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Have you ever gone through a really dry period sexually? At first you get angry that you're being neglected and ignored, and you act out. Then one day you wake up with a sense of nonchalance and you start to marvel at how much you're getting done, and how much easier it is not to care. And then... one day, maybe a stranger comes and begins to romance you and strokes your hair in a sort of contemplative way, uttering the most delightful insights. He touches your hand softly and then a little more firmly, awakening the feelings that you thought you'd left behind, and then you start speaking really poetically and hearing melodies and then suddenly you WANT IN! You want back in the game and you think 'spring is here'... YES WE CAN!
Barack Obama is inspiring us like a desert lover, a Washington Valentino. We who have felt apathetic, angry at two (likely) stolen elections, K-Street hegemony, the "pornography of the trivial"* in journalism and culture; we who are heartbroken over a war we knew was wrong, we who thought (especially after Baby Bush got in a 2nd time) that America got what it asked for; we who stopped wanting to participate 'cause it doesn't matter whether we do or don't; we have a crush. We're talking about it; we're getting involved, we're tuning in and turning out in numbers we haven't seen in ages. My musician friends and I are writing songs to inspire people and couples all over America are making love again and shouting "yes we can" as they climax!
The downside is that when the Republican fear factory goes into full production come election time, and even superdelegate time, potentially causing the Dems to hand-pick Hillary instead of Prince Charming because we are afraid that America will vote McCain over a candidate who is willing to meet with Ahmadinejad, it is quite possible that all the passion and revolutionary spirit being stoked by Senator Obama could turn into an equally powerful force of apathy and even rage. We who never felt like participating in the democratic process before (or when we did our votes were not counted), could end up feeling more disappointed and disenfranchised than ever. It's almost worse than never having cared at all. Beware the wrath of the forsaken lover.
Obama, and also Clinton, must be unequivocal in their rhetoric that the need for unity, which they both so often espouse, doesn't just mean unifying around them. It means really unifying around the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates for every office, and holding them to task for all the promises of "justice and change." We newly impassioned citizens need to feel included and incentivized, no matter who gets the nomination.
If Obama is like a lover who has awakened our desire to dream and participate again after so many years in the desert of political apathy, I would just ask that he be responsible and help us channel our newly stirred passion into something even bigger than him, whether or not it works out: the democratic process.
*Jonathan Grannoff, President of the Global Security Institute.
by Lili Haydn, violinist/singer/songwriter whose new album Place Between Places comes out April 1 on Nettwerk Records
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This was a very interesting piece to read. Being older than Miz Lili, I've experienced a range of passionate feelings that have included sexuality--among other things. Passion for a cause has, I think, more to do with feelings generated ABOVE the belt, rather than BELOW.
It seems to me that Lili is writing about INFATUATION. When you get older, you understand that Infatuation is fleeting and less dedicated than Love, which learns to listen, understand, forgive, and move forward.
This gushy gushy, love-me-some-Obama silliness is the reason that many of us fear that reason has very little to do with this election. It is like the school girl crush (or school boy for that matter). When your get the hormones going you don't notice that he talks bad to his mother and you think it's just so cute the way he only bathes on alternate week-ends. Everything he says is so beautiful. Every idea he mentions is brilliant. What he likes, you like. And when your friends try to warn you, you cut them off and call them names. He writes you a poem. You are pretty sure you remember it being on page 342 of your lit text in 10th grade, but he would never do that. Byron probably stole it from him.
Then comes the slow realization that you are living in hormone world. You are so ashamed that you hang on for a while, just so you won't have to admit it. But finally he does it. He actually goes out with Joe Lieberman. And you are cured, but so screwed.
Hi Jake...Maybe it's a more mature crush than one of an adolescent, as you wittily describe. After all, he's a known entity and we know he's polite to his Mother. Maybe it's the sort of crush that is mature enough to know the Real Deal and brave enough to try to believe again. You know... a winter romance! Just in the nick of time!
I thought this post was funny and smart! It speaks back to those who claim that us Obama supporters like him 'cause he's purty. Could that be more insulting? Is it so wrong to like this candidate for BOTH his policies AND his character and temperament? We know him as well as we could ever know any candidate. The most important thing of all is that Obama wants to engage us as active participants in our government and after 7 years of lying and secrecy, that resonates with people who are not afraid to Take A Second Chance At Believing. And I should know. I live in the desert!
