What 'triangulation'?
By Steve Benen Wednesday Jan 02, 2008 6:40pmI suppose, in the minds of most political reporters, the words “Clinton” and “triangulation” go together like chocolate and peanut butter.
But Bob Novak’s hit-job on Hillary Clinton today is not just wrong, it doesn’t make any sense at all.
Sen. Hillary Clinton faces tonight’s Iowa caucuses not as the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee but seriously challenged by Sen. Barack Obama, thanks in no small part to committing a strategic error: premature triangulation. The problem is reflected in what happened to a proposal for a simplified, though far-reaching, health-care plan.
One longtime Democratic consultant, not involved in any campaign this time, suggested that Clinton propose a genuine universal health-care scheme. Everybody would be covered by Medicare, except people who chose to retain their private health insurance plans. The consultant gave the idea to somebody close to the senator, but the intermediary refused to pass it on to the candidate. He said it would never get beyond Mark Penn and his strategy of triangulation.
This is ridiculous. Clinton isn’t guilty of “premature triangulation”; Novak is guilty of premature references to triangulation.
It might be useful to talk about what “triangulation” actually means.
The word came into vogue after the 1994 election cycle, when Dick Morris urged President Clinton to run against congressional Republicans and congressional Democrats, embracing a pragmatic, centrist “third way.”
George W. Bush dabbled in triangulation during the 2000 election, castigating Tom DeLay and congressional Republicans for deferring payment of the Earned Income Tax Credit to low-income workers. “I don’t think they ought to balance their budget on the backs of the poor,” Bush said, adding that his party too often projects pessimism, indifference, and “disdain for government.”
That’s triangulation.
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign dismissed a Medicare-for-all proposal, but nevertheless unveiled a credible, passable, top-notch healthcare plan? If Novak thinks that constitutes triangulation, he’s a) forgotten what the word means; b) unconcerned with what it means and just wants to slam Hillary; or c) both.
As far as I can tell, Clinton hasn’t triangulated at all. Maybe you love her, maybe you hate her, but of all the complaints to raise against Hillary’s campaign, this is the most absurd.
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would someone please tell me WHY Novak is even allowed to write anymore ???....he is a un-indicted criminal.....I have seen grafetti on a bathroom wall at Dennys that had more value..
Novak is guilty of premature intelligence.
Why isn't this treasonous scum in jail yet?
I spent four years in the ASW community in the Navy. Our definition of triangulation is drastically unique from what is proposed above. Strange.
Who's Mark Penn?
Is Novak in the record book as the first to reveal a CIA agent?
"The word came into vogue after the 1994 election cycle, when Dick Morris urged President Clinton to run against congressional Republicans and congressional Democrats, embracing a pragmatic, centrist “third way.”
Hindsight tells us the danger with this strategy is this made Clinton's positions right of center, the Republicans still tried to impeach him anyway, and many of the less than sympathetic Democrats in congress left him hanging out to try after having Clinton turn his back on them and the party's principles.
Yet amazingly, Hillary is still doing the same thing. Now what was that definition of insanity again?
Dr. Matt @ 4:
Having studied Civil Engineering with an emphasis on surveying, I agree. Whenever I think of triangulation, I think of finding a third point from two vectors with known origins.
Old Bob is definitely guilty of premature ejaculation of his idea that Hillary is triangulating. What a maroon!
You know, Novaks scum but Hillary (trademark) is a stealth corporate whore.
Novak is guilty of premature vampirization, and has been known to serve both as Turdblossom's skewers at the annual Republican puppyroast and as the chief bootlicker after the monthly kitten stompings.
Sheesh, this blog post could have been written by anyone from the DLC or should I say a Clinton supporter. Next time, given the timing of what's going on tonight, post your allegiances because this post smells like Clinton apologist/revisionist garbage. Triangulation hurt progressive causes and makes our message muddled and weak. Novak is ass, but this post is B.S.
Great... just what this world needs: another buzzword that will be used constantly by morons who don't even know what it means. It's a synergistic zeitgeist paradigm, I tells ya!
