POLLARY CLINTON AND THE NEO-CONSPIRACY

Contrary to what you may have been hearing, Hillary Clinton does NOT have a 33-point advantage over her Democratic rivals for President.

Now there’s a bold statement.

I submit to you that this reported “news” is simply untrue - a fabrication foisted upon the unknowing masses by a neo-conservative media machine responsible for parsing out information in the interest of steering us toward war with Iran, Syria, North Korea, Mars, and Mercury. In case you’re new to politics, the same neo-cons behind the Bush II debacle ADORE Hillary. She’s like ordering up a round of cold Bush Light.

How can I make these bold assertions without any facts to back them up? Fortunately, one of the few freedoms I have left as we wind down Bush’s “reign of error” is the freedom of speech. I can make these claims on suspicion alone because this is a forum for sharing ideas, a basic right (at least as of this morning) still protected by the First Amendment.

Want proof that I’m right? Do a little impromptu research. Ask around. I know a LOT of people. Different people in different states. People who know people. And I have a hard time finding ANY people willing to admit they are planning to vote for Hillary. What I don’t find hard to come across are people who loathe her with every fiber of their being. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike. It’s actually been easier to find people who will admit to voting for Bush than people supporting Hillary. That’s saying something.

So where does her insurmountable 33-point lead come from? Are they conducting these polls exclusively in upstate New York? With a lead like that, one might expect to see highways from coast to coast overrun with “Hillary ’08” bumper clings. But here I live in the nation’s third largest metropolitan area and I see virtually no evidence of any support for Hillary anywhere. And she’s FROM here. The people I know – people who vote Democratic more reliably than Britney ends up in rehab – tell me they’ll vote for anyone but Hillary.

Obviously, my personal findings weren’t meshing with the hard numbers, so it forced me to come up with some possible reasons for this. One theory is that people who are planning to vote for Hillary are afraid to tell their friends because they would prefer to keep their friends. Let’s face it – she’s a lightning rod. No one wants to come near her politically. And yet a 33-point lead suggests people are falling all over one another to profess their admiration for her. I think there’s something else going on: poll-fixing.

It certainly does sound far-fetched to suggest that polling data has been misrepresented, or our news so audaciously manufactured. But we know that information in this country is controlled by a few powerful media machines in the business of selling fear, fads, and fashion. So is it REALLY out of the realm of possibility that a handful of powerful decision-makers at the top of the media chain directed a few people behind closed doors to cook the numbers a little to make Hillary’s nomination seem inevitable?

Think about what that lead does to the psyche of your average voter.

Seeing a lead so formidable makes me feel like voting for anyone else would be a waste of my time. And since I’d sooner castrate myself with a butter knife than punch for Hillarobot, the net result is voter apathy. I stay home that night and watch the massacre from the comfort of my couch. The media machine wins.

Look where the money has been coming from. Hillary is loading up on lobby cash. You name the lobby, there’s a cashed check somewhere with her campaign’s stamp on it. Edwards and Obama, meanwhile, have been raising their money from working people who want to see a change in government – not the same corporate-controlled bullshit we’re used to. Takes a lot more people to raise the same amount of money, and a lot more integrity.

Who do you think has a better chance of getting Clinton’s ear were she to be elected – you? Or the lobbyists who put her in office? Why do you think she feels obligated to take all of that campaign cash from lobbyists? Because she doesn’t have the grass roots support. Which brings us back to that 33-point lead. How could Obama possibly be that far behind given that he’s broken virtually every grass roots fundraising record on the books? Seems to me the only way to prevent him from winning with support like that is to prevent his network from voting, and the best way to do that is to make sure they believe they’re so far behind they’d never stand a chance.

A 33-point deficit is a good start.

So why would neo-conservatives love Hillary? Think outside the box here. Their idea of fun is keeping the military industrial complex humming, so they need someone in office steadfastly dedicated to keeping the 21st century Crusades alive. With popular support for Republicans (and Democrats unwilling to take them on) reeling, the best shot they’ve got is a weak opponent. And, believe it or not, despite her whopping “33-point” lead, Hillary is probably the only Democrat in the field capable of losing to fear-mongering morons like Giuliani and “sharp as a catcher’s mitt” Romney.

But let’s say she manages to beat the odds. Let’s say the Republican nominee commits some catastrophic blunder on the campaign trail, accidentally advocating a solution with some semblance of common sense and decency. And let’s say they are promptly alienated by the holier than Yao Christian right as a result. BAM – Hillary wins by 7 votes. And so do the neo-cons – because, of all the Democrats running, she’s the one candidate most likely to continue the policy positions of the current administration. Bush Light.


Let’s recap. Not only did Clinton vote in favor of the Iraq war, she refuses to concede now that it may not have been the best idea. Further, she refuses to commit to pulling U.S. troops from Iraq by 2013! Rumsfeld would be proud of old girl.

More scary facts for your files. Hillary Clinton voted for the Patriot Act, and then, once it was revealed how its language undermined the basic freedoms we had been guaranteed under the Constitution, she voted in favor of reauthorizing it. She also voted for building a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. She voted to enforce "decency" standards in television and music. And the one that kills me personally is her most recent vote on the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, giving the Bush administration authority to declare Iran’s 125,000-member Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization. Why is this amendment so dangerous? Because President Cheney and Vice President Bush could use its language to justify keeping our troops in Iraq so long as they can point to a threat from Iran. They could even use this language to justify an attack on Iran as a part of the ongoing war in Iraq. It’s another step down the path toward expanding our war in the Middle East. Obama did not support it. Edwards did not support it. Hillary supported it. Look at the voting record. Not exactly the kind of change we're looking for.

I wonder if her “33-point” lead realizes what it’s supporting. I can’t imagine THAT many Democrats would prefer our nation continue to pursue these failed policies when the balance of our alternatives is pitching a far more sincere brand of change. Again, it forces me to doubt that 33-point lead.

They can sell it on the evening news every night of the week, but I'm just not buying it.