Letters to the Editor
-
If Debra Dickerson wrote this article...
...it would go something like this:
I think, every day, of what it would feel like to vote for Hillary Clinton. I can feel the pull of Hillary-mania, how thrilling it would be to see the country come alive with excitement for an older person, someone with nurtured ideas, a woman beholden to powerful movers and shakers in Washington, a candidate who has lived all over the East half of the United States, who does not seem to take a cowgirl approach to foreign policy, who has forsaken the working class in order to address the problems of big business.
I think also that, in the United States, gender (especially when combined with political connections) remains a more formidable barrier to professional, political and economic success than race. Barack Obama may have a harder time getting elected than Clinton because, frankly, Clinton can be comfortably looked at as an exceptional smirky woman, not as a harbinger of what's to come, whereas Barack will stand in for all those pushy black dudes coming to take your jobs, college admissions letters, and your seats in Congress.
If Barack's success is less exceptional, does he deserve my vote as much as Hillary?
I think of how I would love to be part of the wave of enthusiasm for this smart, mildly endearing woman, of how she wipes the floor with Obama as a Wolf Blitzer upbraider; I consider that the dashing Clinton, and her middle-aged adherents, have the chance to get all chummy with John McCain, while Obama would bring every angry, resentful white guy out of his parents' basement to vote against him.
And then I think of how, when I was 9, my mom took me into the voting booth so that I could pull the lever for the first black president, and how he told me that he hoped that in my lifetime I would have the opportunity to vote for a black brotha (or sistah) at the top of the presidential ticket. And I think about the fact that this is it -- my chance to pull that lever for him, so that I can do it again come November.
Who am I to turn up my nose at him because he's sort of perfect? I always figured the first black president would be a Mr. T-style Whig -- how can I complain about a Harvard-educated Democrat who once resembled the Second Wave black people who fought for my ability to control my own bus-sitting location and get paid as much as my white colleagues?
How could I ever tell those men that I voted for Hillary Clinton? What do I tell my uncle, my father -- men who aren't crazy about Barack's politics either, but whose extra decades on the planet have left them more acutely aware than I about the fleeting opportunity he presents.
What if I have an offspring someday and he/she asks me about why we've never had a black-man president? Do I tell him that we once came close, but that Mommy was really digging Hillary that day? (Lest nostalgia cloud my decision too thoroughly, I should add that my mother, the one who made sure I could vote for Jesse Jackson, is dissatisfied with her options, and planning to write in the ocelot.)
So as much as I yearn to run wildly into the streets with the jubilant hordes of Hillary Clinton supporters, if I cast my vote for her, it will be a silent and rather surly one.
-
@lark1124
lark1124: "Then I became pregnant for the first time. Suddenly my vote became symbolic not because I was a woman who was considering voting "for her kind." But because my vote was going to impact the trajectory of this nation for years to come, years my child would be growing up."
It took getting pregnant for you to realize that the outcome of the next election would impact the trajectory of the nation?
Most of us don't need to get pregnant to figure that out. We just need to have brains that operate at a higher capacity than that of a small bird.
-
Hear, hear
To my chagrin, I found myself in the same predicament as Rebecca, who expressed it very eloquently. I don't have time to go through the entire letters thread, so pardon me if someone has already posted this, but this is the link (sent by NOW this a.m.) that finally convinced me to go with my gut and vote for Hillary:
www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/020108.html
-
One vital thing in Obama's favor
Something Clintonites and fence-sitters should take to heart: above and beyond the ability to actually win the general election, something Obama can do -- one has to realize that what Bush and the GOP have done to the country (with Blue Dog and DLC Democratic complicity) has left the country a mess, and it's going to take a real mandate for change to turn that around. The next President is going to be handed a country in crisis, saddled with crushing debt, ongoing wars overseas, diminished diplomatic standing, enemies everywhere, a backward energy policy, an heavily polarized economy -- these are huge problems.
Now, you could argue that HR Clinton's brain trust is enough to solve these problems, but what's really going to be needed is a President who can bring the country together and heal the wounds inflicted on it by Bush/Cheney and the GOP, a President who can bring everyday Americans back into the process and work to fix the very real harm done to them. And that's Obama -- Clinton is simply not going to be uniting anybody with her candidacy, except uniting people against her, and with Clinton, the old-style us v. them GOP narrative will still be in play, because Clinton won't have the people at her back.
But Obama will, and that'll make the GOP's arguments turn to so much smoke -- it'll be the new us (e.g., America under Obama) and them (the GOP nutballs who're howling for endless war and more tax cuts for the rich). It'll be a nice reality check that will sabotage the GOP's supposed political legitimacy.