This is possibly the most ridiculous political argument I've seen, and with this continuing to be Silly Season, that's saying a lot. Don't support Obama because he's like some lover you've been desiring a long time and if you fall for him you're just going to get hurt. What a heap of trash. How about some serious political discussion on this site?
This is one of the most intelligent comments posted on this site kuulray. I do believe that this site, since it was created to get people involved in politics in particular, should have some serious political discussion here as well, instead of the misleading topics to get the bloggers focused on nonesense. When I first began blogging here, I thought that this would be the one site that was unbiased, but I see that I was wrong. It's just like any other media outlet, bias included, and it just about makes a person fed up with the bull and want to stop supporting the media. When did all the bias begin anyway, because it seems that all of a sudden, it was here, and blatently?
good lord! can you pronounce "metaphor"?
Enjoyed your post. Thanks.
Seldom before have expectations been so high " and they're only going to rise. Seldom before have expectations needed to be so high.
You wrote: "I would just ask that he be responsible and help us channel our newly stirred passion into something even bigger than him, whether or not it works out: the democratic process."
An Obama presidency is going to fail miserably if people don't participate in an epoch-changing way. Yes, he's going to have to help us, but we're going to have to help him a great deal more.
This country is a mess; it's messier than most of us realise. Attempting to understand this mess, so as to begin putting order into it, is itself going to be messy; messier than most realise.
Look not at what Obama can do for you. Look not at what you can do for Obama. We need to focus on what we can do with Obama and government more broadly for ourselves and beyond.
Joe Trippi on this week's NOW PBS points out that FDR was the first president to move from print to radio; Kennedy was the first to move from radio to television; Obama is the first would-be president who would be interactive. He and we are going to have to be far more interactive than most of us realise.
Any analogy to a love affair is premature. Perhaps, if we make many things go right, it will turn into one. For now it's an arranged marriage, the times having ordained that we join and procede. Obama will become president. Anyone who doesn't understand that is already behind the curve. Question is, now what?
That - your post - was delightful! And made sense. "(H)olding them to task" - how orgasmic that would be.
"I am a Republican in Texas who voted for the first time today for a Democrat. I voted for Obama because he makes me proud to be an American. His candidacy represents the best in our hearts. But I am shocked at all the fighting within the Democratic Party. It really looks like the voters are going to blow this chance to build a competitive party. And if that happens, then you should expect to lose for a long time, until another Perot comes along and makes the playing field even. If the Republican party had someone who inspired people to cross over and young people to join their party, I'm certain they would seize the opportunity instead of bickering like small children. If Obama doesn't get the nomination, then I will return to the Republican party, disheartened but with new insight that the grass is not always greener." ***********************************************Posts like the above are disingenuous. Why in the world would any Republican vote for the most liberal Senator in the Senate in the actual election? They would not. I do believe the above person voted for B. O. in the primary. There was a reason for that. But the same vote will not be cast in November. Don't fall for this baloney folks.
You'd be surprised. And, as much as some people would like to deny it, politics has aways been as much about personality and one's sense of the candidates as their actual policies.
Boohoo all you want. There is a sizable portion of the population who'd rather vote for someone they trust and like to be president, than a machine that spits out a list of policies they plan to implement.
(If elections were all about policy, we'd run platforms and not candidates. The person instituting the platform wouldn't matter.)
I keep reading and hearing about Republicans voting Democratic in the primary/caucus because they want to make sure Hillary Clinton is not the winner.
But what else would you expect?
I guess there are people who think "Whatever it takes."
I'm getting so weary of the whole thing.
Maybe it is because I spend too much time reading the hate on the comments in the blogs.
Its pretty tiring.
this much ugliness can't be good for your health.
The same Republicans who finance Nader's campaigns so he can serve as a spoiler of Democrats' chances....one would wish that Nader could get beyond his egomania and wonder why he is getting money from Republicans.
Mahavishnu, I totally and completely reject your assumptions and assertions. I have no way to judge anyone's credibility in these forums other than their ability to articulate a credibile statement. This post is very sound to my reading. I know neither you, the poster you highlight, and you don't know me. The assumptions you use to discredit someone's words betray a particularly immature and seriously flawed understanding of human nature, as well as a seriously unflattering belief in your own powers of divination.
