Will Barack Obama please have the Democratic Party Rules Committee restore the four piddling delegates it took away from Hillary in Michigan?
I know winning these delegates was an important victory for him, because after all, without them it would have taken an additional three and one half minutes to clinch the party’s nomination. Nonetheless, I implore him to forgo this ill-gotten gain so that those Hillary supporters who refuse to wake up and smell the coffee (I myself am fully caffeinated, and these days I take my coffee like my new candidate: not too light, and not too sweet) will have one less inconsequential complaint to whine about.
No, I am not elated with the results of the nomination process, but, on the other hand, I didn’t find voting for Hillary in the primary to be the equivalent of a trip to Belle Harbor either. Still, as someone who pulled her lever, however reluctantly, I feel the pain of all those whose preferred candidate didn’t win. Actually, I envy them; my preferred candidate didn’t even run.
And I even understand some among them who are flirting with a McCain vote. The old Jew in Florida who puts Israel above all things still has a few issues to work out, and was not necessarily helped in doing so when, while speaking before AIPAC, Senator Obama articulated a position on Jerusalem more militant than that held by its former Mayor, the current Israeli Prime Minister (at least he is this week), and then spoke of a contiguous Palestinian state, which would seem to be geographically incompatible with a contiguous Israel, unless Obama is reviving the old Allon Plan of an Israeli security flank along the Jordan River (which might not be such a bad idea).
Altogether, there were enough synapse lapses in Obama’s speech at AIPAC to make one wonder if they were actually listening to John McCain (except that, at the end of the speech, you were still awake).
Similarly, it is not unreasonable for the West Virginian holding a “cousin’s club” reunion in the privacy of his marital bedroom to wonder if Obama really understands his love of God, guns, country and consanguinity.
I would remind Grandpa Seymour that the territorial compromises he fears in Israel were first put on the table in a serious manner by the much revered husband of his preferred candidate, and that they are also the stated policy of the pro-Israel Republican in the White House, not to mention the pro-Israel government of Israel. Give or take a fallafel stand near Ariel, everyone sane (a category not including either Rudy Giuliani or Jimmy Cater) knows what peace will look like, and no one sane knows how to get there.
Then, I’d remind him that the Iran he fears so greatly is only in a position to perform its mischief because, thanks to the little war supported by Senator McCain, Iran need no longer worry about a hostile Sunni regime in Iraq. And, by the way, their James Baker trumps our Zbigniew Brzeziński.
As to Cousin Cletus, it would well behoove Mr. Obama to remind him why God, guns, country and the Deluxe DVD edition of “Kissin’ Cousins” no longer lifts him out of depression (or is it recession?) the way they used to.
But, under even the best of circumstances, Obama is going to hemorrhage some of those Hillary supporters, regardless.
He will lose many (including some in the aforementioned categories) to racism or xenophobia. And the existence, in his curriculum vitae, of the Trinity United Church only gives those racists the cover to rationalize that race is “not the issue”. Moreover, Trinity also sadly takes its toll on more than a few Democrats for whom race really is “not the issue”.
But those voters are not who I’m here to bitch about. I’m here to bitch about the liberal and/or feminist supporters of Hillary who just won’t get over it, and want to vote McCain, write-in Hillary, stay home and sulk, or go bungie-jumping off Mount Psychotic with Cynthia McKinney (who’d likely get thrown out of Trinity for being too intolerant of white people).
To them I want to scream: Hey douchebag, John Paul Stevens is nearly as old as the number of years John McCain wants to stay in Iraq; gasoline is now approaching the price of Johnny Walker Blue; everyone who was scared by the “Harry and Louise” commercial about how “Hillarycare” would force us into HMOs has either been forced into an HMO or can’t afford one and John McCain’s health plan is to let market forces undo the mess they’ve created; while McCain’s plan for ending the country’s great disparities of wealth is to let the economy continue crashing. To paraphrase the lyrics that the great Barrett Strong wrote for The Temptations, “Politicians say less taxes will solve everything. And the band played on.”
Must you hold your nose and vote for Barack Obama?
Yes, you must.
But it is not only the myopic-tunnel-visioned idiocy of Hillary supporters which must cease.
Say what you want about tunnel-vision; at least it is focused.
