Yes, I Might Vote for Hillary Clinton

Yes, its true. I might vote for Hillary, though I never liked her very much--until recently.

If I pull the lever for her (I am going to decide when I am in the booth), its really due to mainstream media, particularly the cable news networks and especially Chris Matthews. The news media has not treated her fairly. And they have set an agenda for Barack Obama and they have not scrutinized his candidacy--perhaps some of the gatekeepers themselves have become enthralled by Obama's oratory (part of me says "No we can't" when his crowds repeat "Yes We Can") or perhaps the Obama PR team has really succeeded in pushing its talking points forward--all that unity, anti-Washington, pro-bipartisan, gee whiz Republicans aren't all bad kind of talk. Please do not tell me that Reagan had ideas--he had an image not ideas, thank you. Indeed the Republicans did had new ideas, those generated by the neocon thinktanks--and these ideas have almost ruined this country and have destroyed Iraq.

I began to listen to Hillary after she lost in Iowa and many of the straight white men in media started celebrating her emminent demise rather permaturely. I listened to her recite her policy initiatives clearly. She is resilient and realistic and specific. She doesn't move me, she doesn't make me believe in humanity, she doesn't preach bipartisanship--in fact she doesn't preach at all. No, she doesn't believe in gay marraige, she doesn't sound outraged and disgusted that Exxon has announced its highest profits ever but she does mention that executives are often overpaid. She is mainstream. She has a husband that lives on the border between kind of charming and outright annoying. Some of the Kennedys may prefer Obama--Obama is more elegant and dreamy. That's okay. I trust Hillary, feel like I have a sense of her. She is substantial and smart and wonkish in a post -Britney Spears/Paris Hilton world when the popular culture of the Bush era part two has been so antifeminist, so insistent that a woman's body is more important than her mind. She's pear-shaped. She wears pant suits. Who cares? I don't want to have a beer with her but I wouldn't mind running into her and pouring her a nice glass of sauvingnon blanc. I think I might vote for Hillary.