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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Ack!

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I did not go to bed happy last night, nor awake happy when I checked the news. I hoped I'd be wrong about the primary results but the last 7 years of Bush tactics haven't done anything to give me much faith in the American voters. People are swayed by so many things.

The Clintons' attack ad played the fear card which has worked since Johnson used it on Goldwater. Show a child. Show a threat. Who can keep you safe? Oh I know! I know! A woman who gets on her pantsuit before she answers the phone or who never goes to bed. Maybe they saw her as the leader who stays up all night looking out for the safety of our country? She sits there at her White House desk at 3 AM just waiting for some good deed to do for the American people. They wouldn't have wanted to show her reaching for the phone from bed as that would remind everyone about her marriage bed.

Yes, I am disappointed today but not surprised. I am disappointed every time I read some woman saying she has dreamed of a woman president since she was a girl? Why? What did that woman expect would happen in her life if a woman became president? It won't make her marriage better. Won't help her kids to grow up to be responsible citizens. Does she believe it'll help her get a better job? It won't make this country be stronger if that female leader is there simply because of gender, not because she has the right temperament and takes the right stand on issues.

Let's look at one of Hillary's biggest applause lines. I will make sure everyone buys has health insurance. She claims she will provide subsidies for those who cannot afford it. But who decides if you can afford it? The government. Do you want the government making those budgeting decisions for you? So you want a mandate as there is with auto insurance?

What will happen if you refuse to buy insurance? If you work for a company, the government will draw out the money for this government mandated program, but if you are an individual, how do they force you? Put you in jail? Take all your money? Suppose you are above their decided lines and decided it was more important to get your child braces? Maybe go to a family counselor? Help grandma and grandpa move into a facility? Already have credit card debt or need a new automobile to get to your job across town? Take a family vacation to recover from some traumatic family events? You won't have the choice of deciding whether you buy it. It will be a mandate with government deciding if you can afford it.

I would like to see basic health care for all, but if insurance companies are in the picture, it will bankrupt the system just as the current Medicare addition of prescription drugs has been doing with its confusing rules. The answer for universal health care is single system like Medicare, like the government has and insurance companies out of that loop. It also means allowing people with money to pay for additional insurance as happens with Medicare now. It won't be totally fair. Who said life is fair? Whoever did should be taken around the globe on a tour. Life has never been fair and it won't be fair with any kind of universal health care program. The problem with all these programs is in the nitty gritty of the details. Pie-in-the-sky works best when it stays in the sky.

It would be easy to go on about why Hillary is poor choice temperamentally for the presidency but I've written it all before. For me it's about her stand on issues as well as her temperament which she is for now keeping under wraps but it'll come out if she gets in-- which thanks to her red phone ad working, is unlikely. McCain can use that a lot better than she can. Do any of those swayed voters remember that they were both wrong when it really rang about both Iraq and Iran. What is supposed to change when either are in power?

20 comments:

Ingineer66 said...

I am sorry for the reason, but I love your writing today. You are fired up and it shows. It is a perfect time for you to come over to the dark side. I know you don't like McCain and I agree with your reasons but come on he is only part republican. You can do it. Your wallet wants you to.

Back to your rant. Of course they wouldn't show her in bed, because they would have had to use an actor to play Bill. He is not sleeping in her bed. I still do not know how she has all this experience. She didn't even know what was going on in the oval office last time she lived in the White house.

Liz Hinds said...

I only just found out ther results not having heard the news today. It is a shame indeed. Still not over yet.

Joy Des Jardins said...

Rain....this is truly a wonderful post. Your writing was spot on...and I couldn't agree more. I felt the same way when I read the newspaper this morning.

Rain Trueax said...

I don't like the states that enable people registered in one party to vote in the other party's primary. It might have been the factor in this election as many Republicans admitted voting for Hillary just so McCain can win in November. It seems wrong to me that anyone would do that as both parties should desire the strongest candidates to be the chosen ones but for those who can only think in terms of winning, they don't care. The solution is to make anyone who wants to switch parties do it several months ahead. Keep the primaries accurate for who that party thinks is best, not following Rush Limbaugh's suggestion of voting for Hillary only to benefit McCain. I am sure she didn't mind. To her, a win is a win, but it is wrong and the states could fix that. Oregon doesn't allow that kind of last minute switch. If someone cares enough to do it a month ahead, then so be it.

