Deep Dark Depression, Excessive Misery
It hasn't seemed worth talking about the results of the Tuesday primary because, well, it was all too easily predictable. Everyone and their brother has been trying to analyze what Clinton and Obama did or did not do but hellooooo....ever occur to anyone it was the HeeHaw vote in Ohio and Texas that determined the outcome? Yeah buddy, same demographic that will likely make for a Clinton win in PA. Doubtful it would matter much what she did short of take a crap on the steps of the capitol.
So on we go to another several months of fighting and republicans are jumping for joy, one more time it looks like indeed we can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Tuesday night was just splendid at my house. Clinton won three states and began to speak, husband turned purple and threw up. Not sure if it was Clinton or a bad taco but you get the picture. Husband you see is in many ways Mr. Joe Average America. The saner variety. He doesn't hate women, in fact thinks in general they are usually better people than most men though they often confuse and confound him. He doesn't care much about race either, he cares what a person does and how they behave. In his book an ass is an ass is an ass whatever flavor it comes in. He's just shy of 50 and has never, ever missed voting (democratic) in an election in his entire adult life despite the fact that the nominee was usually about his 3rd or fourth choice but come November, should Clinton be the nominee, he will not vote.
He's only one person so I suppose that doesn't matter much in the bigger picture but I have to wonder how many others will not vote if it comes to that? I haven't quite gotten there yet, I'm waiting to see what the majority of the African-American community decides to do if this is the outcome but I can tell you this...if they decide to stay home I'll stay home with them.
I have serious doubts about any candidate being able to deliver on even half of their promises even if they truly intend to but I am absolutely positive Clinton can't so I don't really see where a Clinton presidency would be so much better than a McCain presidency. Add in the fact that I truly believe a Clinton win would be the death of the Democratic party....well, I'd just as soon muddle through 4 more years of pig shit.
Why do I believe that? Think about it, does anyone really believe that Black voters will just fall in line and continue to vote democratic after the party that is supposed to be all about equality flings turds in their faces? I'm thinking not and frankly the party cannot survive as a viable entity without them. If Obama wins will we lose voters? Sure...mainly elderly women voting to avenge twenty year old wrongs and a lot of racists. I'm good with that. Really I am, I'm tired of catering to the lowest common denominator and bending over for assmonkeys. If I wanted to do that I'd vote republican.
I've voted lockstep with this party my entire life despite our consistent record of backing the wrong horse but I'm just about at the end of my rope. This one is personal for many reasons and I'm just not certain at all that I can do it. I want change. I want all Americans to just be Americans because we've become much like our dear friends the Sunni and the Shi'a and I'm just not down with that. The Democratic party has always supposedly stood for equality and reaching out to any group of people that has been left out and here we have a golden shiny moment where we have the opportunity to put our money where our mouths are and not with just any old figurehead but an actual, bonafide, qualified, and outstanding candidate so if we can't do it, well, there goes the neighborhood as far as I'm concerned.
I don't really give a goddamn who that pisses off because people, ya'll been pissing on my salad for 45 years.
15 comments:
Most definitely, if Clinton wins and expects to carry the black vote it all depends on how she wins. If she wins by destroying his character and casting his campaign as a pipe dream,not a single black person'll vote for her. And yes, that is about race. It'd be foolish to say the black community doesn't take pride in how far Obama's gotten.
There is nothing in your post I can argue with. The comparison with Shia and Sunni is spot on. Normally, they live together fine, but when something goes wrong they splatter each other. Not only is that going on in America between the two political parties, but it's now happening inside one of those parties - one that is really supposed to know better, yet never seems to learn.
The Superdelegate idea is just balmy. I've researched the history, modus operandi, justifications, etc and the conclusion is it's just plain balmy. It makes no sense whatever. The Republicans, who one might expect to use such convoluted systems, accept a simple winner-take-all situation. No can argue that McCain wasn't the best candidate on the Repub side, if only because the others were so ridiculous.
It could be argued this country is in the mess its in, not because of two terms of George Bush, but by the sheer ineffectiveness of the Democratic party over many years. I can only assume much of the power of the Democrats is being siphoned off by those influential Washington Democrats who wish to keep 'establishment' figures in power. With Clinton, they may just be succeeding yet again.
Take a trip to Sparrow Chat's sidebar and check out the "Hot Link" - it explains it perfectly, in pictures.
I felt like I had "Hillary Clinton" stink all around me in the days leading up to Tuesdays bizarre crap and now I feel I have been breathing in darkness for the hours and days afterward.
I will stay home too ...
Mama, this year I decided in favor of two yard signs instead of bumper stickers. One, I kinda like my present Gore'08 sticker, (four years old!). Secondly, I don't think my car's bumper could take a second sticker. Third, I was confident that after Obama won in November, I'd not want to be a poor winner and bumper stickers are harder to remove than yard signs. But now I'm thinking if the Dems are not smart enough to pick Obama in November, I'll keep those signs in my yard forever because - whatever happens to the USA - they will send the message:
DON'T BLAME ME!
