Disclaimer: I’m a democrat who is VERY excited about Obama but who will happily vote for Clinton if she gets the nomination.
Here are three arguments/claims/memes relating to the current election cycle that I am sick of:
(1) The claim that H. Clinton’s experience as First Lady is irrelevant, often expressed in a pseudo-witty way like “gee, should the Packers have just let Deana(?) Favre take over as quarterback? I mean, she’s been right by his side for many years…”. Everything I’ve ever read has said that Hillary was deeply involved in just about everything when she was First Lady. And given that she is an intelligent woman and a trained lawyer and an experienced politician, and was (presumably) the confidante of the actual president for 8 years… what experience could possibly be MORE relevant as far as being aware of the types of pressures and issues and situations that a president needs to deal with? Now, this certainly wouldn’t apply to ANY FL, but as long as the FL in question is one who was actively involved, I think this is a ridiculous claim.
(2) Taking the Obama-JFK analogy too far.
Person 1: Obama is so inspiring! He reminds me of JFK!
Person 2: But JFK was a womanizer! Bay of pigs! Bay of pigs!
Now, there is clearly a GLIMMER of validity to person 2’s argument, in that if person 1 was claiming “Obama is inspiring in the same way that JFK is, and JFK is remembered fondly, ergo I have now 100% proven that Obama would be a wonderful present, end of argument”, then it would be reasonable to point out that mere JFK-like inspirationalness is not, in and of itself, a guarantee of excellence. But the claim that Person 1 is usually making is not “here is the entire reason why Obama will be good” but “here is a quality that Obama has that is rare and special and inspiring and has been missing from politics for quite some time”. And in fact, the whole JFK-wasn’t-a-great-president thing really kind of supports that. JFK’s charisma and inspiration and Camelotishness were so powerful that people are STILL under their spell 40 years later. That kind of effect is a wonderful thing for a leader to have. Of course, ou certainly want a leader to have MORE than that. But the fact that JFK was also a womanizer doesn’t mean that charisma and eloquence and the-ability-to-inspire-the-young suddenly become bad things.
(3) People saying “I’m a lifelong democrat, but if Obama/Clinton gets the nomination, I’m going to vote for McCain”. I pit this not because I’m shocked by the idea that someone could (gasp!) vote for someone not in their party, but because people seem to be making this argument in a petulant and whiney way… because of fairly trivial incidences (Bill Clinton pointed out that Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice! ZOMG! Racism! I will never vote for Hillary!), and because people seem to be using this as cut-off-nose-to-spite-face blackmail. “You’d better vote for Obama because if Hillary wins the nomination I will be so mad and angry that I will stay home and McCain will be elected and that will server YOU right, you non-Obama-supporter!”. Again, I’m not complaining about someone who honestly and dispassionately decides to vote for any one person over any other… (although I will also point out that for someone who is honestly a lifelong democrat, the issue of Supreme Court nominations alone should be something you take VERY VERY seriously) but about the seeming pettiness of the whole situation. (Not to mention the fact that it’s so long between now and the general election… who will be running mates? What other issues will come up during the campaign? Yada yada yada.)