It isn’t a case of the Democrats now going off soul searching, it case of total revamp from top to bottom after Trump’s win last Tuesday. The Amazing Democrats’ advice very early on to the Clinton Campaign (and some of those comments were posted on our social media platforms as far back as the late summer of 2015) went unheard unlike when we worked for the Obama/Biden campaign in 2012. It is time DNC to fire all your overpaid pollsters (who got it so wrong), consultants and the like. The DNC should of known in their hearts of hearts that after Bernie Sanders won twenty-two states with so little money against Hillary Clinton, their candidate of choice would be in serious trouble if the Republicans got a candidate who could storm the mainstream and social media which Trump did and of course got a bit of luck along the way with that first letter released by the FBI Director that certainly damaged Hillary in early voting and gave a huge boast for Trump with his base. Yes, a lot of questions will be asked as to how the FBI were allowed to influence an election so openly. But this was far from the only reason Hillary lost even if the DNC die hards believe it to be so. The DNC and Democrats have lost their way and have been now for a long time. Their obsession only seems to be with fundraising not the core principles of what the party was founded on, Trump was able to tap into that huge hole in the DNC. It was a party that once cared for the low income, the homeless, our veterans, the poor people of America and not the massive billions of dollars in fundraising which was totally wasted trying to take Trump down. Just think today how many homeless people that billion of dollars plus would do to help house the homeless crisis in our major cities which should have been a top issue for Hillary.
Hillary campaign interviewed myself and members of The Amazing Democrats, for the record we call ourselves The Amazing Democrats as we not die hard Democrats, we wouldn’t have followed Hillary in to the fires of hell if she was wrong and we wouldn’t be silent either even if it meant we were fired from the campaign, that’s the way worked in the Obama/Biden 2012 reelection campaign and we were amazed how we survived not to be fired (nearly maybe once or twice when we really overstepped our mark and criticized some of the President’s polices publicly). The interviewing process went back as far as January 2016 to join her campaign. We were subjected to rounds and rounds of interviews, back ground checks, etc. Months would go by and we heard nothing and then it would start all over again. It was by late August this Editor got interviewed for the sixth time, more back ground checks and then was offered four important positions in four different swing states and one of this offers came directly from the DNC. All this was paid employment and not volunteer work. That last weekend in August for me was were I suffered so much turmoil as I had to give them a decision by the following Monday. It meant dropping everything in my life and getting on a plane to Pennsylvania. What was most troubling in my mind was I could sense there was panic setting in for the Democrats and Hillary’s campaign. I didn’t sleep that weekend. I went back to the old formula that the Obama campaign thought me and even though I didn’t have access to data like we did when worked for Obama, never the less, I ran the data all weekend long. It is a long and laborious process that you can see today that both the pollsters and media don’t do, why? Maybe they just are too lazy to do it, who knows? You have to run every state’s county’s data county by county, you have then figure in the data available from both the candidates’ primary wins or loses, a lot of mathematics but in the end you get a somewhat overview, be it very rough. Also you have to take into account that I had been tracking the swing states every week since both primaries ended last year. Not good for Hillary and her team I could see, in fact the Wednesday before the election I was gloomy, I could predict Trump was going to win Ohio by three percent (he won by five percent so I was only out by two percent) and as you know, no Presidential candidate can take their place in The White House if they don’t win Ohio. With all this, it was the hardiest email I ever sent, declining the positions to work on the Hillary Clinton campaign.
As we move into the Trump Presidency, it’s going to be a very dark lonely path for the Democrats. Yes, there is the mid-terms in 2018, but if the DNC works as it has for the last twenty years, they are a very slow climb back up on Capitol Hill as remember this Presidential election in 2016 had the lowest turn out of voters in years, which helped Trump but destroyed Hillary’s chances of winning, nearly 50% of the electorate didn’t bother to vote and historically mid-term voting has a very low voter turn-out. Also if Trump makes any small success of his first term and as everything Trump touches turns to gold, whether you like his manner and process or not and as it very hard to unseat a sitting President, as we all know, Trump going for a second term, then the DNC and Democrats could be looking at the wildness for next eight years at least, that’s 2024, a very depressing thought I know, but maybe a fact unless the DNC make radically chances and that starts today, not six months before the 2018 mid-terms.
