You're Damn Right I'm Bitter

BY AMY Z. QUINN

Yes, it smarts.

Yes, I'm angry and disappointed today.

And yes, I'll still vote for Barack Obama in November. But you should understand why I'm not feeling great about it this morning.

Now that it's over, now that everybody's been able to run their ecstatic headlines, can we all just admit that the MSM and the Yes! We! Can!-crazed online world had a deep desire to see Obama win, if only so everyone can soak in the aura of  the New Kennedy or the first black president or the generational shift, or to have anything but the Clintons to write and talk about for another four or eight years?

Hillary Clinton's announcement in her speech Tuesday night that she would be neither conceding nor endorsing Obama just yet seems to have mystified or angered a lot of people. Even my respected colleague Will Bunch seems to have got it  very, very wrong.

Here's what that non-concession sounded like to my ears:  Obama may have garnered a sufficient number of delegates to secure a historic nomination for the presidency. He may even beat John McCain, with the support of many Democrats who cast their primary ballots for Clinton -- including me. But he certainly hasn't "won" my vote.

Because for weeks now, I've watched Clinton rack up decisive wins in key battleground states, securing blocks of voters Obama will desperately need in November. Then I listened as each of those victories was called meaningless, simply unneeded because some formula spelled out in the daily Obama campaign email and understood only by cable news anchors had already determined that "mathematically, she can't win."

I heard the voters who chose Clinton in Pennsylvania dispatched with the descriptor "blue-collar whites," which is a polite way of calling people of a certain socioeconomic status -- my parents, I guess -- some uneducated racist white trash. Or in the case of West Virginia, Dogpatch hillbillies who shouldn't even be allowed to vote.

Was that elitism, or just politics? I can't decide, but I'm damn sure that's what Clinton was talking about when demanded for "the 18 million people who voted for me to be respected, to be heard, and to no longer be invisible."

I watched, with genuine emotion and pride in our country, as ladies born before women had the right to vote cast their ballot for Clinton. Then they were lumped in with the rest of the women who were just voting with their vaginas. At the same time, I read about African-Americans only a few generations removed from segregation who talked about how moving it was to cast a vote for Obama, and I saw many black superdelegates who had supported Clinton for years simply switch their allegiance, yet none was accused of "voting race." I read story after story about how the popular vote didn't matter anyway, because the coming tidal wave of superdelegate endorsements would put Obama over the top. How she might as well just drop out now and stop all this nonsense.

I was still waiting for that tidal wave of endorsements  Tuesday night when Obama staggered across the finish line, at the last possible second, as the last votes were being tallied in the last states to hold their primaries. This is a mandate?

For weeks I've listened to Clinton be accused of tearing the Democratic party asunder -- of damaging democracy itself -- by winning. I've heard her viciously criticized for attempting to deny Obama, so clearly a special, once-in-a-lifetime candidate, his destiny by being obstructionist enough to win as many, and often more, votes as he.  I watched TV pundits driven to near-maniacal ranting because Clinton had the astounding arrogance to inspire as many people to believe in her ability and experience as believe in Obama's magical historical mandate.

Was that sexism, or just politics? I'm not sure, but I do know that Keith Olbermann can bite me.

Last Saturday, I watched the DNC Rules Committee grudgingly give Clinton half of what she fairly won in Florida, and penalize her -- stripping her of delegates -- in Michigan, then give them to a candidate who chose not to have his name on the ballot. I watched startling assumptions, obviously designed to benefit Obama, be made about the true intentions of thousands of people in Michigan who had already made a choice by voting Undecided. Hell, there weren't even any dangling chads to go by, just exit polls and the desire for it all to be over already.

As for former President Clinton, yes, dude was off the hook at times, but be clear about the fact that he was often absolutely correct. Many in the media were already against Hillary even before they fell so giddily in love with Obama.  Obama's campaign did allow others to do their dirty work, and Obama's half-hearted attempt to distance himself from the hate being preached at his church was, in fact, pretty damn slimy.

Some of Obama's most passionate (and annoying) supporters refuse to believe -- simply cannot fathom -- that their guy would lower himself to engage in time-tested street politics like good old-fashioned shit talk. Look, when I first heard about that Rev. Pfleger thing, even I was like "Oh come on, where did they dig this one up?" I kind of agreed with Obama's dismissal of the whole thing as gotcha politicking.

