Seven years ago today, then-Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y) joined together after a grueling Democratic primary battle to make the case for Democratic Party unity once and for all, and to make the case at the time to defeat then Republican presidential candidate John McCain (R-Ariz.). The case was made: A Democratic president had to be elected president in 2008 or else the future was probably going to be at risk.
The primary battle at the time between Obama and Clinton after the Unity, N.H. Then-Sen. Clinton made a powerful case, that "In the end, Senator McCain and President Bush are like two sides of the same coin and it doesn't amount to a whole lot of change".
Imagine what a McCain-Palin presidency would have looked like, imagine the U.S. going to every conflict in the world and fighting these wars over and over. Imagine what a McCain-Palin presidency would have done regarding the health care crisis, the recession, the jobs issue, corporate welfare, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and important social issues.
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On that day, Friday, June 27, 2008, America was at a crucial crossroads. The unemployment rate in the U.S. was 5.6% percent, but times were very tough for millions of Americans. The foreclosure crisis continued to endanger the country and it's promise of the American Dream. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was frustrating to millions of progressives, independents and centrists alike. Frustrating to millions of Americans! The time had come for Sens. Clinton and Obama, despite some bitter resistance from Hillary Clinton 2008 supporters not to vote for Obama, but to even vote for McCain! I remember that day very well, I remember one of my neighbor's friends telling my cousin that she would never vote for Obama, that she would vote for McCain or even Ralph Nader.
There was plenty of bitterness not only in my neighborhood, but in most American neighborhoods that supported either Clinton or Obama in 2008. Some felt that not nominating the first female presidential nominee was a mistake for Democrats, and that it would lead to lower turnout among women. That turned out to be false. The same view about if Barack Obama, the first African-American presidential candidate to be nominated by the Democratic Party lost the nomination, it would lead to lower turnout among African-Americans. That turned out to be false.
There was lots of tension after the primary battle, sometimes going into the 2008 Democratic convention in Denver, Colo., but Americans resolved their differences and voted for Barack Obama and Joe Biden for president and vice president in November 2008.
Regardless of the ups and downs of the Obama presidency, the Democratic Party, we all should keep in mind, that the start of the unity of the Democratic Party began on June 27, 2008, and 2016 will be a hell of an election cycle, whether it is uninspiring or electric.
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