by Michael Kenney - January 24, 2008
'I am here with a full heart. I listened to you, and I found my voice'~ Hillary Clinton following her shocking 'comeback' win in the New Hampshire primary.
The candidate for change.
That's become the buzzword now.....change.
Senator Hillary Clinton says she's the candidate for change, and cites her 'extensive experience' as a Washington insider as supporting evidence.
Senator Barack Obama says he's the candidate for change, and cites the fact that he hasn't been around Washington for a long enough to become tainted by PACs and lobbyists, as his supporting evidence.
Senator John Edwards says he's the candidate for change, and points to the fact that he doesn't take money from lobbyists. (He'll take money from offshore hedge-fund guys, but not lobbyists.)
Change change change.
My country is ready for a change. A change away from the neocon clusterfuck we've all witnessed for the last 7 years. A change in the way the business of politics gets done in Washington.
Jesus Christ....Mitt Romney got so caught up in the fervor in Iowa that he actually started talking about himself as the candidate of change. Fellow Republican John McCain knew an opportunity when he saw one and pounced. 'Well Mitt, if anyone on the dais is the candidate of change, it's you!' (referencing Mitt's flippin' and floppin' on key conservative issues like abortion.)
No, the Republicans can't float that balloon. They have the taint. The taint of GW Bush. Right out of the box, they're at a disadvantage because they're the party we want to change away from.
I suspect one reason that Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and John McCain are the finalists for the Republican nomination, is because they expect to lose. Don't quote me on this, but I think if you added the money raised by just Clinton and Obama, you'd come up with a total larger than that raised by all 5 Republicans combined. In other words, I suspect the big Republican money people expect to lose too. (Fred Thompson ain't stupid....)
The Republican front runner is broke. They're all broke except Rudy and Romney. Rudy hasn't started spending yet, and it may be too late for Rudy to start now. Romney's spending his own money.
The Democrats have a golden opportunity here. All they have to do is put up a united front, pick a clearly competent candidate, get the support behind her or him, and they'll kick the shit out the Republicans by essentially grabbing all of the votes cast by what I call the Middle 50.
My theory is that it breaks down to a 25-50-25 split.
25% will vote for any Republican against any Democrat.
Barack Obama got 70% of the votes cast in Illinois to gain his Senate seat.
And Alan Keyes got 27%. Alan Keyes who jumped in 90 days before the election. Maryland Republican running for the Illinois seat in the US Senate. That Alan Keyes. .....27%.
I suspect that there are a similar number of Democrats, roughly 25% of all voters, .... who just won't vote for a Republican.
If Abe Lincoln had been running against Barack Obama here, in the Land of Lincoln, Abe probably would have gotten a few more votes than Keyes, but not enough to win.
It's all about the Middle 50, and in '08 the Democrats should get most, maybe almost all of us. I hate to be boring, but I'll say it again...I'm ready to cast my very first democratic vote. I'm one of the 50-60 million in the middle, and they had me at 'Mission Accomplished.'
I wanted to vote that day.
All the Dems have to do to take back the White House is put up a united front, pick a good candidate and get behind him or her, focus on the critical issues facing America, and get out the vote in November. That's it. It's that simple.
So naturally, when the 3 finalists got together in Myrtle Beach for a debate, I expected more of what we got in Nevada, where the candidates sat down and declared a truce on issues related to race or gender. Smart move. Unite the front. They were very very sweet to each other in Nevada. (Bill Clinton was his usual asshole self, but the candidates were OK.)
So I sat down to watch the Democrats debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. (Home of Ruffin and Ft. Sumter.) I'm sure the candidates planned on debating the key issues: health care, immigration, Iraq War, the economy. I'm sure they planned on getting to that.
But first, they decided to attack each other, specifically Clinton and Obama, like a couple of crazed wolverines. Edwards stood there mutely, looking bemused, and also looking very much like a guy who wants to be VP.
I won't go into who started what, I was too stunned, but I will say that Senator Clinton started it. She lit into Obama with a slam about Tony Rezko [all of the following are paraphrases rather than direct quotes].
'Doing legal work for that slumlord Rezko!' hissed Senator Clinton.
Rezko is, for those who don't know yet, an Illinois slimeball, currently under federal indictment, for whom Obama performed some legal work, and who also (surprised Tempo hasn't mentioned this ...yet) got a sweet deal on some South Side real estate that involved Rezko's wife. Said it back in December, here at Quilit, that Rezko is a guy Obama doesn't want in the team picture. However nothing Obama has done, as far as I know, for Rezko has been illegal.
Stupid?
Yes, but as we say in Chicago,....only for a politician.
As we saw last night.
The largely Obama crowd, apparently aware of the Rezko story as well, began to boo.
You can tell the Rezko thing isn't exactly news to Obama, so he was able to dismiss that initial attack with a wave of his hand.
Now, my guy simply needed to counter with....'Rather than engage in what Senator Clinton herself has called, 'The politics of personal destruction' I'd rather that we stick to the issues and unite in our efforts to bring about the 'change' we've all been talking about.'
The kill shot.
That would have been the kill shot. Taking the high road, as is so often the case, would have been the knee-buckler. So that's what my junior Senator from Illinois did right? Harvard Law review guy. Silver tongue. He saw the chance, and he pounced right?
No.
Obama fired back....'While I was walking the streets of Chicago, trying to get work done on behalf of working people, you were on the board of Wal-Mart!' An obvious attempt to connect Senator Clinton with a mega-corporation that is unpopular with organized labor.
Edwards chimed in....'Well, I'm a white male.'
Somewhere in Florida, several Republican candidates popped little blue pills, and began furiously masturbating.
And now the Republican big money people are paying attention again.
Obama missed a golden opportunity in South Carolina.
Hillary Clinton's new voice sounds a lot like her old one to me.
And now I remember why I've never voted for a Democrat.
Michael Kenney is a Chicago contractor.