I've gotten some pushback on two of my most recent diaries suggesting that I'm saying two contradictory things:
First, I argued that Clinton's excellent supporters and activists will come around to vote for the nominee, but that Senator Clinton herself is in the driver's seat about how and when that happens and that creates a dilemma for our party.
Second, in my last diary, I indicated that I was growing increasingly frustrated with the melding of Clinton's tactics with GOP attacks on Barack Obama. Clinton's attacks these last two weeks have been moving in the direction of being more divisive and destructive to Obama and our party as a whole. This has hardly been a moment to "chill out" as Bill Clinton cheerily advised activists at the CDP convention in San Jose; in fact, with the latest Clinton attacks mirroring GOP attacks on Gore and Kerry, this has been, in my estimation, one of the most destructive weeks for the Democratic Party in recent memory.
Hillary Clinton has used this moment to tear apart the Democratic Party in her attempt to tear down Barack Obama.
I don't think we should let her.
Now, I get a great deal of criticism for being critical of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Some of it here, some of it on other blogs.
I'd like to make clear that as a Democratic activist, and with no malice intended to those who sincerely support Hillary, I think President Clinton and Hillary Clinton have done themselves and our party an enormous disservice with their conduct in this election campaign.
I think their current conduct is shameful, destructive and hypocritical, and I say that as a Democratic activist proud to have played a role in helping us win back our majority in Congress in 2006 and eager to help again in 2008. Divisively pitting one part of our base against another is the worst kind of politics. That's bad for Democrats. But that is exactly what Bill and Hillary Clinton are doing.
It's one thing to ask Democrats to "chill out;" it's another thing to follow up on that, as Bill Clinton has, with rhetoric that pits seniors against younger voters, or refers to imaginary "real people" holding signs that say "I'm not Bitter" in opposition to Barack Obama.
To have come to California and told us California activists that by staying positive we Democrats had nothing to fear from an extended primary and then to have turned around and joined his wife in this kind of scorched earth, GOP-style attack on Barack Obama, Bill Clinton has shown himself to be nothing more than a pure and total hypocrite, a guy more interested in power than the good of the party or our country.
Like many Democrats, I'm more than disappointed in the Clintons. In a few short months, I've come to realize not simply that I don't trust them in the least, but that I don't even recognize them much anymore. I'll admit that I was never going to be pro-Clinton in the 2008, not with Mark Penn running Clinton's campaign strategy and Terry McAuliffe at the helm. Not with a candidate and a campaign like Barack Obama's as the alternative.
That being said, I sincerely liked and respected Hillary Clinton at the outset of the campaign season in 2007. Over time, however, Bill and Hillary's scorched earth campaigning against Barack Obama has had one scorched earth effect on me. The Clintons have currently scorched the Clinton reputation.
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to win the nomination you have to win elections
My feeling all along was that Hillary Clinton needed to win big and win going away. She did not even come close.
Senator Clinton is the spouse of a former President. She had Bill on the campaign trail with her. That's an enormous advantage. Not only have they, as a couple, run two successful campaigns for President, but because Bill still makes front page news as an ex-president, they have ridiculous advantages in terms of local press and local political connections. Nationally, the Clintons can play the 24 hour news cycle like no one else. There are huge advantages that come with being Bill and Hillary Clinton.
There are tens of thousands of Democrats in the United States who owe the Clintons for helping them with their political careers. Hillary Clinton started this campaign with over 200 Super Delegates on her side (and even more endorsers) and the Corporate Media reported that advantage as if she'd won those votes in an election campaign. But that's just not true. Hillary Clinton's money advantage and Super Delegate advantage at the start of this race came directly out of the fact that the Clintons were making a third run for the White House.
2008 was their race to lose, period.
They only had one problem. Not enough people were voting for Hillary. She wasn't winning delegates. Not in Iowa. Not in New Hampshire. Not in Nevada. Not in South Carolina.
Senator Clinton famously told George Stephanopolous that this would all be over by February 5th. It was not. Not even close. (Has she ever really been held accountable for that presumption?)
Clinton lost Connecticut and Missouri and Minnesota and Colorado. Clinton lost Washington and Maine and Virginia and Wisconsin and Maryland. Clinton followed up wins in Ohio and Rhode Island and a split in Texas (a loss by delegate count), with big losses in Wyoming and Mississippi.
