A Not-So-Simple Twist of Fate: Could Hillary Bequeath Us Our Long-Awaited Third Party?

[marmar]

from CommonDreams:



Published on Friday, March 7, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
A Not-So-Simple Twist of Fate: Could Hillary Bequeath Us Our Long-Awaited Third Party?
by David Michael Green



Oh boy. Where have I seen this movie before?

I think it was four years, surprisingly enough. Hey, what a coincidence! Wasn’t there a presidential election going on back then, too?

Remember how Howard Dean came out of near total obscurity, how he started walloping the presumptive front-runner, John “Fearless” Kerry, by taking bold positions (at least in the context of American politics) against the war, and against George W. Bush? Remember how Kerry changed his tune to ape Dean’s message, and how nervous Democratic voters played it safe and came home to the guy with the experience and the name brand? Remember what an outstandingly effective candidate he then turned out to be? Remember the “real deal”? (Oh, and what a deal it was. I think experienced card players refer to that hand as a ‘jack-shit straight, seven high’, if I’m not mistaken.)

Is this ringing any bells for anyone?

Only Democrats could lose the White House in 2008. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect storm favoring their decisive, landslide victory. This should be 1932 redux, and then some. There’s a reviled incumbent from the opposite party, already past his expiration date four years ago when he stole a second election. There’s a new nominee from that same party joined to him at the hip on the most important issues, and stupid enough to be seen as such publicly. There’s the economy heading into a recession after years of lethargy for the middle class. An extremely unpopular war based on lies. A massive national debt. A housing crisis. An environmental crisis. Gas at well over three bucks a gallon. Oil over $100 a barrel. The dollar at record lows and plummeting. Pension stocks falling and cities falling apart - when they’re not literally drowning. Scandals everywhere in the Republican Party. Three-fourths of the country believing America to be on the wrong track. And more. Put it all together and it’s an amazing scenario! It’s like some poli-sci professor somewhere was tinkering around with a real-life statistical model, setting all the variables at max to see how big a blow-out is theoretically possible. “Hey, I wonder what happens if…?”

It’s a perfect, perfect storm. And then along came Hillary. Look, I certainly don’t object to her running if she wants to. But I do object to how she’s running, and I think Democratic voters are as dumb as a bag of hammers sitting out in the rain to pull the handle for her. In this year of the great political tsunami, Republicans have managed to - inadvertently, it would seem - choose their best hope to hold on to the presidency, even if they can’t quite stand their own choice. Hillary would be the Democrats’ worst hope. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/07/7536/

[Deja Q]

1. WWND?

:hide:

[Bucky]

2. all three-

tenths of one percent

[ulysses]

7. laugh his ass off if we manage to give this one away. n/t

[casus belli]

3. The Hilliebermanader party? n/t

[AtomicKitten]

4. That is a distinct possibility.

I and many others cannot in good conscience vote for her in spite of the fact that she is desperately trying to staple her lame ass to the ticket.

[SoCalDem]

5. The YASIYDSM party

You Are Sexist If You Don't Support Meeeeeee party

:rofl:

[Kaylee]

14. Love your siggie...I would laugh if it wasn't so depressing.

[K Gardner]

6. Excellent article.. text snipped/pasted below about Obama "fighting" or not..

"It would appear that Clinton’s got some favorable states ahead, and that Obama has as many or perhaps more, unless momentum has really shifted now, after Tuesday. I tend to doubt that is the case, unless Obama goes all Massachusetts at this point, like Kerry and Dukakis, and stands by helplessly watching the steamroller as it relentlessly approaches. In which case, fine, anyhow - get the clown off the stage, he’s not ready for prime-time. As a tired American progressive, worn down by disappointment across more decades of losing politics than I care to count, I can abide many things. But one of them is not another wimpy Democratic presidential nominee who gets out-slugged by the latest Karl Rove and manages yet again to seize defeat from the jaws of victory."

[Exilednight]

8. I believe if the DLC splits from the DNC it will create a new party. This isn't how I would have...

wanted it to be. The DLC will peal off more votes from the Democrats than they will the repugs.

If they do split, it will be short lived.

[SoCalDem]

9. Or

[casus belli]

10. That would leave Lieberman out.

Or maybe, on second thought, it wouldn't. If he's willing to renounce his political affiliation for personal gains, maybe he'll be willing to renounce his gender also.

[K Gardner]

11. This article is brutally truthful about the Clintons: Don't get in their way, you're Roadkill..

You don’t want to get in their way, man. Road kill is no mere metaphor when someone’s intensely-held life aspiration is on the line and their moral bearings got tossed overboard sometime back in their twenties. You don’t get that sense of desperate pathological need from, say, Jimmy Carter or George McGovern, while individuals like George H. W. Bush or Richard Nixon fairly reeked of it. In the case of Bush the Elder, clearly the whole point of being president was to be president. He didn’t seem to have any ideas of what to do with the office once he got there. In the case of his son, the whole point was to do it better than Dad, and so he had lots of completely insane ideas of what he wanted to do once he got there, particularly in areas like taxes and Iraq, where Poppy had screwed up on the way to losing a second term (amateur!).

The Clintons are very much cut from the same cloth as Old Man Bush. Actually doing something in office is incidental to the main project, which is the psychological satisfaction (and reassurance) that comes from all the attention, glory and power attached to the White House. Compared to that overwhelming goal, they no more care about national health care than does Sean Hannity. If they can win by going single-payer, so be it. If they could win by war, the death penalty and welfare slashing instead, they would. Indeed, they have. The point is that the Clintons will do anything to secure the presidency, even if that includes wrecking that part of the Democratic Party they didn’t already wreck during the 1990s, and/or tossing a few body blows in the direction of American democracy.

[AtomicKitten]

12. In a discussion about the superdelegates on tee-vee

(I can't remember which one of the talking head fests it was on, sorry), apparently many of the SDs were interviewed and it was discovered that Democrats off the record are more afraid of the Clintons than like them. That certainly explains a lot.

[K Gardner]

15. Yes.. I heard it said that people like Tubbs-Jones and Jackson-Lee "breathed a

sigh of relief" after the results from OH and TX came in. It says a lot that of the SDs that promised Obama they would come forward on Wed, only a handful have. They know that if, by hook or by crook, if Hillary is nominated they will be toast for supporting Obama.

With the sheer number of articles coming out in negative light about her, and her own actions, I imagine the SDs know the only way they can stop the fissure in this party is to endorse Obama. I hope they have the courage to do it, soon.

[AtomicKitten]

17. me too

before the party implodes

[alphafemale]

16. "If they could win by war, the death penalty and welfare slashing, they would. Indeed, they have."

Exactly.

[democrank]

13. K & R

An excellent article.

[Kokonoe]

18. That is a Monster article.

:scared: :scared: :scared:

[marmar]

19. Teehee....

:P