Clinton Handing Presidency to McCain

Update: This is a really good conversation we're having. Keep checking the end of the post, I will continue to respond there. I check these a few times a day.

Update 2: Keep the conversation going here, but check this out to see how right I was.

It became oh, so clear to me this morning. The Democrats are going to lose an unlosable election. Unbelievable. Hillary Clinton will be the instrument of their defeat this time, but it's really the same thing we've come to expect from these guys and gals time after time. The Democratic Party that I grew up admiring is dead, it has been since 1980. All we are left with now is to sit on the sidelines and whine.

This realization might be comforting if there were any hope of a decent third party picking up their mantle, but there is none. It's depressing. Understand, I don't hate Hillary for this, she's just following the blueprint of 28 years of losers. Ever since Jimmy Carter lost in a landslide to Ronald Reagan in 1980, Democrats have been afraid to be Democrats. Hillary doesn't really have a party to betray anymore, because the current Democrats are basically Republicans with slightly less war and more gays and blacks. The Republican Party has lost its way, too, but I'll have to let Eric Schulzke or someone tell you about that.

If you're one of these people who says they love Hillary sooo much that you'll vote for McCain if she doesn't win, skip this article. Any real Democrats out there, and any Republicans who want to have a laugh at us, continue reading.

I've said all along that the Democrats have two excellent candidates, and I can see favoring one over the other in policy matters, or leadership qualities, or any of a number of substantive issues. I have defended Hillary Clinton over and over again, pointing out the clear media bias against her. I have given her the benefit of the doubt on countless occasions when it comes to negative campaigning. I have even spoken out against Barack Obama in the past for not quashing the race issue when he had the chance, and I stand by that.

Every day on these message boards, I delete hundreds of comments containing slanderous or bigoted or sexist remarks, and I try to ignore them because I know that the candidates are not directly involved, as far as I know. But I can't ignore it any longer. Whether or not the influence is direct, the candidates set the tone for their supporters, and the pro-Hillary, anti-Obama stuff is ugly. By itself, it proves nothing, but when the Clinton campaign has to, time after time, make apologies or explanations for its surrogates' race-baiting activities, and when the candidate herself can only manage to respond to a smear with, "He's not a Muslim, as far as I know..", it casts all of it in a new light. The era of Hillary getting the benefit of the doubt on this is over. She has not earned it.

To be fair, there are some anti-Hillary comments that have to be deleted for content, but far fewer, and mostly from Republicans. That makes a little bit of sense. An unfair attack is an unfair attack, but at least you kind of expect it from the opposition party.

Still, the race-baiting is not what will lose this election for the Democrats. It doesn't help, but even stupid people have come around to the fact that being black has nothing to do with being President. Even latent racists can, and probably do, reason that he's "one of the good ones."

No, the things that will lose this race for the Democrats are twofold: The fear-mongering "3am" ad, not the first time Hillary has played this card, is a direct appeal to McCain voters. It is not the reason she won in Ohio and Texas last night, but she thinks it is, as does genius Mark Penn, so expect more of the same. The fact is, she eked out victories in states where she had held huge leads. None of what Penn did "worked", they lost huge amounts of support in those states. The victory here was in the all-important media narrative. Now, the fear card will get all of the coverage, and Hillary will continue to campaign for John McCain.

The second, more devastating reason that the Democrats will lose is that Hillary will not be the nominee (even if she was, she can't out-McCain McCain), and she will not be the Vice Presidential nominee. That means that a large bloc of Hillary's support are likely to vote for McCain. He does very well with women and Hispanics, two key Hillary demos, and there is overwhelming anecdotal evidence to suggest that much of Hillary's support will go for McCain if she is not the nominee. Thousands of them have said as much on these very pages. I've also said before that I don't think people vote race or gender as a positive, but it can be a factor as a negative. If a large bloc of voters feels a sense of "history denied", and they feel there is a viable alternative, they will vote that way.

There's still a chance to step back from this, but it won't happen, and I don't feel like wasting my breath. But I will anyway. By some miracle, Hillary must apologize for the "3am" ad, and the implication that Barack Obama, or John McCain, couldn't handle that call. Chalk it up to bad advice. After that, she needs to run her campaign the way I have suggested before. It gives her the best chance to win, plus it allows her to become the Vice Presidential nominee if she doesn't. As it stands, she's going to wreck the party for no reason, since she almost certainly cannot catch Obama in the delegate lead.


