Thursday, March 13, 2008

How Hillary Lost My Vote

Last week I turned 57 years old. Women of my generation who fought for equality with our words, our actions, and our relationships, understand how much I wanted a woman President. But I also grew up in the era of Margaret Thatcher and other rightwingnut women. I wasn't going to settle for just any woman because I cared too much to give up my right to choose intelligently.

I was never going to vote for Hillary JUST because she was a woman. I was going to vote for her because I thought she would bring dignity back to a profession that Bush/Cheney sullied. I was going to vote for her because I thought she would unite our country and help heal it from the division and hatred that the Republicans inflicted on everyone with their win at any cost mentality. I was going to vote for her because I thought she was strong enough to fight the right wing hate machine and not let it steal her soul.

But in the last few days Hillary has deeply disappointed me. She has run a filthy and divisive campaign, just the kind of shit that turned me off so completely to politics I almost didn't vote in the last election. (Almost...I couldn't pass up the chance to vote against Bush again.) I'm disgusted at the leaked images of Obama in Somali dress in order to stir up the hatemongers of all things remotely Osama looking. I'm disgusted at the racist innuendos that remind me of the behind the hand attacks whites always made on other races in so-called more intolerant times.

And I'm really tired of Hillary saying it wasn't me, it was my advisers, campaign staff, etc, etc. Excuse me, Senator, but if you're not smart enough to figure out that a large part of the Bushco nightmare is his blaming others and appointing incompetent, racist, sexist wackos to positions of power and then speaking from behind his hand that it's them not him, well...then you're not smart enough to get my vote this time. I don't want to see who you pat on the back and say "heck of a job, Brownie" when a city is lost if you can't even take responsibility for what your advisers are doing and saying.

I watched very carefully when Obama's staffer quit because it showed me he would be a President who demanded accountability and didn't sidestep responsibility. That's the kind of change I'm voting for because unfortunately Hillary showed me that with her as President it would be more of the same.
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