who our Presidential Nominee is going to be. Not yet.
I sense that chickens are being counted based on BIG $$$ and not on what's best for our citizens. Again. I'm talking about Hilary Rodham Clinton.
While I'm not advocating against her, I'm not advocating for her either, at the moment.
I have a long history working with her on issues we're both passionate about, dating back to the days the hon. William Jefferson Clinton was Governor of Arkansas, through Mr. Clinton's election to the White House, into her election and tenure as junior senator, New York (I was on the ground there when she ran against Janine Pirro), and so on.
I do respect and admire her personally, on the other hand, I don't agree with her corporate-friendly leanings, her centrist democrat positioning, nor her hawkish stances on foreign policy. I am really unhappy at the assumption that the race for nominee is all over except the shouting. Here's what's bugging me.
WHY is the Democratic Leadership and mainstream media assuming that Hilary Rodham Clinton's presidential candidacy is a done deal?
Am I the only one who's sick of hearing about Hilary being the Heir Presumptive before the primary season is over?
Why is she more deserving or potentially effective than anyone else who might want to run?
And how is any other candidate even going to be heard if the big guns in the DLC (Democratic Leadership Committee) have made up their minds already?
If Ms. Clinton eventually ends up being the nominee, based on merit and a well-run campaign, well fine. If she's the nominee simply because she's been anointed already, then I'm coming out SWINGING.
And while I was thinking on why that is, I came across an old column written by one of my idols: the late, great, and FABULOUS Molly Ivins. It began:
Mah fellow progressives, now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party. I don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton. (emphasis mine)
Oh, yeah, she was preaching to the choir there, was Sister Ivins. God bless her, Molly had a way of saying things that I LOVED - I wish I were half as articulate or incisive. Someday ... sigh.
Molly was writing for "The Progressive" in March, 2006, admonishing our well-fed, lazy, fence-straddling, corporate-friendly, "Republican Lite" Dems in Washington about not forgetting where they come from and whom they are responsible to, and reminding our progressive activist base of who we are and what we stand for.
Keeping in mind that this referred to the election period between 2004 and 2006, and projections into 2008, Ms. Molly was short, sweet, and profanely on-point in her assessment, and said, in closing,
What happens now is not up to the has-beens in Washington who run this party. It is up to us. So let’s get off our butts and start building a progressive movement that can block the nomination of Hillary Clinton or any other candidate who supposedly has “all the money sewed up.” . . . So let’s go find a good candidate early and organize the shit out of our side.
I don't know that I want to block Hilary's nomination, but I do resent the assumption that there is no one else deserving of support. I'm betting I'm not the only one.
Molly said it. And if you want to read the complete article, here's a link to the whole thing.