Reply #59: No fantasy here

[Asgaya Dihi]

I think the fantasy is in assuming that Clinton supporters represent something like moderate in American politics. Something you'll find with me is I can generally explain why I think things, there's no fantasy to it and never has been. Not even when I was a kid.

Clinton has what she has now and no more, her negatives have done nothing but climb through the race and what supporters she has tend to be both partisan and ideological, more prone to accept and approve of the more divisive policies and politics of the past. That's not moderate these days, she's about 4 to 8 years late for that to work like she wanted it to.

The dem party started to move away from that as soon as Clinton left office, it hardly took any time at all before we started to notice that everything from NAFTA to media consolidation to the drug war hadn't worked out like we planned and we had lots of unwelcome and unexpected results along the way. By 2004 we were ready for change but the nation wasn't, wouldn't have worked in our primary then though it might have in the general. Judging by the http://ultimatejohnmccain.com/blog_post/show/17?eid=35f115ef74d62ec3303825bab766831c">cries of pain from the repubs and the three straight special elections we won in strong and historically conservative areas recently it seems the nation as a whole is on the same page as well now. Finally ready for that change.

I can point to dozens if instances where crossover supporters for Obama wouldn't touch Clinton, if it's not Obama they seriously will either sit the election out or vote for McCain. They don't have a stake in our Roe v Wade, they don't care about dems or our causes in general for the crossovers or for our special interests for the independents. The only stake they have is that they are tired of business as usual and want change, less divisive and less ideological than in recent years. They won't cross to Clinton.

Many of her supporters WILL cross to Obama. They do care about Roe V Wade, they do care about dems winning, and they do care about the civil rights, the poor, and other more traditionally dem issues.

Fantasy? Not even on a bad day. The "moderates" you are thinking about don't exist anymore, the landscape has changed and so have the reasons why they cross the lines. I thought this through long, hard, and well before I ever posted my first word in the campaign and I've discussed and thought about it more since. He's got a better shot than she does, with or without her supporters, and I'm betting in the end for most it'll be with. The partisan divide isn't what it was a few years ago.