California Conservative

Anti-war activists are livid with Hillary and have announced that they’re “vowing to bird-dog her everywhere she goes, starting with a swanky Manhattan fund-raiser tonight,” according to this New York Daily News article. This can’t be good news for Hillary, who’s hoping to cast herself as a moderate. Contained in the article is this gem of a quote:

Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf said Clinton has little to fear from anti-war activists, as long as she looks deliberative. “The right wing and the left wing both want to move her to the left. She can’t let them do that,” Sheinkopf said.

Until this article, conservatives figured that Hillary had the Kossack base of the Democratic base already solidly in her camp. Sheinkopf’s quote notwithstanding, that doesn’t appear like the right assumption. Mr. Sheinkopf’s quote sounds nice but isn’t rooted in reality. Hillary best worry about not having the Kossack activists on her side or she’ll alienate the very campaign workers that she’ll need.

We’ve seen in elections past that not having the base behind you is the equivalent to losing presidential elections. I doubt that Mr. Sheinkopf really believes what he said. He’s just spinning it in an attempt to put the best face on an ugly situation.

Let’s look at 2000 and 2004 for today’s history lesson. After the election, Karl Rove found out that 3.5 million Christian conservatives stayed home. (Think an extra 3.5 million votes would’ve made a difference that year?) Fast forward 4 years. Rove made a point during the first Bush term to court Christian conservatives, ranging from tax cuts to appointing strict constructionist judges. The end result proves my point. The Christian conservatives that stayed home in 2000 became the doorknockers and phone bank callers of 04. They voted and they brought friends. Bush beat Kerry by 3.5 million voters, including convincing wins in Ohio and Florida.

Mr. Sheinkopf can spin Codepink’s announcement that they’ll “bird-dog” Hillary any way he wants but he knows that this is Hillary’s unforeseen nightmare.

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 6th, 2005 at 10:20 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, DNC, Election 2008, Hillary, Liberals, Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.