Letters to the Editor
-
Another shrill argument from Salon
"With more than five months to the Denver Convention, the problem for the Democrats remains the crazy-quilt schedule that caused far too many to vote too soon. That is the real buyer's remorse -- a front-loaded political calendar that has turned most partisan Democrats into now-irrelevant bystanders just when a real decision is needed."
You mean, had they known how bad Obama really is, they would have voted for Hillary Clinton???? Is that what you mean? It was all a big mistake? And with Florida and Michigan Hillary would be "closer to parity" - according to who? what logic? Why are you stating this as a fact?
Oh yeah, you're another shrill salon hack from the Hillary boiler room, the kind who didn't go work for Hillary right away (like Daou, who is now orchestrating the death march of the Hillary trolls on various liberal websites).
-
@ KateTex
You write:
[Democrats should present] a full slate of candidates who are thoroughly vetted re background, voting history, associations, words, actions, platforms, possible contradictions, baggage real and imagined, and THEN everybody votes.
So this means we get to vote on who, exactly? Mickey Mouse? Oh wait, Walt Disney was the first voice for him and we all know Disney had Nazi sympathies. Oprah? Oh wait, she knows Rev. Wright. Clinton? But she voted for the war and a bill to ban flag burning, and she made a campaign ad that suggested a dead person supported her candidacy, against the will of the surviving sons. Kennedy? That's dead in the water (sorry, it was so natural). Byrd? KKK. Mr. Rogers? Yes, Mr. Rogers.
Obviously there are a ton of tepid Democrats with no leadership skills and who largely support the status quo that lack the kind of skeletons Tim Russert cares about, but then do I want only candidates that pass his test?
This is really a crazy notion for a democracy: "Let some elite body pre-screen our candidates for us!" I thought that's what sucks about the current system.
-
KateTex
RIGHT ON!!!! I'm with you 100% on that one. I like the idea of everyone getting equal money, equal air-time. If that were true this time around, then maybe neither Clinton nor Obama would have done so well. Each appeared certainly more centrist than some of the other candidates (Kucinich, Richardson, Edwards).
-
HRC as the Republican Hatchet-Woman
Shapiro's article is a well done briefing on the Dems nominating process.
A Republican looking at the situation might regard HRC's winning the nomination as the direct result of those super-delegates casting their lots with her--irrespective of her performance in the primaries that lie ahead--as an issue gift from heaven.
Already seen as a slick, pro-pol by everyone, Hillary instantly becomes the candidate of "backroom deals, I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" politics that voters of both parties claim to loath. That in contrast to the McCain-as-Maverick image that John has so carefully constructed over the years.
HRC is no longer a viable candidate for the office of the President of the United States, though she still may be able to slime her way to the Democratic Party nomination through transparently undemocratic means (as Shapiro points out.)
Penn's crude remark in his memo regarding the "more you know about Barack Obama," is another example of the hatchet-woman campaign HRC has decided to run, notwithstanding the fact that her own claims to be "Ready From Day One" as CinC have crumbled under even the slightest of media scrutiny.
The longer she lingers, the longer the media gives her exposure fitting a candidate with a real, not wishful, chance of success, the more her campaign turns into nothing more than an attempt at deconstructing Obama's...the more the Republicans can sit back in quiet glee, as their guy visits with Heads of State, cavorting around the world as if her were already POTUS.
-
call me an optimist - it's time to close ranks
I agree. It's been a strange season. Although neither of these were my first choice, I nonetheless am intelectually engaged and even voted in the New Jersey primary - the first time ever. The solution devised decades ago with primaries and supers, to avoid whatever problems were most likely to recur then, might no longer be best, if it ever was.
The party is punishing MI and FLA, but the candidates should be out front, calling for some kind of correction. Nod to Hillary Clinton on that, but, so what? The public has now had so long to stew, that the free choice of the super delegates is being questioned, and thus compromised. Big ooops. Howard Dean might be removed, as party chair after this.
I'm hoping for a joint ticket but it seems not to be happening. I have been disapointed with the last two presidential elections. I don't care if it becomes Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama; a joint ticket could close the rift, and increase the chances of winning. Where are the democrats that understand how high the stakes are now?
-
@reality-based
You say: "This is really a crazy notion for a democracy: "Let some elite body pre-screen our candidates for us!" I thought that's what sucks about the current system."
An elite body is hardly appealing and I certainly didn't mean to imply that such a body would do any screening. How to devise some sort of honor system by which candidates present the sort of information voters need to know in order to make the most informed decision possible - including the possibility of any possible deal breakers? Oh, democracy - so damned messy and vexing.
-
Not weird.
Not weird. I knew this would happen, when the starry-eyed liberals started insisting we should base our votes on dreamy videos instead of established record. I knew this would happen when the Obama campaign started their sleazy race-baiting in South Carolina. I knew this would happen when Oprah went about hoofing for Obama on stage and infiltrating him with big cash. I knew this would happen when I saw all the GOPsters come over here and pretend to be Obama cheerleaders, spewing their vulgarity and filth like they do every election when they're pretending to be Democrats (and conveniently disappear a few weeks before the election never to be seen again). I knew this would happen when detested loser liberal dinosaurs like Kerry and Kennedy (and now Richardson) defied the will of their very own constituents and decided to prop up a sure-loser like themselves.
Of course we should be enjoying landslide leading digits and be poised to pick up permanent majorities in the Senate and House.
Instead we're going to lose either in a landslide with Obama, or by a handful of states with a now-crippled Mrs. Clinton, and the GOP is going to take back Congress.
it's awful, but weird not. The left has been doing this for 30 years: snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and by now they've gotten extremely good at it. Unfortunately it's the only thing they're good at.
And it's why I now call myself a proud independent.