A DEMOCRATIC PARTY CAMPAIGNER IS GIVING UP
By Jill Tubman
Editor’s note: Cross-posted to daily kos
Thursday, April 24, 2008.
There are superdelegates and supervoters. I am one of the latter, having sacrificed money, time, creativity and my health to volunteer for this campaign. The fact is Obama is still winning and is still the likely nominee for the Democratic Party, but I don’t feel so hot right now.
Much of that has to do with the fact that I’m very sick with a horrible cough, fever and sore throat. I must have come into contact with a Hillary supporter in PA and gotten cooties from her negative campaigning and vile Deathmarch to Denver. She is poison, and I fear I’ve been temporarily infected.
Some of it also has to do with frustration over her destructive tactics and the refusal or inability of the party and its voters to see it for what it is. Perhaps, I lack patience, but it’s clear to me that Hillary Clinton is trying to destroy Barack Obama, and she does not care what the impact of that is. I’ve written before about how her attacks have certainly served the valuable goal of testing and toughening him up.
I think we crossed the threshold of the value of this strategy a few weeks ago, and I was worried that she would help destroy his appeal among independents and moderate Republicans by running a Republican campaign against him.
Now, I’m more worried that not only has she sabotaged him among those voters but is working to do so among the very Democrats who he and we will need in November. On Brian Lehrer this morning, I listened to an Obama supporter say she would reluctantly vote for Clinton in the general if she manages to snatch this nomination. She wouldn’t be happy, but she would do it.
Then I listened, dumbfounded, as a Hillary supporter said she would not vote at all or would vote McCain. Excuse me, but what on Earth did Obama do to these people? Are they so offended by his positive message and talk of hope and massive restraint in the face of withering GOP attacks from a member of his own party? Does the fact that he has not stooped to her level cause that much rage? Really? What would these people say if he actually did attack her?
Really, if this is how people react to calm, cool, collected Obama, I actually fear what an outburst from him would result in.
Today, I am angry, but it is not the inspirational anger of being “fired up!” and “ready to go!” No, this is the short-term, despondent anger of “do whatever you want” because this country probably doesn’t deserve Obama and clearly doesn’t know what to do with him.
Hillary Clinton ran fear-mongering ads with Osama bin Laden. No democrat has ever done that. She said we would “obliterate” Iran if they attacked Israel with a nuke. John McCain happily sings “Bomb, bomb Iran,” and I struggle to see the difference between them. What’s the point of electing a Democrat who talks and walks like a Republican?
Haven’t we already seen what happens when Democrats act like Republicans, especially over issues of “security?” We get an illegal war and warantless wiretapping. Why would Republicans vote for Hillary when McCain is the real deal?
I’m also bothered by Clinton’s message that “Obama can’t close the deal” with rural, white, gun-toting voters. That was proven true yesterday when she won 62 percent of households where a gun owner resides. So in the primary, at least in PA, these are her voters. Her message that Obama can’t win them, however, has a major silent assumption: that come November, she will do nothing to help win them to the democratic nominee!
She’s claiming these voters and plans to keep them, for what?
The point of all of this is that I’m tired of writing and blogging about Hillary Clinton and her deathmarch campaign. I’m tired of pulling clips of her back-stabbin, Kamikaze tactics. I’m tired of Obama showing insane amounts of restraint – because he’s better than her)- and being rewarded with more of the same bullshit, being told he can’t close the deal because he won’t show an ad implying he won’t let Osama bin Laden walk into the country and kill little white babies silently in the night.
Hillary has to threaten Iran because she lacks the imagination and talent to envision another future. She has to stir up fears among gun-owners and religious people, because despite her priceless surname and early advantages, she’s been reduced to Politicking 101: scare the shit out of the voter.
So I’m taking a break from my intense blogging of this campaign. Everything that I could say has already been said. All the arguments are on the table. Hillary is willing to do anything, not just to win the nomination, but to destroy the nominee.
My continuing down this path only hurts me and my health right now, and I simply cannot watch any more cable news. That’s like turning to leeches and “bleeding” when society is in need of serious medical attention.
Besides, there are other things going on in the world that deserve my and our attention, so I’ll try to shift my focus to energy and food and other issues of interest to black folks and Americans that does not have to do with this silly, silly Democratic primary.
My final thought is this: Having these feelings has also shown me just how strong both Barack and Michelle Obama are. They are full of more fight, more hope and more faith than I can muster right now, and I say more power to them. For those of you feeling down right now, take heart that our candidate has and continues to weather so much more.
Jill Tubman is a political journalist and pundit. She blogs at JackandJill Politics.
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