Hide and Watch

Lets reflect on comments by Bill Clinton today:

Pennsylvania, if you say yes to Hillary Tuesday, you hide and watch: you're electing the next president.

[Cross-posted at Overbreadth]

First of all, no Pennsylvania, if you vote Hillary Clinton you're not electing the next president.  Hillary Clinton has virtually no chance of winning the nomination.  Although I suppose you could interpret the statement this way:

Pennsylvania, if you say yes to Hillary Tuesday, you hide and watch: you're electing the next president, [John McCain.]

I'm not actually that pessimistic about the effect of a win by Clinton in Pennsylvania, although McCain has certainly benefitted from the prolonged primary.  What was striking to me here was something I'd never heard a candidate advocate.

You hide and watch.

Yes, I understand his point.  Somehow, magically, while you're hiding, Hillary Clinton will win the nomination.  Obama will shoot himself in the foot somehow.  That, combined with a win in Pennsylvania, will mean Hillary Clinton will get nominated.  She'll then pit her experience-argument against the more-experienced John McCain, and do so with the support of a Democratic base, which is in no way alienated by having the nominee with more votes overturned by the will of the party elite.  It could happen.  All you gotta do is...

Hide and watch.

There's an irony here, urging an electorate to hide and watch just days after Clinton trashed activists at closed-door fundraiser.  That is the choice in this election.  Do we hide and watch, or do we act.  

Remember, what it felt like when W was first elected?  We tried to reassure ourselves, how much harm can one president do in just four years?  We figured his controversial election, one without the majority of America behind him, would quiet him into inaction.  He was against nation building, after all.  Remember?  And as things went from bad to worse, and from worse to catastrophic, many of us were tempted to abandon politics as a source of solutions.  Many of us were tempted to simply

Hide and watch.

Some people haven't been hiding and watching over these years, activists like those at MoveOn, who continue to push for more responsible government, despite being demeaned by the Clintons, the very people whose defense against distraction politics created the organization.

I'm tired of hiding and watching.

•  That's exactly what the real elites

  want us to do, hide and watch. The idea that we might have any real role in our governance is especially repugnant to them.

  by DaNang65 on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 06:40:01 PM PDT

•  Aw, c'mon

  That's just an Arkansas cornballism.

  by Ddeele on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 06:40:19 PM PDT

  •  Just words?

    I disagree.  I understand that it's just an expression, but the point is, when you tell people something is going to happen (she'll be president), but you don't explain how--other than by resort to a "cornbalism"--you're engaged in a form of public dishonesty.

    It's like when Gore debated Bush, and Bush resorted to his now-famous "fuzzy numbers" retort.  Haha, funny expression, but shouldn't the candidates back up their claims beyond colloquialisms?  Isn't it fair to expect that?

    by Cameron Fredman on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 06:48:06 PM PDT

    •  Public Dishonesty

      Your expectations have clearly been warped by the promise Obama's noble rhetoric holds out.

      Me, I'm not holding my breath till the day that "public dishonesty" of this type is absent (or ineffective) from campaign speech.

      by Ddeele on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 07:37:38 PM PDT

•  Great Piece

  No not this time... Yes we can and will change the face of America for the better. No more hiding and watching the theives take our birthright to be free, not this time
  

  NOT THIS TIME

  by kararay on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 06:41:29 PM PDT

•  Predictions from a perv

  He's hoping that voters act like scared rabbits.  Hide in their hutches and watch on CNN.

  Sorry Bill, your days of raking in six figures for speaking engagements are over.  He'll be lucky to be invited to speak at a VFW awards banquet after Hillary loses this nomination.  And I for one am happy about that.

  by teyigdhk on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 06:56:23 PM PDT

•  Hide & Watch. That's what we hillbillies

  do when someone is about to do something st00pid.
  Yeah, good move Bill, telling folks to not work for the Dem candidate.
  Hide, and watch President McC.....fuck, I can't write it.
  That asshat gets elected, either of them, I'll spend the next 4 hiding in my cave, and watching, that's for sure.

  by emmasnacker on Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 07:03:53 PM PDT