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Enough of the D.C. Dems
By Molly Ivins
03/08/06 "The
Progressive" -- Mah fellow progressives, now is the
time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party. I
don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had
it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating,
equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a
bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton.
I will not be supporting Senator Clinton because: a) she has no
clear stand on the war and b) Terri Schiavo and flag-burning are not
issues where you reach out to the other side and try to split the
difference. You want to talk about lowering abortion rates through
cooperation on sex education and contraception, fine, but don’t jack
with stuff that is pure rightwing firewater.
I can’t see a damn soul in D.C. except Russ Feingold who is even
worth considering for President. The rest of them seem to me so
poisonously in hock to this system of legalized bribery they can’t
even see straight.
Look at their reaction to this Abramoff scandal. They’re talking
about “a lobby reform package.” We don’t need a lobby reform
package, you dimwits, we need full public financing of campaigns,
and every single one of you who spends half your time whoring after
special interest contributions knows it. The Abramoff scandal is a
once in a lifetime gift—a perfect lesson on what’s wrong with the
system being laid out for people to see. Run with it, don’t mess
around with little patches, and fix the system.
As usual, the Democrats have forty good issues on their side and
want to run on thirty-nine of them. Here are three they should stick
to:
1) Iraq is making terrorism worse; it’s a breeding ground. We need
to extricate ourselves as soon as possible. We are not helping the
Iraqis by staying.
2) Full public financing of campaigns so as to drive the
moneylenders from the halls of Washington.
3) Single-payer health insurance.
Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and
spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still
cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, “unpatriotic” by a
bunch of rightwingers.
Take “unpatriotic” and shove it. How dare they do this to our
country? “Unpatriotic”? These people have ruined the American
military! Not to mention the economy, the middle class, and our
reputation in the world. Everything they touch turns to dirt,
including Medicare prescription drugs and hurricane relief.
This is not a time for a candidate who will offend no one; it is
time for a candidate who takes clear stands and kicks ass.
Who are these idiots talking about Warner of Virginia? Being anodyne
is not sufficient qualification for being President. And if there’s
nobody in Washington and we can’t find a Democratic governor, let’s
run Bill Moyers, or Oprah, or some university president with ethics
and charisma.
What happens now is not up to the has-beens in Washington who run
this party. It is up to us. So let’s get off our butts and start
building a progressive movement that can block the nomination of
Hillary Clinton or any other candidate who supposedly has “all the
money sewed up.”
I am tired of having the party nomination decided before the first
primary vote is cast, tired of having the party beholden to the same
old Establishment money.
We can raise our own money on the Internet, and we know it. Howard
Dean raised $42 million, largely on the web, with a late start when
he was running for President, and that ain’t chicken feed. If we
double it, it gives us the lock on the nomination. So let’s go find
a good candidate early and organize the shit out of our side.
Molly Ivins writes in this space every month. Her latest book is
“Who Let the Dogs In?”
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