The Only Fair Thing...

Okay. So the thing that actually got me posting again:

I was watching Lou Dobbs a little while ago and his stand-in was talking to a Hillary supporter and the obvious question got asked:

What the hell is she doing still in this race? (I'm paraphrasing here)

The surrogate gave the obvious, but obviously disingenuous response:

Hillary's path to victory is a three-prong attack. 1) There are still millions of people who haven't voted. Let's give those guys a chance to voice themselves, or give those guys a voice to chance themselves, or whatever. 2) Hillary's winning the constituency that the democrats will need in November. 3) Michigan and Florida, nanny nanny boo boo. (still paraphrasing)

Loyal readers... er... reader... er, hey dude who just happened by: This is ridiculous. Especially the last one, but I'll take these in order.

1) The Hillary camp has since the beginning (or at least since she started losing) been saying: Let's see what the guys who haven't voted have to say. This is just Clintonspeak for "Let's see if the Enquirer can find (or fabricate--we don't care) some evidence that Obama is actually from another planet and that he's here to conquer the earth, starting with America, and then to enslave and eat us all."

Folks: It ain't gonna happen. Remember when she was the candidate of inevitability? Funny how you didn't hear much from the Hillary camp about waiting till all the results are in back then. If she'd had her way, she'd have been given the nomination last August. But let's get real. Obama's our guy. Reverend Wright and all, we love the guy (or at least about 52 percent of us do) and he's gonna be the nominee. Short of his getting struck (God-forbid) by a bolt of lightning, that's the reality of the situation. And if he does get struck by a bolt of lightning, much like Don Corleone, I'm going to blame some of the people in this room. Er.. In this blog. I'm gonna blame some of the... Ah, screw it, you know what I mean.

I'm not saying "who cares about what the people in West Virginia think" although I don't much care what they think (since they're almost all Republicans for the love of God). I'm saying: this is the way primaries go, Hill. At the beginning, when no one's voted, you have to wait and see. In the middle when there's a front runner, you may have to wait a little longer. When the math gets impossible for the guy who's behind, the damned race is over. This race is over. If you don't believe me, ask George McGovern. Ask Dianne Feinstein. When even your oldest friends start jumping ship, it's over. And when it's over, it's time to throw in the towel, be the bigger guy and start bringing the party back together. I went to bed last night thinking that's what we were going to see this morning. Didn't everybody else? Didn't Hillary's speech in Indiana sound like a concession? Didn't everybody else think we were going to see her start setting the stage for the taking of that final bow?

Instead we get more of the same. A virtual promise that she's going to stay on the attack. That she's going to keep going after Obama with everything she's got. That she's going to get, if anything, nastier as she gets closer to the inevitable and she gets more and more desperate as a result. A promise, in short, that she's going to do what she can to destroy the party's nominee for the sake of a 0.0 percent chance of taking the nomination away from him.

And we wonder why we lose elections.

Republicans don't do stupid crap like that. You don't see Huckabee standing around waiting until McCain gets that magic num... Okay, bad example.

Buh-dum-pum-ching! I'm here all week!

But seriously folks, when Huckabee did it, McCain was so far ahead it didn't matter. And Huckabee (God love him) did with a little bit of class. He didn't go balls-out attack on McCain hoping to damage him so much he couldn't recover from it in the general election. You know who did that? George Bush. The only difference between what Hillary's doing to Obama right now and what Bush did to McCain in 2000 is that Bush still had a chance to win the nomination. Frankly, I don't want another George Bush in the White House. I don't want him if his name's John McCain and I don't want him if his name's Hillary Clinton.

We desperately need to beat McCain because we can't afford another four years of Bush's policies.

We desperately need to beat Clinton because we can't afford another four years of his politics. It's time to get past the politics of division and backstabbing. It's time to say no to a candidate who will do anything to get us to say yes to her.

So: Millions of votes left to be counted? What about Kentucky and West Virginia? What about them?! What about the millions of people who have voted? What about the 700+ thousand more who voted for Obama? The argument that we need to wait to the end and count every vote rings a little hollow from someone who's only hope of victory is that the superdelegates will overturn the will of the people and steal the nomination for her.