An aside, I cast my first presidential vote in 1972 for George McGovern, the second for Gerald Ford in 1976. I proudly acknowledge both. After the death of Ford last year, George McGovern stated in an interview that he too voted for Gerald Ford in 1976.
Don't worry about the infighting; it all comes down to Tuesday.
How Hillary will come down from the mountain if she has not succeeded, (and it is not an unmistakable feeling in the air that Obama has won the majority of our hearts over) will be something that will affect her career for years to come. She knows this.
Acting demonstrably and fighting with negative points from that point, or even staying in the race if she hasn't won handily like she needs to, will show a desperate streek that I believe she knows well is truly beneath her, and I believe she will bow out elegantly.
Then the real race will begin that is destined to make America great again, and bring us a young president who will let the good come from this great nation once again.
"If Obama is like a lover who has awakened our desire to dream and participate again after so many years in the desert of political apathy, I would just ask that he be responsible and help us channel our newly stirred passion into something even bigger than him, whether or not it works out: the democratic process."
I like this metaphor of the beginning throes of a love affair; it always transforms -- maybe nicely and even more deeply -- to the reality of new information. The important thing is that the love affair becomes grounded. Not, as above, in asking that 'he' be responsible, or not entirely (he does have to be responsible), but that one who is in love keeps one's eyes open. Keep filtering the love object through the facts, the new information that occurs naturally -- don't blink the details which don't fit with one's 'hope', what you 'hope' he is. What he actually is is what we have to keep on looking at.
For instance, I heard this week that Obama, though having said that military contractors such as Blackwater, the egregious, careless company which has run over and shot civilians in Iraq WITHOUT ANY ACCOUNTING WHATSOEVER, need to be held accountable BUT that he 'would keep such contractors on as guards for the Iraqi US Embassy (see Jeremy Scahill on this site yesterday and on Democracynow.org three or four days ago). Then I heard that suddenly Hillary Clinton has rushed to be the first to commit herself to getting rid of such contractors. I have not yet heard that Obama would. I am still waiting to see. This was a downer, and I felt depressed all day when I heard Scahill.
Still, I am for Obama. Clinton is too mercurial and changeable. Too militaristic and hard. Too unwilling to negotiate with countries with whom ours has problems. Too much seeing the world through 'the last 35 years', when our world is changed so much. Etc. Etc. Dangerous. Likely to not win in the general election.
But I am keeping my eyes open. Yes, he is exciting, smart, and for a great many of the things I am for (but John Edwards was for more; and Kucinich was for even more). But I can also envision people once again marching in the streets six months after Obama wins the election -- against the war. And for some of the things he promised but which haven't transpired.
I was once involved tangentially in an educational institution which had a graduate program for people who wanted to work with organizations -- not as CEOs but as consultants to them. I heard someone there say about a hunt for a new president of the institution that 'we always look for the best person, (are in love with him(her)) and then tear him down'. I am remembering this now.
Obama doesn't need to be responsible for the whole relationship (although he does need to be responsible), but the citizens also need to keep our eyes open. He needs to ground his visions for the country and the people, us, in concrete visions and images which we can watch and monitor as we all go along together. The great passion evoked in a lot of people by Obama is wonderful, but, yes, he does need to help to channel it into the concrete visions of what he is doing there in the first place. WE need to keep our eyes open and hold him responsible, not blink when he says or does something which doesn't match our vision of what our 'hope' is. This is the way to not get hurt. He WILL disappoint at many turns. Then the passion could deflate and we all turn against him, OR we can take each thing as it is, and confront the disappointment by naming it, making sure he knows what we want instead and keep on trying to get him to see that -- and to CHANGE! In future, it might not be that, if deflation occurs, he is a bad president, a bad guy, but that he hasn't yet heard all our real reasons for that needs to happen, and that we haven't kept his feet to the fire about them.
Note: The article does not say he needs to channel 'our newly stirred passion' into 'the Democratic Party; it says 'into the democratic process'. The democratic process is large, and offers many options. It only works if we keep our eyes open, don't blink the facts as they (will) emerge, and hold our leader to the visions he offered. (And make sure we get clear answers along the way about just what it is he is offering, at this and this turn.)
Very nicely done huffyanika.
You named one of the things that disturbs/worrys me, along with what Lili is getting at.
When there is so much passion the minute one feels betrayed the passion changes dramatically to hate in proportion to the depth of the passion.
