Until earlier this week, I had studiously avoided all the candidate diaries. I was undecided as to whom I would vote for. I was leaning toward Edwards, but open to the other Dem candidates. And ultimately, I will be voting for whomever is nominated as the candidate.
What got me reading candidate diaries was, on Tuesday and Wednesday, the onslaught of appeals - or demands, rather - from Obama supporters to Edwards supporters to tell Edwards to give it up, throw in the towel, and make way for Obama. These demands also pretty firmly put me in the Edwards camp, made up my mind for me, even as I had determined on Tuesday night that Obama's graceful concession speech caught my ear enough for me to give him another look. And then I came here and read all the entreaties to me to give up my say in our democracy in order to make room for Obama.
And now, we have Lawrence O'Donnell doing the same thing in HuffPo.
I find his piece to be breathtakingly arrogant. His initial frame of Edwards as a loser is... insulting. Insulting to Edwards and insulting to those who support Edwards.
John Edwards is a loser. He has won exactly two elections in his life and lost 31. Only one of his wins and all of his losses were in presidential primaries and caucuses. He remains perfectly positioned to continue to lose with a Kucinich-like consistency. Nothing but egomania keeps Edwards in the race now. All presidential candidates are egomaniacs but some of them have party status worth preserving that forces them to drop out when they hit the wall. A loser like Edwards has no status or dignity to lose. Campaigning and losing is his life. So, he will continue his simple-minded, losing campaign and deny Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton the one-on-one contest they deserve.
I have yet to be convinced by the supporters of another candidate that their candidate of choice is any more deserving of support, or of being in the contest, than my chosen candidate. That's, uh, that's why they support their candidates, whom they believe are better equipped for the job, and why I support Edwards. I think he would be a better, more progressive, president. Calling him - and by proxy, me - a loser isn't going to change my mind.
And in fact, it will do nothing but make me stand my ground even firmer. Contrarian as a New Hampshire resident, I guess.
It's the tone, I think, that gets to me most. The assumption that us losers should get out of the way so those crowned by the media establishment can have their day in the sun. And the arrogance in making it a demand, rather than a persuasive argument that we might consider looking at a different candidate.
I find that bad enough when it's my fellow political junkies doing it, but it's even worse when a pundit does it. I find it repugnant when Chris Matthews tries to tell me how I should vote. And I find it repugnant when Lawrence O'Donnell tries to tell me that my guy is a loser and that he should bow out so Obama and Clinton can have the "contest they deserve," as if Edwards is any less worthy of the same contest.
I find it even grosser that, at the close of his "argument" that Edwards should step aside, O'Donnell implies that Edwards should get out of the way not just because he's a loser, but also because he's a white male.
The white male monopoly on the Democratic nomination has finally come to an end. Someone has to tell John Edwards.
That little veiled reference insults everyone involved in any way with this pre-presidential process. It insults Edwards on the basis of his being male and white, which, uh, he can't help being any more than O'Donnell can help being white and male. It insults Edwards supporters because the implication is there that those of us who support Edwards do so not because we like the things he stands for, but because we're racist misogynists. And it insults Clinton and Obama because it implies that the primary reason they should be left alone to duke it out in the primary process is because of their respective minority statuses.
Look, I'm not going to go into a litany of the reasons I prefer Edwards to either Obama or Clinton, because other people, earlier in the week, have put it better than I could. And I'm not going to try to convince any Obama or Clinton supporters that they should come over to the Edwards side. Why? Because we like who we like, and we have good reasons for that. And none of us, no matter whom we support, should feel pressured by people who are, theoretically, at least, on the same side as we are to abandon someone whose campaign appeals to us. Nobody needs to be strong-armed and bullied because of whom we choose to support in the primaries.
Even if we choose to support "losers" like Edwards, Mr. O'Donnell. I mean, thanks for all your concern, but, uh, no thanks. I'll make up my own mind, and John Edwards will make up his. And that's part of why I like him.
Kossack Sean Casey has an excellent diary inspired by the same HuffPo piece here. Please have a look, as he makes some excellent points in his diary.