2) Yes, yes... Hillary's doing better than Barack at getting the rural, white blue collar vote. Hillary tells us Barack just can't get that constituency. You know who else has trouble getting that constituency? EVERY DEMOCRAT FOR THE LAST THREE DECADES, that's who. Every one, except Hillary Clinton, at least. And do you know why? Because she is, at least lately, running as a Republican. Raise your hand if you're under any illusions that she'll get those guys when her rival is McCain, rather than Obama. Raise your hand if you think she'll win the rural, white working class states like West Virginia and Kentucky in November. Raise your hand if you've been living under a rock since 1976.

But let's talk about constituencies that people can't get. Obama has some trouble getting people who are, for all intents and purposes, Republicans in sheep's clothing. Who does Hillary have trouble getting? Black voters (25% of the Democratic party and an absolute must-have for any serious Democratic candidate) are now turning out for her in whopping single digits. Who else isn't she getting? College-educated white voters. Liberal voters. Raise your hand if you think a Democrat can win without them.

But, to be fair, raise your hand if you think those groups are going to go McCain in 2008. Of course they're not. They're democrats. And the same goes for most of the people voting for Hillary. Let's give those guys a little credit, shall we? Sure, some of them might vote McCain. Some of them might not vote at all. But this year, with the economy we've got, and the war (sorry, wars) we've got, and the unbelievable 28% percent approval rating of the sitting president... Come on. Most of those people are going to vote and they're going to vote for Obama.

And if they don't, who cares? Yeah, I said it. Who. Cares. Do we really think that a candidate who's gotten more votes in a Democratic primary than any Democratic candidate in the history of the Democratic party isn't going to pick up a few people here and there who aren't in the Democratic base? Let's get serious. My mother (a conservative's conservative) has told me that he's got the most character of all three candidates (her own included). She may not vote for him, but she's never gonna vote for a democrat. If even people who are diametrically opposed to him on virtually every issue have that much respect for him, do we really think he can't win a few likely Republicans who are looking for a little change this year?

Hillary wants us to ask ourselves if he can win, when the real question is: Is it even possible that he'll lose? Again I say: Bolt of lightning. That's the only thing keeping him out of the White House this year.

And, case in point, let me direct your attention to the last debate.
Moderator: Can he win? (still paraphrasing)
Sen. Clinton: Yes. Yes. Yes. (this one's an actual quote)

Hill: We're not buying it anymore.

3) This is my favorite one. Remember back in January when everybody said Michigan and Florida couldn't count? Remember when Hillary was one of those people?

When asked how Hillary gets to the Convention, this surrogate of hers said we have to count Michigan and Florida. That of course prompted the only sane response in anybody's head: Florida's bad enough, since nobody campaigned there, but surely you can't mean we should count Michigan where she was the only person on the ballot? People, staunch democrats, voted in the Republican primaries in those states because their votes wouldn't count in the Democrat primaries and, oh yeah, SHE WAS THE ONLY PERSON ON THE BALLOT IN MICHIGAN. That's not an election.

The response: (still paraphrasing, but this is pretty close to what was said) They are elections. Votes were cast. Those votes were certified by the secretary of state (or whatever) in Michigan. We have to count those votes as is. It's the only fair thing to do.

Okay. Dramatic pause to let that soak in.

Whistling...

Twiddling thumbs...

ARE YOU FRACKIN’ KIDDING ME?!

That's the least fair thing to do. She ran against NOBODY and only won by ten points and you want to give her that whole state? You want to tell us that that's fair? She barely made double digits against the proverbial yellow dog and you want us to call that a win for her? You seriously think you have any chance of convincing us that it’s fair to seat those delegates when Obama wasn’t even on the Ballot? When he wasn’t on the ballot because he followed the rules? You’ve got to be kidding.

But you’re not, are you? You’re totally serious. And that’s what’s scary. I can’t tell if she thinks we’re just morons, who won’t notice the guy behind the curtain, or if she honestly thinks we’re as corrupt as this idea is. She tells us its about not disenfranchising people she was pleased as punch to disenfranchise right up until she realized she needed them to win. She tells us it’s about doing the right thing. It’s funny how doing the right thing only seems to matter to her when it’s advantage Hillary. Here’s a little comparison of two Hillary camp positions to illustrate that point:

Superdelegates v. Michigan

We’ve talked about Michigan already, so I’ll just touch it real quick. Hillary wants to count the votes despite the fact that the rules say she can’t. We’ve got to count those votes, and screw the rules, Hillary says.

