Hillary's New Persona

Howard Fineman of Newsweek had a nice lunch with James Carville, who back in the day used to compete with Dick Morris on consulting and managing campaigns for the Clintons. He is floating trial balloons to launch Hillary's latest persona in preparation for her presidential campaign.

So what does he lead with? Hillary is a realist who knows how to get things done. But what has Hillary done? I guess we will find out but it hasn't reached the radar in this part of the country. The last Big Idea we remember her trying to get done was HillaryCare, which Fineman helpfully reminds us was a "political disaster".

Carville is working on a remake of an old movie and it shows in his prose:

“‘Every man for himself’ is the last order of a weak, failed commander. ‘All hands on deck’ is the order of a successful commander. What we need is what I call ‘progressive patriotism.’ Everybody pitches in, all hands on deck, not for the idea of ‘sacrifice,’ but for survival. Why do you get to drive that SUV all the time with no consequences? Well, you don’t. And what if we raise the Social Security retirement age by a few more months—and faster? Isn’t that worth it to save the system?”

And Hillary is going to raise taxes of course. Maybe a nice SUV tax for those of us who choose not to ride around with our children in flimsy, tinny little death traps. And we get to work longer to "save the system" without questioning whether it might make more sense for most of us to start some crash saving for ourselves.

It sounds like recycled Jimmy Carter....turn down the thermometer, put on a sweater in the winter; turn up the thermometer, sweat in the summer...oh, and it's all your fault, so even though we're doing nothing to solve the supply problem you'll have to pay for it---and like it!

Carville calls it "progressive patriotism" but I think punitive liberalism is a better description.