Independents and Democrats United Against Hillary Clinton in 2008

In an interesting article, Jeff Cohen touches on the perils of a second Clinton White House, and cites the strong opposition of the “netroots” to Hillary Clinton’s candidacy - but raises the question of whether they can thwart Hillary’s media coronation in the Democratic primary. He also notes the lack of a unifying candidate for these hyper-informed bloggers to rally around - they united behind Howard Dean in 2004, but this time around their support is split cleanly in half between John Edwards and Barack Obama.

Blogger David Swanson supports Dennis Kucinich, but citing Cohen’s analysis, he calls on Obama and Edwards to join forces for the sake of defeating Hillary and preventing a Republican romp in the 2008 presidential race.

This web site is not here to endorse Edwards or Obama, or to call on either of them to withdraw and support the other. But as pointed out in a previous post, Obama and Edwards agree on the key issue of minimizing the corrosive influence of special interest money in Washington, while Hillary blithely accepts money from corporate PAC’s and Washington lobbyists. There may be advantages to having two strong anti-establishment candidates at this point in the race, but eventually all Democratic primary voters who want to break the Bush-Clinton dynasty will have to unite behind a single candidate. Until it’s clear who that candidate should be, I encourage backers of both Edwards and Obama to educate their fellow supporters in each camp on the fatal flaws of the Clinton 2008 campaign (such as her frequent position-switching, suspicious campaign funding, and unelectability - as described in previous posts here). Some may find it difficult to criticize even a bad Democratic candidate, but if we shy away from speaking against Hillary now, we may find the only question left to be answered in 2008 is whether the presidential election will bring a loss or a hollow victory.

Are Cohen’s fears of the netroots being a “paper tiger” justified? Even if progressive bloggers aren’t a representative sample of the Democratic Party, they may represent its leading edge. And our success in the race to stop Hillary Clinton will likely hinge on how fast information can spread through the American electorate. So please forward this web site to anyone you know who might need help deciding who to vote for in the Democratic primary (that means registered Democrats AND Independents in many states).