Edwards has done a good thing for the party. He has suggested that it is time to come together. While neither remaining candidate is perfect (because neither is John Edwards, ha ha!), if John and Elizabeth are endorsing Obama, then I support Obama.
In a Democratic Primary that has seen more right wing, corporate media and Republican interference than any since 1972, it has been difficult to tell what the Democratic candidates have done and what the people backing John McCain have done. For instance, as I show in my most recent journal about the lies of Pat Buchanan, in January Dick Nixon’s chief CREEPster was trying to propel the myth that the Clinton’s were race baiters with this widely read article,
Ghettoizing Barack :
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/ghettoizing_barack.htmlAnd four months later, Buchanan cites the
same evidence to “prove” that Obama and his supporters were the ones who created the racial divide in
Race Cards and Speech Codes :
http://www.creators.com/opinion/pat-buchanan.htmlIn the second article he blames Black and liberal journalists for saying that the Clintons deliberately alienated their own African-American support within the Party so that they could drive a wedge between Obama and whites---ignoring the fact that Buchanan was the chief proponent of the theory in January.
If you go back and review all the of non-issues that divide the party—stories like Mark Penn mentioning “cocaine” on
Hardball which about five different reporters on MSNBC have claimed that he did maliciously, even though he was invited (along with Axelrod and Trippi) to a one hour show
devoted to Obama and drugs---a show in which Tweety did things like ask “Do things really go better with coke?”--- you will soon come to the conclusion that some members of the mainstream media have been behind the effort to divide us.
The corporate media misquoted, selectively edited, quoted out of context or just plain lied about so many things that so many people from both camps---Obama and Clinton—have said that everything we think that we know (besides their policy statements and the words that have actually come from their lips in their speeches that we have heard unedited in full ourselves) is suspect.
I have a couple of suggestions: One,
if you think that you know Barack Obama, the nominee and do not like him, forget why you think that you do not like him and get to know him. Read his policy statements. Go watch his speeches or read the transcripts. Ignore anything that has been written about him, pro or con (since some people who claim to be supporters are actually playing dirty tricks by attempting to paint the Clintons as evil and therefore they are trying to paint Obama as a dirty tricks artist). Familiarize yourself with the polls, including match ups with McCain, demographic weaknesses and strength, electoral maps.
Two,
if you think that you know Hillary Clinton, the Senator who will be campaigning this fall for Barack Obama and who will be on the short list of VP candidates, forget why you think that you do not like her and get to know her. Read her policy statements. Go watch her speeches and read the transcripts. Ignore anything that has been written about her, pro and con. Familiarize yourself with the polls, including match ups with McCain, demographic weaknesses and strength, electoral maps. Think about where she can be best utilized this fall as a campaigner. Hillary and Bill are one of the Democrats' best weapons in the general election, especially in areas that have been economically devastated, because they can remind Americans that under the last Democratic administration, the economy improved.
That is hope that the middle class sliding into poverty can count on. Finally, the long primary has not been bad for Democrats, and there is no reason to stop the vote. As long as everyone is cordial, and the Clintons do not mind going deeper into debt, the primary allows the Democrats to register more voters, and it gets Democrats more enthused for this fall. However,
Clinton’s strength should be acknowledge as Clinton’s strength and not extrapolated as Obama’s weakness. It is possible to do this. Clinton can win a state primary and yet Obama could win the same voters in a general election if she is competing with him. All it means is that they just like her a little bit better. If he was not running, African-American’s might be voting for her.
PS I still oppose anything that divides the party, be it Obama-bashing or Clinton-bashing or Dean-bashing. Bashing the press is welcome, because 99% of the time, they deserve it.