Anonymous said...

I just "happened" to come across your blog from another link, only to discover you had captured my exact feelings.

Went to bed last night rather than watch the results. Dreaded the news when I got up this morning.

I'm bummed with the tactics used by Hilary. I'm distressed at the
thought of what seems to be required to win.

I was beginning to have hope again.

Judy

Fran aka Redondowriter said...

Rain, I am still totally ambivalent about a Democratic candidate. I voted for Edwards in the Cal primary. But, who can beat John McCain? I have grown so weary and disenchanted with the whole political drama, but it does numb us to all kinds of other things going on.

Anonymous said...

American politics-gotta love it ! What a mess !!

Ingineer66 said...

We voted for an open primary here in California but the Democratic and Republican parties filed suit and got it blocked. That is what happens to most things approved by the voters in California. A judge somewhere rules that the will of the people is not correct that he is smarter than the rest of us.

Rain Trueax said...

What would an open primary mean? I think that's what we are seeing the results of with these states where people can jump party lines to vote, not for the best choice, but the worst one for the other party. If that's what it means, I'm with the parties... vote for where you registered a month earlier. I don't like how we might end up with two candidates that weren't the best choice for either party because of those games...

And the will of the people isn't always right. You could call that mob rule. That is why we have court systems. There are many places where blacks would still not have the vote and likely not women either if it was up to the will of the majority.

marion said...

{Ace in the Hole is a slang expression meaning a secret or extra asset to assure success, referring to the ace playing card a player has as a hole card (or face down card) in a game of stud poker.}

I have to disagree with you Rain (http://rainydaythought.blogspot.com/ ) that the Clinton Campaign's choice in running the red phone ad was about "playing the fear card".

My experience has as a woman, military wife, and mother has been.... that whenever the phone rang in the middle of the night at our house....I was the one who heard it; I was the one who took the call; and I was the one who took care of the problem. That was because, as a military wife, my husband was often not there: he was off sitting alert, or gone TDY, or deployed in a foreign country.

For the many single-head-of-household women (for what ever reason) these days who vote...they must have related to this ad with the "knowing" there was a very capable, resilient, survivor there to field the problem at the other end of the ringing telephone.

No, I don't think that ad was not about playing the "fear card"; that was a smart Hillary Clinton laying down her "Ace in the hole".

I do agree with Dick Morris:
"The battle of Hillary is over. The battle of Obama has begun.

The question of his readiness and experience looms ever larger in the minds of the media and of voters.

Her red-phone ad, citing her supposedly superior readiness to be commander in chief, evidently cut deeply among the electorate."

Rain Trueax said...

sometimes we agree to disagree on something and that is the case of the children sleeping, the red phone and Hillary answering it perfectly dressed and coiffed. We have seen these ads before and will doubtless see them again since it works. As for men not being as good in the middle of the night emergencies, I guess it depends on who the man is. Yes, some men are gone off to war or on business, but the point of that ad was not that a man was gone but that she was the one who could keep those sleeping children safe.

My feeling on Hillary is that unless she secretly ran the White House during Bill's administration, she has less real experience than Obama in life and politics, but maybe she did. If she did, this will be her third term to be president, wouldn't it? She is claiming she negotiated a lot of the peace agreements during his terms which is news to a lot of us.

There has been so much distortion on Obama's record, his do nothing, the supposed hysteria over his looks or something, that I will have to write about it again, about the reasons people, like myself, support him and not Hillary. I have gone into it all before on both of them.

When I have the emotional energy to think about politics again which might be awhile, I'll put up some links again, my reasons for supporting him. Some of it is negative, my complete dislike for Hillary, how she operates, what she would do if she got in, but some of it is what i believe Obama is saying, his stance, the ideas he is talking about that I believe are the right way to go. I have little faith in the American voter right now though. I do think that ad played the fear card and we have seen it being used for years but most especially since 9/11.

For those who support Hillary's supposed great experience and wisdom, I do have a question. How do you justify her voting to allow Bush to have the power to use military action in Iraq and again against Iran? If she's so wise, such a good judge of what should be done, how come she voted wrong both of those times?

