So I wrote a piece about Hillary Clinton and the generally kneejerk opposition to her candidacy from the left blogophony.
The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Against Hillary Clinton. On The Not-So-Vast Left Wing Blogophone.
A number of people read it and many of them commented. Some yea, some nay.
But one comment theme stood out.
We must vote our CONSCIENCE!!!
Oh Lord, where have I heard THIS meme before?
One particular poster summed it all up.
I quote the comment in its entirety.
Basing our votes on what Karl Rove is thinking.
Hmm…sounds a bit like that old “electability” meme. You know, the one that killed Dean in Iowa. The one that’s now advocated by the “maroons” over at Daily Kos.
Me, I prefer to vote for who I want to be President, not who Karl Rove likes least. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.
Read on for my reply.
Basing our votes on what Karl Rove is thinking?
Know thine enemy.
And then do what he does NOT want you to do.
Hmm…sounds a bit like that old “electability” meme? You know, the one that killed Dean in Iowa?
The media killed Dean in Iowa.
That and his lack of national political chops.
Bottom (political) line?
He wasn’t a good enough actor.
Me, I prefer to vote for who I want to be President, not who Karl Rove likes least.
Feel free.
The left has been doing that for 70+ years.
Keep it up. You may get to do your part in electing yet another in a long line of Republican presidents.
Again.
In the last 56 years, the U.S. has had a Democratic president for only 4 terms of office.
On purely partisan terms, the Dems are only batting about .285, the Rats .615.
Factor in LBJ’s involvement in the JFK coup (pre- or post assassination, I do not care), Jimmy Carter’s ineffectual last 2 years and Clinton’s crippled last 2 years, and that’s approximately 10 years of effective Dem leadership during that time.
Batting average down to .178.
And I will not even get into Dem presidents with a legislative majority.
The Dems are and have been an almost total failure since the impetus provided by FDR petered out at the end of Truman’s term.
Good work. fellas.
Keep on voting “your conscience”.
The Rats would LOVE you to do so.
The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.
The enemy of your enemy is ALWAYS the enemy of your enemy, though.
Choose your enemies well. And your friends. A perfect ally in an ideological sense is not necessarily a good or POWERFUL ally.
I wish it were otherwise.
I wish a LOT of things were otherwise. In my weaker moments. But then I wake up. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride said my grandmother. The Dems have been beggars in America for almost 60 years. They have an unprecedented chance to take control of this country for quite possibly 16 years if they play their cards right. Eight years of Hillary Clinton and if she is successful…remember, in terms of economic, social AND international policies Bill Clinton WAS successful at a relatively high level of consistency (barring his unfortunate predilection for little sexual adventures)…plus if she is successful, eight years of her successor. (Especially if she and Barack Obama have the good sense to team up…something that sadly looks less and less likely to happen as they futilely bang upon one another in the primaries instead of ganging up on the Rats. This is not unexpected. After all…they ARE Democrats. You should be able to relate, you Hillary bashers..)
A possible sixteen years of Democratic rule.
Imagine the possibilities
Or, of course…more of the same.
I mean…at least you would continue to have something about which you could complain.
Business as usual, I guess.
The Dems tear each other a whole set of new assholes while the OLD assholes ride right back into power no matter how stupidly failed they may have been during the previous administration. And THIS administration has lived on a whole new level of failure.
I’m tellin’ ya, me bloggos…if the Dems fail this time, then short of a vital new political party arising out of the ashes…a possibility the odds of which happening I would give about 16 to 1 against…or a total societal collapse, this country is gone. Finito. Finished. Over and out. One great big Simpson’s episode without the laughs. An O. J. Simpson of countries. Time to move on out and start looking for ANOTHER people’s dream.
So…go the fuck ahead and vote “your conscience”. It’s the selfish thing to do. It’s the AMERICAN way. The way that the Rats have been encouraging for 56 years. DON’T look tactically. Only think of the big, pie in the sky picture.
Conscience Pie.
Dream on.
Dream on of your perfect world.
BE the victim again.
