My Personal Hillary History

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

Starts off very sympathetically.. I CRIED when Clinton/Gore won in 1992. I remember the Arkansas State House and Fleetwood Mac playing. I felt like I had been delivered from the Reagan nightmare into a newer, better, world.

I supported Bill/Hillary through all the controversies of their Presidency. I thought Monica was all about adult consensual sex and had nothing to do with anyone except the 3 people involved. Although, I have to say, that had we had the communication vectors available then that we have now, perhaps I would not have been as sympathetic as I was. I think I would probably have a different take on Travelgate. (I just re-read the Wiki on that and I realize now there was a whole other side of the story I just was not aware of – I really thought that the Clintons were the victims of a right-wing conspiracy. I was a complete and total supporter of both.

Skip to this primary election.

I was not pro Hillary for the simplistic reason that I did not feel that a healthy Democracy should trade the top position back and forth between two families for almost 30 years. I also felt no particular compunction towards Hillary simply on the basis of gender – we have tons of great female leaders both nationally and worldwide in both private and public sectors that made me feel that no extra effort (cheerleading for estrogen) was required. Sorry, it was just not enough that Hillary was female to sign me up for her campaign.

In this campaign I supported Kucinich and then Edwards (and ultimately Obama for the reasons described below). Both addressed the populist topics that I care about and both were anti-war. My personal issues are: war, corporatism, and healthcare. Hillary came up short in issue 1 and 2, but still ok with Hillary at this point.

Here’s how she fell apart for me.

1. I personally saw her try to have 2 positions simultaneously in that debate where she addressed driver licenses for undocumented workers. I don’t have a position on this, so I don’t care what her position is, but I saw her have 2 and then I saw her deny that she had 2 when Edwards called her on it. That concerned me because I thought, Gee, does she think we’re stupid and we don’t have replay abilities? She seemed very glib and insincere on that issue and that perception stuck. Both Edwards and Obama seemed more sincere than she did in that debate


2. Starts becoming hung up on semantics in a very hair splitting petty way- Oh, no, you can’t hope or fight for change, you have to WORK for it and only she knew how to do that. It’s not enough to reject, you have to denounce. Etc. etc. It’s around here that she starts to be a little Captain Queegish* and a teensy bit scary. She’s going to prove who stole the strawberries with geometry.

3. The duplicity of her stances on Michigan and Florida. Sign the pledge, reject the pledge, say the votes don’t count anyway, say they count when you win them without any opposition or your opponents name on the ballot. Deride him for choosing to be honorable and taking his name off the ballot like EVERYONE ELSE except for Gravel. SUCKERS! Too bad you were’nt thinking ahead like I was.
This is the single biggest signpost for me telling me that she has no moral core and will just advance whatever position helps her particular situation. Ooh, oh.

4. The personal mockery of Obama (and by extension, his voters). The skies will
open up, etc. To me, this started to reflect a personal animus and jealousy of Obama and his oratory skills, which no one had ever accused Hillary of having.

5. The elevation of McCain(!) over Obama. She and McCain had the experience to be Commander and Chief but Obama was lacking. Obama could only give “speeches”. I was dumbstruck at this whole tactic – obviously in Hillary World it’s her or no one. She burnt a lot of bridges with this whole brilliant strategery.


6. The populist morph- suddenly she’s “fighter” for the common man and Obama is an elitist. The cynicism here is above previously recorded levels.


At some point between points 1-2 I fell towards Obama, although as I said in the beginning I started off being against Hillary because of the dynastic issue – but had she run a strong, true, issues based campaign, I could have been hers.

7. I won’t even go into the damage Bill did. I have a signed copy of his autobiography that my brother stood in line for hours to buy me as a gift because he knew how much it would mean to me. I will now use it to prop up a tilty table but save it for future generations who might value it more than I do currently.


8. Tuzla. - enhances my Captain Queeg alert. Told the story multiple times and insisted on it when questioned “That’s what happened!” Ooooh.

8. Appealing to the lowest common denominator. She really isn’t pandering to bigots, is she?

[Jane Austin]

1. You described my journey just about exactly.

Quite an eye-opener to see it listed chronologically like that.

[Cleita]

2. This was my main objection like yours from the beginning:

I was not pro Hillary for the simplistic reason that I did not feel that a healthy Democracy should trade the top position back and forth between two families for almost 30 years.

I couldn't get past the Isabella Peron/Ismelda Marcos aspect of her candidacy. Everything you mentioned followed that as well. However, if she becomes the Democratic candidate I will have to vote for her because President McCain would give me a coronary.

[RBInMaine]

3. Yup. It's Hillary's INCESSANT hypocrisy, truth stretching, and double-speak that SICKENS !

[PinkTiger]

4. Interesting psychological profile of someone

Who identifies a bit too strongly with celebrities. Hmmm.

[ClayZ]

5. Great Post

I never set foot in her boat. We went to the Obama Rally in Seattle and we have been backing him ever since. We supported Gore and then Kerry and wished Dennis K had a chance this time. I tried to like John Edwards, but could never really trust him.

I believe Obama. We listened to him at the 2004 convention and said "He should be running for president!"



Barack Obama 2004 Democratic National Convention Speech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awQkJNVsgKM

And now he is. Wooooo Hoooooo~!

[stillcool]

6. I don't know when she lost me...

but it seems like it's been a lot longer than what the calendar would reflect. I thought they all did well in the debates, and I didn't have a problem with her explanation to the drivers license thing. The Governor of the State that she represents proposed it as a way of keeping the populace safe from unlicensed, uninsured drivers. I think it had merit, and should have been discussed in a broader context than a yes or no. So I guess I thought it was unfair to put her on the spot. I'm not sure if that was the same debate, but there was one debate where Tim Russert singled her out, and went after her with a vengeance, which really pissed me off. Way back then, there was not one issue that would have bothered me enough to refrain from voting for her. By February my perception of the Clinton's was irrevocably changed . I'm sorry that Hillary chose to run her campaign the way she did.

[XemaSab]

7. I'll back you up and say that the

"girl power" aspect of her campaign, especially since it was built on her prior experience as a first lady, raised instant alarm bells.

[TragedyandHope]

8. Thanks for sharing your story!

Many of us were there with you in '92.

Plenty of those of us who had a chosen different candidate in this race were shocked, disappointed and a bit betrayed by the tone of this campaign. And we are still shocked anew every day. A lot of people are left wondering what happened to the Clintons we knew and supported?

I don't know the answer, but I'm sure it will make for plenty of interesting books and scholarly study.

[truedelphi]

9. Yes thank you for sharing the story

She lost me in December of 2004 when I looked back over the previous year and realized that semi-pennilessvoting reform activists like my friends and me were trying to wake up the public about the voting machinery being hackable and also that the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen.

I know Hillary knows this. But why the heck should she concern herself in trying to see that people in Ohio got their vote counted when a 2005-'09 Kerry Presidency would mean she couldn't run in 2008?

I saw her as someone willing to stand by and let Bush have his throne for another four long years as long as she could make a move for the throne this year.

It's like she is Gollum and the Presidency is her "Preshious."

[Cha]

10. Excellent recap of your

journey, Phoebe..thanks.

hilary is my senator and since she voted for the IWR without reading the 90 page NIE report and went against the will of her voters here in New York..she has been on my persona non grata list and it's only gotten much worse.

Anybody but hilary and I didn't really have a candidate I was passionate about at first. I liked what Edwards had to say and believed him when he said he was sorry for the IWR vote and he actually did a 180. Then the political landscape began to change and I started defending Obama a lot on DU leading to my suppporting him as out nominee and finding the passion he's inspiring in so many.