Hillary Clinton: A Postmortem

(Note: I was going to save this post until Hillary Clinton formally concedes to Obama, but since I have nothing else, I'll post it now. Things could change, however, if Senator Clinton pulls out a miracle in Texas and Ohio or the Clinton machine pulls some chicanery with the super delegates or something of the sort.)

Like Hillary Clinton, I thought she had a lock on the Democrat nomination. I thought that with her money and the Clinton organization's ties in the Democrat Party that nothing could possibly stop her. She and I and the CW did not take two factors into consideration: Barack Obama and Democrat voters.

Because she thought she was inevitable to win among Democrats, Hillary Clinton forgot about them. From the beginning of her Senate career she followed her husband's successful strategy and triangulated with an eye to the national election in November of 2008. She voted for the war in Iraq, thinking that it would be suicidal among independents to be seen as weak on defense -- and thinking that she could alienate some Democrats and still win the nomination easily. This turned out to be a fatal misjudgment.

I noticed at Daily Kos and Democratic Underground in the last year a great deal of animosity toward Senator Clinton because of her support of the war. I thought this was just the vocal far left of the party, but the anger of the anti-war vote seems to be widespread through the Democrat base. Perhaps this is another indication of how far left the entire party has moved.

Then along came Obama, representing New Leftist ideals in pure form, unadulterated by any triangulation. Obama had no connection to the hated DLC, with its machiavellian positioning to get independent and moderate Republican votes. Obama is the old time religion, so to speak, and it still intoxicates Democrats as much as it did in 1972. There have even been reports of young people swooning as Obama speaks; apparently, gaseous rhetoric unconnected to reality does something for young Democrats these days.

I'm reminded of a passage from Ayn Rand's essay on how progressive education destroys young minds, "The Comprachicos":

The conditioning phase of the comprachicos' task is completed. The students' development is arrested, their minds are set to respond to slogans, as animals respond to a trainer's whistle, their brains are embalmed in the syrup of altruism as an automatic substitute for self-esteem -- they have nothing left but the terror of chronic anxiety, the blind urge to act, to strike out at whoever caused it, and a boiling hostility against the whole of the universe. They would obey anyone, they need a master, they need to be told what to do. They are ready now to be used as cannon fodder -- to attack, to bomb, to burn, to murder, to fight in the streets and die in the gutters. They are a trained pack of miserably impotent freaks, ready to be unleashed against anyone. The comprachicos unleash them against the "System."

Government schools have not taught America's youth to think independently, but to follow the group. They respond to Obama's slogans "as animals respond to a trainer's whistle." If any crises create the opportunity for mob violence, America's youth are now a mob waiting to happen. The Obama worship is more ominous than most commentators think. Has the mob found its master?

I have to credit the Democrats for sticking with their principles in the primaries. The Republicans did the opposite, pragmatically going with John McCain, a big government conservative who polls the best against Democrats. Of course, Democrat principles, such as they are, are the principles of collectivism and state control -- but, by golly, they stuck with them! They will righteously march America down the road to serfdom! Those principles led McGovern to a landslide defeat against another pragmatist Republican, Richard Nixon, in 1972. If Obama does not suffer a similar defeat, does it reflect the decline of the American electorate and the death of our individualist heritage? Or does McCain's fervor for big government confuse the message?

I thought I would gloat at Hillary Clinton's downfall, but I feel nothing but suspicion and fear of the man who defeated her. His wife Michelle got a lot of attention for saying, “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country.” Only an anti-American New Leftist would make this statement. I suspect that Barack Obama is as far left as his wife. With the help of the MSM, he will try to hide his radicalism (and his wife) until November 5, 2008. Any attempt by the right to reveal the real Obama will be denounced as "swiftboating."

Maybe I'm just accustomed to see the worst, but between McCain and Obama I really don't see any good coming out of this next election. I think we're at the beginning of a new era, an era of crisis and deepening statism, which will feature a quicker erosion of individual rights and the spread of force in America. In other words, we're heading for some deep shit.