1. Those of us for whom the 1968 Presidential Primary is memory rather than hearsay will recall the doggedly self-righteous bitterness followers of the poet Gene McCarthy (who yearned passionately to end the war) held against the politician Robert F. Kennedy (who truly had the capacity to end it).
2. In this case, as in so many others, the lifeblood of BO08 is counterfeit history, which in turn relies on widespread ignorance of history — from MLK’s partnership with and dependence on LBJ, to the Clinton years’ record of working class progress and unparalleled levels of world peace.
Beyond the intrinsic merit of the piss they’re selling, beer commercials are aimed at younger audiences for cold, calculating reasons. Same for the New Kinda Politics.
Hillary was in college. The war in Vietnam was eating up our young men. My Dad was on a ship somewhere near Southeast Asia. My brother was less than a month old. The nation was combustible. And then, the worst thing possible happened. No one who was living in America at the time will forget it. It became a fulcrum around which many of our lives would turn. That was the year I started paying attention to politics. When I look at this video, it still brings tears to my eyes. I see the kids running after the train and I flashback to my own childhood. It doesn’t take much to call these images up. It could be just a simple question during an interview, “Why are they trying to get you to drop out?”
Ariana, do you want to answer that?
ghostlegpress has this fitting comment that expresses the anger and disappointment we feel over the media, the Obamasphere and the Obama campaign’s reaction to this faux outrage:
Bobby Kennedy was my hero. In 1968 I was 17 years old and I believed absolutely that he would end the war in Vietnam and begin to end the racial injustice that was an open, festering sore on this country. I thought he’d be the greatest president the USA ever had.
At the same time, Eugene McCarthy’s supporters could only say that Gene was purer – better – braver on the war than Bobby. I remember a McCarthy supporter challenging Kennedy because McCarthy risked …whatever – nothing really – by challenging LBJ in New Hampshire and RFK didn’t. “Where were you when we were in New Hampshire?” the McCarthy supporter heckled. Ceasar Chavez, who was on the platform with RFK, answered, “He was with me in Delano!”
That answer meant nothing to the college kid, but it explained the whole world to me.
In a phrase that has some resonance today, I remember a magazine article which discussed student involvement in the campaigns explaining that Gene had the “A” students and Bobby only had the “C” students.
All that seemed to matter to some was that Gene McCarthy was laconic, ironic, and way too high brow for the average voter. Bobby had the masses. And we had Bobby.
I went to sleep on June 4, 1968 believing RFK had won the California primary and would win the presidency. I woke on June 5 to learn he’d been shot. I woke on June 6 to learn he’d died. I stood all day on June 8 waiting for his funeral cortege to pass.
1968 was a terrible time, but it was also a time of great hope. Those of us who came of age politically in that time will never forget that the primary season began in February and ran thrrough June.
Anyone who believes Hillary doesn’t have that time emblazoned on her memory just doesn’t know American history. They can twist her comments as much as they want – but for anyone over 50, a primary that extends into June isn’t an anomaly. A primary in June will always evoke RFK for me. Not because of the horror of its end – but because that was the last time I had real hope fo this country.
The current outrage disgusts me more than I can express. It’s not Hillary who sullies the process. Lying spinmeisters who’d use the assassination of one of this century’s greatest men to score cheap points are the ones who should be ashamed.
I haven’t really ever forgotten what an elitist bastard McCarthy was – and it will be a cold day in hell before I forgive Obama.
1968 was a turbulent year. There were riots and protests and then ,one right after the other, Martin Luther King was gunned down and Robert F. Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan in California. I was just a little girl and I remember his funeral train. But it wasn’t until a few years ago that I found out that he was shot right after he won the California primary in June. I thought it was just that he was giving a campaign speech. The primary part never registered with me. Here is Clinton’s history lesson from today’s interview with a South Dakota newspaper:
Personally, I don’t think this history lesson is the end of the world. She was thinking of examples for why we shouldn’t panic just because the nominee isn’t chosen by now and she reached back to the two examples that stood out in her mind: her husband’s primary and RFK’s. It is unfortunate that the one that most readily comes to the minds of people Clinton’s age was marred by the tragedy of RFK’s assassination.
