Politics

Yesterday on the Huffington Post  Joseph Andrew explained why he switched from supporting Hillary to Barak. I have posted twice about my choice in voting for Hillary last February, but no matter who eventually gains the party's nomination I will support her or him and vote accordingly. Much of what he says is all too true as I read through the political blogs some supporting Barak and some Hillary. There is nastiness in this campaign. I look on it as political boot camp so that the eventual candidate is combat ready for the fight ahead, what is distressing is that the supporters are becoming too closely identified with their chosen candidate and are talking about taking their marbles and going home. The last thing we need is a repeat of the 1968 convention fracture and I am afraid that now if Hillary does win the nomination by the super delegates while Barak had gathered the majority of primary voters that will happen. 

What struck me about Andrew's position paper was this statement:

A New Era of Politics

My endorsement of Senator Obama will not be welcome news to my friends and family at the Clinton campaign. If the campaign's surrogates called Governor Bill Richardson, a respected former member of President Clinton's cabinet, a "Judas" for endorsing Senator Obama, we can all imagine how they will treat somebody like me. They are the best practitioners of the old politics, so they will no doubt call me a traitor, an opportunist and a hypocrite. I will be branded as disloyal, power-hungry, but most importantly, they will use the exact words that Republicans used to attack me when I was defending President Clinton.

He went on to say what all voters, not just democrats need to understand in this election.

Innuendo is easy. The truth is hard.

Sound bites are easy. Solutions are hard.

Spin is simple and easy. Struggling with facts is complicated and hard.

I still would like to see Hillary get the nomination. I feel that she would weather the brutal political combat to come, that she has taken and can give back in equal measure whatever McCain and the Great Republican Sound Machine can dish out, but should Barak's followers feel cheated by the convention process and those who voted for him feel that they were not listened to by the Super Delegates it may just hand our country back into the hands of the neo-conservative, social darwinists, thugs and that will be the deathnell of our Constitution and civilization as we know it.

It's time to heal the party not rip it apart anymore. I remember what happened when the youthful idealists were snubbed by the power brokers in '68 and that disaster not only got Nixon elected, but brought to power George H W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others of the neo-con good old boys club hell bent on destroying the entire world. That's why I'm now (for what it's worth) throwing my support behind Barak Obama.