My wife and I watched Bill Clinton’s speech last night at the DNC. We watched on CSPAN (which you can watch free at CSPAN.org). They carried all of the speeches with none of the commentary. It was refreshing to watch people speak without a commentary track added. I was tired of the Crooked Hillary rhetoric. I was tired of the talk of emails. I was tired of hearing everyone tell me what I should think about Hillary. It was time to hear what her spouse said about her (and what she has to say for herself on Thursday). Bill painted a portrait of his wife as a hard-working, child crusading, relentless agent of change across decades, state and international borders.
In her capacity as litigator and legislator, she has worked for people. She has started programs and organizations which still exist today. Hillary is being painted as a one-dimensional caricature by her opponent. It’s easy to vote and rail against her that way. She’s crooked. She didn’t make perfect choices. She used a private email server.
If you’ve ever worked in and around Government IT, a private server might be a better way to go than the endless parade of contractors running government IT. And even though her email usage is given the spotlight, there are plenty of government workers using Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail/other private email services for their Government email. But they’re not running for President so it’s not brought to light.
Last night, Bill made a pitch for his wife for President. Which alone, is notable. She is the first woman to ever be nominated for President by a major party. She may well be our first female President come November. That’s historic.
My wife offered a perspective I can never have last night. She said how important it was for girls. Girls are told you can do anything. You can be President. Until now, that was a nice fairy tale. But now it could be real. Little girls can grow up to be President.
Bill Clinton’s speech sold Hillary’s legacy with a speech only he could deliver – Vox
The pitch is simple: Bill and Hillary Clinton understand that there are big regions of this country that are suffering from big problems. And while Trump is offering pleasantly easy and pleasantly vague solutions to those problems, you probably know deep in your heart that big problems are harder and more complicated than that. Actually doing the work of fixing them is hard. And Hillary Clinton is ready to do some hard work on them.
After all, it’s what she’s been doing for decades.
A friend asked,
Do the ends justify the means with how the DNC and HRC worked together? Is this how we wanted the young generation to see how it works? Get out, phone bank, work hard, vote, and you to can belong to an organization that favors one candidate over another…. even though it was to be a race?
I don’t want Trump, and if Hillary had gotten the nod without all that has come out, I also wouldn’t have batted an eye. But what precedent has been set for the future?
This was my response.
It was always going to be Hillary. Bernie made a good run but he was an outsider from the get-go. I voted for him in the Primary, but not enough other people did.
If he had the popular vote, he would have won. But he didn’t. It’s disappointing but he didn’t. Instead we’re left with a woman who has also worked for decades to make people’s lives better. Who had championed children’s issues and safety.
Sure, she has some black marks on her record. No one working in the public eye this long doesn’t.
If you don’t believe this goes on behind the scenes of every campaign you’re deluding yourself.
If the RNC’s emails were leaked, I’m sure you’d see the same things, all trying to figure out how to stop Trump. But he had the popular vote.
You can’t say the DNC worked against Sanders and stopped him meanwhile Trump was steamrolling the RNC, GOP and every pundit in the land. He was unstoppable. Not because of collusion or insider knowledge, but because he got the most votes. And in the end, Bernie, as much as I was pulling for him, did not.
In Maryland alone, Clinton won by 251,972 votes.
Young people may have gotten out and organized, but older people still vote and vote more consistently.
If young people want to make their voices heard, they need to get out and vote and vote in huge numbers. The Millennial Generation rivals the Greatest Generation in size.
If they want to have their way, they need to vote. But young people don’t vote as often and as consistently as older people. And when the older people vote, they win.
Same way that large turnouts favor the Democrats where smaller turnouts favor Republicans. Which is why I’m scared that young people and Bernie supporters are threatening not to vote this November. Or vote for a third-party (Stein or Johnson) which is a great protest vote.
But we’ll end up like we did in 2000 with the Democrat vote split and Trump will ride his tidal wave to victory.
And then where will we be? North Carolina has passed some abhorrent legislation. Mike Pence has done the same thing. Including trying to jail same-sex couples for applying for a marriage license.
If you’re mad about Bernie, then show up to the polls and give the Democrats the majority party in Congress. Give Bernie real power to make lasting change by putting him and his party back in charge!
If Hillary wins, don’t think she’s going to leave him behind. She wants to make lives better for people in this country. She’s going to work with him. That’s the person she is. That’s the kind of President she will be. That’s what I am voting for.