Disappointment
Hillary Clinton will concede the race on Saturday. While I've been expecting this for some time, it's still a disappointment to finally know that the best one of the original eight major candidates for President will not, this year at least, get a shot at the job.
I've been reading comment threads at the various high-traffic pro-Clinton blogs which have been part of my regular political reading for months, trying to get a sense of how others are reacting to the news. The "fall into line and vote for Obama" option is clearly the least popular, with almost no commenters willing to even consider it; and the ongoing barrage of scorn, reprimands, and insults from Obama supporters seems likely to guarantee that it will remain so. Voting for McCain appears to be the most popular option, with not voting at all running a very close second -- consistent with the exit-poll results in some of the recent primaries, which routinely found numbers like 30% to 40% of Clinton voters saying that they would not vote for Obama in November, or would even vote for McCain. Protest options such as writing-in Hillary or voting for a third candidate are also favored by some.
The conventional wisdom of the punditocracy seems to be that Clinton supporters will mostly rally around Obama with little fuss; Obama's own advisers seem to feel that there is little need to worry about the problem. Based on all those exit polls and on what I'm seeing around the internet, they are seriously mistaken.
What do I think? The full reality of defeat having only just today sunk in, in all honesty I don't know. I consider both McCain and Obama to be unacceptable, for different reasons. Right now my dominant feeling is that I simply don't have much of a dog in this fight any more.
Two things I do know:
(1) The superdelegate system did not work. The whole point of having the superdelegates was that, in a close race, experienced politicians could swing the nomination toward the most electable candidate. Even though this race was about as close as it's possible to get, they did not do so.
(2) Hillary should not become Obama's running mate. When Obama loses to McCain in November -- and make no mistake, he will lose -- his infuriated followers will desperately try to evade responsibility for what they've done to the party by pinning the blame for the defeat on her. It probably won't wash; by that point the nomination race will lie five months in the past, and during those five months the focus will have been on Obama's own flaws (the Republicans will see to that). But Hillary needs to be as far away from that train wreck as possible in order to stay viable to challenge McCain in 2012.
I've been reading comment threads at the various high-traffic pro-Clinton blogs which have been part of my regular political reading for months, trying to get a sense of how others are reacting to the news. The "fall into line and vote for Obama" option is clearly the least popular, with almost no commenters willing to even consider it; and the ongoing barrage of scorn, reprimands, and insults from Obama supporters seems likely to guarantee that it will remain so. Voting for McCain appears to be the most popular option, with not voting at all running a very close second -- consistent with the exit-poll results in some of the recent primaries, which routinely found numbers like 30% to 40% of Clinton voters saying that they would not vote for Obama in November, or would even vote for McCain. Protest options such as writing-in Hillary or voting for a third candidate are also favored by some.
The conventional wisdom of the punditocracy seems to be that Clinton supporters will mostly rally around Obama with little fuss; Obama's own advisers seem to feel that there is little need to worry about the problem. Based on all those exit polls and on what I'm seeing around the internet, they are seriously mistaken.
What do I think? The full reality of defeat having only just today sunk in, in all honesty I don't know. I consider both McCain and Obama to be unacceptable, for different reasons. Right now my dominant feeling is that I simply don't have much of a dog in this fight any more.
Two things I do know:
(1) The superdelegate system did not work. The whole point of having the superdelegates was that, in a close race, experienced politicians could swing the nomination toward the most electable candidate. Even though this race was about as close as it's possible to get, they did not do so.
(2) Hillary should not become Obama's running mate. When Obama loses to McCain in November -- and make no mistake, he will lose -- his infuriated followers will desperately try to evade responsibility for what they've done to the party by pinning the blame for the defeat on her. It probably won't wash; by that point the nomination race will lie five months in the past, and during those five months the focus will have been on Obama's own flaws (the Republicans will see to that). But Hillary needs to be as far away from that train wreck as possible in order to stay viable to challenge McCain in 2012.
Labels: Politics
posted by Infidel753 at 10:58 AM
5 Comments:
hmm...it is funny,but who ever makes it will have a big job on hand....
Greetings Infidel.
There are those among us who notice and miss you when you are not posting.
Just saying hello.
Fran, thanks for the comment. I've been in the process of moving to a new apartment. Internet at the new place won't be working until Friday, and until then I'll have only very sporadic access.
The Infidel
Like you, I've been checking out the pro Hillary sites and find that the idea of voting for Obama is quite unpalatable. I, for one, will not vote for him and have said so many times on my now defunct blog. I will either vote McCain or not vote in the Presidential slot. There are sure to be some races that I will like to vote in, so I won't stay home. I've also considered strongly that I will re-register as an Independent. This is more due to the way the DNC handled this primary and their decision to give four of Hillary's delegates from Michigan to Obama and their decision to give Hillary only half the delegates she earned from FL. This is not the Democratic party that I've been a member for over 30 years.
I know this makes Obama supporters unhappy, but I DO hope that Obama loses the race. I have doubts that he will, but I don't think he deserves to win and I'm more than willing to put up with four years of McCain. IMO, they can't be much worse than the eight we've had with Bush and certainly won't be as bad as four or more years with Obama.
Good luck with that new move...my daughter is moving this weekend and I'm waiting to get that last minute call..."Could you help me with the packing?" Ugh...I hate moving!
Mary Ellen, thanks for stopping by. I'm done with the move, though still living amidst canyon-walls of boxes. My regular internet access at home is supposed to be up this evening or tomorrow morning. We'll see.
My inclination at this point is to write-in Hillary. That sends the right message to the party: "Here's a vote you could have had if....."
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