Since I cannot remember which channel I was watching at the time, I cannot find the video, but on one of the morning cable news nets I saw Amy Kremer of Tea Party Express ranting, in a southern belle kind of genteel way, that Mitt Romney does not represent the party and that the Tea Party will resist having this candidate shoved down their throats as it were. It rang a lot of chimes for me.
In 2008, commencing with the May 31 Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on the votes from Florida and Michigan, and concluding with the most shameful spectacle of a viable candidate who had won the popular vote being walked out onto the convention floor in order to halt a completely staged “roll call vote,” Democrats have said the same thing. Not all Democrats are satisfied with the 2008 candidate who is now the incumbent candidate. The dissatisfaction was reflected in the New Hampshire primary results yesterday. Barack Obama drew in appreciably fewer votes than Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. He won 82% of the Democratic Primary vote there, was opposed by more than a dozen challengers, none of whom managed to exceed the write-in vote, which garnered a rough 10% of the total with no bankroll, public speakers, town halls, or physical presence on the ground by a declared write-in candidate.
It is time for the Democratic Party to wake up to a reality, as much as we love Hillary Clinton, and hard as she tried, she was not in 2008 and is not now able to effect unity in a party that she did not tear apart. The task of unifying the party belonged to Barack Obama who campaigned on a claim that he would unify the entire nation. He has accomplished neither, and the reason is that he did not heal the wound from which the country was bleeding four years ago. He did nothing to support homeowners facing foreclosure, unemployed Americans, and students who could not afford tuition. He responded to the BP oil disaster with paralysis, and chose to waste 18 months pushing a faulty and wanting health care bill when people were suffering from poverty and joblessness. So, in short, placing HRC on the ballot under the name of a failing and flailing candidate will not effect his reelection. We will not even entertain such a ridiculous idea which is put forth by those who assure us that it will not happen anyway. (So why even raise it?)
You have to love seniors. The very experienced who have seen so much and have lived through bad times before know what it takes to fix things. They no longer have to worry about pinks slips. They have faced so much in life that they do not care what they say. Devil-may-care, they say what is on their minds. Here are two of them.
Specter: Dump Obama for Hillary
January 10, 2012|By Tom Infield, INQUIRER STAFF WRITERShould President Obama dump Joe Biden as his running mate and replace him with Hillary Clinton?
Arlen Specter was asked that hot-potato question, circulating in some Democratic circles, in a meeting Tuesday with The Inquirer editorial board.
His answer showed that the former 30-year senator hasn’t lost his knack for blunt talk – nor, perhaps, his bitterness over what he feels were slights from Obama during his failed 2010 Senate campaign.
Here is another senior icon.
Another lefty celebrity says he’s heartbroken and dismayed by Obama
posted at 1:20 pm on January 11, 2012 by Tina Korbe
In a recent appearance on the “Smiley & West” radio program hosted by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, Harry Belafonte lamented the president’s lack of a moral compass — and cautioned other discontents to be wary of the proposition that the president just needs a second term to prove himself. Said Belafonte:
I have, over the years of Obama’s tenure, occasionally clashed with younger folks here who have been sure that older people do not “get it.” I beg to differ. Guys and gals old enough to be my parents have a compendium of knowledge and experience we have yet to gain. It never hurts to listen to voices of experience. They, after all, have little to lose at this point, and the young? Their futures are on the line. It might serve them well to attend to these voices and ask themselves where their values are: in fixing what is wrong, or in continuing to prop up the failed and ineffectual candidate that thrilled them with all the texting four years ago.
It was a cheap trick, kids. I got some of those tweets too when hurricanes ravaged the Gulf Coast. All he wanted was for my Red Cross donations to go through his website. Well, I know how to find the Red Cross on my own. I did not need him to tell me how to arrive there, and he does not know how to get us back to where we need to be. If he did, surely he would have made his huge effort by now.
FDR did not win four elections by saying that he needed another term. He rolled up his sleeves, showed us what was possible, and an impressed and grateful populace gladly reelected him. No, I did not witness this history, but I learned from it nonetheless – from folks older than I. We all should.
