Hillary Sucks

I wrote this as an article for a local website that never ended up getting off the ground, so I guess it's permissible for me to put it up here. Considering the latest news on the Democrat front, it's somewhat obsolete, but still, I think, pertinent.

I was in Subway the other day, when the two thirty-something men in line next to me struck up a conversation about the current Democratic nomination situation. They were somewhat good-looking, so I put up with it.

“I’m for Hillary,” said the black guy.

“I’m for Obama,” said the white guy, and I replied enthusiastically, “Me too!”

“But you’re a woman,” the first one said. “Shouldn’t you be for Hillary?”

“You’re black,” I replied. “Shouldn’t you be for Obama?”

The above interaction is a prime example of the rather annoying assumption that the average American cares more about phenotype than policy – that similarities in race and gender are more important than differences in thought and action. It assumes a degree of simplistic thinking that really ought to insult anyone to whom it is directed. We don’t have the capacity to decide for ourselves what is best for us, it says, because we’re too distracted by the desire to vote for whoever seems outwardly most like us. And that’s just silly.

Just because Hillary and I are both women doesn’t mean we’re best buddies. Margaret Thatcher is a woman (so I’m told), but don’t praise her in front of me unless you’re aching for an earful of invective. Conversely, I admire the suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton because of what she did to attain women’s legal and social rights, not because she’s from my hometown.

And now, Hillary is saying that Obama can’t win the general election because of white middle America. The way she says it leads me to wonder, is it because of his race, or his politics? Looking at his campaign platforms, it’s obvious that his plans are well-suited and beneficial to the segment of the population he’s purportedly alienating; it must be something else, then. What else is left? Well, her emphasis on white voters leads me to believe it has something to do with his race – half black is apparently too black, and half white just doesn’t seem to be enough. Suddenly the fear is that the country will run willy-nilly to Good Old Boy McCain, and the status quo will remain unchanging. Sorry, dear. George W. Bush wooed the country with his down-home, “I’m just a regular Joe” facade, and then spent the next eight years creating policies that completely went against that image, catering to the corporate giants while buggering the common man. Give us some credit. We’re not going to fall for the same trick twice (technically three times, who’s counting?).

I know I’m a part of the demographic that’s supposed to go for Obama, the well-educated 18-25 population of legend. But I just can’t believe that Hillary honestly thinks Americans are so naïve, so obtuse, as to believe that, in this age of terrorism, war, and recession, the all-encompassing question in this election is, “Do I pick the black guy or the white woman?”