May 09, 2006
Cats and Dogs, Living Together
Mass Hysteria!
Via Drudge (who gets it from the Financial Times) Rupert Murdoch is going to be hosting a political fundraiser for...
Hillary Clinton.
Every time I read that, I boggle like it's the first time. From the Financial Times:
The decision reflects an assiduous courtship by Mrs Clinton and former President Bill Clinton. Last month Mrs Clinton surprised Washington by attending the “Fox News Sunday” 10th anniversary party, where she chatted with Mr Murdoch.
For those at home who don't follow politics closely enough to be very wowed by this, a brief bit of context:
The fundraiser for Ms Clinton’s re-election is in stark contrast to the brutal coverage from the New York Post [owned and operated (at a loss) by Murdoch -ed.] of her first Senate campaign.The partisan tabloid ran unflattering pictures, and frontpage headlines pleading: “DON’T RUN”. A poll from the Post’s website during the campaign identified her as the sixth “most evil” person of the millennium, ahead of Benito Mussolini and Vlad the Impaler. Her husband ranked second.
I think I kind of know where this is coming from. Clinton's grand political stategy has been largely the same as her husband's was in the 1990s - reach across the aisle, neutralize your enemies, and trust that your base has nowhere else to go. Clinton's biggest negative is the ferocious response she's likely to get from the conservative media during the campaign. Nobody can organize a fracturing right wing like Hillary Clinton. If she can draw a bit of that poison now, she stands a much better chance in 2008.
Markos Moulitas of DailyKos.com has a powerful take-down of this type of strategy in a recent Washington Post op-ed that you should read. I really hope we get a viable alternative, because I don't see the fundamental changes this country needs springing forth from the unholy merger of Murdoch and Clintonian interests.
Posted by ben at May 9, 2006 10:48 AM