Then I realized this wasn't some nugget culled from the nether regions of YouTube: This shit happened two weeks ago. And if we're going by the reaction of Obama's (now-former) fellow congregants at Trinity United who clapped, cheered, leaped to their feet to express their enthusiastic agreement with a Catholic priest who stood in their consecrated space mocking Clinton's ambition as disgusting entitlement, her desire to win as some racist inability to believe that a black man would dare to defy her, well, then it's hardly she or her supporters who are dealing in personal destruction.

Was that sexism at work, or just politics?

It was certainly repulsive to me as a Christian. Offensive to me as a woman.

But mostly today, it's all just disturbing to me as a Democrat, who will now be expected to shut up and fall into line behind Obama. Talk about a massive sense of entitlement.

Comments

[annie heckenberger]

This is the best summation of how I see the events of the last few months/weeks. It's the smugness of Obama and his supporters that revile me the most. As if they won some major advancement, when all they've done, is push the advancement of women back several decades.

She isn't just a woman to me; she is smart, she's a mother, she's a lawyer, she was first lady, she's a crusader for the rights of people ignored or unable to fight powerfully for them, she is a force that foreign leaders recognize and respect. She was the greatest hope I've had in my lifetime.

[Mark]

This might be hard to believe, but my choice came down to what Clinton was going to do as president. She lost me 100% with her proposed Gas Tax Holiday. 100%. She's smart enough to know that economically it wouldn't work, and environmentally it would be a disaster. All candidates pander, but you shouldn't pander using the other side's playbook.

Whoever takes over the Oval Office in January will have to decide if they are going to reverse all the special - and unconstitutional - powers Bush gave the Exec Office, or if they are going to just kind of let them quietly stay as they are. After constantly hearing Clinton justify how she was suddenly so concerned over what the voters of FL & MI wanted (Obama "chose not to run in MI?" please, Clinton knew he was only following the rules as they had been written before the whole primary season started, and I seem to remember that she was perfectly fine with it down in FL) and hearing her constantly move the goalposts on what was needed for the nomination (it seemed to me that it was she who played the Superdelegate win angle, not Obama), I could not see Clinton rolling back Bush's special little presidential perks.

I want a woman to be president. I would love it. I will give a woman candidate a little more leeway, whether she's running for school board, credit union board, or PotUS, if only because I am sick of seeing man have all the power. But this year more than ever, I have to be sure that the next president will be the polar opposite of the current president, and I just don't see that with Hillary Clinton.

Folks need to look past the personalities and look closer at policy. I think they're going to see that Clinton and Obama policy don't differ all that much, and either would be good for the country. Anger at the primary process should not turn into anger at Obama, and that's what I'm seeing this morning.

[Dave]

I just can't agree with the tone of this article. With the FL and MI debate, the delegate counts before Tuesday - in terms of those needed to win - were 9 by Obama, and 230 by Clinton. That gap wouldn't have been closed enough to effect Tuesday's outcome of Obama sealing the nomination if their delegate counts were full.

I can understand being upset that your candidate didn't win. But Hillary's sense of entitlement (which you place on Obama) is half the reason she lost. People don't want dynasty - look at how well that worked last time. (I love that John Steward calls our current president "Still President Bush".) Her constant barrage of "I'm experienced" played only to place her in the past, and didn't give much of a vision of moving forward. Blame her staff and writers if you like, but her message was dated.

I don't necessarily agree with the rules of the DNC - I much prefer the RNC, where there are no "Super Delegates" that don't represent anyone but themselves. What's so super? It certainly reduces my vote to less than 1. It makes me feel like "one person, 0.6 votes". But the rules are the rules - FL and MI broke them, and Super Delegates exist. I agree the entire idea should be abolished, but best luck stripping people of that power.

There is no media coup here either. I've seen both candidates bashed. The media played only the bully in-between the candidates... Look at his pastor. Her husband isn't helping... Who does and doesn't wear flag pins. Seriously, flag pins??

But for me, Hillary lost entirely and thoroughly when she lied. She is, and will always be, a liar. Sniper fire? That's not something you "misspeak." The video shows that they weren't even "rushed" off the tarmac - she lied and lied, and I was DONE.

So, will either of the two remaining candidates not lie to me? Probably not. But she got caught, and lost all my respect.

[MikeD]

I still cannot believe Keith Olbermann is the face of a news organization that considers itself legitimate. He should be back where he belongs doing "Boo-yah" home run calls on ESPN.

Media Lesson 101 for all the kids out there: Forget all notions of journalistic standards. Simply hide behind the cloak of "commentator," recite Daily Kos chestnuts with mock-rage, and push whatever agenda it is that your little club wants to push. Presto! You're now a wealthy pundit! Your take home assignment is to watch Olby's frothing 1/2 hour "special comment" on Hillary's RFK comments the other day.