Every last one of those states is a state where Hillary Clinton was well known and had a good chance of winning. She won NONE of them.
Clinton did not even begin to compete in Nebraska and Alaska and Idaho and Vermont and Illinois and Georgia and North Dakota and Hawai'i.
Now, one of the things that gets lost in the extended nomination process is something that I think is pretty basic. If Bill and Hillary wanted us to get behind them and grant them a third spin in the White House, then they sure as hell had to do a few things.
First, they had to run an exemplary campaign. Second, they had to bring us together as a Party and point us in a new direction that we all could get behind, especially young people. Third, they sure as hell needed to win big and win going away so that this thing did not come down to a closed-door Super Delegate battle or a divisive contest between warring factions in our party at the convention. And above all else, the Clintons had an obligation to show that they were more than a Presidential couple using their pull to get back into the White House. They needed to show us what new vision they brought to the table, what new wisdom and insights they'd gained post-White House that merited us giving them the keys to the Executive Branch again.
They've done none of those things.
The Clinton campaign has been the same people, using the same tactics, following the same "situational ethics" that the Clintons have always seemed to follow: time and again, Bill and Hillary seem to come before the Democratic Party. The one thing we've learned they did in the years following their time in the White House is make over $100 million dollars. That's a lot of money. It takes a concerted effort to make over one hundred million dollars. That's a reflection of one's priorities.
And, yes, cumulatively, those priorities reflect back on them.
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choosing Barack Obama
Barack Obama is the most gifted politician of his generation in either party. He's not perfect, no one is. But he's a singular figure in our politics for many more reasons than his unique name. He's a guy who graduated Columbia University and left a job on Wall Street to work as a community organizer. He then graduated from Harvard Law and returned to Chicago's South Side to register voters, helping turn Illinois blue and keeping his promise to the community he left. He worked tirelessly in the Illinois state legislature for eight years and he's made, in the few short years he's been in the national eye, speeches that will go down in the history of our nation as among our most memorable and significant. Since 2004 he has been our only African-American Senator and he's the first candidate of color to be on the brink of winning the nomination of either party.
To acheive this, Barack Obama has run an inspiring, stellar, textbook-changing, grassroots campaign
And, yes, Barack Obama happens to be African-American. And he is from Chicago. His name is Barack Obama. His father was an African man from Kenya. His mother was a white woman from Kansas.
As a nation we are still getting our heads around that.
But there is nary a Democrat in the nation, nary an independent, nary an honest Republican, who can't see that this man has the qualities of leadership we look for in a President.
He has boundless energy. He faces up to challenges calmly and persistently. He has a methodical, analytical mind. He's raised tons of money from big and small donors alike. He continues to add Super Delegates from all over the nation to his tally. Local candidates in every region want him on the ticket. He consistently wins the endorsement of local newspapers even in areas favorable to Senator Clinton or John McCain.
But, yes, some folks are tearing Barack Obama down. In fact, some folks talk freely about his African American heritage being a disadvantage.
Let me address that for one second.
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Barack Obama: African-American
Barack Obama's heritage is a powerful subtext of the Wright controversy. That's the powerful subtext of the "bitter" comments, too. (Obama was, in part, actually addressing race when he answered that question from a volunteer going to Pennsylvania in San Franciso.)
The question people seem to pose, and the press, the GOP and the Clintons seem to indulge, is whether the nation is ready to elect a black man to be president.
I have a simple counter question: can we as a nation afford to turn our back on the leadership, the judgment, the clear presidential abilities of Barack Obama because he happens to be African-American?
I don't think so.
I also don't think the Democratic Party can afford to let the media, the Republicans and the Clinton campaign tear this man down further in the name of politics.
Yes, Barack and Michelle Obama are African-American. The church they attend was not likely going to be familiar to the majority of Americans. If it wasn't Reverend Wright, it was going to be something else. That's not excusing Reverend Wright, but it is pointing out that never in our history can I recall the selected words of one pastor played in a loop, over and over again, as if he himself were the source of our society's problems.
That was a form of bigotry pure and simple from FOX News and Good Morning America and MSNBC. That was scape goating. It was wrong. It was damaging to our nation and the fabric of our social life. The Clinton campaign is now using Reverend Wright as an argument against Barack Obama.
