Democrats, The Fault Lies Not In Our (Media Pundit) Stars, But In Ourselves

When I started HuffPosting last year, I swore to myself that I'd never write about politics. There are more than enough bloggers who do so capably -- why bother to inject myself into the mix? Besides, I had other fish to fry. Arianna & Co. signed me on to write about the music biz, not the president-making biz.

But seriously, what kind of Kool-Aid are we Democrats drinking to think that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton have a snowball's chance in heck of being elected president this November?!

It's like the DNC had a secret meeting and said "It's gonna be awful tough to lose in '08, what with the entire country hating the Republicans and all. We'd better nominate a black guy. Or a woman. Or have a black guy and a woman run against each other! Yeah, that should seal the deal."

Don't get me wrong, I believe a non-white non-male can get elected to the highest office in the land. If he or she is Republican, that is. Republicans are good at getting people elected. If you run a female or minority Democrat, on the other hand, all the closet racists and sexists who come out from under their rocks to increase turnout for the GOP can explain their votes away by saying "It didn't have anything to do with race and/or gender. He/she was just too liberal."

We're talking about a political party that hasn't gotten a majority of the electorate in a presidential election since LBJ in 1964, for cryin' out loud. This is a party whose 2004 nominee let the biggest issue of the campaign become, not the disastrous war in Iraq or Halliburton or the fact that the Bush administration had done nothing but lie and dissemble and curtail our civil liberties since 9/11, but whether or not John Kerry shot himself in the ass in Vietnam in 1969. And we think we can get a black man or a woman elected?!

I see a lot of people blaming the media's lack of coverage for the fact that the seemingly electable John Edwards is running a distant third in the Race To Lose '08. But you know what? Nobody put a gun to the heads of Democratic voters in South Carolina or Nevada or New Hampshire or Iowa and forced them to not vote for the guy. We're blowing this election all by ourselves, kids.

And while we're busy patting ourselves on the backs for being so progressive, let's also remember that the party's two front-runners are not just a black man and a woman. They're a black man with barely any political experience on a national level, who's, what, 12 years old or something? And a woman who's the most hated person in America by a good chunk of the electorate, and possibly the most polarizing figure since Eleanor Roosevelt -- another great woman who couldn't have been elected Prez.

I will be proud -- honored, even -- to pull the lever (or push a button, if they replace our reliable antiquated voting machines with non-tamper-proof computerized gizmos by November) for either Barack or Hillary this Election Day, but I have no illusion that I'll be celebrating a victory by either that evening. The only chance we have is if Mitt Romney gets the Republican nomination. Seeing the evangelical far-right have to choose between a black man or a woman and a Mormon, now THAT would be a hoot.

Comments

[Shake-A-Spear]

Regardless of the Dem/Republican combo - Hillary vs. McCain, Obama vs. Romney, etc. etc. there'll be bigots and crazies on each side. Hillary haters, Moromon haters, Immigrant "amnesty" loonies, white supremacists, and other miscellaneous whackos. So regardless of the pairing come November, each side's nuts will cancel out the other side's nuts and the sane remainders on each side will slug it out and ultimately determine the winner. May it be so!

[alkamm]

Probably stick to writing about music?
"kids?"

This is not a children's crusade. In fact, Obama's support comes from clear-eyed adults who realize the real kool-aid drinkers are Hillary supporters. Although Edwards has been my favorite on the issues, Obama inspires and promises to reenergize the country. He's so much more articulate than our present failed president, and he's likely to bring a lot of youthful energies to Washington.
Obama president, Edwards attorney general!

[StephenDedalus82]

The people won't forget the Bush years by November. The Democrats could nominate a hunchback hermaphrodite and still win this, as long as they don't screw it up. Considering Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been scoring record numbers in the primaries, and the Republicans have been trodding along rather weakly, I think it's too soon to say that a woman or black man can't be elected. One thing both candidates have going for them that neither Al Gore nor John Kerry had at the time is excitement.

[alkamm]

Obama is a candidate that will inspire this country to rise above much of the cynical politics that have kept so many people from voting. A lot of the success of the Republicans has come from the caliber of Democratic candidates. Gore won, but he didn't inspire as he could have. Kerrey was simply an ill-conceived fantasy candidate without the character to win against George Bush. Rove's tactics helped, but Kerrey was our own worst enemy.
If you want to see what an informed electorate can do, check out the last big Democratic sweep of the congressional elections. Obama will win in a landslide against McCain because McCain is still fighting the culture wars that grew out of Vietnam and would like to continue the Iraq misadventure ad infinitum. That dog will not hunt.
Even our Iraqi soldiers know we need to get out now and declare victory rather than stay in and lose. McCain may get the nomination, but his cynical idea that the surge is working plays to less than a third of the country--the true believers who will accept any notion of triumphalism if they get a tax break.

[jmengr]

"We're talking about a political party that hasn't gotten a majority of the electorate in a Presidential election since LBJ in 1964, for cryin' out loud."

WRONG. Al Gore got a majority in 2000.