When right-wing shills like Jay Ambrose, Charles Krauthammer and Kathleen Parker beat the “divided Democrats” story line into submission, it is merely “white noise” as far as I’m concerned.
When Timothy Egan refers to “Donner Party Democrats” in the New York Times here (see, the Convention is in Denver this year, and the “Donner Party” refers to settlers trapped by a snowstorm in the Colorado mountains who resorted to cannibalism, for the benefit of those who don’t get that), I just chalk it up to another annoying attempt by the punditocracy to be clever.
When Bill Clinton (God, of all people) indirectly impugns Barack Obama’s patriotism here (and yes, I agree with Gen. McPeak, though I think the “McCarthyism” reference in reply was a bit strong) and also (again, indirectly) blames Howard Dean and the DNC for (rightly, I think) punishing Florida and Michigan for moving up their primaries, calling it “a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise voters,” I find myself wondering when this man is going to shut his mouth upon realizing that all he’s doing is hurting the party he led pretty skillfully in the ‘90s…but I don’t give it much more thought.
But when I see polling like this from Zogby (and sorry, but I guessed I missed the obligatory “Zogby is full of crap” post from Markos that inevitably seems to follow their latest results) and see data like this from Gallup, that is something else altogether that immediately commands my attention. The Zogby poll shows McCain leading Clinton or Obama at this moment, and the Gallup poll shows enough of a Democratic split to greatly hinder the chances of either Democratic candidate.
I’m not going to link to an individual post or video demonstrating that John McCain is an utterly delusional and dangerously uninformed, hot-tempered egomaniac who would instigate all manner of conflagration in the name of advancing the Repug neocon agenda into remote posterity. I won’t do it because that stuff is all over the place at this site – you can pick and choose anywhere you want (and here's more from today's New York Times).
The thought that any individual who calls him or herself a Democrat would actually vote for this man to assume what is still the most powerful world leadership position on earth is truly chilling (and yes, I’ve heard such notions from people who have decided that they will not vote for an African American or a woman, and I almost bit a hole through my tongue trying not to scream at them when they said so).
The Gallup post notes that some of those Democrats who claim to support McCain now will likely vote for their party in the general election after a period of “cooling off” when the Democratic primary ends. That’s a comfort, but I think those numbers (19 percent of Obama supporters voting for McCain and 28 percent of Clinton supporters doing the same thing) are waaay too high as they stand right now.
(Also, those numbers provide more than a little bit of an opening for that insect Ralph Nader, who would siphon off anywhere from 5 to 6 percent according to Zogby; Nader didn’t get that much in 2000 – and do I need to say another word about that?)
Filthy, unkempt liberal blogger that I am, I’m actually starting to believe that a disaster is in the making. But I won’t admit that the pundits are right, and here’s why; the disaster is not the competition itself, but our response to it.
I know this isn’t an original observation, but our glorious corporate media wouldn’t know what to do with itself in this election unless it were a “horse race,” either between a Dem and Repug presumptive nominee or (in this case, even better for them actually) between two Dems and a Repug. It gives them every opportunity to tear down each side and fluff St. McCain in the process (or, in the case of Jack Cafferty, to propose this absurd scenario).
But at the end of the day, people, we’re all Democrats (well, most of us, I would guess).
And I might as well lay my cards on the table for real, since our primary is coming up in about a month; at this moment, I cannot possibly see how I won’t vote for Barack Obama. All of this “Donner Party Democrat” garbage is being reinforced overwhelmingly by the actions of the Clinton campaign, which has a much harder road in front of it than the Obama campaign, thus the motivation behind acting like this.
However, if by some utter, unbelievable turn of fate Hillary Clinton turns out to be the nominee, then she will get my vote, even though she has run perhaps the most odious campaign for a Democratic candidate that I have ever seen.
The party has to come first, people. There is too much stuff that we have to try to fix to let McCain get in and carry out, to our utter horror, a third term of Bushco (it is plain that that would happen).
In as much as I have a voice in this stuff (small, I know, compared to my “betters”), I feel like I’d better speak up now.
Or else, that train won’t just run over me. It will do so to the whole country as well.
Update: Another day, another Clinton attack - booor-ing!!
2 comments:
I'm a democrat. Have always been a democrat, but I have to vote with my conscious and I could never vote for Obama. I don't trust or believe in him. And I have to believe in a presidential candidate. There has been so much fighting, so much bitterness, so much arrogance (including numerous blogs insulting, threatening or demeaning Hillary supporters) and so much chasm that I can not see how the democratic party can survive this election. Incidentally it isn't only blue collar who finds no place with Obama. Boomers, older people have no place either...it's been said over and over in blogs.
Lots of things get said over and over in blogs, and sometimes the more something is said is directly opposite to how true it is (though never at this site, of course :- ).
Seriously, there is never an excuse for one Democratic supporter beating up another in written or verbal form. Never. If you know of a blog or website where this takes place, please let me know so I can denounce it at that site and publicize that it is wrong. I supported Chuck Pennacchio for the U.S. Senate two years ago, though I knew it would be an uphill struggle to say the least and expected to support Mr. Casey Jr. when the predictable outcome occurred. I think the closest I've come to taking shots at Democratic supporters had to do with the people in the campaign of Andy Warren, who ran for the Dem U.S. House Rep nomination and (fortunately) lost to Patrick Murphy. Truth be told, though, Warren is as much of a Democrat as Joe Lieberman.
I'm in my late 40s, I should tell you, and this is easily the most important election of my life. The issues are just way too damn critical for us to spend time beating up on each other - we need to define and focus on our Repug opposition instead.
And after John Edwards dropped out, I should tell you that I just assumed that I would support Hillary Clinton because, despite it all, I believe she is the most qualified candidate. But her campaign has been a train wreck, and that, unfortunately, tells me how she would govern. Obama, on the other hand, though "wet behind the ears" a bit, has campaigned courageously and shown a vision that I haven't seen in a candidate for at least 16 years, probably longer (not perfect, I know, but I've seen more ingenuity from him than HRC).
I'm sorry that Obama supporters have given you a bad time, and there's no excuse for that (and going the other way either). All I would respectfully ask is that, if Obama turns out to be the nominee, that you reconsider him as a candidate. I will do the same if somehow Hillary gets the nod; there are too many similarities in their candidacies despite it all to blow off either one.
The real enemy is John McCain and the continuation of the utterly ruinous Bushco regime; the Repugs (and Ralph Nader, their bought-and-paid-for flunky) are counting on us to forget that.
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