Will Obama support the Dem. nominee if he loses?
Tue Jan 22, 2008 at 06:00:35 PM PDT
This is an open question given his own words. I like Barack Obama a lot and see him as a potentially great president. Yet, I'm very much troubled when he says things that indicate he may be catching the same fever displayed by the vehement Clinton haters here on Daily Kos. In an interview with CBN News today that I picked up on TPM, he suggested that his supporters may not support HRC in the general election:
I have no doubt that once the nomination contest is over, I will get the people who voted for her. Now the question is can she get the people who voted for me? And I think that describes sort of one of the choices that people have, just a practical choice, as they move forward.
Now maybe he has a point, if a lot of his supporters are independents as opposed to Democrats (which seems to be the case). Yet, I believe that any Democratic candidate for president has a strong obligation to back the party's eventual nominee and urge her/his supporters to do likewise. Now maybe some Obama supporters would refuse to back Clinton or Edwards regardless of Obama's endorsement -- that is up to them. But he could certainly have a huge impact via his endorsement.
I have no doubt that Edwards or Clinton would do this given their long-standing commitment to the party and its ideals in contrast to the GOP, regardless of this primary's bitterness. Obama -- now I'm not so sure, and that bothers me. All the party candidates should realize that the Dem. winner would be far better than any GOP alternative and campaign likewise.
Update 1: In the comments, litigatormom stated well what I was trying to get at with the diary:
"If he's saying he can do better with independents, fine -- that's a legitimate argument to try to make. But he's talking about what happens "after the nomination contest," which strongly suggests he's talking about his Democratic supporters, not independents. Suggesting, even obliquely, that Democrats won't or shouldn't unite behind the nominee isn't what a man who would be almost a sure thing to be the nominee in 2016 (assuming HRC is the nominee and wins the general)to do....If he didn't support HRC as the nominee, one could make the argument that undermining the Democratic nominee in 2008 might be a self-interested effort to set himself up to run in 2012. Whatever the motivation, that would be something that would be very very very hard for me to forget. And I say that as someone who likes Obama, would be proud to support him if he were the nominee, and thinks that sooner or later he will be President."
