Let me start with a few disclosures:
(1) I am an Obama supporter and have been volunteering for him.
(2) In 1992 and 1996 I was a Bill Clinton supporter and volunteer.
(3) In 2000 I supported and volunteered for Al Gore.
(4) In 2004 I supported and volunteered Howard Dean. His loss still hurts.
Now, on to the point of this diary...
I have been struggling recently with the questions of (a) "what is a leader" and (b) "how does a leader act?"
I think both Clinton and Obama are capable of being leaders. Each is intelligent, capable, intellectually inquisitive and articulate. Each has the skills I think necessary to be a leader for our times. [I think Obama has additional desirable qualities that I look for in my leaders, but that is a discussion for another time.]
However, I think only one of them is currently acting as a leader. To demonstrate my position, I started making a list of all of the situations and circumstances that I thought demonstrated Obama's leadership (calling us to higher goals, speaking truthfully to unfriendly audiences (e.g., fuel standards in Michigan), etc.). In the end however, my list really became about one point. It is a simple point, but one that appears to be lot by our current batch of talking heads on CNN, MSNBC and the rest of the sorry lot.
A leader doesn't whine.
A little background: I am the youngest of four boys. I was constantly getting smacked around as a kid. And as my brothers and my parents constantly reminded me, "Life isn't fair." It is a lesson that I have carried with me all of my thirty-five years.
Over the last few weeks it appears to me that Clinton has forgotten this very basic point. Let me highlight a few examples:
(A) This talking-point that Obama is winning caucuses because either (i) Hillary's supporters work and cannot get to caucus sites, (ii) Barack's got better ground operations in certain states which results in better turn out for him, and (iii) Barack has more money to spend on advertisements in states like Washington, Nebraska and Louisiana.
First, (i) is a ridiculous statement as other diaries have already discussed and doesn't need to be addressed further here (except to note that I work six to seven days a week, long friggin' hours each day). Rachel Maddow has it right (as noted in another diary) -- a leader campaigns in every state or doesn't whine about turn-out when the turn-out is consistently breaking all historical records.
Second, (ii) is similarly a ridiculous statement. Why, per chance, might Barack have a better ground operation? Could it be because he leads a campaign that has operated within budget (i.e., hasn't need to dip into personal finances to stay afloat)?
Third, (iii) is just silly. Hillary trumpets her $10MM raised in February, but then suggests her defeat in three different states on the same day is because she didn't have the finances to air her message. This is a campaign that has raised over $100MM but apparently failed to properly budget and allocate those amounts. She bet heavily on Super Tuesday, which is fine. But to then complain that her subsequent losses are the result of a thin wallet...well, to me, it smacks of desperation.
(B) The Shuster issue. What Shuster said was thoughtless and inappropriate. But Wolf Blitzer, Chris Matthews and others have said a lot worse, a lot more often. And, more importantly, compared to what will be coming from the Republicans in the fall, it is mere preamble. A preseason scrimmage.
Shuster's comment was a one word gaff. A bad mistake. A hurtful mistake. But just a mistake. Calling for Shuster's firing (which the Clinton campaign has since backed away from) is just plain minor league. It isn't inside baseball, it isn't softball, its T-ball. Whining about Shuster's use of "pimp" to convey his perception of a double standard surrounding the use of Chelsea as a surrogate -- especially after the Clintons' so called misstatement and misunderstandings concerning race arising in New Hampshire and the weeks that followed -- is hypocrisy in its most basic form.
A leader doesn't whine. Or play the victim. Or call take a dive in the penalty box (soccer reference). A leader leads. A leader calls us to greater action. To sacrifice. To contribute. To act.
Back in 1992 and 1996 and the four years that followed each election, I saw leadership in Hillary. I saw her push her agenda, against a Republican majority, despite a country whose attention was focused on her husband's misbehavior and adultery.
I remember when Hillary demonstrated these characteristics. When she led. I remember those days with fondness. I miss those days. Unfortunately, I don't think they are coming back.
In the last six years, I have seen Hillary authorize a war (subsequently denying what we all knew at the time -- that the vote was a vote to authorize a war, nothing less). I have seen Hillary pander to those who would censor speech, standing side by side with Lieberman to call for prohibitions on certain entertainment content. I have watched with dismay as Hillary has abandoned the progressive agenda to appease the middle, trying to make herself electable and inevitable.
I have taken her actions to be an admission that she no longer wants to lead, she just wants to win. And win at any cost. Which, in my mind, explains her actions and statements (and the statements of her surrogates, including Bill Clinton) in the days leading up to and following New Hampshire. She doesn't care how she does it, she just wants to win. If she has to whine to do it, so be it.
But that isn't leadership. That is not leadership.
And that is why she lost my vote. The fact that she is now whining about things that will look like child's play come October, well that just confirms to me that whatever leadership qualities she once possessed have been abandoned to the all-consuming desire to win. To appear electable. To seek power for the sake of power. But not to lead. Not to lead.
And it hurts this (soon-to-be-former?!?) yellow dog Democrat to say that if she is our candidate, I will not be voting the head of the ticket.
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