Now, for starters, I am certainly not calling Hillary supporters right wing nuts. I believe the vast majority believe in progressive principles and are as liberal as I am if not more so. The reason I make this comparison is simple: prominent right wing figures such as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" Cunningham have been reading Alegre’s talking points, or vice versa. What this says about Hillary supporters I will leave up to you to discuss in the comments, but here is my take:
As a former Neo-con, I know how the radio right wing attack dogs operate, and I occasionally tune in to see what the enemy is up to. I have become such a political junkie in the past few months that while Air America is on commercial I’ll flip over to the Repub station to check on ‘operation chaos’ or some other similar nonsense for a laugh, and to see what we can expect to hear about our nominee in the summer and fall. Last night I tuned into Bill Cunningham for a few minutes until I couldn’t stand it anymore and wanted to scream. I thought he was reading his argument straight from a MyDD diary. It was late but I think I can paraphrase fairly accurately. I will block quote my recollection but keep in mind that it was late and these won’t be word for word:
He was specifically talking about how Barack Obama couldn’t be a legitimate nominee and it showed how bad the Democratic party was by giving the nomination to a guy who
hasn’t won any of the big states except his home state of Illinois
and were
disenfranchising millions of voters Florida and Michigan when in 2000 they were complaining about the same thing for a few thousand votes that were counted correctly
He also repeated the classic hit:
if they did winner-take-all like the Republican primary Hillary would have been the winner after taking California
This is most specific example I can recall, though I have heard the others mentioned say very similar things lately, mostly in an attempt to disqualify Obama’s imminent nomination before it even happens. I know I could go on forever about how wrong he is, and if that was the only place I heard it I could have dismissed it as typical right wing radio ignorance. But is sounds just like the Hillary supporters I read at MyDD and hear call into left wing talk shows. This disturbs me.
The first thing you have to ask yourself is: "what’s in it for the wing-nuts?" Why promote Hillary’s case? We know that Rush Limbaugh has been the ring leader in active attempts to prolong the nomination process through crossover voting. Many, like John Kerry, see this as evidence that they would rather run against Hillary. I don’t agree. I see it as an obvious attempt to fracture the party via a floor fight in August and just plain promote disharmony in our party. If you listen to the right-wing talking heads you get the distinct impression that they feel Obama’s going to get crushed by McCain, despite some of them having serious reservations about Johnny "four-more-years."
I am of the opinion that the right wing is jumping on the Hillary talking points bandwagon for the very same reason. If they manage to de-legitimate Obama’s nomination, and secure more votes from bitter Hillary partisans in FL and MI, then great, and if they somehow manage to extend Hillary’s run of divisive Rovian campaigning, then also great. I think the ultimate success for them would be to convince Hillary and her supporters of the validity of their argument so efectively that they break off of the party entirely and create a permanent GOP 45-30-25 majority. The more Dems they peel away from the pack with this newly invented wedge issue of primary legitimacy, the better off they are as a party, even if they can’t stomach McCain being their nominee. I think they misunderstand the mood of the nation that has been created by eight years of incompetence so compelling that at least 20 percent of Republicans seek to divorce themselves from it entirely. (That number being completely pulled from the nether region between my gluteus maximus, based solely on anecdote and the current approval ratings of President Man Child). They think they have found an issue even more effective than gay marriage, guns, and religion at splintering us into infighting fractions. What they underestimate, however, are the two reasons why this primary is so hotly contested:
- Both candidates are extremely marketable, and happen to be running the same year.
- The base, and the independents are pissed about the direction we are headed in, and have turned out in record numbers to be part of the solution this year. They just can’t decide on the one candidate to choose to help us rise up and depose the ineptitude that has been foisted upon us for nearly a decade. Once we officially nominate that candidate, and he capably unites the party, as we know he can, then it’s open season on the GOP record, and the man who wants to keep on with all the failed policies that created it. I hear "there are no good candidates this year" from all the GOPers. They think that, but I for one, think there are TWO GREAT candidates this year, but they have to narrow down to one before the GE campaign.
So I guess this is an optimistic diary, but I want to reach out to Hillary supporters and ask the simple question: "Do you really think these guys are spouting your arguments because they have any merit? Or is it more likely that they are seizing an opportunity to fuck with US, as a party, because there is so much exploitable passion for our principles in this cycle and we are naturally not as homogenous a group as the GOP?" We can’t expect the right-wing radio to stop saying stupid shit, and trying to turn us against each other. We CAN expect fellow Dems to eventually let go of their bitterness, distance themselves from idiotic hate-mongers, and embrace the man with the same platform they support. He may have ‘less experience,’ but he has proven time and again to be thoughtful and tactful while working hard for progressive ideals.
Hillary supporters, we would feel the same way if the candidate we think is best loses the nomination, especially under controversial circumstances. But no matter how flawed the process is, it was agreed to ahead of time and was not intentionally created to benefit Barack Obama. He just fit his strategy to the process instead of trying to retroactively do the opposite. Even if you think he can’t win, don’t make it a self fulfilling prophesy and hand the GOP another four years to destroy everything we stand for and ruin our nation in the process.
stepping down from soapbox