Liberal in the Land of Conservative

Should Hillary stay?

This week 2.5 million people voted Democratic in the two primaries held in Indiana and North Carolina.

It is now obvious that Senator Clinton cannot win the endorsement but she can prevent Senator Obama from winning as well.

A number of Democrats are calling on Hillary to step aside. I’m not one of them.

Last December I had an interesting conversation with a high priced political strategist who is an expert on trends and voting patterns. He told me a “tidal wave” is coming. At that time of course McCain was dead in the water and everyone was saying Rudy was going to be the Republican standard bearer and Hillary was a lock for the Democrats.

Minnesota and a whole bunch of States had moved their primaries and caucuses up because the race would be over by March and they wanted to cash in on the early excitement.

The tidal wave he was talking about was the primary/caucus turnout.
The combination of two exciting candidates and 7 years of the worst President in history, falling home values, foreclosures, Iraq and gas prices meant that the middle class was not going to sit this election out. He was predicting a turnout that far exceeded the already heady predictions of the party leadership. And he was right.

We are now in May and the tidal wave is still rising. 2.5 million People proved this last Tuesday. Would we have seen this kind of turnout if the race was over? Of course not.

What’s the media talking about? The Democrats. You would hardly know that there is a Republican candidate by watching the news the last month or so.

Just as important is the fact that both of these candidates are great spokespersons for our party. Add the fact that Obama is getting a great lesson in campaigning from Hillary and I see nothing but positives coming from Senator Clinton carrying her campaign to the convention.

The Democratic party seems to be split into two groups.

One faction wants to work together and compromise on progressive issues to build a coalition between Democrats and moderate Republicans. Debates scare them and they are willing to do almost anything to avoid controversy.

The other faction believes that the Bush/Republican congress has proved that their agenda has been a complete failure and that our country can only be saved by instituting policies that restore the middle class. This group is ready to fight and feels we have already compromised to much.

The only certain bet in this race is that there will be some big changes in store for us next year. Better late than never.