It’s A Landslide Victory

   
for the People

By Hank Edson

After the worst presidency in history, during most of which the Republican Party controlled all three branches of government, we, the people of the Democratic Party are going to win a landslide victory in November over John McCain and the Republican Party. We need to begin every thought with this sentence. We need to test every opinion we hear against this sentence too. We need to use the heft of our conviction on this point in responding to the voices that thrive on confusion.

The corporate media has two agendas. One is ratings. The other is aiding corporate control of the American people’s government. Both agendas are served by projecting a “tight” race for the presidency.

We’ve got to be more sophisticated if we, the people of the Democratic Party, really want control of our government. We have to know our truth and their lies.

Even when appropriately angry, liberal commentators like Keith Olbermann, host the broadcast platform, they still needs corporate advertisers and therefore they still need to magnify small details to suggest a degree of drama that simply doesn’t exist if you look at the big facts that make the race for the presidency no contest.

Sorry, Keith, every time your talking heads deviate from our truth, we have to turn you off. We don’t need your drama anymore than we need Hillary Clinton’s “Big State” argument. We are so tired of all your panelists, of all those cable faces, spewing insincere perspective simply to collect their pay check from the pundits’ union. We know what you are all about and it’s not politics and its definitely not anything we want or need.

What we need—what our country needs—is to look hard at what we’ve just been through under the likes of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom Delay, and Mitch McConnell. What we need is for the press to hold the Republican nominee to account for the disastrous policies of the Republican Party over the last seven years.

Better yet, what we need, is for Cable News and the corporate press just to go silent for the next eight months.

The corporate media is projecting a lie. The corporate media wants us to believe the race is close because it boosts ratings and gives legitimacy to a Republican platform that slavishly serves corporate interests.

It used to be that the Republicans tried to intimidate the referee into making calls in their favor by throwing false tantrums about a “liberal” media—as if the media that broadcast President Bush’s war propaganda could really be “liberal.”

The spin this time is the same, but different: the media is being used to call the contest “close” when there really is no contest at all.

In both scenarios, however, the strategy can have the power of a self-fulfilling, toxic prophesy. After a while, if the lies are constantly shouted over and over and over again, people begin to accept them as legitimate opinions.

“The earth is flat! The earth is flat! The earth is flat! The earth is flat! The earth is flat! The earth is flat!” Fox News tells its viewers every night and because Fox News says so, it is an opinion that at least deserves consideration in the public discourse.

We, the people of the Democratic Party, need to reject the lie that the race for the presidency is close. If we voice our conviction in the overwhelming superiority of the Democratic Party’s appeal to a people still suffering the consequences of the worst presidency in history, during which the Republican Party controlled all three branches for the overwhelming majority of the time, we will see that this conviction has the power of an incredibly beneficial self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is our job. We must not leave it to our candidates. We definitely must not leave it to the press. We must broadcast our own conviction. The Republican Party’s gluttony and abuse had caused that party’s self-destruction. The people of the Democratic Party have a platform that will begin to restore democracy and prosperity to our nation. The race for the presidency isn’t even close. The Democrats are going to win by an overwhelming majority.

And we will all be so much better for it.

Copyright © Hank Edson 2008

By Hank Edson

No matter who the Democratic Party nominates, that candidate ought to win hands down--following as he or she will, the worst administration in history, during which the Republican Party controlled all three branches of government.

That's why diverting the political discourse into considering any other alternative is to put oneself at odds with the interests of the Democratic Party.

We, the people of the Democratic Party, already have a resounding victory.  Don't tell us our victory is at risk; it is not.  Don't tell us you will save us; we don't need to be saved.

We don’t need a candidate selection process, in fact; anyone will do. Make no mistake about this.

The fact that we would like a genuine leader does not mean that we are in doubt about our victory over the abusive politics of Republican rule.  It does not mean that we are looking for an answer to our fears.  We are not afraid.  We are eagerly anticipating election day and the victory it will bring us.

