Title updated from comments.
It always seemed to me that Clinton and Obama had more in common than not. They were both skillful politicians running for President from non-conventional backgrounds; they had many of the same policy positions; they had the ability to inspire their followers and to bring new voters into politics and into the Democratic Party; they both stood to make history with their elections and would probably shift America towards being a more tolerant, progressive nation.
Hillary Clinton's loss can in part be attributed to an assault from both sides of the political spectrum. Certainly, her rejection by the progressive base of the party played significantly to her loss in the election.
Will history repeat itself with Barack Obama? Thoughts on this after the fold.
Hillary Clinton probably spent the entirety of her 8 year senate career preparing for her Presidential run. Most of her votes, including the AUMF which cost her this election, were designed to create the image she and her advisers thought would best server her presidential ambitions. She has admitted that her first order of business was to convince people that a woman could be the CnC, particularly in a time of global unease during not one, but two military conflicts.
Hillary Clinton was brought down by an assault from both the left and right of the political hemisphere that tore her character down to the point where she could no longer be perceived positively by most voters. The mainstream media, and the right, worked in tandem to promote the idea that Clinton was a political opportunist with "too much" ambition. She could not be trusted. The progressive media had equal disdain for Clinton because of her support for the war, lack of apology for it, and an assortment of other reasons that proved she was a corporate owned DNC hack.
Interestingly, Obama is moving into the same perceptual territory once inhabited by Clinton: seen by the right as too liberal, by the left as too centrist, and arguably, by the center as just political. What this means is that Obama risks becoming the new Clinton for the progressive media; the new face of betrayal of our ideals and morality for the sake of political ambition.
"OpenLeft.com, said that an Obama win in November would be a victory for "centrist government," adding: "Progressives are going to have to organize for progressive values."
Republicans see a different Obama. The National Journal rated him the most liberal member of the Senate last year. His advisers say the rating system is faulty, but McCain and other Republicans say it is an accurate reflection of Obama's political philosophy. "
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In both circumstances the pattern is the same: the creation of unambiguous moral imperative that was violated for the sake of political gain. With Clinton, this was her AUMF vote, for Obama his FISA vote, and his perceived shift to the center. The result of this inexcusable moral violation: loss of support, financial and otherwise; dampening of enthusiasm; flirtation with other candidates, political parties, and/or abstention from the political process. The most common sentiment on dailykos regarding the possibility of her candidacy was "I will vote for her holding my nose," followed by "I will stay home."
In realty, you have political calculations, right or wrong, being taken as moral violations that are experienced, on the level of emotional perception, no different than infidelity.
What you end up with is a candidate on one hand smeared daily by his opponent, awash in a mainstream media intent on spreading lies, distortions, and ignoring daily missteps of Republicans. On the other hand, you have the progressive media creating the narrative that he has failed in his obligations of leadership, and lacks the character required to engender more than tepid support.
What do you expect to happen to a candidate when you have the mainstream media promoting lies and mis-characterizations about him, and you have the progressive media promoting a narrative that he lacks the proper character of a leader? We are the progressive media, we are supposed to be the answer to the problem of the mainstream media. The mainstream media is controlled by corporate interests and we cannot expect them to change. The progressive media is controlled by you.
Yes, we have every right to question our candidate when he fucks up, and no I am not arguing for hero-worship. But when we ascribe to our leaders the need for absolute moral compliance, giving them no room to maneuver, we are no better than Christian Conservatives with Abortion switched out for FISA.
Hillary Clinton was rejected not because she was seen as unfit to lead this country, but because she was not aligned with our progressive morality. You may want to contest that, but the fact remains Barack Obama risks being flushed down the same toilet. No candidate can survive assault from both media bases.
We should not become values voters. We cannot be so naive to the political process and the nature of politics that we would sell out progress for our version of Rapture.