bill clinton and steny hoyer: the wall street democrats fight back

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/bill-clinton-and-steny-hoyer-wall-street-democrats-fight-back-1396013681

If progressive and populist ideas resonate with most voters, some people have asked, why isn’t the Democratic Party doing better in the polls? Here’s one reason: Some of the party’s most prominent leaders are still pushing Wall Street’s unpopular and discredited economic platform.

Recent speeches by former President Bill Clinton and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer showed that Wall Street continues to hold considerable sway in their party, despite the fact that its austerity agenda has failed. Its “deficits over growth” ideology has wounded both Europe and the United States. To hear Clinton and Hoyer speak, you’d think we’d learned nothing from the economic experience of the last five years.

The Millennial Deficit

What President Clinton says matters. He’s the architect and primary spokesperson for the corporatist and pro-Wall Street wing of his party. He’s also the political and personal partner of the Democratic Party’s presumed 2016 candidate. Enormous sums are being raised for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy even now, which reinforces the Clintons’ enormous influence (and gives them good reason to please the big-money crowd).

Headlines like the AP’s emphasized the “gradual deficit reduction” theme of President Clinton’s talk to the “Clinton Global Initiative University” in Phoenix. The Washington Postreports that President Clinton was given a “glowing introduction” from Michael Peterson. Peterson heads the right-wing, strongly pro-austerity, and staunchly anti-Social Security Peterson Foundation on behalf of his billionaire father Peter G. Peterson. That introduction, we’re told, led to “an extemporaneous riff about deficit issues” (although we wonder how much is truly extemporaneous with this most polished of political performers).

[monmouth3]

1. I am very possibly very wrong, naive and terribly mis-informed but IMO, Bill will be the

albatross around HRC's neck. He has way too much influence on her campaign attempts....

[Whisp]

8. yes, he will for many reasons.

Just one of which is Hillary's massive failure in the 08 primaries was mostly due to relying on her husband and Mark Penn too much, and they fucked it all up good like the 2 stooges.

Not a very good message for her ability to delegate and take control of management at all, and not a very good message running as a first possible woman president that she takes a back seat to overbearing men.

[Laelth]

2. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[Segami]

3. "..He’s the architect and primary spokesperson..

...for the corporatist and pro-Wall Street wing of his party.."

[xchrom]

4. +1

[Hell Hath No Fury]

6. I was a Bill Clinton True Believer.

All these years -- and a lot of education and political water under the bridge -- I will write in a candidate before I voted for Hillary or any other Wall Street Dem.

[roguevalley]

15. I lost my brother over bill clinton. all these years without my brother. I can't

stomach either clinton in public life again. He will be a freaking disaster in the white house. No. just no.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

5. The Third Way --

A pox on the Democratic Party and the country. Their take-over of the Party is one of the things that has led to our current economic mess, from the repeal of Glass Stegal to the support of the bank bail out to the protection of the financial criminals to the insurance based ACA to the privatization of education.

They have served their Masters well and the country and her People are worse for it.

[tiredtoo]

7. I like these comments, NT.

[Segami]

9. Kick.

[Myrina]

10. "Buy one, get the other free" ... wasn't that one of the Clintons' unofficial mottos in 1992?

... anyone claiming that Hillary as President would lean toward true leftie, liberal/progressive policies is simply deluding themselves.

[Steve Martines]

11. Polls show that poor people love Bill Clinton more than rich people do

Some people in message boards hate him (and the most right wing of right wingers too). That's all.

[polichick]

12. Poor Republicans love their party's slick-talkers too...

That's why it all works.

[brooklynboy49]

13. Bill is a right leaning centrist

And Hillary would be, too.

Right leaning centrist? We don't need no stinking right leaning centrist.

Warren/Sanders '16

[jwirr]

14. And this is why I do not trust Hillary. We need a president who is not going to follow the leader

when that leader is from Wall Street.