Well, I'm back. Couldn't stay away, much as I tried. I had to tell my story and thank all the Kossacks who so strongly supported me and expecially thank those Kossacks who were so concerned about the door slamming my butt, constantly warning me to not get hit in the arse on my way out.
I was amused by those who felt that I might have not known that campaigns can sometimes be tough.
I started paying attention to politics and political campaigns in the 1948 presidential campaign and became very conscious of dirty campaign stratagies during the 1949 campaign for sheriff of Lee County, Arkansas.
More below the fold:
In the summer of 1949, the 3 room school where my parents had taught since WWII ended was closed as a result of consolidation with the larger Marianna School District. My parents found a job at the slightly larger three room school in Haynes, Arkansas, on the Lee County/St. Francis County border.
The Haynes School hired my father as superintent, principal and 4th and 6th teacher and my mother as teacher of the 1st and 2nd grade. My father was also in charge of the two "colored" schools in the Haynes School district. We moved into the "teacherage," a two bedroom appartment at the end of the cafeteria, a building with hot and cold running water and a bathroom! (Since the end of WWII we had lived in a 4 room house without running water or electricity.) My parents also were given the use of a 1947 Chevie "town and country" station wagon for their personal use as a perc. We were in tall cotton, as the saying goes in the delta.
All went well until the second school board meeting that fall. The school board was controlled by the wealthiest men in town, and controlled by the biggest land owner in town, a man called Spec Hughs. At the board meeting my father was told that everyone was going to be voting for a particular candidate for Lee County sheriff. Dad said that he had already promised his vote to a man he felt better qualified. He was then told inno uncertain terms that his job depended on him and my mother voting "right." My daddy stood and left the board meetin to walk to our appartment. He seaarched the desk where his and my mother's almost newly signed contracts were kept, stormed out the door and into the board meeting. He tore up the contracts, threw the car keys on the boardroom table and announced to all, "Wou can't fire us! We quit!"
Before he left to walk back to the board meeting, he told my mother, my sister and me to, "get packed; we're leaving!"
When daddy came back and started to help us pack, several very chastened board members arrived with the keys and a new contract, begging my parents to stay.
In 1992 I ran for the U.S. Congress in the Democratic primary for the 3rd District of Arkansas. I got a call from one of the other candidates threatening to tell what he thought was a deep dark secret about my personal life if I didn't drop out of the race. I laughed uproarously and told him that I had been recording all my calls for several years because of all the death threats I had received and that we would trace his number, and he could go f&^K himself. That if I heard anymore about it, that I was going to report his call and threat to the FBI and the Federal Election Commission. After that, he was the nicest friendlist person to me during the rest of the campaign.
I also worked in support of Bill Clinton when he ran for U.S. Congress, Attorney General, and Gov of Arkansas, and against Orval Faubus in every one of his campaigns, and saw all the dirty tricks used against the Clintons in every campaign he ever ran. All the ones he won, as well as the two he lost.
If you think Hillary and I haven't seen every dirty trick that can be thrown at a candidate in the dirty politics of Arkansas as well as by the National Republican Party, you are sadly mistaken.
But I don't think these tactics work to advance the chances of any candidate winning the nomination or general election, whether practiced by Hillary or Obama or Edwards partisans, and may do great harm if the treats not to support Hillary of she happens to win our party's nomination.
Now I am back to lend my support to Hillary's campaign here at DKos again. With Edwards and Richardson out and only the goofy Gavel and the very much NOT goofy Obama left, I feel it extremely important that we sellect the candidate most likely to beat the lunatic fring that still controlls the GOPocrites.
John McCain, the darling of the MSM, has promised to appoint Supreme Court and Federal Court judges that fit the models of Scalia and Thomas and the 2 last appointees of TGDSOBGWB. And I suspect that to secure the votes of his masters in the radical religious right, he will select that Hope-ful Arkansas fool, Mike Huckabee as his VP. Such a team, if elected, will be an even greater disaster along the lines of the Bush presidency for women for this country and the world. The next president of the United States will almost certainly appoint one or two more members of the SCOTUS as well as scores of lower federal court judges and a like minded Attorny General of the United States.
Can Obama weather the storm of lawless attacks that will surely come to him or Hillary, whomever is chosen as our candidate? May be. But I know Hillary and her team can. She and Bill proved that with the cruel attacks, even to the point of a rediculous impeachment trial, that they can ride out the storm and emerge stronger than ever.
I will vote for which ever candidate my party selects as its nominee. I pray we make the right choice.