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Dear Democratic Party: It’s Not Me, It’s You

By dcmediagirl on August 30, 2008 at 8:22 PM in Current Affairs

The Democratic party is at a crossroads. Only the party mandarins can decide whether to try to right the ship and steer it on the right course or whether to allow the creaky vessel to hit the iceberg. Given what I’ve seen up to this point I’m not exactly holding my breath.

Seriously, how screwed up is an election cycle, how badly has a party go off the rails when John McCain of all people, during his VP announcement, evokes the anniversary of women’s suffrage and says about Sarah Palin “she stands up for what’s right and doesn’t let anyone tell her to sit down”, an obvious reference to Hillary Clinton and a plea to her millions of disgusted voters? How badly has the Democratic party screwed the pooch if the Republicans, of all people, are setting an example in the areas of celebrating strong women and not punishing voters by stripping their states of their entire slate of delegates? How badly have things gone wrong when John f’ing McCain is showing Hillary Clinton respect while the Pelosis, Reids, Deans, Dodds and Leahys of the world have done a driveby on one of their own and fled the scene of the crime?

There is an unwillingness in many quarters, including the DNC, the MSM, the left wing blogosphere, Air America radio and others to acknowledge what is painfully obvious to those of us at No Quarter, which is that there are a lot of loyal Democrats who are seriously considering voting Republican in the fall. This is a development that’s left many Democrats understandably conflicted and miserable, but it’s not solely about Obama. It’s about the grotesque mismanagement of the party and the unwillingness of Howard Dean and others to come to the defense of a serious candidate who was under continuous assault throughout the course of the nomination campaign. These alienated voters would like the party to explain why the party deserves their loyalty when the DNC has shown non only disloyalty, but complete contempt for Hillary Clinton. Why weren’t Howard Dean and Donna Brazile going out every day demanding and end to the pornographically sexist treatment and abuse of one of their own? Why did they drag their heels on the Florida and Michigan issue, eventually awarding Obama delegates he neither campaigned for nor won?

It’s easy to write off the angry Hillary voters as just a bunch of sore losers, or racists, or closet Republicans. Do that if it makes you feel better. But all I can say is that when loyal Democrats start to seriously weigh the possibility of voting for Republican then it’s the Democratic party that needs to take an inventory.

Sorry Democratic party. It’s not us, it’s you.