I'd like to be a tough guy, but unfortunately I'm a little squeamish. I don't really like the uglier aspects of politics. The back-stabbing, the mud-slinging, the dirt-digging is not really for me.
Despite what the media tells us this is hardly new in politics. In fact dirty politics has a long-established record of success in America. I see the Clintons as part of this history, although I sincerely doubt that Hillary will refer to Obama or McCain as a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman", as the Jefferson campaign said of John Adams in 1800. (You know, the funny thing is I laughed when I first read that and I'm laughing again. I guess I just don't like that sort of thing in current or recent elections.)
Despite all that you've read here the past few weeks/months, there is a part of me that admires Hillary Clinton. She's tenacious. She's aggressive. She's obnoxious. (I know it's not a winner with many, but I kind of like that.) And - as is pretty darned obvious - she simply doesn't quit. Whatever about being President, I wish to hell she'd have been managing the Mets last September.
{I also think a winning gambit for her would be to bluntly state that 'this is NOT a marriage proposal, but if you want someone you can count on to get in the face of America's enemies, cracking heads among the allies or fighting for you here at home there is no one more suited to the job'.}
There are things she stands for that I just don't like, but I also am fairly confident that she's not going to simply walk away from Iraq or free trade or do some of the other things she's been promising lately. And all Americans know this. They know that Hillary Clinton wants to be President very, very, very badly and will do or say whatever it takes to win.
Everyone who's voting for Clinton knows that the campaign promises aren't worth a damn, but they admire her and are voting for her because they trust that she'll do a good job. If she manages to win in November there will be some Democrats who will moan about the broken promises, but deep down they'll know, the media will know, we'll all know that the promises were just part of 'whatever it takes'.
