Is Barack Ready For a Fistfight? Why I am Voting For Hillary

A confession:

I did not support John F. Kennedy for the Democratic nomination in 1960. I was for the brainy and liberal Adlai Stevenson, who was the favorite of students at elite colleges and prep schools. Kennedy was wonderful: a handsome war hero, fresh, and eloquent. But what had he done?

I remember the chants, " All the Way with Adl...ai."

When his candidacy fizzled, I supported the canny Lyndon B. Johnson, who had a gift for legislation, and had passed in the Senate the historic Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first since Reconstruction. I thought he had the experience, conviction and smarts to push through a liberal agenda.

After Kennedy won the election, I remember the summer of 1962 that I spent registering Blacks to vote, and having to defend Kennedy's record toward Blacks with my fellow civil rights workers, who were disgusted with him. News reports of the time portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. as frustrated and outraged at Kennedy's waffling support.

But eventually, the aspirations of Kennedy and MLK inspired and empowered LBJ to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and a host of other wonderful New Frontier programs -- which constituted the most progressive record put up by any Democrat since FDR in the 1930s.

In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the Obama of his time. He had the courage to oppose an evil war and to come out against LBJ for the nomination. When LBJ dropped out, after McCarthy scared him in New Hampshire primaries, Robert F. Kennedy jumped in. The anti-war movement went ballistic and called Kennedy opportunistic, ruthless and cynical. I supported RFK because I thought he had the experience and commitment and passion that would bring an end to the war and bring progress for the poorest.

I thought Gene was "too cool" and would not be effective. Hubert Humphrey won the nomination easily and lost to Nixon.

In this year's election, first and foremost, I want a Democrat to win.

This is not a lock.

There is a vicious right wing conspiracy waiting to swing into action, with or without the blessing of the Republican Party. The demonization will begin immediately. They will come after any Democratic candidate like a pack of wild dogs.

We saw the Dark Forces at work against the Clintons, Gore and Kerry. There are so many entrenched interests -- including the corporate war machine -- which will do and say anything to keep the Democrats out of the White House; and keep their coffers gushing.

We are out there without a net. Is there a hidden anti-black vote? Is there an anti-woman vote?

"We need a President willing to engage in a fistfight to safeguard and restore our national virtues," said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in a recent endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

This is going to be a tough fight. Is poetry going to be enough?

Second, I want a Democrat who can take the White House and fix our problems by skillfully going against the entrenched interests that have screwed up our country.

After being impressed by Biden, flirting with Richardson, loving Edwards, agreeing with Kucinich, I am now ready to make an adult decision.

Our place in the world is in shambles; we have squandered the moral authority built up over a hundred years. It is going to take a deft hand for us to get out of Iraq, rebuild our goodwill in the Muslim world, Europe and Asia, and still protect us from terrorism.

Our economy is in serious trouble. The dollar has fallen 40%. Everything in this country, including our bank accounts, is worth 40% less; globalization has decimated our manufacturing base.

A groundswell for change, and promises of change, will not produce change. Candidates must eventually succeed in the tough, stalemated political system that they are criticizing.

These are perilous times. We are going to need a fighter -- someone who is willing to take on entrenched interests, sometimes to go against his or her friends.

Obama is a poet, one of the greatest orators and most inspiring politicians of our time. But we need more than a great orator. Messiahs don't exist in politics. We need a crafty warrior and a politician. Someone who has the experience to make change happen.

Barack Obama may be a great candidate, and may evolve into a great president. He certainly has a magical presence that speaks to the music of politics, but where is the Profile in Courage that JFK wrote about? When has he ever gone against his liberal base?

Where are his enemies?

When did he fight against the Corporations in the Senate? When did he take on the banking interests, as they made bankruptcy more difficult for the poor and middle class? When did he stand up and courageously vote for a woman's right to choose? When did he take on the Health Care Establishment? Why did he register a "present" vote in the Senate when the Republicans and conservatives voted to censure Moveon.org?

I want to see political courage. Maybe this ambiguity, this I-am-the-savior-and-above-ordinary politics is the best strategy... Be a nebulous, empty vessel with messianic, uplifting speeches. Never say anything risky. Never do anything risky.

Obama is a mirror, a chameleon; he can be whatever you want him to be, which explains his great crossover appeal.

