Deanie's Blue Inkblots

"History's verdict is all we have left. And when tomorrow calls today into account, some of us want to say we stood up. We called out. We were not silent."
--Leonard Pitts, Jr., "Gestures of Conscience Bring Solace," Baltimore Sun, March 19, 2006

THANKS, DEMOCRATS, FOR ONCE AGAIN SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY

This entry was posted on 3/5/2008 6:47 AM and is filed under uncategorized.

It's four o'clock in the morning here in Texas, and I would like to sleep, but I just couldn't until I had congratulated all the Democrats out there who worked so hard to make this day possible.

Time and time again, Democrats have chosen potential presidents with their heads and not their hearts--and for that, they are to be commended.

I think we all know what superb presidents people like Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry would have been.

Al Gore himself said that, while he knew he would have made a very good president, the problem was, he was a lousy candidate.

Democrats were right to put their hopes in Gore, because he has shown us what he might have accomplished in office, if only he could have garnered enough votes to beat Ralph Nader.

So, Democrats who voted with their heads and not their hearts, who selected a potential president because they thought that person would do such a good job are to be commended, because Hillary Clinton will soon join the ranks of the great potential-presidents that are graced by such austere men as these.

This country obviously does not need to be mobilized, energized, and excited by a presidential candidate. Democrats do not need the votes of thousands of powered-up college kids who never knew what it meant to participate in a democracy, or disgruntled Republicans who have felt betrayed by their party, or legions of Independents who vote with their stupid hearts instead of their heads.

Democrats don't need to "throw the dice" against an "unvetted" candidate who gives people an opportunity to participate, to be a part of, a movement for inspired change and a path away from cynicism and bitter street-level down and dirty politics like, you know, circulating photographs of your opponent in a head turban.

It's far more important that we be comforted by hazy memories of the past, of good times in the 90's when we had peace and prosperity.

You know. Before Travelgate and Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky. Oh yeah--and before the Republicans swept into congress two years after Bill Clinton was elected and have proceeded to obstruct progressive progress ever since.

Democrats know that when voters go into the booth in November, they will want an experienced candidate.

Like, say, a war hero who served 25 years in congress and the senate and who didn't spent a whole year claiming eight years of his wife's accomplishments as his own.

After all, the Democrats know that such esteemed pundits and pontificators as Ann Coulter say that we should all vote for Hillary because she's just not that different from John McCain anyway.

Only, there is one crucial difference, for this Democrat.

I hate to bring it up, really, since 99 percent of you guys don't even have to worry about this.

I mean, seriously. There are only, well, not even one percent of us out here who need to worry about this at all. Truly, all the polls say nobody's really worried about it anymore anyway, what with the recession and global warming and all.

You see, John McCain wants to keep the Iraq war going for a hundred years.

But in order for him to do that, he's going to have to recycle all those used and beat-up soldiers and Marines who've already fought that Groundhog Day war two, three, and four times.

Like, my son and my nephews.

My son supported Barack Obama because he thought Obama was the best hope to defeat John McCain in November and bring this bloody war to an end, so that he would not have to go back to fight once again.

Looks like he's going to have to shake the dust out of his combat boots after all.

But that's okay. Like I say--ninety-nine percent of you don't even need to worry about that, since your family is most likely not in the military.

So let's not let that tiny statistic ruin our celebrations.

Anyway, what do I know. I'm just a silly swooning maniac groupie who faints in front of my empty-rhetoric inexperienced rock star hero. I vote with my foolish heart rather than my head. But Democrats, you've stepped up and saved me from myself.

You've picked a really great potential president.

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3/5/2008 11:07 PM Booth McKeown wrote:
Deannie, please understand, I have only been reading you for a few months, but I ADORE you...I mourned the passing of Molly Ivins and Anne Richards, but have found you a worthy successor. But, sweetie, you're whining in this one. Obama and Clinton are both very worthy candidates. I pray to God that what we end up with is BOTH of them on the ticket. But the system is what it is; yes, we need to make some changes but we've needed to for a LONG time. I have friends all over the country; some are Clinton supporters and some Obama, but to a man or woman they have ALL said that they would be happy to vote for whoever gets the nomination and I think most Democrats feel this way. I honestly believe the Clinton/Obama split is media hype, and whoever gets the nomination will get the votes needed to defeat McCain. Don't feed into the media frenzy.
Reply to this
1. 3/6/2008 12:26 PM Deanie Mills wrote:
  Thank you so much for your support.
  
  I don't agree, however, that this is whining. It is a satirical rage, and it has been building for years, ever since the Democratic party allowed the Republicans to seize the media-manipulation wars and proceed to control the agenda, from the Clinton Crucifixion through the heartbreak of 2000--which never would have happened if idealistic liberals hadn't voted for Nader as some sort of primal protest and therefore took tens of thousands of votes away from Gore in Florida and handed the White House to George W. Bush--through the convention of 2004, when some moron decided that we'd go through an entire convention without criticizing Bush once by name, only to hand it over to the Republican convention, where they had the unmitigated GALL to pass out "Purple Heart band-aids," to Kerry standing mute for three weeks while the Swift-Boaters stole the election, through the impotent war-votes after 2006, to the behind-closed-doors decision made by party elders several years ago to groom Hillary for the 2008 election and to put the full weight of the party behind her. Mostly, I expect, so they could get their old jobs back in a new Clinton administration.
  
  Every vote she's cast in the Senate, including the war vote, was a deliberate attempt to position herself against the Republicans in a general election; it's all been about image, and about being tough on terrorists. Every move she made in this ungainly, unweildy, expensive, and poorly-run campaign has been about beating Republicans.
  
