on a candidate are always accompanied by personal attacks by supporters of Candidate A on supporters of Candidate B, and vice versa, much to the delight of both Candidates.
And this: “if you don’t pick a side readers can’t figure out what you’re saying.” Yep. And the only “sides” recognized, of course, are the two corporate parties.
I know, thankfully, there are more and more people refusing to “pick a side” in the traditional manner.If that confuses things for the System, good. Very good.
Ms. Marsh, I have never been more sickened and depressed by politics as practiced by “Democrats” then while reading this post. It simply confirms everything you and so many of the posters here were saying during the primary.
You’ve been around here long enough to know, secularh, that I wouldn’t be writing so emphatically about standing up against what the big two corporate & Wall Street backed parties are doing if I wasn’t sure action was urgently required.
Sadly this article by Taylor really resonates for many of us who have been with Taylor since the 2008 primaries. We remember what was discussed and all of it seems to have been right on. This is why I still read and follow Taylor’s blog. I don’t go near mass media. And now with the silly season upon us I will have to depend on what I consider accurate analysis. Good job, Taylor.
Thanks for stopping by to say so, JA.
After the ’08 election but before the inauguration Lizza had another article in the New Yorker about Obama’s rise to power. Re-drawing his district and the way it was done is covered in full. I only wish that article had appeared a few months earlier. In the new article I found the Summers memo, Lizza posted it on the magazines website ( in full, 57 pages ) , to be very enlightening.
I remember that piece, too, fangio.
Recently Summers was being floated for The World Bank. It never ends.
From the Telegraph article:
I think this is one of the things that bothered me about the 2008 primary. Too many of Obama’s supporters were of the opinion that Hillary Clinton was somehow necessarily a “divisive” person, where Obama would bring us all together. The reality, of course, was obvious to anyone who had been paying attention, which was that whoever was in office was going to face the same sort of opposition, because that’s what modern party politics is about. Essentially, the political process has devolved into a question of who gets to hand out the spoils, not any real differences over policy.
Obama promised these folks they would get something for nothing, and like liars past, he appealed to the American public far better than anyone who was willing to tell the truth once in a while.
You know, cujo359, isn’t it remarkable to think back on all the people who actually bought that any politician would walk into Washington and change the way it worked. The arrogance & ignorance combined is herculean.
What is really remarkable to me is how many of them were around for the Carter Administration. Carter was the ultimate outsider, and in contrast to JFK, he didn’t bother to find someone who knew DC and where the bodies were buried and could be bought off with a few extra goodies that would benefit his home district or state. Carter was moderately effective at foreign policy, but a complete failure on the domestic front, where he needed the cooperation of Congress.
That’s what DC does to outsiders who don’t know how to play the game.
Appreciate your comments, believe me. No doubt, many of you came along on the road with me, some were on the right page and those who weren’t are getting history set straight, which has been a sobering passage for many, as secularh reveals, though he’s not alone. But getting to where truth weighs out over marketing myths, which is where the American voters need to be, is critical, but, unfortunately, a long way away, because people remain stuck in the two-party habit. Getting away from it by challenging it through manifesting independence is the only way to move the political meter and maybe alter the big two parties into being responsive. The Tea Party figured that out, but for whatever reasons progressives have not.
I remember the claim that Hillary would be polarizing. I wonder how many people fell for that line? So many of us who commented on this site knew exactly what Obama was selling. We believed NOT. I said if I wanted hope, I’d go to church; and the only change I knew was changing a diaper. We’ve lost hope and there is no such thing as change you can believe in. Politics is a corrupt business. Any one who believes what the hucksters are sellign deserve exactly what they have gotten – a big ZERO. I am proud to be an Independent after more than 50 years of being a Democrat. Let them beg me for my vote.
JA – People do not understand how HUGE it is that you’re now an Independent after “50 years of being a Democrat.” Most just do not get how hard it is to divest yourself of a party you believed in for so many years.
Tell my hubby that. He’s heartbroken over leaving the Dems. I guess I am too. I remember when a Democrat was a Democrat as long as you didn’t live south of the Mason-Dixon line. I long for the fight that was waged even if we didn’t get as much as we thought we got. I remember when you could pick up the NYT and look at the want ads, walk into an office building any place in Manhattan and get a job the same day. Now I’m starting to go down “Memory Lane.”
Yeah, Obama’s campaign back in ’08 did me in too. Never have I seen such a low life campaign as Obama’s. They all have fought about issues over the years but Obama’s character assassination really reminded me of Newt Gingrich. This is Gingrich’s forte—smash and burn and lie. Of course, if Obama did have to go up against Gingrich it would be kind of rich that he would be reaping what he has sown.