Attention Superdelegates:
If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Nominee for President, I will not give her one dime of my money or one minute of my time. I’ll vote for her—I’m a Democrat in a Red State, and for this reason I feel it is my duty to do so. But my one guilt-laden vote is really nothing, in the grand scheme of things. What matters is that I won’t help her get elected, and I won’t encourage anyone else to volunteer or vote for her, either. Most importantly, in this sentiment I know I am not alone.
This isn’t just because I’ve been actively volunteering for her opponent—this isn’t sour grapes. The fact is, I’ve volunteered for a lot of campaigns, but I’ve never volunteered for or donated to any candidate I didn’t really and truly believe in, because if you’re going to sacrifice your time, energy, and resources, it might as well be backed up with conviction. That’s the only way you’re going to really sway a voter.
Though I did not vote for John Kerry in the 2004 primary, I volunteered for his campaign, passing out stickers and buttons for him while registering voters in Illinois. I wore my Kerry/Edwards pin everywhere, non-stop, for two months before the election. I enthusiastically supported him because he was our nominee; he was the best our party said it could do. I’ve happily given my efforts to a long list of candidates since then. I phone-banked through MoveOn’s calling tool for a bunch of candidates from 2006 to the present. I’ve volunteered for a variety of candidates over the past two election cycles. I've organized a variety of fundraisers for a variety of candidates. And the list of people I have donated to is very, very, very long.
I am proud of this time and effort I have invested in the Democratic party and in democracy. In each of these cases, I believed in the candidate, and I believed that he or she was the best person for the job. Little of this effort has ever felt like anything close to "work," because I believe that it is an honor and privilege to have a candidate worth supporting.
If Hillary Clinton is the nominee of our party, I will not feel that way. For the record, I do not believe that John McCain would do better. However I have serious, serious reservations about her candidacy. What I have seen from her campaign--particular in the past month--has only solidified my genuine concerns about how she would run this country. She is no longer concerned about what is best for the Democratic Party or this country. She is divisive, and she is seeking to turn our party against one of its own leaders, Barack Obama.
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First, there’s how she treats her opponent:
"I think you'll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say," she said. "He’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002."
–-Hillary Clinton, Fort Worth, March 1, 2008
What good has McCain done with all of his so-called "experience?" Called for another 100 years of war? Another 10,000 years of war? Maybe Obama's speech in 2002 against the invasion of Iraq so rankles Hillary because she was busy giving speeches of her own in 2002, when she voted to invade Iraq:
"This is a very difficult vote. This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make -- any vote that may lead to war should be hard -- but I cast it with conviction.
And perhaps my decision is influenced by my eight years of experience on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House watching my husband deal with serious challenges to our nation. I want this President, or any future President, to be in the strongest possible position to lead our country in the United Nations or in war."
-–Hillary Clinton, Senate Floor, October 10, 2002
So, Hillary thinks she needs to put George W. Bush in the strongest possible position to lead our country into war. And, she thinks McCain is more qualified to be president than Obama. She has learned all of this, she says, by watching her husband be president.
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"I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored."
–-Hillary Clinton, Debate in Austin, TX, February 2008
"Shame on you, Barack Obama," an angry Clinton said, contending the Illinois Democrat was running a hypocritical campaign "right out of Karl Rove's playbook" that featured "speeches and the big rallies" on one hand and "false and discredited mailings" sharply critical of the New York senator about health care and trade on the other.
–-Chicago Tribune, February 24, 2008
Really, Hillary? Karl Rove? Because Obama sent out a mailer that called you on your hypocrisy? I suppose given your praise of McCain we might view this as some sort of compliment... But given the context, I’m guessing not so much.
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Then, of course, there’s her own fake news reports—excuse me, campaign commercials--presented to Ohio voters as if they were factual. Now who’s acting like Karl Rove, Hillary?
"This is an election news update with a major news story reported by the AP. While Senator Obama has crisscrossed Ohio giving speeches attacking NAFTA, his top economic advisor was telling the Canadians that was all just political maneuvering. A newly released document from the Canadian government shows that Obama’s senior economic advisor met with the Canadian Consul General and made clear that Obama’s attack on NAFTA were just, quote, "political maneuvering," not policy. (Snip, read the rest at the link.) As Senator Obama was telling one story to Ohio, his campaign was telling a very different story to Canada. How will Ohioans decide whether they can believe Senator Obama’s words? We’ll find that out on election day. Paid for by Hillary Clinton for President."
–-Fake News Report, aka Commercial, Ohio, March 4, 2008
It’s too bad that she got the story backwards, since apparently it was the Clinton Campaign that told Canadian diplomats to take her NAFTA posturing with "a grain of salt." At least Canada’s got Obama’s back. Funny that his fellow Democrat doesn’t.
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Then, there’s the repeated pattern of people close to her campaign using blatantly racist and prejudiced language to suggest that Obama cannot or should not win because he is Black:
"Later that month, the Clinton campaign staged its first official apology, from South Carolina State Senator Robert Ford, who said Obama wouldn't be able to win the White House because he is black."
(snip)
"The previous day, Bill Shaheen, a New Hamphire grandee and Clinton's co-chair there, had told the Washington Post that Republicans would ask Obama, "Did you sell [drugs] to anyone?'"
