Sherry Chandler

Why I remain angry…

The Worst Offense Is Intelligence by Molly Ivors at Whiskey Fire:

Living here in upstate New York, we see a lot of Huck Fillary sorts of things from the bumper-sticker-and-bar-sign crowd. And it strikes me as weird, because she’s been an objectively good senator, domestically speaking. Aside from the war (which her haters around here generally support), she’s been right on a lot of things, or at least not more wrong than anyone else. And she’s brought the first jobs to come to this area in literally years. But the hatred continues.

It’s been especially perturbing to see the same lines of attack coming from the right and the left. One friend even said “Gee, I wonder if she really did kill Vince Foster?” in a bizarre recursion that proves that, if you dislike someone, no attack is off limits. I see sneering at those making less than $30K a year, at those without educations, even though they’re registered Dems voting in huge numbers in the primaries, because they happen to support the “wrong” candidate, for what must be the wrong reasons. I see regular abuse of women, particularly older women, from people who know better: sly comments about the “Menopause Caucus” and idle banter about “The Pantsuit Riots.” And I’m not getting into the accusations of racism, which started long before there was any actual evidence to support them. But then maybe I’ve been to too many rock shows to hear all those imaginary dog whistles.

I’m not a person who looks to be inspired or emotionally connect with a candidate: I want administrators, not heroes, running my government. (And no, I’m not using words like “cultists,” though I do think it’s a little weird that some Obama supporters cannot brook even the slightest bit of critique of their guy, whether from me or Paul Krugman.) I think there are genuine reasons to view Obama with caution, not least his cultivation of religious support which I, like anyone, would like to see on the side of progressive politics, but which all too often comes with the baggage of a Donnie McClurkin. And I want universal health care. And I don’t think one person should centralize all the fundraising for all the candidates on their side of the aisle through their personal campaign. It’s a bad precedent, even worse than the DLC, and yet no one wants to talk about this issue except to praise the amount of money being raised.

But even sensible caution about these issues is likely to get one tarred as a vaginista, and I admit, I’m becoming quite shy about sharing my primary support with those who don’t already know it, and that I’m genuinely surprised when people express a preference for Clinton out loud to me. It’s become like a secret vice, discussed on an as-needed basis, but otherwise not. And when we find each other, we all sigh in relief. Finally, we can talk about issues and not personalities.

…

I’ll support Senator Obama when he becomes the candidate. I’ll do so more enthusiastically if his VP choice indicates that he understands the frustration of my various demographics: as a working woman in my forties, a mother and wife, two generations removed from Appalachia, one from the factory, with family in a wide range of blue-collar professions. I’ve seen all of these demographics trashed at various points in the last six months, because we tended to vote “wrong.”

Read all of this excellent long post, which I found by way of Suburban Guerrilla. I left out some really good parts.

And then there’s Anglachel:

In The Satanic Verses, Rushdie asks a question of the leaders of Iran’s Islamic revolution - what kind of idea are you when you win? It was a way to ask how a winning faction establishes and maintains legitimacy in an environment where they are not numerically dominant and may not even be a majority. The same question needs to be asked of the Obama campaign.

What kind of an idea, at this point, is Barack Obama?

…

The way in which a candidate or faction handles a victory tells us important things about how they will govern. At present, the parallels between Obama’s claim of a nomination victory and George W. Bush’s claim of victory in Florida are shocking.

Here’s the thing. I’ve said it before. After 2000, it is exceedingly tone deaf for a Democratic candidate to even appear to seize the nomination through voter suppression and legalistic appeal to a stacked court, in short through a power grab.

And I say this not just as a Hillary Clinton supporter, but also as a Democrat. The Republicans are not going to let us forget that the DNC took delegates away from Hillary Clinton and gave them to Barack Obama. Look at this Chip Bok cartoon.

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