Fine

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Fine.

Clinton’s probably going to wind up getting the nomination through sheer determination. Florida and Michigan will hold revotes, and she’ll win them both, as well as Pennsylvania. Even if she doesn’t wind up with a delegate lead, she could wind up with a popular vote lead, and then she’ll convince the superdelegates to vote for her, arguing that she’d be a stronger nominee.

She’ll win that argument because as the weeks roll on, she’ll show that she’s right. Obama is beginning to run on fumes. This Rezko and Canada/NAFTA crap, real or not, caught him off guard. After the Clintons had to endure years of the Whitewater non-scandal, it’s breathtakingly hypocritical and cynical of them to push the Rezko thing. But they know how to get people talking about these things, and it adds to the perception that Obama hasn’t been fully vetted, even if these are ginned-up controversies. It’s meta-politics: look at all the problems you’re going to run into if you select Obama as your nominee.

As much as she pisses me off, Clinton seems to know how to go into attack mode. Obama doesn’t. God help us if we have another John Kerry who disdains attack politics and then gets clobbered by the Republican machine.

That 3 a.m. ad was good, because it played on fear and drew contrasts with Obama, and yet it wasn’t overtly negative. Obama needs to do something similar – some sort of hybrid ad. Of course, if he does that, he sullies his image, which is all he has going for him.

Clinton’s team, by its own actions, has shown the failure of Obama’s philosophy. Her team has shown that we can never reach consensus. Consensus requires cooperation from both sides, and if one side won’t cooperate, you’ve failed. Obama’s philosophy is based on the notion that the people are tired of the old politics and want change. But if majorities are falling for Clinton’s crap, then Obama’s philosophy is wrong.

We can never get past the old politics because the old politics is politics. The new politics is not actually politics. And democracy requires politics.

I feel personally wounded by all this. All my life, people have told me that I’m not practical, that I just don’t understand how the world works, that I’m naive. Or maybe it was just my parents who told me that. I wasted my law degree, I didn’t go for the high-paying job, et cetera. This just proves that people like my dad are right, that I’m an idiot, that I have no business being here.

I’m exaggerating a bit, but that’s how it makes me feel: that you people who support Hillary are the smart ones, and that I’m a fool. Fine. I get it. Enjoy your candidate, revel in her victory, and I’ll just sit back here in my stupidity, because really, I’m just too dumb to know any better, aren’t I?

15 thoughts on “Fine”

  1. I can empathize with you — this whole campaign has already become terribly annoying and I wish it could just end. The Republicans have got their candidate settled — why can’t the Democrats?

    You’re not stupid for backing Obama. He may even win. The Hillary/Barack decision is really a win-win, and those who support Hillary weren’t feeling all that confident until last night. Even now, it’s still up in the air.

    What really bothers me is the amount of energy and time being wasted on intra-party competition. What is needed is, as you say, consensus. Decide on the candidate and then devote all your energies toward advance that candidate and his/her agenda. The party should be united and have the discipline to support the collective decision — even if one previously disagreed with it — once the party has made up its mind.

    Hillary, if she wins the nomination, should not be someone else’s candidate. If she is nominated, she should be all our candidates — because honestly, are we going to support McCain and end up with a conservative majority on the Supreme Court?

    I have had a hard time making up my mind between them and I have to say that I favor Hillary — but I would be just as happy with Obama and whomever is nominated will get my full and active support.

    Hang in there. It’s still going to be a long, bumpy, nausea-inducing ride…

  2. I have lost the admiration I once had for Hillary Clinton. I watched the ridiculous 3 AM advertisement and wonder why anyone would be sucked in by such bullshit. I dread the next few months.If she manages to get the Democratic nomination, the likelihood that she will win is small.

  3. I have long been a huge fan of the Clintons; Should she win our Party’s nomination, just wait and see how she handles the likes of McCain.

    She the toughest politician we’ve seen since Nixon, maybe longer, and just as dynamic; She will re-invent a number of Washington institutions (e.g., the military, big-biz-drug, healthcare, and energy-policy — oh, and our relationship with the under-industrialized American states). Just wait.

    rob@egoz.org

  4. I think it’s kind of stupid to hold out any sort of hope that America will ever do the right thing again.

    We’re dying. Every last flaw in our version of democracy and capitalism has been exploited to the point where it’s become a feedback loop that can’t be stopped. Republicans destroy public education, reinforcing the stupidity that causes them to be re-elected. Our electoral process is a disaster, but the only people in a position to change it are the only people who benefit from it. No problem is fixable, and it’s only going to get worse.

    If I weren’t too much of a lazy American to have picked up a foreign language, I’d be planning to leave. No, scratch that–the only worse place than America to be is somewhere else, because one of the things the idiots respond to is senseless violence.

    I yet have a smirk on my face as I type this, because I predicted disaster the night of New Hampshire and I admit it’s gratifying for people to finally realize that I was right.

  5. I quoted you and linked back to your website on my LiveJournal because you said exactly everything that I wanted to. If Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, I seriously don’t know who I’m going vote for in November.

