A Sound Trouncing

I am no fan of Hillary (or Bill) Clinton. I voted against Bill twice and plan to do the same should Hillary be nominated by the Democratic Party. And yet there is this part of me that wanted to vote Democrat this time around (I’ve only done it once, I usually vote Republican or Libertarian). In order to do that, I put a lot of hope in the Obama campaign. He is charismatic and substantive, and I think he could actually lead some level of change, not in our political system, but by bringing back a renewed sense of optimism and confidence in a union that has found itself wounded by the neo-con regime in office. With that said, I have to admit I took some pleasure in seeing him soundly beaten last night by Clinton.

I think members of both parties – but especially the Democratic Party – need to realize that you can’t win an election without a broad base of support from working class, blue collar folks. This means that you can’t get behind closed doors with left wingers and make blanket statements about working class people  hanging on to guns, religion and anti-immigration sentiments because they are bitter. You just can’t do that. You forget that you are talking about people who do most of the work in this nation. They get up and go to their jobs (if they haven’t been shipped overseas) and pay their taxes and try and raise their kids to do the right thing. They care deeply about their communities and their churches and this nation. I am damn glad that there was enough pride among these “bitter” people over Obama’s comments that they didn’t vote for him.

Should he win this primary, I won’t be voting for him either.