Primary Wounds and Unity.
For all the insults traded between myself and Bitterique, and for all the glee Mike W and his fellow right wingers take in such exchanges, the facts are the party is unified.
In the latest Research 2000 national poll shows that Obama wins Democrats 82-9 percent, which is little different than McCain’s 83-10 [among Republicans]. In 2004, Kerry won Democrats 89-11, and Obama will be up in that range when all’s said and done. There are no more “party unity” concerns.
Throw in the fact that Obama has locked down the Latino vote, is winning women handily, has shown surprising strength in the Mountain West, the midwest, and even parts of the South. He has locked down the Democratic strongholds. It’s clear that Obama doesn’t need Clinton on the ticket.
Dominque is a deadender. Like her fellow deadenders over at such hate sites as Hillaryis44 and Larry Johnson’s blog, she cannot be reasoned with when it comes to this primary. She says the same thing about Obama supporters, but I and many Obama supporters I know really do not hate Hillary, and would have in fact unified behind her in the end because we know it is important for a Democrat to win this election.
Dominque does hate Obama, thinks he is an empty suit, and is bitter Hillary lost, and is willing to throw all of her progressive principles overboard and have McCain win because of it. Thankfully, while she and other like minded deadenders are loud, they are few.
Yeah. I have been quite astonished as Dominique’s behavior. When a progressive starts applauding race-baiting as a campaign tool, you know there is something wrong.
I have always said and will always say. I think Hillary is terrific and she has been ill-served by her husband, advisers and supposed supporters who have all conspired her to do her as many disservices as they could, ruin her campaign and image and behave in the worst possible ways to the point her own image was sullied.
I don’t have any sympathy because she chose to surround herself with these people but more times than once I wonder what would have happened if she didn’t have a self-destructive pattern of surrounding herself with self-centered people who do her harm
In fact, in December and early January, I was a Hillary supporter. I do think she is fantastic. I do think she would have made a great President.
But she ran a horrible campaign, politically and tactically. She had no plan after Super Tuesday. Her campaign used Karl Rove-style spin and tactics. “Only big states matter,” “Not ready from Day One,” “Change you can Xerox.”
That was why I ended up being an Obama supporter rather than a Hillary supporter. It was not because I hated her or thought she was unqualified. I just did not like her campaign.
Well I was an Obama supporter from the get-go (at a time where it was the hip thing to do online to be pro-Edwards … imagine if we had listened now !) but I always said that of all the candidates I would have been enthusiastic about supporting the main three, excited about the three or four second-tier ones (although I ended up mad at Richardson for his gay answer) and only Kucinich was a problem for me.
But I too was astonished – not so much by the badness of her campaign which only allowed my guy to win – but by how slimy they ended up going – and how selfish at a time where it was clear she could not win (Point in case. She clearly won and ran a masterful campaign in the second half and yet it was not enough. In other words, we were right when we said it was over in March).
The dirty tactics were surely part of it. But what kills me is that the state people like Dominique are in was ENTIRELY artificial. That sense of grievance, resentment and hatred of Obama was purely created by cynical Clinton operatives who thought it was her last chance at winning. It did not work for the primaries but it created those people who are so blinded by an artificial sense of grievance that they can’t see or think straight.
It didn’t have to be. People forget that before March, there was no doubt everybody would have been happy with whoever won. But somehow they made FL/MI to be like Zimbabwe, they made a normal loss situation sound like an offense to women, they made BIll’s mistakes to be a horrible plot against him …
It sure worked for them but at what expense to our party ? And that’s why I am so dispirited about them now.
All they said about the Clintons – their selfishness, their disregard for the party, their tendency to see themselves as vicitims without taking responsability – turned out to be true.
And I resent them for proving their enemies wrong too after letting us defend them for so long.
If only …
Another statistic to add to party unity above….today the Washington Post reported that Obama was winning WHITE voters making $27,000 or less by a 2 to 1 margin over McCain.
That sense of grievance, resentment and hatred of Obama was purely created by cynical Clinton operatives who thought it was her last chance at winning.
This is the particular province of 2nd wave feminists of a certain demographic — the Clintonistas expertly got a bunch of women to see her campaign as a fulfillment of personal identity (this is where the entitlement comes from). It is too bad (and has been the source of some very interesting commentary about 2nd vs 3rd wave feminism recently) that these folks are the most immune to the idea that their candidate used them in a cynically political way — much the way they accuse Obama’s supporters as being overmanipulated.
On that last note about overmanipulation, i read NoQuarter or Hillaryis44 or, say, Dominique and then I remember once upon a time one of the first attacks against Obama was that his supporters had drank the Kool-Aid and I have to laugh.
That a supposedly feminist leader would go to a major publication and say “We don’t want a woman VP because those women VP didn’t support my preferred candidate” is testament that there is something rotten in the land of feminism.
If I understand correctly, feminists are women who don’t want to be told what to do or what to think by men. What makes those Clintonite idiots think they are more amenable to have OTHER WOMEN tell them what to think or whom to support ?
Feminism, as I understand it, is about equality. They wanted men and women to be equal in everything. In the working world, earning the same wage for the same work, in the military, in politics, in everything.
It was also about providing women choices and opportunities in their lives. They could choose to work. They could choose to stay home if they wanted to. It was about equality of opportunity.
Hillary Clinton, like Geraldine Ferraro before her, proved that a woman could be a President or a Vice President. They both shattered the perception that women could not do the job. As such, they both provided more opportunity to other women. Now, as Obama has said, the next generation of women will grow up knowing women can be President and Vice President.
Thus, it makes me angry when Ferraro says “No, other women can’t be President or Vice President, not until Hillary gets her shot.”
And it makes me angry when Ferraro says “women must support women candidates” for she is thus limiting women’s choices. Women can choose to vote for a male candidate against a female candidate if they wanted to. In fact, many women did.
it is a shame to write off that 8% , but as you point out they have opted and have staked their identity on the myth that Clinton was wronged.
They are not even 8%.