Sunday, March 30, 2008

Win me, win me, win me

I'm still hoping for a Hillary Clinton candidacy. I still think that she represents absolutely the best hope for America. I believe that she not only knows how to craft and develop policy, but that her policies are the ones which will result in a stronger economy, a stronger America, stronger Americans (as they'll be healthier) and will develop a balanced, progressive agenda. Not too lefty, but definitely not of the variety that's gonna screw the little folk.

I've never voted Republican in my life. Really. I did once abstain in a particular Senate race (though voted on the rest of the ballot) to avoid voting against Fred Thompson. Local connections, ya know. Anyway, I'd rather eat a razor blade than vote for McCain. That dude is nutso. He wants another 100 years in Iraq. He's a neo-con, but not like the current lot. He actually believes in that stuff. His domestic policies will be same-old, same-old disaster that Bush-Cheney have brought us, but his foreign policy will be Bush-and-a-half. No thanks.

Now, I can do enough math that I see that an Obama nomination is a real possibility (though not cast in stone). But Obama and his camp have played so sexist and so dirty and his supporters swung negative so fast and for so long that I think I'd really have a hard time voting for that guy. Of course, I don't want more of the same in the White House, but I'm not willing to have my vote taken for granted by people who've treated my candidate so despicably.

So, what's Obama's strategy for winning back people like me? How can he win me? Can that Obama camp learn to be nice, learn to bridge the divide come Autumn? If they're starting to lose a life-long Democrat like me (who, wasn't against Obama in the beginning, btw) how are they going to win over the waiverers and the typical white voters who are probably even less forgiving of a certain kind of politics?

I despair for the Democratic party. I know for a fact the Republicans are laughing up their sleeve and salivating over the prospect of an Obama nomination.

Vote Hillary Clinton - the unity candidate.


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I'm not alone! Via Tennessee Guerilla Women I have stolen a link list of pissed off Hillary supporters.


Riverdaughter: If he can ignore you now and treat you like $#$%, what makes you think he’s going to change after you’re married to him?

Anglachel: Hillary must surrender, and her supporters had best learn to lean back and enjoy it, or else we just can't tell what these wild young 'uns might take it into their heads to do.

Reclusive Leftist: Personally I’m reminded of the way male animals fluff up their fur and making big threat displays to scare off the other males and intimidate the females.

Donna Darko: Their disrespect for the working class people of this country is so visible to me, so transparent, that I am continually just grossed out by their sexism and their classism, and their sense of entitlement.

Corrente: All of these folks have tried to argue that this "Tonya Harding option" stuff was from some supposedly objective anonymous DNC official. Nope — this is something straight from Obama’s people as I expected. ABC News’ Sunlen Miller reports: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told a crowd in Vinton, Iowa Thursday that he’s not going to pull a Tonya Harding on his rival candidates.

Men for Hillary: Today, I Begin my Independence from the Democratic Party!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

This morning an Obama supporter told me Hillary is going to lose the nomination because "she is a bitch." Sadly, this is not the first time I've heard such things from Obama supporters.

At this point, I will not be voting for Obama if he wins the nomination. He'd have to work very hard to win my vote. Otherwise, I probably won't vote at all.

genderist said...

With all due respect, if you think that either candidate is running a clean race, you are sadly mistaken, my dear.

Unknown said...

Hillary's List of Lies by Dick Morris

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/hillarys_list_of_lies.html


This list is by no means a full account of her outrageously disloyal, unprincipled and valueless character....she wouldn't know right from wrong if her nose were pushed in it.

Vol Abroad said...

Wow! You guys just don't get it, do you? I say "win me" - and you just slur my chosen candidate. Y'all do know I support Hillary Clinton right? I mean there's a button on my website and there's you know - this post I wrote that you commented on.

Genderist, I'm a little disappointed. Winghunter - are you working for McCain? You couldn't be pushing me more in that direction if you were on the GOP payroll.

Anonymous said...

I know why you support Hillary...she just remembered the time you two met for tea and she totally overwhelmed you with her retention of small details...like bullets flying as she arrived in Bosnia. Or, that wonderful healthcare plan she devised that looked more like the London tube map on a very, very bad day.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, the London tube's map is the best thing about it! They paid the creator peanuts.

Anonymous said...

Okay. Instead of the tube map imagine a street map of the area around The Strand and you'll have a partial idea of what the reporting lines and oversight levels looked like.

Vol Abroad said...

And how straightforward is the current arrangement of insurers, codes, denial of coverage, emergency clinics, etc?

Yes, governance of big complex things is complex. At least Hillary Clinton acknowledges that.

Dan said...

