DEVON GRANDY (Honolulu, Hawaii)
When this half of Break Out The Oreos was a child he often attempted to pout or whine his way into getting what he wanted–that new toy, one more cookie than was the limit, another hour of sleep, you know the drill. And the response he almost always received, fine parents that his mother and father were, was that whining doesn’t make people want to give you what you want.
We say “almost always” because, being the precociously astute seven-year-old that Devon often imagines himself to have been, he inevitably found an exception to the rule: while whining doesn’t make people want to give you want you want, whining at really inconvenient moments for other people will very frequently make them give you at least some form of what you want just to have you shut up. Devon used this strategy to a particularly effective extent whenever his mother went into crunch mode with less than twenty-four hours before a deadline.
Now it appears that those two great whiners of the Democratic party–Bill and Hillary Clinton–have capitalized upon the Democratic party’s most inconvenient moment: with an uncomfortably nasty race between Obama and McCain heading into the stretch, the Clintons have been making just enough noise at just the right time to get Hillary a symbolic nomination at the Democratic National Convention to smooth out what the New York Times is calling “a lingering rift with Clinton supporters.”
Devon ponders the “rift” and gets his indignation on, after the jump.
If you’re confused about this, don’t fret, because you’re not wrong–Hillary did lose a fair and democratic process known as the Democratic presidential primary. Which, in some senses, means that the Democratic National Committee is committing voter fraud with this alternative–albeit symbolic–nomination, because the other side of the coin to Clinton losing is, you know, the fact that OBAMA ALREADY WON THE NOMINATION! ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING WITH THIS?!!
The Democrats are attempting to take back the White House and solidify their hold on Congress after almost a decade of what is nearly universally regarded as disastrous Republican leadership, and if Hillary and Bill’s hissy fits fuck this up for us we will be so pissed. How long is it going to be before they understand that Hillary is not entitled to a presidency if the voters don’t want her?
Hillary Clinton has a duty to the Democratic Party take her political ambitions, which were rightly and fairly entertained throughout the primary season, and put them in her back pocket for another few years.
Bill Clinton has a duty to both the Democratic Party and his once-respectable reputation to stop making an ass of himself. He might have already been a douchebag, but at least he was a silently content douchebag until his wife’s presidential bid started getting rocked in the primaries. Now he’s got even liberals longing for the days of “I do not recall…”
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3 comments so far...
Sorry, Devon. I meant to stay on hiatus from my political blog, Election Day Countdown, but you’ve forced me back into the game. As much as I love to jump on the Clintons-Suck bandwagon, in this case they’re in the right.
Sure, I could go over the theoretical arguments about how this is how conventions are SUPPOSED to work. Or I could tug at your heartstrings and say that her “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” deserve to be heard (a valid point in itself). But mostly, I’ll remind you that OBAMA WANTED HER TO DO THIS. Hillary mulled the decision on how to placate her supporters for a month, and ultimately decided that the best way to unify the party would be to allow her supporters (roughly half the Democratic Party) to be heard at the Democratic National Convention. When she prevented this idea to the Obama camp, she was informed that they agreed completely. This was a unified decision, not a political power grab.
If anything, Hillary’s unrelenting shows of support and unity over the past two months (and she has been a great supporter of Obama’s since June) are THEMSELVES indications of her political ambitions. Only by completely throwing herself into this campaign can she win over the other half of the party who suspects her of trying to screw Obama, and she knows it.
Hillary’s sense of entitlement was one of the main things that turned me off to her campaign this winter. However, that fight is over. She’s a warrior for the Democratic Party, and now deserves our respect since the fight is over.
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Bill is still a jerk, though.
Ben makes a lot of good points above–in BOTO’s defense, though, this article is as much a critique of Clinton’s embittered supporters being too grumpy to vote for Obama and yet not grumpy enough to vote for McCain as it is a critique of the Clintons themselves. If Clinton’s supporters either had the maturity to deal with the primary results or the balls (no pun intended) to vote Republican in response, the Democratic Party wouldn’t have to deal with this ridiculous extension of the olive branch and could instead spend its time focusing on how to beat the bad guys.
That should have been clarified, though. Thanks, Ben.
Agreed on that one. There’s a few of my acquaintances whom I would like to punch, forcibly, in regards to their voting choices. I’m totally fine with anyone in a non-swing state who decides to not vote as a sign of protest (although I respectfully disagree with their choice), but anyone who decides to vote for John McCain merely as a selfish way of whining has no right to call themselves a liberal, or for that matter an American. Barack Obama stands for 95% of what Hillary Clinton stands for, and voting against him out of spite is idiotic.
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