  6. A president is only around for four or eight years.

    Supreme Court justices sit for decades, until retirement or death.

    The next president may very well get to appoint at least 1 and maybe 2 or 3 justices.

    We can’t risk any more Robertses or Alitos. Therefore, whomever the Democrats nominates needs our absolute support.

  7. Here’s the thing, and it’s being played up to varying degrees in the blogsophere and media.
    Hillary Clinton’s campaign is not serving her well in how they’re assaulting Obama, nor is it being well-served in how they’re letting the media portray her.
    Obama’s campaign is not serving him well in how they’ve let Clinton paint him into a corner, showing that their politics-as-usual spiel works, but only until politics-as-usual start going at him. To think that won’t happen in the general IS naive, although supporting him isn’t.
    Now, Clinton IS being served well because she doesn’t sit back and wait for them to come at her, passively reacting to everything and hoping to charm her way through things like Obama. Could that be the difference? Maybe. I will say that, if Clinton’s teensy attacks on him are what is actually turning the tide (she’s now over him in the national poll again and many estimates do point that, while she might not overtake his delegate lead, revotes in Michigan and Florida could handily deliver her the popular vote AND a “do we really want another Gore/Bush decision” game to play), then he’d be a HORRIBLE candidate in the general.
    HOWEVER! Here’s something Obama’s campaign is doing really well: energizing people. And it’s not just his supporters he’s energizing. He’s energizing Clinton’s supporters as well. How else can he turn out 20,000 supporters at a rally in Texas and still lose his amazing voter turnout in the primary to an even more amazing turnout on hers? I admit over and over his pentecostal tent revival demeanor is what weighs most negatively on me, but it is serving a very important purpose, which is to engage people in politics.
    Also, here’s the thing: an Obama win doesn’t necessarily lead to Clinton on the ticket (minus backroom shenanigans to secure her place). Clinton has NO choice but to choose Obama if she wins the nomination. in the end, the only reason we won’t be pulling the lever for Obama in some fashion in November will be by his ultimate choice.

  8. Wow. So much drama, both in the post and in the comments. I think y’all should remember a few things.

    The 3/4 wins were a big deal for Senator Clinton, but Senator Obama still has the best shot at winning the nomination.

    If either of these candidates wasn’t running, you’d likely be pretty happy about supporting the other. For most people deciding which candidate to support was a difficult decision, and when you’ve wrestled over something, you invest more in the outcome.

    If Senator Obama gets the nomination, it’s really much better that he starts dealing with negative attention from other candidates and the media now. He has plenty of time to recover from mistakes that he makes in the primary. The same mistakes in the general could be a lot costlier. The primary is like having training wheels.

    This has, so far, been an extremely genial primary. What is being called negative campaigning and vicious attacks and OMG!I-could-never-vote-for-that-she-devil-after-she-did-that is a relatively mild version of politics as usual.

    All Democrats need to get over this victim mentality. This is especially true for Democrats under 35 who have known mostly defeat after defeat. And it’s more especially true for gay Democrats who are used to being victimized in other ways. Defeat is not inevitable. Victory is entirely possible with either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama. Get used to that idea and prepare to work for it. Talk about how the nation is dying and other similar hyperbole is drama queen claptrap that we can ill afford.

  9. I liked some of the recent Freakonomics blog six-word sayings about the US. The winner was: “Our Worst Critics Prefer to Stay”. Runner-ups were “You Should See the Other Guy” and “The Most Gentle Empire So Far.”

    There’s a reason more people want to come here than anywhere else, and that we let in more people than anywhere else.

  10. We don’t need another Kerry. I agree with that completely.

    We need a fighter. If Obama can’t fight Hillary he never had a chance of winning the general election anyway.

    Hillary may have found her voice in New Hampshire, but it’s starting to look like Obama may have found his balls post-Texas. If he has found them and he gets the nomination as a result, Hillary’s done him and the party a huge favor.

  11. Don’t feel bad, when I was younger, I thought idealistically like yourself. I feel for Obama-like Kumbaya speeches too. Silly me. That never works. So I’ve learned. Republicans can eat up and spit out people like Obama, all the while tapping their toes under stalls. We “the people” need to take back the government. This calls for an attack dog – Hillary. Not some “drink my Kumbaya Kool-Aid and let’s all feel the love” type – Obama. Sadly, I don’t believe in him. Not for an inch.

    And even sadder. If he gets the nomination, I believe we’ll have McCain as our “grandpa-Munster” President. That’s a sad speculation, but I believe this to be true.

    If Obama gets the nomination, I can promise I won’t vote McCain; but I’m not sure I’ll Obam either….third party anyone?

  13. If Obama gets the nomination, I can promise I won’t vote McCain; but I’m not sure I’ll Obam either

    Ryan: When voting, I think it’s necessarily to pretend that your vote will be the deciding one. So it’s a question of whether you’d prefer President McCain or President Obama. If your not-voting put McCain over the edge, would you be happy with that?

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