If the filtering process isn't present the rage or hate becomes just as intense and even irrational. We see that kind of ideological hatred every day both in the far right with their reactionary politics and ideology along with the ugliness we see everyday on blogs, both right and left.
I think when you are in those initial passionate throws of love in a way you are really in love with your own projections. You don't really know the person so you are projecting all that is wonderful and idealistic and everything you ever wanted on to the person. This is so wonderful and exciting and yes, HOT!
but eventually you have to allow the reality of a human being sink in, the little things that could be annoying and the bigger things that may have a potential for real problems. Other wise you are not allowing the other to be a real person.
When you are finally confronted with an event or an issue that is radically at odds with the projection, too big to ignore or make an excuse for there is a danger of then demonizing them and making them completely wrong, evil, devious in direct proportion to how much they were idealized. Everyone has had love affairs like that. We found "the ONE" until we realized they were human too.
A politician has to make deals, has to compromise and if you demonize others for doing so because of a very strict ideology the minute you begin to see that your guy has "sold out" (in your view) politically the demonization of him is inevitable.
You have to understand not just that everyone has "clay feet" but also you have to understand the processes and the incremental nature that makes change happen in Washington/governement.
Oh, I don't think iA am explaining myself properly or too convoluted.
There is a danger of hating as passionately as we love when we feel we have been betrayed or sold out if we don't keep a place of detachment or objectivity and understanding.
"what you said."
LOL
If the passion for the Clintons survived NAFTA and philandering and pandering to right-wing corporate interests (and didn't turn to disgust until after they started behaving the way they are behaving now), then the "passion" for Obama ought to be able to endure while he finds his way as president. Unlike the writer of this piece, most of us aren't 15 years old anymore...the Bush presidencies have opened our eyes to the fact that people have got to learn to participate in their own governments., and that there is no "magic" person who can do the work for all and keep all of us happy.
Nobody I know who supports Obama expects him to be perfect in all respects. He is not the dream image of the quarterback of the high school football team, he is a human being trying to do his best. Almost everybody I know supported Edwards first, and we realize that Obama's platform--even if he gets everything he wants-- is no panacea. We are all going to have to work to get our government back, and the first thing to do is to reject the candidate of the corporate-cronied DLC.
huffyanika - Nice post. I don't support Obama, but yours is one of the very, very few posts in support of him that has not devolved into seething hatred of Hillary, coupled with a complete refusal to admit that there just might - might! - be one or two problems with Obama.
Thank you for stating your support for your candidate without making it a personal attack against Clinton. And for pointing out that some of us accept things we don't like about our candidates, because we believe the things we like outweigh the things we don't.
Have no fear.
It's as simple as Matthew 14:36.
The Rapture is just a touch away.
Your comments are true in a slight way. Yes, at first it's like dessert because few people have seen someone like this guy before. Then you come down a bit but realize that's it's not fluff. And that there's work to do to get informed, get out the vote and demand that our government pay attention to us again. That is what he's saying after all. That's the point. We need some energy to reverse the terrible damage we've experienced to our political system for years.
I'm sure there will continue to be many posts on this blog saying that Obama is just the pied-piper playing a Manchurian tune. But undoubtedly those will come from supporters of Senator Clinton. At some point they will see that in fact it's them that have been following that awful dirge being played by her. Her's is a dirge that will drive people away from the polls. Which, of course, is the point. Cynicism and despair have rules of the day in politics. Unfortunately, Senator Clinton has embraced it with a little too much relish. Remember "the fun part" comment?
I have no doubt that some of the new voters will be fair-weather, but I'm now convinced that many will not. Democrats need a little dessert. We've been eating sheit-pie served up by Karl Rove. It's time to feed him dessert until he either explodes or shuts his stupid pie-hole.
Your Valentino awoke your passions and desires. You felt beautiful and sexy again. It was like a steamy love affair on a tropical beach.
But soon you feel that he is not who you thought he was. He is not romantic or that interested in you any more. Maybe he told you how beautiful you are just to sleep with you. You could have been any woman. Or, quite possible, you lost interest in him.
Maybe you don"t care, it was all fun while it lasted and that"s all you wanted. Or, maybe you do and it hurts you even more and you will be more careful the next time around.
Or, maybe the passion turned into trust and deep love, and you lived happily ever after.
Only time will tell us what kind of lover Obama turns out to be.
