I am a dutiful audience for Keith Olbermann and saw a very interesting clip from a speech by Hillary Clinton out in the past couple of days in which she addressed the arguments for how voters should vote. 'You can vote for or against any candidate, and for any reason,' she began, 'You can vote for the one who has, say, the best hairstyle, if that's what you want to do' and then went on to make her normal stump speech argument, 'to treat it like it is a job interview.'
But as usual, when there is a good soundbyte, like 'typical white person' or 'Damn America' or 'they become bitter and cling to guns', the context becomes lost, and that is where we enter the zone of Silly Season.
more after the jump
And the best examples of 'Silly Season' in the media have been Flag-pin gate, Pledge-of-allegiance-gate, and yes, Wright-gate, but now we are entering a new, more desperate endgame in which superdelegate members of congress are growing increasingly alarmed, in which voters and supporters on both sides are becoming increasingly angry, and in the NYTimes this morning I read one of my least-offensive Op-ed columnists waving the big red flag about a danger to the Democratic party from the silly, mutually-offensive shit now rolling out of the campaigns, and it seems, as per normal for this campaign season, the Clinton campaign is way ahead in leading that charge.
- The new campaign narrative about 'the path to victory' - the New Math on popular vote, asserting that the popular votes in the discounted elections should magically put Clinton over the top and thus arguably give her the advantage in the general election;
- The new math about Clinton's strength 'in the big states' - in Democratic strongholds that will not fall to Republicans no matter what, concealing the fact that the general election is a 'winner take all' contest in which the popular vote majority determines ALL of the electoral votes for the state, so whether Pennsylvania is blue by 200,000 votes or by 2, it will still be blue, and Clinton winning by 200,000 votes over Obama is not an argument that Obama would lose Pennsylvania in the fall - it's a scare tactic for those who can't add.
- Florida and Michigan will go red in the general election because their voters were disenfranchised. Do what I have done if you believe this, and dig into the comments by Florida and Michigan voters who have commented over the course of the past several months who stayed AWAY from voting during these primaries based upon the promise of the DNC not to count the votes. Pick any newspaper's site, or DKos, or TPM, or Huffpo, and see what ACTUAL Florida and Michigan voters have said. Overwhelmingly they have argued for sticking to the rules that prevailed at the time of the primaries, and not to reward Clinton voters and punish Obama (and Edwards) voters for following DNC rules and maintaining their pledges. There are remedies for seating delegates that can be offered and agreed to, and processes and procedures for so doing: NONE of them involve amassing tainted popular vote totals to a candidate who incidentally happens to need them badly. Nobody is fooled by this argument, and it enrages anyone whom it is used against.
However, this diary is not all about Clinton's ever-more-desperate tactics, it is also about the naive hysteria of Obama voters. I am an Obama voter and have been from November onward. Over that time it has become more and more clear to me that while Obama needed to learn how to debate better, and to handle his exasperation better on camera, there is nothing wrong with his political skills, or his organizing skills, or his campaign skills, and has proven to out-organize, out-campaign, and mobilize a grass-roots support that has caused over 12 million Democratic voters to vote for him, 1.4 million people to donate to him, and left-leaning websites to endorse him, and over 100 superdelegates to commit to him since Super Tuesday, and the nomination is pending. So I ask, what it is in Obama voters that they rise so easily to provocations by the Silly Season tactics of a desperate and dying Clinton campaign? There are a few kinds of Nervous Nelly Obamaniacs here who need a bit of reality orientation:
- Chicken Littles - these are the ones who start diaries like 'This is It!' 'What the Fuck is Paul Krugman Smoking?' 'Everybody Rally, Don't Let Obama Lose'! Frankly, the time to panic was the night before Iowa when, like me, you thought Obama was a great candidate who didn't stand a chance. Write the word 'Frontrunner' 1000 times then you can log back onto DKos. And no more freakout diaries please!
- Obama Liberation Front - these are the Obama supporters who believe that we have to CRUSH! KILL! DESTROY! any Clinton supporter who dares even WHISPER that their candidate will take away their candy. You folks need some poise, and maybe cut down on the coffee.
- Second Graders - Out on the playground, some Clinton supporter made a snarky remark, and they have to shoot back 'Sniper Fire!' every time, thus alienating supporters who Obama is going to need to vote for him in November.
We do need to all come together once the primaries are over, but it does Obama NO GOOD AT ALL for the Chicken Littles, the Obama Liberation Front, and the Second Graders to control the narrative of the blogosphere, and it gives the Silly Season Clintonistas a reason to step up efforts to enrage you. I suggest doing what I do: watch an Obama rally on Cspan, and get out that piece of paper, and write,
Frontrunner, frontrunner, frontrunner.