In the 2006 mid-terms under George W. Bush, the Republicans got wiped out in the House and the Senate. All the media said at that time that Republican Party need to reinvent itself and stop been the “party of no”. Did they? Of course not, in fact under Obama as President and because of their hatred of him, they became the “party of no, no, no” on every bill he sent to the House and Senate. Now look where they are ten years later. The power of Washington again with the Democrats hanging onto their coattails and the sad thing is, Trump gets to pick the next Supreme Court justice. If he gets two terms, who knows, with three more justices ready for retirement in the next few years, he might even hit the golden jackpot of nominating four Supreme Court justices, a very scary thought. The Democrats however can’t do as the Republicans did in 2006, which was nothing to change their image and beliefs but the Democrats aren’t so lucky. If the DNC go back to business as usual, it will be a very dark long road for the Democrats back to the shining lights of The White House. It is simply the base. The Republican base and the Democrat base is so so much different and as Trump said decades ago when he was a registered Democrat, pro-choice and donated a lot of money to Bill Clinton’s Presidential campaigns: “If I was to run as President, I would run as a Republican as their voters as so dumb and easy to fool, I would lie and lie to them until I got numbers”. That’s all he had to do for this Presidential campaign and he is the winner today not Hillary Clinton.
Which brings what fundamentally went south very early on in the Hillary Clinton campaign:
1. NEVER EVER underestimate your opponent.
2. If he/she gets down in the dirt, you go down there with them. Hillary taking the high road was her downfall as political correctness (PC) means nothing anymore in the world of social media as we saw with Trump, the King of Twitter and Obama/Biden in 2008 as the King of Facebook. PC has gone way too far in the US and the rest of the world and Trump, no matter what you think, turned PC on it’s head in this presidential election and as he said on 60 Minutes last night, “it was nasty, very nasty but I am the one sitting here today talking to you and not them”. In fact 2020 and 2024 will be so so much nastier. Rumors were that Trump using his own money, paid pockets of supporters all over America to flood the internet with lies about Hillary and Bill Clinton and the secret? They could never be traced back to him or his campaign. Why didn’t the Hillary Clinton campaign do the same with the rumors about Trump’s ties to the Mafia? Why was this never floated all over the internet? PC I guess but he won and Clinton lost. The new trend now with Presidential campaigns as Trump has lowered the bar, is to win 2020 or 2024 the candidates from both parties to win, will have to get down in the mud and get dirty. Sad? Of course but no cares about the loser, they only care about the winner.
3. Dump the negative ads. One billion dollars was such a waste of money by the Clinton campaign and Trump barely spent a faction of that. We kept telling the Obama/Biden campaign and the DNC in 2012, negative ads don’t work anymore and only turn all the voters off. Pity they didn’t listen.
The Amazing Democrats are not all about criticizing without offering the DNC suggestions for the road forward:
1. Fire all your overpaid pollsters, consultants, lobbyists, etc..
2. Allow the progressive members of the party to take over. (I do not mean the loony left), members who understand the issues of the day to day worries of the lower income Americans (who sadly are too many), the homeless crisis in our cities all over America, our veterans living on our streets.
3. Get back to what a community organizer really is. I used get so annoy with new volunteers who joined our team who tried to tell the person forcefully on the other side of the phone why they should vote for Obama or donate to Obama’s campaign and the DNC. A community organizer’s job is to listen and listen well and then send what they hear up the line and hope they are listening otherwise you get a result like Tuesday’s Presidential elections.
4. As the advice to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, get off the negative ads obsession (turns all voters off).
5. And please with every email you sent, stop looking for donations all the time. It makes us feel you don’t care about anything but money and donations which we know to be true.
6. Find the soul of the Democrat Party again of FDR and John F. Kennedy.
7. And finally, listen. Never stop listening to those on the ground as we are the ones who can make the difference from the Democrats winning or losing an election.
