I try not to write too many naked opinions on here but I have got to write this since I can`t vote against her: to me, Hillary Clinton has the antiseptic smell of the geriatric ward about her.
Her politics are, in British terms, New Labour. Old hat. She is miles ahead in the polling but it is really a choice between Edwards and Obama if you don't want the next decade to be a stultifying and dangerous time warp. Obama is an insightful person with a big dollop of charisma that might be significant if he became President; Edwards is showing more grit and purpose.
Bill Clinton's shadow lies long across American politics. The last time America voted for a new President, they voted for the man who felt most like Clinton (curiously, because the politics were so different). It has been a disaster. If the Dems now offer up to the American people a candidate whose corporate centrism is a photocopy of a Clintonism relevant to the 1990s, they will have missed another huge opportunity for significant positive change. Hillary is stacked full of big business donations and she doesn't give straight or brave answers on big policy issues. She is relying to a significant extent on identity politics: a large female vote that she will not carry with her into the Presidential election because many women beyond the Democratic party will never vote for her.
As I press the send button on this post, I know that I'll want to delete it in the morning. But I've kept this blog up for two years now and surely I'm allowed to have a wine fueled rant once in a while?
(Actually published 02.11.07 but wanted it to move it from the main stream of the blog)
5 comments:
and did you want to delete it?
so did you want to delete it?
I always do on these sorts of posts, but, still, when five years from now I am accused by a certain "rockstar" of being a perpetual naysayer/someone who just likes to oppose, because I express frustration with Clinton in power (by the way if she gets the Dem nomination I hope to goodness she wins), at least then I can look up this post and show that she never really represented my idea of a way forward. Edwards/Obama, I could stick by.
This comes a bit late, but nevertheless I am with you completely on this - and very glad you left it up. I am still rooting for Obama (inveterate optimist that I am!): whilst I could go happily with Edwards I worry about him in the final shoot out. But in the end any and all of them must defeat whoever the GOP throws up!
I think "throwing up" is the appropriate wording there.
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