Hillary 1; Rules 0.

What about the superdelegates discussion. Where does she stand on the rules there? She tells us that the superdelegates have the power to go whichever way they want to go and that the rules give them that power and that Barack wants to change the rules mid stream. So…

Rules 1; Hillary 2…? Hrmm… How do we tally this?

She’s a master at defining the debate. I’ll give her that. But it’s just sleight of hand. On the one hand she says, we can’t follow the rules because it hurts people. And on the other hand she says, and speaking of not following the rules, that great “I’m gonna follow the rules” guy Obama says he wants to change the rules about superdelegates and make it so they can only vote for who the pledged delegates voted for.

It’s compelling. A little sophomoric, but there’s a certain ring to that argument.

Except that it’s total BS.

The only thing that matters to Hillary is Hillary. Let’s look a little closer at the positions each of them have taken on these issues.

Hillary says that Barack should agree to break the rules about Michigan and Florida. Barack has said, over and over again, that he’s willing to do just that, as long as it can be done fairly. Hillary won’t even agree to that. The fair thing, she contends, is for results that can’t mean anything to count exactly as they are. Barack says: I didn’t campaign there. A lot of Democrats didn’t vote there. I wasn’t even on the ballot there. It’s not fair to count them as they are. Notice what he hasn’t said: He’s never said we can’t seat them. He’s never said they shouldn’t count at all. He’s only said that some sort of compromise will have to be made so that these extremely unfair contests aren’t counted as they are. Which is exactly what Hillary was saying in January. So is counting them a point for the rules? Is it a point for fairness? No. It’s just a point for Hillary.

So, on to the superdelegates. She tells us that Barack has said that we should change the rules to make it so that they can only vote for the people the pledged delegates have voted for. She’s taking the high road. Rules are rules, right? Yeah they are, when they help her. First off, Barack’s never said anything like that. He’s said that he thinks the Superdelegates will come over to him (and they are) and he’s said that he thinks he’s the front-runner based on contests won, popular vote and pledged delegates (and he is) but he’s never said anything about changing the rules defining how Superdelegates vote. The people who support him, who are saying how they think Superdelegates should vote, are just stating the obvious: He’s the winner. The people have spoken. They picked him. It’d sure look funny if the superdelegates took it away from him. And it would. What’s wrong with that? How did this become an attacking point for her?

Answer: It just did. She saw an opportunity to score points by painting him as something he's not in an effort to bolster her unreasonable argument about Michigan and Florida and she took it.

This is what Hillary has become. She went from being one of the greatest progressive voices of our time, to the joke who would do or say anything—ANYTHING—to win. I mean, don't even get me started on the gas tax thing. When 200 economists who don't have a horse in this race say you're idea's crap, maybe it's time to drop it and stop pandering. When you hit it over and over again for two weeks before the primary and you lose like you did in North Carolina and you almost lose in Indiana, maybe it's time to stop pandering. Is Hillary gonna stop? Hell no. The gas tax came up in her concessio... I mean victory speech last night. And it came up again today. Nobody thinks she thinks it'll work. Nobody thinks she thinks it'll actually bring gas prices down. Nobody think she thinks it has any chance of passing. But hell, if it gets her a couple votes, maybe no one will notice it's all smoke and mirrors, right?

I'm tired of it. I'm tired of her treating me like I don't have a brain. I'm tired of her telling me black is white and the sky's green. I can see the sky just fine on my own and I know the difference between the truth and just a bunch of crap you say to get elected. And Hillary, I expected more from you.

In the space of less than a year she’s made the journey from being, not only someone I thought I could trust to run the country, but someone I thought I could trust, to being this: a political hack with absolutely no moral compass of any kind. She’s lost her way, and what’s more, she’s lost my respect. And that, I can assure you, was a difficult thing for her to do.

All this crap just breaks my heart. It breaks it. Anybody who's interested can look down at my postings from last year and see that I started out as a Clinton-lover. I used to love Bill (like a brother!) and Hillary too. Even back in January of 07 before either candidate had declared (but not before we knew they would) I had to sit down and really think before I could really come up with a solid reason why I liked Obama better. Well, as Eric Carmen said: Those days are gone.

She’s not the right choice. Not for the Democratic party. Not for America.

I’m done with her.