Here is to the 2018 mid-terms, see you then and to 2020 Presidential election. Keep the faith and a sense of humor as The Amazing Democrats do and God Bless America,
Democrats and “Hillary’s People” need to seriously wake up to the most dangerous man for America on the planet and could even have a chance of being our next President of the United States. Donald Trump is not only America’s number one clown around the world, he is also a very dangerous man. The Amazing Democrats have remained silent these past few weeks as we are very disappointed with the direction of the Hillary Clinton campaign. We mentioned time and time it needs a massive shake up campaign staff wise and still (even with the new television commercials for Hillary Clinton’s campaign this week), we see the same old, same old boring save approach messages.
This has never worked against the GOP and we certainly wouldn’t have had a hope in hell re-electing Obama against Romney in 2012 if we had taken that approach. We took our gloves off and played in the dirt with the GOP and we did what we set out to do, we won. The fact the Clintons are friendly with Trump (or Jeb Bush for that matter) makes no odds. Trump threw the first punch when recently (in the South) he brought up Bill’s sex life. So Hillary time to get serious. Shake up your campaign staff from top to bottom and don’t be such a stick in the mud by not hiring some of Obama old campaigners as remember we won for Obama in 2012. There were no rules and there simply aren’t when you are up against the GOP, they don’t play fair and Trump certainly won’t. You and your campaign are giving Trump too much of a head start and you will regret this big time should he be nominated as the GOP candidate. Didn’t you make that same mistake with an unknown Senator called Obama in 2008?
The secret with Trump’s weakness is his business deals in the past. Dig and dig hard. In the 1980’s in New York, who did he do business with then? Follow the money. Follow his treatment of people who got in his way. For example take the poor people of Scotland and what he did to the locals there who were just trying to make a living. Trump is not just a man about greed and stupidity, he is a very dangerous man for America and the world. Wake up Ms. Clinton please and start the fight today and shake up your campaign staff and campaign. Don’t repeat the mistakes of your 2008 campaign – Editor, The Amazing Democrats.
Thousands of people are sending positive messages to a boy who says he is scared because he is gay.
His photograph features on the blog Human of New York, which catalogues people’s lives across the US city.
“I’m homosexual and I’m afraid about what my future will be and that people won’t like me,” the accompanying caption reads.
High profile figures including Ellen DeGeneres and Hillary Clinton have also posted words of support.
“Not only will people like you, they’ll love you. I just heard of you and I love you already,” wrote DeGeneres.
“Prediction from a grown-up: Your future is going to be amazing,” Clinton wrote.
“You will surprise yourself with what you’re capable of and the incredible things you go on to do. Find the people who love and believe in you – there will be lots of them.”
She signed off her message with an “H” showing that she, rather than a member of her staff, had written it.
Many people said that the image, which shows the unnamed boy sitting on a step, with his head in his hand and tears in his eyes, affected them.
Others said that the LGBT community in the US was very supportive and explained that the introduction of new marriage laws showed that society was changing in its attitudes towards gay people.
Humans of New York is created by the photographer Brandon Stanton, who has also made a book of his images. His page has more than 13 million likes on Facebook.
Although he includes a quotation from each participant, he never reveals their age or name.
Other recent stories on the blog include a girl who wants to be a doctor when she is older, a woman talking about the end of her relationship and a man who has come to the US from Honduras to work.
An abrasive arrest of young pool party attendees in McKinney has led to the suspension of one of the responding officers after a video of the incident appeared online.
The video, seen by many as another example of racially motivated and unnecessary police force, shows the officer throwing black juveniles in swimsuits to the ground and pulling his gun on them in one instance. The incident occurred Friday at a community pool in the city northeast of Dallas. One officer has been suspended pending an investigation, according to a statementby the McKinney Police Department on Sunday morning.
RELATED: 24 episodes of police abuse caught on camera.
The department said officers were responding to reports of juveniles fighting at a community pool. In the YouTube video, one officer can be seen forcing a black male to the ground. He then spends a significant portion of the seven-minute video dragging to the ground and detaining a 14-year-old black girl in a bikini.
When she stands up again at one point, the officer pulls his gun out. He puts it away several seconds later and puts his knees to the girl’s back while waiting for other officers to cuff her. The officer also is seen shouting and cursing at pool partygoers throughout the video, telling them to get to the other side of the street or they’d also be arrested. In the middle of the scrum, one girl yells at him, “You’re not going to be a cop no more.”