Realitysucks @ 12:
Did I already say Hillary=corporate whore?
hillary's healthcare plan seems to be forcing the low income uninsured to buy insurance from for profit insurance providers. how will they be able to buy what they can't afford? will they be criminalized like the people who can't buy car insurance?
The only thing I saw wrong with sHillary's so-called healthcare plan was the phrase in the first sentence: the "American Consumer" of Health Care.
She sees the world in purely corporate terms.
We are no longer "American CITIZENS" .. we are "American CONSUMERS" ..
She's right on track with the (*cough* *cough*) "Universal Health Care" passed in Massachusetts .. you get FINED if you don't BUY Health Insurance !!
IN NO CIVILIZED COUNTRY WOULD SUCH A COPORATE WELFARE SCHEME BE CALLED "UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE"
doesnt matter whether it's triangular or square .. it's not universal health care .. it's a corporate rip off ..
Universal health care means just exactly that -- walk in, get the health care you need, walk out again -- and EVERY CITIZEN QUALIFIES. If we didn't pour untold billions into supporting a very dangerous military industrial complex and too many corporate fatcats, REAL universal health care COULD be a reality in this country.
not holding my breath
Would Hillary's vote for the 2002 war resolution and then saying that she wants to pull the troops out of Iraq and then votes for the Kyl Lieberman amendment and then jumps on Senator Webbs amendment to block any pre-emptive attack on Iran.... Would that be triangulation? Or just pure warmongering horseshit?
tr @ 15:
Next she'll be proposing to force every American to get a (toxic) booster shot to ward off bird flu, or whatever the trumped up disease du jour is, but not before moving half her stocks into Glaxo-Smith-Kline.
I agree with Dr. Matt; triangulation is a crappy metaphor.
But while she pretends to be anti-Iraq war her plan isn't to end it but to "win" it, with essentially the same plan used by Bush (that is, cross fingers/they stand up/win hearts and minds . . .) Worse, her "anti-war stance" looks like that of Genghis Khan with respect to Iran. She claims to support healthcare for all as long as it provides massive subsidies to insurers.
She has consistently pitched liberalish rhetoric to one side and conservative palliatives to another. Moreso the latter when she gets down to specifics.
Her behavior suits the silly/inapt/broken metaphor perfectly.
I heard Chris Matthews announce that " Iowa was picking the next President of the United States". This is just ridiculous! Why bother to vote when you hear announcements like this months before the election?
Triangulation=strangulation of the Democratic Party's core principles. Make the case to the American people why our policies are better than the other side's rather than moving our policies to the right.
miss marple @ 20:
Tweety's mouth gets ahead of his brain way too often.
If I came face to face with Novak I would be held for premature strangulation. :lol:
Does anybody listen to the turd anymore. And why does he even have a job? Put his ass in jail!!
budda and doc are correct,you find your position by known reference points.
I wonder if those that apply it to politics suggest one to find a candidates position by analyzing what they commited to be against, or commited to be "For".
For plurality, for the bill of rights with no temporary legislative mitigation. for the right to choose, for personal possesion of weapons after a gun safety operators course. for healthcare, for impeachment, for eco policies, for rational solutions to global problems, and against damn near everything bush has implemented that took from the needy to give to the rich.
where do I stand???
(out in the rain??)
duncanidho @ 24:
No, you stand beside me. And prolly a few more sane individuals. If Hillary truley represents the Democratic party than I can smell something dead in the room. All who believe in her should go join Lieberman and move that last inch over to the right and switch parties please.
It would appear you guys are making this way too hard (and wonky).
Why, every 7th grader knows that triangulation can be summed up as "the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the square of the other two sides"
Of course that's only for a "Right" triangle.
Heaven only knows the rules for Progressive triangle.
He's confusing "triangulation" with "autoasphixiation".
Typical Novak.
Traitor's been waiting to use that pun for a few weeks - sexual reference, with a Clinton, tee hee hee.
