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• Wednesday, June 4, 2008 11:41 AM

  @ Jebldmm

  Thanks.

  Here's the relevant excerpt:

  "It has been a hard-fought and sometimes bitter campaign, but Obama is not, one of his senior advisers assured me Tuesday night, going to spend a lot of time in the next few months wooing Clinton supporters whose feelings may be hurting.

  “I think there are always immediate feelings of disappointment and anger,” Anita Dunn said. “But in the months ahead, he must appeal not just to the constituency groups who favored her in the primaries, but those he wants in the general election, and that includes independents and Republicans.”

  I take your point here, though it doesn't sound disrespectful so much as pragmatic.

  More:

  "Another Obama adviser, who asked not to be identified, said that he was not worried that Clinton supporters would stay angry.

  “Look at how many switched today to Obama,” he said. “Look at the Clinton supporters, look at Maxine Waters [the congresswoman from California who endorsed Hillary Clinton in late January but switched to Obama on Tuesday], who were passionate advocates for Hillary, but who switched to Obama.”

  Ok, I can see how this might sound dismissive, but again, it also seems a realistic assessment of the situation.

  “At the end of the day,” he went on, “Hillary supporters will look at John McCain and decide they are not going to vote for a man who will put judges on the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade.”

  Yes, this is dismissive, but as one who campaigned for Nader and considers myself the base of the Democratic party (though I'm not formally a Democrat), I can say that Clinton's bloc is not the first one to be written off as a lock. Both as a leftist and as an educated black person, I've felt taken for granted my entire life as a voter.

  Which is to say I understand your grievance on this, but it's hardly unique to the Obama campaign. I'd argue that Clinton took all those right-wing positions (both Clintons, really) on this principle: what are you going to do, vote Republican?

  It's a real problem, I agree, and one that might be redressed by substantive electoral reform.

  "The easiest way, the Obama campaign has decided, to turn the page away from Clinton is to go at McCain full bore, start the general election campaign immediately and ignore the media chatter about what Hillary does or does not want."

  As to turning the page as a strategy, it seems sound to me.

  Of course Obama should reach out to everyone, but electorally, choices need to be made, right?

  Can Obama simultaneously refight the primary battle and keep on McCain?

  I don't know the answer to that, but I do suspect that keeping the focus on McCAin and the future is a more viable strategy than recapitulating the primary.

  But your point is taken; believe me, I know what it is to be taken for granted as a voter.

  —weeping for brunnhilde Read weeping for brunnhilde's other letters
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