another confession
A little more than 3 weeks before the Pennsylvania primaries, I am still one of the undecided 9% of PA Democrats.
And - note to campaign volunteers and highly partisan argumentative types on both sides - the histrionics and vituperation surrounding this campaign are not making my life, much less my decision, any easier. In fact, they're really discouraging me. Nor is this post an invitation to lengthy attempts to sway me in the comments section with attacks on the other candidate, so please don't try. I intend to be firmly in the camp of whichever candidate comes out of this with the nomination. They're going to need all the enthusiasm they can get, after the attacks I've heard.The name-calling I've heard and read just hurts my heart. These are both good people, and I simply don't understand the level of hatred out there among so-called loyal Democrats toward one or the other. I mean geez, Karl Rove, Lee Atwater and assorted loony Freepers couldn't do a better job of demonizing them both.
Issues-wise, I lean slightly for Obama, but just barely. I don't like his voodoo economics (gee, let's pay for better social programs with the money we'll save from ending the war! Um, Barack, that's money we're BORROWING, so it can't be SAVED.) And I don't like his health-care plan, because it's not as economically viable as Clinton's. The "coercion" argument against required health coverage is a libertarian one, and unless Obama's also planning to end social security, all income and sales tax, public education, local or federal policing, fire departments, community health initiatives and road repairs, it's one better left to Ron Paul.
Experience-wise, it's all Clinton for me. Sorry, Obamans, but it does matter - particularly in the area of economics. She's seen the good and the bad and the good intentions twisted beyond recognition, all up close and personal. One of her closest advisers has a balanced budget and eliminated deficit to his credit, and that's something I think she has the best chance of approximating even though Bush's debt and budget are an entirely different magnitude of "unbalanced". She's also witnessed the disaster that NAFTA became in unbridled Republican hands. She's seen the failures of Don't Ask Don't Tell, which was supposed to be a very different policy than what it became under homophobic and punitive Republican-led enforcement, and her premature attempt at health-care reform. And she's been through the media storm and the personal attacks and the power-grab of the Contract On America and just about anything else you can imagine, all in a glaring and largely unsympathetic public eye. Obama has not begun to face that.
But she's also more hawkish than I like, on many international issues and not just the war. I like Obama's progressive, let's-win-hearts-and-minds stance better.
Whoever becomes President is going to have to deal with the disaster that is our economic and human-rights relationship with China, with all its complications, and tentacles spreading into Darfur and North Korea and elsewhere, and that's not going to be easy. But I suspect she has the edge there. (McCain didn't even mention China in his major foreign policy speech on Tuesday. Apparently he thinks Russia has the worst human-rights problem on the planet. Can these Republicans EVER move past the cold war? Seriously.)
If any candidate came out and said "let's normalize relations with Cuba!" they'd have my vote in a heartbeat, but you know that ain't happenin' unless (in some reflection of what seems at this point to be the inevitable reality of post-election snafus) Florida's votes are pre-emptively disqualified before the general election.
So far I've been to 2 Hillary events. I haven't yet made it to an Obama event, a situation I intend to remedy. (Illness, both my own and feline, unfortunately got in the way of a couple of appearances I hoped to attend.) I have Hillary lawn signs, but I haven't yet put them up, because I just ... haven't ... decided. And I don't know if I will decide until I enter the voting booth and have to pull a lever.
The Clinton message during her events was positive and didn't bash anyone but Bush, further strengthening my opinion that it's not the candidates who are promoting the nastiness, it's the media looking for a story - and rabid supporters of each who don't quite grasp the bigger picture. This was reinforced while standing in line waiting to get into the second event, when my admission that I was still undecided led to a chilly brush-off from the woman I was talking to. Excuse me, but isn't the purpose of a campaign appearance to make a fresh appeal to those who need convincing? If they're designed simply to preach to the decided and dedicated choir, then why do the candidates waste their time making them?
I am even more miffed at the wide range of Obama supporters - including a new wave of superdelegates - who are suggesting that the party is being damaged by not having the race already locked up tidily, and Hillary should drop out. As a resident of one of the ten states that haven't yet voted, I don't like the attitude that I am so much chopped liver. I also wonder what they're so afraid of. It's still only March, for heaven's sake. The convention is in August. And if it's lively, so much the better! I remain convinced that a healthy, animated contested primary season is the essence of democracy and is not endangering the party.
What IS damaging is when Hillary is called an ambitious cunt (sorry, but I'm just quoting) or a calculating bitch on
ljdemocrats. Or when Obama is widely condemned for employing a single word ("typical") in trying to thoughtfully describe what was a demographic reality in the racial attitudes of many classes of people 30 to 40 years ago, including my own relatives and, apparently, his. (Hell, I still know people who hold those attitudes. Do I like them or endorse them or affirm their views or even enjoy hanging out with them? Of course not. But I'm too much of a realist to stick my fingers in my ears and sing "la la la" and pretend racist currents don't still exist in this country. But apparently we're not ready for that conversation yet.)
Seeing such hatred and ferocious will to destroy the opposing primary candidate out there, I wonder at this point if either of them is electable in November. And that scares me a lot more than not knowing who I'm voting for on April 22.
~~~~~~~~~
Oh. And can we just boycott the damned Olympics already, and maybe hold a "Free World Olympics" so that the athletes aren't stiffed on this?
