Give It a Rest, Already . . .
December 17th, 2006
Atrios has this finely nuanced take on the 2008 Democratic primary race:
I think the primary thing that an Obama run does is kill what was the long held conventional wisdom that the race would be between Hillary and someone who manages to emerge as the Not Hillary. Obama could’ve been the Not Hillary if he’d gone that path, but his knee-jerk tendency to triangulate has made that unlikely. So, right now we’re looking at Hillary, Obama, and NotHillaryOrObama, who will probably be Edwards.
And all this could change in a month.
Which is interesting and insightful, and maybe correct.
But for god’s sake, the 2006 Congressional class hasn’t even been seated yet! We just got out of a vicious, disgusting, and seemingly interminable mid-term race. We’d hardly gotten over the 2004 race when that began. Is it really Presidential primary season again? Do these people really intend to spend the entire period between elections campaigning? Clinton gave us “the permanent campaign”, but even he didn’t mean it like this.
I’ve finally come to realize that I’m simply sick of politics. Not of political issues, or of policymaking when I can stand to peek into the sausage machine, but of politics itself, and campaigns especially. I used to dismiss people who groused about “politicians” and “election-year promises” (remember when election year was the year when an election was held? - now it’s always election year). I thought of politics as the necessary process of democracy, and campaigns as at least interesting and worthwhile. But now I’m one of those people. Campaigns simply disgust me, and people who can treat human lives and the fate of our nation as grist for their clever advantage-seeking and trick-pulling disgust me even more. This is much of why I hate the Republicans as badly as I do, but the Democrats are too often guilty as well.
I just really hate the thought of listening to this crap for two full years, following on a year or more of the same leading up to the last election. Politicians have always jockeyed for position before elections, but in this case the official campaign has already started - Obama and Edwards have established formal exploratory committees, and Hillary has had hers up for months. They really are campaigning for the upcoming election before the prior election has ended - and I think it’s unprecedented for all the front-runners to do that. From this year forward, we will never be out of campaign season! God, what a depressing thought that is.
Categories: General, News & Current Events, Politics | 3 Comments
