The day after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, I was stunned to see the DailyKos lose its collective mind in some sort of post-victory lovefest for the candidate that had been dividing our party and trashing our community and our nominee for months.
And now here we are, not a day later, with that same candidate back on the campaign trail vowing to fight on and continuing to divide and smear us. I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
I mean, what is required for people to take a hard line on Hillary Clinton? She must be forced to withdraw before anything else happens. VP slot, campaign debts, reconciliation, etc. Nothing can or should happen along those lines until she officially concedes. Why did we choose to forget that yesterday? We have been waging this fight for four months, and it has been essentially over for two months, yet there are people that are still willing to believe that Hillary Clinton can be trusted to "do the right thing." Why?
Why do you believe Hillary Clinton is motivated to "do the right thing?"
I grant that's an inflammatory question, but look at her words and actions over the past few months. Hell, look at her words and actions since the primaries began. What examples can you provide that show she is willing to be rational and fair about her opponent, the nominating process, her chances of success, etc.? Precisely when has she spoken and acted with candor, grace, humility, and consistency over the past few months?
We have a nominee. More importantly, we've had this nominee since Texas and Ohio. Despite the reality and The Math that has remained unchanged since those two contests two months ago, Hillary Clinton has not conceded and continues to negatively attack our nominee.
So, back to that inflammatory question I originally asked. Let me tease out the answer a little bit further with a more leading question:
Is a candidate that has a months-long record of exclusively trashing the Democratic presidential nominee someone who can automatically be trusted to behave with the Democratic Party's best interests at heart?
Is the answer even in doubt?
I have been disturbed by this desire to let Hillary off easy and not continue to fight her (even though she herself vows to continue fighting). I have been disturbed by this desire to "reach out" to Clinton voters, when they themselves haven't stopped fighting. Even though the nomination contest is over, we cannot and should not focus on McCain until all remaining Dem contenders leave the field. We cannot and should not stop donating, phonebanking, and volunteering until there are no other contenders left.
In my opinion, Hillary Clinton cannot be trusted to act for the best interests of the Democratic Party, because she hasn't been doing so for the past two months. Thus, I see no reason to give her time or space or dignity or respect. As we see not one day later, she'll just use that opportunity to bash our Party's nominee and divide us even further. She must be forced to leave, either by a flood of Superdelegate endorsements for Obama, a mass defection of her own Superdelegate endorsements, or by more surprising/disappointing results in upcoming contests.
With regard to her supporters, they must be confronted with the reality of their candidate's actions, and they must be asked to stop condoning this. We must ask her supporters to speak out, to contact the campaign, and to urge her to withdraw. Given Hillary's record of divisiveness over the past few months, it is no longer sufficient for Hillary supporters to silently condone her "win at all costs" approach. In the spirit of defeating McCain, her supporters must help unite the party by actively working to remove the source of our discord.
She cannot be trusted to behave "gracefully." She must be forced to leave.