As Tsunami Tuesday looms

[thatcrazycajun]

Tomorrow 24 states, including the one in which I now reside, hold party primaries and caucuses for Presidential nominations.

Even with the stampede of states rushing to move their primaries/caucuses into January to insure a meaningful selection (sometimes to their cost, as Florida's and Michigan's now-seatless Democratic state parties found out), the field has already been severely winnowed down as the also-rans have dropped out. Surprisingly, only three Republican contenders have withdrawn as of now: Rudy Giuliani, Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson. The Democratic side, however, looks like Little Big Horn after the battle: Joe Biden? Gone. Chris Dodd? Outta here. Bill Richardson? Adios, amigo. Dennis "the Kook" Kucinich? Didn't even get out the starting gate (not that anyone expected he would, including, I bet, the man himself). John Edwards, poor sod, has now failed twice. Mike Gravel is still hanging in, but does anyone outside his own family and campaign staff truly believe he has any chance at all?

So my party has only two real choices for the top of the ticket at this point: one U.S. Senator too many people won't vote for because he's either too inexperienced or the wrong ethnicity ("too green or too black," you might say), and another whom too many people are champing at the bit to vote against because they loathe her living guts. Way I see it, far too many people in the party have jumped on the "let's make history" bandwagon for both of them, in the process deluding themselves as to the seriousness of both Senators' liabilities. Barack Obama hadn't even completed his first full term in the Senate when Democrat movers and shakers started begging him to run, mainly on the strength of his oratory ability. And Hillary Clinton's biggest liability is...well, being Hillary Clinton. I've been saying for quite a while now that all the Dems need to do in order to guarantee losing the White House again this fall is make her the Presidential nominee; Clinton-hate galvanizes the right as nothing else does, not even gay marriage or gun control. (Case in point: Faux Noise Fox News star Sean Hannity, whose nationally-syndicated radio show got its start right here in Atlanta, has billboards all over town with his face and the headline, "Stop Hillary Now!")

Nonetheless, around 21 hours from now I must go into a voting booth and make a choice about who is to be my party's standard-bearer this year...and pray for someone or something to convince me between now and November 3rd that we're not sadly and inevitably doomed to failure either way.

"I don't belong to any organized political party; I'm a Democrat." —Will Rogers

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I'm planning on making a conscience vote; assuming John Edwards is still on the ballot here (he ought to be; logistically, he likely suspended his campaign too late to reprint them), he has my vote. I have little choice between the two remaining candidates; I don't particularly like either, but like both orders of magnitude better than any of the dreck in the Republican pool. The Dem is my general choice; tomorrow, I vote my conscience and heart.

Wrong targets

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

Here's a thought, since I could have written this post almost verbatim, and I hear exactly the same fear, loathing, and criticisms from the Republican side.

What if it's not the individuals running, nor the party they run under that we're all sick of. What if it's the friggin' rich at the top who buy these elections, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy a position that pays two hundred thousand (because they're all true altruists of course), and who then use their positions to pit us at the bottom against each other in the name of party affiliation and agendas? The only real successful agendas I see are the ones that take us toward one world government, and loss of national integrity, i.e. open borders, global hegemony, and free trade agreements that are bad for other countries but which move us toward submission to international laws as supercedent to our own.

It's getting so that you have to read the title of the page to tell if you're on Democratic Underground or Conservative Nation anymore.

Hmmm.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

Thanks for giving me the chance to say something.
As a Michigan citizen, my primary vote was disallowed by the Democratic party. As a result, I strategically voted for Willard.
However, you can imagine my shock and amazement to find Hilary Clinton allowed her name to be kept on the ballot, and as a result, won Michigan by narrowly beating Noah Ward.
Pretty much the same thing she did in Florida.
That was when I decided ANYONE but her.

[ex-wouldyoue846.livejournal.com]

Yes, Hillary has negatives, but I was surprised to learn her percentage of "wouldn't vote for her on a bet" numbers were LOWER than almost everyone else in the race. Rudy's were way, way, way higher.

They may hate Bill, but you'd be surprised at the number of Republicans who remember what it cost to gas up their pickups when Clinton was President, vs. what it costs now.

[patoadam]

I was surprised to learn her percentage of "wouldn't vote for her on a bet" numbers were LOWER than almost everyone else in the race

Interesting. Where did you find this data?

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

I get the impression Hillary-hatred may be the only reason a lot of right-wing Republicans can find to show up in November if McCain takes their nomination....

[patoadam]

too inexperienced

The best way I can think of to determine if experience benefits a President is to look at two-term Presidents and see if they did better during their second terms. I would say the evidence is mixed.