I DECIDE TO COME OUT OF THE CLOSET
This entry was posted on 7/16/2007 3:05 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
I WROTE THIS ON JULY 16, 2007, BUT DECIDED NOT TO POST IT BECAUSE I'D BEEN INVITED TO WRITE FOR HUFFINGTONPOST.COM'S OFF THE BUS PAGE, AND THOUGHT I NEEDED TO BE OBJECTIVE. LAST NIGHT'S DECISIVE WIN IN IOWA'S CAUCUS BY BARACK OBAMA CHANGED MY MIND, ESPECIALLY BECAUSE, SIX MONTHS LATER, IT IS STILL RELEVANT.
It was something I saw a man say, when commenting to a TV reporter about a poll he'd just taken on the Democratic nomination, that changed my mind about everything.
He said, "I don't think much past the nomination."
Meaning, when he answered the pollster's questions on a potential nominee for the Democratic party, he wasn't thinking about the general election. He was only thinking as a Democrat.
Up until that moment, I had no intention of declaring for a candidate on my blog or anywhere else. I was afraid that if I endorsed a candidate, then from that point on, whatever I said about the war or about politics in general would be regarded by my readers through that lens. If they were vehemently pro-other-guy (or girl), then they might not listen to anything I said, period. And since ending this war is my first priority, I didn't want that issue--or any other--to get clouded by off-subject debates.
But this election is so unbelievably crucial, not to just this country, but to the whole world; and the nomination process has become so crazy and revved-up--almost ensuring that we'll have a pretty good idea who our nominee will be by FEBRUARY--then I decided that, to remain silent on an issue this critical would be irresponsible.
The thing is, we Democrats are an idealistic lot. We tend to cast our votes for candidates who we believe passionately would make the best president--not that there's anything WRONG with that.
But I think there can also be a certain hubris in that. Let me explain. If we think a candidate is brilliant, and the rest of the country is JUST TOO DAMN STUPID to figure that out, well, then that's THEIR problem.
And that attitude can cost us the whole shootin' match.
Although the greens will argue with me all the way to the grave on this, I truly believe that they not only wasted their votes on Ralph Nader in 2000, but those very votes bled away absolutely critical numbers from Al Gore, in a margin that was so sliver-thin, in the long run, that the Republicans could easily lie, cheat, and steal the rest in order to get their president.
There is no way to calculate the damage that has done.
I read recently that Nader was standing in line at an Al Gore book-signing, and the man standing behind him said, "How does it feel to have the blood of more than 3000 American men and women on your hands?"
Ouch. I'm not THAT brutal in my resentment of Nader's candidacy and Gore's 2000 loss, but the truth is that those Democrats, including, as I recall, Michael Moore, who voted for Nader because they wanted to make some kind of statement about the corruption of the two-party system or because they really really really thought he would be a brilliant president, or for whatever reason, just did not think it through in terms of what the majority of the American voters were likely to think in a general election--whether he REALLY stood a clear and present chance of getting elected--I don't think they really took the time to imagine what could and would take place under a George W. Bush presidency.
They can't actually have BELIEVED that Nader could really WIN. They had to know that his candidacy would not be taking any voters away from Bush.
This is what can be the result of an idealistic vote, one that is cast because this candidate reflects our beliefs so perfectly, even if the rest of the country doesn't see it that way. We want to make a point with the ballot box--but in so doing, we participate in making a disaster.
So now, in 2008, if we want to win back the White House, if we want a real chance to do so, then we have GOT to be pragmatic and not just idealistic. We have to look past just what we think we want, and start considering what the country--or at least the tiny percentage who actually VOTES--will tolerate.
They say that selecting a candidate to back is like falling in love. In many ways, I think that is true. But I also think that one of the things Ralph Nader HAS pointed out is that the way the two-party system, the nomination process itself, and the electoral college system works, is that it weighs very heavily toward establishment candidates.
And I don't think Democratic party establishment candidates have done all that well in national elections in recent years. (Bill Clinton, you'll recall, was a bit of an upstart.)
I'm thinking as much right now of Sen. John Kerry as anybody. Don't get me wrong--I like the senator very much and I did not have a problem supporting him. But many, many Democrats DID. He was brilliant, and he was experienced, and he was a combat vet, which was important in 2004--but he was a terrible candidate.
And when you have a terrible candidate--no matter how great a president he or she might actually BE--when they are terrible candidates, you can lose not just Independents and moderates, but you can lose disgruntled Democrats who are so underwhelmed that they just don't vote, period.
Al Gore has said the same thing about himself. He has said that, while he thinks he has the best qualifications of anyone to be president--a view shared wholeheartedly by his ardent supporters--the truth is that he's just a lousy candidate. And that's a shame. It really is. But in a world ruled by television--and increasingly, YouTube--being a lousy candidate can kill your chances pretty quickly.
