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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
In 1968, the progressives sat at home because Humphrey wasn't "pure" enough for them--no difference between him and Nixon, they said. Nixon got elected. In 2000, they voted for Nader--no difference between Bush and Gore--and Bush got elected.
The problem is that they're just too "pure" for the Democratic Party, so much more knowledgeable and devoted to "the people" than us party regulars, who, though we were progressives before most of them were born, are tainted with something or other.
So they come in in election years, proclaim their guy the "hope of all humanity," and then slink off when their guy loses, cursing under their breath, then either not-voting or voting for Nader, and we don't see them again until the next cycle when they do it all over again.
To paraphrase Barry Goldwater, "Grow up, progressives!"
I often wonder if those Obama supporters who proudly, righteously, proclaim that they will never taint their principles by voting for Hillary are familiar with the adage: The perfect is the enemy of the good.
It's a shame if they don't because people who are strongly committed to their political ideals often end up through their inaction or worse aiding those who despise those ideals. We have seen this repeated over and over again to the detriment of progressive interests.
You need look know further than the election of 2000. It's true that the Republicans, under the circumstances, were able to "steal" the election from a majority of the voters, but it was surely the Naderites' defection from the Democratic party that made those circumstances possible.
Part of the problem at this point is that the rhetoric of some Obama partisans has reached a level where stepping back becomes almost impossible. It's a free country and you can say what you think, but how helpful is it to call the Clintons racists? I have to think even the most vociferous Obama partisan has to know that this is not the case. I think he or she has to know that the Clintons are good people and not the caricature that the media and the Republicans like to portray them as.
I'll be voting for Obama if Clinton loses not because I think he's perfect. I'm gay and found the episode where he included a homophobic Christian minister (as well as others, of course)on a campaign tour through SC pretty repulsive. I assume he made the decision because he was in SC, because his almost certain victory will be built on heavy black turnout, and because there are black voters for whom this minister's message was attractive. Was it calculating? Yes. Do I see Obama as a conniving schemer who will do anything to become President of the US even if it means providing a platform to a man who routinely attacks one of the Democratic party's most faithful voting blocks?
No.
I'm not looking for perfection. I'm looking for the best candidate under the circumstances. Is electability an issue? You better believe it is. The primary season is our chance to choose who we think will be the best candidate to put up against Rudy, or Mitt, or John. Is it alright for us to disagree? Sure. In the end though, it makes more sense to me to come together with other voters to support our party's choice, even if it is Obama.
Independents everything I said up until the last paragraph still applies to you. You'll have to make you're own decision since you have not yet been convinced that the Democratic party represents your best interests.
Now let's have a clean fight, and may the best man, or woman, win.
Sorry. I know that's kind a of cheesy ending.
Your candidate refuses to renounce waterboarding. Yet you're trying to cram her down out throats before she has even won the nomination (the delegate count is currently at a tie.)
Your candidate had a campaigner send out e-mails calling Barack a muslim who's trying to destroy the country. When someone at an event commented on Barack being a druggie in the hood, there were chortles of laughter. Bubba Bill has been playing fast and loose with the truth about his opponent....is he so threatened by Barack he has to call "this whole thing" a fairy tale?
There's a legitimate reason to feel nausiated--it isn't really idealism. It's possible to be a pragmatist and to still find Clinton a disturbingly sleazy candidate. Why don't you try a positive sell of your woman for a change? Yes, we all hate Bush, but some are pointing out Bush isn't running this time. People who hate Bush aren't necessarily going to vote for your candidate just because you call them whiny snot-nosed little wimpy assed kids if they don't?
Are some of you former Nader supporters who are now down on anyone with a streak of hope in them? You're trying to stamp out the fires of idealism in the next generation makes you look like old, bitter fools. I say that with all due respect. Why don't you try a positive sell for once. I'm not going to vote for Clinton because someone calls me names, bullies me, and condescendingly tells me I have no other options.
Grow down a little. Your arrogance is contributing to your candidate barely....barely winning the nomination of her own party. Doesn't that ever give you pause?
It should.
You'll only vote for a candidate if they're 100% pure and squeaky clean. As far as I can tell, the Virgin Mary is not running. So I guess it will just have to be a Democrat. Are some of you still in kindergarten?--are you seriously contemplating voting for McCain. Why not just vote for Beelzebub, or your friendly local psychopath (oh, that's right, you already have. He's in the White house right now screwing you all. And you want to put another one just like him in there because they don't have 'charisma'.) Christ almighty! (nope, he's not available either. But then there's always Obama. he's soooo nice).