Here’s what the McKinney Police Department had to say about the incident:
“The initial call came in as a disturbance involving multiple juveniles at the location, who do not live in the area or have permission to be there, refusing to leave. McKinney Police received several additional calls related to this incident advising that juveniles were now actively fighting.
First responding officers encountered a large crowd that refused to comply with police commands. Nine additional units responded to the scene. Officers were eventually able to gain control of the situation.
McKinney Police later learned of a video that was taken at the scene by an unknown party. This video has raised concerns that are being investigated by the McKinney Police Department. At this time, one of the responding officers has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of this investigation.”
Buzzfeed News spoke to the Brandon Brooks, who uploaded the video and believes the incident was racially charged. “Everyone who was getting put on the ground was black, Mexican, Arabic,” said Brooks, who is white. “[The cop] didn’t even look at me. It was kind of like I was invisible.”
Another 14-year-old girl, who said she was the only white person detained at the scene, told BuzzFeed News the fight broke out after adults told the black juveniles to return to “Section 8 [public] housing.” The girl was released after 25 minutes and her family told BuzzFeed News they’ll file a complaint against the adult woman who made the racist remarks.
by Nicholas Confessore and Megan Thee-Brenan (New York Times)
Americans of both parties fundamentally reject the regime of untrammeled money in elections made possible by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and other court decisions and now favor a sweeping overhaul of how political campaigns are financed, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.
The findings reveal deep support among Republicans and Democrats alike for new measures to restrict the influence of wealthy givers, including limiting the amount of money that can be spent by “super PACs” and forcing more public disclosure on organizations now permitted to intervene in elections without disclosing the names of their donors.
And by a significant margin, they reject the argument that underpins close to four decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence on campaign finance: that political money is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. Even self-identified Republicans are evenly split on the question.
“I think it’s an obscene thing the Supreme Court did,” Terri Holland, 67, a former database manager who lives in Albuquerque, said in a follow-up interview. “The old-boy system is kind of dead, but now it’s the rich system. The rich decide what’s going to happen because the Supreme Court allows PACs to have civil rights.”
The poll provides one of the broadest and most detailed surveys of Americans’ attitudes toward the role of money in politics since the Citizens United decision five years ago. And the responses suggest a growing divide between the nation and its highest court on constitutional questions that have moved to the heart of the American system, as the advent of super PACs and the abandonment of public financing by both parties in presidential elections have enabled wealthy donors, corporations and unions to play a greater role in political fund-raising.
In recent years, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has steadily chipped away at restrictions on political donations while narrowing the constitutional definition of corruption. In a series of decisions, the court has rejected the notion that the access and influence afforded big donors can justify further restrictions on campaign money, while dismissing concerns raised by the court’s liberal wing that unrestricted political money skews policy-making in favor of the wealthy.
The broader public appears to see things differently: More than four in five Americans say money plays too great a role in political campaigns, the poll found, while two-thirds say that the wealthy have more of a chance to influence the elections process than other Americans.
Those concerns — and the divide between Washington elites and the rest of the country — extend to Republicans.
Three-quarters of self-identified Republicans support requiring more disclosure by outside spending organizations, for example, but Republican leaders in Congress have blocked legislation to require more disclosure by political nonprofit groups, which do not reveal the names of their donors.
Republicans in the poll were almost as likely as Democrats to favor further restrictions on campaign donations, even as some prominent Republicans call for legislation to eliminate existing caps on contributions.
“I think too much money is spent on campaigns, and it ends up being lopsided,” said Sonja Rhodes, 57, a retired secretary and a Republican from East Wenatchee, Wash. “They should pass a bill and instead of billions of dollars, spending should be limited to $10 million or so.”
But Americans appear to be as inured to the role of money in campaigns as they are disillusioned by it, expressing a deep cynicism about the willingness of elected officials to fight the system they inhabit or to change the rules they have already mastered.
More than half of those surveyed said they were pessimistic that campaign finance rules would be improved. (Republicans and independents expressed more pessimism, while Democrats were evenly divided.) Over half of respondents said that the current rules equally benefit the Democratic and Republican Parties.
And virtually no one in the poll ranked campaign financing as the most important issue facing the country.
