Hillary Clinton Supporters at Daily Kos Go On Strike!

Many Republicans have despaired about whether there is any chance of electing a Republican as President in November (if you count John McCain as a Republican). But increasingly many Republicans are saying, "Yes we can!"

The bitter rift in the Democrat party between supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seems to be getting worse and worse and just split wide open on the Daily Kos. Alegre a diarist at the Daily Kos, is fed up with the nasty personal attacks against Clinton supporters on the site and made a stunning announcement: that supporters of Hillary Clinton were going on "strike," that is they would no longer post diaries there. "I've decided to go on 'strike' and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution," she wrote.

Daily Kos founder and President for Life Markos Moulitsas responded with characteristic sensitivity to her concerns. "First, these people should read up on the definition of 'strike.' What they're doing is a 'boycott.'" He said. What Markos was saying, I think, is that not only are supporters of Clinton traitors to the liberal cause, they are incredibly stupid as well. They have been posting on his site for free for all of this time while Markos has been raking in money and not sharing one cent of it with them, which certainly cannot be characterized as an employer-employee relationship as anyone who has taken an Economics 101 class and is not a dunderheaded Clinton supporter would know. Although Markos suggested that the word "boycott" would be more appropriate than "strike," I think the word he was looking for was "slave revolt," since "slave" is a much more appropriate term for someone who works for no pay while the plantation owner enriches himself. The word "slave," however, has certain unfortunate racial connotations that he probably felt it would be best not to raise, so he went with the word "boycott" instead.

But of course this battle is about more than just semantics. What has especially irked Clinton supporters about Obama supporters at the Daily Kos is that Kossacks for Obama have learned what politics is really about. Politics is not about getting someone elected or changing the world, which anyone who has taken a look at the ability of the Daily Kos to actually get people elected should know. Politics is about feeling good about yourself. Who cares if Obama gets beaten in the general election; he will make everyone who voted for him feel really good inside. That's how Ralph Nader made people who voted for him feel in 2000. It didn't matter whether he had a chance to win or not, it only mattered that his supporters didn't feel icky by voting for Al Gore or George Bush.

For many Democrats, voting for Hillary Clinton would make them feel icky. Even if she somehow gets the nomination, many of them will probably stay home, or vote for Ralph Nader, who is running again so that he can feel good about himself by making people feel good about themselves. Then their souls will remain pure and not be sullied by voting for someone who gets elected and does something they don't like. That's much more important than who becomes president. I don't know what the average age of Kossacks is but judging by the level of their writing, it appears that most of them weren't even born when Bill Clinton was President. But they have studied enough history in school to know how terrible those years of peace and prosperity were since they directly led to the war and economic downturn we are experiencing now and understandably they don't want to go back to that.

Obama supporters also understand that voting should never be about picking the lesser of two evils or about making a strategic choice. If you don't agree with everything your candidate says, believe he or she can do no wrong and think that the other candidate is evil and that everyone who supports him or her is a traitor, then you really have no business voting at all. That's what those of us who supported George Bush believed and look how great that has been for the country.

I have not endorsed any candidate because so far all of the candidates would make me feel icky. I was hoping that Alan Keyes would do better because I agree with him on almost every issue and I believed that voting for him would help heal the racial divide in this country and would prove that I am not a racist. Unfortunately, he seems to have dropped out of the race (though he hasn't made a formal announcement as far as I know), but I am hoping he will run as a third party candidate so that I can vote for him even if he has no chance of winning. I may just write him in as a candidate so that the next time someone accuses me of being a racist, I can tell them that I voted for Alan Keyes, so there.

No conservative can support John McCain in good conscience since he has betrayed us on so many issues from torture to immigration to campaign finance reform to judicial appointments to gay marriage. And many are worried that he is a Manchurian Candidate who was brainwashed in Vietnam. But if he spends the rest of the campaign repudiating all of his principles and turning his back on everything he believes, many of us might change our minds. So far he has made a very good start.

Many conservatives were hoping that Obama would get the Democrat nomination because we are so tired of the dirty politics of the Clintons and we wanted to have a real debate about the issues, such as whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing to elect a Muslim who hates America and is probably a Communist as President. We wanted to have a civil discussion about whether we should surrender in Iraq, raise everyone's taxes and use it to give free health care to freeloaders and destroy the moral foundations of our society by permitting gay marriage, which would lead to people marrying their livestock or their grandparents. Conservatives believe that this kind of debate would be good for the country.

My friend Tom Watson recently wrote a piece about an endangered species in the liberal blogosphere: the Clinton blogger. In his piece he cited this modest blogger as "the rare righty who doesn't hate Hillary." Of course, I don't hate anyone, so that is technically accurate. And although I have said in the past that electing Hillary Clinton President would destroy Western civilization as we know it, I also believe that sometimes it takes destroying a village in order to save it. Some conservatives have said that the best way to make this country realize what a terrible mistake it has made by turning its back on conservatism would be to elect Clinton President, which would soon have the American people begging us to come back. I do have some sympathy for these conservatives who are considering becoming "suicide voters" in the fall and voting for Clinton if she gets the nomination.

But the more I see these idealistic Obama voters who are so committed to their candidate and personally attack anyone who opposes them as traitors and idiots, the more I recall those idealistic days when I unquestioningly supported President Bush and believed anyone who opposed him was a terrorist sympathizer. If you close your eyes and read what Andrew Sullivan says about Obama (I know you can't read if you close your eyes, but with Sullivan you don't actually have to read his blog to know what he is saying), you can't help but recall his onetime fanatical support of President Bush and the War in Iraq and the scorched Earth tactics he used to attack those who opposed him. It might be worth seeing Obama get elected just to see how long it would take Sullivan to realize that Obama is the worst President ever and for him to excoriate him and back one of his opponents with the same romantic fervor.

When I think of the devotion and starry-eyed idealism of Obama supporters I wonder if I could really pull the lever for Hillary Clinton, even if I do believe that it would be best thing for the country to destroy it. I wonder if I could look at myself in the mirror and still love myself. Because, after all, feeling good about myself is what elections should be about. In the end it all comes down to me.

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