I want to speak directly to supporters of Hillary Clinton. No, not speak... plead.
I remember the last time I wanted to reach out and shake a bunch of fellow progressives. It was back in 2000 when Ralph Nader was running for President. A lot of what Ralph was saying was true and attractive to long-suffering progessive voters. Meanwhile, Al Gore, had picked the worst possible moment in history to have an identity crisis and was proving to be a disappointment as a candidate -- to say the least.
Nevertheless many of us worried that Ralph could sap just enough votes from Gore to toss the election to Bush. And, with a little help from the Supremes, that's precisely what happened.
I have that same fear again. If McCain ends up the GOP candidate, rather than the more clearly flawed Romeny or Giuliani, Hillary Clinton will not sashay to the coronation she had once envisioned. Instead her built-in high negatives will drive many independents back into the GOP camp and she will re-energize a currently dispirited GOP rank and file.
That's all it would take to tip the "Red state/Blue state" calculus to a McCain victory next November. And if that happens, and we end up with another Republican in the White House a year from January, the blame for that will lay directly in the laps of those of you who have been hypnotized into making Hillary the Democratic party nominee. Yes it will. And then, like those Nader voters of 2000 your only comfort will be your self-serving belief that, "at least I did the right thing," even if contributed to the wrong outcome.
If that does not convince you that Hillary is a bad bet, ask yourself the following question:
What serious person would serve as Vice President in a "Billary" administration?
I keep hearing Hillary supporters suggesting that a dream ticket would be a Hillary/Obama or Hillary/Edwards ticket. What are you guys smoking? Edwards and Obama are serious fellas. Neither would want to serve four years as window-dressing while Hillary and her defacto VP, Bill, run the country from the White House family quarters.
Can you imagine that? Try. Because if you can get your heads around that one you will understand that Hillary Clinton is the worst possible of choices. Already we are seeing hints of the spousal dynamic that would play out if Hillary and Bill end up back in the White House. It will be four years of Bill and Hillary against -- everyone else, including members of their own party.
Just last week both Rahm Emanuel and James Carville -- both longtime Clinton loyalists, got into shouting matches with Bill over his bellicose defense of Hillary. Reportedly each man told Bill, in no uncertain terms, that he was splitting the party, alienating black voters and scaring the hell out of wavering white voters.
To paraphrase Bill's response, according to reports, "Bite me! Mind your own damn business."
Well, this IS your business. It's all our business. We've just paid a staggering price for ignoring these same warning signs eight years ago. Are Democrats really going to make that mistake again?
I have warned from the start that there are only two possible outcomes if Hillary Clinton becomes the nominee of her party:campaign for President: She could lose, or she could win. Either outcome would thrust our already battered and exhausted nation into another four years of division and animus -- not to mention reruns of the "As The Clinton's Turn," spousal soap opera.
So, Hillary Supporters, think again. The nation would move forward under a President John Edwards. And the nation would be elevated by a President Obama. But a President Hillary Clinton would mean trading divisive George W. Bush for an equally division Hillary R. Clinton.It would mean four more years of Washington food fights. Four more years of the now all-too familiar,"your-mother's-so-fat" levels of debate. And four years of watching Hillary act like Margaret Thatcher on the world stage while channeling Eleanor Roosevelt here at home -- a schizophrenic balancing act even a shape-shifter like Hillary Clinton won't be able to pull off.
But so far that argument has not seemed to dissuade Hillary's supporters. So let me just leave you with this little mental exercise:
Stephen Pizzo has been published everywhere from The New York Times to Mother Jones magazine. His book, Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, was nominated for a Pulitzer.
Hlllary and her machine work for GOP, always were. That's why they get money. Their goal is to make the Demparty an 'Opposition of His majesty'. Hillary does all she can for the GOP candidate to win no matter who. That's her job. They all have jobs now.
