Good Morning Kossacks! As some of you might know the Dog is a supporter of Sen. Clinton. Yeah, I know, it is clear that the Dog is congenitally stupid and morally corrupt, thanks for the input.
I will tell you all that the Dog does have strong worries about Sen. Obama for a lot of little reasons, his time in the Senate, his willingness to reach out (which to the Dog sounds like compromise with the Repugs on some progressive issues) his inexperience in foreign policy, his healthcare policy, his emphasis on inspiration over wonkry, his inexperience with a full on Repug attack machine and his lack of strong leadership in the Senate.
These are the things that the Dog worries about if he becomes our nominee and when he becomes our president. All said, those are enough reasons for the Dog to support Sen. Clinton (but your mileage may vary).
The thing is there are a lot of things about the junior Senator from Illinois that don't worry me, contrary to what some of my more...partisan supporters of Sen. Clinton say. I don’t worry about his connection to Rezko. Politicians wind up knowing a wide range of people, and some of those people are corrupt, they cuddle up to politicians because that is where the power is located. That does not automatically make the politician corrupt; it just offers the chance to be corrupted. It happens to all politicians.
While there is some weakness in his record on the right for a citizen to choose when and how to reproduce or not, the Dog is not worried that once in the White House he will appoint judges that would continue to reduce these rights. To suggest that is to engage in redutio ad absurdum (H/T to MBNYC for the spelling save!)
While I think that he has misspoken in terms of his foreign policy in the past, I am pretty damn confident that he will do better than our current president (talk about a low bar!), hell I am sure that he will blow away the record of the 42nd president.
The point of all of this is that we should resist demonizing the opposition. It is an intellectual exercise to separate the emotional desire to see those that oppose us as inherently bad, from the facts of their life and service. The Dog knows that it is harder with Sen. Clinton, as there has been nearly a generation of news coverage that has been slanted against her. It makes it harder to believe that she would have the good of the nation at heart, that her efforts to become our nominee and president are the hard work of someone that really believes that they are the very best choice for the job, just as Sen. Obama does.
As we wrap this nomination process up (I know it is far from done just yet), the Dog makes a request, a plea, that we try not to be intellectually lazy and work to talk about the factual differences between the candidates. It is not that you are going to hurt my feelings if you don’t, but you might hurt the party. Let us not kid ourselves; we are going to have to work as a group to get our nominee elected. It is far too important that we put a Dem in the White House to let intra-party partisanship ruin this chance.
Cheers,