Something for the Anti-Clinton Camp to Keep In Mind When You Feel Belittled [View all]

[McCamy Taylor]

I am sorry that some real liberals who can not stand Clinton feel that they are being discriminated against at DU. I am sorry that you feel as if you are the victim of a witch hunt or vendetta or a smoke-filled back room coordinated offensive to deprive you of your free speech and your vote. But remember, nothing occurs in a vacuum, and context counts.

The anti-anti-Hillary crowd is not being masterminded by anyone in a corporate office. The anti-anti-Hillarys are speaking up on their own. Because they remember 1972. They remember when Dick Nixon and Pat Buchanan manipulated the press---and Democratic voters---into ignoring their most general election viable candidates and throwing all their eggs into a basket which the GOP had already filled with holes in preparation for the general. Tactics which have been recycled again and again. They remember 1968, when a lack of Democratic solidarity cost this country six more years in Vietnam, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, Kent State and a whole lot of other pain.

So, no, none of you personally is on the payroll of CREEP II or CREEP IX or whatever the GOP smoke filled back room is calling itself this time. None of you have personally gotten the memo with the GOP talking point du jour---Hillary is Insincere.--in your inbox. None of you is anything other than you seem---

But, from the perspective of someone who does not know you, someone who can not see your face, when you start trying to tear down the most popular Democratic candidate we have---well, warning bells go off. Because we have been burned before and many of us have vowed never to get burned again.

Here's my advice. Read Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72." Then read his essays about Watergate. Then, when you sit down to spell out your issues with Clinton, you will know exactly how to phrase your ideas without giving anyone the wrong idea. Note--that means no character attacks. Anytime anyone starts indulging in character attacks, be very, very afraid. The GOP does not slime on issues. They attack character. Phrases like "war hawk" and "corporate" sound an awful lot like a GOP Big Lie, like Gore is a Liar or Kerry is a Waffler. ALL politicians will support some war, sometime---think WWII. All politicians take some money from some rich people---think Soros.

Yes, it is a pity that we can not all write exactly what we think and be believed. But if we believed everything that was written, the entire US Gross National Product would not be the property of some guy in Nigeria.