The point must be made that we have the poorest primary election system possible in a free world nation. The primary election for presidency should be set up just as is the general election: ONE DAY ONLY for ALL states and BOTH parties. It should not be a helter-skelter this state this week, another state next week, and two more states a month later. The earliest states to have their primaries scarcely know anything about any of the candidates, and multitudes of voters therefore seriously regret their choices months later as much more information is revealed.
Allow me to share with you my own personal nightmarish experience in this regard, in reference to the 2008 election. Even before he declared himself a candidate, Rudy Giuliani had me rooting for him to do so. Then as now, I was convinced that he was precisely the straight-talking, courageous, confident man-of-action that we all needed to deal with a dangerous, threatening world.
And then a tiny handful of states decided for the entire rest of the country that the vast majority of voters would never even have a chance to cast a vote for this great man. Beyond the glaringly obvious unfairness of that, I cannot help but still wistfully wonder, who knows what might have happened if the primaries could only have been all on one day?
After raging for days at the injustice and short-sightedness of it all, I growled and muttered, “All right! Romney or Thompson! Next best choices!”
Heh! Well, you already know what became of that, my first of too many concessions. In record time, my party had managed to choose McCain: the worst candidate available to it.
With my own party having essentially and quite early self-destructed, for the very first time in my life, I began to pay serious attention to what the opposition was doing, and against all odds, I very gradually developed a tremendous respect and admiration for Hillary Clinton. Now, mind you, I had previously seriously misjudged her. I had taken the word of a severely liberal friend, who had said that, if Hillary were president, it would be the same as having Bill Clinton as president all over again, that she would merely be a puppet whose strings he pulled, and that he would be the “real power behind the throne.” This particular liberal friend intended that as a favorable remark of her, and a reason to support her. I, naturally, having despised Bill Clinton while he was in office, and having put him in the same disreputable category as Kennedy and Carter, took my friend’s statement as a good reason to hate Hillary. But then, I began to really listen to her, and read about her, and very gradually arrive at the conclusion that the real truth about her was the opposite of what my liberal friend had said. Hillary is definitely her own woman, and would be a puppet to no one. The enchanting, classy Laura Bush even said that she admired Hillary’s “strength and grit.”
Meanwhile, the nation’s black population was supporting Obama in droves. So I began to conclude that, if they were going to make this election all about race, then whites should be doing the same and being loyal to our own. Simultaneously, the DNC and the liberal-biased news media were blatantly abusing Hillary, slanting everything against her, infuriatingly spinning her triumphs somehow into defeats. The media was treating Hillary the same way that it had always treated Republicans! It was surreal; I felt as if I were in the Twilight Zone! They were, in short, exhibiting glaring gender bias, while at the same time practicing pro-Obama reverse-discrimination.
At that, being a woman, my rage rose even worse than it previously had on behalf of Giuliani. I suspect that I began to feel something akin to what our foremothers must have felt during the suffragette movement. So, like many Republican women, I crossed over to support Hillary. And let’s remember: women comprise 51% of the population, whereas blacks make up only about 10% or 12%. It was clearly our turn! Particularly when we consider that blacks were given the vote before women were. A woman presidency was owed to us, and then some! And I wishfully dreamed of seeing a woman as president in my lifetime. Thereupon I shocked and astonished all of my friends, both conservatives and liberals alike, by announcing that I intended to vote for Hillary in November. For the very first time in my entire life, I was going to vote for the Democrat over the Republican. I decided that, at the very least, a good Democrat was better than a bad Republican. I even did my utmost to help her: with the information listed in one of the many anti-Obama websites, I emailed 86 of the DNC superdelegates and expounded on the many reasons why they must choose her over him: Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko, no flag pin, no hand over his heart, “The first time I’ve ever been proud of my country,” “Typical white people bitterly clinging to guns and religion,” “I’ve been to all 57 states,” etc., etc. Well. We all know what happened after that. Hillary was elected (won the popular vote), but Obama was selected. The same foul pro-black, anti-woman biases were still in play. And now the DNC had done exactly what the RNC had done months earlier: chosen the worst candidate offered. Both parties had self-destructed.
With a heavy heart, I threw my support to McCain, figuring that a bad Republican was better than a bad Democrat. Along the way, I teared up at inspiring moments: such as when courageous Hillary stated unequivocally that she would do what was asked of her, but that she would not verbally attack Sarah Palin in any way, and such as when the charming Laura Bush said that the news media had better not abuse Sarah as it had Hillary, because we women would be watching you. Across party lines, and against all odds, poignant links had been forged. Precious progress had come that had been too long in coming.
Despite all of that, by now, we all know the final, dismal outcome.
However, once again, I draw comfort from my faith in the multiverse: the knowledge that every possibility must happen somewhere.
In some universes, right now as I write this, I’m toasting my husband and saying, “To President McCain and future President Palin, and to our great nation that dodged a very dangerous bullet today!”
In other universes, I’m sharing a toast with my husband and declaring, “To President Hillary Rodham Clinton and the shattering of the glass ceiling! I’ve never been prouder to be a woman!”
In still others, I’m raising the champagne glass to my husband as I say, “To President Giuliani! I haven’t felt this enthused and in safe hands since President Reagan!”
In this universe, I’ll just mope. But, due to the inevitable workings of the multiverse, at least a few universes had to completely and utterly screw-up, didn’t they? Sadly, ours just happened to be one of them.
