When Barack Obama first announced his candidacy, I was pleased, relieved, and, after the work I'd done on the failed Dean candidacy, more than a little hesitant to let myself get too excited.
But despite my best efforts to rein in my optimism (get thee from me, Hope!), I knew from the beginning that Obama would be the first progressive president elected in my lifetime. He is a phenomenal candidate, one that just doesn't come around very often—certainly not more than once or twice in a lifetime. Fortunately, this phenomenon was on our side this time.
We'd win, and win big, if the signs I was sensing were accurate.
There's been little doubt he'd win the nomination since February, and for a while, I was certain that winning the nomination meant winning the general election—and the presidency—in November.
But in the last couple of weeks, I've lost that optimism. I've no longer feel dead certainty that Barack Obama will beat John McCain in November. My hope has ebbed.
Why? Because Hillary and Bill Clinton have been deliberately undermining his candidacy in ways that I'm afraid are too divisive for the wounds to heal by November.
In West Virginia, they both played on racial fears, with Bill Clinton reminding voters that "he's not one of us" and Hillary Clinton insisting that white voters—i.e. hard working voters—would never vote for Obama, thus legitimizing racist attitudes.
While those tactics worked in West Virginia and Kentucky, they didn't work in Indiana or Oregon. She didn't sink Obama, despite her best efforts. The math doesn't change, but certain attitudes are being hardened into stone just when Democratic voters need to unite behind one candidate.
If blatantly playing the race and ethnicity card wasn't enough to do it, what's left?
Today Hillary Clinton traveled to Florida, where she sternly told voters that they were robbed, their votes stolen just like in 2000. Amidst all the flim flam about popular votes, unseated delegates, and dodgy maths, was the implication that Barack Obama isn't the legitimate choice of the Democratic Party, and thus doesn't deserve to win. She played her trump card, right in the most swingy of swing states.
Obama could withstand Rev Wright. He could withstand flag pins. But he can't win without the support of significant numbers of Clinton supporters, who are increasingly angry about the "illegitimate" candidate who stole the nomination by "decapitating" Florida and Michigan. By feeding this nonsensical notion—the Clinton campaign fully signed on to the non-recognition of Florida and Michigan, before it mattered—Hillary and Bill Clinton are ensuring that Obama will lose—the very scenario they warn, darkly, will happen if we nominate a black man.
Maybe I'm overreacting. The polls look good, nationally, if not electorally. But I'm not overreacting when I have a visceral reaction to the idea of a losing primary candidate deliberately setting out to harm the chances of the winner in November. Howard Dean never did that; John Edwards never did that. Dennis Kucinich, who stayed in during 2004 long after the nomination was decided, never harmed Kerry's chances. But Hillary Clinton, who surely knows what she's about, is stacking the deck against Obama by convincing her supporters that they—and she—have been robbed.
I know a thing or two about grudges—just ask my father, if you can find him, or the candidate I refused to vote for in 2004 after a bitter primary race. If I were a die-hard Clinton supporter, I don't think I'd vote for Obama either. After all, we only have one vote. One vote doesn't matter, not as much as a conscience.
That's why I'm scared, that's why I've lost hope, and that's why I'm really, really angry at Hillary Clinton.
But despite my best efforts to rein in my optimism (get thee from me, Hope!), I knew from the beginning that Obama would be the first progressive president elected in my lifetime. He is a phenomenal candidate, one that just doesn't come around very often—certainly not more than once or twice in a lifetime. Fortunately, this phenomenon was on our side this time.
We'd win, and win big, if the signs I was sensing were accurate.
There's been little doubt he'd win the nomination since February, and for a while, I was certain that winning the nomination meant winning the general election—and the presidency—in November.
But in the last couple of weeks, I've lost that optimism. I've no longer feel dead certainty that Barack Obama will beat John McCain in November. My hope has ebbed.
Why? Because Hillary and Bill Clinton have been deliberately undermining his candidacy in ways that I'm afraid are too divisive for the wounds to heal by November.
In West Virginia, they both played on racial fears, with Bill Clinton reminding voters that "he's not one of us" and Hillary Clinton insisting that white voters—i.e. hard working voters—would never vote for Obama, thus legitimizing racist attitudes.
While those tactics worked in West Virginia and Kentucky, they didn't work in Indiana or Oregon. She didn't sink Obama, despite her best efforts. The math doesn't change, but certain attitudes are being hardened into stone just when Democratic voters need to unite behind one candidate.
If blatantly playing the race and ethnicity card wasn't enough to do it, what's left?
Today Hillary Clinton traveled to Florida, where she sternly told voters that they were robbed, their votes stolen just like in 2000. Amidst all the flim flam about popular votes, unseated delegates, and dodgy maths, was the implication that Barack Obama isn't the legitimate choice of the Democratic Party, and thus doesn't deserve to win. She played her trump card, right in the most swingy of swing states.
Obama could withstand Rev Wright. He could withstand flag pins. But he can't win without the support of significant numbers of Clinton supporters, who are increasingly angry about the "illegitimate" candidate who stole the nomination by "decapitating" Florida and Michigan. By feeding this nonsensical notion—the Clinton campaign fully signed on to the non-recognition of Florida and Michigan, before it mattered—Hillary and Bill Clinton are ensuring that Obama will lose—the very scenario they warn, darkly, will happen if we nominate a black man.
Maybe I'm overreacting. The polls look good, nationally, if not electorally. But I'm not overreacting when I have a visceral reaction to the idea of a losing primary candidate deliberately setting out to harm the chances of the winner in November. Howard Dean never did that; John Edwards never did that. Dennis Kucinich, who stayed in during 2004 long after the nomination was decided, never harmed Kerry's chances. But Hillary Clinton, who surely knows what she's about, is stacking the deck against Obama by convincing her supporters that they—and she—have been robbed.
I know a thing or two about grudges—just ask my father, if you can find him, or the candidate I refused to vote for in 2004 after a bitter primary race. If I were a die-hard Clinton supporter, I don't think I'd vote for Obama either. After all, we only have one vote. One vote doesn't matter, not as much as a conscience.
That's why I'm scared, that's why I've lost hope, and that's why I'm really, really angry at Hillary Clinton.
