MoveOn is hosting a virtual vote today on whether to endorse Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton for president. But the rules have been rigged in favor of “None of the above”:
Last cycle, it required a 50 percent threshold for its presidential endorsement, and Howard Dean fell 6 points short. But now MoveOn has raised the bar to 66 percent– a supermajority that will be hard for either candidate to meet.
Although the MoveOn colony of moonbats was founded to defend Bill Clinton against impeachment, it would seem as if the endorsement would be Obama’s to lose, given that Hillary has continued to maintain a Clintonesque straddle, not only over her vote to invade Iraq, but also over whether she condemned the MoveOn ad suggesting that Gen. David Petraeus was a traitor.
So why require a supermajority for this election? The Nation quotes longtime Lefty activist John Stauber in high dudgeon:
Look at how MoveOn is moving the bar on whether or not to endorse a candidate supported by a majority of their members. They want to be thought of as the leaders of a progressive movement. They have become instead cautious cheerleaders for the Democratic Party’s mainstream. Ironically, the Right continues to vilify them as wild eyed Leftists. But the reality is they are undermining any real opportunity to build a progressive movement and are just a mainstream Democratic money, marketing and election tool.
Or maybe the moonbats behind MoveOn realize that endorsing Obama might give him access to contacts for over 1.5 million members of the nutroots in Super-Duper Tuesday states, as well as one of the largest and most active donor lists in American politics, but would also be a kiss of death as public relations. A MoveOn endorsement would make it much more difficult for Obama to hide the fact that he is the most left-wing Senator of 2007 with the glare from his halo of feel-good changeyness.
Conversely, left-liberal blogger Matt Stoller argues that it would be “dangerous” for MoveOn to endorse even Obama, lest he betray them by exhibiting some measure of common sense in the event of his election.
MoveOn: The endorsement no one really wants.
The “General Betrayus” ad was probably the last straw for this organization–it doesn’t do your public relations any good when you are attacking the top commander for a report he hasn’t even issued yet. Their name is poison now for any candidate and they’ve been effectively nuetered to the point that they can’t overtly campaign for causes like they did in the past.
The most liberal … Tell me your personal story of conversion … an absolute cipher … No thanks.
Maybe they will endorse Mama Sheehan when she runs against Pelosi.
“MoveOn: The endorsement no one really wants.”
That’s a classic, and probably says it all.
– #1 – Excactly, and Buba pulled the hangman’s lever today with his latest venture into the politics of personal destruction, serving notice on the crazies in the big tent attic by proclaiming that: “[anyone] that thinks 9/11 was an inside job done by anyone other than 19 Islamists, killing almost 3000 innocent Americans, including 200 muslims, needs to just go away. We don’t want them here…”.
– The hard Left has been officially thrown under the bus. The no endorsement order had to have come directly from Soros, like every other MoveOn action, since the lunar howlers that infect that operation couldn’t get up a working brain cell among themselves. The typical “served their function” dump the evidence approach the Left always practices.
– Soros will simply shift the funelling of monies into Billery’s war chest using faux contributors like Shu and company. Once again, thank you McCain/Feingold.
– The bold clue that rgw “centrist claok” of electability has now settled over the Dem encampment was made clear when the Left started openly admitting that MoveOn was a total partisan tool used for the express purpose of political manipulation. That MoveOn never did anything it was not implicitly ordered to do, is of course, immaterial. Someone should send Kos some Alka Seltzer
The methodology for the study identifying Obama as “the most left-wing Senator of 2007” is problematic.
That’s just McCain trying to dodge a bullet.
From that National Journal piece…
oh. It’s out of 100.
I think it’s really that they don’t want to piss off about half their membership. Suppose the vote breaks 51-49%. That 49% immediately goes crazy. And if you don’t think they would, you haven’t been over in Left Blogistan for awhile.