Maybe I'm naive, but I like ALL of the top three...

ColesCountyDem

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Mon Jan-28-08 09:47 PM
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Maybe I'm naive, but I like ALL of the top three...

While my own primary preference is Sen. Edwards, I won't be crushed or alienated if he doesn't get the nomination.

Sen. Obama is one of my senators, and I supported him in the brutal primary fight back in '04, even though most of my fellow committeemen didn't. I thought then and still think today that he is a brilliant, inspired and thoughtful individual who would and has since done an excellent job as the junior Senator from Illinois.

I love Sen. Clinton, period. She is brilliant, she understands issues in depth, she is s-t-r-o-n-g. She has a wide range of experience in virtually every area anyone elected POTUS will have to deal with. Finally, even though the Republicans will make every effort to 'swift boat' her, if she is our nominee, I have absolutely no doubt that she will shove it right back down their sleazy throats with a speed and viciousness that will leave them reeling.

I see so many spirited attacks and counter-attacks here by supporters and opponents of the 'top three', as I call them, and my reaction to 99% of those threads ranges from disgust to amusement. Frankly, based on the subject line alone, I don't read 2/3 of them, because the content is so predictable. I'm not a political neophyte, having been actively involved Democratic Party politics since I was a child (my grandfather was a county judge), so I completely understand why and how primary fights can get heated, even nasty. 'Records' and 'experience' become keywords in most attack threads, as if somehow each will become the quietus delivered to Candidate X. What most seem to forget, it seems to me, is that in order to NOT have a 'record' or 'experience', one must have DONE NOTHING! Has Sen. Clinton made mistakes? Of course she has. Has Sen. Obama made statements he now likely wishes he hadn't? Of course he has. Has Sen. Edwards cast votes that were, in retrospect, the wrong vote to cast? Of course he has.

I've lived a fairly long time, folks, and I can honestly tell you that I can't EVER remember a primary season where our party has had SOOOOOOOOO MANY *fantastic* candidates running; I frankly wish we could have somehow 'morphed' all of them into a single nominee, but it's a hard fact of political life that that ain't ever gonna happen: some drop out early on, some get their butts handed to them by the voters and just sort of fade away, some survive and continue to fight until they can't fight any longer and, eventually, ONE grasps the brass ring of the nomination. That's how it's always been and will always be.

In closing, I'll return to my subject line. Call me naive, if you will, but our nominee will almost certainly be Sen. Clinton, Sen. Edwards or Sen. Obama (listed alphabetically). Every single one of them stands head-and-shoulders above the dingle berries the Republicans are trying to choose from, and I will PROUDLY, LOUDLY and ENTHUSIASTICALLY SUPPORT whichever one walks away from Denver with the nomination.

That's my bottom line.