The pattern is usually swept off feet dating in a candy cloud of romance with a faultless prince and then suddenly there are a lot of warts on the toad when the blinding passion wears off.
In all my time reading blogs on this website, I haven't yet come across anything that is even remotely as stupid as this post. It is a spectacular achievement of the massive Clinton's PR campaign to present herself as the experienced one (all of 7 years in the Senate, with about 2 years of having about 50% of votes abstained due to her campaign) and Barack as someone young, immature and a blank slate. For the record, every politician running for president is a blank slate, because they run to put their name on the ticket and in history books and their administrations do all the heavy lifting. May I remind you that our current president (or governor, since he never won in 2000) had about the same national experience as Barack Obama and I should say Hillary Clinton, yet somehow he managed to bring in Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and other seasoned and smart veterans of politics. Yes it's true that they screwed everything from war in Iraq, to Katrina to our national security and have been corrupt, but that is irrelevant. The point is that an ignorant cowboy assembled a team of experienced veterans. You really don't think Obama will do the same? Have you not seen Brzezhinsky's name on his list of advisers? You don't think he would nominate someone like Joe Biden to a secretary of state?
And possibly someone like Chris Dodd as VP?
The media, btw, I might note, as bad as it is towards Hillary, it's even worse when it comes to more subtle but more important things: being complicit in propagating huge lies, such as that Hillary has magical 35-yr experience and Obama is nothing but a magic wand. And the bloggers here just keep repeating this old song. Well, keep singing idiots!
TRL, I know you have a point in there somewhere but you are losing me. When you said (GWB) brought in "Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and other seasoned and smart veterans of politics. " and also said that you expected Obama to do the same and also that it's NOT RELEVANT that these guys Bush brought in screwed everything, well, it's just incoherent. The name Brzezhinsky, I will agree is scary, but I think he will choose better and more thoughtful advisors than Cheney chose for Bush.
Obama is more like a DESSERT Lover, puffing people up with empty whipped cream slogans, hot juicy apple pie in the sky promises of hope, chocolate chip daydreams, and big scoops of ideas on the economy that will melt like ice cream on a summer day when faced with the harsh reality of a $9 Trillion Dollar National Debt and total control of the Government by an invisible, faceless International Banking cartel. Obama is stoking about as much " Revolutionary spirit " as Allen Greenspan. Kucinich and Ron Paul were the men stoking revolutionary spirit but people are to much in need of a Homecoming King & Queen to pay attention to the geeks who actually understand how to fix the problems. In my view neither Obama, Clinton, nor McCain are worthy of the office once held by Thomas Jefferson.
Let me guess, you support Nader.
Do you mean the hypocritical, slave owning rapist who drafted the Declaration of Independence? Is that the Thomas Jefferson you're referring to?
Must be. Although, in actually, Obama probably had more in common with Thomas Jefferson than Hillary Clinton. Thomas Jefferson was definately an 'dreamer' and idealist, despite his taste for the slave girls. As his early enthusiasm for the French Revolution and other 18th century versions of people power, hope, and insurgencies of all kind indicate.
Say what you want about TJ, if you really knew anything about the man, and he was alive today, it's hard to see how he'd be supporting Hillary Clinton, the more 'moderate' of the two candidates.
But as the man himself once said...
"I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles." --Thomas Jefferson
Go Obama
I beg to disagree that if Hillary does not get the nomination that McCain will. I simply believe it will be the opposite. Hillary will not have the majority of votes if she gets to scratch and claw her way to the nomination through superdelegates and whatever business she tries . The problem people seem to forget that we supposedly live in a democracy where the people's vote is suppose to count. I feel that the democratic party has been broken for some time. This primary season has been a bitter one on the Clinton's part. The Dems will shoot themselves in the foot again and we will end up with John McCain and once again we will all become apathetic, synical do nothing folks that just put up with business as usual. I have been a democrat for 36 years and am going to register Independent. This Democratic party has sunken to the level of the republican party in my opinion.
Have you been following the primaries at all? Clinton will have to win both Texas and Ohio by as large a margin as Obama has won in the past dozen primaries, to even be considered for the nomination. And if by some miracle she does this, what will she have? Sixty-five to seventy percent of Ohio and Texas, plus 25% of the rest of the country's Democrats. Because, if Obama were not running, about half the people out there who are packing the primaries and caucuses would not bother voting. I know I wouldn't. So, it's Obama or nothing. This level of participation is for Obama, and no one else. McCain and Clinton can stumble along, and sling the BS, but they don't speak to America.
