Not to rain on anyone's parade, but come on, people. We're not going to be able to keep using the whole "reality based community" label much longer if the Clinton supporters keep playing up her "stunning victory" tonight.
She really didn't do anything impressive at all. I found her performance in the debate to certainly be one of her better ones, but all this gushing praise is just overwhelmingly insipid. It's reaching "DailyKos-For-Edwards" proportions in its silliness.
As for her win in the Michigan primary....
Let's remember. She was the only one of the Top Three who was on the ballot. If you have a problem reading those tea leaves, then there's something wrong with you. Her victory was no great surprise and really wasn't all that impressive.
It's not an impressive victory if your two main opponents don't even show up. Who exactly did she beat on the ballot? Kucinich, Gravel, Dodd, and the dangerous Uncommitted?
I know, there were radio ads urging people to vote for Uncommitted as a way of voting for candidates other than Clinton. But those thinking that radio ads with an abstract movement like that is the same as living, breathing candidates making speeches and being visible is simply fooling themselves.
Another notion floating in Camp Clinton is to take all of Clinton's votes, and then split the Uncommitted votes between Obama and Edwards and call it a day. When I read that, I kept looking around for the unicorns, because usually unicorns show up when it's make-believe time.
That line of argument is the same sort of nonsense done when people take the numbers and percentages of supporters backing Kucinich, Richardson, Gravel, et al (the small guys) and applying them wholesale to whatever candidate they choose, as if they have some window into the minds of all voters everywhere.
Clinton may still have won in Michigan if Obama and Edwards were on the ballot, she may not have. But to somehow claim that all votes cast wouldn't have changed if they WERE on the ballot is ridiculous.
I'm not going to bother talking about exit poll results. How accurate are those in America anyway?
Weather was shitty, two-thirds of the Top Democratic candidates weren't even on the ballot, and Democratic participation in the primary was down from previous years.
Doesn't sound like such an impressive victory to me.
You know, on two separate occasions, I ran a 5k race and got 2nd place in my age group. Both times, 2nd place! And I smoke and I'm really out of shape. Sounds impressive, right?
Not when you consider that, other than me, there was only one other person in my age group running the race.
But for some reason, Clinton supporters want us to swallow her win in the Michigan primary as somehow awesome, impressive and / or righteous.
I just don't see it as anything other than Clinton winning because she was the de facto candidate on the ballot.
Her views didn't win her the primary.
Nor her performances in debates.
Nor her service in the Senate.
She won because she was the ONLY one of the Top Three on the ballot.
If Obama was the only one of the Top Three on the ballot, he'd have won.
Ditto on Edwards.
I just don't see how her win is impressive.
DISCLOSURE: I support whoever wins the Democratic primary fully. I have no preferred candidate at this moment, and my like and dislike of the Top Three candidates is pretty much even across the board.