I VOTED FOR HOPE
Woozie: for better or worse it is now. My household will vote with the majority Black vote whatever that decision ends up being.
What we do here isn't only about African-Americans, it's for darker skinned fellow humans across the globe and too important to throw away. The entire world is watching us. Anyone who does not realize that by now is beyond help.
RJ: that's what frightens me. Clinton winning will rip not just the party but the entire country apart from asshole to elbow. I'd rather survive 4 years of McCan't than destroy any and all progress we've made over the last few decades.
Mojo: soooo many thoughts on that. We've put up some real boners before but never as shameful for the office of president as what we may be doing this time.
Vigilante: may have to get a dozen t-shirts with that slogan. Loyalty to party or loyalty to fellow human beings, kind of a no brainer, eh?
NYM said: >I'd rather survive 4 years of McCan't than destroy any and all progress we've made over the last few decades. <
That's where I've gotten to as well. So, I suspect that if HRC gets the Dem nomination, I will not sit out, because I can't imagine doing that. I think I'll vote for McCain. As much as it pains me to say it, I think I trust the devil I know more than someone who, at this point, I don't trust at all. I've gotten to the stage where I really think she would gladly throw any of her principles under the bus to get elected, because, in the end, to her it's only about getting elected and sitting in the seat of power. What she actually gets around to doing with that power seems like a sorry afterthought to her. It's all about reaching the top and staying there.
So, although I particularly worry about the Supreme Ct and foreign policy under McCain, I don't think I trust her one iota to be any better even on those issues. I know that on paper she *is* better than him at least on those two things, but why would she behave properly/rationally/etc then if she can't do so now?
Her nearly schizophrenic mood swings from "so proud to be sharing this stage with Barack Obama (smile, smile, smile)" to "SHAME ON YOU!!! (yell, yell, yell)" freak me out. McCain is hardly the poster child of calm, but he's a fuckin' Zen monk in comparison to Hillary.
Holden, HRC has Zero coat tails. that's a big fat "0". She'll lose Congress in two years, just like hubby Bubba.
Obama had one hellova tough week, but perhaps, just perhaps, Clinton actually did Obama a favor.
Obama is untested and Presidential politics sure as hell is hardball. Better to learn the ropes in the primaries and improve your campaign and staff now than to be blindsided by McCain in the fall.
It still looks to me like Obama will win (Wyoming sure went for him in a landslide yesterday and I'll personally guarantee my home state of Mississippi will give Obama a landslide Tuesday).
Now I neither hate nor fear Hillary like most commentators here, but I'm still confident of a Democrat victory in November and it's 90% likely Obama will head the ticket.
Obama won Wyoming, and should easily win Mississippi. Clinton will be harder to beat in the Midwest, especially with so many Repuglicans crossing-over to vote for her. Obama will finish strong in the West. If he can stay close in the Midwest, he will enter the convention with the lead in pledged delegates, and he has narrowed Clinton's lead in super delegates. While he should become the nominee, if he doesn't, I will still vote against McConJob.
Wizard: I didn't hate her until very recently but now she's shown me her real nature and it isn't any different than Dubya or any of the other smirking, bullying assmonkeys we've had to put up with. Doesn't matter what party tag she wears, results would be same.
TC: ya, think he's still going to win this, if for no othe reason than (most)delegates know as well as I do what will happen to the party as a whole if she wins.
Do not think I can vote for her after what she's shown me this last month. McCan't is no better, just another bully-boy but at least he does not represent my party. Either one is a disaster for the country, flip a coin.
So, I suspect that if HRC gets the Dem nomination, I will not sit out, because I can't imagine doing that. I think I'll vote for McCain. As much as it pains me to say it, I think I trust the devil I know more than someone who, at this point, I don't trust at all.
I guess McCain's gonna take this in a walk then, because I've heard exactly the same argument from the pro-Hillary side.
As for me? I'm ready to leave the party, but not for any of the reasons you all have enunciated here.
I am sick to death that our party "leadership" has been silent on all of this. Disgusting. Too scared to take a stand on anything, they've let this morph into something that did not have to be. Sometimes I think that there is a Democratic Party in name only.
What I am about to say is blasphemy in these parts, but I'll say it anyway. I didn't choose Hillary right off the bat, and in fact, I pretty much hated her to start. She was my absolute LAST CHOICE. So, here I am, supporting her because after looking at all of the candidates I came to the conclusion that she was the best. Not an easy decision to make. I am neither a racist, nor a frustrated elderly woman "voting to avenge twenty year old wrongs." Nor am I the Hee Haw vote. Gawd, how condescending can you be? If this is the future of the Democratic Party, I don't think I want any part of it.
Okay, so go ahead, jump all over me. It's okay. My skin has gotten very, very thick over the past few years. And besides, nothing could hurt much more than the dear friend, upon seeing my Hillary button, dismissively said to me, "I thought you knew better," as though my choice was so asinine that I must have taken leave of my senses.
