Many of you know me as one of the more assertive/obnoxious Hillary Clinton supporters on dKos. In mixing it up with a lot of you over the past couple of months -- nevadadem, TomP, Bob Johnson, icebergslim, et al -- I've had a lot of confrontational things said to me, and I've said a lot of confrontational things myself. Most of what I've said I still stand by, and some of it I frankly regret.
But watching the Democratic debate in Nevada last night in a relaxed frame of mind, something struck me: All three of these candidates -- Barack, John, and Hillary -- are flat-out fucking fantastic candidates.
Our party is very lucky indeed to have any of them, much less all three, running this year.
I admired Hillary going in, of course, but was particularly impressed last night with her calm command of the issues, her confidence-inspiring inner strength, and her willingness to engage the others on issues of substance in a presidential manner.
I admired Barack last night for his incredibly incisive takes and his sincere, deep patriotism. Nobody mixes the cerebral with the passionate like Barack, and should he not get in the White House this November he will definitely be there one day. This is your first African American president, for sure.
And I admired John for his tenacity, his focus, and the way he keeps hammering traditional Democratic themes that are all too forgotten these days by a lot of people.
The bottom line for me is, though I strenuously support Hillary in the primaries, I will basically crawl across broken glass to vote for any of the three in November.
Not because of knee-jerk partisanship, but because that's how damn good these three candidates are -- how intelligent, how strong, how capable, and yes, how personally endearing in their own ways.
From now on, I am changing my ways. I still support and defend Hillary, but will refrain from attacking any other candidate -- because let's face it, any of them would make not just a good, but a great president for any number of reasons, whether in terms of policy or history or both.
Deep down, I'm sure many of you agree.
And as for anyone here who says they refuse to vote for any of these three fine, inspiring candidates in November -- I will simply regard them as either being completely out of their minds, or simply as people who probably weren't really Democrats to begin with.