Like a motivational speaker, he is craftily catering to a younger generation which is looking for a quick fix. A UNITER - His election at this point would be tantamount to anointing Time's 2006 "Person Of The Year" - YOU.

I am troubled by Obama's lack of enemies. This tells me something. At Harvard, when he was elected head of the Law Review, he was the compromise candidate; some said the candidate of the status quo. He voted "present" too many times in the Illinois legislature to make me comfortable. Shelby Steele, also of mixed race, wrote in Time recently that Obama is, "a bargainer, not a challenger."

For example, yesterday there was an investigative story in the New York Times about how Obama watered down his Nuclear Power Spill Disclose Bill under pressure from a $250,000 donation from Exelon Corp., the owner of the plant. Also noted was Obama's campaign manager David Axelrod's connection to the very same nuclear power company.

Hillary has her negatives. Her vote for the Iraq war was immoral and stupid. Of course, Bush didn't dupe her. She was trying to position herself as tough on national security...not a liberal. The Clintons have never been the darlings of the liberals. They were always considered traitors by the most left wing Democrats.

But the past is the past. In my heart I believe that Hillary can get us out of Iraq faster and wiser and better than Obama. She has shown more courage and experience and knows where the bodies are buried.

Hillary has many enemies because the right wing instinctively understands that she is a real threat to their interests. In today's Times, Paul Krugman compared Hillary and Obama's Health Care bills. He concludes: If Clinton wins, "there is some chance we'll get universal health care in the next administration. If Obama gets the nomination, it just won't happen."

JFK's election in 1960 was a roll of the dice, and apart from great inspiration, tragically we never really found out how that turned out. Lyndon B. Johnson carried the baton to the finish.

Effective politicians confront politics as it is, rather than flights of fantasy about what it could be. But effective politicians also hold their cards close, and don't reveal much until they have to.

So Hillary it is... with all her faults. I know her. No dice rolling here. I know the kind of change that she wants and the long time passion she brings to her progressive causes.

I trust that she will fight effectively for causes that I believe in -- getting out of Iraq, dealing with a hostile world, fixing the economy in a fair way, and enacting universal Health Care -- and will restore and fix what Bush has broken.

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Comments

[Brujos1]

You choose Hillary Clinton, assigned the task of delivering universal health care who failed to deliver for eight long years, being relegated for her efforts by her own husband!

You trust a person who refuses to acknowledge her mistakes, who supported the War in Iraq, now condemns Iranian terrorism and is most likely to follow the devastating policies of George W. Bush and the Republicans. She is a calculating plodder, a follower without vision, with a checkered and squandered presidency. The Clintons got us into this fix and you choose them to get us out of it!

John F. Kennedy"s image was placed on the altar of Latinos along with that of Martin Luther King. Kennedy wisely invited LBJ to serve as his vice-president. At considerable risk, Barack Obama has already offered to utilize Hillary.

You misjudge Eugene McCarthy as the "Obama of his time". McCarthy was a cantankerous one-issue senator and a poet who challenged LBJ"s later Vietnam War policy. Unlike Obama, McCarthy was a loner. Obama reaches out without sacrificing fundamental principles, creating a new majority in the process.

Both Stevenson and McCarthy were defeated by John and Robert Kennedy respectively who possessed the charisma of Martin Luther King, later inherited by younger brother Ted. Barack Obama also possesses that same charisma. The Kennedy torch has been passed to Obama, passed by the Clintons and by RFK, Jr.

Barack Obama has demonstrated that he is a tough political warrior, having served in the tough neighborhoods of Chicago and a strongly divided Illinois.

The sad, checkered Clinton history will repeat itself. However, the majority of Americans prefer to maintain checks and balances after the disastrous Bush and Clinton terms.

The Clintons failed during the first attack on the World Trade Center, failed to capture Osama Bin Laden and failed to resolve the Middle East crisis. Americans want real change, not a chimera.

Maria Schriver Schwarzeneggar said that if Barack Obama were a state, he"d be California. Clinton Democrats lack the courage to believe her, or as Obama says, in themselves.

[SCharb]

1. You're still wondering whether Obama's a fighter? Didn't you see the Myrtle Beach, SC, debate?

2. It doesn't sound like you have the greatest track record in picking candidates.

[rma2108]

Hillary is your example of someone who courageously stands for right, even when doing so is unpopular? Is this the same Hillary who was a gung-ho supporter of the Iraq war until just recently, when it served her political purposes? The same Hillary who won't admit that she made a mistake by voting for the war in the first place? Who has voted in favor of every war funding bill since it started?