You.
Le Plat du Jour
The Blue Plate, Blue State Special.
YOU are what’s for dinner.
Later on this same poster wrote:
Another thought.
Let’s turn this on its head. If I were the Dem leadership right now, the Republican I’d least like to face would be Rudy Giuliani (or maybe McCain). Both because he’s moderate enough to take a great big bite out of the Left coalition, and because he’s an evil fuck who will stop at nothing to win.
Does that mean that all Republicans should vote for Giuliani, because that’s who I want least? Absolutely not. Giuliani would destroy the Republican Party, lead to the highest Constitution Party vote in a generation, and eviscerate the party infrastructure, leading to years of rule by the Dems.
Know how I know? Because that’s exactly what Clinton did to the Dems in 1992, after we nominated him using the same ill-advised, short-term logic you’re using to advise our nominating Hillary. Just ask 2000 Nader voters how they would have felt about the Democrats had Paul Tsongas, Tom Harkin, or Jerry Brown won the nomination in 1992, and I think you’ll be surprised at the response.
Unbelievable.
Had Paul Tsongas, Tom Harkin, or Jerry Brown won the Dem nomination in 1992, the Dems would have been without a President for 8 more years than they already HAVE been!!! And I LIKE Jerry Brown’s whole act. A lot. But he could not have been elected in America in 1992 even if he managed to levitate during a debate and feed the whole audience on bread, fishes and Big Macs.
Wake the fuck UP!!!
The viciously brilliant right wing cartoonist Al Capp knew you people well when he invented the Shmoo during the post W.W. II years.
The Shmoo loved to be eaten and tasted like any food desired. Anything that delighted people delighted a Shmoo. Fry a Shmoo and it came out chicken. Broil it and it came out steak. Shmoo eyes made terrific suspender buttons. The hide of the Shmoo if cut thin made fine leather and if cut thick made the best lumber. Shmoo whiskers made splendid toothpicks. The Shmoo satisfied all the world’s wants. You could never run out of Shmoon (plural of Shmoo) because they multiplied at such an incredible rate. The Shmoo believed that the only way to happiness was to bring happiness to others. Li’l Abner discovered Shmoos when he ventured into the forbidden Valley of the Shmoon, against the frantic protestations of Ol’ Man Mose. “Shmoos,” he warned, “is the greatest menace to hoomanity th’ world has evah known.” “Thass becuz they is so bad, huh?” asked Li’l Abner. “No, stupid,” answered Mose, hurling one of life’s profoundest paradoxes at Li’l Abner. “It’s because they’re so good!”
Ironically, the lovable and selfless Shmoos ultimately brought misery to humankind because people with a limitless supply of self-sacrificing Shmoos stopped working and society broke down. Seen at first as a boon to humankind, they were ultimately hunted down and exterminated to preserve the status quo. (Thought extinct after the 1948 adventure, one Shmoo always seemed to escape to Dogpatch’s Valley of the Shmoon to form a new colony and a later plot revival by Capp)
Remember the Shmoo?
That nice little animal that would happily jump into a frying pan and cook itself up if Li’l Abner got hungry?
And good ol’ Li’l Abner…why he’d jes’ CRY HIS EYES OUT over the plights in which them good-hearted little things so often found themselves.
Until of course he got…
…hungry.
You’re just another buncha Shmoos, folks.
Shmoon.
In the eyes of the Rat hustlers.
Justa buncha Shmoon.
Wake the fuck up.
Or…go jump from the present frying pan RIGHT into the fire.
I am beginning to not give much of a shit one way or another. This coming Dem meltdown…if it happens…will be the last one in which I have any interest whatsoever.
Sorry. That WILL be all she wrote.
And I will have to go live somewhere else.
Last shot, baby.
This is your last shot.
HILLARY CLINTON is your last shot.
Take it or leave it.
All’s I can do is point out the facts of the matter.
Go ahead and fuck it up this time.
Shmoo City.
And the fire this time.
Watch.
Later…
AG
Feel free.
Come one, come all.
What the hell.
