Reply #31: I think I would disagree with Pelosi if it weren't for that "four weeks to the November [View All]

[Peace Patriot]

election." I don't know how that happened--how the convention got scheduled so close to the election--but that is a powerful argument for ending Clinton's campaign now, especially given its acerbic nature, affecting two of the Democratic Party's biggest voting groups--woman and blacks. I am not a Clinton supporter, but I feel that this primary contest has been great, and I would not mind at all seeing it "taken to the convention," if it weren't for the time frame. This primary fight is the most interesting thing that's happened in American politics in about 40 years. A REAL political contest, a knockdown dragout political contest as in the days of the Old Republic, with very real issues being slugged out between highly motivated candidates and their supporters. War--one of them for it, the other against. Refusing to talk to our "enemies" vs. willingness to talk and use diplomacy. Free trade--one for it, the other requiring mitigations. Topdown party vs. grass roots party. Big donors vs. a million little donors. And best of all, an unexpected, insurgent campaign against the front-runner, big name, big donor candidate--and that campaign's amazing success.

While I think that our political system is still largely manipulated by the global corporate predators who rule over us--and that an Obama presidency will likely be a disappointment to his supporters--this exercise in democracy that we have witnessed and participated in hones us for more democracy, and makes continued citizen activism--THE most important component of reform--more likely. I don't know about anybody else, but I've found the last couple of decades of corporate-TV orchestrated political conventions extremely dull, deadening and disempowering. I would love for us to have a REAL convention, where issues vital to our party and our country are argued and fought over. I think there would be high interest in it. But with four weeks to the general election, and with both the Clinton campaign and the corporate media prone to dwell on particularly divisive and irrelevant trivia, Pelosi is probably right. A lot of work needs to be done between now and the election--to pull us back together, after our raucous revel in a real political fight, and to do what we can to insure an honest, verifiable vote count, expose McBush and rouse the American people to an overwhelming Democratic mandate.

I tend to think that Obama will wipe the sidewalk with McBush, no matter what Clinton does at the convention. But it is unwise to take that risk, when it's perfectly clear who has won the nomination. Clinton should concede. She will have a lot more influence in an Obama administration if she does that now. And if something should go wrong with the Obama campaign--or if the corporate rulers decide to Diebold McBush into the White House--she will not be blamed. She has done us a great service by running. This political fight has produced a fully tested, fully vetted candidate who has already been through the fire. It is the best thing that could have happened to Obama, who was not very experienced in national politics to begin with. He has taken the worst pummeling she could give him, and has proven himself to be tough, resilient, savvy and unflappable--and has come up the winner, with fabulous grass roots support and organization. She should make a point of being onstage with him when he accepts the nomination, and get out there and help the party build upon the work they have both done to inspire party activists and voters. She could not do women--her strongest constituency--more good than this, being a force for unity, and for winning the November election in a landslide.