Turning On A Dime
I've long thought that Obama was the worst of the top three Dem candidates. But there was something I always knew was worse than an Obama candidacy, which I made my peace with last week: a protracted race where two candidates had to get down in the dirt and fight it out, each winning several top states, while a Republican starts leading early.
To that end: New Hampshire, what the fuck is wrong with you? You had a chance to solidify a nominee and his narrative and you fucking blew it. And then you gave John McCain a victory that can carry him through the end of the season, when we'll be entering our brokered convention with our candidates all bloody. You deserve six more fucking years of Senator Sununu.
I was prepared a couple of weeks ago to burn in outrage if N.H. didn't go for Hillary, but, well, I'm pretty fucking inconsistent. Competitive primaries are not helpful.
Edit: All right, this is not fair to the good people of New Hampshire.
More to the point: I don't actually like liking politics. If the world worked in a remotely sane, fair, comprehensible way, I might not mind them, or might just not be interested. As this is not the case, I feel like I have to read the news, and read the analysis, and spend many hours just so I think I have some handle on what is happening. I need to do this to get some peace inside my head, to be able to go to sleep thinking, "okay, maybe the world will be all right in the end." Because when I'm seriously worried about the state of the world, I can't deal with anyone or anything else in my life.
And I cannot deal with two come-from-behind victories that place the state of the nomination in total doubt within the course of the week. God help me, I just can't. I can't not be able to predict what's going to happen. It is rapidly driving me insane. I will take a Clinton victory, or an Obama victory, or an Edwards victory, and process it, and be okay with it, and look forward to the general election with optimism, because they've all got lots of pluses. But I just can't bear the thought of this race going on one minute longer, please Jesus God Almighty.
They shoot horses, don't they?
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You keep managing to perfectly say what I didn't know I was thinking. Keep at it!
Um, it's only the first primary, and you want it all sewn up already? Then what exactly is the point of the primary system, in your opinion? And we don't need conventions anymore then, as the decision should be made way before the sumer?
We have several months for every one in the country to decide who they like. Sadly, all the primaries front-load now because all the idiot political coverage wants to anoint a candidate in January. Please, after Iowa one of my coworkers asked me who I was going to vote for now that Hillary was "out of the running." After one caucus and no primaries!
Of course I'm glad that my girl won. But I also think that every primary vote should count, and the folks who don't live in New Hampshire and Iowa should also get to voice their opinions. On ALL the candidates.
Honey, I'm just ranting. I'm going to be pissed off no matter what the outcome, because, frankly, I hate America just that much.
Fucking place always serves up exactly what I don't want at exactly the wrong time. A passionate and pugnacious governor is leading? No, we'll give you a patrician flip-flopper from Massachusetts! A brilliant and competent senator is threatening to break the glass ceiling? No, we'll give you a calculatedly moderate senator repeating the Clinton formula without anybody noticing! The moderate senator is at least going to have a smooth nomination ride that leaves us with a strong nominee? No, we'll suddenly give his opponent an insane boost that ensures they'll be fighting dirty for months! Democrats have won everything? No, Republicans get everything they want anyway, and then some!
I don't have sufficient words for how sick I am of American politics. Even the prospect of having my vote count for something is a hollow victory: I care far, far less about getting my choice of candidate than I do about laying the groundwork for a November victory. And we were hours away from that happening, but no, we have to keep having this goddamned fight between the two candidates who are in fact the two most similar in the entire race, a fight that is only going to end in bitter tears.
I don't understand how "laying the groundwork for a November victory" is easier the more time we have. It's not like constructing a building. Politics thrives on unpredictability and the thwarting of the expectations game. It has so much more to do with psychology than with preparedness. People pay the most attention to the latest developments.
And as I said last night, the longer we go without a nominee, the longer the Republicans lack a target to attack. I don't understand why this is a bad thing.
The effect of an intra-party fight on a candidate is in no way predictable. Gore's battle with Bradley seemed to do him little good; Bush's battle with McCain made him, unfortunately, a harder-working candidate.
And I don't understand why somehow you think the Republican race is more settled than the Democratic race right now. It seems obvious to me that neither is settled at all.
There is a difference between Democrats tearing each other down and Republicans tearing them down, and one of the few advantages that early primaries usually confer is the chance for one candidate to rise early and rally the party behind him.
And while the Republicans don't have a candidate yet either, a McCain victory is the worst possible outcome because it boosts their best candidate back into viability while probably taking their worst candidate out of it.
And goddammit, I'm not going to be rational about the fucking election for a while. If you want to be excited please go right ahead, but understand that I'm going to be freaking the fuck out from now through November. I find unexpected developments absolutely intolerable and when people try to deal with me as though I were human I am going to take their fucking heads off.
Now I'm going to try to gather enough stability to cope with the idea of not knowing who we're going to nominate for another goddamn motherfucking month from hell and hopefully I will approach something resembling calm by the next news cycle.
Having gotten that out of my system,
1) I see advantages now to a Clinton candidacy, and an Obama one, and an Edwards one, and even a lengthy primary season. I see so many advantages that I don't think I have much critical thinking ability left, but I am able to rally some optimism.
2) In case it's not clear, politics are my inspiration but not my subject matter in this post. This is about my attempt to deal with a situation that matters immensely to me but that I have neither any understanding of nor any control over. I'm not really prepared to go point for point.