And now onto the General Election....

A couple things about last night...

I honestly have always tried to be an alarmist about this election. I think it was my normal reaction to being an optimist the last two times and to have the excruciating experience of having both of those campaigns, campaigns for which I worked hard for, stolen away.

I don't think it's necessarily a horrible thing to play Chicken Little when the Republicans are so willing to lie, cheat and steal as necessary to retain power. It is fact that most of the electronic voting machines have strong Republican ties. It is also fact that the Corporate Media also has such ties and have been defensive of even the most horrendous Bush policies since 2001.

That being said, this time around our eyes should be open and the tinfoil hats should be ready to wear because there are going to be instances in which it will not be "conspiracy theory" to suggest off the wall insanely illegal strategies or plans that the Republicans might use.

As the movie Recount showed, Republicans just play to win, plain and simple. They have no level of ethics to stand up to. Whatever it takes.

As Democrats we have always held ourselves to a higher standard and in the past eight years, aside from the 2006 midterms that kind of thinking hurt us.

This time around I expect no less than the smearing Kerry received. They'll use every Hillary talking point against Obama (they already are by posting this video on Youtube)... dragging race, inexperience, his church into the fray and not caring one bit about it.

With that being said I happened to attend the Obama Primary Watching Party last night in Cudahy. It was without a doubt a historic night.

Historic for two reasons. One for the first time in my lifetime we have an African American General Election Nominee from one of the major parties.

WTMJ Channel 4 in Milwaukee asked me about that and I gave them this quote:

“It was something I wasn’t sure we were going to achieve in my lifetime and it’s kind of sad that we had that feeling," said Robert Poole. "But today kind of alleviates a lot of those fears.”

If you click the video button on that link above and skip past the parts of Obama and Clinton's speeches you'll see me saying that on there as well.

The other reason this is historic is that it marks the end of the DLC.

Al From's Democratic Leadership Committee as lamented and commented on here before, is the Corporate Wing of the Democratic Party. They have leaned far away from social programs in favor of Corporate Welfare. They push candidates that are considered "centrist" but mostly they just want candidates that are easy to control. They've been running candidates out there that are practically indistinguishable from our Republican opponents and in turn it helped in shifting the political spectrum to the Right. With Democrats leaning so heavily on Pro-Corporate, Pro-Republican values, the Republican party had to lean to the Right to differentiate themselves. Lucky for them Dick Cheney was around to make that transition easy.

The problem is that aside from giving away the Democratic identity of being a party for the people while Republicans were the party of the rich and corporate elite, this ran candidates unwilling to show any spine and stop corruption in Congress. It made Democrats enablers to Bush's multiple Constitutional Crimes and most certain War Crimes.

And it lost elections... lost them big.

The Clintons were at the forefront of the groups creation, the standard bearers for what the DLC wanted the party to look like. It was many of the Clinton's campaign staff and White House advisors that formed leadership in the group and provided direction for it's candidates.

They were the epitome of DLC. And now they've lost their last chance at the White House. Hillary might not be willing to concede or accept it at this point but that is reality.

So the cancer of the Democratic Party has now had it's standard bearer be defeated and a new breed of Democrat who once again wants the party to stand up for the poor and middle class and who wants to change the culture in Washington has stood up and pushed the DLC over the proverbial cliff. I wonder how they will take it.

Onto the General Election and onto John McCain. Believe me, it's about time because that guy has had a free pass for way too long.

-Rp