Why Am I So Afraid

Why am I so afraid that the Democratic Party is shooting itself in the foot?

The Dems are far from perfect--in any time--but here we are in what has to be a Democratic year and it looks again like we are self-destructing.

We have two great candidates--one a hard working, never give up eager beaver, and one an inspiring, heart-leapingly brilliant stallion. Both have their merits. Both care for what Democrats are best at caring for--working people, children's and women's rights, financial realism.

Both acknowledge the health care crisis, the environmental depredations of the GOP, the huge lurking menace of a war that costs 12 billion dollars a day and gives us nothing--unless we are war profiteers or blow-yourself-up fundamentalists. Both are poised to take back the country from the plutocrats and their endless tax cuts for each other.

And yet we have had great candidates before--think Al Gore--and lost to the low-level conniving, smearing and swift boating of the GOP (Grandiose Old Plutocrats).

The GOP stands for nothing today but looting the national treasury for the rich. George Dubya Bush once addressed them as the "haves and have mores"--clearly he is one of them--but maybe he will have less now that the Carlyle Group is running out of money. Maybe he'll have a little rachmones for the have-less and have-nots, though I doubt it.

If anyone in Washington read history, they'd understand that any empire that spends more in war than on its people eventually goes down in flames. The Persians, Greeks and Romans proved it--see Herodotus--and the British, French, Belgians, Dutch and Germans proved it all over again in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But does anyone care?

Apparently not. It's a rule of history that when an empire gorges on guns and forgets butter, that empire winds up on the scrap heap of history.

Dubya could have learned this at Yale had he not been drunk or stoned all the time and figuring out ways to avoid going to 'Nam.

But he doesn't know and doesn't care. He thinks, "The surge is working." Dick Cheney and Condi Rice tell him so. And now McCain echoes them. And our idiot corporate press--which has no time to read or think or dig for information (too busy getting pix of Kristen-Alexandra's tattoos) doesn't give a shit either. Leave that to the book-writers. That's safe enough since Americans don't read--especially not big thick books about history.

Meanwhile our two clever candidates have been sucked into the rigors of campaigning. They're tired. Dog-tired. The stallion makes heart-stopping speeches. And the beaver just beavers along. remembering how she won over upstate New York when everyone called that impossible. And called her a carpetbagger. And the stallion is drunk on his own rhetoric. Why not? It's great rhetoric.

We need beavers and we need stallions. Beavers get the work done. Stallions inspire us. And they both have limitations. Stallions have fragile legs (think Barbaro). And beavers are nothing without their teeth.

It's not a matter of choosing between inspiration and hard work. We need both. We need to be inspired and then we need those who will never give up till they execute the inspiration.

Any fool knows that. The Democratic Party ought to know it too. And the sooner they bring the beaver and the stallion together, the better off we'll all be. There is no choice here. There ought to be no ego, no genderizing and no racializing.

Americans are neither black nor white. We are all as mixed as Brazilians. We are a honey-colored race--with Africans, Europeans, Asians and Native Americans intermingled in our DNA. That's the glory of America. If Dick Cheney is genetically related to Barack Obama, what more do we need to know? DNA only goes so far politically.

So let's stop talking about race and gender and let the beaver and the stallion both serve our country--in their own inimitable ways.

Comments

[PhDiva]

This is a false dichotomy and a racially and sexually offensive set of metaphors. Obama is inspiring AND a hard worker. He gives more than good speeches. If he didn't work hard, he would not be in this position and he would not have survived this campaign. How do we think he went from a single parent household in Hawaii to Harvard and from there to the Senate and from there to one of the most successful and innovative presidential campaigns in recent history? He had to work hard to achieve this much at such a young age. We know that Hillary does not inspire us, as much as we wish she would. (Although, I think she has a great deal of wit and occasional charm) But we don't know that Obama won't work hard. We only know that Hillary says he doesn't. Not exactly the most reliable reference.

[Suprshrink]

Given your analysis, by extension, you must think that George W. Bush is quite extraordinary. He went to Yale. He ran a winning gubernatorial campaign. He was able to run two successful presidential campaigns. He even owned a baseball team. Does that make him as good as Obama?

[greginsocal]

Sorry, brainwave, but it's patently obvious that the Obamasiah is an empty suit. Of course, HRC is an empty pantsuit, so you guys take your pick. Ugh.