Shame on them.
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coming apart or coming together: a choice
Yes, Barack Obama is an African-American candidate from Chicago, there were always going to be pundits and operatives looking to trip him up and claim that some of his comments were offensive or "out of touch" with working class whites in rural areas. It's a legitimate question to ask any candidate, of course, how they will reach out to people who are from another region or background.
But Hillary Clinton and John McCain slammed Obama as an "out of touch elitist" for a comment that he made trying to tell a supporter how to go reach out to voters in Pennsylvania. Obama was trying to say that his race was not a barrier in Pennsylvania, but that years of political neglect of economic issues was. Obama told that volunteer that in the context of that "economic bitterness" some voters privilege issues of guns or religion and that that's an obstacle in reaching out to them.
He could have said it better or more artfully. But don't forget the point he was trying to make. He was telling that volunteer how important it was to go out and talk to people in Pennsylvania on his behalf, to knock on doors, to participate. He was attempting, just like he tried to do with his speech following the Wright controversy, to bring us together and help us understand where each other was coming from. On some level, Obama was telling that volunteer to learn to talk to people where they are at.
Obama has been ruthlessly attacked for that. If the attackers win, that will have a lasting effect on all of us and our politics as a nation. Can we afford to have the walls between red and blue, urban and rural, well-to-do and economically-hurting built up even higher? Is that the direction we want to go? More division, more enmity, more mistrust?
Bringing people together is awkward. It is difficult. It takes courage and there are always rough spots. It's really easy not to misspeak when you are in support of the status quo; all you have to do is stay silent. In contrast, it's often hard to get out of our comfort zones and reach out to someone of a different background or region. To listen. To seek to understand.
That's what Obama's campaign is asking people to do. It's what you see at every one of his events: people coming together and learning what we have in common, and sometimes, what we don't.
As a patriotic American I want to say that however awkward that process is, it is good for us and good for the USA.
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it's our choice
Do I think that the national corporate media, the political operatives will give Barack and Michelle a fair shot as they reach out and try to bring our nation together with their historic campaign? I certainly hope so.
No one said it was going to be easy.
Barack Obama is not running as a "black candidate." He's running as a candidate who happens to be black. That gives all of us a powerful reason to support his effort and his leadership. It's in our self-interest to be able to run for office based on our character and not our background. We all stand to benefit from that kind of campaign and politics.
I think the relevant question is not what the media or the attack machines will do, but what the American people will choose to do this year. On that front, I have an enormous faith that, while we will all have some adjustments and growing pains to deal with in 2008, that, win or lose, we will emerge as a stronger, more unified nation for this campaign season.
If Barack Obama can win the nomination and the presidency on his merits as a man and a leader, it will be a shining day for our nation and our world. We will gain a true leader and we will put to rest decades of a kind of politics that represents the divisions of the past.
One campaign, of course, will not be a panacea for our nation's divided history. But it has already been a start. We've learned some things in 2008. We've learned about ourselves. We've learned about each other.
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a choice for the Clintons
I think Hillary Clinton is a smart, ambitious candidate who has already lost. If she chooses to push forward and does, somehow, win the nomination in Denver with a floor fight battle, I will certainly support her as the nominee and work to elect her.
But I also know that she will only do so at great cost to herself and our party. Clinton can only win by tearing apart the Democratic Party. Bill and Hillary know this. They needed to win Wisconsin and Virginia and Minnesota and Maine and Missouri and Connecticut. It's too late for that.
Bill told us to "chill out" in San Jose. His wife then went on to launch a destructive attack on Barack Obama that continues to this day. I have no charitable spot in my heart for the utter hypocrisy that represents.
The pattern the Clinton campaign has established in attacking Barack Obama has already come at great cost to our party.
Imagine for one second if instead of tearing Barack and Michelle down, Bill and Hillary had realized they could not win, and had, instead, used their considerable political connections and abilities to help Barack win over voters who had previously supported Hillary.
That's exactly what I'm calling on them to do now. Not to withdraw. That's too easy. What the Clintons need to do to redeem themselves is to actively help repair our nation and our party by helping elect Barack Obama president over John McCain.
In my view, it's only by putting the Democratic Party over their own interests that Bill and Hilllary can redeem themselves within our party.
It's their choice.
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TAKE ACTION