Can I Get a Clothespin Here? [View All]

[NanceGreggs]

While I have always admired Hillary Clinton, I have never been a supporter of her campaign for president. I loved First Lady Hillary and have great respect for Senator Hillary, but Campaign Hillary has left me cold from day one.

Of course, that personal opinion is neither here nor there. I have never ignored the fact that she inspires many, and the passionate devotion of her supporters has never led me to call their sanity into question, or opine that their assessment of her abilities is a result of kool-aid-drinking-induced mindlessness, or a total ignorance of the facts.

When it finally came down to a choice between two possible candidates, the choice was, for me, simply a difference of opinion as to who was better equipped to take on the role of leadership of a nation in peril, and a matter of whose management style was better suited to the onerous task-at-hand.

I have often stated that we, as Democrats, were fortunate in having a choice between two great candidates, both of whom had the goals of the party and the country at heart, and that although Obama was my personal preference, I would vote for either one in the end without hesitation, or a need to hold my nose in voting for Hillary should my own personal choice wind up not being the ultimate choice of my fellow Democrats.

This was a position I held, and staunchly so, until the past week. Although not my choice of candidate, I defended Hillary and gave her the benefit of the doubt on every occasion, and in every instance where I felt she mis-spoke out of sheer exhaustion, or acted on the poor advice of campaign consultants whose counsel was less than skilled – and, in some cases, out-and-out wrong.

I dismissed the “as far as I know” comment as a result of her having been off her game due to the incredible pressure she was under after so many losses in states she had been repeatedly predicted to win. And although I was disgusted by the decidedly negative approach of statements like “change you can xerox”, I put it down to bad advice from the likes of Penn, whose win-at-any-cost measures might be ill-advised, but to be expected in the dirty game of politics.

However, there are only so many straws the camel’s back can bear before the animal bends and breaks, and even the benefit-of-the-doubt threshold can only be stretched so far before it is irrevocably crossed over, once and for all.

And that threshold, for me, has now been crossed. Hillary’s comment about the experience that she and John McCain both bring to the table – while reducing Obama’s lifetime experience to a single “speech made in 2002” – goes far beyond what is acceptable.

Those who say that this is simply a reiteration of the facts, and is nothing that the Republicans won’t use against Obama anyway are either being totally disingenuous, or are deliberately spinning the unconscionable into something they hope will be more palatable to themselves, and the Democratic voters at large.

It’s said that all is fair in love, war and politics – a phrase meant to encompass, and perhaps excuse, the tactics that one party resorts to in fighting the other. However, when a Democratic candiate uses such tactics to demean his or her own party member, we are into a whole new ballgame.

Hillary has made great political hay of the fact (which, in and of itself, is highly questionable) that she has more experience than her Democratic opponent. But when she makes hay of such facts in attempt to portray herself as one of the obvious choices between herself and her Republican opponent as opposed to her Democratic opponent, she has gone too far.

Her words are her words – and she has said them not once in the heat of a single moment, but several times.

What she has said, in no uncertain terms, is that given the choice between McCain and Obama, should she not be the nominee, McCain is the better choice over her own party member.

While I applaud the passion and good intentions behind the valiant efforts of her supporters to spin this kind of blatant disregard for the Democratic Party into something less than insulting, less than a scorched earth ME-or-the-other-side mentality, a declaration that a Republican in the White House is preferable to an Obama win in November, I would remind them that such a statement is nothing less than a declaration that she will gladly throw her own party members under the bus rather than go quietly into her rightful place as the fair-and-honest also-ran position as may be decreed by her own party’s voters.

The world of politics is, as we all know, a world full of dirty tricks, rumours presented as fact, innuendo proferred as being a where-there’s-smoke-there’s-fire situation deserving of further scrutiny, a universe wherein everyone and everything is fair game.

But even in this filthy environment, clouded by doubtful facts and polluted by ever-changing stances based on which way the political wind is blowing, there are certain things that should, among party members, be considered as totally off-limits.

Apparently Hillary Clinton has chosen to ignore those limits, and has forged ahead into territory where such limits are to be pushed to one side in pursuit of what she perceives will be a win at all costs – even if it means the cost of her own party’s unity behind our chosen nominee for the presidency.

I will reiterate my position – one which I know I share with many others of my party at this juncture: Should Hillary Clinton, by hook or by crook (and you can take that to mean what you will) become the nominee of my party, I will vote for her because she has that all-important (D) behind her name. But I will do it with a clothespin on my nose – because voting for someone who got there will be overwhelmed by the stench of how she got there – and that will be an odor I would rather not inhale, nor remember in the years to come.