My Support: the Kiss of Death
I realized something on my way home from the gym tonight: for as long as I've been entitled to vote, my presidential candidates of choice have never even won the nomination, much less taken office.
In 1992, I defended Bob Kerrey through innumerable late-night freshman year dorm hall arguments (in truth, I had little better to do). Four years later I didn't really have an opinion; I wasn't going to vote for the Republican, and Clinton was going to get remoninated. In 2000 I was a big Bill Bradley fan; last time around, at different points I was for Dean, Clark and Edwards. It was almost like I was consciously avoiding anyone even sort of viable.
I mention this because the Hillary Clinton train continues to chug along. Wes Clark, probably the 2004-cycle candidate I was most into, endorsed Lady Triangula this weekend. She's evidently suffering no damage from Norman Hsu's troubles (and presumably her scores of advisors are offering up prayers of thanks that O.J. is back in the news--it really is the '90s again!). And the Obama and Edwards campaigns can't get any traction.
All this despite the fact that Sen. Clinton still doesn't seem to have any answer for why she's running for president, beyond the zombie mantra of her flacks: "strength and experience, strength and experience, strength and experience..."
But history suggests that if I don't get a candidate's appeal, that candidate probably has a good thing going.
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2 comments:
Let's see... in 1992 I never really got into Jerry Brown for some reason. I voted for Larry Agran with my first ever vote. He wanted to cut military spending by 50%, and when you think of all the shit we buy with no-bid contracts, we could easily cut the budget that much and still have a kick-ass military - hell, we'd still easily lead the world in military spending. But, my vote was, of course, pointless.
96 was pointless. I voted for Nader in the general, I think, since Clinton was a lock.
00 I probably preferred Bradley, but Gore really did move left, at least rhetorically. Anyway the PA primary was so late I basically didn't worry about it. And voted for Gore.
04, same as 00. I had a feeling we'd need someone like Clark to overcome the President-during-wartime Bush advantage, but I honestly have no idea if Clark could have won the general election.
Oh, I think it might have been Brown's flat tax plan.
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