The nationwide telephone poll, conducted on landlines and cellphones May 28 to 31 with 1,022 adults, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Wearying of headlines about politicians who mix public life and personal enrichment — frequent flights on the private planes of billionaires, junkets paid for by corporate lobbyists and foreign governments, a high-end office redecoration billed to taxpayers — a number of respondents, in follow-up interviews, described political leaders as a kind of class apart.
“Candidates for political office are not in it just to serve the people; they also want the prestige and the perks,” said Elaine Mann, 69, a retiree from Alma, Ga. “They get so many little fringe benefits from being in office. Candidates should have to live for a period of time the way their average constituents live.”
Some, in the interviews, expressed a profound alienation from their own government. They said they did not expect elected officials to listen to them. They described politics as a province of the wealthy. And, despite being inundated with political advertising — and being repulsed by the billions of dollars required to pay for it — they said they sometimes did not feel informed enough to come to an opinion about the candidates.
Even if they do vote, the responses suggested, Americans do not believe they can overcome the political clout of people and organizations with money. Winning candidates, a majority in both parties said, usually promote the policies favored by their donors.
“People with billions of dollars have a lot of influence with candidates that they help get elected,” Ms. Holland said. “You can see the dollar signs written on the wall.”
Yet few seem eager to participate in the country’s system for privately financed elections, even as fund-raising consumes more and more of elected officials’ time and energy. The vast majority of respondents said they had not given money to a candidate, party or other political organization during the past four years.
“It’s a very small percentage that has the most influence,” said John Carpenter, 60, a retired probation officer from Choctaw, Okla.
“Who do you think the candidate is going to listen to?” Mr. Carpenter added. “Your average taxpayer, or the head of a corporation who can write a check for a million dollars?”
NEW YORK — Republican Presidential candidates are all seeking the endorsement of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, and with good reason — he and his wife Miriam poured $92 million into the 2012 presidential race.
Thursday, someone else paid to spend time with Adelson.
A lunch with Adelson was auctioned off at the Champions of Jewish Values International Awards Gala here. Auctioneers wanted the bidding to start at $100,000. No one raised their paddle. So they brought it down to $50,000. And someone immediately said yes.
Adelson pledged $1 million to the organization that put on the gala, the World Values Network. It’s run by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, spiritual adviser to the stars, author of books including “Kosher Sex” and sage of reality television. In an interview with northjersey.com Adelson said Boteach is “one of the smartest guys I’ve met.”
Adelson told a packed ballroom here that he doesn’t just pledge money — he gives it. Quickly. If a gift is promised Monday and he’s in the office the check will go out Tuesday. Two people in the room were likely paying close attention: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is running for president, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is expected to run.
But he’s not really the one with all the cash, he said.
“I don’t have the money. My wife’s got all the money,” Adelson said.
Boteach recommended that the organization, which launched a $25 million campaign, should auction off Adelson.
“Who wants to buy Sheldon Adelson? That’s not cheap,” Boteach said
KEENE, N.H. — One day last month, in the middle of a furniture factory here, Hillary Rodham Clinton finished prepared remarks about her presidential candidacy and opened the floor for discussion.
A middle-aged worker, Pamela Livengood, began to speak, tentatively at first, about the drug addiction that has tormented her daughter and left her granddaughter in her care.
“This little 5-year-old lives with me, and I’m guardian — Grandpa and I have guardianship because of all the growing drug problems in our area,” Ms. Livengood said.
Mrs. Clinton gave her a sympathetic, knowing nod.
“Pam, what you just told me and what I’m hearing from a lot of different people, there is a hidden epidemic” of heroin, methamphetamine and prescription pills that is “striking in small towns and rural areas,” she said, taking out an index card and scribbling notes.
Mrs. Clinton lacks some of the extraordinary gifts for connection and empathy that her husband possesses, and the round-table events that have characterized her early campaign can feel stage-managed. But even these settings are producing revealing moments, as Mrs. Clinton finds herself far from the world of international diplomacy and scrambling to re-educate herself about the nation she hopes to lead.
Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Clinton at the parade in Chappaqua, N.Y. Credit Eric Thayer for The New York Times
A lot has changed since Mrs. Clinton left domestic politics to become secretary of state: Student debt has ballooned, access to credit has tightened, and the cause of income inequality has taken on a forceful momentum.