Ugg, stop the nonsense and vote for Obama.

[Irish1139]

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.asp?cid=N00009638

Check this out!!

[LeeScho]

Blake! Baby! The 14 comments I have read so far nail you as wrong and misguided based on your own arguments. Step back. Take a breath. Inhale some reality.

Do you really think that an American bi-racial child who survived the streets of Chicago as an adolescent; who went to college and law school, became the first black editor of the Harvard Law review, ("compromise" candidate? Have you even looked up the word politic?,) and fought for eight years as a state legislator for the constituency you claim to care about is not a fighter? Hillary fought against attacks that she and her husband invited by their arrogance and personal behavior. Barack fought against the uninvited attacks of an American heritage that appears to die as hard in our pseudo-liberal brothers and sisters as in the David Dukes of our nation.

Your support of Adlai Stevenson speaks volumes. No small reason why he lost in 1956 was that Adam Clayton Powell supported Eisenhower and a large number of African Americans (we were Negroes then) followed suit. Why? I trust it was the same disconnect with Hillary and inspiration with Barack that compares her to Stevenson for you and him to JFK for me.

[DoninJoisey]

The Clintons already had their 2 terms, and the entrenched interests were entrenched thru those 8 years....
As to health care - as opposed to holding hearings in secret in'93 with files still sealed, Obama said he'll air the discussion on CSPAN.

Which do you prefer?

NO THIRD TERMS.

I want a change from the same-old...

[PaulALondon]

You are right. Many Democrats, usually idealistic but inexperienced students and economically comfortable ones, always want a messiah not a pragmatist. They torpedoed Humphrey and Johnson over Viet Nam, ran against and undercut Jimmy Carter, and never liked Bill Clinton although he was beating the hell out of Newt Gingrich for us. Nixon, Reagan, and W all benefited from this self-destructive messianism.
Hillary represents the wing of the Democratic party that is grounded in American Pragmatism. She is where voters always are in the general election. We ought to support her.

[belikejeanvaljean]

You said about Obama: "Never say anything risky. Never do anything risky."

In September of 2002, when GWB was already beating the drums of war with Iraq, the vast majority of politicians in this country were supporting the Iraq War Resolution soon to be voted on. To do otherwise was considered political suicide. Barak Obama spoke out against it, however, and said how stupid he thought a war with Iraq would be.

Hillary, of course, went with the way the winds were blowing, didn't even read the NIE report, and voted for the IWR. Nearly nine months after we invaded Iraq, she had this to say on Meet the Press:

"I think Saddam Hussein was certainly a potential threat" who "was seeking weapons of mass destruction, whether or not he actually had them." and "There was certainly adequate intelligence without it being guilded and exaggerated by the administration to raise questions about chemical and biological programs and a continuing effort to obtain nuclear power." Also: "We need more troops and a different mixture of troops." "Whether you agreed or not that we should be in Iraq, failure is not an option." From William Safire's column 12/08/03.

Talk about not taking risks! George Bush couldn't have said it better himself.

You say that "Of course, Bush didn't dupe her. She was trying to position herself as tough on national security...not a liberal."

Wow, do we really want a president who cares more about her image than taking a courageous stand against this most foolish of wars that will cost our country and Iraq for decades to come? What a truly pathetic thing to do.

Don't tell me she is courageous.

[bayareawwk]

I have to agree with you. I think Clinton, warts and all, is a pragmatist and will move the ball forward.

[lynnn]

I'm going to start asking this to every (don't vote Obama piece) vote HRC piece.

Why should I vote for HRC when her husband (whether or not it was co-presidency we will never know) pushed through banking de-regulation?

Am I to believe that somehow she is fundamentally different?

[klondiker]

Bingo.

I really can't understand why liberal progressives are supporting Obama. For as long as I have known, liberals have been about substance over style, action over words, experience over rhetoric. We've always voted with our minds, and not our hearts. We've never been swayed by pretty words and hopeful promises.

In 2000, when the entire media establishment hailed Bush as the compassionate uniter, we didn't fall for it. We knew that it didn't matter that people didn't want to have a beer with Al Gore. We knew that he was experienced and the right person for the job.

