Watching Hillary Clinton's "victory" speech Tuesday night, I was reminded of "I me mine," by The Beatles. I actually counted the number of times she used the words I, my and me: 69 (Hum...). This doesn't count the number of times she used "we" in reference to Bill and Chelsea (7).
I think this has been her biggest problem. Forgetting that she's supposed to be running for the people, not for her and Bill's egos. You know, connecting to the people who actually know how to use the cappuccino machine at the gas station after they've paid $4.00 a gallon for gas in cars that are barely holding on.
I remember hearing at some point in the 90s that Hillary put her own political ambition on the back burner so that Bill could run for president. Okay, at the time, and even now, I believe that. On some things they actually worked together and did some great things for the country. I believed Bill when the "Hope" commercials came out. I honestly believed that he would work to change things in how the country would run. I believed him when he exuded the "presidential air" during his candidacy.
I knew, on a deep down level, that he would help the "little guy," and in a lot of little ways he did. I have my college education because he fought to lower the parental independent age limit from 26 to 24. I had tried to apply for loans for school when I was 23, but was told I'd have to use my parents' income because I wasn't "of age." I had been on my own for four years by then and didn't understand how my parents came into the deal. I was trying to better myself and I had to wait a year before I entered college. I now have two degrees that would not have been possible if the age limit hadn't been lowered.
Now, I can't pay back those loans because the best employment I've found is part-time and there is no extra money left to pay them back. The loans are in default and there's nothing I can do about it.
I don't get the same "hope" feeling from Hillary's campaign though. Even watching the older commercials from earlier this year, all I heard coming from her is, "what I will do," "I will do this," etc. nothing about everyone working together to change the way things are. There is something so fundamentally wrong about her strategy that I find it hard to believe that she can't see the mistakes she's made in this campaign.
It's time to tell you that I support Barack Obama. He reminds me so much of Bill 16 years ago. I bought into Bill's message then and I buy into Barack's message now. Barack's message is about change and how the country needs to come together to heal from the last seven-plus years. His campaign is not about what he will do, but what we will do with him as president.
This is the fundamental difference between the two campaigns.
Hillary has said that she will stay in the race. This further proves that she doesn't have a clue about what the people want. It would be different if she had run a "clean" campaign, but she hasn't. I know she and her surrogates say that the Main Stream Media turned on her, but has it really? I would say not. If it had turned on her, we would never have heard about Rev. Wright or had Barack's "bitter" comment blown way out of proportion. What we would have heard is how badly her campaign has been run and how much she's had to loan her campaign since Super Tuesday, about $11 million so far. While there really isn't anything wrong with this, it says a lot about how fiscally responsible she would be if, by some divine intervention, she won the presidency.
I personally don't want another president who is only in it for themselves. Do you?
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Ms. Hapke, you are correct. Thank you for writing this piece.
You're very welcome and thank you for reading it,
Melissa
I've thought about the "me" factor as well. I've done this and I will do that. I am, I was, me. me, me.
Barack is more about "us" - at least in the way he comes across and his choice of words. Good article Melissa.
Thank you. I've been thinking about going through Barack's speech from Tues. to find out how many times he said we.
Melissa
Ironically, while making her case why working class people wont vote for Obama, she pretty much alienated the black vote in the same breath and blew her last metric. She just about but all kissed her chance of VP with her "hard working whites" comment.
If this had happened at the same time of the "bitter' comments, she would have been blasted for it.
I don't actually believe the media would have jumped on anything she said, even thes recent blatantly racist comments (which they've mostly ignored) partly because of their racism (anything he does is anti-white, and thus, anti-American) and partly because of their sexism (she doesn't have to reach the same bar, and it's okay to give her an unmerited boost and ignore mistakes that were just normal irrational behavior expected from a woman).
Ugh. If the past several months have shown us nothing else, it's that a lot of Americans will still fall for these wrongheaded assumptions despite everything, and certain candidates will exploit them without a qualm.
egal, I could not agree with you more on that. Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading it,
Melissa
DanoS, I'm thinking you're correct on this. However, the MSM wasn't paying attention to what was going on with her, just allowing her to attack Barack (think ABC "debate").
Melissa
Eh, let her continue. It's her own legacy she's destroying. She's like the washed-up athlete who doesn't know when it's time to retire. Let go, Hillary, let go!
Well said!
Thank you Paladine.
Did you see that ol John is attacking Obama for recognizing that the gas tax holiday is a silly idea, and switching to be against it? Apparently ol John thinks that once an idea has slipped into a politicians head he or she should be obligated to stick with it. I'd rather have a leader who can learn to abandon bad ideas.
If this is the best McCain can do, I'm looking forward to eating a big, homemade chocolate cake on Nov. 4th.
Melissa
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Posted May 8, 2008 | 02:11 PM (EST)