At the beginning, I'll admit I was a believer. Following the '04 convention, I daydreamed about the possibility of an Obama run. I heard him give an interview on NPR, and I my eyes began to well up when they asked him to name a great figure from American history that had influenced him (and he said Dorothy Day). Just days after Obama's campaign kicked off in front of the Illinois statehouse, I slapped a big blue Obama decal on the back of my car.
Over the months that followed, I read a lot of people's thoughts, and began to understand their doubts about him. For many here, his rhetoric (based largely on his "We are not two Americas" meme from the convention) sounded suspiciously like DLC-Lieberman-style "moderation". I never bought that argument entirely, though, even as I saw many people I admired begin to peel back their support from him. I thought they were just kinda paranoid.
And then, McClurkin.
The McClurkin incident seemed to suddenly confirm everything Obama's detractors had been warning about. The campaign's response seemed so cold and condescending - implying that everything was okay because Obama was having some special discourse with evangelicals that the rest of us just couldn't understand. I lost it. I felt totally duped. The Obama sticker came off my car the next day, in shreds.
It still makes me mad - and there is to this hour no sufficient explanation from the Obama camp. It is a permanent stain on his candidacy, and must not be downplayed by any progressive. They effed up with a capital eff.
Since then, I've stayed back, keeping all these proceedings at arms-length. I've never felt comfortable with John Edwards, after feeling somewhat let down by his performance in 2004. And Hillary Clinton represents the very corporate DLC establishment that provided cover for so much damaging Republican policy over the entire Bush term.
But here's the thing - regardless of what has happened previously in this campaign, as of today it is down to Obama or Clinton. There is now no other choice.
I've got a lot of questions about Barack Obama, and whether his rhetoric amounts to more than just a front for more backsliding on progressive issues in the name of some kind of amorphous centrism.
But I am weary of eight years of George W. Bush Republicanism. I am weary of war and weary of the heartbreak of every day's newspaper. Weary of Scalia and Alito, of sabre rattling on Iran, of seeing my kids' futures traded in for tax breaks for the wealthy, of seeing the homeless huddled on street corners, and of the fear of poor people being stoked by the GOP over immigration and the specter of terrorism. I'm weary of corporations setting public policy on everything from defense to the environment to pharmaceuticals.
This election must become the final disavowal of this administration and every damned thing they stand for. That is a hope that still lives - and Obama is now the embodiment of that hope.
And there really is hope with Obama, because there is this.
There is the memory of what happened in 2002, and the fact that Barack Obama - alone among the candidates left in this race - took to the streets to try and stop the war before it started.
Yes, I will work for Hillary if she wins the nomination - but I'd much rather work for Barack Obama. I'd much rather work for peace.
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