Hillary Clinton blamed her defeats by Barack Obama in caucuses around the country in part on MoveOn.org, the liberal activist group that was founded in 1998 to tell Congress to "move on" from its push to impeach Clinton's husband.Clinton's comments were posted last night in audio form on the liberal political site Huffington Post, which would not say how, where or when it obtained the recording, beyond saying that it was after Super Tuesday.
"We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party," Clinton told donors in the audio clip. "MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."
Barack Obama's controversial comments about small-town voters appeared on the Huffington Post last week, and the disclosure of Clinton's remarks seemed an attempt at payback, as users of the generally pro-Obama site throughout the week had posted quotes showing Hillary or Bill Clinton discussing the challenge of winning over white working-class voters.
MoveOn, which claims 3 million members, endorsed Obama in early February. It was one of the most prominent of the Democratic groups opposed to the war in Iraq, and the current executive director of its political action committee, Eli Pariser, had recommended in 2001 that the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attacks be "moderate and restrained." Pariser was not running MoveOn at the time, but an online group called 9-11Peace.org, which called for "a nonmilitaristic response to the terrorist attacks." Pariser now says he supported the invasion of Afghanistan.
Clinton's campaign has long suggested Obama backers intimidate people at caucuses, a charge that has not been proven, but the former first lady had not previously laid the blame at the feet of MoveOn. "Senator Clinton's remarks attacking them are unfounded and categorically false," Pariser said.
But Clinton's focus on MoveOn illustrates a larger tension between the senator from New York and liberal internet activists in the party who are members of MoveOn or frequent visitors to sites like Huffington Post or Daily Kos. Many of the activists were opposed from the beginning to the Iraq War, which Clinton voted to authorize, and were skeptical of the centrist approach of her husband.
Such divisions have deepened during the primaries, even though Obama and Clinton have very similar plans to pull out troops from Iraq.
I've had enough popcorn, really.