Clinton Personally Offended And Hurt - AGAIN

I’m getting tired of this.  Every time anyone says anything, Hillary Clinton now takes on the poor victim role, after its success in New Hampshire.  This time, it was Hillary blaming Obama for what she claims was a misrepresentation of her comments earlier in the week about Martin Luther King.   I understand that she was trying to say that it took legislation  to bring about the changes that King fought so hard - and gave his life - for, but there was no need to say it at all.  It gained nothing.  And now, she is “personally offended at the approach taken that was not only misleading but unecessarily hurtful.”

She is beginning to sound ridiculous to me and I hope other women are beginning to lose patience.  Imagine if any of the other candidates started pouting, tearing up and claiming to be hurt every time she attacked them!

And for the most ridiculous quote of the week, I read one of her supporters saying that when those men carried signs saying “iron my shirts”, it was as if they gang-raped Hillary!  Now THAT is offensive and hurtful to women who have been victims of rape, to so trivialize their ordeal.

Time For Change, Not For Tears

I can’t believe that one woman’s momentary lapse in composure could have generated as much discussion as did Hillary’s show of emotion over the weekend.  I can’t believe the media is still talking about it.  I can’t believe that I am!  However, after all the media hype, I can’t resist one final word on it.  Unlike many, I don’t believe the tears were contrived.  I believe Hillary Clinton saw her dream of being leader of the free world slipping away and, like all of us who have nursed a burning ambition, felt a rush of emotion.  I don’t fault her for that.  I do fault her for falling back into an oft-used excuse for bad behaviour, that she is only doing what she does for the sake of the country.   She is only permitting her campaign to lie for the good of the country?  She is only shooting other candidates down in ways that will harm them in the general election for the good of the country?  She is only calling in favors owed to her for the good of the country?  I think not!   And it seems that the woman who asked the question that led to Hillary’s emotional moment also thought not, since she turned around and voted for Obama

Fortunately, the news moves on and today John Kerry has endorsed Obama.  Addressing a rally in S. Carolina, her said:

“This is the right time to share with you … that Barack Obama can be, will be and should be the next president of the United States.”

This comes hot on the news that the 60,000-strong  Culinary Workers Union in Nevada has thrown its support behind Barack Obama, just as has its nationwide parent union, UNITE HERE.  And, of course, we heard yesterday that the Service Employees International Union in Nevada has also endorsed Obama’s run for the presidency.

All this is good news for the Obama campaign, of course, but there is a long, long way to go and, at last Obama has promised Clinton a fight.   Whether this will play into the hands of those women who, for unfathomable reasons, believed it right to vote for a woman just because she is a woman, or worse, because they don’t think she is being treated fairly, remains to be seen.

Learn To Use The Disappointment

After Hillary Clinton’s narrow victory in New Hampshire I am sure that all Obama’s supporters are feeling a little disappointed, especially after recent polls had predicted a resounding win for him, but there is a lot to be learned from this setback, and the first lesson is to use the disappointment to spur us on to greater efforts.

One of the problems with opinion polls is that they can give a false sense of security, even cause complacency among the not-so-dedicated voters. I have seen this happen in British elections, where people don’t bother to turn out if they are sure their candidate will win, while the opponent’s supporters are spurred on to make that extra effort to go out and vote.

Another concern of mine was how much attention the media was paying to Hillary’s emotions. It amazed me that this could be a major talking-point on television and in the Press for most of polling day. It certainly seems to have influenced women voters, since they turned out in droves to support their female candidate. I just shake my head to think that women can be influenced by a sense of sisterly understanding of another woman’s emotions, to the degree where this will influence them in so major a decision as who should be the leader of the world’s super-power. It seems to me that it needs a level head to deal with the dangers confronting today’s world. It also seems to me, as a woman, that Hillary’s public displays of emotion do women harm. But enough of that.

I came across this on AlterNet today:

NAFTA failures; deregulation of banking and ENRON’s rise; “Welfare Reform” that led to more poor people. This and more is what the Clintons gave us.

You can read the full full article here, and it is well worth reading, and remembering that the mess this country is in was not just caused by George W. Bush. Clinton may have left us with a surplus, but he also paved the way for the troubles we now face. Why does anyone imagine that a third and fourth Clinton term would allow the US to fare any better?

Also today, I heard someone say that Obama is not black enough for African American voters. That made me smile and think “Well he is a lot blacker than any of the other candidates”, but I was uplifted and very heartened when CNN did an item about Barack’s Kenyan family. Seeing Obama’s grandmother, living in very humble circumstances, speaking with quiet admiration of her grandson while refusing to be drawn into any condemnation of other candidates just moved me so much. I never really believed in the reality of “the American dream”, but here we have a candidate who has come from a genuinely working-class family and who has struggled, just as many of us have struggled, a man who has not forgotten that struggle and who can identify with the ordinary folk that make up much of American, and I know that if he does become President, that dream will have become so much more than a dream, but a living reality.

A Week Late

I was planning on switching Brit Report to a blog style at the beginning of the year, but here I am, a week late.  You can read more about this change on the page about britreport.com 

That brings me to the topic of “change”, which has become quite a buzzword since Barack Obama’s Iowa victory. Or, more importantly, it brings me to the topic of political change, and today’s events are truly startling.  Hillary has been fighting hard and sounding tough, but we caught a hint of emotion when she was asked by the moderator of the ABC debate on Saturday why she was not well-liked, and she responded by saying “That hurts my feelings”.  Today though, she actually brimmed with tears on the campaign trail, her voice breaking with emotion.  I have to say that I pitied her.   American campaigns are positively grueling and they must all be exhausted.  Still, Presidents cannot afford the luxury of tears when things don’t go their way, not even when they are tired, any more than they can afford the temper we have become familiar with in George W.

On a more upbeat note, according to a CNN-WMUR poll released this afternoon, Barack Obama has a 9-point lead in the New Hampshire primary.  This comes on the heels of an earlier poll that showed his lead to be in double digits , so I don’t know if this slight change is due to a difference in sampling, or whether there is a slight leaning back to Hillary.  I think this will be a tense 24 hours or so, not only for the candidates, but for all of us Obama supporters who want to hope but don’t want to count our chickens.

Found Her Own Voice?

Today, Hillary Clinton claims to have listened to the people, and to have found her own voice.  I almost choked.  Of course she listened to what the people wanted, and she will deliver.  If they said they wanted a clown dressed in a monkey suit, she would listen and do it.  This election is just too precious to her.