Look, when Bernie first announced his candidacy I got excited. I like old hippies. I especially like principled old hippies.
Months went by. Admitting at the outset that I’m a political junkie, I soaked in the Benghazi hearings, I gobbled down town halls, debates, speeches — from both sides — like they were M&M’s.
By January I knew I had to get serious. So I started doing some research. I turned away from MSNBC, CNN, CSPAN and Fox (recognizing that their salaries depend on salacious headlines and making mountains out of molehills) and started digging — and digging, and digging — for all I could find on Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. I had to make up my mind.
It’s now March 22nd, and today I go to caucus in Idaho. I will be caucusing for Hillary Clinton — and here’s why. First and foremost, common sense dictates that if, after 40 years under a microscope that doubles as a bare light bulb, the GOP has found, literally, nothing to prove all the rumors, innuendos, propaganda and wild accusations, there probably isn’t anything there. This is a party that has unlimited resources to do a hatchet job but they’ve come up with nothing.
Second, and no less important, I began to watch Bernie very closely. I should explain that I grew up in a house full of extended family, including a crusty old Italian man we called Grandpa. Grandpa was a guy who wanted to be Don Corleone. He would wax nostalgic about the “good old days” of prohibition, hinting that he had some sort of dark past. Problem was Uncle John, who actually HAD a dark past. He knew that Grandpa liked the skin on his butt right where it was and there was simply no way he was risking it and Uncle John would call him out on it. I’d watch Gramps bluster and yell and wag his finger and storm off in manufactured disgust.
And that was what started to click when I was watching Bernie and digging around to prove the various claims he made. I found that he was really at the “forefront” of nothing. He participated, surely, but he never really put his butt on the line for his ideals. It is undisputed fact that he accepted NRA money to fund his Congressional run, it is a fact that he voted to protect them. Also a fact that he voted on the liberal side of most issues — and I respect that. But he never led the charge. Little by little, small things started to pile up — the data breach, the resultant lawsuit, the “artful smear” regarding Hillary’s speeches, blatant machinations to avoid VietNam (no, I don’t really blame him for that), Sierra Blanca, his tenure overseeing veteran’s affairs, FEC violations, the caucus/primary meddling (and in some cases, deception) by his supporters and (perhaps) some at his campaign. In the last few days, I’ve been more than disturbed by his, and his campaign’s, insistence that he can win — and their eluding to pressuring delegates at the convention.
But political tactics aside — far more disappointing for me the following three things:
(1) He never — ever — admits a mistake. He has excuses, and in his mind they’re good ones, but he never says “I was wrong.”
(2) He doesn’t really look at questioners at town halls. He doesn’t humanize them. His response usually starts with “That’s a good question, let me tell you...”
(2) When he’s not getting softball questions, he gets pissed off and leaves.
In contrast, at the age of 21, Hillary Rodham, child if a right-wing military man, gave a speech at her college graduation that no only chided the guest speaker for not empowering women, but went against everything her father stood for. Could I have done that? Honestly — no. Her father was quoted as saying that he wanted “to crawl away.” She worked for the children’s defense fund, she spearheaded health care reform (and got baked for it). She sat for 11 hours of idiotic, stump speech questions from a pack of politicians who were more interested in getting a sound byte on the news and remained gracious. She answered everything.
But more important than staying there even when things get rough was her demeanor toward her questioners: the little girl fearing deportation, the Honduran mother with five kids, the guy who spent 19 years in jail before being exonerated — she looked at them. She SAW them. She commiserated with them. They were humans — people — to her.
Grudgingly and kicking and screaming, I was forced to admit it. Bernie was grandpa. Watching him last night, it was clear that the campaign was not about the party (which he has denigrated repeatedly), or the election, or the country. It’s about him. His message. His glory. He was a guy who mulled around on the fringe until he was close or past 40, who fell into a pot of gold with that year’s election, and who spent the next 25 or more years mulling around on the fringe. He was Grandpa. He wanted the glory. And now he has attention, people are listening. To Him. He can talk about his “glory days” even if all the glory is in his head. He can spout off about all he’s “fought” for — but casting one vote among 100 isn’t a fight. It isn’t a singular form of bravery.
Bravery is going out there, alone, with a slingshot against an army of semi-automatics.
And that’s what Hillary has done, for decades. She has the testaments of the people who were there with her to prove it. And that’s why she has my vote today.