As opposed, I assume to the non-corporatist candidate who magically pulled three campaign financings out of his ass, for legislature, Senate and now President. Anyone who believes Obama isn't as beholden to corporate interests as any other candidate is fully deluding himself, but I'll get back to that in a moment.
Believe it or not, on the liberal scale, I consistently score to the left of Dennis Kucinich, so no, Hillary does not come close to representing the ideal changes I'd like to see in this nation.
But she's the strongest step in that direction.
Here's how I view political history: the cyclic nature of short-term changes is one of broad sweeps of the pendulum from one end of the spectrum to the other, extremist and ultimately unhealthy to the nation's well-being.
But like all pendulums, there are larger forces at work besides gravity: momentum, friction, and periodicity all play a part in change.
Long term, it would hard to deny that two opposing forces struggle against each other: the isolationism of effectively an island nation, bordered by only two other countries (no other major nation save Japan and Australia has fewer), and the inevitable march of time forcing us into new technologies and exposure to new ideas and cultures.
Ultimately, it is THIS battleground that I want to win a progressive agenda on, and if that means sacrificing the short term liberal agenda (which in truth, is nothing more than another group of elitists imposing their will on me), then so be it.
Now, to Obama. Run with me a little on this, it will involve some suspension of disbelief:
As a result of an unhappy circumstance, I was forced to watch "All the President's Men
" last night on DVD.As I sat there watching it for the umpteenth time, discussing it with my daughter with regards to how all political campaigns involve dirty tricks and how hard it is to uncover them if they are financed and backed with a lot of money, a few tumblers clicked in my head.
In the world, as a free agent, is a man who is fully capable of executing the ultimate "rat fuck" on the Democratic party: Karl Rove.
In watching how the Watergate investigation revealed this entire netherworld of Republican operatives only too happy to do the dirty work to set up the nomination of George McGovern, it occured to me, "what if this was the scenario that played out in 2008?"
Think about it: Hillary was the nominee-presumptive in December, and despite her missteps and gaffes along the way, has garnered more votes, and certainly more Democratic votes, than any other nominee for President. Ever.
And still hasn't secured the nomination and sure looks to be a fair distance from doing so.
What if these nickle-and-dime contributions to Obama's campaign weren't from honest citizens, but were part of a larger campaign to push a different candidate for the November election, one who would be almost guaranteed to lose the important states that Democrats need to win: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Michigan?
I added those last two, mostly because in those instances we have overt evidence of Republican involvement in the Democratic campaign: both Florida and Michigan (Florida more so) moved their primaries ahead of New Hampshire and Ohio, and as such have been punished by the DNC, hampering Hillary's efforts and crippling her chances of taking the nomination on the first ballot.
The Florida initiative was promoted and passed by a Republican-controlled legislature and signed by a Republican governor.
Florida. Remember them?
The Michigan case is harder to make, as the governor is a Democrat (but an Obamist) and half of the legislature is controlled by Democrats, but that still leaves significant input from the Republicans.
Too, Obama had significant support from Republicans who crossed over to vote for him in (nominally) Democratic primaries that were open to all (which is why Hillary has a case that more Democrats voted for her than Obama, nevermind more votes, full stop.)
Indeed, at one point when it looked like Obama might knock Hillary out early on, Republicans suddenly started voting in large numbers for Hillary, primarily in Texas.
Apparently, the powers that be that would run this kind of trick didn't want to show their hand too early. They had to extend the season a bit to cover for their own candidate, whomever that might be (at that time, the race for the GOP nod was still in the air).
One more point to make before getting on to conclusions: much if not most of Obama's support comes from states which held caucuses. Caucuses are ideal places for infiltration and dirty tricks, since there's no real paper record of what transpired: you stand in a room, are counted, and then recounted until one person wins a majority.
How hard is it, particularly since caucuses tend to be open to all, for a Republican squad to dispatch posers? Not hard at all.
You think this is all unlikely, yet in 1972, there's Nixon's CREEP running a dirty tricks operation that not only had Muskie knocked out of the race on a very trumped story about him crying over the "Canuck letter" (even then, the media played lap dog to Republican politics), but ensured the weakest possible candidate would take the nomination.
So, here's the scenario: you have an uberstrong candidate, clearly unbeatable in the general election, and a really weak case to make for your own party, no matter who the candidate is (Nixon was despised in 1972, almost as much as Bush is today)
You have the media in your back pocket. No one can deny that Obama benefitted clearly from the Hillary hatred of the media...the GOP-owned media.
You have a candidate who is irresistible to liberal Democrats: a first-term Senator, African American, who espoused 6 years ago his opposition to the war and four years ago his desire to bring the country together and heal its wounds.
Let's call him the Manichaean Candidate.
And you have a political machine that has shown its ability and propensity in the past for stealing elections (Ohio in 2004, Florida in 2000, and Austin in 1994).
In all of these, Karl Rove has played a vital role, indeed, the key role, in swiping these elections.
Would it be too hard to imagine that, given the intricate mechanics of the Watergate scandal, that Rove took a look at the environment he grew up in in the party, and saw how to improve it and to nearly bulletproof it?
Apparently not.
Now, yes, this has been a fairy tale, but....
If it turns out to be true, remember you read it here first.
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