If we are going to end human history, why NOT do it with a comfortably clear conscience?
‘A course…some clear consciousness might more closely resemble what the doctor ordered, but like I said…what the hell.
Even the doctors are fucked up, now.
So…go ahead.
Line up behind the losers.
It’s a leftist tradtion, after all.
Gotta LOVE you them shmoon!!!
AG
Does it ever occur to you that you are wrong?
Hillary Clinton strikes me as another Mary Sue Terry.
With what army is the GOP going to do it to us this time, Arthur?
Huckabee? Romney?
If McCain wins New Hampshire, let’s talk. If not, your analysis is 100% bullshit. Without McCain, they don’t have a candidate that can beat anyone.
Fuck…give me a Huckabee/Dodd matchup. That would be a barnburner.
The caricatures ALONE would lose him the election.
Please.
AG
to whom?
I am amazed that you cannot see this, Booman.
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE ISSUES.
IT’S NOT ABOUT THE POSITIONS
AND IT IS NOT ABOUT GENERALIZED IQ OR GOOD-HEARTEDNESS.
It is only about putting on a winning performance on a national stage, the audience for which is primarily a collection of media-hypnotized halfwits.
They see what they are told to see, and they ALSO see what they have seen many times before. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are the only two Dems who appear “Presidential” as that image has been sold to the sh(l)eelple. The Rats have no one but McCain who can pull that off, except now maybe Huckabee. McCain is probably too old, and Huckabee is too strange.
Romney is a stiff, unimaginative lying sack of shit, but in a sort of RoboCop way he can probably be sold as being more Presidential than a Dem with inferior image quotient. Giuliani is too vulnerable with his sexual and ethics problems, plus HE looks like some comic Hallowe’en ghoul/undertaker half the time. Thompson? Phhhfffftttt!!! He looks like all he really wants is a couple of shots of really expensive Scotch, a good Cuban cigar and a blowjob.
So by default it’s Romney as a sort of inferior Reagan vs. either Clinton or Obama. Unless of course McCain has some secret reservoir of strength that will push him through. Or…NOBODY makes it and Bloomberg/Gingrich comes riding to the rescue. At which point all bets are off.
Against Edwards, Dodd, or Richardson?
Romney’s got a shot if his Mormon thing doesn’t turn off too many voters.
Against Clinton and/or Obama?
Fuggedaboudit!!!
AG
They will not NEED an army if we self-destruct.
AG
If I understand your argument correctly, the problem with Edwards and Obama is that they are not tough enough…don’t understand the game…aren’t willing to fight…haven’t calibrated their message correctly, etc.
One thing that concerns me is that the press really doesn’t like John Edwards. And that is a problem for any candidate. It certainly was a problem for John Kerry, for Al Gore, and before him, Bill Bradley.
Huckabee’s main source of strength is his cultivation of the press.
But Huckabee would be the most transparently loony presidential nominee in our nation’s history. He can’t just waltz around his bizarre ideas and record.
Romney is Kerry on steroids. He’s already flip-flopped himself into knots.
Rudy can take 10 months of scrutiny.
In order for the Republicans to pull off the typical Dukakization of our candidate they have to be able to pass themselves off as regular Americans. That’s quite a task for an evolution denying southern baptist preacher or a ultra-millionaire Massachusetts Mormon.
Guiliani and his New York accent, gay friends, propensity to dress in drag, children that hate him, and string of corruption? Please.
Only McCain or Thompson can really pull off that regular American act. And they’re currently nowhere in the nomination process.
You can’t beat someone with no one.
It’s like you are telling us that we have to throw our best pitcher if we have any prayer of beating Roger Clemens. But it turns out that Roger Clemens is on the disable list and we going to be facing a rookie just called up from double A ball.
It’s not true that only Hillary can win.
And even more…they is data that suggests the opposite. She may be more vulnerable than the others.
There is “data” out there that says anything you want it to say. And it is ALL full of shit.
My take…the only data I trust? Data that has been right on the money at a MUCH higher percentage than any other stuff that I have ever seen? For over 40 years?