It will be played up to monumental proportions and people will be screaming for her to leave. But let us recognize their reaction for what it is. It’s not genuine offense over the death of an admirable man. It is their excuse to finally get rid of her.
If that is the case, I can’t decide who is demonstrating the most lack of taste.
Update: The reaction of the Obamasphere and the media is totally indefensible. The HuffingtonPost is taking a very matter-of-fact discussion of primary history and twisting it into a vile insinuation that Hillary can’t wait until someone takes Obama out. It is time they stopped behaving like the Orwellians during a two minutes hate.
The Confluence would like to encourage Clinton to hang in there. Make it clear that you aren’t going before the primaries end, Florida and Michigan are seated with restored influence for the convention and every voter has spoken. We are losing patience with the media’s and oppositions efforts to force Clinton out of the race by creating scandalous and false accusations. The shame barrier has been crossed in a major way today and it is hardening our resolve.
Hmmm, It sounds like Obama is sensitive to the suggestion that maybe he and Edwards gamed the system in Michigan by taking their names off the ballot in order to make the primary look invalid. But according to Sam Stein at HuffingtonPost, there’s an untold story about How Obama Ended Up On (and Off) the Michigan Ballot. I don’t think that Stein has done him any favors in this piece. Obama’s excuse sounds as flimsy as the Grinch’s lie to Susy Loo Whoo. According to Stein:
Weeks after his [Obama’s] name was submitted without his consent or objection, Obama personally signed an affidavit removing him from the primary slate. According to Ballenger, the senator could not have done the same thing in Florida — the other state whose primary was unofficial — as there was no state law there that allowed a candidate to remove his or her name.
As the *new* story goes, Obama never asked to be put on the Michigan ballot in the first place. No, it was the Michigan Democratic Party following their guidelines that put all of the declared presidential candidates on the ballot without even a “By Your Leave”. They never asked permission from Obama and when he found out that they had brazenly signed him up for the primary, he had them take his name off, toot sweet. I can just see him fuming, “They’re not going to put MY name on their ballot for president in their illegal primary, by Golly. Not if *I* have anything to say about it. The unmitigated gall!”
So, he never wanted to particpate in the Michigan primary in the first place so all of you losers who are accusing him of a dirty trick to put the kabashes on the Michigan voters better take it back.
Fine with me. if he never wanted to participate in the first place, then there’s no reason to give him any delegates. It goes without saying that he can’t have any of Clinton’s earned delegates but there doesn’t seem to be any reason to give him uncommitted delegates either. That doesn’t mean it will stop him from screaming, “Gimme! Gimme!”
The rumors that are being whispered by the media and the Obama surrogates these days are taking on the status of urban legends. Oh, sure, the stories may have changed somewhat but once upon a time, they really happened. Like the babysitter that got a phone call from the serial killer who was calling from upstairs. {{shivver}} Or the kid who died from eating a Halloween apple with a razor blade in it. (I think this one was put out there by the Mars candy company)
Are the rumors real or merely self serving? Let’s go inside the mystery and find out if they are truth or fiction:
1.) Hillary has been in discussions with Obama’s campaign, begging to become his VP. “A friend” of the Clintons has been spreading this rumor all over the place. Here we have the first evidence that this rumor is untrue. What kind of “friend” would spread a rumor that would make Clinton look desperate and stupid? It would make her supporters nervous and doubtful that she was sincere about winning the nomination. It might make them stop donating to her campaign or support her altogether. Besides, why would a person with Clinton’s qualifications want to make a lateral career move? Well, it turns out that Howard Wolfson put this rumor to bed yesterday. There have been no such discussions. He didn’t say, “I am not aware of such discussions”. He said there weren’t any. Period.
2.) Hillary has been horribly and inexcusably negative on her opponent. We see this trotted out during primary nights on the cable news channels. There is always some poll where voters are asked who has been more negative. It’s always Clinton. How do we understand this when our lying eyes tell us something different? Well, there was a recent column by John Judis in The New Republic recently where the following was actually written down for posterity:
Clinton’s second great political mistake lay in how she dealt with Obama’s challenge. Sometime in December, having realized that Obama was going to be a genuine rival for the nomination, she and her campaign decided to go negative on him. They did the usual thing politicians do to each other: They ran attack ads taking his words somewhat out of context (Obama calling Reagan a “transformative politician”); they somewhat distorted old votes (voting “present” in Illinois on abortion bills); and they questioned old associations (Obama’s connection with real estate developer Tony Rezko).