Clarity on this single point is now the deciding factor that we, the people of the Democratic Party, should apply in choosing a nominee for the presidency.

The one who get's this point is in.  The one who doesn't is out.

This is why our nominee must be Barack Obama.

Hilary Clinton’s bid for the presidency has been whittled down to the “big state” argument: the argument that she won the large states with the most electoral votes, which tend to be won by Democrats, and that Obama won the small states, which tend to be won by Republicans.

The Clinton team argues that Obama won’t be able to beat McCain in the general election because the states that supported him during the primaries will be won by McCain and the states that McCain would otherwise lose, won’t vote for Obama because they wanted Clinton to be the nominee.

It’s bad that Clinton has been reduced to making such a stupid argument, but it’s disqualifying that she has chosen to make an argument so contrary to the interests of the people of the Democratic Party.

Clinton is willfully projecting for her own benefit a scenario in which the Democratic Party loses small state after small state to John McCain. And then she is insanely suggesting that Obama can’t win California, New York, Texas and Florida because her success in those states demonstrates their undying allegiance to all things Clinton.

On one hand, this argument might suggest that Obama can’t win these states because her success indicates a Republican leaning amongst these voters. On the other hand, it might suggest that Obama would somehow so anger the state’s democratic voters with his electoral victory among pledged delegates that democrats in big states would simply not vote.  No matter what it suggests, this argument is absurd, self-serving, and a grave disservice to the Party.

We already have a win. We don’t need Clinton. And we don’t need her suggesting our victory is in doubt.  We definitely don't need to entertain her desperate rationalizations of why democrats must nominate her, even though she doesn't have the votes.

I urge my fellow democrats to think about this and announce your support for Barack Obama--if you have not already--based on this principle: Democrats are going to win big in November and we don’t want a candidate whose nomination depends on calling that victory into doubt.

We are done with Republican rule.  Our every spoken word should explain why.

Copyright © Hank Edson 2008

John Edwards, Where Are You Now?
    

By Hank Edson

As the number of Americans killed in President Bush’s deceitful war surpasses 4000, this shameful milestone ought to be the Democratic Party’s bully pulpit for a saner, safer, more humane government. On one hand, it ought to be a bully pulpit that speaks for itself. The leadership of the Democratic Party ought to circle the American people around it for a moment of profound and deliberative silence. On the other hand, it ought to be a bully pulpit from which the tragic aftermath of Republican rule of all three branches of government during the majority of Bush’s administration is reviewed with eloquent and angry common sense.

One thing is sure, with 4000 Americans killed by the Republican management of foreign policy, the general election should already be won by the Democratic Party. John McCain’s showing in the polls should be as low as George Bush and Dick Cheney’s approval ratings. He has been their lapdog, after all, throughout their administration. The Democratic Party should be dancing circles around a helpless McCain, giving him a thorough work-over before delivering the knock-out punch. It is March 2008 after more than seven disastrous years of Republican rule. The Democrats should be able to send Dennis Kucinich into the ring and be assured of leaving McCain unconscious on the mat.

To forget this fact for even one second is an injury to the American people. Any talk that proceeds on an assumption that the facts could be otherwise is inexcusable. We voters need to assert our independence on this score. The politicians and the talking-heads have the broadcast strength, but we must remain clear and confident in our own sober conviction that the Republican Party has lost its legitimacy, its honor, and, finally, its cover.

We, the people in the Democratic Party, are the Democratic Party and we are going to register a searing condemnation of Republican rule in the upcoming election. Our elected leaders in the Democratic Party may not have had the integrity to properly condemn such rule through impeachment, but rest assured, whoever the people of the Democratic Party nominate as their champion, he or she is going to kick some ass. I make no excuses here: eloquent and angry common sense, I said, is what this moment calls for.

John Edwards, where are you now?

Copyright © Hank Edson 2008