Thursday, May 22, 2008
Hillary Clinton=staggering chutzpah...
I make no bones about the fact that I am an Obama supporter. I have liked his message, his campaign and his ability to connect with voters from the very beginning. But there was a time when I truly didn't care which Democrat won the nomination. I was ready to happily vote for anyone with a D by their name, knowing that the alternative was so much worse, that it could not be countenanced in any way.
The last couple of weeks of this campaign though, have changed my thinking on this somewhat. It's not that I won't be voting Democratic in the fall, I will be regardless. But I can no longer legitimately say that I would be happy to vote for Hillary Clinton. The Clinton brand has been tarnished for me, both by the ephemeral nature of her core principles and the way she has run her campaign.
Her gas tax suspension was a complete and obvious pander that no expert thought would make any difference. Her shifts on NAFTA and other issues were clearly tailored to the primary of the week. Her only constancy has been her Iraq vote - and that's the one area I disagree with her on the most.
However it's really her campaign tactics that have driven me and many others up the wall. Despite her numerous policy shifts, which have not been documented to nearly the degree which Kerry's were in '04, she has felt the need to cry out that she is the victim of sexist treatment by the media. In addition her usurpation of Republican dogwhistle tactics on race has dragged the tenor of the campaign to an appalling low. Her latest gambit - that an arcane political dispute over complex rules is somehow the moral equivalent of the civil rights movement and women's suffrage is so ridiculous on its face that one does have to, however reluctantly, admire her ability to deliver it without giggling. But that is the only thing admirable about it. It only serves to further inflame passions in Florida and Michigan, and will not do anything to sway the Rules Committee or the remaining SD's - who are her real target audience.
Additionally it's hard to see what she hopes to accomplish here, other than the election of a McCain administration. There is no MI/FL seating arrangement that puts HRC at an advantage over Obama in pledged delegates. In the most generous (for her) arrangement, she can hold Obama back from the absolute majority, but in each and every case he still maintains a heavy plurality in pledged delegates. There is little to be gained and potentially much to be lost in the direction that this campaign is moving. Instead of trying to help bring the party together β Election Day is nearly 24 weeks away β Clinton went to Florida yesterday to argue that if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, his nomination will be illegitimate. And if the DNC plays by the rules Clinton used to support, itβs guilty of vote-suppression β comparable to slavery, Jim Crow, and Zimbabwe. Yes, Zimbabwe. Shame on her, she knows better.
Not moral equivalents
The last couple of weeks of this campaign though, have changed my thinking on this somewhat. It's not that I won't be voting Democratic in the fall, I will be regardless. But I can no longer legitimately say that I would be happy to vote for Hillary Clinton. The Clinton brand has been tarnished for me, both by the ephemeral nature of her core principles and the way she has run her campaign.
Her gas tax suspension was a complete and obvious pander that no expert thought would make any difference. Her shifts on NAFTA and other issues were clearly tailored to the primary of the week. Her only constancy has been her Iraq vote - and that's the one area I disagree with her on the most.
However it's really her campaign tactics that have driven me and many others up the wall. Despite her numerous policy shifts, which have not been documented to nearly the degree which Kerry's were in '04, she has felt the need to cry out that she is the victim of sexist treatment by the media. In addition her usurpation of Republican dogwhistle tactics on race has dragged the tenor of the campaign to an appalling low. Her latest gambit - that an arcane political dispute over complex rules is somehow the moral equivalent of the civil rights movement and women's suffrage is so ridiculous on its face that one does have to, however reluctantly, admire her ability to deliver it without giggling. But that is the only thing admirable about it. It only serves to further inflame passions in Florida and Michigan, and will not do anything to sway the Rules Committee or the remaining SD's - who are her real target audience.
Additionally it's hard to see what she hopes to accomplish here, other than the election of a McCain administration. There is no MI/FL seating arrangement that puts HRC at an advantage over Obama in pledged delegates. In the most generous (for her) arrangement, she can hold Obama back from the absolute majority, but in each and every case he still maintains a heavy plurality in pledged delegates. There is little to be gained and potentially much to be lost in the direction that this campaign is moving. Instead of trying to help bring the party together β Election Day is nearly 24 weeks away β Clinton went to Florida yesterday to argue that if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, his nomination will be illegitimate. And if the DNC plays by the rules Clinton used to support, itβs guilty of vote-suppression β comparable to slavery, Jim Crow, and Zimbabwe. Yes, Zimbabwe. Shame on her, she knows better.
Not moral equivalents
