I am as sick and tired of this nomination as anyone else. But Hillary Clinton keeps making me angry. Yesterday's stories about women's groups up in arms was one thing, and yet I managed to quell myself. But today there's a story that her finance chair, Hassan Nemazee, is warning that not including Clinton on the ticket as VP might lead to a "risk" of financial backers not supporting Obama's general election campaign.

Here's the relevant quote. He says, "But there's a risk that if she isn't invited on the ticket, Hillary's political and financial supporters may not feel compelled to be as integrated and involved in the Obama campaign in order to provide the maximum support that he'll need to prevail in November."

Here's the article.

Deep breath.

This past legislative season, here in Kansas, the Republicans in State government have been trying to get two coal-fired power plants built in the Western part of the state. It has been an environmental fight, highlighted by three or four different bills being written up and passed, and all of them being vetoed by our Democratic Governor. In the end, the plants are not being built.

But at one point, the Republican leader of the legislature, Melvin Neufeld, introduced a "memorandum of understanding" along with the latest version of the bill, a letter that had the coal plant owners offering $2.5 million to Kansas State University for energy research. On the floor of the legislature, Neufeld warned his colleagues that this offer of money was only good if the bill was passed in the next two months, or something. Essentially, he showed a bribe, and then threatened to take it away if he did not get what he wanted.

At the time I thought this was the height of inappropriate political shenanigans. It was immoral. It was typical of what I consider to be the Republican way of doing business. Bully, bribe, slander, whine.

Now, I see the same thing in Clinton's campaign. And it pisses me off. How does she expect to be a strong Vice-President in a strong Democratic Party if she has to threaten her way on to the ticket? How would that be a partnership that helps the country? This may be the way politics has always been done, but that doesn't make me any happier about it. I don't want the person next in line for the Presidency to be that sort of person, that sort of Melvin Neufeld person, the sort that would stoop to anything to get what he wants. Bully, bribe, slander, whine.

I wish I could love Clinton. I really do. I used to like her a lot. I have no doubt that she is qualified to be President. Six months ago, I probably would have voted for her, based on her experience.

But the campaign she has run since then has driven me away. Between her apparent belief that the nomination was hers for the taking, the naked politics of ignoring small states at the beginning, and now crowing about their importance at the end, the race-baiting her campaign started using in March, the gender-bias whining of the last two weeks, and now this, trying to strong-arm her way onto the ticket? I'm beginning to feel that she needs to retire from politics altogether.

Just. Go. Away. Drop out. Let any of the numerous other, up-and-coming political stars in the Democratic Party, many of whom are women, let them come fill your spot.