Hillary's motivation

What has clarified my understanding of Hillary's motivation is this: with the perfect storm of problems (Bush's poll numbers, the tragic Iraq war, the sinking economy, McSame's wearing the Bush mantle, etc) dragging down the Republican Party and predicting a Democratic victory in November, she (and I) believe that the Democratic nominee will absolutely become the next President of the United States.  If it's Hillary, she gets the Oval Office!

More below the fold.

Therefore, all she has to do is get us to dismiss that annoyingly youthful, optimistic, enthusiastic, listening, Iraq-War-opposing, solution-seeking, inspirational, hope mongering Midwestern outsider with the photogenic family - and accept her instead.

I'm in my mid-40s and therefore don't have the memory of RFK, let alone JFK, with which to compare Obama, but let me tell you, it was inspirational watching Bill accept the nomination in Madison Square Garden in 1992 as. . . .the Man from Hope.

Well, those inspirational days are long gone.

I can also remember being asked in December 2000, before SCOTUS awarded the White House to Bush, if I wanted Bush's presidency to fail.  In truth, I answered, "Absolutely not, because if he fails, so does our country. I hope Bush confounds all of us and has a successful presidency."

Well, even though I hoped for good things, Bush and his cohorts let us all down.

For me, the decison of who to support for president should be a slam dunk. Before this primary campaign season, I'd had my fill of Billary - and the feeling is 100 times deeper now. Yes, I'll even use the phrase "Clinton fatigue" to describe my exhaustion. I live in NYC and have been hearing about them daily since they left the White House. So, for me, a Hillary win is just a third term for the Clinton elite.

And in my eyes, a McSame win is just a third term for the Bush elite.  Do you realize that there has been someone in the White House named either Bush or Clinton since Inauguration Day 1981?  I wonder how many younger voters have lived their entire lives during that time?

To me, Barack offers something new, something rare in American politics, almost a "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" appeal. He is someone who is still young enough to have small children and the associated worries of raising them to be good people in what is a rather decadent society; someone who, along with his working spouse, has had day care concerns; someone from modest enough means to remember what it is like repaying student loans; someone who is the embodiment of American pluralism, inclusiveness and advancement through intelligence and merit, not entitlement or and nepotism.

As I watch the North Carolina and Indiana returns, I again hope for the end to this painfully long process, one which is surely killing Hillary and Bill.  "So close," they must be thinking. "We came so close."

The poll below is a bit snarky, but it's been a long day and I needed a laugh. I hope it gives you a chuckle, too.

•  Game winner will be the margin in congress

  of Dems in the Majority. We'd better get busy.

  by murasaki on Tue May 06, 2008 at 06:37:16 PM PDT

•  Post a tip jar!

  

  by SciVo on Tue May 06, 2008 at 06:38:31 PM PDT

  •  sorry - tip jar

    Hope you enjoyed your visit!

    by apple badger on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:39:16 PM PDT

•  The sad fact of the matter is

  it didn't have to end this way. With disillusioned supporters like myself wishing that he could have the years of defending the Clintons back like I was a sucker in a bad marriage.

  It didn't. It's so damned stupid that this is the way they chose to go out.

  If Hillary had stayed in the race after Super Tuesday, but recognized the landscape and tried to 'out Obama Obama' and fired Penn and kept it overwhelmingly positive and done the exact opposite of what she ended up doing, not meeting with Richard Mellon-Scaife, not pulling the endless variations on the 'these states/contests don't count' crap, not having the same idiot surrogates keep pushing Rezko, Druggie, cult, delusional, Bitter, and other completely unnecessary junk, I believe she would have had a shot to win that wasn't a fairy tale, and in the end walked away from this if it was an eventual primary loss with her head held high as:

  1. A complete shoe-in to replace Harry Reid as Senate Leader when he vacates if she wished to simply return to the Senate (as a Nevadan I can tell you that Reid has been pushing the idea locally that he will stay in the Senate but step down from the leadership position in the next year or so in the local political rumor mill).

  2. Still politically viable should the unthinkable happen and McCain find a way to win.

  3. with her, and her husbands, cache and legacy with African-Americans completely intact.

  4. And, most important of all for her ambitions, if she had run a positive campaign she would have created a climate where her being the veep wouldn't be this unthinkable WTF? for millions of Obama supporters and independents.

  She lost me when she had the sit-down with Richard Mellon-Scaife. I was going to stay neutral and support whoever won the nomination. I was not an Obama person, I was a Democrat who was absolutely willing to transform himself into an Obama person if he won.

  You don't break bread with the man who dried to destroy you for political expediency. She couldn't have hurt me more as a Clinton defender for a decade and a half if she had spit in my face.

  But the sit-down with the man who made her husbands impeachment possible, and it wouldn't have happened without The Arkansas Project creating a machine just to destroy the Clintons, was too much.

  And then I read Taylor Marsh at HuffPo and at her blog, looked at what MyDD had become for the first time, and I was done.

  Everything that happened after Obama pulled ahead, she did to herself.

  I am convinced that the RNC would have eaten her campaign alive if she had run this Karl Rove meets Penn/Estritch way against John McCain.

  by LeftHandedMan on Tue May 06, 2008 at 06:45:13 PM PDT

•  how about

  "Insane" McCain picks Hillary The Horrible as VP, goes 0 for 50.

  by alizard on Tue May 06, 2008 at 06:47:15 PM PDT

•  really nice diary

  still laughing over poll.  

  by ozarkspark on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:16:47 PM PDT

  •  glad to send some laughs your way

    by apple badger on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:39:57 PM PDT

•  Clintons' motivation for running

  "Before this primary campaign season, I'd had my fill of Billary - and the feeling is 100 times deeper now."  I relate. I'm not from NY like the diarist but watched Hillary's performance in Congress when I (we) needed strong leaders to stand strong against the Bush/Cheney cabal.  She failed that test and has been confirming my doubts about her courage, honesty, and competence ever since.  

  I think I know her motivation for running for the presidency: She and Bill have something to prove to the dipshits who persecuted them and the ultimate revenge would be winning the WH again and having the power of the presidency.  It's the only thing that makes sense to me.  I do not believe Hillary is nearly as altruistic as she pretends...all that concern for the poor and children.  And she's flipped so often on Iraq and the mideast, pandering to the neo-cons...I don't think she craves the power to end the war.  They want to get even.  Period.  That's why it seems to utterly personal to them.

  by cas2 on Tue May 06, 2008 at 07:33:14 PM PDT