Ever an eager student, she has immersed herself in dense briefing papers and academic tomes and consulted more than 200 experts as she thought about her economic policy. But now, as the campaign faces pressure to reveal specific policy proposals, Mrs. Clinton has 35 million more advisers — also known as the Democratic primary electorate.
There is not a lot of I-feel-your-pain hugging at these events, and few uproarious moments. But Mrs. Clinton brings a wonkish intensity, arriving at each round table armed with specific data points. She said, “The average four-year graduate in Iowa graduates with nearly $30,000 in debt,” and, “In New Hampshire, 96 percent of all businesses are considered small businesses.” She nods, jots down notes and interjects conversations with words of encouragement: “That’s interesting,” and, “That’s a very good point.”
And she relays what she is hearing back to her campaign’s policy shop in Brooklyn; the problem of drug addiction, especially in small towns, has now become a prominent theme for her on the campaign trail.
“She came back from both places and said, ‘I want you guys to go beyond standard policies and really take a hard look at some of the more creative or forward-looking policy positions,’ ” said Jake Sullivan, the campaign’s senior policy director. “So we’re in the process of working on those at the moment.”
To be sure, part of Mrs. Clinton’s reassuring voters that she is learning has to do with an acute awareness in her campaign that she must combat the opinion of some voters in 2008 that she seemed aloof and entitled. “The goal,” said Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, is to “take advantage of the long campaign season, start small” and “not just shake hands but get under the hood.”
Mrs. Clinton is clearly most comfortable devising and thinking about policy, and it has given her a way to interact with voters. And the round tables suggest that, in her 2016 campaign, Mrs. Clinton is embracing her inner geek, rather than trying to mimic President Obama’s cool or Bill Clinton’s common touch. The campaign is betting that approach may have its own appeal. A newly revamped gift shop offers supporters $55 needlepoint-style pillows and $30 scarlet pan suit-theme T-shirts (“Pantsuit Up,” the slogan on the back reads.)
After she stopped at a coffee shop on her first trip to Iowa as a candidate, the people she met bemoaned all the red tape faced by entrepreneurs. From her van on the way to the next stop, Mrs. Clinton called policy advisers to talk through some of the issues she had heard on the ground. Small-business growth is now central to her campaign.
On Friday, she made the second stop of her small-business push, telling voters at a family-owned brewery in Hampton, N.H., how she hopes to be “the president for small business.”
She takes frequent opportunities to remind voters that she is, indeed, listening and, yes, she is learning. “I want to hear from people of New Hampshire,” Mrs. Clinton said at a small gathering of supporters last month.
All these conversations could potentially muddy the policy-making process back in Brooklyn. In the last month, Mrs. Clinton has told her team to zero in on mental health, too, after a mother in Council Bluffs, Iowa, told her that coverage under the Affordable Care Act did not do enough to support her son, who has Asperger’s syndrome.
She told her campaign team to start using a new expression for education, “opportunity system,” after Dr. Mick Starcevich, the president of Kirkwood Community College in Monticello, Iowa, used the term and Mrs. Clinton jotted it down on a notepad.
Bryce Smith, a 23-year-old owner of a bowling alley near Des Moines, told Mrs. Clinton that his biggest challenge in starting a business was his $40,000 in student loans affecting his access to credit. “I went for education in college so I could teach, but I fell in love with bowling,” Mr. Smith said. “So that’s my biggest thing, is the barrier of entry and financing.”
Mrs. Clinton lit up. “We all know about the student loan debt, but I’ve never heard anyone so persuasively link it to the slowdown in business start-ups,” she said. “You’ve given me an insight that nobody else has, and I’m grateful to you,” she told Mr. Smith.
Mrs. Clinton told her campaign team that the separate advisers working on college affordability and small-business policies needed to coordinate more closely, thanks to Mr. Smith, now a minor celebrity who is seeking elected office in Iowa. Mrs. Clinton sent Mr. Smith and other round-table participants handwritten notes thanking them for their insight.
Mr. Sullivan, the senior policy adviser, is not just waiting to hear from Mrs. Clinton, though. In recent weeks, he has traveled to places like Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Minneapolis, where a campaign infrastructure does not yet exist, to talk to people about policies and report back to Mrs. Clinton.
