I was sure I was going to get the opportunity to vote for the first female President of the United States. And the thought thrilled me. I am, you see, a 49 year old white southern woman. That should equal 'nuff said. And then Obama won Iowa and I found myself feeling glad for him. By the SC Primary,(one of those states that doesn't count and where I grew up) I found myself hoping Obama won. I didn't know why and I knew virtually nothing about him, but we women tend to listen to our feelings more than men.
So I spent 2 days scouring the Library of Congress to compile my own comparative lists of their legislative efforts / positions and was very surprised by what I found. To me, it seemed like Hillary should almost feel ashamed of her own efforts relative to his on the environment, ethics and veterans affairs. In the process, I also discovered my respect for Russ Feingold, Dianne Feinstein and Ted Kennedy. You see, I used to be apathetic before I grew so disillusioned and disenfranchised that I finally gave up and moved out of the US 4 years ago. I am now an expat in South America.
Anyway, before long, I found myself doing more than hoping Obama won, for the first time in my life, I found myself volunteering for and donating to a political campaign. Thanks to VOIP, I can sit here in SA and phone voters in Caucus/Primary States.
Though a number of things began to annoy me, the first time I felt absolutely irate was Hillary threatening to win by 'politics as usual', her powerful friends - the superdelegates. That was puked up in a way I can only call cocky. And I hate cocky. After I accepted the audacity (or stupidity...still not sure of which) of her to even make public a tactic such as that, I simply consigned myself to working even harder as an Obama volunteer to see that he won the popular vote.
After taking a breath, it was intuitively impossible to imagine the superdelegates overriding the popular vote. They're the ones who are supposed to have a better grasp on things than normal folks like me and even I understood such a scenario would more than likely cost Democrats the General Election.
That the 'Obama is a Muslim' email was circulated through her campaign was what I would call worthy of Karl Rove and in spite of having to prove to some friends I considered relatively intelligent that this was simply a smear campaign, whatever. That otherwise intelligent people bought into such nonsense without doing any homework for themselves, I still find surprising. I also remember thinking that for a woman who claims to know so much, she sure misses a lot going on inside her own campaign.
That she ran ads in Texas suggesting she was more supportive of veterans than Obama was annoying because it's not true. So I wrote newspapers and sent his Senate record to support what I, and apparently the Library of Congress, saw as reality. That she made such a big deal out of Obama using Patrick's words when that was as ridiculous as it was 'pot, kettle, black' also fell into the annoying category, but really, to make a big deal out of something like that was reaching for straws in my book. But now, the woman has hit a new low...in one day!
I can only assume she is listening to Mark Penn's advice to attack even harder. I mean, hasn't his advice served her well up until now? Okay, stop laughing because this is serious. First, comparing Obama to Bush...well, this is so gratuitous that it says nothing more than "Yes, I'm that desperate." And by the way, for all the times she has used Bush as the bar for what failure and loathing should look like, I'm surprised no one noticed in the Texas debate that she suddenly switched and decided her position was validated because it was also Bush's position.
"When I said we should put a moratorium on home foreclosures, basically your response was, well, that wouldn't work, and you know, in the last week even President Bush said we have to do something like that."
Hello? Bush is bad unless I need him to make me look good? And hello again? Are there still Democrats out there who listen to what he has to say? I'm sorry, but that plays dumb in my book, just dumb.
Okay, so next, she decides to stage this angry shaming of him for flyers that are a cakewalk compared to the depths she's so clearly willing to sink to. It was pretty hard for me to think about her words because her actions yelled, "Yes, I am an angry woman and you should be afraid of me." Hillary, I'm sick of fear. Don't you get it? Fear is the Rovian Republicans buzz word. We don't want that bs in our camp. Haven't you learned anything yet? Go away Hillary, just go away.
Honestly, I am yet to hear anything so condescending as her during that press conference. "Undermining core Democratic Principles/ Values"? Hillary, surely you jest. Have you missed the news? Don't you have some minions who could read through the hundreds of thousands of comments from people across the US asking you to go away, just go away? So now that it would appear the voters are driving you away because, well, you do such a good job of listening, what? you have decided to do the Republican's job for them? Or is this you doing the Democratic Party a 'favor' by vetting Obama, giving him practice you're so practiced at to warm him up for Rove and Co? Like they need the help?
And then to go on and tell him, "That's what I expect from you..." Like what? You are the Queen of the US and are tsk, tsking? Good to see your true colors shining. This is certainly the type of poise that makes me think, "Oh how great she will be for foreign diplomacy!" Well, that and the Putin remark, though I must confess I preferred his response, "At a minimum, a head of state should have a head."
Which brings me finally to my point. I have always considered Hillary Clinton a brilliant woman and I have always suspected that without her, Bill would not have ever made it to the White House. I used to joke that we had already had our first female President, she just didn't have the title. Which she apparently agrees with since she has stated more than once, "When I am President again." (After that link, use 1993 to search and look at the end of that paragraph. It's still even up on her site!)
Watching her campaign with all it's public blunders, looking at who she chose to surround herself with, seeing what I would describe as the undeniability of the entitlement she was feeling to have been so ill-prepared for anything beyond Super Tuesday, and now to watch her attack because she cannot connect? Well, maybe she is smart, but as we say in the South, "That woman don't have the sense the Good Lord gave her." Which is translated in the Bible Belt as 'stupid.'
She has become like the boy who cried wolf. Is anyone really listening anymore? Not only is she not doing herself any favors, she is now 'undermining core Democratic' possibility. I decided awhile back, in spite of the diminishing respect I had for Hillary Clinton, that if the people say she's the nominee, then she's who I would vote for in November.
But now, this newest depth charge issued by her campaign, "Obama once visited '60s terrorists" is making me wonder if I could bring myself to vote for her as I find myself becoming something I've never been...a Hillary hater. I mean, it's not so easy to vote from abroad. It's not like running down to the neighborhood polling station at all. So when I see her campaign's third attack of the day in the form of trying to now smear Obama by tying him to 60's radicals who committed crimes when he was 4 years old, well, that may be the straw on the camel's back for me.
For this woman to suggest that she cares about anything other than winning, I can no longer believe. Does she think the Democrats deserve to lose unless she is the nominee? Has she become Democrats' Number 1 enemy or does she just play 1 on TV?
Go away Hillary, just go away. THAT'S WHAT 'WE' EXPECT OF YOU!