I've had my doubts about Obama for a while with all his "unity above partisanship" shit, but after today not a chance in hell I'll come around to supporting him in the primary. I'm so sick of this sanctimonious crap. I can't believe I'll support Hillary Rodham Clinton before Obama, but I will. He's just not ready [and] I simply don't want what he's selling. He gives a good speech but that's about it as far as I'm concerned. I still lean Edwards but I'm not actually open to Hillary. Did I just write that?I'm still on the fence with the Democrats. It's still early and I'll probably make a decision sometime after the holidays. That said, one of the reasons Sen. Obama is so attractive right now is, as the Sunday Times of London put it this past weekend:
Democrats will realise he has a much better chance of winning a real national majority in the general election than Clinton does. Clinton polarises the way Bush polarises. She can hope for a Karl Rove-style [48% plurality or] 51% majority in a deeply divided country. He’s aiming for 55%.(My italics.) One of my major complaints about George W. Bush, both after the 2000 election (in which he lost the national popular vote) and - more importantly - after 9/11, is that he remained radically partisan. Following the skewed result of that first election, a true patriot would have shown the country and the world that he respected the majesty of the voice of the people by naming members of the opposition party to key posts in his administration. George W. Bush didn't, of course (well...he named one to the Transportation post). Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 Mr. Bush had a historic chance to correct that blunder and bring the opposition into the fold as the nation moved to war footing. Once again, the President sold the country up shits creek.
Clinton, in other words, represents payback for the Democrats and liberals after the Bush era, just as Giuliani is emerging as the inheritor of the Bush legacy of divide and rule. Right now, Obama remains to the side, offering Americans something else: not payback, but a new page.
In one of the most unpatriotic moves in American history Mr. Bush and his political guru Karl Rove used 9/11 and the war to advance a fascist right-wing agenda. And for what? A country divided as it hasn't been since the Civil War, and a minuscule 51% of the popular vote at reelection. And now the country is more than ready to close the book on this guy's presidency. Americans have finally had enough of the divide and conquer mentality that defines their form of government.
The next president needs to be the healer America so desperately needs. And as much as my progressive and liberal friends will want a new Democratic president to enact serious revenge for eight dark years of Bush rule, the most important thing that president will need to do is clean up George's mess.
That will mean a unity government, with Republicans in a few key posts. I don't mean the blind Bush-backing Republicans, not by a long shot. Their blind trust in a failed president prove them unworthy of a place at the big boys table. I'm talking about a few moderate Republicans.
But Republicans none-the-less. Because another term of divide and conquer, of blue versus red, is the wrong path to take. A president entering the White House with that mindset in January 2009 is guaranteed one term.
Can the Democrats really afford that?
Can America really afford for them not to?
