Arianna re: Kaine response - "My Worst Fears Realized"

[iconoclastNYC]

All my worst fears about the Democratic response to the State of the Union address being given by Virginia Gov Kaine were realized tonight when he completely failed to take on the president on his greatest vulnerability -- the war in Iraq. “Second guessing is not a strategy,” Bush said -- but Kaine didn’t even bother to second-guess.
Instead, he told us “together, we can do better” (I swear he did!) and that “our greatest need is to heal our partisan wounds.” Now if I can only figure out how to heal these fresh wounds on my wrists, we’ll be fine. At least, together we’ll be fine.

While Kaine was droning on, I closed my eyes and imagined Jack Murtha giving the response, someone with the authority to do much more than second guess -- to offer an alternative strategy on Iraq and the war on terror, as opposed to Kaine’s program of “service and competent management.” And I thought “competence” had gone out of vogue with Michael Dukakis.

As for the Kaine bromide, “common sense solutions to common problems” -- who came up with that one? Fire them immediately. Please.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-democratic-response-_b_14888.html

[SmokingJacket]

1. That sums it up pretty damn well.

"Common sense solutions to common problems"???? :puke: What in world is that supposed to mean??

I swear, I can't believe that the DIRE situation this country is in right now is totally invisible to people like Kaine.

[Cassandra]

3. "Common sense solutions to common problems" Like what?

Dandruff? Ring around the collar? Dust bunnies? (Actually, I could use some help taming my dust bunnies).

[Cary]

2. Do not fret too much, icono.

The fact is no one really knows what they're doing. No matter how much those wrist-slashers bask in their current glory, tomorrow will be a new day and they have no more of an idea what that will bring than do we. We're all ad libbing and playing it by ear.

Whether it is a Murtha or a Kaine who emerges, we don't know. But I guarantee that you will prefer Kaine to what we have now so you will win either way. In the meantime we should cover all of the bases. No?

[iconoclastNYC]

4. We should have the best spokesman, PERIOD.

HE was horrible. Pelosi and Reid picked him.

It should be US who pick the speaker, it's our party, and WE know best.

[jonnyblitz]

5. i scanned the responses to her post and everybody agrees

with her assessment (as far as I could tell). pretty HARSH criticism, post after post, about Kaine. I didn't see the speech. I wonder if C-SPAN has a video archived. I need to see for myself.

[onenote]

6. I'm sorry, but why should anyone care about Huffington's views?

The woman couldn't get elected dogcatcher in a one person race. When she ran for governor in the California recall election she dropped out after attracting support from around 2 percent of the voters. So spare me her political insights.

onenote

[Pithy Cherub]

7. About a million people a day do look at HuffPo.

You don't have to. But Ariana is influencing public opinion and a media magnet. She was straight up right on Kumbuya Kaine, he was a fantastic sleep aide.

[iconoclastNYC]

10. Wow....you really told me!

How many books have you written? How many times have you been on CNN, Fox News, Bill Maher. Did you start one of the most popular blogs on the Internet? Do millions of people know your name?

Love her or hate her Arriana is an important Liberal voice, and a lot of peopel agree with her on this Kaine matter. So save your ad hominem attacks for Republicans.

And spare *yourself* her poltical insights. Don't click on threads related to her. Problem solved.

Save us your pathetic attacks.

[onenote]

21. ouch. It seems like I touched a nerve.

First, if writing lots of books, being on CNN, Fox News, etc, and having a popular website is a sign that someone has good political instincts, then Bill O'Fucking Reilly is a political genius and we're doomed.

Second, I don't see where its an ad hominem attack to point out that Ariana's political instincts are somewhat suspect given her own campaign's inability to attract voters in California (a state that preferred Kerry over Bush by 9% (and Gore over bush by 12%).

Third, given your own posts in this thread, I'm not sure you have standing to complain about ad hominem attacks. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2431213&mesg_id=2431754

Bottom line: the facts are that Ariana Huffington couldn't get elected to a statewide office in a state that leans solidly Democratic, while Tim Kaine won the governorship of a state that leans red most of the time. So, if the goal is to appeal to swing voters in states that tip red, but might go blue, I think I'll pay more attention to Tim Kaine than to Ariana Huffington. Chasing after losers is not the road to success.


onenote

[iconoclastNYC]

23. The only thing you can say against Ariana is that she didn't

Win the governorship? OK........she's worthless. :eyes:

The fact is that Tim doesn't speak well and was an embaressment to our party, you can smear Ariana all you want for stupid reasons but it doesn't change the fact that we could have found a better speaker.

