Ok, so I'm going out on a limb here. I am a Hillary Clinton supporter, but as I've stated in the past, not by much. I support Clinton because I belong to that little-known political party: Realisticrats. Realisticrats never fall in love with a candidate. We fall in love with winning. We start at the end -- the actual election -- and work our backwards from there in choosing the candidate who has the best chance at victory. I don't rally around anyone unless they look, smell and act like a winner. I belong to no "team." A reporter once jabbed basketball legend Michael Jordan about his his ego and style of play with "Hey Michael, there's no "I" in team"... His Airness responded with the brilliant, "that's right, but there is in 'win'." It's all about winning. And while I actually prefer to see Sen. Barack Obama become our 44th president, and think he would be much better for the country at this critical military, economic and social crossroads, I firmly believe Clinton is the more electable candidate against the GOP's presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain and the Ruthless Republican Attack Machine (RRAM).
Obama, in order to achieve the historic presidential greatness that might one day be his destiny, needs to first get past the supreme ugliness that he faces with the RRAM. And I am as confident as a caterpillar at a toe-countin' contest that McCain & Company will eat him alive in the general election. He has unfortunately armed the RRAM with way too much ammunition involving his Rev. Wright, Tony Rezko, William Ayers, flag pin, BitterGate and Michelle's "pride" controversies. Throw in the inescapable fact that he's a 46-year-young black man with a Muslim name, a drug past and just three years experience in the Senate and the picture deeply worsens. Now before I continue, don't shoot the messenger. I personally don't care about any of this nonsense, but you can bet your ass the RRAM is salivating as we speak. If you believe otherwise, you are beyond naive. I've taken a lot of heat over the past several months over this position. But I am not in the politically-correct business. Remember, I'm a Realisticrat. My only goal is to win.
That brings us to Clinton, who is way too untrustworthy, untruthful and disingenuous to way too many people, including this writer. But the simple truth is, people expect such duplicity from politicians, and especially from the Clintons. There's nothing new on the front. With the Clintons, it's the same old same old. The skeletons are already out of the closet, and have been under the RRAM microscope since '92. Unlike with Obama, her news is old news. But more important, Hillary has the Ruthless Clinton Attack Machine (RCAM) behind her, consisting of Howard Wolfson, James Carville and many other battle-tested warriors who know how to fight the RRAM and win. I'll put my money on them any day of the week.
Now again, don't shoot the messenger. I didn't make up the rules of engagement. That landscape was cultivated chiefly by Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove, disciples of 1980s "Happy Hatchet Man" and original "Darth Vader" Lee Atwater, the incendiary Republican operative and brains behind the '88 Willie Horton ad campaign that sank Michael Dukakis' bid for the presidency. Starting in the 80s, and shifting into full gear against Bill Clinton in the 90s and then into massive overdrive against Al Gore and John Kerry in 2000 and 2004 respectively, the RRAM masterfully perfected the art of dirty politics, and that's the playing field Democrats must navigate through now. While it may be possible many years from now to return to the good old "gentlemanly" days of politics that I keep hearing about but have never personally experienced, right now, a Democrat must fight like a Republican if he or she expects to win. Hillary meets that standard. Obama has proven that he does not.
Now onto Pennsylvania, where I believe Clinton must achieve a clear, decisive victory in Tuesday's primary or she should quit the race and let the general contest begin. PA is the big prize. The hugely working-class state is representative of middle-America and the traditional Democratic base. If she can pull off a double-digit win (or something very close), it'll make it very hard to convince me or any sane Dem that the race is over. What she'll have is a string of critical big-Blue state wins (OH, TX, PA), impressive momentum, and a bruised and battered opponent, who as the NY Times columnist David Brooks has said last week, has fallen to Earth. Indeed, a very compelling narrative for her to offer up to superdelegates, who could very well swing to her corner quick as lightning.
Ronald Reagan rode to victory on the wings of one simple question: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago." With a big win in PA, Clinton's question to the Super Ds will surely be, "Are you better off with me or Obama against McCain and the Ruthless Republican Attack Machine." This Realisticrat already knows the answer.
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Did the RCAM manage to pass the Clinton healthcare proposal?
The Democrats goal should be to win back the white house. If Hillary is the most viable candidate, the stuperdelegates should vote for her. In my opinion, Obama's weaknesses due to his Rev's sermons and his militant racists connections give the Republicans too much ammunition to scare the public about his ability to defend us adequately (as that ad today pointed out). Please! This is politics. You have to be realistic ... and vote for who has the best possibility to win! We need to change things.
Do you really think that anyone is going to vote for a candidate who steals her party's nomination via a superdelegate coup? Seriously?
Yes, Hillary can win McCain. Obama can not. As for her supposed lie...Hillary flew into a war zone. That was courageous. She did not lie. She just shared her experience, for I'm sure she was afraid sniper fire may occur. And it could have! How many other First Lady's would do that? Why did the media make such big deal about this? But, of course, how silly of me! If the Republican's and the media could turn Bill Clinton's wonderful presidency where the economy was booming into a trial about his personal life, they are capable of being completely insane. The Republicans (with the media's help) also gave us Bush, this bad economy and a crazy war that is costing us a fortune.
I too consider myself a realist - and when I looked at Mrs. Clinton's rock-solid negatives, her ability to rally the other side like no other candidate - both in fund raising and voter mobilization - her husband's pullman car full of baggage from the past 7 years (from the stomach turning pardons to the secretive library to God only knows what else) her lack of any real accomplishments (the shiny pr notwithstanding) her reliance on the DLC and big money donors, pollsters and lobbyists, her flirting with the right wing media machine, her deeply flawed campaign and the fact that the Republicans seemed DETERMINED to run against her - made me come to a different conclusion, realistically speaking.
