One more time, Hillary Clinton

[ismnotwasm]

As most of you probably know, NOW-PAC has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president;

http://www.now.org/press/03-07/03-28.html

I have very mixed feelings about this. This seems to be a forum, while without a whole lot of participation, rarely gets into horrid name calling or acrimonious exchanges. Those things bother me to the extent they're counterproductive and useless. Here is Kim Grady's column for this week on Senator Clinton

http://www.now.org/news/note/040307.html

Before George W. Bush, I was of the either/or/doesn't matter/mind as far as parties. I voted socialist quite often. I would still like to see voices representing other points of view in our political system, rather than the standard two party song and dance that goes on, and on, and on. Senator Clinton seems to represent that song and dance, rather than be a voice for real change, but could she get elected otherwise? Do I want her elected? Where do I bring pragmatism in,
and leave ideology behind? Or do I? I will vote, barring a complete disaster, whoever gets the Democratic nomination for president. Pretty pragmatic, but those damn Republicans--if that's what they want to be called-- scared the shit out of me, and I was right to be scared.

Thoughts?

[BlueIris]

1. I'm appalled. She's completely sold out, and her tactics thus far have been

brutish.

[tnlefty]

2. I know that it's too late to correct it, but it's Gandy not Grady and she

has lost a lot of the respect that I had for her.

I don't intend to vote based solely on gender and I'm worn out with the excuses for Sen. Clinton's IWR vote. She was first lady for 8 years and I'm sure that she and Bill discussed things, except when they probably weren't speaking at all at times post the Monica revelations. Scott Ritter made it pretty clear that the inspections had worked, and that he felt as though they (the inspection's team) were being used to gather information for bombings in Iraq that weren't really necessary. I would prefer a woman with better judgment and who I feel is more honest than Sen. Clinton.

*off to adorn flame suit*

[ismnotwasm]

3. Sorry about the misspelling

Many are uncomfortable with Senator Clinton.

What's messed up about war (besides the obvious) is the history of war. I can look up quotes and decisions from many years and many wars ago, and it sounds just like today. It's not hard to figure out what a warmongering response for political gain is, who it benefits, (the usual suspects) who it does not. Political fallout call be weathered by taking an antiwar stance, particularly, I think in this war--the "reasons" for it were unraveling before the first marine hit Afghanistan.

One of the things I've always been disturbed by is the only way anyone can make it in our past and present state of politics seems to be by being dishonest, or disingenuous. When someone speaks out strongly against injustice, they're treated with the equivalent of media high five (or character assignation)--then marginalized. Or just marginalized.

So they play the game, I guess. It's great we have a strong women in the running, but to get there she is part of the same fucked up system. Once I hit my pragmatic bottom and accept this, the question I ask myself is if she was elected, would it make one damn bit of difference for women?

[lizerdbits]

4. Playing the game

I think it's extremely difficult or impossible to win in politics and simultaneously have any kind of integrity or honesty. You have to pander to the people with $$ to have enough money to have a campaign and they are a small minority of the population. I'd like to see fair, publicly financed campaigns but those in power now would be risking their jobs to put that in place.

If Clinton is the Dem nominee and Maryland is polling pretty even (not so common) I'll probably vote for her. If MD is leaning heavily Dem I'll probably vote for a Green or lefty independent if one of those is available. Actually that's what I do in most presidential elections.