Still4Hill 
Honestly, there is a healthy and very necessary debate to be had about energizing young voters in this country in the 21st century, but I honestly think you’re selling far too many younger people short here. I worked with several people old enough to be my parents that were far more starry eyed and taken with the idea of Barack Obama – so young and hip, etc, etc – than the twenty and thirty year olds who were discussing the platforms and debate performances of the candidates. And these weren’t young up-and-coming policy wonks either. I was in the performing arts field at the time.
It’s easy to look at the type of campaign he ran and the fact that, after the primary, he did garner a large portion of the under 35 vote and say that “Hillary Clinton would’ve won if it weren’t for those pesky kids,” but it gets you nowhere with them and neither does the patronizing attitude that they should sit back and learn as they watch the grown ups even though they are now pretty grown up themselves. There is a rather sizable segment of that demographic that is rather well informed politically. Despite their lack of years, it might take more to wow them than a candidate proving they can operate a smartphone. The more a candidate or their acolytes dismiss the youth vote as a bunch of vapid followers who need to be schooled in the fine art of exercising one’s civic duty, the less support that candidate will get from them.
But what could I possibly know about anything seeing as I’m under forty.
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No it isn’t about operating a smartphone. It IS about how to keep families in their homes, food on the table, and paychecks coming in to pay for all of that and tuition too. All of that had been addressed by HRC on the Senate floor (although few wanted to pay attention – too impressed with Obama’s speeches on the stump) and again on the trail – in fact once again after the convention was over. She was using the oh-so-old-fashioned FDR model, and was kicked to the curb.
No, age doesn’t actually matter as much as willingness to listen does. Rather than swooning over rhetoric, listening to content helps. If people had, they would have realized what they were getting: an empty suit. And it is STILL empty.
I am not saying that all the answers lie in old models. Of course we need new ones, but brushing the old to the side (a fact of American culture not to be denied- I can write books about how we have done this in the field of education alone) could be a mistake sometimes, and there was a definite factor of ageism in the last election – it was actually stated that the day of the “boomer” had passed.
While the party needs badly to develop new talent coming up, we also do well to lend an ear to older voices. I just thought I would give these guys their forum. They, too, had something invested in Obama.
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Whoever said that “the day of the ‘boomer’ had passed” couldn’t have been more wrong. One of the reasons that there is no young political talent waiting in the wings is because the same generation that had said “never trust anyone over thirty,” now can’t seem to trust anyone under fifty. I think that the media’s war on age has a lot to do with that and many ‘boomers’ seem to see the young as unintelligent usurpers unless it’s their own kids or grandkids.
The ‘boomer’ and ‘pre-boomer’ generations run government and I don’t see that changing any time soon, particularly when the youngest voters are blamed for “negative” election results when they turn out (2008) or when they stay home (2010) and are all but excluded from the process except when there is unpaid labor required. Come on, boomers, give the kids a break!
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I will as soon as I see them in masses calling Obama on his failed policies and not trying to get him another term.
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And backing whom, pray tell? There is no other Democrat on the ballot. They will go with the lesser of two evils or stay home.
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I’ve been doing that for a while and I’m 21. To be fair, I don’t see many older voices in mass calling Obama out on his failed policies either. But both young and old are disillusioned with him.
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I agree entirely.
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I am 36 and I can quite honeslty say I am tired of people in my generation thinking we should throw older people out with the bath water, their time has passed.I can’t remember how many times i heard grandma clinton during the 08 elections. I don’t know how President Obama is going to energize anyone this election. I don’t know any democrate who is overly excited about voting or campaigning this year.
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I haven’t found anyone who’s really exciteed about this election either. Mostly it’s because there is no primary fun on the Democrat side, but quite a few of the people I’ve talked to are just not that into Obama. They will vote for him because any one of the Republicans is far worse, but they aren’t particularly happy about it.