(snip)
"A little more than a week later, another top Clinton supporter, former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, made an apparently positive reference to Obama's time as a child in a "secular madrasa.""
–-Ben Smith, Politico, February 28, 2008
"You have to sit down with 10 people in a living room. You can't shuck and jive at a news conference; you can't just put off reporters, because you have real people looking at you, saying 'answer the question.'"
–-Andrew Cuomo, NY State Attorney General and Clinton Surrogate, January 8, 2008
"And to me, as an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood –– and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book –– when they have been involved."
–-Robert Johnson, Founder of BET, South Carolina, January 13, 2008
As Sen. Barack Obama was sweeping up the South Carolina primary, former Pres. Bill Clinton was busy downplaying the significance of Obama's impending win, casting it as a function of the state's demographics and the Illinois senator's heavy African American support. "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88," Clinton said at a rally in Columbia. "Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."
–-Washington Post, January 26, 2008
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she said at the time. "And if he was a woman (of any colour) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
(snip)
"Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"
-–Geraldine Ferraro, Daily Breeze Newspaper Interview, March 7, 2008
I see a pattern.. Black voters do too. In the 2006 Midterm Elections 89% of Black voters went Democratic, and comprised 10% of the total electorate. In the 2004 Presidential Race, 88% of Black voters chose Kerry, and comprised 12% of the total electorate. Irony of ironies, Black voters in 2004 gave the states of Pennsylvania and Michigan to John Kerry with their high turnout.
Given her campaign’s rhetoric, can anyone honestly assume that the same high percentage Black voters will turn out to support Hillary in 2008? The irony is, without the Black vote, she isn’t really that electable either.
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Then, of course, there’s how she treats a large portion of our country, and the idea of growing our Democratic majority:
"You know, with all due respect, unless there's a tsunami change in America, we're never going to carry Alaska, North Dakota, Idaho. It's just not going to happen. But we have to carry the states that I'm carrying, the primary states, the states that really have to be in the winning Democratic column."
–-Hillary Clinton, Politico Interview, February 11, 2008
Really? I’m a Democrat in a Red State, and I’d really appreciate it if Hillary would legitimize the efforts of people like me to get Democrats elected down here. We don’t have to stay Red States. Either she doesn’t care about helping us, or she knows that she’s so toxic to Red State independents that she hurts every other Democrat on the ballot. As a Democrat in a Red State, it has been suggested by friends of mine that my vote "matters" more because it would be closing the gap. This is ironic, given her stance that she doesn’t think she can win Red States, doesn’t want to try. And yet I have to vote for her down here, for the good of the Democratic party. Oh, the irony; it burns.
I am not hurting for candidates to support. I have other things to do with my time. There are plenty of campaigns that need volunteers in my area, whom I am eager and excited to help. Especially since Hillary is considered to be a likely 3%-5% drag on down-ballot races based on the number of Republicans who will show up on Election Day solely to vote Straight-Ticket-Republican (one lever, it’s really quick and easy) against her.
But I cannot bring myself to volunteer for her. I cannot bring myself to give her my money. It is enough that I will vote for her—that alone I fear is a significant breach of my own personal convictions, convictions that she seems to so readily transgress over and over (see above). But I can find some industrial-strength pliers to hold my nose while I push the lever; I can give her my vote. But I won’t give her any of my time, and I certainly won’t give her any of my money.
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Superdelegates, if you overturn the will of the voters, you run the risk of alienating a large percentage of the people who participate in our democratic process by doing more than just voting. You run the risk of alienating legions of donors, door-knockers, phone-bankers and data-enterers who cannot tolerate what has emanated from the Hillary Clinton campaign. You also run the risk of alienating all of the new volunteers--particularly young people and independents--who have never found a candidate worth supporting before. They have found this candidate in Barack Obama, and if he is not the nominee I do not think most of these people will stick around. They’ve had a chance to get on board with Hillary for 16 years and yet chose not to. Do not assume they will do so now.
Hillary Clinton is NOT the best that our party, the Democratic Party, can do in 2008. There are many, many candidates who are better suited for this job than Hillary Clinton. One remains on the ballot. Several others have already dropped out. Still more never ran in the first place. It appears that the final decision will come down to these Superdelegates, who will place their support behind one of the two remaining candidates, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
So tell me, Superdelegates: do you support the candidate who has won a majority of votes, states, and delegates? Or do you support a candidate who long ago lost her presumptive front-runner status, and in seeming retaliation has decided to tear apart not only our party, but our very nation with a divisive, offensive, tone-deaf, and increasingly racist campaign?
I cannot understand how any Superdelegate, acting in the best interests of the entire Democratic Party, looking to put forth our best possible nominee, would determine that person to be Hillary Clinton. I cannot understand how anyone can look at her campaign and decide that in 2008, Hillary Clinton is the best our party can do.
Superdelegates, if you choose Hillary, you’re not just turning your back on Barack Obama. You’re not just turning your back on the groups and states Hillary has variously said don’t matter, don’t count. You’re turning your back on a large and energized activist base who cannot bring themselves to devote time or resources towards a candidate who has run such a divisive and offensive campaign.
So, Superdelegates, ask yourselves this – if you pick Hillary, who’s going to help her get elected?