[Mike]

Sure, it stinks when your candidate loses, and I agree that the media has been fairly obvious in its fawning over Obama. But Hillary has been mathematically on the ropes for some time. That pesky delegate deficit might have been difficult for Clinton supporters to accept, but it was a fact, not opinion.



And I'm sure you'd agree that media bias toward a certain candidate is nothing new. Reporters drooled over Hillary's husband a decade ago through thick and thin, regardless of his shameful behavior. So it seems odd for a Clinton to be the victim of the same media just a few years later.



To answer your repeated questions, it's all politics. And that means that we must frequently and reluctantly compromise, and yes, "shut up and fall into line." We've just gotta deal with it.

[Mimi]

My son asked me tonight, when we were discussing my bitterness about Obama finally securing enough votes to become the Democratic candidate, why I was so upset. It'd been obvious, he said, that this day was coming and he figured I'd should have been prepared. I wasn't. I ache for Hillary, and for the time when women will be treated with the same respect afforded men in the political ring. Hillary should have been our first woman president -- hopefully she will be. Thank you for articulating so beautifully how many of us feel.

[Bill Shaw]

You know...you don't have to fall in line and vote for Obama...you can, in protest, write in Hillary Clinton. Just imagine if you got all of the No-Bama Democrats to do the same? You'd send a clear message to the DNC that you are, indeed, not pleased.

Just my 2 cents...

B.

[annie heckenberger]

Bill Shaw: So funny you should say that, because on Tuesday night as I went to bed, that's exactly what I thought about doing. Writing in HRC and encouraging other HRC supporters to do the same. I'm still considering that.

[Citizen Mom]

Bill Shaw,

No thanks on the write-in delegate. I'm a Democrat and I want a Democrat in the White House. In the end, the process isn't even about her or him but US and the next eight years. And I'm already prepared for the fact that IF Obama loses, blame will be placed squarely at the feet of HRC supporters regardless of what actually happens.

[Susie from Philly]

Of course she'll be blamed. It's all the fault of her withered old uterus and the secret mind control it exerts on the rest of the "white trash" contingent.

You didn't think it would ever be Obama's fault, did you? That would be like the boys of the media village admitting they were "wrrr-oonnngggg," as Fonzie used to say. And we know that's never true!

And here, I thought it was impossible for the Dems to blow it this year. Silly me.

[Susie from Philly]

Of course she'll be blamed. It's all the fault of her withered old uterus and the secret mind control it exerts on the rest of the "white trash" contingent.

You didn't think it would ever be Obama's fault, did you? That would be like the boys of the media village admitting they were "wrrr-oonnngggg," as Fonzie used to say. And we know that's never true!

And here, I thought it was impossible for the Dems to blow it this year. Silly me.

[Susie from Philly]

Of course she'll be blamed. It's all the fault of her withered old uterus and the secret mind control it exerts on the rest of the "white trash" contingent.

You didn't think it would ever be Obama's fault, did you? That would be like the boys of the media village admitting they were "wrrr-oonnngggg," as Fonzie used to say. And we know that's never true!

And here, I thought it was impossible for the Dems to blow it this year. Silly me.

[Susie from Philly]

Of course she'll be blamed. It's all the fault of her withered old uterus and the secret mind control it exerts on the rest of the "white trash" contingent.

You didn't think it would ever be Obama's fault, did you? That would be like the boys of the media village admitting they were "wrrr-oonnngggg," as Fonzie used to say. And we know that's never true!

And here, I thought it was impossible for the Dems to blow it this year. Silly me.

[Drew McQuade]

Great post, Citizen. Here's my very short analysis. Obama gives good speech. He's inspirational, especially to young people. He's their Kennedy but he's a politician with all the trappings. Followers act like he's not a politician. He manages to get things done without getting his hands dirty That's a great politician. What's annoying is the lack of real challenges to the guy. The pseudo debates were pathetic. Worse yet, the media got on his bandwagon so early and then proceeded to slip daily in the saliva at its feet. Calling so much for Hillary to get out while forgetting democracy is supposed to be about anyone running for president and the process should be allowed to run its course. If Obama is good enough, he'll win. If he loses to McCain, he's not good enough anyway. Hillary isn't evil because she dared run longer than Obamaniacs and the media wanted her to. They whined so much they turned me off to Obama, whom you have to vote for now in this mess. He seems like a decent, earnest man with good intentions. Hope he can get things done without politics rearing its ugly head.