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It’s pretty sad. I think we as a country need to get rid of the party system and anyone who wants to run name goes on the ballot and whoever wins wins.
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Or we need to get the money out. I joined Dylan Ratigan’s movement. A level playing field would help. We also need to completely overhaul the primary systems. Again I point to Will Bower’s brilliant plan. These are great old parties – which is not to say there is no room for new ones, but they need revision – rule revision, finance revision, and primary revision.
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Lawrence Lessig has a book on this topic out called Republic Lost. I’m finding it very interesting.
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YOU ARE SO RIGHT ABOUT SENIORS – BUT, WE CAN’T TOTALLY BLAME THE YOUNG – HOW ABOUT THE NEWS MEDIA THAT PORTRAYS ANYONE OVER 50 AS ANCIENT – SINCE I AM 68 I DON’T FEEL ANYWHERE CLOSE TO BEING ON MY WAY OUT, MENTALLY OR PHYSICALLY. OBAMA IS A DISGRACE TO THIS COUNTRY AND SHOULD BE THROWN OUT OF OFFICE NOT UP FOR RE-ELECTION. MITT ROMNEY HASN’T A CLUE BUT THINKS HE KNOWS EVERYTHING. OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM IS NOT WORKING FOR THE PEOPLE THAT HAVE FOUGHT, DIED, AND PAID TAXES TO KEEP THIS COUNTRY FREE. WAKE -UP YOUNG OR OLD – OUR FREEDOM RESTS ON EVERYONE!
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I don’t think I actually laid blame here except on the DNC where it squarely belongs.
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The senior Dems I encountered in 2008, some of whom were Hillary supporters until she suspended, were party players – extremely uncomfortable with bucking the party. While most of them used the internet to a limited degree, they got their news from CNN, and regional newspapers – primarily. No blogs, no activist websites. They were unaware of the dirty dealings from Camp Obama, and refused to believe, when told. Their political identity was wrapped up in party. Period.
The young people, as Still noted, were blind in their worship of Obama. Too young and inexperienced to realize that their candidate was a product – and a defective one, at that. He had been polished, packaged, and marketed in a way the trust fund, ivy league, bong-hittin’ kids would buy into, completely. And, when they found salvation in Barack, their peers saw how cool they were, and wanted to be in with the cool kids, too. They were only too happy to be saved, baptized, and sent into the world to spread the gospel of Barack.
It is true that the very young, too idealistic to question Barack, too inexperienced to recognized they were being played like a Les Paul, were brain washed and put to work as soldiers in Barack’s Army.
Most of the thirty-somethings and many of the forty-somethings I spoke with in 2008, saw no connection between advancing women’s rights and voting for Hillary Clinton. Many of them failed to see the need to continue to fight for equality – they thought that was already a done deal. And, influenced by Hollywood and other pop culture representatives, they thought Barack was the total package – and hell, if he wasn’t, so what?! Politics was a dirty game and no one could be trusted. They knew he would not allow abortion rights to be tampered with (big shock there!), and that was their real concern.
A lot of people of all ages failed to do their homework in 2008, and we will pay the price for sometime to come. While the trust funders are back home in Mom and Dad’s basement, waiting to tap into that nest egg just waiting for them, they have little to worry about – at least for this moment.
The older folks who supported their party above all else – well, they may not fare quite as well as the young guys. Their lives will likely be effected in a fairly substantial way before the reign of Barack comes to an end.
Both the idealism of the young, and the conformity of the old helped put Obama in office. And we haven’t even begun to pay the price for those mistakes.
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So only the boomers can save the world? I hear this same argument all the time. And it’s no more credible this time around. That’s why the party can’t work on getting some real talent on the bench. The more the “generation of pot smoking, intellectually vacent, losers” stereotype is engrained into the culture and particularly into the political culture, younger people will stay out. Why would they get involved where they are viewed as defective and only good for envelope-stuffing and sign constructing.
