Wherefore art thou, o Hillary?

Please, cheer me up. She seems just to have completely caved. What has she told you? I was sure that she would have responded personally and taken prompt action.

This is too depressing. Tell me some way that your guy has a chance.

DABbio
(No longer a Democrat)
for McCain


On Jun 4, 2008, at 8:36 AM, Jon wrote:

Just saw this (No I did not watch the speech. The Brewers were busy knocking out Randy Johnson, 7-1. Prince is on his game again, and the pitching is really coming round.) Anyway, from Obama peroration.

“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

Good God. Can't he just promise us a chicken in every pot and be done with it? He's going to stop the sea levels from rising?!! Who does he think he is, King Canute? As Bob Dylan put it, "Freedom just around the corner from you. But with truth so far off, what good will it do?" Confidence Man has arrived.

Jon


On June 3, 2008, DABbio wrote:

Subject: Re: Hillary, not really a Democrat anyway.

As the depressing news breaks out here in Armenia, with the dawn, boy, do I agree with Eliot. As well as Jon. This all deserves blogging-- somewhere else besides my blog, where it will lie buried for millions of years like the obelisk in 2001.


On Jun 4, 2008, at 1:57 AM, crankytrucker wrote:

I'll bet that some part of Hillary is fed up with the Democratic clique. They've given her and all the moderates in the party the bum's rush and she should return the favor.

Do a Lieberman and run as an Independent.

I know that all the liberal elite would accuse her of playing the dreaded "spoiler", but fuck them. If it's good enough for baseball why should she have to lie down and hand dysfunctional Democratic apparatchik's a league title? I don't believe Obama has a chance anyway, and I'd imagine Hillary must know this too.

This country is in dire need of a centrist party with clout which she could deliver. In the likely event she ended up with more votes then Obama in November that would really stick it to Edwards & Co. Its not like she has much of a future with this current version of a neo-socialist Democratic Party.

First things first though, she needs to kick Bill and his cronies out of the house (which she should've done right after he left office), get on her best pants suit, take Chelsea out on a shoestring barnstorming tour and show her supporters she really believes in herself. The money will come.

The last thing in the world she should do is kowtow and play a running mate role or stand up at the convention and embarrass herself.

Just do it!


On June 3, 2008, DABbio wrote:

Subject: Re: Raise a Glass to Hillary

Excellent letter of yours, as usual, and good article by Jennifer Rubin, Jon. It is all pretty sad, but things generally have the stamp of inevitable decline written all over them, and Obamamania was just one symptom. Only place I disagree is that I think that Hillary's defeat spells no good news for McCain, even though Obama is a fatter target.

Especially when you couple it with what I am convinced, despite your economic optimism, is an oncoming depression, which will deprive John McCain of his chance too. No Republican is going to be able to win against any Democrat this November,* as I have been saying all along, which is why I was so partisan for Hillary. And subconsciously, it may also have been a contributing factor in the Republicans' mixed feelings about Hillary. They too sense that a Democrat is going to win, no matter how well the war is going, no matter how many dark clouds Obama finds hanging over him, because it's the economy y'all. Not that Obama is any less of a jerk about the economy than McCain. It's just the Republicans well earned reputation for fiddling while Rome burns. Which reminds me, where did Greenspan go. There ought to be a movie made about that supreme conman of the 20th century. That is what he was, and that is ALL he ever was. I felt it at the time, but never had the guts to say it.

What I have been trying to get you to understand is that the underlying statistics are not only all bad-- there are not any silver linings, and the article here The Mean Season leaves out even some of the dark clouds, such as the lowest consumer confidence index on record--but the interaction among them is toxic, as it is in any complex ecosystem. There are just too many huge instabilities in this enormous system for the usual positive feedback loops to act as the gyroscope that they would in ordinary times. I do expect to see oil come back down as the economy spirals down; unfortunately, the spiral will by then have too much momentum.

Such a situation spells doom for the Republicans. Frankly, I cannot sympathize with them much either. Their culture of easy money, Ayn Randian selfishness, and laissez-faire anti-government and anti-regulatory attitude-- as is implied even by the rock ribbed Republicans quoted in "The Mean Season" article cited above, now too late chastened about the need to regulate this nautrally but insanely selfish and humongeous economy-- have played a big part-- not the major part, but a big part-- in the spin-out of the USA. Please don't tell me how things are OK in the mid-west. They're not any longer, and the mid-West is small economically speaking.

The major part of the spin-out, from this ecologist's point of view, was really 63 years of relative peace--NO ONE's fault-- and the illusion that competition has somehow been eliminated from the story of the survival of species (and sub-species, like believers in the Enlightenment); that softened things up more quickly than one might have anticipated, although I've anticipated it since about 1952. But that's another story.

Love,
D
Democrats for McCain

* (1) Only caveat: Perhaps there are some emergency levers, like printing money, that Bush & Co. can pull to keep the economy afloat until November. That may allow McCain to sneak in. After him the deluge, which will be even broader and deeper due to any such extreme "salvage" measures. (2) I will be so happy to be foolishly wrong on my prediction that the Republicans are doomed this November. I am really just as fearful as you of an Obama presidency.


