Dear President Clinton;
As the time until the Democratic Convention ticks away, I wanted to write to you to ask you as a Democrat for your help. You will speak on Wednesday night and it is about this speech that I wanted to talk.
Mr. President, you have been the leader of our Party for a long time. I know that you expected to turn the reigns over to Vice President Gore when he succeeded you, but things did not turn out as expected. In the time since the 2000 election you have had to watch all of the progress you made for the country in general and middle class in particular being systematically dismantled. You watched as the carefully crafted budget surplus was squandered on tax cuts for the richest of Americans. You watched as we went to a just war, and then an unjust one, to the high cost in lives, treasure and the standing of the United States in the world. This could not be an easy thing.
In 2004 you saw our chances of reversing these trends washed away by spurious attacks on our nominee. The Republican Party, time and again, used fear to drive our natural constituencies away from the Democrats. I say you watched, because it was a choice, to my mind a good one but a choice no less, to stay out of the way of a sitting president. You did act by coming together with President G. H. W. Bush to aid the victims of the tsunami but until this election cycle you stayed away from the cut and thrust of electoral politics.
When Sen. Clinton decided to run for President all of that changed. Of course you would be involved in her campaign, both as a husband and a politician, how could you not? I was a supporter of Sen. Clinton in this primary season. I supported her as the person that I thought would be best able to right the terrible damage that the G. W. Bush administration has done to this country.
During that campaign, you ran aground of the race issue in this country. I know that it must have been bewildering to you to find a constituency that you had been so close to in your presidency no longer yours for the asking. It is a sign of how far we have to go that statements that you made regarding Sen. Obama, Jesse Jackson and Rev. Martin Luther King were read in such a way as to make some believe that you were acting in a racist fashion. I have no doubts that this was not your intention, but I also do not see how anyone speaking on racial issues when the first viable African American candidate in our history is running would not be cast in this fashion. There are too many open wounds and too many unspoken barriers in our race relations for it to be otherwise.
I know that this must have been enormously frustrating to you. For a segment of the population that you identified with, both from your early economic experiences and your desire to create an America where all have an equal chance, to turn to a relative new comer who is one of their own. However, you could hardly say it was unexpected.
It must have also been quite hard to be part of the team that lost such a hard fought campaign. In your long political career, neither you nor Sen. Clinton has had many electoral defeats, so it is completely understandable that it may have taken you some time to come to grips with this turn of events. But the time to do so (if you have not already) is now.
On Wednesday night you will speak at our convention. You will be passing the torch of leadership of our Party that night. Yes, you have done this twice before, but now there is a leader with the kind of connection to the people, one with the skill in oratory that, while not duplicating, matches your own. Truly there is an inheritor worthy of your legacy. I know, I know, you are married to another, but it is not her time. This is Sen. Obama’s time to lead us and we need you to make that transition clear.
Mr. President, you are one of the greatest speakers that I have seen in my lifetime. You have not only the ability to connect with a live audience, but you have the rare skill of being able to make that personal connection over the television. When you are at your best, there is no one more convincing, more rousing or more engaging than you. We need this kind of performance on Wednesday night.
There is a section of our Party that has not rallied around our nominee. I don’t know if the reasons are loyalty to your wife, latent bigotry that they will not discuss or just a failure to understand what another Republican administration would mean for our country. Many of these Democrats are very loyal to you and Sen. Clinton. They have a love for you that transcends politics. You know, as I do, that we must have these Democrats come out and vote if we are to assure a victory in November. You have it in your power to bring them home. This is what I am writing to ask of you.
You have a choice, sir. You can give an average speech, say the words to support Sen. Obama (this I have no doubt that you will do), and leave some doubt about your support. Or you can give that last speech of a lifetime. It can be the capstone of your legacy as President. You, sir, have the skills and ability to shine a hundred thousand watt spot light on our nominee; you have the support to finish healing the breach in our Party and propel Sen. Obama over the top and into the White House. The only other thing that is required it is the will to do so.
As a husband I can imagine your hurt and dismay that your wife lost in this contest. I can empathize with your hurt at being branded racist. However, you are not just a husband or a politician, you, sir, are a Democrat and it is in this capacity that I call on you for your very best. There is no need for me to remind you that Party membership is more than a convenient label or a source of support. There are times when you must do what is best for the Party, regardless of your personal desires. You know this to be true, and it is in the name of our Party and all that we can achieve that I call on you to give your very best.
President Clinton, please, sir, give the speech I know you are capable of. Give your full throated, unconditional support Sen. Obama. Call on those that respect you and Sen. Clinton to rally around our nominee. Turn the skills of a master politician to the ends of uniting our Party and defeating the Sen. McCain and Republicans, not because you have to, but because you are the man, the politician, the Democrat that I seen you to be.
Regards,
Something The Dog Said