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Edited on Sat Mar-08-08 07:18 AM by susankh4
I am an unwavering Hillary supporter. I won't ever deny that. Nor will I give up on a woman who has spent her entire life working for just the causes I care about.
I have also supported Barack Obama. After reading his books, I talked him up to my friends. It's been many months since I started calling for a Clinton/Obama ticket in 2008. I have actually been wearing a Clinton/Obama button since the beginning of this year.
To be honest, I was not happy when I saw the Democratic Party elders endorsing Mr. Obama *over* Ms. Clinton. Seeking to place a junior statesman in the highest profile position in the land seemed, at the very least, political folly. It rubbed me the wrong way. Called up my worst suspicions ... that my own "progressive" party was as mired in sexism and misogyny as is the rest of the country. At it's worst it spelled, to me, a willingness to commit political homicide. The readiness to risk the career of one of our great "up and comings" in order to keep an "uppity woman" down.
Still, I held fast to my belief that *someone* knew what s/he was doing! Surely, Howard Dean and the DNC knew that these two candidates, together, would energize our party? Certainly Mr. Kennedy was only trying to boost Mr. Obama's chances of staying in the race long enough to be considered a viable VP? Of course, everyone could see the power of change, begotten of *experience* and infused with *hope*?
Now I find myself, months into the campaigns of our two party hopefuls... simply scratching my head in disbelief. How could our party elders could be so irresponsible as to:
1) disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters in FLA & MI without looking ahead to the consequences? 2) pit two strong minority Senators against one another in the nominating process for an election that should have been ours for the taking? 3) subject one of our future hopefuls, Mr. Obama, to the kind of political scrutiny that invariably haunts (and aims to destroy) those who attempt transformation of a system mired in fear and apathy?
Did not one of the elders who endorsed Sen. Obama, over Sen. Clinton, see what they were doing? Did they not realize how high the stakes would be for the first woman president vs. the first African American president? Did they not know a long, drawn out primary would split the party into factions? Turn Dem against Dem? Could they not see... as could the average Dem on the street... that we had sixteen years of presidential material in front of us. Ours for the asking? I'll admit... I am rapidly losing faith in the good ole boys in Washington. They seem only too willing to throw away our next 16 years.... as it suits their own agenda.
Just what *is* that agenda? Beyond pitting Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama against one another so that they (the WASPMs of the party) can wisk in and, patronizingly tell us: "See, women and blacks CAN'T be president. We knew it all along. Now we'll have to install a white guy to keep the peace."
OK. Now I get it. It's all coming clear.
And I don't like it one bit.
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