Unity? Legitimacy?

[illusionofjoy]

Barack Obama has a legitimacy problem, one fed by the mainstream media. The latest numbers show that Hillary Clinton's win in Kentucky increased her popular vote advantage from .05% to .44%. It is a slim margin, but she is technically winning, despite every effort to shut her down. Clinton has even indicated that she would be willing to take it all the way to the convention, if necessary. I've been waiting to hear these words for a long time, and I support this decision wholeheartedly. I will not have Obama foisted upon me like George W. Bush was in 2000 - oh no, not in my party.

But back to Obama's legitimacy problem. I bring this up because web journaller Anglachel has written a post which pretty much sums up my reasons for refusing to vote for Obama:

In a democratic political system, the consent of the minority to the majority's power is the measure of legitimacy. The majority, after all, has what it wants. How dissenters are treated and the degree to which they assent to the majority's possession of power while retaining the ability to dissent from the majority's policies and objectives shows how much the majority is trusted, respected, and considered within the bounds of acceptable political behavior. One of the markers of the Bush regime is the degree to which it has no legitimacy with most of the citizens. They are still trammelled by the institutions of government, but have continuously sought to dissolve these boundaries and rule through sheer force.

The increasing rejection of Obama by voters is a measure of his declining legitimacy. People who once thought they would gladly vote for him, like me, are now implacably opposed to him. He is no longer legitimate in our eyes. He has not sought legitimacy, which would mean facing up to opposition and allowing himself to be challenged, questioned, and probably be found wanting by some people, but has opted to pursue power at any price. Participating in and profiting from the media hatred of the Clintons, throwing out accusations of racism to try to forestall criticism and inflate AA vote counts, encouraging people to be "Obamacans" not Democrats, the "Democrat for a Day" strategy, engaging in intimidation and threats to extract caucus votes, aggressively trying to monopolize money specifically to silence alternative voices, and treating voters who do not choose him first with contempt.

As I've stated previously, the more I get to know Obama, the less and less I like him. It is with alarming frequency that I have been looking at the man and - shockingly - started seeing the George W. Bush of the left. There are the inexcusable verbal gaffes, the middle finger on camera, the arrogance and, biggest of all, the huge sense of entitlement that leads him to believe that it is acceptable to declare himself the winner when the race is damn near tied (an arrogant entitlement aided and abetted all too generously by the same mainstream media who gave us Bush versus Gore 2000).

I no longer see Obama as the "lesser of two evils." At least with John McCain in office, a Democratic majority in the House (perhaps with a few spinal implants) could keep him in check (including preventing right-wing "activist" justices from being seated on the Supreme Court). Despite the fact that Obama's policies either mirror or are watered-down versions of Hillary's policies, I still question the wisdom of putting someone in high office whose ambition crosses over to the point of ignoring the will of the voters. The popular vote should always be paramount! Obama is proving that he doesn't care about the popular vote, so long as he gets to play president eventually.