Well, today is the last contest in the Presidential Primary Season. First a couple of predictions:

Obama will win South Dakota by less than 10 points, and will win in Montana by less than 15 points. I may be wrong on Montana, and it may be a walk for him there (because every democratic supporter I know there supports Obama, but this isn’t really a fair characterization, because I haven’t met a Clinton supporter yet this year.)

Which brings me to the topic of this post, and my last of the the primary analysis. I have in the past said a number of times that it is a good thing that Clinton has remained in the race, from an ideological point of view. But she is finished, her race is over. She will celebrate a successful campaign tonight, and may even concede, but she will not get the nomination, not tonight, not in August.

Now a lot of people are looking for answers as to why she lost: some people say it was poor organization, some people say it was her abrasive personality that turned a lot of people off, some claimed it was black voters who voted for one of their own instead of her. It is true that Clinton never considered the possibility that she might not win. I watched an interview she did with Katie Couric last year, where Couric asked Clinton if she had considered what she would do if she didn’t get the nomination, and she responded, “You just can’t think like that, Katie.” As if, don’t mention it, because if you do, you are beaten. OR, don’t mention it because there is no possible way it will happen. Clinton and everyone else believed that she was supposed to be the nominee of the Party. It was time to go back and retry something that “worked” while William Clinton was President. It was time for a correction back to when things were supposed to be so good for the US. She was “inevitable”.

But in fact, this didn’t happen. She anticipated having the nomination wrapped up by Super Tuesday, but THAT didn’t happen. February was a REAL bad month for Clinton. And she has been fighting for survival ever since. But now the complaint is “sexism”. Both Clintons themselves have charged that the entire media establishment was sexist in their coverage. That they handed the nomination to a man, rather than letting a woman have a fair chance. People would rather have a black person with a Y chromosome over a woman, and this was just was just not fair. Her suppoerters recently have launched a campaign to decry the stealing of this election away from a woman, saying that this is just the way it goes.

This argument represents the idea that 1) it was Clinton’s TURN, it was her entitlement to run, and not only run but win the nomination, and not only win the nomination but win the Presidency, and 2) that people vote only in blocs, and that if the candidate looks like you, you should vote for them, regardless of what their political positions are.

Well, let me debunk both of these myths now. It was not Clinton’s turn. Her turn to form national policy was in 1993, when she royally screwed up the health insurance reform. She demonstrated then that she was incompetent to deliver something that would work for American people, and while it was defeated for other reasons, she “turn” at national policy formation was a dismal failure. She had another turn to form National Policy while in the US Senate, and she failed again by voting to authorize the War in Iraq. She played a tangible role in screwing the American people over with that and all other succeeding votes. Those supporters who are threatening to bolt their Party if they don’t get their way don’t mention the fact that the nomination can be seen in some other way than as a man versus a woman; instead, it should be seen as a pro-war versus anti-war candidate. Clinton supported the war, Obama did not. This is why many of the anti-war activists (including a large portion of the youth in this country) turned out not only to support Obama, the anti-war candidate, but also to fund his campaign. Clinton has NEVER apologized for her vote: she feels she shouldn’t have to, and that is fine. But now she is paying for it, and I say good. Any person who supported the war should be defeated in this election, I don’t care what Party they belong to, I don’t care what their other positions are. If they cast a vote for the War or had anything to do with its continual funding, they need to not only be turned out of office, but they SHOULD be brought up on war crimes charges for their support for this criminal activity. Clinton had her turn, and she blew it time and time again.

There was some person that I heard about who was weeping and crying saying that she thought that before she died she wanted to have the opportunity to vote for a woman for President, but now, because some young upstart has stolen the election, she will never get her chance. The logic behind this is confounding to me. It would seem that Clinton kicked down a number of obstacles and set the standard for female candidates in the future. Now, I anticipate EVERY presidential race will have a female candidate in it somewhere. But should the people of this country have supported Clinton just because she was a woman? This question is at the heart of the second premise which the Clinton supporters have adopted. They believe that all women should have voted for Clinton, because of “sisterhood”. “Sisterhood” should trump all, and if the woman doesn’t win, it’s not because she was a lousy candidate, but it is because of misogyny. We can admit that there have been a number of very sexist comments by people who, for whatever reason, don’t like Clinton, including several people in the news. This is clear, and it is unfortunate.

