I have been a Hillary Clinton supporter since the first time i ever heard of her, when Bill Clinton was running for the Democratic nomination in 1992. like so many of us, i immediately wished it were her, not Bill, who we were working to elect as president.

Still, the day Bill Clinton was elected president was the best day of my life, politically. i was born in 1961 and had lived thru some of the worst times imaginable for a liberal. while i wanted a more liberal Dem, and the DLC scared the crap out of me, i still rejoiced at the end of the Raygun-Bush era. and i told myself that no matter how moderate he was, we liberals had a secret weapon in the Kitchen Cabinet, Hillary Rodham (Clinton)!

(more after fold)
crossposted at Daily Kos

i was heartbroken when the health care proposal went down in flames. we needed and still need single payer! i was a little unsure as to whether the ReThugs killed the plan, or whether, as the critics claimed, health care industry lobbyists killed the bill from the inside during the secret meetings they held with Clinton, which made me very nervous.

i was further heartbroken when Hillary Clinton (the Rodham now a thing of the past) was removed from public display as a force in the White House. i hoped she still was, behind the scenes.

in front of the scenes, Bill was becoming a hideous embarrassment. i didn't understand why so many stood beside him after his shameful, albeit personal, behavior. why not just resign and let Gore run as the incumbent? and i admit, on a personal level i was disappointed his wife didn't leave him, but that was HER DECISION ALONE. no one should criticize her for it. however, it did bring back painful memories of Hillary Clinton's bashing the women who accused Bill of harassment before he was elected president.

but i celebrated like mad the day Guilaini dropped out of the Senate race, and the day she was elected as Senator. while she was still far too moderate for my ultra-liberal Naderite personal taste, the feminist supporting side of me rejoiced. while i would have much preferred Barbara Boxer (or Barbara Lee!) i still looked forward to the day she'd be the first woman president of the United States of America.

but a funny thing happened on the way to the inauguration. my former hero began to remind me why i had developed such disdain for her husband. her triangulating ways began to side too often with the ReThugs. the saddest moment in her career, and one of the saddest in US history, came when she authorized the outrageously destructive invasion of Iraq. it made me question whther she was really the person to end the disasterous Bush policies, but i still held out hope.

the final straw was, just as it was with Bill, when Hillary Clinton, one of my heroes in life,  resorted to open race-baiting after it became clear her chief rival for the nomination was a Black man, and he was overcoming her huge institutional advantage.

in just a few short years Hillary Rodham Clinton had gone from being a role model we could all look up to, to another painful example of the way politics and power corrupt. it broke my heart, it still breaks my heart. it didn't have to be this way. she could have run as a progressive, as a feminist. instead, at desperate times, she ran as the Great White Hope, the white answer to the "problem" of a Black man threatening to take the Democratic nomination for the White House.

she disgraced herself, she abused the trust of all of those who stood behind her all these years. i hope she will reflect on her shameful in the next months and years, and will revert back to her former self. she could be a force in the Senate, if she sincerely asks for the forgiveness of thsoe she's harmed with her campaign. i hope she does it.

There's more...

Friggen '90's:

Remind me how Gore lost again... nevermind, I'm just reading the final Shrum chapters, on his running media & strategy for Gore in '00 and Kerry in '04.

You know what else I'm reading, Millennial Makeover. This is a phenomenal book. The 2008 book of the year in politics, as far as I'm concerned. I'm about halfway through, and will write more. Suffice to say that if you love seeing how political history is cyclically seen to influence our contemporary political transformation, you will also enjoy the insight.

There's more...