Why is it so important to have a Democrat in the White House? Is it because I want to be "on the winning team?" Do I think McCain is a bad guy? No, and no. McCain is a good man with a lot of reasonable policy positions, most with which I disagree, some that I don't. I even think his position on Iraq is reasonable, but wrong. The "100 years" quote is a stupid, "Gotcha!" sound-byte on a par with the "Dean Scream." It doesn't matter, though, because none of John McCain's reasonable ideas, like his immigration plan, will ever make it past his own party, let alone the Democrats.

What we will be left with, then, is things like the Bush tax cuts, which McCain himself spoke out against, and a continuation of the war in Iraq and a belligerent foreign policy that has threatened America's security more than a thousand 3am phone calls. And the Democrats, or at least enough to hamstring them, will cower at the Republicans' feet as they have for 28 years. Even the great Bill Clinton had to pass DOMA and NAFTA and mandatory minimums so as not to "seem weak on" whatever red meat issue the right was screeching about.

The Democratic Party is supposed to stand for a set of values that mean something, but instead, they've found it easier to give up those principles because it's easier than explaining why you're not weak. It's easier to pass an ENDA bill that excludes transgendered people than to explain that human rights are just that, and trans-people are human. It's easier to maybe support Civil Unions than to point out the obvious, that the only difference between that and gay marriage is a religious one, and we are not a theocracy, and that is for the protection of religions as much as the government. It's easier to never, never touch "defense spending" and to fund the war over and over while decimating needed domestic programs, rather than to explain that cutting waste and keeping out of a war unless absolutely necessary doesn't make you weak or unsupportive of our troops, who get a molecule of that money, but rather smart and strong and able to respond to a real emergency. It's easier to abandon the poor in favor of big business, since the poor will vote for you anyway because you'll screw them less than the other guy. It's easier to pass a FISA bill that includes a criminally un-American immunity to companies that broke the law than to stand up to a 2 minute knockoff of the TV show 24.

The sad fact is, this country's elections are decided by John Q. Dumbass, who pays no attention to politics and gets his news from emails and the dipsh*t he works next to. If you have lived in this country for the past 8 years, and you are still undecided, you are not paying attention. Now, this group is easily led, and there's a chance to lead them someplace great. Lead them to Universal Healthcare, a tax plan that doesn't shift the burden to the middle-class, an end to the wrong and wasteful war in Iraq, and yes, a country that, for the first time, can elect as its leader someone who rises above a history of prejudice and fulfills our nation's promise of equality. These are territories that it takes courage to go to, where people will follow because they have before, under Lincoln and FDR and JFK. But they will not be led there by fear.

Update: Brief response to comments - The piece speaks for itself, and I stand by every word. The last paragraph refers to both candidates.

I expected many of you to ignore my warning and read on anyway, and I also expected you all to attack the messenger and not the message, but I am very surprised at you, David G. You know very well that I do not have a rooting interest, that I have been thorough and fair.

It doesn't bother me personally if you accuse me of bias, but it does distract from the message. Anyone who doubts my fairness with Hillary Clinton, or anyone else, can click on the little blue "Tommy Christopher" and see for themselves. The people accusing me of bias are the same exact ones who have patted me on the back countless times for defending Hillary. They know it isn't true, they just want you to doubt the messenger rather than the message. Very illustrative.

I am not a "supporter" of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. If thinking that is all it takes to get you to dismiss this, then you wasted your time reading it.

OK, last one. Diana, the 3am ad is identical in tone and character to the 2004 "Wolves" ad that Bush ran against Kerry. If you stand by that kind of campaigning, cool. I got no argument with you. As you yourself said, John McCain is the candidate for you if Hillary doesn't win. I don't presume to know any of you, but none of the true Democrats I know would vote for John McCain. On the subject of 9/11, you feel free to use your experience from that day in any way you see fit, but don't question mine.

Diana, sorry, I didn't mean to spit fire at you. 9/11 is a very sore subject for lots of folks, myself included, and I'm already in a foul mood. You were not rude, and I hope I wasn't rude to you. If your mind is not made up, keep reading about the candidates, but don't vote from fear. If the phone rings at 3am, I trust all three of these candidates to answer the call. I trust Hillary and Barack Obama to do more to avoid more needless deaths by attacking the wrong country, but I'm pretty sure McCain is up to that job, too. That leaves every other issue.

