Dodd/Kucinich 08': Election Blu-Galoo

[RavingLunatic]

If Clinton gets the nom, I'm voting for this guy in November.

I'm voting for Nader regardless. I'd've voted for Edward if he'd gotten the nomination, but Obama has really drifted to the center over his career, and there's no reason to think he's "really" a leftist just pretending to be centrist to get elected. I can't think of anyone who's ever done that. (Cue people pointing out examples of exactly such a thing.)

[Andrew_TSKS]

i don't know, man, i don't think obama's a centrist at all. i think he's pulling republicans because he's charismatic, mccain's dull as dishwater and wants to stay in iraq for 100 years (plus bomb iran at first opportunity), and bush has soured a lot of less staunch conservatives on the republican party in general. i think a lot of obama's policies, at least that i've read about, sound plenty liberal.

plus, i voted for nader once, because i bought the myth that there was no difference between the republican and democratic parties. george w. bush taught me the error of my ways. never again.

[elpollodiablo]

Obama's as much of a centrist as Clinton, and they're both as centrist as you have to be to get elected

[DCDave]

Obama's as much of a centrist as Clinton, and they're both as centrist as you have to be to get elected

I would argue that Obama isn't really centrist or leftist, but really investigates how collective action problems can be appropriately solved.  While Clinton is definitely left of center on how large the government would be, and right of center on things like international rights.

[elpollodiablo]

Yay semantics

Obama isn't even classifiable now, it's a brave new world, etc.

I just hope when the honeymoon's over you guys are still as in love as you are right now.

[guanajuato]

Yay semantics

Obama isn't even classifiable now, it's a brave new world, etc.

I just hope when the honeymoon's over you guys are still as in love as you are right now.

least obama supporters get a honeymoon, you big hill fans are skipping right to shitty part.

[Good Intentions]

Vacuous feelgood nonsense.

[DCDave]

Vacuous feelgood nonsense.

Why do you even post in this thread?

[elpollodiablo]

I'd rather be cynically rational than nurse false hopes, but that's just me

And I really, REALLY hope that you guys are right and that things'll be different with the big O, but every rational cell in my body tells me that it's gonna be more of the same. And if it's gonna be more of the same, I'll take experience over an excess of charisma and sterling rhetorical skills.

[Good Intentions]

I do still follow the primaries, including reading what you guys say here, though often I am often overwhelmed by disgust. Occasionally my rising dread at the fanaticism shown here and elsewhere gets the better of me.

[Good Intentions]

This is where I hasten to add that I don't have anything particularly against Obama, it's just that he's the one I hear the most about and ergo the source of most chickenbones that get stuck in my craw. I wish the entire lot of them would catch on fire, and the more closely I follow this process the more that feeling grows inside of me, so much so that I had to drastically cut down my intake of updates.

[YojimboMonkey]

Fanaticism?  Really?  Are you sure you're not getting the Obama people confused with the Ron Paul people?

I don't know about fanaticism but I do sometimes feel a bit of a creepy cult of personality vibe.  But then a big part of the president's job is motivating other people to do the things he wants done, so a certain amount of charisma seems like almost a job requirement.

I don't think anybody here ever explicitly stated that the universe will turn all shimmery and rainbow-colored once Obama is elected.

[Thermofusion]

There's a certain breed of poster on this board that views those of us who are cautiously optimistic about this election as naïveté-stricken idiots. 

It's also the same breed that makes across-the-boards, ridiculous generalizations like "all politicians are card-carrying agents of lucifer" that make them come across far more irrational and out-of-touch with reality than the so-called Obama cultists with whom they take issue. 

Finally, all of it is wrapped up in a dated, outmoded Gen X dismissal of the value of political involvement which, as I said in the previous thread, is thankfully going the way of the proverbial dodo.

Cautious optimism, folks.  Pragmatism's coming back in a big way, my copies of Menand are getting passed around my friends like a drunken hoodrat and guess what?  It's okay to engage the possibility of a bright outlook every now and then if you pinch yourself and expect practical change in lieu of instant miracles  No politician is a saint, but theorizing that all politicians are evil, spurious, and, I dunno, cloaked cultists performing blood orgies on altars covered in the menstrual drippings of sacrificial kittens is about as ridiculous an overgeneralization as they come.  And it has no basis in reality.

[YojimboMonkey]

However, Obama will put a sacrificial kitten blood orgy in every pot come election day.

[elpollodiablo]

If you've got enough money and power to run for president, you or someone acting on your behalf has done some evil, abhorrent shit. That's a stone fact as far as I'm concerned. And just because I'm a might bit skeptical doesn't mean I'm affecting some outmoded Gen X jaded kind of posturing, it means I'm skeptical. And with good fucking reason.

[dieblucasdie]

They might be more centrist than say, GI, but either Clinton or Obama would be the most left American president in a quarter century.  I have no illusions about building an American utopia or somesuch, but I don't think being a little excited is entirely out-of-order.

[slow west vultures]

Finally, all of it is wrapped up in a dated, outmoded Gen X dismissal of the value of political involvement which, as I said in the previous thread, is thankfully going the way of the proverbial dodo.

slacker1: Oh, here comes that cannonball guy. He's cool.
slacker2: Are you being sarcastic, dude?
slacker1: I don't even know anymore.

also, not that i should bring it up here, but apparently you haven't heard what a certain musician friend of ours thinks about the political process.  

