Clinton 2008
There’s a lot of reasons to like Senator Clinton. Anybody who can raise a kid who turned out as well as Chelsea did has got to have something going for her.
There are far better reasons for thinking she’d be the better candidate and the better president. One reason I’m going for Clinton is that while Obama spoke against religious extremism and homophobia in his church, he did it once. He didn’t stick with it. And just recently, at the first signs of opposition, he threw his minister and one of his campaign advisers under the bus. He gave a moving speech on racism, but he did it once. And when racists like Limbaugh responded by calling him a racist, he did nothing.
Sara Whitman has more of the story.
Obama hasn’t stuck with anything.
He’s a guy we’d have to keep reminding about what’s right and what’s wrong. Bill Clinton caved under right-wing pressure several times. Hillary won’t. She’ll stick with it.
Clinton has made mistakes. She’s put way too many DLC Democrats and proven losers on her campaign staff. She’s kept campaign advisers long past their use-by dates. Under pressure and sleep deprivation she’s inflated her resume. Under the same kind of pressure and sleep deprivation, McCain snapped at his wife, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.”
I’m reminded of a line about her husband — assuming the whole Kosovo thing wasn’t just swiftboating from the right-wing dirty tricks experts — “When Clinton lied, nobody died.”
Clinton has been criticized, even by friends on this blog, for her take-no-prisoners campaign . But the purpose of the primaries is that one candidate goes forward to the general election and one does not.
Clinton has the essential character to lead us to accomplish what America needs to accomplish. She doesn’t give up, even under the most concerted and vicious attacks I’ve ever seen in politics. Virtually every reporter, commentator, and talk show host in the corporate media has done his best to torpedo her campaign and torpedo her personally, and she’s kept going. Their bias is a little nicer than the right-wing haters on Fox News and WorldNet Daily, but it isn’t different. Even lefty bloggers have fired broadsides and lobbed snark bombs at her. She hasn’t given up.
She doesn’t give up. Obama hasn’t shown quite the spinelessness McCain has, but the campaign has amply shown that his character is more like Neville Chamberlain’s. Clinton’s character is more Winston Churchill’s.
If we really think we’ll win the election and overcome the post-election shrieking by he right-wing hate machine by trying to appease the haters or joining in a big group hug with people who want nothing more than to see us gone, we’re being delusional. It’s time we were done with that delusion.
We want to bring America together. But the people who’ve left America for their frightened and hateful little enclaves have to join us.
McCain, like Bush, has nothing but a pile of ill-sorted prejudices masquerading as convictions. It could be that he’s too stupid to learn and too rigid to change, but perhaps he’s just besotted with the possibility of power.
But Obama wants power too, or he wouldn’t be running. He’s charming and gives a good speech, but his record is thin. More importantly, he listens too well when it comes to tactics that might gain him power, but he doesn’t show any signs of listening to Americans. His response to Clinton’s health plan was “me too” and something that ends up being a little worse for working people and poor people.
He’s even caving in to wispy, almost imaginary pressure from the far right on the war. A president doesn’t cave in to right-wing war profiteers. A president doesn’t concede to overly political generals. He gives them orders, and if they don’t shut up and stop talking to the press, he fires them.
But actually he won’t give them orders or fire them. She will.
Clinton listens, and she also learns and thinks, and she has a firm sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. A president who has a moral center? What a shock!
We need somebody who’ll stand up for American values.
We need somebody who won’t give up.
We need Clinton.
What of those of us who are dissatisfied with all the candidates? I think a lot of the charges you level against Obama are true–although I don’t quite see the “quits on stuff” thing you do–but Hillary is just too conservative for my taste. Not to mention, she quit on her own health care initiative after botching it during her husband’s first term as president.
Come on, Hillary! Universal single-payer is not a pipe dream. If America is truly the best nation on Earth, shouldn’t we be able to handle something so…simple?
I see I’m on your blogroll. Does that mean I should actually post? I quit after my RSS feed blew up for the umpteenth time and relisted every single post I ever made, spamming the [excrement] out of all 10 people who actually subscribed.