  They never saw Obama coming, and when he did, and when he tapped into a vein of suppressed enthusiasm and outrage and frustration that built into a movement, the Hillary people chose to deploy the most craven, Rovian tactics they could in order to win, including mocking Obama's supporters--more than half of the Democratic party and more than a few disgruntled Republicans and Independents, who we will need in the fall.
  
  She honestly thinks that if she can just clinch the nomination, she can make nice later, but it won't happen for her. Too many Democrats have been disgusted by the display. And Republicans and many Independents would rather make a reservation in hell than vote for a Clinton.
  
  What she did last week was launch a masterful media manipulation. She knew that every theatrical, dramatic move she made, from raging at him to mocking him to choking up on-camera to accusing him of bullshit, would headline the evening news broadcasts. (At the same time, it would feed prime material to McCain for a dual attack, while Bill built a third line of offense, so Obama was fighting for the nomination on three, not one, front.)
  
  And she knew that the working-class base who supports her do not have time or inclination to read political blogs or newspapers, but they try to catch the evening news. She also knew that her voters make up their minds in the last days before the vote. BINGO. They saw her mocking, attacking, raging, and they didn't get the subtle contexts, and she won.
  
  This is how you play the game, because broadcast journalists don't provide subtext. This is how you get away with invading an entire country.
  
  I know her supporters dream of a Clinton/Obama ticket, but if he agreed to that, he would be effectively neutered for the next four years; Bill Clinton would be the de facto VP, and Obama would wind up in the same boat as John Edwards did. But the party will pressure him mightily to do so, for the sake of the party they themselves allowed to be torn apart. I hope he doesn't fall for it.
  
  I am raging because this party has broken my heart over and over again. I will vote for Hillary if she gets the nomination because I can't vote for a man who will keep the Iraq war going into the next century, but after that, I may never vote again. The whole process makes me sick.
  
  And the saddest thing of all is that it didn't have to be this way. But now, the only way Obama can fight is to pull out the same bag of nasty tricks, which would negate his whole message.
  
  She's a very clever girl. Maybe all this nastiness is just what we need to take back the White House, and endure another four years of a polarized country chewing off its own leg.
  
  The thing about media hype is that gullible people believe it. And there are way too many gullible people out there. If that was not the case, the man would not still be having to fight the impression that he's a Muslim underground terrorist who hates America.
  Reply to this
  1. 3/9/2008 1:19 PM Booth McKeown wrote:
    you have some valid points....maybe I'm being a Pollyanna here, but it sounds like you're giving up...and after eight years of W and at least one and possibly two stolen elections, it's just too early to do that. Hillary isn't perfect for sure, neither is Obama (as my grandmother used to tell me, "there's only been one perfect man in this world and he lived 2,000 years ago"). We need to expend ALL our energy making sure McCain doesn't win.
    
    Maybe an Obama presidency would be far preferable to a second Clinton presidency, and maybe another VP candidate on the Obama ticket makes much more sense than Clinton, but Clinton as POTUS or VP makes a hell of a lot better choice than four more years of Bush/McCain et al.
    
    I dunno. Maybe it's just that this entry got me DOWN, and I've been feeling so positive and good about what's going on. Maybe I need to start paying more attention and being more realistic.
    Reply to this
    1. 3/9/2008 4:19 PM Deanie Mills wrote:
      Well, I'm really sorry about that. I wrote that piece at four a.m. when I was exhausted and unable to sleep--just devastated that Obama had lost Texas. I'd been expecting a close victory for Hillary in Ohio, but I really thought he'd pull out a win in Texas. I was especially demoralized that she'd done it by playing really down low and dirty, giving all sorts of ammunition to the Reps for the fall if he should get the nomination after all, and I was incensed the following Sat., when Saturday Night Live not only virtually repeated the previous week's opening skit, but pretty much put out a campaign ad for Hillary. They're still doing it, and it's my belief that good satire should satirize EVERYBODY, and they're just blatantly supporting her. They can't even come up with a black guy to play Obama, and the one imitating him presents this dull-witted, slow-talking imbecile--what's up with that?
      
      I'm very worried that this scorched-earth policy of the Clintons will cripple the Dems going into Nov., and we had the White House for the taking before they decided to go for the jugular.
      
      I, too, had been feeling really great about this campaign, but the Clintons changed all that when they started doing nasty stuff like sending out e-mail photos of Obama in a head turban and all these other mean tricks straight out of Karl Rove's playbook. Now, Obama asks again why they won't release their tax returns and her White House schedule--since she's running on the record she likes to portray rather than what probably really happened--and in response, they accuse him of being Ken Starr???? The arch-devil to all Democrats? Then they spend the week repeatedly holding him up as VP, which is not only premature, but is yet another attempt to neuter him. First, they say he's unqualified to be president, then they say that if she's elected and he's VP and something happens to her, suddenly he IS qualified to be president??? In the meantime, three times, she talked about what a good president MCCAIN WOULD MAKE. Like, hey, Democrats, it's either me or McCain, NEVER Obama.
      
      This has divided and demoralized and polarized the party, and if she gets the nomination--the whole country. We're back in Clinton/Gingrich-ville.
      
      But I didn't mean to bring anybody down, even tho that's how I've been feeling this week. I am getting my equilibrium back, looking at it more objectively. But the Clintons continue the media-spin. Obama's got to take back the offensive, but do it in a way that doesn't slime him up in the mud with her--not an easy trick when he's running against three people. And he needs to continue the kinds of things he's been saying like, "So, you visited 80 countries...did you negotiate any treaties? Set any policy? Or have a photo-op with Sinbad?"
      
      The bottom line--and you are right about this--is that we have to do everything possible to defeat McCain in the fall. It's just that every day, Hillary Clinton takes us further away from that possibility.
      
      Reply to this