No politician is a saint, but theorizing that all politicians are evil, spurious, and, I dunno, cloaked cultists performing blood orgies on altars covered in the menstrual drippings of sacrificial kittens is about as ridiculous an overgeneralization as they come.  And it has no basis in reality.

[elpollodiablo]

Okay so I'm at work tonight, and there just happen to be five Obama campaign staffers staying here. They've all been in the lobby all night on their cell phones and PDAs and notebooks and such, and during a sort of lull in activity here, I intruded upon them to ask the question: What if the unthinkable happens, and your boy doesn't win the nomination? What'll you do then? And over the course of the resulting conversation, their collective general answer seemed to be: sit out the rest of campaign season. One guy actually said, and I quote, "I'd rather cede the White House for another four years and take another run at it with Barack in 2012 than vote for Hillary Clinton."

[slow west vultures]

isn't that pretty much the sentiment of the conservative wing of the republican party re if john mccain gets the nomination?  i think in the aftermath of any nomination process, there's bound to be perverse pouty contrarian sentiments to pop up momentarily, but there's a long enough time until november for people to change their minds. 

[Andrew_TSKS]

man... i think maybe we all need to calm down a little bit. i don't think anyone seriously believes that all that much will change if obama OR hillary clinton is elected. we've all got our preferences, and that's fine, but i don't think any of us believes it'll do all that much to make the world or even america all that much better of a place.

of course, gi's allegation that no politician will do anything to make anything any better seems pretty preposterous to me too. so there's that.

[RavingLunatic]

"I'd rather cede the White House for another four years and take another run at it with Barack in 2012 than vote for Hillary Clinton."

This is exactly how I feel, and I don't even like Obama. If he wins, though, we can be honest and call ourselves an Obamanation. Clinton is probably to the right of half the Republicans on foreign policy, and she's more beholden to corporate power than even McCain. She still considers NAFTA a good thing and speaks about all the great things that happened during the 90's. I'd rather McCain win than for Clinton to pull the Democratic party further right.  

[RavingLunatic]

They might be more centrist than say, GI, but either Clinton or Obama would be the most left American president in a quarter century. 

Wait, in what way is she any further left than her center-right husband? The only difference I see is that she's more hawkish and even more corporation-friendly.

[Andrew_TSKS]

and now that i've hopefully made it clear that i'm not some pie-in-the-sky kool-aid drinker, i have some comments about miles's support of clinton and its seeming roots in cynicism. miles, i think your feelings about clinton very much describe the general feeling of the democratic party in 2004 when kerry was given the nomination pretty much immediately. kerry was seen as a pragmatic candidate. he had experience and rationality on his side, but he offered nothing for anybody to feel the least bit excited about. so his backers were in favor of him because he was better than the other guy, but very few people actually seemed all that excited about him. and then he lost. if the democrats didn't learn a lesson from that, they'd be fools. and i think they did--you've got to offer more than a candidate who's going to sit america down and explain to them that they've been bad and now they have to take their medicine. and it doesn't matter what hillary says in her speeches--this is how she seems. she hectors, bill wags his finger, and they generally take an admonishing tone. if they aren't admonishing the republicans for screwing up the country (which is at least deserved--and granted, obama does this too, and i'm not complaining about that) they're admonishing democrats who back obama (and probably democrats who backed edwards, too) for being too idealistic and thinking that someone who inspires them can actually get anything done. that shit sucks.

a lot of times when i see obama speak, i'm reminded of martin luther king. martin luther king couldn't have inspired the type of civil rights actions that were taken by his followers if he wasn't inspiring. and hillary can talk all she wants about how lyndon johnson had to be there to put king's ideals into law, but i think we'd all be kidding ourselves if we said that the civil rights bill would have happened even without martin luther king and the movement he inspired. inspiration is powerful, dude. maybe it doesn't mean anything to you, but there are a lot of people out there who aren't going to get involved and start trying to fix this country without it.

xpost with rl, and i was thinking the same thing he said in reply to blucas's comment. i think obama would be the most leftist president in a quarter century, sure, but i have my doubts that the same would be true of hillary.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Clinton is probably to the right of half the Republicans on foreign policy

i don't know if this is really the case. i doubt clinton will be as hasty in attacking iran as mccain will, for example.

and she's more beholden to corporate power than even McCain.

this, on the other hand, is totally true. her ties to wal-mart are particularly bothersome.

She still considers NAFTA a good thing and speaks about all the great things that happened during the 90's.

what i find funny is that obama has recently given her shit for past pro-nafta comments, and now she's trying like hell to distance herself from that stance, even though she was vocally in favor of it as recently as 2001. probably more recently, in fact, that's just the most recent public comment in favor of it that i've seen.

[guanajuato]

If Clinton gets the nom, I'm voting for this guy in November.

I'm voting for Nader regardless. I'd've voted for Edward if he'd gotten the nomination, but Obama has really drifted to the center over his career, and there's no reason to think he's "really" a leftist just pretending to be centrist to get elected. I can't think of anyone who's ever done that. (Cue people pointing out examples of exactly such a thing.)

r u really voting for nader? this election? where whatever their faults, both dem candidates want to pull out of the war and the rep doesn't? i'm all for ideals but when u throw away your vote in an election where the outcome means staying or pulling out of iraq, in that light, it seems worth taking another look at the process u used to reach this decision, by considering the fighting in iraq.