The first president to actually GET that was Franklin Roosevelt, who made a point of always being photographed either standing, appearing to walk, or sitting in a regular chair or behind a desk. Back then, the disabled were pitied and scorned as weak or defective. He knew he needed to convey an IMAGE of strength, and that is what he did.
John Kennedy knew it too, obviously. The truth is that, handsome and rugged though he seemed, he was in truth, sick with Addison's disease and in constant, agonizing pain from his back. He wore a back brace and sat in those rockers because they were the only kinds of chairs that gave him support and enabled him to get up easily. (There is no telling how much medication he was taking; we'll never know because those parts of the autopsy have never been released, to my knowledge.) But he was always photographed sailing, playing touch football, staring out into the sunlight in those snazzy shades, looking all Hollywood-glam.
By contrast, John Kerry always looked dour and depressed and weary. He's a virile, athletic man who loves to ski and wind-surf--but that is not how he came across on-camera.
George W. Bush, of course, is a master at media manipulation. Those of us out here with BRAINS, and any Texan who can actually THINK, knew he was all horsesh** and no horse. He bought that stupid ranch right before he ran for president, because he wanted to look all manly like Ronald Reagan did when he was clearing brush and riding horseback. It has always been baloney.
And do not even get me started into a hostile harrangue about all those damned flags.
I'm just saying.
Some people actually do cast votes for the shallowest reasons. And you cannot simply ignore those shallow reasons because you think they are stupid. Maybe they are stupid, but these people VOTE, regardless of what their reasoning may be.
As I said in my blog, "Checkmate for '08: Beating the Republicans With Their Own Game," we need a candidate who can reach all the shallow people, but at the same time, have some real meat to satisfy us policy-wonks out here who care about that stuff. Not to mention, we don't want another sock-puppet in the Oval office.
So, that said. I'm going to tell you how I fell in love.
Let me preface this by saying that I am a huge Hillary Clinton fan. I have cheered her on ever since she got chased out of Disneyland with pitchforks and torches because she said, "I'm not going to stand by my man like Tammy Wynette," and then, not long after made some comment about how she could have "stayed home and baked cookies"--anyway, she was pilloried for those remarks and it was the stupidest damn thing I have ever seen. Everyone watching that interview understood what she meant, and to act as if she were beating up on a beloved country singer, or belittling stay-home moms was ludicrous.
I backed her all through her brilliant campaign to bring health care to this country. I liked what Bill Clinton said about "two for the price of one."
I thought she handled the whole Clinton Crucifixion with grace and dignity and great personal character and courage, and when she ran for senate, I was on my feet applauding. I have watched the behind-the-scenes work she's done for the rescue-worker victims of 9-11; she was fighting for decent air-quality statistics while it was still smoky at that terrible place. And she's worked all her life for women's and children's issues.
I loved her autobiography. I read both hers and Bill's. When I learned, to my outrage, that my right-wing local librarian had no intention of ordering copies for the county library stacks, I bought copies and donated them myself, stipulating that they were not to be sold at the book sale but put on the damn shelves.
So I am a Hillary fan. I am on Hillary's mailing list. I voted for a song for Hillary, (but it was not Celine Dion ha ha.) If Hillary gets the nomination, she will have my full support.
But I am not supporting Hillary Clinton for the nomination.
Most of the guys who hang out over at progressive websites like TPM Cafe and Huffingtonpost and Daily Kos do not live in areas as conservative as the one I live in, and are not surrounded by as many family and friends as I am who are Republicans.
And they really, with all due respect, have no idea just how widely hated Hillary Clinton is, not just to conservatives, but to Republicans overall. You know and I know that she has the makings to be a good president, but so many of my readers really do not have a clear concept of the tidal wave of hatred and venom that would be unleashed from the Clinton-haters of the world if she got the nomination, to see her defeated.
It would be the best thing that could happen to them to get their dispirited, disgruntled, dismayed base out fund-raising and voting.
Do we really want to subject the country to that? Do we really want to risk losing moderates and Independents and disgruntled Republicans because of that?
A divisive, vitriolic campaign though, is not my main reason for not backing Hillary. I see some other problems. One is that so many of her fans are really, when questioned closely, revealed to be BILL fans. They seem to think that if they vote for Hillary, they are, in effect, getting a do-over with Bill.
If they think that, then they don't really know Hillary at all. A Clinton presidency would be hers, and if anything, she might make mistakes just trying to prove that.
And Hillary has made many mistakes. So many of the scandals that erupted from the Clinton White House can be laid at Hillary's feet--all of them inane, to be sure, but nonetheless damaging to his presidency--from Travelgate to Whitewater to that stupid futures thing, and even Paula Jones. Bill was willing to settle. Hillary wanted to fight. The rest, as they say, is history.