I'm on my lunch break, waiting for the ManUre-Roma game to start, so I'll tell you why I'd rather Obama be the nominee instead of Clinton.

Hillary Clinton has run an one of the poorest primary campaigns in living memory, characterized by mis-steps and poor judgment that I fear reflects the poor judgment she would bring to a general election campaign. Her reckless profligacy of an enormous campaign warchest reinforces the idea that she doesn't know how to runa campaign or hire people, the most important decision a candidate will make in the run up to the election.

Senator Clinton is such a divisive figure in American politics that I don't believe she can win a general election against John McCain, especially after she has made experience the cornerstone of her run. The experience meme only works if your opponent doesn't actually have more experience than you.

Her Tuzla fantasy reinforces what folks like me have begun to fear about her: She sees enemies every place she goes, all the time. Even at an airport, in the safest town in Eastern Europe, she imagines snipers taking potshots at her. I'd be willing to chalk it up to "fatigue", like she said, except she originally told the story in February. I'm afraid some part of her actually believes people were shooting at her. It's part of the persecution complex that seems to be not very far below the surface of her psyche. Part of the irony, of course, is that an aspect of her paranoia, the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" was essentially a reality. Last week's polite sit-down with the financier of that conspiracy, Richard Mellon Scaife, does little to console the skeptics like me who thinks that bellying up with monsters like Scaife displays a political ruthlessness that folks are tired of...hence Obama's success.

It's apparent to a doofus like me that Clinton's healthcare plan is superior in most respects to Obama's and I'd love for her plan to become a reality. However, I don't think Clinton could pass a universal healthcare plan without a super majority in Congress, and her candidacy isn't strong enough to create the coattails necessary for that. Obama, on the other hand, will bring large enough majorities to the polls to not only win the general election, but to pick up House and Senate seats across the country.

I fear the same problems that bedevil her healthcare initiatives will haunt her other domestic and foreign policy initiatives (whatever they may be). I fear she'll run her administration the same way she ran the universal healthcare task force in 1993, the same way Cheney ran the energy task force in 2001: As a closed-door, secret enterprise, with no transparency, and pushed on Congress as a take-it-or-leave-it policy.

Finally, Clinton is one of the worst public speakers I've ever heard at this political level. She will come across in the debates with John McCain as shrill and wonkish and pushy. Fairly or not, I believe she will lose the debates, especially on foreign policy. Barack Obama will eat John McCain's lunch.

There is no way that Clinton can generate the general election enthusiasm that Obama will bring in November. The massive increase in Democratic voter registration across the country is not a tribute to the fiery enthusiasm folks have for a Clinton candidacy, it's because folks honestly believe that Barack Obama represents something transformative in American politics. I'm 45 years old, seen candidates come and go, but I've never seen anyone like Barack Obama, or anything like the movement his candidacy has created.

Vol Abroad said...

Sam - I'm not feeling the Obama love (obviously), but your reasons, while I disagree with some of them, are not repugnant to me. I get a little worried when I hear "shrill", but I'm not hearing "bitch" or "too ambitious" or "too power hungry".

To me, she's a fantastic speaker. I saw her in person many years ago and just fell in love (politically). I grant it's possible that she's too wonkish and that I'm too wonkish to see that. It's her depth of policy formulation that I particularly admire after 8 years of people who couldn't give a stuff about policy or process or precedent.

I never cared that people preferred Obama or Edwards or any of the other candidates. What makes me angry is the heaping sexism and misogyny that I've seen in this campaign. Attitudes that I believe Obama has actively encouraged. As a policy wonkish woman, I can only take that as a deliberate attack on ME. Why would I want to vote for that? It doesn't help that the Obama supporters who've commented thus far have either been condecending or viciously attacking my candidate, with whom I do personally identify - thus ignoring the point of the post and utterly FAILING to win me over.

I decided not to watch ManU Roma when I heard Totti wasn't playing. He's so hot.

Dan said...

I guess politics is what heathens have instead of religion, and I'm not sure an Episcopalian is gonna convince a Methodist to switch sides, even though there are many paths to God.

I realize I was less an advocate for my candidate than a critic of yours and probably did my cause no good. The reality is that I'm probably not smart enough or possessing of the rhetorical skills to persuade even the willing of the worth of my candidate. All I can say is that I feel certain that Barack Obama has the intelligence, judgment, political strength, passion, and will to advocate for a progressive domestic agenda and a pragmatic and open-minded foreign policy, and will be able to achieve these objectives more skillfully and successfully than Hillary Clinton could.

Of course, I thought Howard Dean would've been a great president (and still do) so my judgment may be a little suspect.