Lately, I've found myself joining the ranks of many a dkos member in bashing Hillary whenever I've gotten the chance. However, I read the great diary entry by (former?) Hillary supporter Angry Mouse. One of the points of the diary was that Obama supporters have been taking part in alot of HRC bashing. As I read the entry, I felt a bit ashamed; not because the bashing is unfair (I haven't said anything that isn't justified or anything that was viscous), but because I had been determined to keep the focus on Obama's positives rather than on Hillary's negatives.
I hope this diary entry helps Hillary supporters understand how we, Obama supporters, got to this point, and maybe at the same time convince Obama supporters to go back to our original message of hope and change. It is a rather long entry, but I thought I should describe how I wasn't always a partisan Obama supporter before I describe how I became a Hillary-basher.
To give you the full picture, I feel the need to go back to the Democratic Convention of 2004. I had heard rumblings of a state senator from Illinois by the name of Barack Obama, who was supposed to be a great speaker. My expectations were high but with a feeling that I would be let down. When the keynote finally came around, I watched it, and I was... well, I don't think I need to describe to you guys how I felt because many of you felt the same way. I immediately started thinking of him as a future Presidential candidate. At the same time, it didn't look like time would be on his side. With a Kerry victory, he wouldn't have a very good shot until probably 2016 and even further with a Kerry loss (I was assuming he wouldn't run in 2008, and that Presidents/VPs would be the most likely candidates).
When Kerry lost, I started to look forward to 2008. Obviously Hillary was a very likely candidate. As I saw her consolidate power in the party (I don't say that derisively), I began warming up to the prospect of another Clinton administration. After all, having been born late in Carter's term, Clinton was the only decent President of my lifetime.
Fast forward to late 2006. We've taken the House. We've taken the Senate. Hillary has won reelection in a landslide (so unlike Allen and Santorum, her Presidential aspirations were very much intact). Things are looking good. Obama is considering jumping in. Awesome. I'll have two superstars and a few distinguished lesser candidates from whom to choose. I thought about it while Obama pondered his entry, and I decided that it was too early to make up my mind, but his inclusion of gays and Arabs in the keynote, at a time when their civil rights were used to divide America by the right, and ignored for that very same reason by the left, made me lean toward him from the beginning.
However, I was not firmly in his camp. His debate performance against Keyes was disturbing (yes, he won the debates, but he should have annihilated Keyes). The fact that his campaign hadn't seen that as his biggest weakness (and corrected it) was even worse. In a close election, that could cost us the election. Even in late 2007, I was almost 50/50 on my choice of candidate. Then, at the end of the year, my rating of his debate skills moved from a little below average to above average. During the early 2008 contests, when we finally had only the serious candidates debating, I was amazed by how much he had improved in one year. There was no doubt in my mind at that point for whom I would be voting, but my feelings for Hillary were still very positive. I was optimistic about Obama's chances, but I was fully ready to back her in the general.
Then came the race issue. I dismissed the LBJ/MLK comment as a way of Hillary highlighting her experience in the Senate. Others, however, didn't. Blacks saw it as racially divisive. Next came Bill's "fantasy" comment. Again, I dismissed the comment, but the black community did not. Wrong or right, the fact is that the Clinton comments were seen as divisive and the Clintons were made fully aware of that. When Bill started making comments about SC not being winnable because of the black vote, I became angry. I couldn't believe that those comments were coming from my party, from a family that I respected. All that went through my mind over and over again was that scene from "Primary Colors" where the Bates character says to the Clinton stand-ins that she loves them, but she's so f-ing disappointed in them (sorry, I don't have the exact quote). The tactics of people I respected was only part of my heart-break though. The other part was that I thought it would work. It was subtle enough that they could very well have gotten away with it, and unfairly cost Obama the election before he had a chance to fully introduce himself across the country, and in the process inoculate himself, at least partially, to such attacks. Thankfully, the Kennedys, along with the mass media (for once) did not let these comments go unpunished.
At this point, I became very much anti-Hillary, but I was still determined to stay on Obama's positives. In fact, after super Tuesday, when it became obvious that TX and OH were Hillary's firewall, I wrote an email to my sisters (one on whom lives in TX and was undecided) as to why I support Obama:
One of the things that really got me in 2004 was seeing just how far the country had fallen in 40 years. We were a country who's president willed us to go to the moon simply because he thought we could and because he thought we were too great a country to let an adversary beat us to it. The daunting nature of the task has probably been lost a little over time, but just to put it in perspective, a common joke among NASA scientists at the time was that when asked what we would find when we got to the moon, they responded, "Soviets."
