Dear John...
Sat Jan 26, 2008 at 08:08:50 PM PDT
Yes, it's a lame joke. Gallows' humor and all that. My apologies, Senator Edwards...but it's time to face the truth. You will not win this nomination.
I really hoped it wouldn't come to this. I've been an ardent supporter of yours for months, and believe that you have the best platform of the major candidates. Watching the media ignore you has been infuriating, and the enmity you've earned from the megacorps has only increased my respect for your devotion to the needy and your willingness to fight for them, and us all. I have the greatest sympathy for the situation you're in with your wife and her cancer, and have found others' willingness to see it as a mark against you either unfortunate, sad or obscene, depending on their reasons.
Yet it has clearly come to this: you came in third in your home state in the Democratic primary. You would almost certainly win it in the general, were you our candidate, but you will not be our candidate. It is simply reality, barring an unprecedented miracle or an all-too familiar tragedy, that your nomination will not happen.
This is now a two candidate race, and my wife and I must make our choice based on those two candidates. Though we will support the eventual nominee with all our power, we see inspiration in Senator Obama and old DLC forces around Senator Clinton. That makes the choice an easy one.
I do not write this to ask you to leave the race at this time. Your presence has infused the primaries with a progressive energy that it would not have otherwise had. It has been frustrating watching Senators Obama and Clinton adopt your rhetoric while no one, save for your supporters on the web, reveals this truth. Yet it has also been inspiring to see you do something that needed to be done -- remind the candidates that they're running for the Democratic nomination. Barack Obama has turned into a stronger candidate and fighter for it, and Hillary Clinton has developed a better progressive voice for it.
The problem is, I have no interest in voting for a "kingmaker." We have no kings in this country. I have no interest in a brokered convention. The smoke-filled room should be a subject for history books, not modern speculation. And I truly believe that there is potential greatness in Senator Obama, a greatness that Hillary Clinton, for all that she is infinitely preferable to any of the warmongering nutcases running with Rs in front of their names, does not have.
I know that hagiographies have been passed out left and right among the bloggers and diarists during this primary season. Passions run high as we see the possibility to throw the Republicans a hundred anvils, the chance to do what hasn't been done since FDR saved this country twice -- move us forward in a massive, necessary way. We can make changes that will make our country great again, and any one of our candidates will make at least some of those changes (yes, haters, even Hillary). Nevertheless, Caroline Kennedy's endorsement only drives home what many of us see in Senator Obama: a man who might be the next John F. Kennedy.
I say this with great deliberation and care. President Kennedy was not perfect. He was a moderate in many ways, a Cold Warrior who attacked Eisenhower for being soft on Communism(!), and his record on civil rights was mixed. He followed through on the disastrous Bay of Pigs, and if the stories are true, made William Clinton look like a celibate.
Yet President Kennedy had a power to inspire, uplift and advance our nation in great ways. Ultimately, he was greater than his faults, because he both believed in America and helped us believe in it. He was steady, yet sane, during the Cuban Missile Crisis (my father was in SAC at the time, years before I was born, and he told me that they saw a distinct possibility of nuclear war during that time). He fought Communism in the Western Hemisphere with human rights advances and the Peace Corps rather than Contras and death squads. Perhaps most importantly, his New Frontier was at the heart of his vision for America:
...the frontier of unfulfilled hopes and dreams. It will deal with unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.
We need that vision today. We need a president who will guide us to the 21st Century's New Frontier. I believe you had the greatest vision for that future, Senator Edwards...but you will not be president in 2009.
Of the two candidates, either would repair the vast and terrible damage to America done by the blood-soaked traitors currently serving through Albert Gore's presidency. (To those of you who believe that one of the other Democratic candidates is evil incarnate...well, I guess you want President McCain or Romney or Huckabee.) Yet for all that I will support Senator Clinton if she is the nominee, I see in Senator Obama not merely the vital and necessary return to competent leadership, but a realignment that could undo the political, cultural and societal damage done to this country by the Reagan (Counter)-Revolution. We need that vision today, and I pray that you will, after February 5, see the need -- and yes, the hope -- that I see for the new, progressive dawn in America Senator Obama would bring.
I wish you and your magnificent wife nothing but success in your continuing fight to help those most in need in our country. I hope to see you serve an important role in Washington during the next presidency. It is simple fact, however, that your chances of being that president are slim indeed. Thus, I will now support Senator Obama's campaign, and urge others to do the same.
--
(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix
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