I think the world of you, but I think it's time...
The battle for the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination is making me very anxious. Very anxious, and very, very sad.
Let's face it: On November 11, I will be following party lines when I submit my vote. I already know this.
When Florida had their "primary" (pointless as it was), I was planning on placing my vote for Hillary. I say "planning" because I didn't have the opportunity. The baby got sick, there was spit-up avocado by my front door... it wasn't the best scene when I came home from work. Not that it would have made a difference, anyway, because Florida (once again) flubbed the democratic process and never got approval from the DNC to move up the primary. But I digress.
I like Hillary. As a person, I think she would be an interesting woman to join for tea. I think she's intelligent, strong, admirable (for some qualities - after all, no one is completely admirable), and shrewd. I like a lot of her ideas, and I think she would do a fine job in the White House.
This is not to say, however, that I think less of Barack Obama. I like a lot of his ideas, too, and those of John Edwards, which is precisely why I knew, even before the primaries began, that I would be voting along party lines come November 11.
But the news this morning, when she "misspoke" (or, rather, outright lied) about a 1996 visit to Bosnia, really saddened me. It was that moment that I had to admit something that had been in the back of my mind for some time now.
It's time for Hillary to call it a day, to preserve whatever dignity she has left, and bow out gracefully. When there are Democrats saying they would cross party lines and vote for McCain if she were to win the Democratic nomination, it's time to back down.
It makes me sad, of course, because I would love to see her in the White House. I really do think the world of her.
But I also think it's time.
Comments
Sorry, for the semi off topic rant, this election is making me so sad. Didn't mean for it to spill over onto your blog :)
Oh, no, I completely agree with you. I think the earliest criticisms of Hillary were very sexist. In fact, if anything, many comments made in the media spoke volumes of the struggles women must still endure. Critics said her campaign in the beginning wasn't going well because people didn't see her as "human enough". Then she had a moment in New Hampshire where people got to see her softer side, and then she was questioned for being "real enough". In this patriarchal society, it's impossible for a woman to simultaneously be strong (which apparently means "male") and human (which means "sensitive").
And yet, I think many leaders in this country could use a good dose of sensitivity training. Maybe then the growing number of casualties in the war in Iraq would be viewed as scores of thousands of people impacted by the losses, not just a body count.
Thanks for sharing this!
Most troubling, I think, are many of the comments after the article. Racism really is something that's more concrete - it's based on something definititive, whereas sexism is, well, much more general. Now that I'm a mother, I've discovered that women are generally held up to higher expectations than men in most areas.
I'm expected to do much more and be more responsible for my son than my husband is - and when I brought this up to him, he responded, "That's because you're his mother."
Since when was something as basic as parenting gender-specific?
And yet, in the business world, we're still expected (thanks to the sexual revolution) to work as hard as or harder than our male counterparts - and be grateful to receive a fraction of their pay!
We should also be balance household budgets, keep food on the table, ensure there are clean clothes in everyone's closets, manage household chores, maintain the family calendar, and somehow - somehow - do all of this with great big smiles on our faces.
Now I've gone off topic in my own post. But not really.
Thanks again for sharing it!
I knew that the comments would make me mad, so I didn't even read them.