So Why Did This Long-Time Critic of Bill Clinton Support Hillary for VP? Why?

David Zephyr

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Sat Aug-23-08 01:35 PM
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So Why Did This Long-Time Critic of Bill Clinton Support Hillary for VP? Why?

I supported Hillary Clinton to be Barack Obama's VP running mate. Openly. Without reservation. My private e-mail address at hotmail was filled with "how could you?" "why would you?" and more for the past month. My answer was always this: party unity and helping Obama, my candidate, win the White House in November --not with just popular votes which he will have, but with those precious electoral votes--- where he starts out with only John Kerry's electoral base and must expand or suffer defeat. No electoral college victory, no White House for Obama and Michelle.

For the record, I was anti-Clinton before it ever became "cool" to be so. I fought the Clintons in 1992 with Jerry Brown clear up to the convention in Madison Square Garden where we gave them hell at every caucus and during the platform writing. Jerry asked me to be his advance man on the day that he gave his "no endorsement" press conference there at the Mid-Town Hyatt, now a Trump property. One night at the elevator in our hotel, I told the man who'd been my hero since I was 16, Tom Hayden, that I'd always admired how he'd never compromised all those years. Tom looked at me, obviously touched, and asked me, "But David, I ask you. If I vote for Bill Clinton, am I compromising?"

I'd worked with the SDS to help organize the moratorium against the war in 1969 when I was 16 at my Texas college campus where I was threatened to be expelled. Later, I'd worked with Tom and Jane's Citizens for Economic Democracy grass roots here in Los Angeles and Santa Monica in the 1970's, volunteering at the LA Free Clinic, the Gay Community Service Center in its infant days, marching in gay rights "parades" before they were fashionable and when we had rocks and beer bottles thrown at us and our tires slit.

As a homosexual socialist, I understand fully about taking things incrementally in life. Politics is the art of the possible. And as Mick sang, "You can't always get what you want." No one need lecture me or any member of a despised minority group about that. Our expectations are very realistic.

My support for Hillary was dynamic in that it had many, not just one, reasons:

1.) Party Unity: Overarching everything, I know the party needs to be unified. My candidate did not sweep the primaries as Kerry had done just 4 years ago. Like it or not, Hillary wound up with roughly the same number of popular votes and delegates as Barack did. Argue that until your face turns blue, but it is the truth. And she will have nearly half of the delegates in Denver next week. Delegates are not the average Jane and John on the street. They are loyal. They are very loyal. Moreover, Hillary won the great majority of the last ten primaries. People here at the DU and other liberal blogs who continue to shout out and demean her supporters...long after the primaries are over not only lack grace, but are morons who are insulting the very people you must have to see Barack defeat John McCain. As an Obama supporter, I was content enough in June that we had won. And, yet the continued and juvenile harassment of her supporters here had become a sick spectacle to witness. Many of you should be ashamed of yourselves. And with every Hillary supporter that quietly walks away, we lose another vote and soldier.

2.) Hillary is not Bill Clinton: Whether they are married or not, Hillary is not Bill. And Bill is not Hillary. And her career and life is not something to ridicule. Her speaking out in China to the entire world in the 1990's about the unacceptable treatment and condition of little girls and women on our planet was a cosmic crack in the collective psyches of the human race. She did try, when no one else ever had, to bring universal health-care to every single American and the corporations took her down. She sucked it in when her husband cheated on her, she sucked it in when he acted like a fool during her campaign. And yet, there is a great dignity in this woman, a great resolve within her that I like. She is a great woman.

Frankly, I don't see how Joe Biden helps Barack Obama win in November. He may help in Pennsylvania, but we always carry that state anyway. That's part of the Kerry base. How do we win back Ohio, West Virginia, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana and the states that Bill Clinton won and where Hillary did so well in the primaries. Joe Biden? He's going to help Obama there? I want to believe it, but I don't. I hope I am wrong.

Finally, I don't know the inner workings of what all went on between Barack and Hillary. If Barack had no intention of picking her, he should have told her weeks ago and said so publicly or given her a chance to say publicly that she wasn't interested. Rather, this thing dragged out and while Hillary was living out of a suitcase traveling around the country stumping for Barack, the impression was given that she still may be his pick. My sister, who is a life-long Democrat, a yellow dog Democrat, left a message on my phone, "I'm really mad at your Obama, David!". Well, at least she said it. I won't call her back and tell her how "stupid" she is or how "Republican" she is. I'm glad that she expressed her feelings to me. Believe me, there are millions just like my sister who aren't saying a word today.

Mr. Axelrod, "That ain't no way to treat a lady, a lady, no way to treat a lady, a woman, a friend."

Here's hoping that Obama's delegates in Denver will have more grace than many here at the DU have in how they treat Hillary's supporters.

When elections are determined on "getting out the base", it is important that the base be motivated and enthusiastic in turning out.

To the Obama supporters here who have been gracious to their fellow Hillary supporters, I stand with you proudly.

To the Obama supporters who have and still continue to ridicule Hillary's supporters, I distance myself from you proudly.

And to everyone who is still smacking their lips at Hillary and her supporters being vanquished, you'd better get out your prayer rugs that John McCain doesn't pick a woman as his VP.

The issue at hand is defeating John McCain. Stomping out the ember of a defeated primary opponent may still make you feel good, but does nothing to win in November.

I will take a respite from the DU for the next week. I will be back. Skinner has created a great forum here where open thought has a long tradition. I hope when I return that the Hillary-haters will have filled their appetite and possibly, just possibly have understood that the sum is always greater when you add, then when you subtract.

Obama/Biden '08.