~~~~~~~~
Gotta scoot now. I'm supposed to be at
valjean615's tonight.
And - note to campaign volunteers and highly partisan argumentative types on both sides - the histrionics and vituperation surrounding this campaign are not making my life, much less my decision, any easier. In fact, they're really discouraging me. Nor is this post an invitation to lengthy attempts to sway me in the comments section with attacks on the other candidate, so please don't try. I intend to be firmly in the camp of whichever candidate comes out of this with the nomination. They're going to need all the enthusiasm they can get, after the attacks I've heard.The name-calling I've heard and read just hurts my heart. These are both good people, and I simply don't understand the level of hatred out there among so-called loyal Democrats toward one or the other. I mean geez, Karl Rove, Lee Atwater and assorted loony Freepers couldn't do a better job of demonizing them both.
Issues-wise, I lean slightly for Obama, but just barely. I don't like his voodoo economics (gee, let's pay for better social programs with the money we'll save from ending the war! Um, Barack, that's money we're BORROWING, so it can't be SAVED.) And I don't like his health-care plan, because it's not as economically viable as Clinton's. The "coercion" argument against required health coverage is a libertarian one, and unless Obama's also planning to end social security, all income and sales tax, public education, local or federal policing, fire departments, community health initiatives and road repairs, it's one better left to Ron Paul.
Experience-wise, it's all Clinton for me. Sorry, Obamans, but it does matter - particularly in the area of economics. She's seen the good and the bad and the good intentions twisted beyond recognition, all up close and personal. One of her closest advisers has a balanced budget and eliminated deficit to his credit, and that's something I think she has the best chance of approximating even though Bush's debt and budget are an entirely different magnitude of "unbalanced". She's also witnessed the disaster that NAFTA became in unbridled Republican hands. She's seen the failures of Don't Ask Don't Tell, which was supposed to be a very different policy than what it became under homophobic and punitive Republican-led enforcement, and her premature attempt at health-care reform. And she's been through the media storm and the personal attacks and the power-grab of the Contract On America and just about anything else you can imagine, all in a glaring and largely unsympathetic public eye. Obama has not begun to face that.
But she's also more hawkish than I like, on many international issues and not just the war. I like Obama's progressive, let's-win-hearts-and-minds stance better.
Whoever becomes President is going to have to deal with the disaster that is our economic and human-rights relationship with China, with all its complications, and tentacles spreading into Darfur and North Korea and elsewhere, and that's not going to be easy. But I suspect she has the edge there. (McCain didn't even mention China in his major foreign policy speech on Tuesday. Apparently he thinks Russia has the worst human-rights problem on the planet. Can these Republicans EVER move past the cold war? Seriously.)
If any candidate came out and said "let's normalize relations with Cuba!" they'd have my vote in a heartbeat, but you know that ain't happenin' unless (in some reflection of what seems at this point to be the inevitable reality of post-election snafus) Florida's votes are pre-emptively disqualified before the general election.
So far I've been to 2 Hillary events. I haven't yet made it to an Obama event, a situation I intend to remedy. (Illness, both my own and feline, unfortunately got in the way of a couple of appearances I hoped to attend.) I have Hillary lawn signs, but I haven't yet put them up, because I just ... haven't ... decided. And I don't know if I will decide until I enter the voting booth and have to pull a lever.
The Clinton message during her events was positive and didn't bash anyone but Bush, further strengthening my opinion that it's not the candidates who are promoting the nastiness, it's the media looking for a story - and rabid supporters of each who don't quite grasp the bigger picture. This was reinforced while standing in line waiting to get into the second event, when my admission that I was still undecided led to a chilly brush-off from the woman I was talking to. Excuse me, but isn't the purpose of a campaign appearance to make a fresh appeal to those who need convincing? If they're designed simply to preach to the decided and dedicated choir, then why do the candidates waste their time making them?
I am even more miffed at the wide range of Obama supporters - including a new wave of superdelegates - who are suggesting that the party is being damaged by not having the race already locked up tidily, and Hillary should drop out. As a resident of one of the ten states that haven't yet voted, I don't like the attitude that I am so much chopped liver. I also wonder what they're so afraid of. It's still only March, for heaven's sake. The convention is in August. And if it's lively, so much the better! I remain convinced that a healthy, animated contested primary season is the essence of democracy and is not endangering the party.
What IS damaging is when Hillary is called an ambitious cunt (sorry, but I'm just quoting) or a calculating bitch on
ljdemocrats. Or when Obama is widely condemned for employing a single word ("typical") in trying to thoughtfully describe what was a demographic reality in the racial attitudes of many classes of people 30 to 40 years ago, including my own relatives and, apparently, his. (Hell, I still know people who hold those attitudes. Do I like them or endorse them or affirm their views or even enjoy hanging out with them? Of course not. But I'm too much of a realist to stick my fingers in my ears and sing "la la la" and pretend racist currents don't still exist in this country. But apparently we're not ready for that conversation yet.)
Seeing such hatred and ferocious will to destroy the opposing primary candidate out there, I wonder at this point if either of them is electable in November. And that scares me a lot more than not knowing who I'm voting for on April 22.
~~~~~~~~~
Oh. And can we just boycott the damned Olympics already, and maybe hold a "Free World Olympics" so that the athletes aren't stiffed on this?
~~~~~~~~
Gotta scoot now. I'm supposed to be at
valjean615's tonight.