The entire basis of liberalism comes down to looking at things objectively, not taking things at face value.

I'm sure Barack Obama is a great guy, but does he really have the experience we need?? How could we be turned just because he talks nice??

And, I know that a lot of liberals oppose Hillary for legitimate policy differences. That's fair. But, how did it become a choice between Hillary and Barack??

Why did we overlook great choices like Biden and Dodd and Richardson?? For once, did we let our emotions guide our voting choices, and not our logic??

[LeoMarvin]

"In today's Times, Paul Krugman compared Hillary and Obama's Health Care bills. He concludes: If Clinton wins, "there is some chance we'll get universal health care in the next administration. If Obama gets the nomination, it just won't happen.""

With all due respect to Mr. Krugman, whom I admire very much, nobody knows the health care debate as well as Ted Kennedy. Hillary may talk about the scars from her scuffle with the Right Wing over her 1993 proposal, but Kennedy's scars have scars from all his scuffles with the Right over health care during the last several decades. So when Ted Kennedy says that Barak Obama's plan will get us to universal health care, that carries a lot more weight with me than Mr. Krugman's skepticism.

"When has he ever gone against his liberal base?"

Every time Barack Obama says a kind word to or about a Republican it pisses off the belligerent wing of the Democratic base, which would rather hate Republicans than co-opt some of them into the kind of broad coalition necessary to accomplish real change. 51% majorities are impotent to move ambitious agendas. Obama understands this, and is brave enough to risk the high-wire act of getting people across the aisle to sit down with him without bargaining away his principles. And the price he pays for his efforts is bitter hostility from portions of our own base.

[lynnn]

Look if you want a democrat to win you will do these things:

1) YOU WILL-HELP VOTERS NOT GET PURGED IN FL (and to a lesser extent OH).
2) YOU WILL CHALLENGE FL RIGHT TO USE A LIST OF FELON'S NAMES AND AKA'S (from TX and other states)
heck you might even 3)CHALLENGE THE SOUTHERN STATES RIGHTS TO TAKE AWAY A FELON'S VOTING RIGHT. 4) YOU WILL STAND W/AA'S IN FL AND OH ON THE DAY THEY VOTE and make sure they are not humiliated, lied to, caged, given a "provisional ballot"
5) YOU WILL FOLLOW THE CHAIN OF CUSTODY OF THE BALLOTS. I don't know make c-span put that on T,V so we can all watch.

If you are not committed to do that, then you deserve whatever happens, bc until you get off you *ss and commit your self to making sure all Americans have their votes count, you really don't care.

[HowardRoarke]

Funny how I can read your piece, and come to the opposite conclusion based on the evidence you present.

Didn't Hillary vote exactly the same on the bankruptcy bill, and fail to take on the health care establishment (in the Senate)? Aren't their records on a right to chose the same in the Senate? Kinda rovian to attack one candidate to defend another, when their records are the same, no?

As for the present votes in the Illinois statehouse and on Moveon - that's moving past the politics as usual. He accomplished protecting a womans right to her own body with that legislative manuever created by Planned Parenthood. And didn't Hillary vote to condemn MoveOn? At least Obama sat out on that pointless partisan handwaving vote. Vote on laws, not pandering resolutions (especially ones that pander to Republicans).

"Barack Obama may be a great candidate... When has he ever gone against his liberal base?"

"The Clintons have never been the darlings of the liberals. They were always considered traitors by the most left wing Democrats."

Um... so opposing the Democratic base is a POSITIVE in a Democratic primary? You're a funny Democrat.

"These are perilous times. We are going to need a fighter -- someone who is willing to take on entrenched interests, sometimes to go against his or her friends."

So you think the Democratic Party's best shot is someone who has a voting record of betraying progressive voters, and is willing to fight us? Hillary Clinton will take on entrenched interests? You mean like the lobbyists she says are actually working FOR me?

"In this year's election, first and foremost, I want a Democrat to win."

Gee, based on what you just said, I'm not sure I believe you.

[moguro]

You write that you "...want a Democrat who can take the White House and fix our problems by skillfully going against the entrenched interests that have screwed up our country." Senator Clinton has a track record of failure: failure to reform health care and failure to bother reading the NIE before voting to go to war in Iraq. She has demonstrated again and again poor judgment and lack of leadership skills. Clinton is part of the problem, not the solution.