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I've noticed something during this primary campaigning season: The Publican1 media machine has REALLY eased off of their normally-vicious attacks on Hillary Clinton, and the Publican political establishment has made conscious decisions to attempt to crown her the presumptive democratic nominee. This, more than anything else, makes me very worried about her as a presidential contender.
I've very little against Clinton, beyond her original and continued support for the Iraq war in spite of the obvious smoke-and-mirrors threat that the administration generated. Her health-care initiative, while flawed, was certainly a step in the right direction. I agree with her support for free trade (although she's backed off of that in favor of political expedience, which is regrettable), and she falls in line with core democratic values on most other things. I know my fair share of Hillary-haters, folks who drank deeply of the Limbaugh Kool-Aid (spiked with Oxycontin!) from 1991 onward, who believe that should she be elected the stock market will collapse and the world will be thrown into a dark age. I heard the exact same things about Bill back in 1991 (when the Dow was at 3000).
The fact that Publicans suddenly feel so comfortable with her as the nominee, and don't seem nearly as fearful of her as a President as, say, Obama, gives me pause. Y'all can take that however you want--the presidential nominees will have been chosen long before Tennessee gets a chance to hold a primary, so my vote is fairly inconsequential on that mark, and I might have a more constructive influence on the political process with a LiveJournal post than an actual vote, if it causes people more due consideration of their candidates.
1 I like how Publicans were Roman military contractors--it serves as a better description of the current party than the self-monicker they assume.
I've very little against Clinton, beyond her original and continued support for the Iraq war in spite of the obvious smoke-and-mirrors threat that the administration generated. Her health-care initiative, while flawed, was certainly a step in the right direction. I agree with her support for free trade (although she's backed off of that in favor of political expedience, which is regrettable), and she falls in line with core democratic values on most other things. I know my fair share of Hillary-haters, folks who drank deeply of the Limbaugh Kool-Aid (spiked with Oxycontin!) from 1991 onward, who believe that should she be elected the stock market will collapse and the world will be thrown into a dark age. I heard the exact same things about Bill back in 1991 (when the Dow was at 3000).
The fact that Publicans suddenly feel so comfortable with her as the nominee, and don't seem nearly as fearful of her as a President as, say, Obama, gives me pause. Y'all can take that however you want--the presidential nominees will have been chosen long before Tennessee gets a chance to hold a primary, so my vote is fairly inconsequential on that mark, and I might have a more constructive influence on the political process with a LiveJournal post than an actual vote, if it causes people more due consideration of their candidates.
1 I like how Publicans were Roman military contractors--it serves as a better description of the current party than the self-monicker they assume.