And, the focus here is on uniting the party and getting everyone to work together towards a common goal. But some people already have their eyes on other prizes:
Congressional Challenger Powell Opening Office With 'Brooklyn for Barack' –
Congressional candidate and former Real World star Kevin Powell will be opening up a campaign office and sharing it with Brooklyn for Barack, a large independent organization that helped Obama carry the district on February 5.
The office at 54 Greene Avenue opens Saturday, and, according to a media advisory “painting begins: 9 am/Petitioning begins: 11 am."
Powell is trying to unseat Representative Ed Towns, who has represented the 10th Congressional district (Fort Greene, Bed-Sty, Brownsville, East New York and Canarsie) since 1983, but only narrowly won re-election in 2006….
Towns, like all of his Democratic colleagues in New York's House delegation, supported Hillary Clinton in the primary.
The office opening is significant because it's the first major signal (that I've seen, anyway) that an organized group of Obama supporters in New York are shifting their focus to local races and aligning with other candidates.
Powell, a writer and community activist, will be relying heavily on the Obama supporters in Brooklyn for campaign help. The head of Brooklyn for Barack, Jordan Thomas, is supporting Powell, as is Obama fund-raiser Arthur Leopold.
OK, guys, I know you think this is about a “MOVEMENT” for “CHANGE”, and I suppose it really is, so, if you, as individuals, decide to support an admitted “recovering misogynist” like Powell against a profound mediocrity like Towns, and even to send bulk emails to your hard-earned lists of the faithful on his behalf, I’m not going to argue—if Kevin Powell is going to beat someone, I guess it is better that it be Ed Towns than one more in a series of innocent female victims.
But guys, while “WE” may very be the “CHANGE” change “WE” seek, and while that “WE” may even include Kevin Powell, it might be wise to understand that a thousand little victories without the election of Barack Obama will rightly be seen as one big crushing defeat, while an Obama victory, minus some of the local bells and whistles, will be a momentum shifting, zeitgeist re-ordering, Juneteenth Jamboree.
As a different Clinton once said, “Can you get to that?”
While I understand that “Brooklyn for Barack” is an independent organization, and that it is illegal for Senator Obama to try to direct its activities, the perception will be quite different.
The coldly focused, goal-directed, winning machine that is the Obama campaign wants you to be disciplined in the face of temptation. It does not want you to be sharing space bearing your candidate’s name with some insurgent challenging an incumbent Democratic member of the US House of Representatives.
As Michael said to Frankie Five Angels in "The Godfather Part Two", “Your family’s still called Corleone, and you’ll run it like a Corleone.” But instead, “Brooklyn for Barack” is behaving like “The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight”. If this pattern is replicated across the country, it is a recipe for resentment, desertion and disaster.
And yet, even savvy Obama partisans like Chris Owens are trying to have it both ways:
“…The record is clear that Obama supporters like myself (the original and early ones as well as the later ones) would have preferred for Congressional representatives in districts supportive of Obama to switch their allegiance. And I believe that any candidate running against those representatives can legitimately use this as an "issue" in a primary campaign to show how politics trumps vision. HOWEVER, despite my preferences, I respect the fact that these representatives remained loyal to Clinton and true to their word. Often, your word is all you have in politics…the political reality is that we are in Clinton's home state and the traditional NYS Democratic Party operatives will do their best to control what happens in NY — particularly if Clinton ends up on the ticket. It is in everyone's interest to make sure that there is a real balance (1:1) between the traditional NY Clinton backers and the renegade Obama supporters. Local primaries are local primaries. But national unity for New York is essential.”
Sorry Chris, but it doesn’t work that way; you have to chose either one half your words or the other.
Obama supporters can work to maximize the assistance their candidate will receive from those who supported Senator Clinton, or they can work to mete out punishment to those who did so, in an effort to remake the party in their own image. But they can’t do both.
“Brooklyn for Barack” has made its choice: implementation of what one might call “the Ninotchka plan”:
“Fewer and Better Democrats”.
There is a part of me that wants to see the propagators of such imbecility reap the bitter and spoiled fruits such efforts will yield. It would serve them right.
But it would not serve us right.
Fortunately, like Mrs. Obama, I love my country. There is far too much at stake in this year’s presidential election to let intra-partisan bickering detract us from the main objective.
Can we get past this idiocy?
Yes, we better.