I’ve found senior voters to be quite asute (as I have encountered them in my current job) as Still has mentioned, but I have seen a fair bit of party loyalty at work in some as well. Even so, I think that voting for the principles of a particular party when it’s a lesser-of-two-evils situation isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
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No but it’s not a good thing, either. It’s complacent if anything and Americans of all ages are responsible.
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Complacence or compliance depending on how you look at it. Many people, young and old, feel an obligation to vote even when no candidate really wins them over for many reasons mostly related to that old phrase “patriotic duty”. So they go and pick whomever they detest the least. Your right, it isn’t really great, but the motivation behind it is good and the country is better if people feel that sense of involvement, in my opinion.
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Prior to the 2010 midterm elections and feeling quite unenergized, I wrote this about voting.
http://discourseincsharpminor.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/why-vote/
As always, Still, please discard this if you don’t want it here.
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I trust what you post. Have I ever deleted anything you posted? I don’t think so.
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I always feel the need to put the option up there since I usually don’t ask before I post links to my blog and the content there does have a different tone. Just trying to be courteous
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You’re very courteous. You might like this – a guy around my age, but says a few things similar to what you said in your post.
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/shes-not-running-but-hillary-clinton/
We must all hang together or we will all hang together – something like that!
🙂
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OH! And I totally agree with it! It’s why I vote even when I don’t like the candidates. That said, I have always loved the write-in. In my very first election I came very close to joining Jesse Jackson’s write-in campaign. A looming vision of Nixon stopped me. I should have gone ahead. My husband would have divorced me on the spot sparing me years of misery. (OK – or maybe I just should have TOLD him I did. My bad!)
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If I ever just didn’t vote without a good reason for sitting out that election, I would either have to swear off political arguments for a few years (impossible in my house) or be called a hypocrite by my father every time we disagreed politically until the next election. Neither of those options is acceptable.
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My point was really rather simple – it was that we ought to listen to these older folks who are at a point where they have nothing to lose by speaking the truth.
And there is something to be done – we do not have to accept this ballot. We can fight the party. We might not win, but we can fight. They cannot put one name on a ballot and tell you that is your only choice. That is totalitarianism. We can be vocal and use all the tools at our disposal to protest. The party belongs to the people. Some of us are striking back.
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Unrelated to the above discussion…..
I just read this article… and am outraged..
Afghan Newlywed Girl Rescued From Torture
http://www.rferl.org/content/afghan_newlywed_girl_rescued_from_torture/24440207.html
How can such a thing happen? This is a 15 year old girl… and it was her wedding day! I just do not understand how people can be so heart and soulless.
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Clinton: Iran’s threats “provocative and dangerous” (3:05)
Jan. 11 – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says Iran’s threats to close the Strait of Hormuz are ”provocative and dangerous.” Deborah Lutterbeck reports. ( Transcript )
http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/01/11/clinton-irans-threats-provocative-and-da?videoId=228414966&videoChannel=1003
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Regarding the younger voters you expressed concern about dis, quite frankly, I wish to hell they had stayed out of the election in 2008. And my guess is that many of them wish the same – in view of the disappointment they have expressed in Barack.
As far as the older voters are concerned, you are right. I’m sure many of them are astute. Still made that point, as well. I was referring to some party loyals I know, who preferred to remain ignorant of the facts, choosing to just do what the ordered. I find that level of conformity to be extremely counterproductive, for the party and the country.
Obviously, SOME young people were well-informed, as were SOME older people. Likewise, I’m sure one or two Boomers were were not. The real issue is not age or generation. It’s whether or not the voter has taken the time to become adequately informed about the issues and the candidates. In 2008, there were too many poorly informed voters of every age group. That’s the group is the one that needs to stay away from politics.
If you believe that blind support of a political party – even when that party forsakes its ideals and principles, rigs the nominee election process, and has throws women under the bus – is a good thing, then I’m pretty sure we’re not going to share many of the same views.
Regarding Boomers saving the world – I’ll tell you this much – had the Dem Party not stolen the nomination from Hillary Clinton – you’re damn right. A Boomer would, indeed, currently be about the business of saving this country and the world.