Oregon's primary is May and it doesn't even get mentioned among those left to vote.

I hope that if she gets the nomination, the ones who are supporting her are right but frankly I don't think she can win the election despite some polls right now. A lot of Democrats might even sit out this election if the choice is between Hillary and McCain. It would be very difficult for me to vote for either of them

Ingineer66 said...

In this case the open primary seems to be causing a problem for Obama. But the thought in California was more about the House and Senate and State Legislative races where there are several candidates from each party. That way the voters could chose the best candidate no matter what party they were in. Now we end up with candidates from the far right and the far left because that is what each party gives us. But we were hoping we could get some good mainstream candidates to win since people from any party could vote for them. It was a nice idea but does not seem to work for president when one side is already decided.

Rain Trueax said...

It especially does not work when one party crosses over to vote for what they consider the easiest candidate to beat as Rush Limbaugh encouraged his listeners to do. It is not what a truly patriotic person would do. No matter how we feel about the issues and differences, we should all want the strongest possible options to be there in November, not the weakest or most disgusting as it so often seems to end up. I don't even know how we'd fix our system as it stands. Very disillusioning and I see how some feel like Fran but I believe we have to try for our children and their children's future.

Ingineer66 said...

It is frustrating how we often have the vote for the lessor of two evils instead of the best candidate available. I don't think Rush was trying to help Hillary so she can be defeated in November. I think he was looking to make the battle drag out for another 3 months. Hillary will attack Obama and McCain will not because if McCain does it then he is a racist, but Hillary can because she is a democrat and we all know they are not racist.

Rain Trueax said...

so true. democrats could never be secret racists *s* or misogynists. It is a system that seems broken to me. It's like the Michigan and Florida primaries where a lot of people didn't bother to vote because they felt it wouldn't count and now Hillary badly wants it all counting-- for her, of course. Trust nobody is the best motto right now

Natalie d'Arbeloff said...

Rain, I so much agree with you about Hilary, even though I'm on the other side of the ocean and know far less about U.S. politics, I deeply mistrust that woman. Some people's idea that they should vote for her because it would be a victory for feminism to have a woman president makes no sense. We had Thatcher and look what happened to this country. Gender or skin colour or religion or money doesn't make a person a good leader nor does what's called "experience": they mean political experience, which mainly consists of deception. Obama inspires loyalty and enthusiasm because he doesn't have that political veneer, he is still fresh and speaks (cliché coming up) from tne heart. Yes, he may acquire the politician's mask over the years but I'd rather see him in the White House than anyone else touting for that job.

Anonymous said...

I definitely agree with you about pie-in-the-sky, but our candidates differ. I prefer the candidate who has the PROVEN strength and experience to weather both personal and political "hard times" over someone who is relatively new and unknown, who seems quite intent on cloning JFK (and his wife -- have you seen Michelle's hairdo? It's Jackie Kennedy 1963 for sure, and NOT accidental that it appears so, in my opinion). I'd love to see a Clinton/Obama ticket (in that order) -- it would make me screamingly excited. But if we have to choose the best candidate, HRC is most definitely IT. Fortunately, I can vote for either candidate with enthusiasm. I just know who's the best, and it isn't Obama, unforunately. Still, Obama isn't enough to make me cross party lines -- that's unthinkable, given the option!

Rain Trueax said...

I am glad you have stuck with the blog despite our disagreement on Hillary Clinton's character, Ann. I will be writing more about my feelings regarding her. I know good people can disagree. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree.

Anonymous said...

I am SO with you on this! I was just as disappointed as you were on Wed. morning when I heard the news. My heart just fell.
About that 3 a.m. phone call....sorry, but I see Obama being much more qualified to take that call. I mean, come ON....everyone knows by the time she removed her face mask and took the ear plugs out of her ears....well, heck, we'd be drowning in the crisis at that point!
Terri

Rain Trueax said...

I forgot to mention. I see no similarity with Obama, who basically is self made, and the Kennedys, with the family dynasty, except for the excitement generated which Bill Clinton also did.

Also on Michelle's hairstyle, I have actually thought it looks like Condoleeza Rice before she dropped that last little flip in the back and don't find it that flattering for either woman. Jackie styled her hair many different ways through the years and so one of them I suppose could be similar but it wasn't the usual way for her.