With all due respect, since I have (1) been pretty neutral relative to 98% of Democrats and progressives and (2) I agree that regardless of how Clinton ran her campaign, BOTH her, Obama and each of their supporters have to chill out and realize that neither candidate will win in November against a tremendously flawed candidate without the other’s supporters campaigning for him/her.
At the beginning of the primaries, all that we heard and spoke about is how deep and excellent a field of candidates the Democrats had and how pitiful the republican field was. And guess what, the republicans ended up with a tired, old, out of touch, double talking, confused, angry candidate who isn’t even liked by his own party.
This should be a gimme. Even with the whole "maverick" thing. Even with the whole "war hero who was tortured" thing. The fundies hate McCain – and even though he chased them for months and finally got a few endorsements, that was still embarrassingly dropped (thanks to our own Troutfishing) and further split those factions of the republican party.
McCain the foreign policy "expert" doesn’t know Shiites from Sunnis from Iran from al Qaeda. He doesn’t know what the troop levels are or should be. He says that things are calm in areas where there were multiple car bombings within 24 hours of his comments. He says we should be in Iraq for 100 years, except that we will be victorious and have our troops home in four years, despite saying that calling for a deadline is equal to surrender.
He admits to not knowing shit about the economy and thinks that a gas tax holiday would solve all of our problems. He wants to kick Russia, RUSSIA! out of the G-8. He says we should get rid of all earmarks – yet he gives that speech from places that were built with earmarks. And then he says that we shouldn’t get rid of all earmarks.
Even the corporate media is calling his repeated verbal fuck ups "senior moments". His policies are against what a large majority of this country want. He voted with Bush 100% of the time in 2008 and 95% in 2007, that is, when he even bothered to show up and vote. He would appoint extremist judges to the SCOTUS. He has a stellar record of voting against the troops and veterans (that is, when he decides to show up and vote).
He was involved in a huge taxpayer funded bailout of one of his sugar momma wife’s buddies (Charles Keating) and broke his own campaign finance laws before taking his name off of any new reform bills. His ideas for health care will probably result in less treatment, less coverage, higher prices and more dead Americans. He voted for torture.
And this angry, hated, old, unstable, out of touch man is running dangerously close to both Obama and Clinton – and the truth is that, regardless of the Democratic primary, he should lose by 6% - 10% and get no more than 175 electoral votes.
This is not about Clinton staying in the race until now – sure the numbers were well against her, but this was a landmark run by a candidate who is STILL winning races. To further this point and at the risk of sounding like everyone else, I’ll just say, "what digby said".
Both sides of the Democratic contest have put a lot of sweat, energy and emotion into this race. But the bottom line is very simple: John McCain is the worst thing for this country – especially now (just on SCOTUS alone, let alone the dozens of other issues that BOTH Obama and Clinton stand for). And I don’t care if Hillary supporters think that this was stolen from them or if the media was unfair to her or if Obama supporters think that the Clinton campaign was unfair or dirty or mean or whatever else.
The end result will almost definitely be one of two things: (1) President John McCain or (2) President Barack Obama. And this little guy has a much better shot growing up in a country where John McCain will just go the hell away.
And that holds true for the needless vitriol of "Hillary should shut the hell up and go home" – guess what? When the races are done tomorrow and it is apparent to her that Obama has enough superdelegates, she will stop her campaign. Hell, there are already numerous signs that she has started to do that. Just to be fair, that also holds true to the "screw Obama – I’m voting for McCain, or not voting at all". We get it – you are pissed. Clinton ran a campaign that came oh-so-close. But oh-so-close doesn’t mean shit in the end, sorry..
So to both of those groups - pretty please, with sugar on top, shut the fuck up.
McCain is worse than Bush. He is Bush in maverick’s clothing. Just older, angrier and more hated by his party.
He is the enemy – let’s stop the stupid mud fight and look at the task ahead of us. The Democratic primary being over is the end of nothing. It is just the beginning. So strap yourself in and work harder than you have worked over the past few months. McCain is much, MUCH worse than either Obama or Clinton at their absolute worst, and his associations are much MUCH worse than either Obama’s or Clinton’s worst surrogate or supporter.
If you can’t do that, then just go the hell away. Your services are not needed in this election.