Upon hearing of Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont’s call for Senator Hillary Clinton to drop out of the presidential race I wanted to say to him one of the most profound statements that ever fell from Dick Cheney’s mouth, “Go fuck yourself.”  Remember when the Vice President snapped at Leahy in the Senate Chambers?  Yes, even the Prince of Darkness can have a moment of brilliance.  Well, allow me to imitate that sentiment for the millions of people who have voted for Senator Clinton so far in this primary, the ones who volunteer for her, the ones who have donated to her campaign.  Leahy made his courageous call in Vermont, a state that voted overwhelmenly for Senator Obama, and on public radio no less if that doesn’t say Obama demographic I don’t know what does. Had he been facing some of the uncool, tubby, wind breaker wearing , middle of the country type people who I have met while volunteering for Hillary Clinton he might have been less flip. His party would do well to consider these people.

 

The error with Leahy’s comment and similar ones from pundit’s and writers is that it blames Clinton for the lack of a presumptive Democratic nominee.  The fault is not Hillary’s or Barack.  They are both doing what they set out to do what other contenders have done for about two hundred years now.  Campaign hard for the job of the presidency.  The blame lies squarely with the Democratic Party itself.  The party in which Leahy is supposedly one of its wise elders.  Well, the wisdom of this Party’s nominating structure is jacked.  Proportional delegate allocation in the primary and caucus is the reason there is no clear winner.  Leahy suggests that (www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/28/america/Clinton-Leahy.php) Hillary can’t get enough pledged delegates for the nomination.  Well, neither can Barack Obama.   The system that the Democrats set up reminds me of the Ungame.  A non-competitive board game that my alternative schooling mom made my brother and our friend’s play.  She didn’t believe in competition.  The Ungame said, “There are no winners, and no losers.”  Basically, it went against human nature.  So, we would play the game and after 5 or 10 minutes of seeing that no one in the game was ahead or behind of any one else we would start to beat the crap out of each other.  We needed the release.  Someone had to conquer. Someone had to be defeated. 

 

The Democrats own system of Ungame is putting many on edge.  It’s the DNC’s fault.  Additionally, that the party that claims to be the voice of the voiceless employs the caucus system is a scandal.  I went to Texas for their primary to help with the caucus for the Hillary campaign.  A system that demands that people show up at a certain time and day (about 7:15pm, Tuesday evening) disenfranchises a staggering amount of people.  As I called to ask, no, beg people to come to the caucus I realized how in my own bubble world I was.  I heard people say that even though they had voted for early for Hillary and really liked her they couldn’t’ come because they couldn’t drive at night, had to take care of kids or grandkids, worked a night shift, or didn’t’ have legs and lived out in the country beyond where we had volunteers to drive them in.  Now, if you are an Obama supporter you might say, oh well, our younger, affluent core of voters got there just fine thank you.  But, one day this may affect your candidate.  And Senator Leahy and other party grand Pooh-Bah’s would do well to consider these forgotten people and change the rules of the primary and ABOLISH the caucus rather than throw Clinton under the bus.  The Caucus is only there in order to keep the control of the nomination in the hands of a few hard-core, active party members. If the Dems had winner take all the GOP would already have its next target. All Democrats should look at the Democratic Party’s exclusionary nominating process and borrow Mr Cheney’s words again and tell the DNC to “go fuck themselves.”