If anyone out there believed that Novak were a professional, they would think that this is not the opinion of Bob Novak, but the opinion of “one longtime Democratic consultant, not involved in any campaign this time”. But since we all know that Novak is nothing more than a stenographer, rest assured that this is the meme put forward by the GOP/NeoCons/Bushies/MSM/MIC/etc. etc. etc.
When I see "Novak" in the title ... I tend to discount anything this bozo has to say...no one should be reading this traitor anymore. If we were a totally Amish society, he would be shunned.
Holy Flying Monkeys!
Who in the name of all that is holy would hire that embarrassing clown for anything?!
Novak is is a jerk and a traitor... but HRC's Health plan provides for and is supported by Big Pharma and the insurance companies. I suppose it could be considered the result of triangulating between the needs of people and the interests of Big Business, but that would require believing Hillary took the interests of normal people into account.
triangulation is supporting nafta when the core of your party opposed it and then going golfing and travelling with ghwbush.
nice post...
tr @ 33:
Yeah, I think Bill will go down as one of the better presidents in history... but he wasn't all that nice. He wasn't even a Democrat, really. Some luck and some work, and a LOT of charisma.
Unfortunately, Hillary does less work, has no charisma, and her luck has just run out. Not to mention she's even more politically conservative than Bill.
No thanks Hillary. Time for a real Democrat for once (it's been 28 years... wow). She doesn't triangulate, she just steals (Edwards policies, Obamas speeches). AND she trusts Mark Penn... isn't that enough warning? Anyway if she triangulates, she's not very good at it, I agree. Too lazy, apparently.
Novak is a partisan hack...a traitor and part of the Bush Cheney conspiracy.
Elect Hillary and all you get is Bush in lace panties.
WOW. C and L comes through again with the usual bizarre and inexplicable Clinton defense.
Dissing the sensible, humane and effective option of "Medicare For All" in favor of a proposal that says the major problem is not that people can't afford health insurance but just haven't been coerced strongly enough to buy it and talks about consumers rather than citizens, clearly seeking to find a "Third Way," between single-payer and Republican proposals, seems to me like the very essence, the very freakin' dictionary definition of triangulation. This time I can't even comprehend _why_ it is that you all would do your usual hair-splitting routine for her.
Seriously, is it just that you have to disagree with everything Novak says, even if what you say makes no sense?
Is it ok if I despise Novak and still not vote for Hillary Clinton?
I am surprised that anyone even WATCHES Novak, Blitzer, et-al. Bunch of corporate shit-stain "news readers" and not very fucking GOOD at that! It pains me to see Olbermann working so closely with Tweety.
This might just be the first flat-out defence of Hillary Clinton I've read yet here at "Crooks & Liars."
With all of the complaining I've done over the last some-odd weeks/months, I would be remiss if I didn't applaud Mr. Benen for sticking up for Clinton against these sorts of unintelligible talking-points.
Realitysucks @ 12:
Agreed. First thing I thought when I read it. Some of us do see the lines and attempt to read from time to time.....
Rizzle @ 42:
Wow; defend Clinton one damn time and have readers going apoplectic.
Grow up and stop blaming everything on a conspiracy. You know, the Man. Yes, they're all working together just for the sake of crushing your personal hopes and dreams!
Give it up Steve. HC lost in Iowa.
If you don't insist on taking a fraction of the op-ed out of context then Novak's point is far better made. Remember that HC didn't release a healthcare plan until months after Edwards. Only when her inevitability waned did she feel it necessary to release a health care plan. Back in August everyone was talking about how she was actually running a general election campaign, and therefor running to the center.
Novak also does a pretty good job of demonstrating how the people behind triangulation in the 1990's are working for HC now. Kind of like how the people behind watergate are working for GWB now.
getting past the very real possibility that novak is lying once again thru his false teeth, this story carries with it a very real stink of truth... i've been saying for over a year that hillary's been triangulating prematurely, and the dem base might just kick her to the curb for it...
meanwhile, mark penn my ass... hillary is a republican thru & thru (dlc/repo lite, whatever, she's a dino!!!) and she got burned pushing a half-assed health coverage during hubby's first term... consequently, she told penn to keep away with anything that resembled universal health coverage... in fact she said it again tonight: "affordable" health coverage, meaning no single-payer, no gov't subsidy, no medicare for all who want it... just another sop to the insurance industries, who, by the by, have been showering her with money ever since...
eh... ?