[onenote]

24. what I can say against ariana is that she's a poor politcal strategist

It is a fact that she has a bad track record in figuring out what appeals to voters. So I take her critique of Kaine with a grain of salt.

And if being a good speaker is all that important (style over message?), how did chimpy ever get elected anything? Sure being a good speaker helps, and the fact that he was perceived as a wooden speaker was a big drag on Al Gore. But after 5 years of chimpy, the bar has been set pretty low.


onenote

[marions ghost]

8. fair enough

This criticism of Kaine's speech is warranted, certainly from the perspective of what we'd LIKE to see. But I take it in context of what we have to deal with now, as we have been reduced to supplicants at the mercy of our neo-con masters. In that context, Kaine did "great." They allowed him to look like a real person, instead of a caricature. Right now it's obvious from this speech that we have a Democratic party that seeks to be reassuring to the country and pick up more support. They're telling people "it's all OK..." Soothing. People like to hear the words 'heal our partisan wounds.' They don't understand that means all compromises will benefit the Right these days. They just think that means maybe something can finally get done. As far as Image is concerned, I thought it was brilliant--trying to match Bush's folksy style...come off as not too slick, not too strident. Because I thought it was brilliant strategy doesn't mean that I'm happy with it. I agree it was a wimpy speech. But it was not meant to be a debate. I think a lot of people can't take hard cold reality--they WANT bromides. And the Dems will give it to them. But in so doing they lose a chunk of the more informed and complex thinkers who just want to vomit.

I just take everything like this as "Made for TV" ... No expectations that it's going to speak to me. MSM is not capable of doing that anymore. I don't look for reality (or fairness or honesty) there. With the exception of Olbermann and C-Span, there's nobody even remotely trying. It's all Hollywood. All Spin. I was able to watch the SOTU and Kaine's speech without the slightest rise in blood pressure. Because I had absolutely no expectations of it being any more than it was:

A Message To You from the Ministry of Propaganda, with equal time for right and left mouthpieces

[underpants]

9. Huffington lost a lot of reality points with that article

Come back Arianna come back into the real world.

It must have taken her all of five minutes to type that and clearly half that amount of time to think about it.

[iconoclastNYC]

12. And it took you 5 seconds to type yours?

If you disagree with her why don't you take the time to tells us why. Or would you just offer baseless attacks?

[underpants]

14. From this morning

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2430496&mesg_id=2430496

[SaveElmer]

11. I'm glad Arianna came to our side of the Lord...

But she is dead wrong in this case. Kaine was the perfect counterpoint to the raving adolescents in the White House.

[iconoclastNYC]

13. If by perfect you mean devoid of passion, slightly effeminate, creepy

And mealy mouthed. Americans want the Democrats to be fired up and mad at what's going on. We're fighting FASCISTS and the best we can do is offer a soothing pre-bed "american can do better" lullaby.

It was garbage.

[SaveElmer]

15. In my opinion...

You are dead wrong on all counts. Most Americans do not want flame throwing partisans in charge of the government...they want a mature antidote to the adoclescent Bush.

And I believe your characterizations of him as mealy-mouthed and effeminant are not only wrong, but out of line.

[iconoclastNYC]

16. Out of line?

You sound like Bush dictating the bounds of reasonable debate.

[SaveElmer]

17. Calling someone effeminate

Is a personal slur that is uncalled for. Not to mention childish

[iconoclastNYC]

22. Whatever.

It's a adjective to describe a quality he has.

[jonnyblitz]

18. self-delete ..dupe

[jonnyblitz]

19. I just tried to watch the archived video on the C-SPAN site.

I couldn't get past his amateur stammering. he sounded like he was reading it and he didn't know what to do with his hands. All this distracted me from whatever message he had. This is NOT what we needed with what is going on in. I lasted about 4 minutes into his tortured speech and I had to stop. It was a painful thing to watch and i truly felt sorry for him, like watching a bad performance on American Idol.

[bklyncowgirl]

20. I agree with Arianna. Who coached this guy, Karl Rove?

The speech itself wasn't too bad--he made some decent points a few too many many platitudes for my taste but could have been worse. It sounded almost like a speech that was written by Howard Dean and edited to death by Joe Lieberman.

As for Governor Kaine's delivery, who coached this guy?

On the other hand, what do I know. I didn't care much for Clinton either when he first appeared on the scene. Maybe I don't know what connects with the "real America".