They say the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Do we want another era of those kinds of problems and scandals? CAN Bill behave from his lesser position? I don't know. I think so. Do I want to risk it at this critical, terrible time? No.
But that isn't the reason, either.
There is a great fatigue all across the country right now, for "dynasties" and "legacy presidencies." As someone pointed out, if Hillary gets the nomination, wins, and serves two terms, this country will have had TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS of either a Bush or a Clinton in the White House.
And I think people are weary at that idea, and are so ready for change after these disastrous past years that they will vote for ANYBODY who presents an alternative, and I swear to God, if someone like Mitt Romney or Rudy Guliani or, God forbid, Fred Thompson, gets the Republican nomination, it will be just more of the kind of crap this country has been forced to endure for six years.
And those people out there in the general electorate who actually cast votes for shallow reasons, just might do it, for change. For something different. To get away from the Clinton legacy of fighting right-wingers all the time.
But that's not the main reason.
First, I'll explain how I fell in love. And then I will show why this love affair can be PRAGMATIC as well as IDEALISTIC.
Like most every other Democrat, I, too, watched the convention in 2004 and listened to the stirring words of a skinny young senator nobody ever heard of, named Barack Obama, as he gave his talk about how there isn't a blue American or a red America, but a United States of America, and I wept.
I have not wept, watching a political speech, since Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were alive. I felt inspired, and I have not felt that way in a very very long time.
Like everybody else, I worked my heart out for John Kerry in 2004, and when the election results came in, I did something I have never done in my life: I took to my bed, and I refused to answer the phone, even when my husband called.
I lay in the fetal position, me and my cat, Bear, for something like twelve hours, and when my husband made his fourth phone call, at 10:30 p.m. (he was out of town) and told the voice mail that he was beginning to be very worried that something had happened to me, I answered the phone. He was angry when he found out why I had not answered it, but I was so completely overwhelmed with a nightmare-vision of what the next four years were going to be like that I could barely talk even then.
And it was worse than even I had imagined.
It wasn't until my sister gave me a book called The Audacity of Hope for Christmas that I even gave much thought to Barack Obama.
That book changed my life.
I kept underlining things, putting stars in the margins, dog-earing it, rereading passages.
I would read a while, and tears would track slowly down my cheeks. Everything he said made sense to me. What made the most sense was that he represents a new generation of politics, away from the divisive Vietnam-era, Nixon-Kennedy dichotomy that has rended our generation in two since we were teens. Everything he said was about finding consensus, bringing together wildly opposing points of view, coming up with real solutions to real problems, working things out answered a call in me.
I liked that he was not afraid to tackle the sacred cows of the Democratic establishment, calling on Detroit to put decent emissions standards on vehicles and teachers to be accountable and ghetto parents to step up to their own responsibilities--even as he provided creative ideas for helping all those things happen, in palatable ways that made good common sense.
I had not been so moved by a book--certainly not a political book--well, EVER. I was so impressed, especially by the quality of his intellect and his sheer writing ability, that I bought his first book, Dreams From My Father, which also made me cry.
I realized that he had been forced, from childhood, to get along in this way with the two disparate worlds of his existence, and that it came natural to him.
I could not imagine a more healing touch that this country needs right now.
I knew he had opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, and I had heard his most famous quote: "I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war."
So I decided to google the speech. I found it, printed it up, and read it.
And my head exploded.
It wasn't until I reached the end of the two pages that I realized I had not only underlined every single line in the speech, but I had scrawled across the top: HE SPEAKS MY HEART:
"I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne. What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.
"That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle, but on politics."
I gave hard thought to the political environment in 2002 toward ANYBODY who dared speak out against the war. It was the very reason that Kerry, Edwards, and Clinton all voted to authorize it.
Not to do so at that time was political suicide for anyone hoping to run for president.
Obama was running for the senate in 2002, so for him to speak those words at that time in that political climate took great courage and conviction. Not to mention foresight:
"You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply interest Exxon and Mobil.
"Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.
"The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable...We ought not--we will not--travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain."
By the time I finished reading those words, I was openly weeping. I had not been so powerfully moved by anyone since Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I had not ever dreamed that in my lifetime I would be so again.
I had fallen in love with Barack Obama's words before I ever knew anything much about him.
But that is not the reason I am declaring my support today.
For the past several months, I have been following just about any poll taken by anybody.
Time and time and time again, Hillary Clinton beats Barack Obama by anywhere from a dozen points to more than twenty.
For the primary.
But when those same polls are expanded to the GENERAL ELECTORATE, time and time and time again...It is Barack Obama who kicks the butts of any Republican candidate out there. By AT LEAST twenty points.
Hillary? It is always a squeaker. She never gets much past three or four points, a margin of error in any poll.
And I could see--as clear as day--another contentious, venomous campaign riddled with Hillary-haters, an energized Republican base pouring out to defeat her, and the Democrats losing by ONE or TWO percentage points in yet another fetal-position heartbreaker.