Let me know, HuffPo, if you want me to blog for you. This one makes it look easy. LOL
The new voters that Obama has brought in are a mixed blessing. Is their new-found judgement of a candidate superior to those who have voted before and been part of the process for years? I'm not just referring to first time voters who are now 18 to 22. We keep hearing that these 'new' Obama voters will go away if he is not the nominee. Well, maybe that's a good thing if they're going to be fair weather voters.
And then, of course, there are those of us who have been voting for thirty years waiting for the return of liberalism as we remember it. Those of us who were just about ready to give it up when Edwards and kucinich cashed in their chips and we were faced with yet more of the same old crap we have had to listen to for the last twenty years; progressive sounding but conservative enabling in practice.
I'm thrilled that Obama has enthused so many, but it is going to take more than words on anyone's part to make me a lover again.
The future is built on the backs of youth, my dear PoK. But it is not just youth that is being pulled to the voting booths by Obama. Sometimes one needs to suffer a fever to get rid of a disease. Go with the flow. It's moving in the correct direction, finally. Don't try to stop it, urge it along. Please.
Excuse me ... but, isn't it something wonderful rather than a "mixed-blessing" to see people taking an active role in civic culture and exercising their right to vote .... I know from teaching young people and from being a parent of 3 20-somethings that instead of a cynical ironic sense of post-apocalyptic im-possibility conceived on the backs of those who continue to play out the culture wars and the Vietnam conflict and the whole 1960's thing --- they find someone who motivates and makes young people find a stake in a system that has seemed like just a "fix."
It is never a good thing when citizens loose faith in their government, and elected officials or forsake civic culture. Do you realize what you are saying:? Would you prefer that young people and others who have not been involved in the system remain disenfranchised? Do you think the empire will remain standing?
"Because, if Obama were not running, about half the people out there who are packing the primaries and caucuses would not bother voting. I know I wouldn't. So, it's Obama or nothing. This level of participation is for Obama, and no one else. "
So.... I guess you only believe in Unity as long as it's YOUR Unity, huh? That's your new politics?
OK. Alrighty then.
It's pretty obvious from reading the comments on this thread that it's the Clinton supporters who are promoting party disunity, after baseless smearing of Obama and his supporters, they then all promise to throw their votes to McCain should Obama get the nomination. Thanks for trying to hand the next several Supreme Court nominations over to the far right. That will do wonders for women's issues, the environment, GLBT rights, civil rights, civil liberties, war and peace, universal health care, corporate regulation, everything that Democrats profess to care about will be thrown under the buss because your favorite candidate didn't get the nomination. The Supreme Court will effect everything for the rest of our lives, a Presidential term only lasts for four to eight years. Grow up folks and get it together!
If Clinton can't beat Obama by smearing him, just how can she beat McCain? The Clinton supporters just don't seem to give a damn. What's wrong with you people? It's just this kind of behavior that has lost Clinton support from the Democratic base.
I'll vote for whichever Democrat gets the nomination. Not that I'll have much of a choice who it is by the time I get to vote in my state. I'm focused on the Supreme Court and a turn away from belligerent foreign policy to mature diplomacy.
Democrats who don't support Obama have several other choices besides staying home. There's Cynthia McKinney. There's Ralph Nader. There's a write-in candidate, for those who can't bring themselves to stay home. There's even John McCain. Obama supporters correctly point out that there are Democrats who will not vote for Hillary Clinton in any circumstances, but it never seems to occur to Obama supporters that there are now Democrats who will never vote for their guy. And when the Obama supporters are unable to shut this information out, they try to shout it down with cries of "Bradley effect!" They don't stop to register the truth that some people--including a large bloc of older women who vote--were actually for Obama as recently as six weeks ago but now feel irreparably alienated because of the candidate's manifest sexism and his passive enabling of misogynist and ageist elements in his campaign and among his supporters. In some cases, their alienation carries over to the Democratic Party in general, as Howard Dean has been learning. Anyway, this kind of disrespect can't be accepted as campaigning as usual. It's a free country, so I have no interest in censoring the Obama campaign or any of its expressions. When I say that sexism and ageism are unacceptable, I mean that I refuse to accept them. The sign of my refusal is my vote--not my silence, as if I just stayed home, but my active vote for another candidate and against Obama in the zero-sum game of electoral politics. I think a President Obama might well be worse than any of the alternatives listed above, despite Obama's admirable skill in gaming the Democratic Party's nominating process.
