The Democratic Party won, last night. The Republican race is growing increasingly acrimonious, with Mitt Romney yesterday accusing John McCain of using “Nixonian tactics,” while, by contrast, debate host CNN and others headlined the comity displayed by Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This is great for the Democratic party, and helpful to both candidates.
As Senator Clinton said, in the debate itself:
So we have differences both at home and around the world, but, again, I would emphasize that what really is important here, because the Republicans were in California debating yesterday, they are more of the same.
Neither of us, just by looking at us, you can tell, we are not more of the same. We will change our country.
Big Tent Democrat concurs:
From the moment they walked out on the stage, an African American and a woman, the Democrats won. Whomever wins the nomination, whomever wins the election, Democrats won. And America won.
He referred to Eugene Robinson’s comment, during the post-debate analysis, that the most electrifying moment came when the two candidates simply walked out on the stage. This is a new America and a better America. I remember the electricity in 1984, when Walter Mondale chose Geraldine Ferraro as his running-mate; those at the San Francisco convention said it was palpable. Everyone knew the ticket was doomed to lose to media darling Ronald Reagan, but having a woman on a major party’s ticket was an achingly long-overdue revolution. That same year, Jesse Jackson won five primaries or caucuses. He won 13 in 1988. Even with the nation regressing, under the Reagan Administration, the Democratic Party was courageously moving forward.
This year makes the advances of 1984 seem trivial. Big Tent also referenced the withdrawal statement of John Edwards, when he announced he was getting out of the way of history. For all the subtle and not-so-subtle strains of racism and misogyny that have bubbled up, this past month, this nation will never look back. The next time there is a serious candidate who is African American and/or a woman, it won’t even be an issue. That will be the greatest legacy of this historic winter.
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Did Clarence Thomas change the Supreme Court? Did Liddy Dole transform the senate? Just who are these people who are going to usher us into a promised land? How does one become a US senator without accepting vast quantities of cash from powerful individuals and corporations?
Please tell me what practical reason you have to believe that America will stop killing Iraqis if either Clinton or Obama is elected.
Please tell me why you think there is the ghost of a chance of national health care being enacted by either of these candidates with at least 41 Senate seats in Republican hands.
Please tell me how America’s oil addiction and the inevitable cycle of petroleum wars will change under either of these candidates.
The permanent government of the United States is controlled by the 1% at the top of the demographic heap. They arrange a vaudeville show called the Presidential Elections every four years to give us the illusion that we live in a democracy, but the grinding of the plutocratic machinery backstage is now too loud to ignore and the there is a smell of smoke in the theater.
Wait ti the GE, we ain’t seen nothing yet! Can you say 527 boys and girls?
“The next time there is a serious candidate who is African American and/or a woman, it won’t even be an issue.”
The U.S. over the last 7 years has shown an ability and willingness to embrace pre-Enlightenment ideas and ideology.
A step forward can be followed by two backward.
Shrub is proof, if any’s needed.
if this essay was written a year ago, it would be flooded with jubilant posters all cheering this remarkable wonderful democratic emergence.
instead. we’re pissed. and at the Democrats.
ha. how’s that for irony.
Turkana described. I felt as though i was truly present as history was being made, that nothing would ever be the same again. At the end of the debate, which i found to be stimulating, informative, and issue oriented I felt a warm glow of satisfaction. I even found the cryptic responses to the last question about a possible ticket to be possible, for me a dream come true. I felt my cynicism slipping away, melting in the warmth of my heart and soul.
By this morning, I awoke really depressed. I stayed up to listen to the CNN and MSNBC’s post debate dissection and went to sleep wondering whether i was living in my own bubble. What appalled me most was the way the pundits and blabber mouths treated the Iraq segment, as though they were discussing the odds on the point spread for the Super Bowl, who benefitted, who won, who lost. It disgusted me.
This mornign i awoke to the horror of perhaps the most horrible suicide attack in Bagdad yet. Ywo disabled female bombers, explosives strapped to their bodies, were blown up by remote control. The death toll was monstrous, the first figure given was 68, that of course will not count the bereaved families, the wounded, war as a numbers game.
When I checked in to the blogosphere i was equally, if not even more appalled. One comment in DK even asked who would benefit most from the attack, Obama or Clinton.
What is happening to us as a people? The ghastly carnage has turned into a talking point in a highly competive race between two superstars for the job that bears more responsibility than any other on the planet at this point in our history. The cameras seemed to care more about which celebrities were in the audience for the ticket that was being scalped for one thousand dollars, as the csandidates were talking about poverty!!! This morning’s news trumpets that Obama raised more than $30,000 dollars in the month of january. Meanwhile both of them chat up their concern about poverty. The big money is starting to flow in, is it all in $20:00 small donations? no way Jose, the establishment is hedging its bet.
I don’t care who voted for what five years ago, it was a different time and a we were in a different place. 77 Senators voted to give an untried and untested President the right to use whatever force necessary to revenge the 3000 dead of 9/11, Naive, certainly in retrospect. Clinton was one of them, Obama was not because he did not have to take that responsibility then. I have not heard him taking such a firm stand since, indeed if I am not mistaken since he has been in the Senate he too has voted to fund the war. Edwards was one of them and i am pretty sure so was Kerry, as was McCain. Romney was too busy being a ceo of Massachusetts. Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel are the only two who had the balls to call continuously fro impeachment and de-funding. Not one of the presidential candidates have, in fact two of them are calling for a continuous presence.
I don’t give a damn how we got in, I want to know how we are going to get out. I want to know whether in eight years from now I shall have to take my family out of the country to avoid the draft that will inevitably come, no matter what any of them say.
This morning i feel as though we can’t see beyond our noses. I am truly depressed and truly afraid for America. Yes, it is historic but changing the color of skin or gender is not going to change anything unless we are also prepared to change the way we allow ourselves to be governed.
I am sorry for the downer of this post at such a hopeful time, but I don’t see change a coming i’m afraid. Looks more like re-upholstering the deck chairs on the Titanic to me. Boy, do I need to get out of here to get some perspective.
I hoped for buuuuut it is no small thing to be able to make such history and live during such history making. If Bush gets credit for anything Dear God please let it be that he was the worst President ever in our history so America decided to set aside her petty prejudices when choosing the next one. Sometimes surviving a horrible thing leads to many good things. As with all things in my life I’ll take the gift horses while continuing to fight for future ponies to come!
We could have a handicapped lesbian Eskimo woman in the White House, and it would still be the SOS. The USA will not stop devouring the resources of the world and killing anyone who tries to stop us until compelled to desist by force or economic collapse.
This presidential “election” is a huge theatrical distraction from the permanent government and the permanent war. People need to invest energy in building private networks to ride out the progressively larger catastrophes that plutocratic business-as-usual is going to bring us.
Make no mistake. Clinton and Obama represent business as usual: government of the people by the corporations for the corporations.
and I think I heard the amount of 27 million for Clinton? not sure whether that is just January or for the last qurter though, last quarter i think. That would pay quite a few of those jobs lost today in unemployment insurance.
A: League rules require an Owner.