Why won't Hillary quit? Why do we care so much whether she does? Is it over? Is there still time? Is there a way she can win? Does she want Barack Obama to die? Do we want her to die? Well ... history can be our guide.
Hillary Clinton has always believed there is a "vast right-wing conspiracy" against her. she "knows" that everyone is out to get her, and that the "disrespect" of her by the press and the Obama campaign is gender-specific. It's no fun to watch her in action. Paranoia is uncomfortable, even when it's someone else's.
I disagree with her. It's who she fundamentally is and what she has and hasn't done, not her gender that bothers voters. But, she's right that sexist, hateful things are being said about her. It's also true that racist, hateful things are being said about Barack Obama. It's even true that some things being said are more innocuous than they appear in this overheated environment.
So, what to do? Why is this happening in this way?
It's instructive to think back to the very earliest part of the Obama campaign last spring. He was saying then that we shouldn't continue to fight the battles of the 1960s which have by now hardened into gridlock in Washington. At the time, it bothered me. The battles for the environment, social justice, responsible and responsive government, should never end until they have been won. However, I understand better now what he meant. He wants us to look for hidden areas of agreement. He suggests we should listen to each other with respect. Then we can move forward. We need to step back and be civil with each other. Rather than distrusting each other, we should give each other the benefit of the doubt.
Senator Clinton, I believe, has never understood that Obama's focus on moving forward isn't an attack on her in particular. She is fully invested in the idea that she is the last best hope for boomers to complete what we started in the 1960s and 70s. The last thing she wants to believe is that we can safely move forward without her solving them for us first. For her, it's always personal, and it's always critical. So, the Obama campaign is an affront, an obstruction in the way of her grand design to fix the world. And, how can a person in that frame of mind quit? Not gonna happen.
Add that to her ambient paranoia, and it's not a pretty picture. The biggest irony is that Barack Obama turns out to be the best hope for achieving Hillary's original aims.
We are now at the end of a long primary campaign. For the people on this forum who are involved in their first really high-stakes national campaign, I have news for you. ALL campaigns fall into paranoia near the end. It happens to winning campaigns and even worse to losing ones. Candidates find every negative comment unconscionable. Staffers feed this sort of thinking, and so do voters and volunteers who have invested a lot of themselves into the candidate's progress. This whole chaotic maelstrom is absolutely unavoidable. At least one campaign will end badly every time, sometimes both!
The people who become successful campaign managers have been through this stuff so many times that they can remove themselves from the paranoia around them. A really great candidate can separate him or herself from most of it, but not all. Most candidates, including a lot of successful politicians, are unable to do this at all. Almost no supporters can do it. In fact, this intense discomfort is why so many Americans hate politics. It sucks a person into personal heartbreak far too often.
One thing that goes haywire at the end of campaigns is that people take to heart everything that is said or written in the media. When I read that this or that event in the campaign is the death knell, or when an endorsement is trumpeted as a defining moment, or if a pundit slams some strategic campaign assumption, and then if I actually BELIEVE stuff like that is important, I know it's time to turn off the TV and do something else for a day or two. This is good practice for candidates, too. Howard Dean imploded because he got so tired, he didn't even know what he was saying or what he looked like.
It's Memorial Day Weekend. There are plenty of good things to do, not the least of which is to honor veterans, those we have lost, and those who are currently in harm's way.
What we can also do is cool off. Hillary Clinton has already lost. the last gasp machinations of her campaign are inconsequential in the face of the expert, professional Obama campaign. In chess, this is when the loser turns over her King and shakes hands. That moment is near.
Barack Obama has won the nomination. He has proven himself to be an exceptional candidate. The general election will not be decided by racists nor by scurrilous chain-emails about his religion. The general will be decided by how well focused we all are on the job at hand, getting the phone calls made, the door knocking done, our letters to the editor submitted, and our financial contributions sent in. No one can say that the Obama campaign is on the wrong track. Trust it, and trust the candidate. Then, throw paranoia under the bus, and use the energy saved to change the world.
Have a great weekend!