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Mark Sashine (44 articles, 19 quicklinks, 228 diaries, 3265 comments)
on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 1:39:10 PM
John Edwards is taking away votes. He's making it easier for Hillary to win and easier for Obama to lose. He's also been taking away votes from Dennis Kucinich.
Do you buy that logic? Probably not, which is why the logic on Nader has and never will make sense. Nobody's entitled to votes.
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Kevin Gosztola (172 articles, 88 quicklinks, 62 diaries, 705 comments)
on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 2:00:25 PM
A strong Independent candidate like Nader runs and does what he did in 2000, which people are still up in arms about failing to see the faulty logic of their reasoning. I hope an Independent candidate or Green Party candidate gets to mobilize the masses upset by the spineless Dems and dogmatic ignorant "family values" Republicans. I hope they turn to the third choice instead of just not voting at all. I hope they, as Dems will says, "give" America what it deserves---another Republican presidency---by "taking away votes."
Americans have not learned and so the lesson, I'm afraid, may have to continue until we realize how to get on the path to significant change.
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Kevin Gosztola (172 articles, 88 quicklinks, 62 diaries, 705 comments)
on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 1:59:55 PM
I would have to consider third party candidates, even as a Democratic precinct committeeman. I object to her lust for power and her ambition that much.
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John Sanchez Jr. (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 897 comments)
on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 8:58:27 AM
It's more than wishful thinking, to contemplate a brokered convention. There are plenty of skeletons in the Clinton closet to put a monkey wrench in their well-oiled machine. The narrative of 20 years from Bush to Clinton to Bush and then Clinton? To project delegate count, image enhancement, world conditions, voter pain--any and all of those things more than a day forward is conjecture. McCain could be a great selection from Democrats' perspective. Who wants an old man willing to send young men off to the horrors? If Republicans insist, let them beware. Democrats are more for cooling the flames of conflict. And we have plenty of chances to fan Hillary's militaristic side. Money does not buy votes. Women do not hold the key to the kingdom. They had some advantage when they were billed as the kinder gentler gender. Hillary the Amazon is not a pretty picture, in pink or otherwise.
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Margaret Bassett (19 articles, 1113 quicklinks, 24 diaries, 615 comments)
on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 1:02:30 PM
I am disgusted by this whole approach to political gamemanship, selecting the candidate you will vote for on the basis of calculating whether she or he can win and what candidate from the other party might win if he or she wins the nomination, instead of FIRST deciding whether to support a candidate on the basis of her or his stand on the issues and THEN considering electibility as a SECONDARY CONSIDERATION in chosing between candidate who are may be good candidates.
I agree with kevin Gosztola; I am going to vote for a Green Party candidate this year as I did in 2000 and 2004. Those rabid liberals who accuse the Greens of electing Bush ignore the fact that Gore won both the popular and electoral vote and would have been President if the Supreme Injustices had not halted the vote counting and appointed Bush. It also ignores the fact that if the Rethugs had not systematically disenfranchised eligible African American voters in Florida, Gore would have received around 90,000 additional votes in Florida, a number which would have dwarfed the few hundred vote margin Bush received after the black robed, Neanderderthal buffons on the Supreme Court ordered the vote counting halted and appointed Bush. It also ignores the fact that the Repugnantcans would have simply stolen more votes if the official vote count had favored Gore.
But more importantly, it is difficult to understand how anyone can think it is not a waste of time and energy to work on electing Democrats after the electorate DID elect them to a majority in Congress in 2006 and Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table as her first act as the new speaker. It has always been thus since at least as far back as the 1940's when the majority of Democrats voted for the Taft Hartley Act. Can't you see that the lesser evil crumbs we get by electing Democrats will never be enough to justify the time and effort we put in. Since he results of electing Democrats will never be enough above zero to justify the effort, working to build a third party is the only alternative we have left. In spite of all the people who argue that a third party cannot win under the winner take all elections in the United States, and although it will take time to build up a third party to the point where it can displace one of the two corporate parties, a course of action that does not promise immediate gratification is still better than a course of action that will NEVER produce significant progress.