February 13, 2008

Colorado Dreamin.

It seems like only yesterday that my brother in Texas was lamenting the fact that the nominating process would be over before he had the chance to vote. With the McCain nomination secured and with Texas an open primary state my brother and his fellow Texans, have the opportunity, no the duty, to drive a stake through the heart of the Clinton campaign by voting for Obama. Knowing that Clinton will not go silently into the night could be the impetus for the train wreck scenario I envision for the Democratic Convention. I am dreaming of something akin to Chicago in 1968.

Chicago 1968: Television loves pageantry, spectacle and action. Chicago delivered in ways that were unsettling to Americans. The streets of the great Midwest city were unsafe, middle-class values were ridiculed by unkempt youth, uniformed police acted like thugs, the mayor cursed a U.S. senator on the convention floor, disillusioned young people sought comfort in their leader, Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who won primaries but had no chance at the convention. In the hot, sweaty, and jammed convention hall, adjacent to the old Stockyards, delegates and media milled about, pushing and shoving for air as earnest speakers implored them to reverse President Lyndon Johnson's policy on Vietnam.
Downtown, television cameras were trained on the Hilton, the convention headquarters, when violence erupted between demonstrators and police. Some 17 minutes of clubbing and screaming were captured on film and shown on national television. In the steamy convention hall, action stopped and delegates denounced what was happening downtown.
In his notebook that night, the reporter-historian Theodore White jotted a terse, "The Democrats are finished." Floyd J. McKay

Denver 2008: Senator Clinton who won some primaries refuses to concede the race and takes the campaign to the Denver Convention. A raucous floor fight over Super Delegates and disenfranchised voters breaks out. Her husband curses reporters and is arrested for punching out his former Vice-President in an argument about who really deserved to win the Nobel Prize. Pushing and shoving breaks out between the faction of Hope and the faction for Change. Fortunately no one is injured as both groups were bused in from San Francisco by Nancy Pelosi wearing a leather dominatrix costume. (shiver) During the chaos John Edwards storms the dais declares a coup for the sake of the little guy and then annoints little guy Dennis Kucinich as his Vice President. (No one notices) Obama in his first real test suddenly realizes that you can’t talk to a recalcitrant enemy as Hillary throws him in a headlock her eyes bulging and manically screaming "It's my turn. It's my turn you bastard. You were supposed to be the vice president!"

Meanwhile outside the convention center, Code Pinksters are imploring someone, anyone, to stop the war. Harry Reid is burned in effigy. (OOPs it wasn't an effigy, even with his pants on fire no one could tell.) Marcos Zuninga, protesting that Bush stole the 2000 election is tazed by an overzealous Denver Riot Policeman for "being frigging annoying". The incident is caught on a cell phone video and played in continuous loop on all the cable networks in prime time. The left wing blogosphere is outraged and demands the end of the fascist police state of George Bush. Again, no one notices. But like the fiasco in '68 the voting bloc that Richard Nixon called the silent majority will notice and are repulsed by the spectacle. Once again the Democrats are finished. Hey its just a dream!

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