Saturday, May 03, 2008

HILLARY CLINTON CAN GO FUCK HERSELF


One of the mistakes the touchy-feely Obama supporters have made is their reassurances, even insistence, that no matter what happens in the primaries, that the important thing was defeating the Republican candidate in November, and of course we would vote for Hillary Clinton should it come down to it. Now that I look back, I realize it was Clinton supporters making that argument, and the Obamites nodding in agreement. Now Clinton is invoking that politeness as another reason to deny Obama the nomination: 40% of her supporters have said they will not vote for Obama under any circumstances. (Bear in mind that 24% of her supporters are cross-over votes from epublicans who will vote McCain in the fall)

Well, fuck that. In a Clinton versus McCain contest, I'm voting for McCain.

A Republican president is going to have to work with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress no matter what. With McCain's reputation for compromise, and to be fair, his recordas well, the fact is that any Republican legislation that passes is going to be gutted by the proverbial liberal boning knife. We won't be enjoying eight years of the socialist worker's utopia that Obama is promising, but the result will still be less conservative than the continental concentration camp that the Right has been assembling in its collective mind, one that Clinton will do her best to implement.

Clinton will do what her husband did in 1996, and what she's done as a Senator. Triangulation: President Clinton will an end-run around the Republicans by co-opting their positions. And a Dem president will not face opposition, so her bills will go through largely only amended by the Republican minority. Result: kinda like a how "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ended up with more discharges from the military than before.

So there it is. I think it's a bad idea to return the Republicans to the White House. I think the party deserves to be punished for its willful incompetence, and another term will send the wrong message. But a Clinton presidency will take the country further right, and that is something we need even less than a dynastic restoration.

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