Why do people here love losers?
There were and continue to be a few demi-gods around these parts as far as I can tell.
About the time I started paying attention here, one of those demi-gods was John Edwards. Never mind that he’d lost his race for the Presidency. Never mind he’d lost his race for the Vice-Presidency. He was ‘the populist voice’. Oops. At this point, he is the quintessence of loser and we have only to thank our lucky stars he did lose.
And then there is Al Gore, who just happens to be part of the political aristocracy in this country. Drums endlessly pounded about when he would get into the last presidential race, how he should be drafted, etc. etc. etc. He can do no wrong on this site. His Nobel Prize was earned. (Really? Is the environment fixed?) He lost TWO presidential races. Through failed strategies, trying to distance himself from a popular sitting president (who, yes, had plenty of problems), and generally being plain inept and uninspiring, he, with a little help from our friend Ralph Nader, handed us 4 years of George W. Bush and the incumbent's advantage. Oh yes. And Gore chose Joe Lieberman as his vice-presidential running mate; a fine demonstration of outstanding judgment that was. Don't know about anyone else, but till then, I'd never heard of Joe Lieberman. Thanks to Al Gore, Joe Lieberman has name recognition. Massive, EPIC lose.
And Dr./Gov. Dean. People here hang on his words about what to think. Tout his success with the 50 state strategy (I’m fond of that myself). Well. His presidential campaign went well. His losing Iowa got us John Kerry as a candidate, and for whatever else one might say about Sen. Kerry’s bona fides as a legislator, as a presidential candidate, he couldn’t have inspired a fly. Losers, both.
So, the losers get respectfully called Gov. (or Dr.) Dean and Vice President Gore.
On the other hand, we have President Obama. Not from a political aristocracy. Not of a life of privilege. Now, for the sake of this argument, I’m going to concede that he’s not as effective as we’d hoped, he’s not as left as we’d like, he’s too beholden to special interests, etc. But he is a winner. He won himself a place at Columbia. At Harvard Law. As Editor of the Harvard Law Review. As an author. As professor of law at the University of Chicago. As a State Senator. As a US Senator from Illinois. As the Presidential nominee of the Democratic party (against every conceivable odd). Overwhelmingly, as President of the United States. Quite simply, President Barack Obama is a winner. He’s even our winner. So, here, he’s simply 'Obama'. No deferential titles for the winner. Forget that he is a Juris Doctor. Forget that he was a Senator. Forget that he is the President. No. The single unmitigated national Democratic winner in the last two decades is just ‘Obama’. His Nobel Prize wasn’t earned. He is called a sell-out, he is excoriated for being weak, incompetent, ineffective. But. Uhm. He’s been the winner. He’s our (imperfect) winner. By definition. The weak, incompetent, ineffective ones? Those were Edwards, Gore, Kerry and Dean. By definition.
The President was handed a shit storm of a life. But he won. He’s been handed a shit-storm of a Senate. Maybe, just maybe for once, instead of supporting the loser, we could figure out how to support the winner, so that he can win more. For us. Instead, at every turn, there the chorus here is saying that somehow, no matter what, we’ve got to make sure he loses.
Maybe in 2012, when Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee, or Sarah Palin is president, Former President Barack Obama will have earned his deification too, because Democrats will finally have made him a loser.
Why do Democrats seem hell-bent on turning this particular winner into a loser?
My fire extinguisher is ready.