On Jun 3, 2008, at 8:54 AM, Jon wrote:

I expect I am the only real conservative in this particular group. Hence as a point of clarification, now that Hillary appears ready to bow out (I hope only "suspend," but it may really be over), I would like to share the Contentions Blog entry (see below), by Jennifer Rubin whose running commentary on this race has been among the best things out there.

I do this because I am sure there are those among you who think conservatives only have backed Hillary for the fun of watching the Dems eat each other. Absolutely that has been a part of it. But the YouTube clip I sent yesterday showed a female Democratic delegate I would be willing to bet every Republican I know of would accept as an honorable and honest opponent, one with whom mutual respect would be possible. One in the grand tradtion of American politics in which the most fundamental principle is split the difference and fight another day. That tradition is dying. Eight years of the ugliest and most irrational hate-fest directed at a current president (and that includes Nixon) that I have lived through has placed it in mortal danger. In my opinion Obama will perpetuate all of this horribly. For all his preening and phony humbleness, he has shown utter contempt for all "ordinary" politicians (to say nothing of ordinary citizens), even those in his own party. He really does think he is something new. He is a true believer who has never in his brief political life EVER actually reached across any isle, but is now arrogant enough to claim he will bring us all together. No politician I know of better sums up what drove me from left to right to begin with.

So I agree with Jennifer Rubin here in every detail. Hillary in fighting this fight, whether because she came to believe it or simply because she had to to survive, moved to a stance in defence of ordinary America, of the unchanged, unchanging and (for any Obamiacs among you) not needing to be changed, basic America. For that, I am as Rubin says here, honestly grateful. In a McCain-Hillary campaign, I would still fight vigorously for McCain. But I would remain confident no matter what. I will not with Obama. I do not know him. Not a bit -- nor do you. I certainly cannot comprehend his ability to tolerate (even if he does not "agree" with) the totalitarian and/or racist fury of Wright, Pflegler, Ayers, Dohrn, and (yet to be explored) ACORN, and who knows whom else? I do not trust his Saul Alinsky/New Left community organizing mentality and his radical social engineering bent, to say nothing of that of his wife. I will still probably sleep fine at night, but only for this reason: America designed its system so magnificently that it would take a million Obamas or more to shift it noticeably off its unchanging indifference to mere word-masters and ideologues. American will grind up Obama long before he grinds up America. That will be my consolation. In the meantime, here's a toast to Hillary. She's fought the good fight and I hope she's got some fight left.

Jon

Hillary, We Hardly Knew You
commentarymagazine.com - Contentions

Hillary Clinton’s campaign may end today. It may end tomorrow. But it will end soon enough. It has been an improbable journey for her, from inevitable to impossible. But the journey for many Republicans observing the Democratic primary has been just as strange.

She began the campaign, from the Republicans’ perspective, as the villainess, like movie character brought back from a prior film with a slightly different look but every bit as maddening and as scary. The cackle! The smarmy sidekick Bill! And that cloying campaign announcement! It all seemed painfully familiar. But slowly things changed. It is no secret that she got a much friendlier reception and fairer treatment from the conservative than the liberal media. Both in public and private Republicans shook their heads, admitting that she had, well, grown on them. What happened?

Yes, there was an element of mischief-making in some Republicans rooting her on, the most widely known aspect being Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos.” And sure, it was fun for Republicans to see the Democratic race drag on and on and on, as the Democrats attacked and villified one another. But there was something more.

Hillary became the sane one in the race, at least from Republicans’ perspective. She was the one who looked at George Stephanopoulos with a look of incredulity when he questioned why she would threaten to blow Iran to smithereens if Iran nuked Israel. When Obama defamed religious and gun-owning Americans she objected, reminding the Democratic party for a brief interval that people loved their faith because . . . they loved their faith. And when Obama offered that raising the payroll tax cap on those making $102K would affect only the “rich,” it was Hillary who said, “That’s not rich!” Most strikingly, it was she and her campaign who did object, and object strenuously, to Obama’s plan for direct, unconditonal talks with rogue state leaders. And she even withstood her fellow Democrats’ barbs for voting to classify the Iranian National Guard as a terrorist organization.

Some might question her authenticity on some of these issues, but whether or not she truly believed it all, her articulated views were often the least crazy thing coming out of the Democratic race on any given day. What’s more she was getting clobbered, unfairly and personally nearly every day in the race by Obama’s media cheerleaders who disclaimed much if any interest in reporting the race objectively. Republicans could relate to that.

And let’s face it: Republicans are not always the hippest folks in the crowd. They tend to frown on the excesses of popular culture and Hollywood fads in particular. So when he became the darling of the fashionable and she, the awkward middle-aged gal, rolled her eyes at Obama girls–again, Republicans could relate.

So it is a good thing, perhaps, for John McCain that she lost: what started out as an idle threat or joke (”I’ll vote for Hillary over McCain!”) among the conservative base became a distinct possibility for some Republicans, and certainly many conservative Independents.

Looking back, few would have thought eighteen months ago that Hillary would lose. And fewer still would have thought some Republicans would be sorry to see it.