Friday, March 28, 2008

A Political Tangent

I got home from work today, pretty wiped out having believed we'd be able to leave a bit early but didn't, and I read a couple articles in the latest edition of The Week magazine. I love this magazine because it's like a Cliff's Notes of the weeks news and gives thorough coverage from hundreds of top papers and merges them into small, succinct passages that not only give the news, but how the news was covered by the media, in editorials, revealing the political bias of such sources.

One of the briefs this week is about how the democratic nomination is progressing, how many electoral votes each candidate still needs to get, the debate over Superdelegates, new endorsements, etc. The one page article merge gives the "what happened", "what the editorials said", "what the columnists said" and "what next?". One line stood out to me.
Clinton herself hasn't accepted that reality (of the math of Superdelegates), said David Brooks in The New York Times. Her own aids say she has a 10 percent chance of securing the nomination; it's probably more like 5 percent. So, "for the sake of that 5 percent," Democrats may be facing three months of "character assassination" and divisiveness.
I went off to take my evening nap and was awaken by a call from my mom.

"Hello?"
"Can you blog about ANYTHING?" she asked.
"Yeah, anything."
"Well, can you write something about Hillary? I'm watching the news and it's making me so mad. These white men are trying to get her to step down from the campaign and it makes me so angry. They just can't stand the thought of a woman being in charge."
"Well, mom, maybe she should step down. If she keeps attacking Obama and doesn't get the nomination, she could be pushing Democrats to vote for McCain."
"But you don't understand. If she steps down, what about all the women who've fought, all the hispanic voters on her side. It will just be more of them keeping women down for another 50 years. I'm just so frustrated by it all. They're such jerks."
"Um, ok, I'll blog about it."

So, Internet. My mom doesn't want Hillary to drop out of the race until a clear winner is chosen. And I still think she should quit, or if she doesn't, she needs to take off the gloves with Obama and bring out a fresh pair for McCain, who, I shudder to think, could beat the Dems in the fall if this slugfest continues.

So there. My two cents. And my mom's. And this guy wrote a pretty good blog about it, too. And either way, rich white male America, you're on notice. My momma don't like you.

4 comments:

Pete said...

Feel free to remind Momma of the color of Obama's skin. This nomination is a no-lose situation for the oppressed.

Anonymous said...

I'd prefer Obama, but I'll take Hillary over McCain. Even McCain is far less offensive than any Republican since Eisenhower.

Anonymous said...

black, white, male, female....bullshit

people should be judged on the content of their character not on race or gender.

Pete said...

I don't think anybody sane would dispute that. But given that the two remaining candidates are both members of groups which are historically oppressed for irrelevant innate qualities, I think it's especially silly to fixate on the innate qualities of one or the other. Either way it goes, it's an unprecedented win for progress and a perfect opportunity to do as you say.