We went from that to an administration that when criticized for their handling of Iraqis, responded w/ "well, they're better off than w/ Hussein." So, basically our goal now was to be better than brutal dictators. Knowing that there was a lack of inspiration in the electorate, but not doing any self-examination to figure out why, Bush took a misguided cue from Kennedy and outlined a plan for us to go back to the moon on our way to Mars. Clearly there was a need for leadership, but no one to fill that need.
This year, we could settle for someone who simply stems the bleeding caused by the current administration (as I was prepared to do in 2004 w/ Kerry), or we could aim a little higher and go for someone who can inspire the country to reach a little further. We have a lot of challenges, and facing them w/ a leader who can will Americans and other citizens of the world to act for the common good gives us the best chances of conquering those challenges.
Clinton argues that she is best fit to lead because she has more experience, but experience doesn't have much weight in the making of a good president. We've had great presidents that have had plenty of experience, and we've had great presidents that have had almost no experience when they assumed office (Washington, Lincoln, and Kennedy come to mind). From the Whiskey Rebellion, to the Civil War, Cuban Missile Crisis, and 9/11, presidents are put into positions for which their experience cannot possibly ready them. They must draw on their advisors, their understanding of the world, and their study of history, but in the end, they must rely on their own judgement. I trust Obama's leadership, and I trust his judgement. That's all I can ask of a candidate, and he's the only candidate that has my full confidence in both regards.
By this point, I had plenty of negatives to use against Hillary, but that's not what I wanted. I didn't want people to vote against Hillary. I wanted people to vote for Obama.
We went through February, and things were looking good for Obama. Then TX and OH came around. Hillary decided to throw "the kitchen sink" at Obama, despite the fact that she wouldn't be able to win and was only hurting the party in the process. Some of it stuck; not because of anything Obama said, but because of his surrogates. At the same time, she was also practically endorsing McCain over Obama.
This is when I finally broke. When Hillary introduced race as an issue, it became more than just a Presidential election to me. It was about the future of my party, and about right and wrong. A wise man once said that "there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America." I saw (and see) Obama as what is right about America. By whatever the political process, someone who was an unknown state senator just 4-5 years ago, has risen to be just a step or two away from the White House. It makes me proud to be a citizen of a country that can find someone so obscure and yet so intelligent, so eloquent, and with such good judgement and raise him up to possibly be the most powerful person in the free world in such a short period of time. To see that defeated by race-baiting, by "coup by super-delegate" would just have been utterly devastating to me. It became important to make sure that the person responsible, Hillary, would not be President. Whether by the hands of Democrats in the primary or by the entire electorate, I wanted the Clintons gone from the party.
I'm not sure I feel any differently about that now, because I have lost all respect for Hillary. However, what I lost sight of in this time is the people supporting Hillary. Besides my dad, all the other really important people in my life are female (my mom and my two sisters). I've had conversations with them and with other female friends and relatives who support Hillary (I'm not stereotyping here; it's just that I don't personally know any males who support Hillary). I understand that many people (including Angry Mouse) have other reasons for supporting her and I don't want to trivialize the more substantive reasons, but a strong sentiment among my acquaintances has been that they support her because of her gender. I am a straight, white man (though not Christian), but I am also liberal. I would love to see Presidents in my lifetime that are from all sorts of minority groups, though I will always vote for whomever is most qualified, no matter what they look like. However, given that all Presidents have more or less "looked" like me, I concede that I cannot fully understand how unrepresented people feel.
Whatever your reason for supporting Hillary, I want to say that the people on dkos (and my friends and family) are well-informed and have reasons why they support Hillary over Obama. I wish that my mother will see a female President in her lifetime just as I wish that the issues that you Hillary supporters want to come to the forefront do so sooner rather than later. I also want to pledge that I will try my hardest to cease my Hillary-bashing, but I do so because I respect you Hillary supporters (at least most of you anyway), not because I respect the candidate you're supporting. I hope in return that you can give Obama a second look, and though he may not be your first-choice, that he'll still have your full-hearted support in the general.