Thank you Hillary for all your achievements and for your endorsement of Obama and call for unity. Thank you Hillary supporters for your passion and hard work.
This diary is addressed to those Hillary supporters that are stating that they will vote for McCain because Obama and/or the DNC ‘stole’ the election from Hillary. Whilst I understand that you are hurting and grieving, I cannot understand the difficulty SOME of you have in your understanding that Obama won fair and square. Hillary has not had any election stolen from her!
If the fact that your candidate has lost fair and square is the reason you can find it in your conscience to vote for McCain, instead of the person with policies most similar to your candidate, that is Obama, then perhaps you have some other prejudices about Obama that you need to examine because your vote clearly has nothing to do with policies.
Surely your vote is worth more than a wasted choice made out of spite and anger, or even worse by personal prejudices that have wounded, pained and divided Americans for so many years.
First of all, I will like to thank Hillary and all her supporters for all their hard work. I was very much impressed by her speech yesterday and when she said, yes we can, I leapt up with joy and said to my husband who watched the speech with me, "Thank you Hillary, all is forgiven." Like some other Obama supporters, there had been times during the long primary that I had been upset with some of her actions, but the speech for me, was a genuine call for reflection, forgiveness and unity towards doing what is best, not only for the US, but for the whole world, that is electing Barack Obama as the next president of the United States of America.
Hillary’s call for unity was a heartfelt speech to both her supporters and to Obama’s supporters because the healing process is really a two way process. From the positive actions that I have seen from both sides’ supporters, the steps towards the unity that Hillary has called is starting, albeit with gentle steps. Time is a great healer.
To Hillary’s supporters, I am so emotionally invested in this election process and I feel your pain that your candidate has lost. I know I would be so pained if Obama had lost. My tears of joy, no doubt would have been tears tinged with joy at his achievements, but also pain at an opportunity lost.
This diary may at times sound harsh, but it is addressed to those Hillary supporters that are stating that they will vote for McCain because Obama and/or the DNC ‘stole’ the election from Hillary. Whilst I understand that you are hurting and grieving, I cannot understand the difficulty some of you have in your understanding that Obama won fair and square. Hillary has not had any election stolen from her!
Obama has won in every way used to determine a successful campaign. He has won more States compared to Hillary. He has won more delegates (this is how the party determines who wins its primary in a proportionate allocation of delegates and even Penn mistakenly thought California was winner takes all).
Obama did not make these rules and like all other politicians, merely followed the rules made by others, including some people in Hillary’s team.
Obama has won more states, more popular votes (get real, he wasn't even on Michigan’s ballot and neither were any other candidate apart from Hillary), raised more money, and the superdelegates who overwhelming favored Hillary at the beginning of this race (before super Tuesday, she had more than 100 more superdelegates than Obama), endorsed Obama at the latter stages of the contest mostly because majority of voters have spoken in their constituents.
Obama has also won by showing through his fund-raising efforts that change happens best from bottom to up. He has out-raised any other politician in history and has over 1.5 million people contributing small amounts in regular intervals to his campaign.
Hillary is a seasoned politician and we should all be proud of her achievements. Obama on the other hand is not a messiah, but we have all seen him growing as a person and as a politician, who is not afraid to say sorry when wrong, and who quickly learns from his mistakes. These are qualities we need in a leader.
Hillary has lost because voters have chosen Obama who has run an excellent campaign and the more people get to know him, the more they see why he would make a great president.
She has not lost because she is a woman (I’m a woman and many women and feminists support Obama), because of the DNC (whose members have overwhelmingly endorsed her and have a great relationship with her), because of ignorant young college students (being young does not equate ignorance and Obama has a wide range of supporters other than students), because of the biased media (both Obama and Hillary have had their share of good or bad press and that’s the reality), nor because of party elites ‘stealing the election from her’ (she was the party leaders’ favorite as shown by their early endorsements)
She has not lost because Florida and Michigan votes have been ‘stolen’ from her and the falsehood that Obama prevented these votes from being counted in full or from revoting.
Hillary would still have lost even if Florida and Michigan were counted in full. She agreed to the rules that these states should not be counted until she started losing the delegate maths. It must also be pointed out that many Obama supporters did not vote in these fashion parade elections because they thought it would not count. Please also note that in Florida, many people voted because of a home tax issue on the ballot that would affect home owners, and not merely because there was a primary election.
Anyone who watched the crowd at Grand Rapids Michigan during the rally with John Edwards and Obama would note that the people of Michigan do not hold Obama responsible for the DNC rules! Don’t believe the hype that ALL voters in Florida and Michigan are upset and will reject Obama.
Hillary lost because even though she has a huge number of supporters, the democratic process allows voters to make their choice of a nominee through the delegate maths, and the majority in majority of the contests, chose a different candidate.
She lost fair and square.
I am troubled by comments and polls showing some of Hillary supporters would vote for McCain over Obama because Obama stole the election from Hillary. I am also convinced that some of the more vocal proponents of this utterly rubbish claim are republicans set to cause conflict between supporters of Hillary and Obama.
If the fact that your candidate has lost fair and square is the reason you can find it in your conscience to vote for McCain, instead of the person with policies most similar to your candidate, that is Obama, then perhaps you have some other prejudices about Obama that you need to examine because your vote clearly has nothing to do with policies.
If you are a Hillary’s supporting who intends to vote for McCain, I am asking you to please re-assess this decision. Is your personal disappointment a good enough reason to allow Bush’s third term in office through McCain? To allow thousands of innocent Americans to continue to die in a war in Iraq that America had no business starting in the first place? To allow the possibility of more wars in places like Iran because of a foreign policy that is interested in war mongering and not in reasoned diplomacy? To allow American to continue being ridiculed and hated by the rest of the world? To allow flawed economic policies by someone like McCain who has confessed to not being any good in economics? To deny your children choice by the abolition of Roe v. Wade?
Surely your vote is worth more than a wasted choice made out of spite and anger, or even worse by personal prejudices that have wounded, pained and divided Americans for so many years.
I know you are disappointed that Hillary has lost this election and I appreciate that you are hurting right now. But perhaps like she asked us yesterday, you can celebrate her achievements and think about that glass ceiling shattered into pieces.
I know that politics is a cruel game, especially this year where emotions are involved. Please take your time to grieve, but this time, it is far too important to make sure that you do not waste your vote because of selfish reasons or personal disappointments.
When the pain of Hillary’s loss has dulled a little bit, please take another objective look at Obama, and you will be surprised that there are a lot of things about him that would appeal to you.
Hillary will surely work with Obama to make some of her vision into reality and that has a better chance of happening than with McCain.
If you believe in the ridiculous notion that electing McCain guarantees Hillary a win in 2012, then I'm sorry but you are naïve in your thinking. There is no guarantee that Hillary will run in 2012 or that a defeated Obama will not run again. There is also no guarantee that even if Hillary runs, with a defeated Obama leaking his wounds and deciding not to run, that another politician will not come onto the national stage, with a message that resonates with people and defeat Hillary. What then? Would you vote another Republican in for another 4 years in anger?
Just think about it.
Please help unite the party and help America and the rest of the world by helping to elect Obama as president.
Thank you