Under no reasonable scenario will Hillary Clinton, assuming she and Barack Obama contest the nomination through June 7th (the last primary, Puerto Rico), and even including a re-vote of Michigan and Florida, come out ahead in the pledged delegate count or the popular primary vote. The superdelegates, those who aren't "pledged" and not determined from popular vote, will be the ones that decide the nomination. That is a certainty now. The implications for Clinton going forward are huge. Should she somehow pick up and pick off enough superdelegates to push her past the magical 2,025 delegate total needed for the nomination, she will have done so without a lead in the pledged delegate count or the popular vote. This poses huge problems not only for her candidacy but for the Democratic Party as an organization.
Really, Hillary, you want to win this way? By pissing off half of the Democratic electorate and pushing a small but still significant minority to either a) not vote for you in November or b) vote for John McCain, as silly and idiotic such behavior would amount to? Really, Hillary? Because you realize what a handicap this gives you, what with the entire political press establishment, a good portion of Obama supporters and the entire Republican slime machine all looking for ANY and ALL missteps you take. You would have my vote of course, but what does my vote count for you, really, in New York State?
Fine. Bust up the Democratic Party. God knows it needs busting up, what with Democratic capitulation rampant in Congress to every god-damned Constitution-shredding whim of Emperor George W. Bush. And what do we really have to look forward to, Hillary, in your match-up against McCain? Losing? Probably. Losing down-ticket Congressional races to Republicans and "blue-dog" Bush-loving "Democrats" that you love to support (remember traitor Joe Lieberman?) in primaries? This doesn't concern you at all, clearly. Oh, but history. Yes, you'd be making (U.S.) history be being the first female nominee, yada yada. But at what cost? We entered this year with a huge electoral advantage over the Constitution-hating, anti-freedom "Republicans" but if you have anything to say about it you will have none of that. Howard Wolfson? Mark Penn? They were BRILLIANT strategists and tacticians, you'll say. I'm the COMEBACK KID! Look at me, I'm the NAH-MIN-NEEEEEE! Yaaaaay, now let's make history and lose AGAIN in November! Yaaaaay!
Of course there is that off chance that she could win the presidency despite all this. That would, of course, require overcoming mountains of self-doubt among Democratic supporters, which feeds into press stories, which feeds into self-fulfilling prophecies I won't get into. It would require overcoming negaive press narratives and YouTube slime campaigns and a host of as-yet-undetermined "suprises" thrown her way. I hate all of this, of course, maybe that's why I just want her to give up her bid and just be a really good Senator who can replace Harry Reid as majority leader, and go on to do really good things. Maybe I'm dreaming here, I mean she's already shown her propensity to slime Obama, maybe she can take McCoot down just by tiring him out. God knows she's tired me out just being an Obama supporter.
Can we make it to April 22nd and the Pennsylvania primary, Hillary's next "firewall," intact? I'm seriously beginning to doubt it given the intra-party nastiness of this race.
I find myself in the crossfire that's taking place in my head. On one side, I see Obama being the true uniter Bush could never be, and with a progressive agenda to boot, and I see him winning states we haven't won in a generation. On the other side I see Clinton possibly making universal health care a reality, and defeating an antagonistic, misogynistic, self-hating media and political slime machine that puts all past slime machines to shame, and being the first woman POTUS. The problem comes when I face reality and the fact that our media does not cover this race with substance in mind. They seem to be taking turns sliming the candidates, from Clinton to Obama, all the while treating McCain with infant while he goes about lying his way to the Presidency.
What is sad is that the people of Ohio and Texas, at this point at least, don't seem to get any of this, and want the race to continue. Maybe they actually think Hillary can wrap it up by tomorrow morning, and that Obama will give up his bid and endorse her. What the fuck do I know? Maybe it should go on, to Pennsylvania and beyond, to North Carolina, West Virginia, Oregon, Puerto Rico et. al. Maybe I'm just a pathetic worry-wort. The problem is that this race does not occur in a vacuum, that there are things called newspapers and TV and that they shape people's perceptions. And we all know that these things called newspapers and TV are filled with plenty of slime and misinformation that will mar, discourage and otherwise turn many a potential voter away. It's as if the people who make up the political "press corps" just don't think that elections matter, that outcomes don't matter and that all this is just a horse race to witness from the sidelines. To all of you who would feel this way, and are covering the race this way: fuck you. You have no right to be in journalism. Either that or what they're teaching you in journalism classes in universities across America these days is to just read the Drudge Report and ask for a comment. What the fuck?
As much as I hate seeing this self-immolation take town two really good Democratic candidates, the though occurs to me that a possible outcome from this is more viable third parties. The Democratic Party is currently being hijacked in Congress by these so-called "blue-dog" House members who, together with 100% of the Republican membership, act as a pro-Bush majority that is slowly taking away our Constitutional rights. I have heard nothing from either Obama or Clinton on the FISA fight going on, the central issue of which is whether to allow telecom companies such as AT&T to break the law and spy on your phone conversations without a warrant, and then not being able to sue them. This is fascism writ large, and yet this is just how FISA is about to get passed into law. No word on this, potential President Obama or Clinton? The problem is that third parties haven't established themselves much at all even at the state or local level, let alone the U.S. Congress or federal level. So how can we expect a Ralph Nader to ever be a viable candidate? He's the only presidential candidate right now who is unambiguously, uncompromisingly pro-Constitution, anti-corporate and pro-environment, with no asterisks as to how he capitulated to this or that politician. But I and most people will and won't vote for him because he has no chance in hell at becoming president. That in itself is a problem. One that we might just address were the Democratic Party to implode via a brokered convention.
I'm so tired of writing about this. Brokered conventions, third parties, coalition third-party-rich governments, robust Congressional oversight of a power-hungry Executive branch, an intellectually honest corporate media somehow springing to life. Yeah, ok. Our march to fascism continues.
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