I'm an almost 55 year old housewife, living in Minnesota, raised in Chicago. I've been aware of politics since the 1960 Election, and came of political age pretty young, when I worked for the campaign of RFK in the spring of 1968. I was at the Chicago Democratic National Convention that fateful year, outside in Grant Park as a demonstrator.
Since that time, and especially after Watergate, I haven't been active in politics. Cynicism got the better of me.
After 8 years of Bush, my feelings were, as Rachael Maddow puts is, "anybody with a D after their name". At first, I was leaning in favor of John Edwards, but as I got to hear more from Barak Obama, my opinion became weighted more and more in his favor. Until February, though, I would have been content with either Obama or Clinton. Not anymore. Though I will work for whoever the Democratic nominee is - because "anybody with a D after their name" is STILL better than McCain, I don't support HRC.
While it should be obvious by the name of the contests, most people, including Hillary Clinton and most of the pundidiots (My husband's favorite name for the talking-heads of the news) seem to have forgotten that. The talk about 'letting the voice of the people be heard' galls me everytime it's brought up. After HRC's speech in Florida (Wednesday, May 21, 2008) in which she actually compared the delegate mess to the 2000 election, I was infuriated. I wanted to shout "THIS IS A PRIMARY, PEOPLE! IT'S A MADE-UP CONTEST!"
The fact is that the idea of primaries is something created by the political parties. They aren't required. They aren't mandated. If the party convention wanted to throw out EVERY measure of primary results - delegate count, popular vote, states won, whatever - and simply choose their candidate at the convention itself, there's notihg to day they can't. Primary results aren't binding.
Now, don't get me wrong. I think taking the will of the people into account is a great thing. I think finding out who the rank and file of one's party will most strongly support in the actual election campaign is a good idea. But for candidates or pundidiots to bludgeon us over the head with talk of 'elected delegates' or 'popular votes' being THE criteria for selecting a nominee... and THEN to claim that if the 'popular vote' isn't used to determine the nominee that people are not having their votes counted just like they weren't counted in 2000... that makes my head explode. (Particularly when the candidate making such claims has changed her mind on which criteria should REALLY be used, depending on how she was fairing in that particular category on any particular day - not to mention has claimed that states with caucuses SHOULDN'T count toward any popular vote total - but I won't get into that now.)
Let me repeat: THIS IS A PRIMARY! It's NOT the election. NO ONE's vote "counts." It's nothing more than a popularity contest so that the political parties can give the illusion that they're listing to the people. And, to be fair, maybe they ARE listening - but that doesn't mean these votes mean anything more than a way for them to tell which way the wind is blowing. But will how states votes in the primary have any relation to how they vote in the actual election? The pundidiots try to convince us it does. It gives them something to talk about. I'm not so sure. I meant, does ANYBODY really believe KY and WV will vote Democratic in the fall? Does anybody really think CA and NY won't?
All in all, my point is annoyance with those who fret endlessly about who won THAT primary, or how well he/she did in THIS state and back it up with notoriously unreiable exit polls (and I freely confess, I've been guilty as charged on this). Face it, we won't know WHO the Democratic nominee is until it's annnounced on the convention floor, no matter how many ways the delegates, superdelegates, pledged delegates, elected delegates, add-in delegates, popular vote, phase of the moon, or any other 'measure' is sliced and diced in the media. Even should HRC concede to Obama (and I think Satan will be ice-skating to work before THAT happens), it could STILL all be overturned at the convention. Same goes for John McBush - I mean McCain.
My advice? Try to enjoy the summer, becuase the fall's gonna be a hell of a ride.