It's the Issues, Stupid: Part Deux

Here is the actual video for anyone who missed it. I wrote about it after Hillary's speech.

It's garish in so many ways and has been played several times on CNN already. This is frustrating for me on so many levels because I'm sick of the media playing up what boils down to a fringe group of hardcore Hillary dead-enders who really, at this point, hate Barack more than they actually love the issues they claim they are for.

I'm also tired of the constant stream of haterade from Barack supporters about Hillary supporters and the Clintons in general. Theses are politicians. You can't get emotionally invested in them. You can like them. You can admire them. You can support and vote for them, but once you get lost to the pique of a back and forth campaign you start poisoning your own rationality.

No matter how the press hyped it, the Democratic Primary was not nearly as negative as past Democratic Primaries. Almost every blow between the two candidates was off-kilter, coded or passive aggressive. This was mostly because both candidates were running in Democratic Primary where the field is full of potential land mines of groups you could offend. One gaffe and every gay, black, Latino, feminist, blue collar, Ivy League intellectual, single mother, Liberal, progressive, populist, union member will hate you. Clinton tried whatever she could to stop him, dancing on the edge of knife wanting to win, but not wanting to be called a racist and in the end losing on both fronts.

I'm tired of the conspiracy theories about the Clintons. I can agree that they can be arrogant and self-absorbed, but I have no desire to hear old, rehashed Republican talking points from the 1990s coming out of the mouths of Barack supporters. The same supporters who are fighting Republican talking points of Barack being a secret Muslim who studied at a Madrassa.

I guess I want both Hillary Clinton and her supporters to be gracious in their defeat and I want Barack Obama and his supporters to be humble in victory.

He won. She didn't. Can we call for a moratorium on reliving the Hillary Hate of the primaries now that it's all over?

And can this woman in the video please, catch a clue? I want to shake her violently and scream for her to be rational. Barack Obama isn't the Antichrist anymore than Hillary Clinton is the devil. Can't people see that the hardliners are cut from the same idealogical cloth? Care more about your life and your community. I am tired of such childishness.

For the blog AroundHarlem.com I wrote the post "Un-Break My Party," (set to run later today) which basically sums up my points here. Any lingering angst is just poisonous. It's time for everyone to kiss and make up.

I wonder if the speech was enough to bring about some calm reflection and rationality to the waring tribes of the Democratic Party. I hope people who love Barack can feel proud and solid in him being the nominee without still worrying, obsessing or foaming at the mouth over the Clintons. I hope people who love Hillary can feel proud of the job she did and do what she asked of them.