Yesterday I got my voter pamphlet in the mail in preparation for the February 5th primary.
This is it – the beginning of a month of caucuses and primaries that will determine the 2008 nominees for president.
I have long believed that the fix is in and newspapers, corporations and Democratic power brokers are determined to make Hillary the nominee. That's how I think it works. No matter how much a populist candidate like Edwards or Obama, or Dean last time around, captures the imagination of the people, the media, the corporate power structure, and the party machine are simply too strong to allow the great unwashed masses to have their say.
I hope I'm proved wrong. It's not that I don't think Hillary would make a competent president. She would be entirely competent if she ever became president. But there are two huge problems with a Hillary candidacy, the first being that I fear she can't win. No one can run dirty, smear campaigns like the other party, and they despise Hillary Clinton more than they despised John Kerry, and they pretty much made mincemeat out of him. Could she overcome that and win anyway? She might be able to squeak out a narrow victory depending on who the Republicans nominate, but many of us would suffer enormous anxiety until the results are in.
The second problem is that even if she wins, she won't bring the kind of change that most of us in the party want to see. Her presidency won't be a transformational one, an inspiring one, a unifying one. Under President Hillary Clinton the corporations will grow stronger and the middle class will grow smaller, and the divisions in the country will continue and possibly grow wider.
Will I still vote for her if she is the nominee? You bet your life. I may think she is the worst choice for the democrats, but even the worst choice on my side is better than the best choice on the other side. At least Hillary would do something to protect the environment and to repair our reputation around the world. Under a Clinton presidency something would be done about health care and the budget deficit. And a President Clinton, being an attorney and a former Senator, would understand how important it is for the president to obey the law and honor the Constitution.
None of those things (environmental protection, international cooperation, health care, sane economic policies, and a rededication to the Constitution) would be a sure thing in any Republican nomination. Just listen to the candidates.
So while I will be disappointed if Hillary wins in both Iowa and New Hampshire and then goes on to win in the primaries on February 5th, I will still support her. I will, however, be enormously disappointed that we democrats, by not choosing the populist Edwards or the inspiring and brilliant Obama, missed a real opportunity to say "no" to the media, the corporations, and the democratic machine. And I will be fearful every day until the national election that the choice of Hillary may mean four more years of republican destruction of the middle class, refusal to join the international community, environmental disaster, and the horrible specter of war.