The campaign will hold its official kickoff rally on June 13. After that, it will be hard for Mrs. Clinton to keep listening and learning without talking about specific policy proposals. If those specifics do not come soon, her political opponents will more than likely seize on her vagueness.
“The asset she has at this point is that everything she says gets picked up, and people hear it,” said David Winston, a Republican strategist.
“The problem is, she has gotten to this point, and what is she saying?” he continued. “What are the policy directions? It was a fuzzy, soft reintroduction to the general public who already believes they know who she is.”
The BBC’s Shane Harrison looks at how the Republic of Ireland’s vote in favour of legalising same-sex marriage caps an extraordinary week for the country.
The Republic has become the first country in the world to introduce same-sex marriage in a popular vote, just days after the Prince of Wales visited Mullaghmore in County Sligo where his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the IRA in 1979.
While in Sligo, Prince Charles also visited the grave of the Irish poet, WB Yeats, under the shadow of Ben Bulben mountain in Drumcliffe cemetery.
The poet was born 150 years ago and many of his verses were quoted during the Royal visit.
Nearly every Irish student learns the lines from the poem September 1913: “Romantic Ireland is dead and gone, it’s with O’Leary in the grave.”
O’Leary was an old Irish revolutionary who wanted to free Ireland from British rule.
The referendum result speaks volumes about a changed Republic of Ireland and it is tempting to write: “Catholic Ireland is dead and gone.”
It was the revelation that Bishop Eamon Casey had fathered a child that first started a process which, for many, undermined the authority of the Catholic Church.
Soon afterwards a tsunami of revelations about child sex abuse involving priests and cover-ups by bishops further and greatly diminished the standing of the church hierarchy in a country that is nominally 85% Catholic, although empty churches and declining Mass attendance tell another story.
It was only in 1993 that homosexual acts were decriminalised; civil partnership was introduced in 2010.
Throughout the campaign, bishops preached against a “Yes” vote for same-sex marriage and indicated their deep unhappiness with the government’s proposal.
They were joined by social conservatives and Catholic lay groups in expressing their view that the proposal undermined the traditional family of a husband, a wife and children.
But only three of the 166 members of the Irish parliament publicly supported that view and urged a “No” vote.
Against the hierarchy stood a coalition of all the main political parties, gay rights activists and their families and supporters.
It is noticeable that the “Yes” vote was strongest in more urban areas and among younger voters who study the African-American struggle for civil rights for their state exams.
And it was also noticeable in conversations how many of them were influenced by that struggle for equality in Saturday’s result.
Thousands returned from abroad to vote, and thousands more delayed their working holidays after finishing university exams to register their support for the government’s proposal.
Social media was abuzz with their stories.
Some “No” campaigners feared the worst from early on; some privately said that even if they won this time they knew they were battling against the tide of history because such was the strength of feeling among young people that there would be another referendum and it would then pass.
Today, though, is not the first recent indication of the diminished standing of the Catholic Church.
Two years ago, the bishops failed to stop the government and politicians from introducing legislation to allow for abortions in cases where there was a credible suicide threat from a woman if she was forced to continue with her pregnancy.
And in many ways the same-sex marriage referendum is just one stage in church-state relations before the main confrontation – the repeal of the eighth amendment to the constitution that gives an equal right to life to the mother and the unborn.
The referendum on this in 1983 was extraordinarily divisive and left a bitter taste in the mouths of many involved.
While another referendum on repealing the amendment is unlikely until after the next election, both sides are already preparing for it.
Those wanting change argue that it currently prevents terminations in cases of fatal foetal abnormality, where the foetus cannot survive outside the womb, and where a pregnancy has resulted from rape or incest.
Those seeking the retention of the amendment – and it’s not just the Catholic Church and other Christian institutions – argue from a human rights point of view that the foetus or unborn child also has a right to life.
But that’s all for another day.
I began with WB Yeats but I’ll finish with, perhaps, the best known Irish gay man, Oscar Wilde.
The phrase “the love that dare not speak its name” comes from a poem by his lover Lord Alfred Douglas and was mentioned at Wilde’s gross indecency trial that would see him jailed.
After the same-sex referendum result, not any longer, Oscar, not any longer.
The Amazing Democrats 