But to appeal to this suggests 1) that Clinton couldn’t win just based on her policies, but must appeal to gender politics instead, 2) all males should vote for Clinton to demonstrate their liberatedness, and 3) all women should vote for Clinton just because she is a woman. If you have a different opinion and are a male, you are a misogynist who hates women, and fears the possibility of living under one as President, and if you are a woman, you are sell out to the cause. At the very same time, these same people complain about how all the black people got together to vote for Obama just because he is black. Basically, the argument goes that if you are a democratic voter and vote against Clinton, there is something morally wrong with you. But by this argument, the other half of the country who aren’t women and all white people should vote for John McCain. White men get their candidate, white women get their candidate, blacks (apparently, black women aren’t among these folks, because they all vote for the black man over the white woman, because their race apparently trumps their gender) get their candidate, Asians and Latinos (who don’t have anyone running) apparently wouldn’t get a vote (?) These are the implications of this sort of argument.

How wicked this argument is! It is the same argument that blind supporters of Israel use: If you are opposed to the policies of the State of Israel, you are obviously anti-semitic, just like the Nazis. It is little more than political blackmail. Sure you have a choice, but you better make the right one, or we’re going to vote for someone who will REALLY stick it to women. If we don’t get our way, we, as middle aged white women, are going to vote for the guy who has said he will use a pro-life position as a qualification for the bench, who will continue the policies of Hillary Clinton in terms of pursuit of the war in Iraq and the prosecution of the war in Iran, and who has courted the support of whack job fundamentalist apocalyptics like Rev. Hagee. If America is not made to accept Hillary Clinton as its president, in other words, if we don’t get our way, we’re going to monkey wrench the system so everyone suffers.

Real juvenile, Hillary Clinton Supporters. You are perfectly willing to play the game while it looks like the one you want will win it. But when things don’t go that way, you threaten to screw everyone over. Yep, that’s precisely how the game is played- in Second grade.

Let em reframe the argument for Democrats, since they seem on the verge of once more snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: Your choice is between someone who voted for the war and someone who opposed it. It is not between a man and a woman. (You know, I can just imagine it: if this wouldn’t have come out now, it would have come out later, or if this was the way Clinton supporters won their fight, by saying the system was sexist, then they would have to do it all over again in the fall when Clinton had to run against another man) The system is sexist, that’s true. You want to make a difference? You want a woman to run successfully and win? Run a better woman. Run Angela Davis, run anyone but someone who voted for the war. Then people like me, a white man in my early thirties could support her. I would have been happy to vote for a woman this year. The first votes I ever cast for President in 1996 were for Marsha Feinland and Kate McClatchy, of the Peace and Freedom Party, while I was in the Marine Corps and living in Japan (I wrote them on my Indiana Absentee ballot). I would be very happy to vote for a woman, but I will not vote for a person who has some responsibility for the war our country is in. Clinton should be held responsible for her part in the war, and at the VERY LEAST outright denied the opportunity to serve as Commander in Chief. A person who was so happy to get us into war that she refused to apologize for it even after it turned into a mess, and voted to try to start yet another war with Iraq’s neighbors does not deserve to be the head of the US military.

Period. If Clinton supporters don’t get what they want, a few of them will vote for McCain. I say good riddence, because them choosing to vote for the white man over the black man, for the guy who will REALLY stick it to them rather than the one who beat their choice, demonstrates that they are racist: they will always prefer the white candidate over the black candidate, and the sooner those influences are out of the left side of the American political spectrum and are on the right side where they belong, standing shoulder to shoulder with the forces of reaction and fascism, the better off we’ll all be.

And if you don’t believe me, allow me to submit the opinion of one woman, who happens to be a supporter of Clinton, who happens to (by her own words, apparently) be getting ready to support the White candidate. Her name is Harriet Christian, and you can watch her stating her opinions by following this link. Pay particular attention to the first minute of this rant, where she refers to Obama as an “inadequate Black male”. I have a feeling that her sentiments are not isolated.

I tried to be objective, but if these are the people who support Clinton, I am glad I support Obama. See ya Hillary, your turn is passed.

Tags: Clinton, DNC, Election, Hillary, misogynists, Obama, Primary, racists, sexists, Supporters