A Little Even-Handedness (In Hopes That It Doesn't Offend)

NanceGreggs

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Sat Mar-15-08 08:03 PM
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A Little Even-Handedness (In Hopes That It Doesn't Offend)

Edited on Sat Mar-15-08 08:21 PM by NanceGreggs

A Little Even-Handedness (in Hopes That it Doesn’t Offend)

While I appreciate that tensions are at an all-time high around here these days, perhaps a little overall perspective might be in order – or might be shot down in flames, as the case may be.

There have been endless posts about how Obama doesn’t know what he’s up against when it comes to the inevitable Republican propaganda catapult being hauled out, readied for battle, and aimed in his direction.

The truth is that every time he’s been hit, he has not only survived, he has come out ahead of the game.

By the same token, Hillary came into the game having to face years of pent-up hatred from the RW, as a living symbol of everything despised by their ilk: from being the wife of the man who had the audacity to successfully challenge the inevitability of a George H.W. Bush presidency to being a woman who didn’t know her place – which, in GOP terms, lies somewhere between barefoot-and-pregnant and being seen but never, ever, under any circumstances, heard.

The inconvenient truth is that the GOP started preparing the onslaught of lies and innuendo to be aimed at Hillary years ago. They didn’t foresee (just as many Democrats did not foresee) that Barack Obama would come out of nowhere and become the front-runner.

No doubt they are busily working overtime to correct that oversight even as we speak. But to say that Hillary has been ‘completely vetted’, and there is nothing left for the Right to throw at her is, at best, naïve – and, at worst, delusional; almost as delusional as thinking that Obama is the darling of the MSM, and faces smooth sailing' from here on in.

But the real lesson to be learned here is that the Democrats have, for far too long, made their decision of who to run based solely on what nastiness the GOP might have up their sleeves, ready to unleash on some poor, unsuspecting candidate.

This was the point of my most recent post: if Christ himself was to try and run on the Democratic ticket, so-called cooler heads would prevail by declaring him too vulnerable to swiftboating to be a viable candidate.

I don’t pretend to be privy to the inner workings of the GOP. However, I would bet everything I own on the fact that while they consider who would be best to rally their base, and hopefully appeal to Independents and Undecideds, the Republican powers-that-be rarely waste their time considering what the Democrats will think of their choice, what the Liberals will come up with to undermine their candidate, what the other side will dig up that is unsavory, unpalatable – or out-and-out untrue.

Although I have never been a Hillary supporter in terms of the presidential candidacy race, I give her credit for many things – and for one thing above all. Knowing she is universally hated by Republicans, having been warned that they would say or do anything to stop her, having no doubt been advised that her chances of surviving the never-ending mud-slinging that she would meet upon announcing her candidacy were slim at best, she said, “Fuck it, boys, I’m going in.”

At the same time, Obama was surely warned, repeatedly so, that being a black man – and a young, fight-the-status-quo man at that – would be the end of a promising career that could have flourished if only he’d waited, if only he’d not been so anxious to rock the boat. Again, like Hillary, he said, “Fuck it, guys, I’m going in.”

By my count, that’s two candidates who are willing to take-on the mealy-mouthed-but-safe establishment; by my count, that’s two Democrats willing to not only step up to the plate, but more than willing and able to hit one out of the ballpark for all Americans.

Yesterday’s new is that Hillary’s campaign has been tombstoned by the remarks of Geraldine Ferraro. Today’s news is that Obama’s campaign is over due to remarks by his church’s pastor.

The truth is that neither of these things is equivalent to a yawn, no less certain death. Tomorrow’s headlines will bring bad tidings to one campaign or the other – and so the pattern will continue, for weeks, if not months, to come.

While the vitriol between the two “camps” – Obama supporters v Hillary supporters – rages on here and elsewhere, while those of us cocooned in our comfortable little website world might want to believe that our party is irretrievably divided, that cries of I will NEVER vote for that man/woman are actually reflective of the voters-at-large, the truth is that in the end, we Democrats will come together, we will unite, we will prevail.

May the best man or woman win – and if we, as individuals, have even half the chutzpah these two candidates have shown, the battle of (D) v (R) has already been won.