The Summer of Their Discontent
Chaos in Colorado!
It’s been said that imitation is the sincerest
form of flattery. Those who say that, however, have never seen
my Christopher Walken impression. Maybe I need more cowbell. If
the organizers of Recreate 68 have their way, they will flatter
the 1968 Democratic National Convention held in Chicago.
Ah, the summer of 1968. Do you remember where you were when you
heard the news of the clashes between liberal Democrats and Chicago
police officers? (I don’t because I wasn’t born yet.
By the way, you can send your hate mail to me on this point to
me at my new email address YoungIAWhipperSnapper@aol.com.) Amid
the chaos and violence, the 1968 Democratic Convention gave us
the electoral powerhouse that was Hubert Humphrey.
And leftists want to recreate that?
As it stands, Recreate68 might want to stay home during the convention
because there stands to be a lot of chaos without them stirring
up things. As of this writing, the Democrats have two candidates,
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who are battling over superdelegates.
Superdelegates are state and national Democratic Party bigwigs
who can either choose to vote for the candidate that the regular
delegates have chosen or they can choose a different candidate
if they feel the delegates made the wrong choice. Now, only if
we could get them to overrule the people who voted for John Murtha….
If that wasn’t screwy enough, there is controversy surrounding
the delegates of two states, Florida and Michigan. Democratic
National Committee Chair Howard Dean warned states that if they
moved up their primary dates to compete with Iowa and New Hampshire
that the DNC would not seat their delegates at the National Convention.
So, what did the party leaders in Michigan and Florida do? They
ignored Dr. Dean and moved up their primary dates. This, in turn,
caused Dean to initially strip those two states of their delegates,
only to change his mind later to consider splitting the delegates
between Clinton and Obama from both states.
Dean also inserted himself into the superdelegate debate by saying
they should announce who they are voting for by June. So far,
we haven’t seen too many superdelegates falling over each
other to make their announcements. Maybe it’s me, but that
leads me to believe that your party doesn’t respect you.
And after you’ve shown leadership that makes Captain Wilton
Parmenter of “F Troop” look like General George Patton,
is it any wonder?
Then, there’s the elephant (or in this case, donkey) in
the room: the party dynamic. Right now, Democrats are being stretched
in more directions than Plastic Man, Mr. Fantastic, and Stretch
Armstrong playing Twister in a twister. If they back Obama over
Clinton, they could be, and have been, accused of misogyny and
sexism. (For the uninitiated, misogyny is a single Irish woman
gynecologist.) If they back Clinton over Obama, they could be,
and have been, accused of racism. And if Rev. Al Sharpton is to
be believed, if Obama doesn’t win the nomination, there
will be rioting in Denver. And if he’s not to be believed,
he’s still annoying.
With the kind of maturity displayed by both Clinton and Obama
supporters, is it any wonder that some of the Democrats may not
vote for their party’s candidate, either by voting for presumed
Republican candidate John McCain or by staying home? That has
to be troubling to party leaders because this was supposed to
be their year. George W. Bush is less popular than the possibility
of a Kim Jong Il-Carrot Top buddy film/plan to take over the world.
The only thing less popular than Bush right now…is Congress,
and the Democrats can blame Bush for their inability to do anything.
After all, they blame him for everything from oil prices to overdue
book fees accruing after they forgot to return the library’s
copy of An Inconvenient Truth.
The wild cards in all of this are the fringe leftists like Recreate68.
They’re not happy with Clinton’s vote in favor of
the war in Iraq, but I’m not sure Obama is leftist enough
for them. Whether they hold their noses and vote for the Democrat
(or hold their noses so they don’t have to smell each other’s
stench) or stay home is unclear at this point. (Gee, maybe that’s
because it’s under six months until Election Day!)
There’s another possible area for drama at the Democratic
National Convention. If the delegates and superdelegates can’t
decide between Clinton and Obama, guess who’s been rumored
to be nominated from the floor? Al Freaking Gore.
If you’re relying on Gore to save your party, pack it in.
Seriously. (Or “cereally,” if you’d prefer.)
But the Gore pick has another angle to it. Since the party can’t
seem to decide on which minority to promote to be President, they’re
looking to who has traditionally been their safe choice: rich
white leftist men. What kind of message will that send to the
party faithful, as well as to the general electorate? It sends
one message to me: Michael Dukakis isn’t returning the DNC’s
phone calls.
The Democratic National Convention this year is going to be full
of more fireworks than a KISS concert held during a Chinese New
Year celebration in Missouri. Things look bad, but there is one
thing that will pour salt into the gaping wound of the Democratic
Party.
The delegates’ luggage will be lost in the Bermuda Triangle
known as the Denver International Airport.
And that’s the Bottom Line.
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