There was a time when I could have voted for Hillary Clinton. She would never have been my first choice, but I was definitely not a “Hillary-hater”. Even through the early primary campaigning, my attitude was that I could have voted for any of them. So, what changed? I’ve never missed voting in a major election. Yet, I’ve reached the point where I may rather vote none of the above if she gets the nod from the party. Why?
Early doubts came with her claimed years of experience. The early years include experience that is similar to what she blows off for Barack and her later years include First Lady, a position in which she never even received security clearance to discuss the great things she supposedly worked on. I read at one point that if the phone rang at 3am, she would not have been allowed to answer it, and would have had to leave the room if anything substantive was discussed. Adding some accomplishments like being deeply involved in solving Northern Ireland when she was clearly only a side player didn’t help either. She’s been an impressive senator. I might have given her a lot more credibility if she had just concentrated on that. When someone feels a need to make some of it up, it makes me wonder about the rest of what they claim, too. Similarly, she’s dragged her feet on releasing tax documents and First Lady material. It just mades me wonder what the heck is in them and remember the sudden appearance of the Whitewater documents that were “found” in a closet, back then.
A major swing took place for me when she and Mark Penn were pushing Obama using drugs as a kid, trying to turn it into something more, and doing everything they could to slip it into whatever they were discussing (Penn seems, to me, to be a less polished, slimy, version of Karl Rove). Then there was her waffling over Obama being a Christian (if she just hadn’t added that,”as far as I know,” part, everything would have been fine….). There’s just too much of that for me to believe it’s not deliberate.
This thing about running from the plane in Bosnia really stretches credibility, too. Yes, we all twist up memories from time to time, but it’s usually a bit less radical. If she mixed it up that much, one has to question the reality she lives in. I’m sure that someone, somewhere, is now reviewing every claim she’s ever made against all the news footage she’s ever been in, looking for more. She’ll blame it on the media, but she opened the door herself. Then she’ll try to change the subject (hint: I don’t really care about his pastor!).
Her current approach to Florida and Michigan bothers me a lot, too. Barack isn’t trying to disenfranchise anyone. They (the politicians in Michigan and Florida in combination with the dolts at the party) did that already! Yes, it was driven by Republicans in Florida, but SHE AGREED WITH IT then, when a fight would have been more appropriate. Now she seems more interested in finding new sets of rules for whatever part of the country/campaign/demographic she’s dealing with. Changing the rules after a game has started defies the logic of establishing rules to begin with.
When the numbers change, alter the math. When the rules don’t help, change them, too. That sounds a lot like the current Bush approach to me.
She originally worked under a sense of inevitability that was based on an attitude that since she’s been working on this for so long, it’s simply her turn. We don’t work that way in the US, but Hillary seems to be too focused on her goal to stop and see that.
She is a brilliant woman, but she’s so wrapped up in this sense of destiny that she can’t see what would happen to the Democratic Party if she somehow managed to pull a rabbit out on this one. I hope she can’t see it, anyway, because the idea that she knows, yet continues this scorched earth thing is just too scary, and diminishes the accomplishments she does have. She talks about her concerns for disenfranchising the people of Florida and Michigan, but doesn’t seem to be concerned about disenfranchising the rest of the party if she needs to go the super-delegate route. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “So it goes.”
After 7 years of George W, we need to be starting the job of repairing the damage. I hope she isn’t hurting the chances for that to happen. I had hoped to see Obama bringing a team of rivals into the White House like Lincoln did, maybe even including Hillary. Imagine Biden, Richardson, and many of the others working together. Maybe she can still be included, but I don’t see how at the moment. I certainly cannot vote for her at the top.
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