Obviously I think what this person wrote has something to offer. I didn’t even know who Howard Dean was until AFTER the “scream” – never saw it, still don’t really get why it was such a big deal but know that my older brother was pretty devastated about the fall of Dean. I think my parents were into Dean too.

Thanks for sharing all the personal experiences from that time.

My shtick is frequently to try, emphasis on try, to imagine what it would be like if I went through and or felt like someone else – I thought, for this one person, she did a good job. I never thought she was speaking for everyone and I think there are plenty of examples of a broad range along the spectrum of disappointment and anger in comments throughout the last two or three weeks of blog posts about the Dem primary on this blog.

I think that’s important – to read about how others are reacting. Knowing it doesn’t mean you too have to feel that. But it is part of realizing that not everyone feels the same way, which should be obvious and often isn’t or is ignored.

You veer from there to some model of old money Party hating the Clintons. There are a lot of people who don’t like the McAuliff/Clinton model of 50%+1 vote and top down management – they’re not old politics, this is a new thing and not very popular with the old hands. You’ve got your constituencies mixed up and your arguement keeps going around and around to make a point that you can’t get any political analyst to make. You can continue to make it, but the players in this little drama of a Primary make it wrong.

The Party – DNC – did not put you in this position, Primary vote did. You say you voted Hillary as lesser of two evils and turn around and say Obama is and you’re unhappy. I expect to have to chose from flawed human beings at best and make a measure of that. I don’t look for Saviours.

I honestly would have preferred NOT to have been backed into a corner with Hillary as my only choice. But in the filthy world of politics, the most competent people and those with the most integrity don’t make the final cut. Hillary was merely the lesser of two evils for me. Is Obama a lesser evil than McCain? I can’t say with certainty that he is, and I’ve finally reached the limits of my patience with the party for putting me in this position AGAIN.

Even if by some miracle Obama DOES get elected, don’t expect anything to really change, because the same old people will still be holding the reins. They’re the ones who decide who gets to be king, and they make sure you remember who brought you to the soiree. If they let Obama win, it will be because they deem him useful to them.

Compared to the Bushes, the Clintons are nouveau riche. But to a lot of Obama’s supporters, the Clintons (and McCain) are the establishment. It’s all relative.

I agree with you that politicians are generally narcissistic. For me, it’s an uncomfortable realization that I probably wouldn’t like as people a lot of the politicians whom I support. Obama and Hillary both no doubt have huge egos. I don’t see a lot of humility there. The same goes for Edwards, too, I suppose.

I see the Obama supporters as simply wanting a better future, and that involves breaking away from the recent past (including the Clintons). Is there some naievete wrapped up in that? Sure, but there was with McGovern, too (as good a man as he appears to be).

And I don’t disagree with you that this could end up like 1972, with Ohio leading the way.
I just pray that doesn’t happen.

Obama could lose. But I don’t think Hillary stands a better chance of beating McCain.

We the People get tired of being condescended to, and would like to think we have some actual say in how we are governed and who does the governing, but time after time we get thwarted and are after a while forced to face the fact that we are mere serfs.

Back in the day, I belonged to the “hope and change” wing of the party, and we managed to seize the process and nominate McGovern. That didn’t end well, you might recall, and progressives haven’t been able to claim many successes in the ensuing almost 40 years. The biggest success was two terms for Bill Clinton, with a little help from Ross Perot. Now, the Clinton legacy, our one bright (not perfect)spot, has been trashed by those who needed to trample on it in order to achieve the latest version of 1972. Except the delicious twist THIS time is that the “hope and change” candidate has actually been enabled and promoted by the moldie oldie power elite, those clever devils.

And I expect it to end just like 1972.

Obama may be inexperienced compared to some, but Bill didn’t have a heck of a lot of experience when he became President, either.

Time will tell whether Obama becomes a good President, if he gets the chance. But a lot of people think he has great potential.

Is he my ideal candidate? No. Edwards was my first pick. But he’s better than McCain, by far, and, in my view, better than Hillary.

I have no doubt that he will get Swift-boated, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he loses to McCain. I’m already dreading the prospect that Ohio will tip the election to McCain.

All I’m saying is that if Clinton supporters stay home or vote for McCain, there are some very real costs to this country, starting with the Supreme Court. I know, too, that if the situation were reversed, and if Clinton were the nominee, a lot of Obama supporters would be staying home, and we’d be having a similar conversation about the relative merits of Hillary.

And as far as the Senate doing a poor job of screening appointees, Obama liked Roberts and was all set to vote for him until someone told him it would be political suicide. I’ve never forgiven him for schmoozing with Rice and giving her a total pass during her SoS confirmation hearings–one of his first official performances as a US Senator left me very disappointed in him. He’s an unqualified and inexperienced candidate who would have a hard time getting a midlevel executive position in a Fortune 500 company based on his resume and the Democratic leadership thinks he should be running the country? Only because they’re looking at what they can get out of it.

He’s had a myth crafted about who he is that too many people are buying as nonfiction. There are too many questions about his judgment based on his longterm associations with shady characters. And what’s more, the facts are out there for anyone who wants to start connecting the dots. You don’t go from part time state senator to Presidential nominee in such a short time without having accomplished anything significant unless you have some pretty powerful sponsors. And if the media had been doing their job of vetting him instead of swooning, we might have an answer to the question: who OWNS Barack Obama? As it is, it probably won’t matter, because he’s given the GOP so much material to work with that he’ll be done in by the swift boats he doesn’t even see coming, and come election day, we’ll be saying hello to President McCain.

The biggest issue I have with Hillary is that I think it’s fundamentally unhealthy for this country to have two families running it for 20 or 24 years. I still haven’t heard a good explanation as to why that’s OK.