Hillary can win the election, and she will be a MORE than effective President.
Obama has a shot.,..but it will be an uphill climb, plus if and when he gets to the top of the mountain:
A-He’ll find it hard to govern because he does not know the inside game.
and
B- He’d best have a Vice-President that the PermaGov trusts even less than they do him. And the two of them should NEVER be in the same place at the same time. Because they WILL drop him JFK style if he gets too reckless.
You know that old joke that was current in black neighborhoods when Jesse Jackson was making Prez noises?
About how a black President could best secure his own survival?
By having a Mexican Vice-President?
It wasn’t a joke.
More like a half-a-joke.
And if it was a joke, the laughs that it evoked were not the kind that mean “Ha ha”.
Bet on it.
Edwards?
A weak, disgusting little man, in my view. And the Rats will run him through more easily than they did Small K kerry. That video of him combing his hair?
End of campaign.
Right there.
The rest of them?
The only really tough Dem that I see in a purely political sense…besides Kucinich, who has made DAMNED sure that he will not be elected OR nominated by acting all pouty, posing with his model girlfriend while cat-ate-the-canary smirking like the proverbial short man who is carrying some kind of BIG secret inside his pants, and by espousing positions that would not win even at a dKos convention if they had the brains to think about what he is saying…is Joe Biden.
Dodd? Richardson? No flair. AND no good position in the race, politically speaking.
Also-rans.
Biden?
Tough as nails, smart, mouthy…and his position vis à vis the Corporate PermaGov makes Hillary look like a radical anarchist reformer in comparison.
Hillary Clinton.
She’s your best bet, Booman.
A good poker player ALWAYS plays the odds.
Hillary…almost a sure thing. Although the winning won’t be all that great, they WILL be winnings. And after losing for so long, it ALL looks like up to me.
Obama? A riskier bet. But with more potential upside.
If you can get Hiillary Clinton AND Barack Obama in your hand…it’s almost like having a royal flush.
The rest?
Fold and watch the chip leaders fight it out.
AG
I’m a hell of a poker player, AG, and let me tell you, you don’t play the odds, you play the opponent.
There is “data” out there that says anything you want it to say. And it is ALL full of shit.
and that pretty much explains all your blogging. put everybody down, pretend to be surperior, put down all bases of hope, and if anyone calls you on your sophistry, pretend that data is spin. Just like a Republican.
I know what I know.
Let me ask you a question.
Who did you support in the previous two campaigns?
And…where are they now?
Yup.
I thought so. (The “Dem” in your handle is a dead giveaway.)
They lost.
Either the nomination or the election.
I am NOT “putting down…all bases of hope.”
I actually DO have hope.
Hope that Hillary Clinton will manage to survive the barrage of negativity that you are aiming at her from the left as well as the same sort of negativity aimed at her from the right. And hope that she will do good work ina truly superhumanly demanding job.
Can’t please all the people all the time, now can ya?
So it goes.
I think that all data is spin no matter whether it supports my own observations or not.
Harry Truman proved THAT one 60 years ago.
Today?
Data IS spin.
It is collected by paid spinners and then dirstributed by even higher paid spinners.
For one purpose and one purpose only.
To prove the REALLY highly paid owners’ points. WHATEVER they may be.
The Clintons have their data.
So do the Obamas and the Edwardses and the Giulianis and the Romneys and…on and on and on and on and on.
ALL of it contradictory. At least the “data” that they choose to show the sleeple is contradictory.
Well…I have mine too.
And I trust it. Because in my experience it has been dead on. I knew that Dean would be in some way “AAARGHED!!!” in June, about 7 months before it happened. And I blogged about it. And I knew the moment Kerry gawked up on stage at that fake convention that he was going to have his ass handed to him by the Roves.
ALONG with his little buttboy Edwards.
And I blogged about that, as well.
You do NOT trust my data?
Fine.
Best of luck with YOUR candidates.
Better luck than you have had over the past 60 years, at the very least.
Over and out…
AG