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On one point you make: information. I remember HRC supporters being called “low information voters.” To a man (and woman) I have found that it was the Obama supporters who did not know the issues or the platform planks (when there were any planks – he stole them all from HRC)>
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Obviously each set of candidates from each party needs to be vetted individually, but for those who support causes including:
women’s rights,
racial and ethnic equality,
access to affordable, quality healthcare no matter what your “affordable” happens to be,
clean air and water,
responsible and intelligent foreign policy,
worker’s rights,
trying to impart some ethics into our financial system,
LGBT rights,
Safe products and food,
a security system that is not another boat to be floated or sunk on the fickle whims of the market,
the separation of church and state,
the existence and enrichment of a public education system,
and the general belief that someone value as a human being actually has very little to do with their bank account balance
then I fail to see a better option for them than the Democratic party (Full disclosure: I am a registered Democrat.). If an individual has absolutely no feeling either way about the candidates in a given race or the various issues they have raised during the campaign, but feels the duty to vote, then I think a vote based on party principles is understandable. That person is clearly running the risk of voting for someone, based on party affiliation, that does not share their exact beliefs on specific issues, but I place a higher value on someone feeling the urge to vote and doing so, then I place on every election going my way. If we dilute that call to civic action, even if that call is to do something as simple as casting a vote, we will lose more than elections. We should be encouraging involvement in our political system, not lament that it is not a privilege reserved for a few enlightened souls who “know best”. After all, an uninformed voter need not remain uninformed, especially now that the internet is so accessible but they do have to feel that they are not only able to participate in the process but that they are welcomed in that process. An individual who has made numerous comments relating to the importance of participation in the democratic process and has made calls for increased participation and in the political sphere here and around the world, and specifically to women and to young people, is none other than Secretary Clinton herself. Her word are both better thought out and more compelling than mine and they are all here in this site thanks to Still’s impeccable work.
There are always voters who are less informed. The point of campaigns is to reach out to those people who are not big followers of politics with a message that resonates with people from the least to the most informed. That isn’t brain washing, it’s how campaigns work and how they always have worked. I hate to point this out, but that’s always how the game has been played. Hillary Clinton was not a bad candidate for the voting blocks she did not dominate, but her campaign was lacking in those areas. Her campaign was boomer-centric, so even those one or two boomers who might have been less than politically brilliant were drawn to her.
Opinions and actions we dislike the most are also the ones that get our attention more often than not. Even so, painting whole groups with broad brushes is never a good idea. I think that, while most voters are not as steeped in the minutiae of politics and policy as most if not all of those here are, they are not as dumb as so many, even those in campaigns who try to pander to them, believe them to be.
Hope that I’m on to something here because those boomers who currently own our political system (from Congress and the Cabinet down to the smallest entities of local government) are all going to retire someday and my group – those who, with the exception of littleisis and a few like her, have been deemed by those here to be politically useless at best, will have to run this place. 🙂
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I agree that those here are pretty much steeped in politics and policy. Many worked in the last round of primary campaigns. When you refer to actions we dislike, a good many experienced the Team Obama action of very scary and intimidating people “getting in our faces” as instructed and yelling – inside our personal space. They were not explaining political points or policy stances, they were yelling very insulting racist and sexist language.
It’s hard to get behind a candidate who tolerated that behavior toward members of his own party – especially since he never personally reached out to us but sent a surrogate to do so – our candidate.
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I was referring to the people who vote with less knowledge than many here have. I don’t defend the candidate worshipers who can’t accept debate. I actually mentioned this in my own blog yesterday. I don’t understand political fandom at all except that I know it can make people crazy come election season.
They’re like political werewolves. They come out during the lights of the primaries and go nuts until a few weeks after the inauguration.
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freespirit I so agree with everthing you said. But a big part was the DNC and the news media. Hillary would have been in that White house working on saving our country on jobs and keeping us secure if not for them. It is sad for me to think back to 2008 it was a nightmare.
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