I agree with you, and I am 35.
Honeybee49, Thanks for voicing your feelings. Unfortunately, in all political campaigns on a large scale, feelings are hurt. I recall the 1972 campaign. George McGovern didn't pander properly to the left that got him nominated and Nixon won in a landslide. Feelings were hurt and the left which was ascendant politically at that moment failed to vote. McGovern alienated the rank and file D's at the time by leaning too far to the left early. Wouldn't things be better today if we didn't elect Nixon then? Please consider that feelings do count, but political reality is important too.
Whomever wins the Democratic nod, I am voting for that person. I initially thought Clinton would be stronger than Obama against McCain, but now I don't. I even voted for Clinton on Super Tuesday. Please consider the big picture, for your and for my future. I think Obama is doing some damage to himself here with the Democratic base which he will not by himself be able to repair. I hope that I am wrong. He is a far better choice than McCain for our futures and failing to show up on election day to vote for him is going to take us down the path labeled McCain. Do you really want to maintain an imperial presidency and permanent war? I want a change. I want my country back. I think there is a chance for hope with Obama but not unless we vote for him.
Thanks for listening
This is why Hillary is lossing. When things don't go her way, jump ship. Turn your back on dem ideas. Help the republicans win. How pathetic!
Go Obama!
I'll see you in the great push for Tehran too bud. Don't buy it. I don't care how short you are, I'm not catching a bullet for you.
So you are basing your vote against Obama upon what some obnoxious anonymous posters at HuffPo have said about Hillary. Has it even occurred to you that some of these anonymous posters may well be trolls engaged in a divide and conquer strategy and not really Obama supporters at all. The same thing applies the other way around. I'm pretty well convinced anybody who says they will not vote for the Democratic nominee and claims that person will be worse than McCain is not really a Democrat and could give a crap about any of the issues.
How to spot a troll:
1. They levy baseless smears against one Democratic nominee that parrot the Corporate Media or Republican party, and give you no real reason to support the candidate they claim to support. Their posts are designed to be divisive and make Democrats appear as bad as Republicans.
Examples:
A. Obama supporters are cult like
B. Clinton's screeching voice
C. Any sexist or racist remark about either candidate or their spouses
D. They claim that the other candidate will be worse than McCain
E. They will not address the issue of what will happen if McCain gets to make the next Supreme Court appointments
F. They will not pledge to support the Democratic nominee
Anybody who doesn't realize the implications of another Republican Presidency after 8 years of the Bush regime is either a fool or a Republican troll.
Real Democrats will be proud of their country and party for nominating either a female or a black man for President.
Real Democrats are focused on discussing the issues, not character assassination and baseless smears.
Go back to before Iowa when many Obama supporters on this site said they hate Hillary and would never vote for her. At that time Hillary's supporters weren't saying that they wouldn't vote for him but after months of the vitriol we've had it. Some of us Hillary supporters don't want any part of a candidacy that has inspired such hatred and divisiveness among Democrats. The Obama supporters are responsible for instigating that, not the Hillary supporters nor the Edwards supporters. Now, you want to blame us. Isn't that just like the Obama supporters? You reap what you sow.
I hope you get drafted and sent to Iraq under the McCain administration. I, for one, will be promoting gender equality under the McCain administration by pointig out how unfair it is that women don't have to sign up for selective service..
Oh well, president McCain will run out of war male bodies soon enough. I'm sure the sisterhood will get a chance to their part .
Oh dear. Look just a few posts up at ObamaEdwards post where he/she says:
""Because, if Obama were not running, about half the people out there who are packing the primaries and caucuses would not bother voting. I know I wouldn't. So, it's Obama or nothing. This level of participation is for Obama, and no one else. "
Perhaps it's not so obvious to you now. Unfortunately, those sentiments are echoed several times just in this comments thread. And far too many times elsewhere across the blogosphere.
Will you be pointing out to ObamaEdwards and folks of similar viewpoint that they MUST vote for Clinton if she gets the nomination, no matter whether you believe she got it fairly or no?
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Posted February 29, 2008 | 06:36 PM (EST)