If I were to do it again, it’d be somewhere other than blogspot, that’s for sure. Any suggestions?
April 11th, 2008 at 2:19 pmWordpress.com (nice blog host and they aren’t scared of lefties)
But my first choice would be to have you join the “staff” of Ex Cathedra Let me drop you an email after I RTFM so I can tell you the easiest way
Besides, we need more opinions around here. I think you’d be a pretty good rabble rouser. The interplay in the comments is the part of this blog I like best.
Well, apart from terrifying all the constipated old white guys who click on Bilerico and Audacia Ray.
Actually, Bil’s a nice guy. You’d have to be a whole lot older and straighter than me to be shocked by the ads on his site. Audacia on the other hand….
April 11th, 2008 at 4:55 pmI have to get this narrative thing worked out. (And then you’ll have to work out how to restore my privileges. Makes me suspicious that the whole blowing up the blog was some sort of scorched earth strategy to get rid of me….)
What I find so interesting is that you and I can be exposed to essentially the same material, and come up with such different responses to the candidates.
The impression I have of Hillary is of someone who will do anything, say anything, to get the power. After all, she’s “owed” it after standing by her man – it’s her payback.
She strikes me as exactly the Mitt Romney of the Democrats. Will you vote for me if I cry? I’ll cry! Will you vote for me if I’m against the war? I’m against the war! Is the public growing less hostile to the war? I’m for a responsible prosecution of the war! I’m for free trade, or against it – just let me know what you want to hear! What was her ridiculous outburst in NH? I listened to you and I found my voice? What does that mean? She didn’t search inside herself for her voice? She discovered her voice was an echo of the people voting next.
I find her completely unbelievable and untrustworthy as a candidate. And I’m not saying this as someone with leftover Clinton resentment.
Look at the way she’s handled the campaign – David’s blogged about it. Will dirty campaigning work? She’ll pull from the Rove playbook. Is the public responding to Obama’s more high minded style? She’ll tread more carefully.
She’s a player. Not to be trusted.
McCain gives the impression of someone struggling to maintain some principles, and I once found that idea appealing. I find it more appealing then, for example, someone who is completely unprincipled (as I think Hillary is). But, of course, Bush has let his principles guide us – so, as another friend warned me – it isn’t just being principled, it’s having sound principles. I’m not sure about McCain’s.
On the other hand, Obama strikes me as someone who is thoughtful. Someone who thinks being President is about more than being in power. Who thinks it is about trying steer the ship of state. Who will try to make intelligent choices about the complicated issues ahead of us.
But you know which Once and Future Candidate really has what I want?
This guy:
April 11th, 2008 at 5:29 pmDelighted to have your opinion, however wrong it might be.
I’ll see how to get you back on so you can be wrong in your own articles too.
But in the meantime, porn don’t download itself.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:25 pmIt was a degree in physics, but that’s close enough. Either way, I’d love to hear what sort of platform Jimmy-fuckin’-Carter would have these days. I think chances are good that I’d prefer him over either remaining Dem candidate.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:30 pmLiving as I do here in the belly of the beast that is Little Rock, I get to hear every tiresome pro-Clinton rant there is.
This, by contrast, is one of the best pro-Clinton arguments I’ve read lately. I particularly agree with your defense of her desire to win–a president who doesn’t have that is a dangerous president to set, even up to eleven.
I’m still planning to vote Democratic come fall, either way.
April 12th, 2008 at 5:43 pm“He’s a guy we’d have to keep reminding about what’s right and what’s wrong. Bill Clinton caved under right-wing pressure several times. Hillary won’t. She’ll stick with it.”
Didn’t she vote FOR the war in Iraq?
Didn’t Obama vote AGAINST it?
B~
April 14th, 2008 at 11:07 amRepublicans have defined Democrats as elitist for years, despite the fact that Democrats often are better advocates for the working class and poor, instead of pawns for corporations and the wealthy. Republicans have also rallied around a Christian faith, no matter how sincerely they practice it, and instilled fear in voters by classifying Democrats as godless, spineless, and against the American Dream. This worked most recently in the 2004 Presidential election, as Dubya managed to win most of the heartland and South, enough to offset Kerry’s dominance in the East and West.
