The Chris Moeller Archives

Our Democratic process-- an update

There has been no change in the Democratic Presidential race since last I wrote about it, nor will there be at this point, since Hillary Clinton, the party and media establishment candidate, has effectively sewn up the nomination. News reporters and media talking-heads obedient to their corporate paymasters have begun departing the campaign trail, in hot pursuit of other trivialities, as the Obama, Edwards, Dodd, Richardson, and Biden campaigns go sheepishly to their own slaughters, refusing to the finish to aggressively challenge the legislative record of the so-called "front-runner," and refusing to call out Clinton-- one of the greatest beneficiaries of political nepotism in U.S. history-- on her preposterous claim of being the "most-experienced" candidate in the race.

One has to tune in to a televised Republican candidate debate to actually hear that particular Hillary talking-point disputed. Mitt Romney scored more guffaws last night by evoking Monica Lewinsky's name in his attack, "She (Clinton) has never run a corner store. She hasn't run a state. She hasn't run a city. She hasn't run anything. And the idea that she could learn to be president, you know, as an internship, just doesn't make any sense." Only Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, among her Democratic opponents, have been willing to risk the party's wrath of challenging Clinton, and they, of course, have virtually nothing to risk, as the party leadership, along with most of its central fundraisers, long ago distanced themselves from that old breed of liberal "kook"-- you know, those ancient FDR-inspired "kooks" that built an electoral majority for the party that lasted for nearly half a century.

On our weekly televised political talk shows, such as General Electric's "Meet the Press," the real issues facing the nation are avoided expertly and entirely as the talking-heads swoon instead over their own abilities to be so charmingly controlled and manipulated by the Clintons. Meanwhile, the party apparatus works overtime to hush all dissenting voices within. A primary season pushed ever earlier ensures that true progressives choosing to remain in the party will be rendered impotent a mere 10 months before the electoral cycle actually concludes, and with only a billion dollar Republican smear campaign standing in the way of their "compromise" candidate reaching the White House.

President Bush's approval rating has plummeted to 25%, but that's a Michael J. Fox-like number compared with the Atlantis-level 11 percent registered by our Democratic-led Congress, which has betrayed its electoral champions at every turn-- issues ranging from the protection of Habeus Corpus, to illegal wiretapping, to the Iraqi bloodbath and the coming military attack on Iran, to impeachment. The Democrats, aside from having to face that same potentially-punishing electorate again in '08, seem to think they can just hold the ball until the clock runs out on Bush 43, forgetting though that the parties will be up for election again, as always, but the incompetent Bush, a proven failure, will be absent this time from the ballot, replaced instead with either a Romney, John McCain, or Rudolph Giuliani, each of whom evokes more competence than Bush, and that has each been at least marginally appealing to moderate, and even left-leaning voters, at one time or another during their political careers.

These Democrats, seemingly unaware of the difficult challenge before them, are finally content to choose a candidate who projects less of a voice than an echo to these Republican opponents, a candidate of their own who has ultimately towed the Bush line on Iraq, Iran, Guantanamo, Israel, Mexico, China, and Wall Street, and while simultaneously continuing to be the opposition party's most proven applause line and fundraiser. This year, the wedge issue of the general campaign will be the Democratic candidate at the top of the ticket herself, Hillary Clinton, and unlike the gay marriage "wedge" in 2004, the Dems won't be able to run from this one.

posted by CM @ 3:33 PM