The truth is, we're all just guessing and have no idea how things will play out in the future. This, of course, is the best argument for doing what one thinks is right and letting the consequences play out. This "realist" hogwash is nothing more than an excuse for cynicism, in my opinion. If you're always saying everything sucks, it's good to keep executing a strategy that's likely to make everything suck. Then, you never have to suffer the indignity of being wrong.
Thanks to everybody on this page who denounces this insane viewpoint.
The media treats this race like a sport, a sport with the civility of a dog fight. And it doesn't matter how this distracts us from the mortgage crisis, or dying in corporate wars. Hey, it's just "football". She"s just doing what she needs to do to win; she"s got her game on! She just has to subvert the democratic process using an election aberration called "super-delegates" whose only purpose is to overturn democratic elections.
The greatest Neocon of them all, Bill Kristol, has staunchly defended her, and he also wants to "obliterate" Iran. He was the first to advise her to go negative""The way you puncture euphoria is reality, or to be more blunt, fear. I recommend to Senator Clinton the politics of fear." (YouTube " Kristol "Politics of Fear"). Neocons don't have a problem with Hillary. Has she has promised them Iran? How will the realisticrats feel then"gas at $8 a gallon and the U.S. ruined? Richard Melon Scathe has also endorsed her. What did she promise him?
She is no longer a democrat in any real sense. Randy Rhodes and even Chris Mathews believe that she would prefer an Obama defeat in November against McCain. THIS IS SIMPLY INCREDIBLE.
Hillary can have her "win", her racism, her vitriol, and her disregard for descent human conduct. Howard Dean, John Edwards and the rest of the democrats can cheer her on. Nice job!
It's sad that you admit that Obama would be a better president but we should vote for Hillary because she has the best chance to win, only because she is just as bad as the republicans? Huh?
Man, go get some prozac or something. Really, that is a negative way of life. I DO NOT want a president who blatantly lies about Bosnia and admits it, and someone who tries to distort the facts and use the media to manipulate Americans to believe things that aren't true only so that she can gain power. What happened to integrity?
Let me get this straight, I should concede who I liked to be the president in 2009 for the person who I believe lies, won't represent my interests, and has proven to be guilty of ungentlemanly/unladylike behavior. I should not only vote my fears, but my worse instincts about who I think the American people are.
Why?
Because the Ruthless Republican Attack Machine can be defeated by the Ruthless Clinton Attack Machine.
That is an asinine argument. If I don't press for what I believe to be true, why bother voting? I think the negativity evidences by the Republicans and Hillary/Bill speak to how much cynicism passes for reality in today's world.
Suppress new voters. Slime them.
Suppress liberal and progress voters. It is a conservative right world get used to it.
Suppress freedom. The terrorists use our freedoms against us so we shouldn't have them.
Whatever, Ostray. Wrong party.
While I agree that being realistic is exactly how all of us need to be, I wonder how realistic it is to assume that Hillary will win in the general election without all of the voters that she and the media have managed to thoroughly tick off while they attempt to bring Obama down with sheer nonsense and irrelevant crap that has absolutely nothing to do with his abilities.
Have you ever wondered why her favorable ratings go down when Obama gets attacked? So, while we are getting "real," lets do the math without the majority of African American voters, new and younger voters, and those who don't give a flip about his race---but simply think he is the best candidate. And then lets see how well she does without these folks marching to the polls while she competes with John McCain for the conservatives within the Democratic Party. While of course the Clintons think they will have time after she gets the nomination to visit a few college campuses and Black churches and woo everyone her way, I'm afraid---it won't happen. I know it won't with me and most of the folks I know.
I agree we need to get real. The reality is that the Democratic Party is going to hell in a hand basket! And if you think we can't win with Obama---don't look now, but with Clinton we can't either.
All the Republicans hate her and half the Democrats too, but don't worry she's electable! Puleeeeeze!
The world is evil; therefore we need to make a pact with the devil.
and don't forget, it takes a republican to beat a republican, so vote for our republican!
The rabies-riddled junkyard pitbull-wolf hybrid is what we need to protect us.
rabies.....LOLOL
The sock-down-the-pantsuit gun-totin whiskey-shootin', screw 'em, obliterate 'em, deny everything but vote for war, flights of sniper fancy, crying voice-finder is our Holy Mother.
And you want us to believe this is the best we can do. This is all we should expect. Surrender yourselves to the Divided and Hopeless States of America.
Your post is the very essence of cynicism.
"Obama, in order to achieve the historic presidential greatness that might one day be his destiny, needs to first get past the supreme ugliness that he faces with the RRAM. And I am as confident as a caterpillar at a toe-countin' contest that McCain & Company will eat him alive in the general election."
Nice way to select our leader in a crisis-rife world. We're f*ed.
Just got out of high school and heard the stories about your candidate when she was in the white house... and you fell for them hook line and stinker. Do some home work son before you waste any more server space with this kind of NON researched writing.
Now go do a little research, past and present, about your choice and the read your writings again.
The world is evil, therefore we need to make a pact with the devil.
The rabies-riddled junkyard pitbull-wolf hybrid is what we need to protect us.
The sock-down-the-pantsuit gun-totin whiskey-shootin', screw 'em, obliterate 'em, deny everything but vote for war, flights of sniper fancy, crying voice-finder is our Holy Mother.
And you want us to believe this is the best we can do. This is all we should expect. Surrender yourselves to the Divided and Hopeless States of America.
I do believe your post is the very essence of cynicism.
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Posted April 22, 2008 | 04:08 PM (EST)