A secret left-wing “Journolist”-esque group is not ready for Hillary Clinton in 2016. In fact, they think establishment Democrats like her who supported the Iraq War and are cozy with Wall Street should be “punished.”
The Hill obtained and “reviewed hundreds of emails from a progressive members only Google group called the ‘Gamechanger Salon,’ a forum where nearly 1,500 activists, strategists, and journalists debate issues and craft messaging campaigns.”
According to the emails, the group reportedly includes prominent members of the Occupy movement, “Democrats, Sierra Club officials, journalists who work for The Huffington Post and The Nation magazine, senior union representatives, leaders at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and the president of NARAL.”
The emails, from “June 2013 through July of this year,” portray Clinton as someone who is “too much of a hawk, too cozy with Wall Street,” and “hasn’t spoken out enough on climate change, and will be subject to personal questions and criticisms.”
MediaTrackers unearthed the group earlier this year, but this is reportedly “the first time the emails have become public.”
Left-wing organizers and activists said Clinton is “tainted” because of the war vote and want to see a “Democratic Party where folks who enabled George Bush to drag the country into a permanent war are punished at the ballot box,” according to The Hill. Another activist said many progressives say “they’ll never forgive her for voting for the Iraq War… and won’t even vote for her in the general.”
Guy Saperstein, “a major Democratic donor and part owner of the Oakland Athletics baseball team,” said Clinton’s “reassuring” message to Goldman Sachs executives was “horrifying” and reportedly raised concerns about “the type of intimidation” associated with Clinton at the State Department.
Though Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has insisted that she is not running, the activists clearly see her as their champion. Occupy activists blasted Clinton for her coziness to Wall Street, with Carl Gibson of Occupy.com writing that “the establishment Dems need to be punished, and the best way for that to happen is for Warren to beat Hillary in the primary on a populist message.”
Gibson, according to The Hill, praised Warren’s “ovaries of steel,” and, echoing similar concerns on the right about former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, told the outlet that “another establishment pick from a political dynasty family” like the Clintons “will drive folks to the green party” or dissuade them from even showing up to the polls.
Before Clinton made her first appearance in Iowa since 2008 at Sen. Tom Harkin’s (D-IA) Steak Fry on Sunday, liberal Democrats in the state expressed similar concerns, complaining that Hillary Clinton was too tied too cronyism and malleable like Mitt Romney.
One progressive female told NBC last week that she would “love to see the first woman president, but it doesn’t matter more to me than my progressive values.”
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