6:16 pm Rest assured, I have read every one of your comments, and I plan to post a followup starring the best of them. Diana, LOL, no that wasn't me. Even though I rarely misspell, getting on someone else's case is just asking for it. Besides, the smartest person I ever met, my Dad, couldn't spell worth a damn.

There have been a lot of high emotions on display here, my own included, but also a lot of reasonable dialogue and some funny, if edgy, satirical comments.

You all have the perfect right to disagree with me, but a lot of you called me some variation of an idiot or an Obama shill or a mental patient while agreeing with me. Please, read what I wrote. That's all I'm saying. For the record, even though the article is just a few inches above me, I never said that Hillary supporters were old or uneducated. I never said Hillary isn't an excellent candidate with a lot of substance to run on, in fact I said the opposite. If you're so inclined, check back later for the new story.

10:34AM 3/6/08 Diana, I'm glad you liked "The Greatness of Hillary Clinton", but I assure you, the title was sincere, and I stand by that story as well. Hillary Clinton is without a doubt a pioneer, a brilliant leader, and someone we should all be proud of. That's why it pisses me off when people who don't know me accuse me of bias or something just because I disagree with her. You're allowed to disagree with people you admire. Everyone knows I was a strong supporter of John Edwards, and I have relationships with several of his campaign staff, and I have laid into them, in person, on multiple occasions when I thought they were making a mistake.

You do your candidate no favors by agreeing with everything they do. First of all, she's far more likely to listen to all of you than to outsiders, and second of all, if you can't critique your candidate credibly, how can your advocacy also have credibility?

Steve,

my fears are genuine, but yes, a little overstated. This piece is meant to be a wake-up call as much as a critique of the Democratic Party. The Hillary thing, while more immediate and provocative, is only a small part of what I'm talking about. As soon as Mike Dukakis got into that tank, it was over for us. You'd think they'd have learned. Why would John Kerry, a war hero, need to be photographed hunting?

Don,

you are exactly right. Voting based on those wedge issues is like picking a shortstop based on how good a painter he is. It ain't gonna matter.

Peter,

excellent analysis, not as funny as I was expecting given your name. If you haven't yet, try submitting your links to The Specious Report, tell 'em Tommy sent you.

Wendy,

this can be a scary world, but times of danger are when you need to think clearest. That ad is designed to evoke panic, just as the "Wolves" ad before that. The truth is, that phone call can be taken by any one of these 3. None of them would sit around reading a children's book, then hide in America's airspace while the Mayor of New York took over. All of them will protect America at the moment of crisis. But what happens a few days or weeks later? Do we waste lives and resources invading the wrong country?

Michelle,

I am not saying that all Hillary supporters, or any of them, are "John Q. Dumbass." It's a long article, I know, but please re-read it. I have no problem with people voting for Hillary, I have no problem with Hillary winning, that'd be great. My problem is with the strategy, because that's where John Q. Dumbass comes in. If you read my article, I say that the ad did not help her win.

Victor, Joy,

I love strong, intelligent women. In fact, I'm having a great conversation with several of them right on this page. Read a few more of my stories before you judge me. I take the sexism charge seriously. If you think that criticizing a woman makes me sexist, well, what can I do? Can you support the accusation?

Audrey,

no, it is not true. Click here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obama.asp

JudyUM, I hope I didn't miss you. Listen, I can see you didn't like the article, but it isn't fair to call it slanted. If you disagree with my analysis, explain how I am wrong. If you think today's Democratic Party is fulfilling its promises, please explain to me how. I've written basically the same story for 3 days straight, and nobody has even tried to explain which part is wrong. Why can't you see that your candidate is hurting herself, why don't you tell her to stop?

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It occurs to me, too, that I went through this exact experience in 2004, as a campaign volunteer. Over and over again, the Democrats messed everything up and lost an election to the worst president in history, and did they (we) learn from it? When I wrote this, just 2 days ago, there was still time and opportunity to fix this. I don't know if it still can be fixed. Even if Hillary changes course, she's given McCain all the campaign ads he'll need against either of them. And in case I didn't make this clear, I don't believe this is Hillary's doing. She's getting and listening to bad advice.

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