[Suprshrink]

Let me point out that in a political campaign, each candidate must try to draw distinctions between them and their opponent. Just because Hillary says she is a hard worker, does not mean that she is saying Obama is not. If Obama says he has hope, it doesn't mean that Hillary has none. Every candidate thinks that he or she is the best choice. If they did not we wouldn't vote for them. Imagine the candidate who says, "I hope you vote for me. I may not be the best choice but I will try really hard. But my opponents may be just as good as me."

[fightingwords]

"beavers are nothing without their teeth."

[Daniel8168]

I think my biggest issue here is that Erica based her flaws on her metaphors rather than on the people herself. It's like saying George Bush is like Dopey Dwarf because he acts dopey, therefore, he is cute, because Dopey dwarf is cute. Just because a metaphor might be applicable in one respect does not mean that other aspects of the comparative object are applicable. Saying that Barack Obama is like a stallion because he charges onward may be an applicable metaphor, but to conclude that because he is like a stallion, and because stallion often have fragile legs, thus he must have fragile legs is terrible logic. If the point was to say that Obama runs so hard that he might pull up lame, then perhaps that should have been indicated, but as it was written, it just looks like a logical leap that falls flat.

[mheister]

Hey Erica -

[Ironfox]

Please Erica, don't hold back, tell us how you really feel! You go girl.

[captobie]

All empires eventually go down in flames, whether they "gorge" on guns or butter.

[goldcoastsailor]

With 'democrats' like Lieberman and Wasserman who need Republicans?

[mjc]

Yes, it would be great if there were a shining Democrat out there who could be best the Repugs and keep the Democratic Party in tact. Don't think that is going to happen. The front runner doesn't want to give Clinton any kind of a break in re delegates. That is the essence of the problem. He (Obama) knows that he hasn't won the big states but he stubbornly insists on going on without any consideration of his opponent. You have to be relatively friendly for the Democratic Party to see that this has to be a choice for Democrats. Obama doesn't. He won many caucuses and primaries with crossovers and he isn't going to talk about being a Democrat. There stands the problem. Party versus personality.

[rosal]

The beaver is desingenuous, that's the problem. She will never best the Repugs. They would tear her to pieces on the general. She was for NAFTA, before she was against it. She was for the war, before she was against it. Now, she was "under sniper's fire", before she misspoked. And she has not even released her taxes, and other documents. No wonder Limbaugh, and Pat Buchanan are fighting so hard for her nomination. Just think of the political ads with her, and now her husband, praising McSame.

[ddlrid]

This is an extremely goofy yet fear-ridden post, Erica. A hard combination, but you somehow managed to do it. While you are allowed to be as goofy and nonsensical as you wanna, stop with the pandering to fear. We've had enough of the simplistic 'choices'...

[AMCNYC]

I FEEL YOUR PAIN, ERICA.

[Choicelady]

So you could not find less demeaning images - beaver and stallion? How disgustingly sexualized this commentary is, and how much it degrades both men of color and women. Yuck.

[fightingwords]

Seriously.

[Myrna-Ann]

To have both Obama and Clinton on the Democratic ticket in 2008 would be a mistake, A ticket headed by Obama will have a problem with bigots who wouldn't vote for an African American under any circumstances; a ticket headed by Hillary Clinton will have a problem with sexists who wouldn't vote for a woman under any circumstances, as well as the hate Hillary crowd. Put the two together and there are two groups who won't vote for the ticket instead of one.

[gevan]

I get it. Our ideal candidate would be a Brazilian trans-sexual with strong legs and big teeth. Right?

[ddlrid]

brilliant!!!!!

[Giopaps]

Sorry but this beaver is using her teeth to break her own dam. She will be swept away by the current. No white stallion will be there to save her. Good luck to the people of New York but I do not want Hillary as a roll model for my grand daughter.

[timinhi]

"[R]oll" model? She's not running for the office of the "pastry," She's running for the office of the Presidency. You're commenting on HuffPost--I think you must have been looking for Pilsbury.com.

[Gerald36]

Amen to that!

[impeachBC]

I'm with you my fellow dove! Good point. Unfortunately, I believe the beaver will gnaw at anything, say anything to get herself elected. But when push comes to shove, she's a hawk bought and paid for by lobbyists, big corps and political favors.