Yesterday as I was walking down Market Street I saw two girls saying, "two free tickets to see Hillary Clinton!" What I noticed was that 1) they seemed tired and unenthusiastic, and 2) nobody seemed to be paying them any interest. Then I noticed something about myself: although I am a political junkie of the highest order, I wasn’t exactly enticed by their offer even though it offered the potential of seeing the possible next President of the United States.
As I stood there waiting for the "walk" signal to come on so I could cross the street, I thought about whether I should take these girls up on the offer to see Hillary. What did I have to lose? It was free so it wasn’t like I had to make any commitments or donate money to support Hillary. It might be an enlightening experience. But when the "walk" signal came on, I just kept on walking.
Then today Hillary voted for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment and it all came together. She claimed that she was fooled into voting for the 2002 Iraq War authorization because she believed that President Bush wouldn’t really go to war and that he just needed a strong hand to conduct diplomacy. Having been burned once, what does Hillary do? She goes and votes for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, presumably because she believes that President Bush won’t really go to war with Iran and that he just wants to send a strong message to Iran.
In other words, Hillary was fooled once, shame on President Bush. But now that she’s been fooled twice, shame on her.
Hell, even Biden voted against this bill, as did those flaming liberals Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar. The only reason I can think of as to why Hillary voted the way she did is that she’s at her old triangulating ways again. She voted against the resolution condemning the Moveon ad and the right hammered her for it. So to make up for that and keep appearances that she’s really a "serious" moderate and not a pinko-commie, she voted for Kyl-Lieberman.
It’s this type of calculation that led her to vote for the 2002 Iraq bill. And it’s this type of calculation that leads me to support somebody else.
But who, you say? For starters, I like Obama and Edwards.
I like Obama because he unlike all the other major candidates, he opposed the war from the beginning, plus he can articulate progressive ideas more persuasively than anyone I’ve seen in recent memory, and, by virtue of his post-partisan message and personality, and frankly, his race, he has the potential to completely change politics as we know it.
I like Edwards because he has offered the most specifics with regard to policy, he has been the most forceful in speaking out against the Iraq war, and he poses the greatest potential for truly shifting policy back towards populism and working people and away from the pro-corporate/laissez-faire atmosphere that has dominated Washington since Lyndon Johnson left office.
Not to mention, I think Obama and Edwards have the potential to win over more independent voters and therefore win convincingly, while Hillary, aside from President Bush, is the most polarizing politician in America (unfairly in my opinion, but that's the harsh truth). Hillary might yet win, but it would be another bitterly divided 51% to 49% election.
Of course the knock on Obama and Edwards is that they lack gravitas and experience, which is a very fair and significant criticism. Which is why, in a perfect world, we’d have a candidate who has the charisma and the ambition to effect real change that both Obama and Edwards have, who was against the war from the beginning, and also has the experience. Someone who has been close to the presidency and has seen what it is like. Someone who we’ve already elected once before.
Wonder who that could be?