I wish you all well.
Oh come on, even the MSM acknowledges PA is "Philly and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between, and that's white Alabama". Direct quote.
Nor are you going to convince me NV is not mainly a HeeHaw state, I live here remember, I have to put up with these people every damned day. Remember our crumbling roads, schools and almost total lack of infrastructure? Meanwhile we voted in Gov. Napkinhead cuz we'uns didn't want to pay no taxes. How has that been working out for us?
My brother lives in Texas though he hides out in Austin and don't even get me started on Ohio.
If you're fine with the way Clinton has carried on this last month or so then party on, we very possibly have already lost the general and for certain we lose it if she is the nominee because helloooooo....the African-American vote is over 1/3 of our base.
They've been that portion of our base for years because we were the only party that gave them any reason to be and the Clintons just waltzed in and pulled the rug out from under their feet.
Whether I or anyone else *likes* that or not that it is a fact and there's no getting around it.
Exactly how did the Clintons pull the rug out? Because they didn't immediately bow out when Obama decided to run? Is this what we as a party mean by a big tent? Is this what we mean by "inclusion?" Is THIS equality? Is not the first viable female candidate for President just as history-making the first viable African American's candidate?
I, for one, have not been happy with the way Obama has run his campaign since NH, but most especially since Ohio. He's flat out lying about Clinton and no one calls him on it. What I see coming from Clinton is a debate on their individual merits. What I see from Obama are lies. Saying she approves torture, saying that her campaign released the photo of him in African clothes - well, at first he said they didn't and then this week he said they did...even though the photo has been on the Internet for two years and first made it's most recent appearance on right-wing web sites before making its way to Drudge, who, ever the friend of the left-wing blogosphere (snort) insists it came from "someone" in the Clinton camp but offers no proof to back it up. But the left-wing blogosphere, in all their eagerness to cast Hillary as the devil incarnate, laps it up. Whatever.
So, the press that we haven't trusted for so long (and for good reason) to give us the straight story is now absolutely to be trusted when it comes to supposed dirt on the Clintons, disbelieved when positive stories are told, vice-versa with regards to Obama. No motive is too sinister when it comes to anything Clinton, and Obama is just an innocent lamb at the mercy of the "Clinton Machine."
And the left-wing blogosphere is supposed to be the reality-based community? I think not.
Actually I have not heard Sen. Obama utter a single lie and I have sat here and listened to Clinton pile one upon the other so I don't know what to tell you. If you believe what you believe in spite of all evidence to the contrary there isn't really anything I can say to you.
The Clintons "pulled the rug out" the minute they knowingly and with malice aforethought, pulled out the old racial cliches to use against the very people who stood by them for years the minute it seemed politically expedient for them to do so. In my book that's worse than plain old-fashioned racism, at least with an out and out racist a body knows where they stand. It's a lot harder to fight people who are willing to sell out the very people that helped bring them to power in the first place when it seems convenient. It was an out and out betrayal of the ugliest kind.
Obama has barely said anything about Clinton and the slightest remark he does make is jumped upon by a herd of shrieking Clinton supporters screaming "he's being mean to us". But according to you his side should just sit back and eat every turd she tosses in our faces???
NOT going to happen.
The fact that she cannot and will not accept that there are larger issues in play here than her own personal ambition speaks to not only her lack of judgement but to her lack of character as well.
I bent over backwards trying to like this candidate but lie after lie, twisted, ugly manipulative ploy after another she has destroyed any chance of that ever happening.
As for her "representing" for female-kind, as a woman I'm mortified to imagine anyone seeing her as what a strong woman is all about. What she represents is a living, breathing caricature of every negative stereotype that's ever been used against women.
The prolem I have with Ms. Clinton is she is claiming so many years of experience. Most of that is by association and not actual service or the holding of an official position.
I will use my self as an examle. I have been in my profession for thirty-two years. I am considered highly qualified to perform diagnosis and repair of extremely complex machines. I have also been associated with the over all operations in the construction business. But the ability to repair the machinery does not qualify me to actually build a bridge or high rise building. Yet I can claim to have thirty-two years experience in the heavy constructiion industry. This does not mean I can build a bridge better than someone who is thiry years younger and is trained to over see the building of that structure. Yet by the simple statement that I have so much more experience than this person I would appear to be more qualified, even though I may not be.
If one compares Ms. Clinton's actual time in elected office to Mr. Obama's time in the same arena the difference is not that great.
I will admit she has had much experience with the election process. In fact she seems to be a master at that. Getting one's errant husband elected multiple times does not count as leadership experience however. She was in fact up until the time she was elected to the senate nothing more than support staff. A role she chose because she saw a rising star in Bill Clinton and hooked her wagon to it seemingly in the hope it would lead to bigger and better things.
Ms. Clinton is only highly experienced at winning elections. George W. Bush is living proof that doesn't make a good leader.
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