Two columns ago Novak dribbled about the CIA subverting Bush, and was actually right.
Except that in the middle he casually claimed that the OSS, WW2 predecessor to the CIA, was "riddled with communists".
Huh?
Hey, guys, if anybody's triangulating in the current race, it's Obama. All those veiled references to the right-wing memes, what were they about? Where did his vote come from? A large part of it was independents and Republicans. Of the Republicans who ended up caucusing in the Democratic race -- they can do that in Iowa -- 44% of them voted for Obama. Was that all idealism about giving the black man his chance? No. Obama's been attacking from the right. What policy of his, exactly, is more to the left of Hillary? Health care? Nope. Iraq? Same position. (Yeah, Obamites always talk about THE VOTE, but Obama didn't have one then; and now he's got the same policy as Hillary.) What then? Where are the black leaders who endorse him? Any of the old civil rights guys? Nope. They all endorse Hillary. Sure, there's a children's crusade aspect here, but I ask you: what will he do? What's he stand for other than "change?" And what "change" is he talking about?
Scaifeian talking points still used over a decade later by Novakula
Omar, it's obvious you haven't read the Clinton plan, the Edwards plan, or the Obama plan for that matter. They all have a choice: you can have private insurance, and a lot of people feel better with that, believe me; that's why the Harry & Louise commercials WORKED. But the insurance companies would be regulated in many ways they aren't now. They wouldn't be able to turn down anybody for "preexisting conditions." And there would be an "expanded Medicare" program, that would be subsidized for lower-income people. In other words, people would be able to buy the old plans, or go with the cheaper public plan. I think many, many people would switch to public plans, and the insurance companies would be forced to compete.
No one but Kucinich, Mr. One Percent, wants universal Medicare. It might be better -- in fact, it is better, I've lived in Canada -- but it's a political loser here until more and more people experience how good a public system is.
If you want to call any Democrat who doesn't support Universal Medicare Bush Lite, well, that's harsh. If the only target of your scorn is Hillary, then I wonder what that is, and who's taught you this talking point.
I feel that the for insurance companies to be involved at all is a problem as their entire motivation (making profits) causes them to deny coverage to the people who need it most. If your too expensive, bye bye...
My plan: stay healthy.
So Obama took Iowa, Dean did and Kerry was the candidate. I think the way Iowa allows voting has always been suspect. When Oprah started to bus in busload after busload of students to vote I knew Obama would take the nod. How can you say by raising hands you can get a fair picture of voting. I suppose now all the students who registered for this, can go back home to Illinois and where the got them from...when he wins a state like New Hampshire, where you have to be legally registered to vote, then we will see he is a viable candidate. That he really had people vote for him. And in a state where the republicans outnumber Democrats 3 to 1 and did their cross over thing. When he wins in a real state voting process then I will say he is a candidate, til then I suppose Oprahs bussing worked.
What ‘triangulation’?
It's what we struggle to get out of when we're born, and spend the rest of our lives trying to get back into.
Jo @ 37:
Condi's?
"Clinton isn’t guilty of “premature triangulation"
Please, you're kidding yourself if you think thats true. Hillary leared from the master all about triangulation.
I don't know whether Clinton has triangulated on health care. She may have, since her plan forces people to buy private insurance, which is different from a strictly liberal universal health care plan. But on foreign policy, I don't see how one can say that Clinton has not been triangulating. She voted to give George Bush the authority to invade Iraq, an authorization that, many people forget, the majority of Democrats in Congress voted AGAINST. She recently voted similarly to declare Iran's military forces a terrorist group, which implicitly gives Bush authority to attack them in the name of "fighting terrorism." And, Clinton has said that some number of American forces should remain in Iraq indefinitely. Those are positions that are to the right of many Democrats in Congress, and are closer to Bush and the Republican Congressional position. If that is not triangulation, I don't know what is.
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