Unfortunately, Senator Clinton has chosen to continue this Republican tradition in her own campaign, using the following recent comments by Senator Obama:
“It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Senator Obama was talking about working class voters in the Midwest, and his comments were not meant to be condescending. They were meant to explain how easy it can be for SOME people, under certain circumstances, to blame others for misfortunes that have nothing to do with themselves, or the source of the misfortunes. Taken out of context, as with most everything anybody says, they could be interpreted in an unfavorable light.
Senator Clinton has taken the bait, and once again, she is giving potential ammunition to Senator McCain against Obama for the general election. She has classified Senator Obama as “elitist” and recently said during her campaign:
“The people of faith I know don’t ‘cling’ to religion because they’re bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich,”
Is Senator Clinton saying that irreligious people are not “spiritually rich”? Is she saying that religion hasn’t ever been used in a bitter way against those who don’t believe as they do? Of course not, but once again she chose the low road, instead of the high road.
Senator Obama had a more thoughtful answer during the debate tonight, when referring to those pinheads who continue to think patriotism is only defined by whether one wears a flag pin:
“This is the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with and, once again, distracts us.”
April 16th, 2008 at 11:24 pmThe biggest problem I have with Obama, aside from my opinion that he’s not enough of a leftist for my tastes, is that he’ll get skewered exactly for the types of reasons you mention, David. The man doesn’t speak in sound bites. That’s a refreshing change, to be honest, but that makes it a couple orders of magnitude easier to take short phrases out of context. What will happen then is very similar to what happened to Mr. Gore in 2000:
…will turn into, “Barack Hussein Obama,” because we have to mention his middle name at every opportunity to associate him with the dead fellow from Baghdad in the minds of the ignorant, “thinks you’re stupid, bitter, and a racist!” And worse, it’ll fly with the media because it’s an easy thing to report and an easy thing to think for people who are looking for reasons to dislike him.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:09 amSo then what’s the answer, Justin? It seems to me that our Democracy has lost a tremendous amount of respect and dignity, both at home and abroad, because we as citizens have let political acumen trump statesmanship.
It seems silly to just give up – in fact, someone who is perhaps “enough of a leftist,” had this to say:
“The only place where democracy comes before work is in the dictionary.” Ralph Nader (1934 – )
April 17th, 2008 at 10:38 pmIncidentally, I found a couple of quotes on statesmanship that may be interesting, one of which ties in with Bob’s reference to Churchill:
“A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman of the next generation.” James Clarke (1854 – 1916)
“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.” Sir Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965)
April 17th, 2008 at 10:38 pmI guess I’m in the enviable spot of being able to say that stuff is bad without needing to offer solutions, but I never meant to imply that giving up was ever something I’d condone. In fact, quite the opposite.
If I could wave a magic wand/snap my fingers/click my heels and make it so that people are more likely to listen to reason rather than bombast, I’d do it. There’s no quick solution, though, that’s for certain, and to fix it we’d probably have to drill down all the way to the way we start to teach kids when they enter into kindergarten or preschool.
To say that things are less respectful and dignified now than it used to be, though, is rather inaccurate. Politicians speciously attacked each other’s morality and integrity all the way back to the beginning of the nation (as I mentioned in another comment, but didn’t attribute to anything, the Connecticut Courant warned in 1800 that Thomas Jefferson’s election would mean that ”murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will all be openly taught and practiced,” and if you think that’s bad, 1804 was worse on him), so I don’t see that ever changing, pretty much no matter what.
April 18th, 2008 at 8:41 amJust for the record, polls show that despite Hillary’s efforts to make hay out of “bitter,” Obama keeps closing the gap in PA.
Turns out, people don’t seem to respond to her naked opportunism.
April 18th, 2008 at 3:09 pm“Turns out, people don’t seem to respond to her naked opportunism.”
I’m sorry to say there is a tiny misogynist in me after all. As soon as I read this, I imagined the same sentence minus the last word, and giggled.
April 19th, 2008 at 10:54 pm