John McCain and Mitt Romney were doing similar things to each other—and Obama did some of it to Clinton, too. But there a was difference between her doing this to Obama and McCain’s doing it to Romney—a difference that eluded Clinton, her husband, and her campaign staff. My friend David Kusnet, Bill Clinton’s former speechwriter, explained the difference to me by citing what ex-heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson had once said about Muhammad Ali. “I was just a fighter,” Patterson had said, “but he was history.” Obama, too, was, and is, history—the first viable African-American presidential candidate. Yes, Hillary Clinton was the first viable female candidate, but it is still different. Race is the deepest and oldest and most bitter conflict in American history—the cause of our great Civil War and of the upheavals of the 1950s and ’60s. And if some voters didn’t appreciate the potential breakthrough that Obama’s candidacy represented, many in the Democratic primaries and caucuses did—and so did the members of the media and Obama’s fellow politicians. And as Clinton began treating Obama as just another politician, they recoiled and threw their support to him.
Is this true? Did Clinton go unfairly negative on Obama? The answer to this is unfortunately yes. See, while we weren’t watching, standards were recalibrated to adjust for the African-American candidate. There is no need to do this for the female candidate because it is expected that if she wants to play in the big boyz game, she will have to demonstrate that she can be beaten to a bloody pulp and still remain standing. This is a universal truth. It’s like gravity. The African-American male got the right to vote before females did. We are only following precedent. Plus, we must acknowledge the collective guilt that we Democrats share regarding the status of African-Americans in America. If it weren’t for Republicans pushing through all that civil rights legislation back in the 60’s, we would still be living with segregation. We must atone for our sins, therefore, Hillary is absolutely forbidden from saying anything negative about Obama. This includes saying something about him that is true because that might make him look like just an average politician and that would be negative.
She must also not compare herself to him as this may reveal him to be wanting in some capacity and that would be mean and prejudicial. Some people would say that this gives Obama an advantage that Hillary doesn’t have, that he starts off with a handicap of sorts. But this comes too close to saying that he is benefitting from affirmative action and that just shows that you are a bigot.
3.) It is unfair to Obama to not get all of the uncommitted votes from Michigan and some of Clinton’s votes as well. If we were to follow up on the preceding urban legend, we would see that this is probably true. Since Obama is starting off with a handicap, it only follows that he would receive all of the uncommitted votes and some of Clinton’s as well. To genuinely correct for the historical inequity, Clinton should give him all of her votes and a note of apology for being a member of the slave owning class even though her ancestors weren’t slaveowners and some of them were impoverished themselves while Obama’s ancestors were never slaves. Obama is a symbol and a conduit through the color of his skin for the African-American community. He is their redeemer. So, she should just hand over her votes without complaint, get out of the race, beg him for forgiveness and “follow him wherever he may go”, sort of like the song.
But it turns out that “uncommitted” is an official designation under DNC RULZ. The change of these RULZ to accomodate Obama was not finished in time for the primary season so this is an unfair condition under which he must operate this year. There is no reason why the Rules and Bylaws committee has to give him the uncommitted delegates but they probably will anyway as a way to compensate him for Hillary running against him in the first place, his candidacy being historic and all. This may not be fair to the voters but with sensitivity and diversity training, they will come around.
4.) After those of us who have a visceral dislike of Obama have been reeducated, we will fall in line and vote for him in November. We don’t really mean it. This is probably true but it is uncertain whether they will be able to make enough orange jumpsuits and build the detention camps in time.
Americans love Hillary from one end of the country to the other. Take a look, this map looks like a great big smiling face:
What I like about this map is that it fills in Florida, Michigan and Texas as hers. It’s amazing the number of sites that put those states into some strange holding zone. One site put Texas in stripes (giving undue validity to Obama’s caucus win) . . . .
Well, there’s not much we can do about Texas (until time to rewrite the rules for next time) but, we CAN take action on the Florida and Michigan situation. Continue reading →
The Confluence 