Letters to the Editor
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sigh...
It's an interesting question with regard to the Campaign of Senator Clinton.
Do you feed the beast or stab it with your steely knife?
Obviously regardless, you can not kill the beast, no matter how much you want it to die.
I am sure no matter what the Senator from New York would find a metric to claim the nomination. If she were behind in popular vote (which actually, she is based on any honest estimate) it would be her demographics that are more important (which was her argument before finding mathmatical theories that supported a popular vote win).
But we let it go, because we have to. You have to let her have her run, and we'll just smile and ignore the statements that are offensive, and divisive, because some times you just have to be the bigger person.
We know how it ends, she knows how it ends, and we're all traped in this hotel playing our parts until such time as we can check out, even though we know we will never fully leave.
Thank goodness for George W. Bush, if not for him, all this political theater might actually be causing me concern for the November Election.
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70's Eagles albums aside
Go Hillary. Do whatever you can to win the nomination and give Democrats the best chance of victory in November.
Barring that, do whatever you can to help Barack Dukakis lose so we can be done with this ridiculously unqualified empty suit even if it means suffering with McCain for four years.
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I'm starting to understand
that famous quote by Mark Arm's (from Mudhoney) quote about Courtney Love:
"I don't want to talk about Courtney, let's not talk about Courtney. 'Cause talk about her or don't talk about her, it doesn't matter...'cause she just won't go away."
;)
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Let it cook
There are those who see Clinton staying in the race out of ill-concealed ambition ...
Ill-concealed? She wants to be what is generally considered to be the single most powerful political figure in the world. How, pray tell, do you portray yourself as unambitious when seeking such a position?
... whether it is a ploy to become Obama's indispensable running mate or to lay the groundwork for an I-told-you-so 2012 campaign. Others go to the opposite extreme in theorizing about her delusion, denial or even wanton destructiveness.
Why isn't it enough to say simply that she wants to keep her hand in? And play it for all that it's worth? If she can't get the nomination, she can get anything else she asks for aside from that. From her point of view, why should she stop early?
As for destructiveness, the Democrats have thus far benefited hugely from a prolonged primary, despite hand-wringing worries the entire time that it would be a disaster.
Back in February some of us said that if the rivalry ran right up to the last primary, or even the convention, it wouldn't be over too soon. And hey, look at that! The party leadership, and increasingly the candidates' partisans, have been starting to talk about how maybe it wouldn't be quite so horrible if we kinda let it run out through, you know, at least the end of the primaries. What an idea!
Yes, a time will come when continued contention will start to have a negative effect on the party's chances. When that happens, Clinton's bargaining position erode precipitously as her fellow Democrats quietly start writing off 2008 and bail on her entirely — and, likely, forever.
Is there any reason not to trust her, if nothing else than by reason of her own sense of self-interest, to call in her chips before she gets to that point?
Suppose someone had said, back in December, that the Democratic party leadership had a secret plan to deliberately prolong a two-person rivalry to engender abnormal interest and try to draw in as large, and as disparate, a collection of Democrats as possible. It would have been absurd, to imagine such a thing. And yet it would have looked like something not unlike what has played out naturally.
No wonder the leadership has been quietly sitting this out the whole time (notwithstanding Howard Dean's little tit-for-tats at the Clintons for their past attempts to thwart him). This is like an accidental perfect recipe.
Let it cook a little while longer.
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We believe you
You are the smartest and the best student in class and you do deserve our applause. Add an extra gold star to your report card, and by all means take an extra cookie.
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Clockwork smurf on the warm smell of calitas
Do you feed the beast or stab it with your steely knife?
Why are those our only choices? We haven't had this spirit here since (you might say) 1969. It's pretty exciting!
Yes, Clinton has said all kinds of ignorant things. She's been doing what people accuse her of — whatever she needs to do to win. And while Democrats don't necessarily need to go down some of the roads she's gone, they do need that spirit. Win first, then worry about governing.
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More of the same
I never quite understand what articles like this are supposed to do, aside from preach to the choir. Hillary Clinton doesn't cause division within the Democratic Party, voters do--perhaps more accurately, the votes express the fact that a division exists. Of course, I've largely given up on hoping to read thoughtful analysis on Salon.com. I'll settle for the well-written but overly biased quasi-editorializing for the sake of amusement.
While it makes no sense to postulate that any of HRC's recent wins indicate a nation-wide swell of support for her (polls actually imply the opposite), to cast her off and take this dismissive tone is amazingly narrow-minded. Shapiro so badly wants her to quit that he just assumes she should. Why? It's clear to most voters that she doesn't have a chance, yet many thousands of them continue to vote for her. Does Shapiro actually think he's that important? I sincerely hope not. She's probably not going away anytime soon, and even if she did, it's not like that exactly...changes anything. You still have plenty of hearts & minds on her side. There might be a reason for that.
If politicians are supposed to represent the interests of their constituents, it's fair to say that HRC's behavior is proper and not as narcissistic as Shapiro so blandly presumes in this article. She has literally millions of votes behind her, she continues to pick up votes and she will likely pick up a few more within the next couple weeks. Those voters have a right to cast their ballots for her, and I'd assume they'd a) like the chance, and b) want her to continue "representing."
Now, what'll be really interesting is if this forum just gets overrun with Obama supporters hurling numb-skulled insults to those opposed to them, filled with such intelligent missives as "you're an evil RepubliCON" of if a worthwhile discussion results.
*sigh*