Oh my, Emanuel, and I had been complementing you a lot recently too. Naively, I had thought that the new book by Emanuel and Reed would just be a list of wonky policy details, and would restrain itself from attacking Democrats. Wrongo--I should have know there was no way Reed could restrain himself from doing that. Here is most of excerpt from the prologue the new book by Bruce Reed and Rahm Emanuel:We're both dyed-in-the-wool, lifelong Democrats, but I always dread the end of any sentence that starts that way, wondering what anti-Democratic narrative is about to be reified by our "leadership." In this case, it was virtually every major anti-Democratic narrative in the country.we can't help but notice that in recent years, both parties in Washington lost their way. Message to voters: don't vote, we both suck. Democrats are no better than Republicans. Americans scratch their heads in wonder that Republicans and Democrats can't find common purpose. Message to voters: Democrats and Republicans are equally to blame for a polarized Washington, even though Republicans are in charge during this period of increased polarization.. But the challenge is deeper: Each party needs to be clearer in its own purpose. Message to voters: Republicans are correct when they say Democrats really don't stand for anything. How could conservatism--which even with its many shortcomings was once a rigorous doctrine--have come to such a small-minded, unsatisfying demise? Republicans who rode to power on conservative ideals turned them into a hollow faith. Conservatism became a strategy for winning elections, not leading a nation--for staying in power, not respecting its limits. Conservative leaders forgot what made them conservatives in the first place: a recognition that rigid ideology has always been the God That Failed, and that no idea is good if it doesn't work. Message to voters: The Club for Growth is right. Conservatism is the best and only ideological doctrine in this country, it just needs to be done right. Ironically, conservatives made government bigger, not smaller. In Senator John McCain's phrase, Washington Republicans spent like drunken sailors--a conservative administration leading the biggest domestic spending spree since Lyndon Johnson. Message to voters: John McCain for President, because Democratic Presidents are bad and spend too much No wonder Republicans are confused of late: They say their purpose is to get government off our backs, but they have little interest in or intention of doing so, and years of conclusive proof show that left to their own devices, they'll do just the opposite. Message to voters: Republicans are right in what they say, so we are just going actually follow through on it. With Republicans confused and corrupted by being in power, Democrats became so desperate to stop the damage that we often forgot to show where we'd like to lead the country instead. Message to voters: Republicans are right when they say Democrats have no ideas. In the 1990s, Democrats began to define a new mission for the country and the party, with impressive results. But in recent years, our anger and frustration with the other side steered us away from our real strength: America hires Democrats to help solve problems, not to listen to us whine about them. Message to voters: Republicans are right when they say Democrats have been taken over by the angry left. If all this were just about politics--one confused party somehow outmaneuvering the other--it might not matter that so many Republicans and some Democrats lost their way. Message to voters: it does not matter who is in charge.

Wow. In just a few paragraphs, Reed and Emanuel manage to reinforce virtually every anti-Democratic narrative in existence. We have no new ideas, we don't stand for anything, we are equally to blame for polarized politics, we have been taken over by the angry left, conservatism is the only good ideology, Democrats won't do any better, our predecessors expanded government too much, and maverick John McCain is the only hope for unifying this country. And so our national image as a party is completely destroyed.

Don't read this book. Stay as far away form it as you can. It may very well succeed in wiping out any and all progress we have tried to make on anti-Democratic media narratives for the past couple years. This book closes Daou's triangle on us so many times in such a short stretch that even Joe Lieberman would be stunned. I don't know how they "plan" to triangulate themselves against their entire party and then still see that party take power, but hey, if that is their "plan," then I have a "plan" too.

Here is my "plan": someone, for the love of God, invent a time machine so Bruce Reed and Rahm Emanuel can just go and live in the 1990's forever, pretending that the messages that worked then will work even unto the ending of the world. They can also pretend that their 1990's strategy of reifying every negative about Demcorats that Republicans spin played absolutely no role in Republicans dominating electoral politics of the last several cycles. I'll come back and go to a few concerts with them, but I won't stay. I always regretted that I couldn't go see the Red Hot Chili Peppers on tour with Pearl Jam and the Smashing Pumpkins, since the New York State public high school cross country championships were the next day. That was in late-1991 before any of those bands were "cool," and when Emanuel and Reed could still justifiably claim that repeating the same things about Democrats that Republicans say didn't lead to a massive deterioration in our national image as a party. Then, I suppose, we will all be happy.