Ruminations of an Expatriate

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Monday, January 7th, 2008...6:54 pm

Campaign Silliness

Media coverage of the presidential nomination campaign just gets sillier and sillier.

Anyone who is paying the least bit of attention has heard or seen a video of Senator Clinton chocking up a bit in responding to a question at a campaign stop. CNN is practically running a looped tape of her “emotional moment” and the blogosphere is all atwitter.

John Edwards was asked to respond to Clinton’s display of emotion and, according to ABC News, responded as such:

“Edwards, speaking at a press availability in Laconia, New Hampshire, offered little sympathy and pounced on the opportunity to bring into question Clinton’s ability to endure the stresses of the presidency. Edwards responded, ‘I think what we need in a commander-in-chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are tough business, but being president of the United States is also tough business.’”

I have all along been pretty much convinced of Edward’s phoniness, but have never thought of him as stupid.

His comment was very, very stupid.

I have never been a Clinton supporter, either President or Senator. (I caucused in Washington state for Tsongas in 1992 and have been pulling for Obama all along.)

But Senator Clinton can’t win. She’s been getting hammered for being “angry” for displaying a bit of impatiences at an Edward’s criticism during the last debate and today she gets hammered for displaying a bit of emotion.

I think we could put a stop to a this kind of silliness by:

Enacting a Constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college (instituted by the aristocrats who wrote the Constitution because of their mistrust for the unwashed masses).

Establishing a national primary two months before the election and limiting the primary and general election campaigns to two months.

Enacting a Constitutional amendment establishing that corporations are not considered “persons” under the Constitution, an invention of the Supreme Court some time back. Thus corporations would no longer enjoy the first amendment protection to freedom of speech and so legislation could prohibit corporate money from campaigns.

And by limiting campaigning to the publicly funded publication of one’s biography and and platform (that’s how it’s done in Cuba).

Media outlets and influence peddlers would not be happy with such changes. Screw ‘em.

UPDATE: Contrasting Edwards comment on Clinton’s show of emotion, here’s an MSNBC report of what Obama had to say on the subject:

“‘I didn’t see what happened. I know this process is a grind. So that’s not something I care to comment on,’ he told reporters who threw questions at him, as he bought tea for his throat and cookies and cupcakes for the press corps.”

And,

“On whether Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race, he said, ‘We’ve had one caucus. This would be one primary. Right now I’m just focused on tomorrow. We’ve got to get out our voters; it would be such a shame after seeing the great turnout in Iowa if we weren’t working as hard as we could to make sure that story continues.’”

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