I know she thinks she can duplicate country-wide what she did in upstate New York.
She can't.
And we cannot risk another heartbreaking loss. Not now. Not at a time as crucial as this.
In a recent issue of Time, there was a poll of religious conservatives, asking how many could support a Hillary candidacy and how many an Obama candidacy.
Only three percent said they could support Hillary.
Fully twenty-seven percent said they could support Obama.
This is a crucial poll, because what that tells me is that disgruntled conservatives--except for the racial bigots--could tolerate, even accept, an Obama presidency. But they would not, could not, tolerate four more years of Clintons.
And if conservatives would be able to TOLERATE him, then you can bet that moderates and Independents could throw their full support his way.
Polls also show that, by a wide margin, Obama leads in the support of moderates and Independents. Hillary, not so much.
Again, do I think Hillary would make a good president? Probably, if the right-wingers would leave her alone and let her try.
Do I think she could get elected?
No.
I repeat.
No.
And if by some miracle, she does? I guarantee you she will only last four weak years. The haters have that much juice behind them.
I'm tired of haters setting the agenda. I'm ready to move on past the contentious jokes and venomous rumor-laden e-mail forwards of the 90's.
Would an Obama candidacy have problems of its own? Of course. He's black, if you haven't noticed.
He will be accused of being inexperienced.
Already the mythology is forming that he's all flash and no substance. However, I have printed up every major speech he's given in the past few months, on everything from health care to ethics reform in government to the war in Iraq to repairing global relations and so on. He's got more than enough substance.
Are every single solitary one of his ideas absolutely PERFECT? Of course not. But with Obama, you know he will assemble great minds, will listen to all sides, will take the best ideas from all of them, and will find a consensus to govern and tackle the major problems of our day. I suspect that Hillary Clinton would have an important role in an Obama presidency.
Does finding consensus make everybody happy? No, but if they want this government to break out of gridlock, they should be willing to try it.
As far as experience goes, like Obama says--George W. Bush assembled one of the most experienced administrations in history, and look where that got us.
Barack Obama has struck some sort of deep nerve in this country, a nerve that is exemplified by more than 258,000 Internet doners (this number has now reached 500,000) who have raised tens of millions of dollars for him. Hillary is only able to compete because she has lined up all the establishment sacred cows behind her--all the big PACs and lobbyists--and because she transferred over $10 million of her own from her senate campaign. Most donors to Obama's campaign are poised to give far more over time.
DID YOU KNOW THAT HE DOES NOT ACCEPT MONEY FROM LOBBYISTS OR PACS?
It's absolutely true. When a recent donor got into trouble with the law, Obama took the money he'd donated and gave it to charity, then said, "That was boneheaded. I won't make that mistake again."
How many politicians do you ever get to hear call themselves "boneheaded"?
Isn't that refreshing?
Recently, his campaign sponsored a contest where four people were chosen to have dinner with Obama, based on their stories. I was disappointed not to be one of them.
So what did he do? He felt badly that he could take only four of the thousands of us who had submitted stories. So he arranged a conference call. We all called a number at a certain hour, punched in the security code, and then he took questions.
You are sitting on your bed with your phone pressed to your ear, listening to Barack Obama answer questions from people like you.
Powerful stuff, that.
If voters seriously want a change, there is no doubt they will go for the candidate who inspires them, who gives them hope, who makes them believe that all is not lost in this great country, who makes them rest easy that our government will be in good hands, who will listen to their concerns no matter whether progressive or conservative, and who will search for common ground to unite us all.
If they're like me, they will fall in love too.
And this long national nightmare will be over.
Seriously my journey to supporting Sen. Obama has so many parallels from the key note speech in '04, to reading his book "The Audacity of Hope," to searching out video of speeches. While I sometimes say I would like to see just a little of Sen. Edwards tenacity incorporated in the audacity, that's ok that I haven't seen it. I do believe it is there always just under the surface waiting for just the right moment, when it is needed. I hope you get to attend a rally you will really come away as the surfers say, stoked. So I guess you've put me and other bloggers on the spot. It is time to fish or cut bait. Like you I have a pet issue that I don't want people to think, oh, that's why he likes him. I'm an east coast hippie that did his share of drugs in college. I am also a polio survivor who has to deal with pain in so many areas of my muscular/skeletal system that the Big Pharm scripts I take just don't do the job completely. Therefor I am active in the movement to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes. Sen. Obama has been more than candit on this subject. there was no parcing, no what is the meaning of is to his answers on this subject. No I smoked it a couple of times but I didn't inhale. Really that's what I told my mother when she caught me smoking cigarettes. So give me a couple of days to get what I want to say just right and I'll join you as a fellow blogger in support of the next President of the United States, Sen. Barack Obama.
