I drank some Obama Kool-Aid when I heard him speak today. It tasted good to me for the first time. I've been buying into all of the party unity stuff. This community has been telling everyone that it was over since February. I actually agree with that. But at the same time, the petty Napoleon complex of some of the people here...
...it's like you can't even be glad you won. Here are some of the diary titles that are on the the list right now.
The Clinton Intervention [with coda] <-- She's crazy.</p>
Please make that 17,999,999 <-- She's a liar.</p>
DIE HARD CLINTON SUPPORTS, LISTEN UP! <-- You aren't real Democrats and will stab us in the back</p>
I screamed at my television set. There was Keith Olbermann, the one beacon of truth in this whole mess, talking on the top of the screen as the vote and delegate totals appeared on the bottom. It was so reassuring seeing the total number of delegate, the committed ones, the super delegate counts, and then.......
Let's focus on the logical core of Hillary Clinton's argument: "Primary contests used to last a lot longer which would mean that this primary's length is typical, so there's no reason for the party to put pressure on her to drop out. So I collected the lengths of the previous primaries and compared them to this year.
The average length of the contested primaries between 1980 and 2004 is 3.3 months, which we're well past already. More than that, this year's primary has already run longer than any since the disaster in 1980.
Most primaries have been much shorter, including both of Bill Clinton's. So they didn't "run longer" - they were shorter than this primary, which promises to be the longest primary in my political lifetime (or hers). And all of the relatively long primaries (i.e. contested to the convention) were disasters for the Democrats.
This doesn't seem like much of an argument in favor of continuing her run.
In yesterday's diary I opined that it was time to laugh Hillary off the national stage. Now, I often personalize my titles and what I observed in the body of the diary (which not all people read carefully) was that in reality the laughter had already begun. From the news media to Saturday Night Live to the voters, the gales of derisive laughter were beginning to pursue this doomed, self-entitled campaign from the national stage. One commenter mentioned that Hillary was seeking a graceful exit. To which I replied that that option had already long since passed.
Several commenters, however, retorted that I should not be so cruel as to laugh, since that would alienate Hillary voters who would then rush out and vote for McCain.
A reporter for Al Jazeera travelled to rural Kentucky and found voters are not ready to vote for a black candidate, in the primaries or in the fall. The downtrodden people of the region fear competition with a fellow economic underclass plus retribution for historical wrongs.
First, congratulations to Senator Barack Obama and his family for an amazing fight. Before all of America Obama has proved himself to be the candidate capable of leading America in the 21st Century. That said congratulations also go out to Senator Hillary Clinton for helping make this the most exciting primary of my lifetime. As tenacious an opponent as she was though she was no match for the historical groundswell of support organized by the Obama team. That doesn't make her any less of a badass.
In a speech to hundreds of her supporters at a retirement home today in Boca Raton, Florida, Hillary Clinton invoked the electoral scandal of Florida in 2000 as part of her last-ditch quest to win the Democratic nomination. (The votes in Florida and Michigan were disqualified because both states violated DNC rules by moving their primary contests to the head of the schedule without permission from the national party organization.)
"We believe the popular vote is the truest expression of your will. We believe it today just as we believed it back in 2000 when, right here in Florida, you learned the hard way what happens when your votes aren't counted and a candidate with fewer votes is declared the winner," Clinton told a crowd at retirement home in Boca Raton. "The lesson of 2000 here in Florida is crystal clear: if any votes aren't counted, the will of the people isn't realized and our democracy is diminished."
I was driving back to my hometown (Henderson) from Louisville this evening. My girlfriend and I were listening to NPR and waiting for the polls to close. I remarked, "We're going to get a blackeye tonight."
As a constituent of Virginia, and as one of the many voters who helped put Barack Obama over the top here in Virginia, I ask you from the bottom of my heart, when you go on NBC's Meet The Press today, tell that irascible Russert that you whole-heartedly endorse Barack Obama, and that you're going to be out on the stump for him working to convince those blue-collar voters of Appalachia that, "He's the one to get it done!" Look, I know its easy to play it safe...and sometimes, we just want to let others do for us, what we really should do ourself. You're Born Fightin', so help us, the Democratic Party, stop fighting. Only a true warrior like yourself can really help make this process slow down at a rapid pace. So Senator Webb, if Russert asks a certain question about who you're going to support, don't be coy...be BOLD!
