OPEN LETTER TO HILLARY AND HER SUPPORTERS
This entry was posted on 2/25/2008 12:23 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
Dear Hillary and Supporters,
I didn't say anything when Nightline did a story about Obama supporters that used old footage of swooning women at Frank Sinatra concerts and screaming teenyboppers at Beatles appearances.
I didn't even say anything when the correspondent referred to supporters "fainting and tearing their clothes."
No one to my knowledge has ever torn their clothes at an Obama rally. If anyone does faint, it probably has something to do with standing hours in line, pouring into an arena packed with thousands of other people, the heat from all those bodies crammed close together, and possibly skipping a meal in order to get a good place in line.
I have been to an Obama rally, and I would also like to point out that many, many of the thousands of people in attendance tend to be, like me, middle-aged. We haven't swooned or fainted over anybody in 40 years.
Still, we Obama supporters endure being referred to in the media as some kind of cult, worshipping a messiah figure. This is patent nonsense and it would be funny if it weren't taken so seriously by so many in the media and cheerfully egged on by the Clinton campaign.
But I didn't say anything, either, when a Clinton booster, introducing her at a rally, referred to Obama supporters as, "latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing trust fund babies."
The very next day, in fact, the Ohio Teamsters union and the Boilermakers union endorsed Obama. I daresay there's not a trust fund baby among them.
My son is a former combat Marine with two tours in Iraq under his belt, as is my nephew, who has three tours to Iraq behind him at the ripe old age of 22. They are both Obama supporters.
I dare you to look them in the eye and accuse them of ever wearing Birkenstocks, or of fainting and tearing their clothes at an Obama rally.
Go ahead. I dare ya.
I am 56 years old and live in a very red, rural area of West Texas. I have met many Obama supporters here, and many of them have crossed over from decades of supporting Republican candidates. Out here in the country, we don't even know what a latte is. We drink our coffee black, out of a thermos, the way God intended it. Most people drive pickup trucks and SUVs. We wouldn't be able to FIND a Prius out here.
I know one woman who has voted straight-ticket Republican for the past 30 years, who volunteers countless hours in support of Obama. Go ahead and tell her she's a "limousine liberal." Wait a minute first--I've got to sell some tickets.
Still, I didn't say anything as the attacks on a candidate's SUPPORTERS increased.
And then Hillary, you yourself just had to get into the game, mocking Obama by saying, "Now, I could stand up here and say, let's just get everybody together, let's get unified--the sky will open and the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect!"
You got a big laugh from that little performance.
Only now, I have to speak.
All you Hillary supporters...If you really want to see your girl in the Oval Office, and if you're all able to finagle, say, the Florida and Michigan votes and various superdelegates and enough popular vote to get the nomination...
Then mock us now at your own peril.
If Hillary gets the nomination, YOU WILL NEED US.
You will need all of us who have supported Obama and attended his rallies and made thousands of phone calls to get out the vote, all of us who caucused for him and donated money to him and voted for him and prayed for him.
And I will say this: Obama has attacked you, Hillary, on your policies, which, as you very well know, is pure politics and is fair game. You have attacked his too, and that's fine.
But he has never attacked you personally, and never EVER has he made disparaging or mocking remarks toward your supporters.
In all my years of following politics and being an activist in Democratic causes, I have never witnessed such a thing from within our own party.
It has to stop.
It's one thing for the media mythology to take hold and it's one thing for the right-wingers to launch their mockery and demagoguery and nasty attacks. We have come to expect that from them.
It's quite another when our own does it.
If you want your girl to get into the White House, and you continue to mock and put down all of us who have worked so hard in support of OUR candidate, then you do so at your own peril.
Because I can tell you right now, when you cross that line, no amount of Clinton nice-making can ever make up for the anger and resentment of good Democrats who've been made to feel like nutcases by their own party faithful just because they supported a different candidate.
And if you succeed in pissing off a gigantic chunk of the Democratic electorate, then you had better be fully prepared, not just for the Republicans pouring out in force to vote AGAINST Hillary, but many, many dispirited, disappointed, and disheartened as well as pissed-off Democrats sitting the entire election out.
Keep this up, both on the campaign trail and in snarky blog comments and websites, and we won't donate money to you, we won't campaign for you, and we won't rally for you.
And we won't vote for you.
One more thing. Every time our own party slowly self-destructs by this kind of divisive win-at-all-costs tactic--making fun of fellow Democrats, attacking them for supporting a different candidate--we give Republicans even more valuable ammunition to use against Obama should he actually win the nomination.
Talking Points Memo even did a video in which they spliced back and forth between remarks made by Hillary and remarks made by John McCain in criticism and mockery of Obama--they were almost identical. I've seen her make one statement that he echoes before the day is done.
It's all politics, yes. But mocking and turning on people in our own party because they've chosen to support a different candidate is completely anathema to what the Democratic party stands for, which should be, tolerance and inclusion.
It's mean, nasty, and unneccessary.
Not only that, but I guarantee, if it does not stop, it will cost us the White House in 2008 and possibly our slim majority in Congress.
This expresses it well, I think:
"I don't believe we get there by vilifying good allies, with a lifetime record of battling for progressive causes...I am convinced that, our mutual frustrations and strongly-held beliefs notwithstanding, the strategy driving much of Democratic advocacy, and the tone of much of our rhetoric, is an impediment to creating a workable progressive majority in this country."
That was a quote from Daily Kos, from back on September 30, 2005.
Only Kos didn't write it.
Barack Obama did.
