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• Wednesday, June 4, 2008 06:43 AM

  So she's finally toast

  Hillary's campaign is effectively over, and I am terribly sad about it. I'm not primarily mad for her departure--though I am saddened by it--but rather by the manner in which we got to where we are.

  We got here with a potent mix of media favouritism, a stealthy attack campaign by Obama, the confusion of personality for policy, and the myth of the Democratic establishment.

  The media favouritism for Obama was never in question. Leading up to Super Tuesday in February I wrote a blog at the time describing my frustration with the media--even then I was sure she would lose. In some elements of the media the favouritism was undisguised. MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann were practically ecstatic over him. She has been a target for far longer than Obama: for the way she dressed, for the way she laughed. It was dismaying, perhaps, but inevitable: she was a woman AND a Clinton, and the Clintons were always media fodder.

  But Obama's campaign was equally up to the challenge of skewering her campaign. He began the political attacks--not Hillary--in 2007, describing her as the Senator from Punjab (India) because of her husband's campaigning. (But of course Obama's fundraisers in London didn't count.) In responding to that attack, and to the notion that Obama was 'consistent' in his opposition to the war in Iraq, a visibly angry Bill Clinton made the mistake of pointing out what many of us already thought: that the Obama campaign WAS a 'fairy tale'--because he was all myth and no substance. For this the Clintons paid dearly: they were labelled racists, even though the context of those statements was clearly misconstrued. Talk about being Swift Boated. Further, Obama's team circulated a memo outlining their attack plan to pin the racist label on the Clintons, destroying her and tarnishing his legacy. It was absolutely brilliant: Obama managed to diminish her star power whilst eluding blame for these tactics.

  Coupled with the Obama fanatics--who from the beginning rushed to tear down the Clinton legacy with their candidate's explicit support--we've managed to divide the party (you did it first...I didn't start to respond so viscerally against Obama until I was challenged by three close friends in quite strong terms as to my 'deluded' Clinton support) and insult a large proportion of the Democratic party. So much for unity.

  But of course the heroic, underdog 'Obamaites' had to fight the powerful establishment; and establishment that was never going to resort to the skulduggery they accused them of. Through all of this the Democratic bigwigs have stuck to a simple premise: they'd support, in lock step, the candidate with the most pledged delegates. Still, this basic principle hasn't stopped Obama supporters from fear-mongering. They haven't wanted to simply bludgeon Clinton's supporters, or destroy the Clinton legacy; they've effectively wanted to spook us into believing the party would take their dream all away, or that Hillary would do her best to run as a 3rd candidate. What utter nonsense.

  And to add insult to injury, we've have the media and the Obamaites burying Clinton's candidacy every day since February. Even now they don't allow her the legroom to think about the last six months, despite historical precedents (Ted Kennedy actually asked PLEDGED delegates in 1980 to switch to supporting him DURING the convention) to the contrary. It is this final stab in the back that stings most...this inability to let her bow out without the attack dogs on her tail.

  I am utterly disappointed, for the manner in which Mr Obama--whom I was quite excited for in 2006--secured his candidacy. I lost my political innocence during the 2004 general election, when I saw dirty politics (only then it was Bush who was the Teflon candidate) used on John Kerry. But this one takes the cake. To be in my early 20s and to be disillusioned with my party already...that's what's most bitterly disappointing.

  I'll be registering as an independent this month, in preparation to vote by absentee ballot. Hillary Clinton will never have my general election vote, to my sadness...but the Obama campaign, and its supporters, have done nothing but alienate me--a stridently left-wing, male, Hispanic, well-educated, middle class social democrat. If this is the Democratic Party we've now got--the party of myth over substance--then I can no longer feign support.

  Mr Obama shall certainly not have my vote this November.

  —RCMoya612 Read RCMoya612's other letters
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