Now that the primary campaign is almost all but over, the post-mortems and finger-pointing have begun. Just how did Hillary Clinton blow it so badly? There's a new article in The New Republic which adds some insight.
I want my country back and thanks to the Daily Kos I see that Democrats are fighting to make that happen. I wasn't surprised to discover that Americans voted George Bush into office for his first disastrous term despite the controversy around the election results. It was when he was voted in for a second time that I really thought my country was headed towards some of the worst times. Clearly we have been bullied and misled into going a long way down that road in the wrong direction. Now thanks to a wave of Democratic victories across the country that only seems to be building there is hope that better times are ahead. Props to the Daily Kos below.
The United States is facing a reckoning with racism and an Obama run for the White House is hastening that movement. America is ready for it. Racism is a dead horse. Although, like many diseases, it can not be fully eradicated we can inoculate ourselves and our children against it to limit those that are made sick by it. In that vein I have hope that during an Obama Presidency, possibly during a second term, Obama would offer an apology for slavery on behalf of the United States.
For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.
I'm on my way to work, so I don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to share a few nuggets I heard this morning. In the spirit of marital compromise, I suffered through Morning Joe with my husband today (thankfully, no Joe). As a reward for having to look at and listen to Pat Buchanan, I heard a few interesting tidbits from Andrea Mitchell.
Lots of buzz lately about the possibility of Obama and Clinton brokering a deal where he helps her pay off her $25 million in campaign debt...and, lots of backlash from Obama fans who say they didn't donate to him only so the money could end up in HRC's campaign.
Well, I'm here to say: Hillary, I'll give you $100 (my biggest single campaign donation ever) if you go away.
Remember Hillary's main argument for staying in the race--that Obama can't win working-class white voters? Well, after looking at some demographics, that argument could go up in smoke come May 20.
May 20, as you all know, is the date of Oregon's primary. Most polls show Obama beating Hillary like a rented mule. So imagine my surprise when I checked out Oregon's demographics on Wikipedia ... as of 2005, Oregon is 92.3 percent white and only 3 percent black. By comparison, West Virginia is 96 percent white and 3 percent black.
I thought for sure that Oregon would be at least 15-20 percent black, if only because of the Portland-Eugene axis (which casts something like 70 percent of Oregon's vote). Now put that together with Obama's victory in 91 percent white Wisconsin. That sucking sound you hear is Hillary's one claim to staying in the race rapidly deflating.
I am not one of those anti-Clinton Obama supporters. I have always liked the Clintons. My husband, who was much more political than I, was a huge Bill Clinton supporter. We have not always supported DEMS, but believe that they are the party of the people. Now, a lot of things have been said and done during this primary season that have caused others (mostly my relatives) to question my ability to "like" Hillary, even though I support Obama. My relatives do not understand how after the comments in South Carolina and the whole "I-have-experience-McCain-has-experience-Obama-has-a-speech"-gate, I can still be okay with everything. I do not believe that either Bill or Hillary have a racist bone in their bodies. But, I believe that their most tragic flaw is their inability to understand when they are crossing the line. And they have done it again.
We’ve heard a lot of talk from various sources this primary season about what this primary fight is about: race, demographics, generational shifts, identity politics, elitism, anti-intellectualism, arugula and beer (if you buy Newsweek’s disappointingly sophomoric take on things) and so forth. And there’s no doubt that each of these factors (well ... maybe not arugula and beer, but ....) has played a role in how things have played themselves out over the past few months.
But, as I see it, now that this primary season is almost finished, I think that most, if not all, of these factors are really secondary symptoms of the main difference we have been fighting about, rather than the fundamental difference. As I see it, the fundamental difference that lies at the core of the rather bitter (oops, did I use that word?) campaign this year is a sharp contrasting difference of perspective in terms of the appropriate political strategy for our party in national elections.
Is there a silver lining in this gray cloud that seems to have settled over the Democratic Primary? Is there some way to make Lemonade? What is the best way to view the Clinton candidacy for this fall's general election? I have some notions for you to consider...
