Before I get to the nuts and bolts of my question---did Russian moles interfere in the 2008 Democratic primary—first a little background. Putin came to power riding a wave of pro-Slavic ethnic nationalism (if such a thing as ethnic nationalism exists). Here is a piece from Slate that sums it up.
www.slate.com/…
“Russians had only a vague idea of what Kosovo was but a very strong concept of Serbia being a land of fellow Eastern Orthodox Slavs and of Yugoslavia being a rightful part of Moscow's sphere of influence.”
To Putin and his fellow “Slavs are Supreme” Russians, the Clintons are the enemy because they pointed their fingers (repeatedly) at Serbian genocides being committed in the Balkans. I believe that when the Democratic party nomination of Clinton became likely back in 2008—when Clinton made peace with Obama at the convention and agreed to be his Secretary of State---Putin and his KGB allies set in motion their plans to block her election.
But what if the KGB moles who were put in place in the United States during the Cold War were already at work attempting to thwart the political career of Hillary Clinton? What if online Russians posing as Democrats during the primary fueled what turned out to be one of the nastiest Democratic primaries ever? Their goal—keep her from being nominated. Their secondary goal---make sure that she emerged so tainted that she could never win a future election.
I have seen a lot of Democratic Primaries. 2008 was uglier than 1968 and 1972. And it did not need to be. There was no war in which our young men were going to be murdered. The Democratic nominee was going to win. We had a line up of delightful candidates. Obama refused to “get dirty”. And yet, it was what I have referred to as a Food Fight at a Monster Truck Rally. Why? Did Roger Stone and Rush Limbaugh really think they could divide and conquer the Democrats enough to make them stay away from the polls and hand the GOP a victory that fall? After eight years of W.? Or, was the primary bloodbath personal? For Putin.
Just how nasty was it? Clinton was called a “dumb blond”, “monster” and even “cunt” by respectable Democrats on respectable forums. This violated a basic rule of primary campaigning as laid out by Gary Hart----don’t go too far in sliming an opponent that you may have to campaign for in the future. Obama followed this rule. But a lot of people who claimed to be his supporters did not.
And then, there is the nature of one of the most memorable of the 2008 primary smears. Hillary was attacked repeatedly for lying about coming under sniper fire during a humanitarian mission to the Balkans. The Balkans, where she and Bill were doing their best to raise awareness of and to stop genocide. And so, suddenly, genocide—the systemic murder and mass burial of men, women and children—became less memorable than an error in storytelling. Yes, maybe Clinton did not dodge bullets. But she did her best to stop an ethnic cleansing. Had Bill listened to her, the U.S would have gone into Rwanda to stop that genocide. People who react to genocide by trying to stop it are good people, even if they sometimes do not get all the details right. But to listen to political pundits in 2008, you would have thought that no one in the United States cared about genocide, we only cared about truthfulness-—
How did our values get so twisted? One way would be if thousands of online people pretended to be Democrats and they applauded or “liked” every time someone accused Clinton of doing nothing important in the Balkans. Every time someone called her “monster” or “cunt”, their career seemed to get a boost. They got more followers. For people who make a living out of political commentary or for those who just do it as a side line to their real careers as actors or writers, getting all that Internet praise must have felt good. And yes, we had an Internet back in 2008.
It would take a very strong sense of what is right and wrong and a strong sense of self to ignore the kind of adulation that was being handed out for behavior that was, in retrospect, reprehensible. Paul Krugman is one who comes to mind who never fell into the trap. Barack Obama is another. Some online “likes” (or whatever we had back in 2008) just are not worth it. But in a world where ratings and books sales and followers matter, it is very easy to influence the political pundits who influence elections.