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old guard Democratic Party, and the new, vibrant, energetic citizen activists of the Obama campaign--who represent the dissident MAJORITY of the country on the Iraq War and other issues--is a good thing--even a great thing--for our democracy, for our country, and for our party? We will thus emerge from the primaries with a fully vetted, battle-tested candidate, whether Obama or Clinton, who will face an old, gray, somewhat whacko McBushite hand-picked by the people who brought us the Iraq War and Great Depression II. Contrary to the opinion of almost everybody, I also think that Democratic Party wounds will quickly heal, and virtually all primary campaigners--and voters--will unite behind the Democratic Party nominee. Historically, the Democrats have ALWAYS been the SQUABBLING party. Will Rogers made a famous joke about it. ("I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat!"). Only recently--with Bill Clinton, in fact--have the Democrats become like the Republicans, with insider king-makers hand-picking the nominee and forcing everybody into line. I think this is why a lot of folks--including a lot of DUers--are so uncomfortable with this kind of rip-roaring, raucus-caucus, down and dirty, democratic with a small d, party struggle, and keep crying gloom and doom about it. We're not used to it! We've forgotten what a REAL political party is like. We've near forgotten what democracy is like.
Come November, we will have the strength of all this electoral experience, all this monitoring of the election process (desperately in need of human eyes upon it), all this precinct walking, all this debating, all this testing of ideas, all this passionate organizing, all this sheer democratic work as well as fun, and a candidate who is well aware of his or her strengths and weaknesses, and who has been raked over the corporate news monopolies coals time and again--a fully vetted candidate (whereas McCain will have hidden dungeons of corruption yet to be plumbed).
THIS. IS. WHAT. DEMOCRACY. LOOKS. LIKE.
And it is good. It is healthy. It is real. It is, indeed, the rebirth of our democracy. And it is what the American people are hungry for.
I'm not crazy about either Democratic candidate (--although I think Obama's supporters are wonderful!). I think we need, well...FDR. A real tough reformer. That's not possible right now. Campaign money filth, rigged voting machines and the corporate news monopolies (and the global corporate predators who are behind them) have made it impossible. But as a rehearsal for things to come--once we take back our country (starting with the voting machines)--this will do. This is good. We at least have a DEBATE--about the direction of the party, and to some extent about the real issues (the war, "free trade"). We have lots of citizens CARING ABOUT what happens--voting, volunteering. Big growth in citizen involvement. The Republican Party is sick, sick, SICK, because they have not had this debate about their party direction--especially about what the Bushites have done to them (turned them into the Fascist Party), and they failed to engage people in their primaries.
I tend to favor Obama, but even if Obama loses the nomination, and the old guard retains temporary power over the party machinery, everything has changed. Clinton's top-down leadership style will not work any more. She will have to compromise with the left, the grass roots, the new party activists.
I also tend to think that Obama, if nominated, will clean the sidewalk with McCain. He will win by a landslide. Clinton will have a tougher time--because there will be less enthusiasm among the grass roots (anti-war activists and labor unions in particular)--but she will likely win, because the country is sick of death of Bushites, and I think this will become very clear shortly after the conventions.
The current 50/50 thing with McCain--with Obama having a bit of an edge--is partly an artifact of this long nomination struggle, which--I need to say, though it seems so obvious--is Democrat vs. Democrat. The Republicans had no such struggle, because--need I say?--they are not democratic. They have therefore not enlivened, enthused and engaged many citizens, have not chosen their best, or even a good, candidate, and have not gained any experience in this new and much more alive, democratic political atmosphere. Pollsters--using old, rigged voting machine, non-cell phone demographics--are getting a 50/50-ish response because of these skewed demographics, and because people haven't seen Obama vs. McCain, or Clinton vs. McCain in action--so they fall into old patterns. With a 65% to 70% anti-Iraq War majority in the country--a whopping majority--McCain has yet to be tagged for his unabashed warmongering. No one's out there tagging him with it. The corporate news monopolies certainly won't do it. I think this 50/50 thing will change very dramatically after the conventions--especially if Obama is the nominee--and the only remaining question will be:
Will the Bushite electronic voting corporations, that control the "trade secret" code, dare to rig it for McBush and risk a revolution against their voting machines, and long term loss of that power? I don't think they will. I don't think Obama--and certainly not Clinton--is that much of a threat to the war profiteers and financial barracudas who are running things. It is us--we the people--whom they fear. They want to keep that power over US, and not have people throwing Diebold and other election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' or anything. They'll work with these liberal, corporate-friendly candidates (both of them) to consolidate their gains under Bush, and to limit the damage from an aroused, angry citizenry, preserve their power and strike at us again, maybe in 2012 (after Bushite shit really starts to hit the fan, and they've had time to blame it on Obama or Clinton).
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