After much hope, this has become the most Depressing primary I can remember

Armstead

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Fri Feb-29-08 03:28 PM
Original message

After much hope, this has become the most Depressing primary I can remember

Edited on Fri Feb-29-08 03:34 PM by Armstead

I know, I know. It's common to say negative things about primaries (or elections) at this stage of the game. Nerves are raw, it's all been said, there's been destructive divisiveness,and there's a general exhaustion.

But I gotta tell ya, as someone in my mid-50's who's lived through a lot of campaign seasons, this one has becomes about the most depressing and ennervating one I can remember.

It's SO WEIRD. Here we are, at a point in history when the Democrats have all of the stars in alignment for a landslide -- and a major swing of the pendulum towards the left. And the GOP had a bunch of clowns who were beating each other up mercilessly.

We started out with a good crop of candidates, representing a fairly broad spectrum. And the candidates were serious and substantial, whether you agreed with a particular one or not.

Although I knew he wouldn't win, Kucinich had at least a shot at injecting some good old liberal populism into the mix. Edwards seemed to have great potential to combine a center-left populism with mainstream appeal. We had some serious and experienced politicians in Dodd, Biden and Richardson. And we had two rockstars in the center, Hillary and Obama.

It was frustrating that Hillary seemed to have it locked up at the beginning. But it seemed that at least there would be a clear contest of ideas and approach as the primariues went on, with Hillary as the centrist DLC candidate against either a traditional democratic liberal or a progressive populist.

Then it degenerated into yet another battle of personalities. To heck with all those messy real issues. It slid into the Hillary Gang versus the Obama Cult. Rather than any meaningful debate over core ideals and specific substance, it became a contest of The Centrist versus The Centrist.

Real issues were boiled down to a choice between this and this. Relatively small and symbolic differences were magnified, while there is little examination of the forces that have gotten the US into its present predicament.

Instead of talk of fundamental reform, we end up with symbolic tinkering around the edges.

True Universal Health Care? Forget it. Off the table. Corporate Power? Off the table. The Free Trade Scam? Off the table.

So, rather than a productive tug-of-war with healthy differences being the focus, we end up with meaningless polarization and divisiveness over what candidate said what mean thing. Or which candidate is the Anti-Christ.

And we engage in the diversion of identity politics, as we dissect and attack each other and the other candidate over perceptions of sexism or racism, rather than the substance of what each candidate stands for.

I am a supporter of Obama now. My first choice Edwards is gone. He got Rockstarred off the stage, and with him went the last vestiges of a "grown up" tone to the campaign.

I appreciate the hope and enthusiasm that Obama has brought to the process. That's the one bright spot at this point.

I sure hope the General Election phase at least will be more substantial.