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Jun
3
Just over two weeks ago, we had Maria Cocco and all the memories she won’t miss about the Democratic primary campaign.
Now, we have, in another “all the things we won’t/we will love/hate/forget/remember” review of the last 18 months, Richard Cohen in the Washington Post reciting all the loathfull memories:
Wherever I go — from glittering dinner party to glittering dinner party — the famous and powerful people I meet (for such is my life) tell me how lucky I am to be a journalist in this the greatest of all presidential contests. I tell them, for I am wont to please, that this campaign is indeed great when, as history will record, it is not. I have come to loathe the campaign.
I loathe above all the resurgence of racism — or maybe it is merely my appreciation of the fact that it is wider and deeper than I thought.
…
I loathe what has happened to Hillary Clinton. This person of no mean achievement has been witchified, turned into a shrew, so that almost any remark of hers is instantly interpreted as sinister and ugly.
…
I loathe also what Hillary Clinton has done to herself. The incessant exaggerations, the cheap shots, the flights into hallucinatory history — that sniper fire in Bosnia, for instance — have turned her into a caricature of what her caricaturists long claimed she already was.
…
I loathe what has happened to Bill Clinton.
I loathe what has happened to the press. I loathe the incessant blogging and commenting and talking and yapping and hype.
…
So I see little to be happy about, little that pleases my jaundiced eye. Yes, voter participation is way up and in the end, the Democrats will choose a woman or an African American and, to invoke that tiresome phrase, history will be made. But this messy nominating process has eroded the standing of both candidates. It has highlighted the reality that racism still runs deep and that misogyny, although more imagined than real, is not yet a wholly spent force. This is an ugly porridge that has been placed before us, turned rancid since the cold, pristine days of Iowa only five months ago. We were, with apologies to Bob Dylan, so much younger then.
I know exactly what he means.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:45 am June 3rd, 2008 in Barack Obama, Campaigning, Democrats, Gender, Hillary Clinton, Politics, Race, WH2008, Women, Youth
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5 Responses to “What to loathe about the Democratic primary campaigns”
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My thoughts are simply put. The entire Democratic Party Presidential Primary selection process for the past year is ONE BIG JOKE!!!
It has been flawed from the start; and, it has been mostly manipulated from the very start by the Fourth Estate – plain and simple.
The Republican primaries were nothing to write home about, either. Sen. McCain was anointed, as all the others have been since at least 1972…
You know, there _is_ a way out!
Harold
Racism and sexism are ugly things. Citizen participation is very messy, particularly the anonymous participation. The vaunted 4th Estate has never stood above and to the side, archive have made this more clear this time around. Michigan and Florida contributed their piece.
What the candidates have said or their officials have said is what counts, as always. Their policy statements are available.
“I loathe also what Hillary Clinton has done to herself. The incessant exaggerations, the cheap shots, the flights into hallucinatory history — that sniper fire in Bosnia, for instance — have turned her into a caricature of what her caricaturists long claimed she already was.”
This statement conflates the image the Republicans made and the facts it was based on. Ignoring the Republican image and concentrating on the facts does not make a pretty picture of a person desiring to be President. The fact of a specious attack does not negate the actual facts, as much as her supporters wish it did. I have opposed Hillary on the facts, not her image. She has lived up to those facts which seems to surprise Stoller, this is amazing. Sen Clinton has repeatedly engaged in short term thinking and short term gain, her campaign is a reflection of that and its failures are all reflections of that. THIS is Hillary’s history and every time she’s gotten ‘screwed’ it has been at the heart.
Does this disqualify her? For my Primary vote it did, against McCain who engages in the same thinking for worse causes – no.
Yes it all sucked terribly for many, many reasons and you can be damn sure that the powers that be will make sure that this is the last such Democratic primary season you will ever see again.
Next time they’ll make damn sure someone is anointed by Super Tuesday.