With the N-word safely burried in Detroit, one almost wonders what might have happened in the King Holiday debate (of course racist republicans would have been attacked for having a formal campaign event on King Day 2008, what shallow disregard etc...)in Columbia S.C. with both Edwards and Hilary attacking the American HNIC, Himself, The right Honorable Senator Obama because his health care program was not socialistic enough to mandate that all Americans purchase health care insurance as a heavy-handed government intrusion to their budgets and their rights.
With the confederate flag safely hidden and secured in the state capitol where southern blacks contrive to show that they have internalized the message of Dr. King to the extent that they can refuse to back Barack and live with themselves. A welcome site to Bill and Hilary who continue to herd the civil rights-sy type Negroes to ignore the American HNIC and support the wife of the first black president. But shocker of all Tony-Morrison-eat-your-heart-out-fantasies, this wonky-wuss was actually the first Negro President, not the first Black president!
Yes, Willie was the New King-Fish of the White House replete with scandolous schemes and loose morals which ghetto-fabulous hero-worshippers recognize as "black." And every King Fish has a Sapphire: Hilary the Great, The Millenial Sapphire of our Times.The Tax Shrew who will socialize medicine better than Castro and FDR. As she channels Eleanor and Evita, King Fish Willie of Harlem rehearses international investment schemes which the West Wing will provide him in retribution for that partisan impeachment forged against him by racist white men against the first Negro president. With former HNIC faux-presidential candidates pretending to be neutral or "backing HNIC for prez but my wife is backing Senator Clinton",the knives come out to crucify our HNIC in order to prevent the left-wing vanguard of the democratic party (blacks) from being split and divided in their devotion to the New Sapphire-Hilary.
The first Negro president calls together Negroes for Hilary in defiance of the HNIC's valient attempt due to his mixed-parentage to transcend race itself. Whenever an HNIC pretends to transcend race in hopelessly racist America, he abandons his racial constituency in order to reassure whites (the majority of voters in America, duh!)that he is not a Mau-Mau even though his father may have been a Kikiyu in Kenya.The First Negro President supports his Sapphire and reminds all Negroes that he reformed welfare and ignored the blood-shed in Rwanda because He, and not this African's son is the true Black President and true leftist because he would never in 100 years say anything positive about that racist white man Ronald Reagan. And certainly the New Sapphire would never stop holding Reagan and his legacy in complete disdain as should all Negroes and most blacks too.
The New BJ of this campaign season for King Fish is the one approved by Sapphire, this time, Bob Johnson from Dick Central Casting with bells on hating for his buddies and exclaiming that "we don't need no Black President. It's Sapphire's turn, so let's put ole Kingfish back in the White House to save America by de-funding national security and national defense while sending trial attorneys to the United Nations to solve all our conflicts (as they smear Hussein Obama they plan to honor Saddam by abandoning Iraq.)With tearing eyes the "we shall overcome-civil rights crowd abandons their own "racism" to vote for a white lady who is a true socialist instead of a frat boy HNIC flirting for independents and Republican voters.
But in Detroit Michigan 70% of the blacks voted for "uncommitted" instead of Sapphire, although she won the state with contestable delegates 55% to 40 % uncommitted.
As many Negroes stayed with their masters during the War of Northern Aggression and protected the circumference of the plantations from marauding Northern republican invaders, today these descendants of those loyal slaves flaunt the HNIC and their own history to be with the Clinton's. They invoke the non-racial and feminist angles to rationalize the disloyalty to a disloyal HNIC who refuses to campaign as the black man's president. As if there are unique subsets of social problems extant only in the "so-called black community" which require a "racial voice" that socialist-Sapphire cannot provide in essence. When King-Fish the first Negro President campaigns for Sapphire against a suspect-HNIC the media fawns and marvels at how well Negroes and their masters still love each other. And then to clinch the deal, they throw in the fact that even Black women are so enthralled with the King-Fish Bill the Impeached's legacy, that they will likely leave the HNIC refugee camp for the warm and well manured grounds of the Clinton plantation.
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Salon headlines in your mailbox
