Well that didn’t take long, did it? Just when I thought, against my better judgment perhaps, that maybe, maybe Hillary Clinton was capable of reinventing and reinvigorating her campaign (see this post), we’ve all be treated to a week that not only makes perfectly clear that she’s incapable of that, but also reminds me why I will never vote for Hillary Clinton. I’m not the only one feeling this way — I could spend all evening linking to articles saying essentially the same thing (one example, Bob Herbert’s piece in today’s New York Times). When watching Hill and Bill and their surrogates slash and burn their way through South Carolina, all I could think of was that if Hillary Clinton is elected President, this will be the way it will be for at least four years. If the Clintons are willing to trash Barack Obama the way they did in order to restore themselves to power, what in God’s name will they be willing to do to Republicans — or independents — who get in their way? Four more years of Big Bloated Bill wagging his finger and acting as the ’ah shucks gosh darn’ hitman. Four more years of partisan divide. Four more years of the Clinton-Bush reign. I’ve seen enough.
So today I did something I never thought I’d do: I went with my wife and son to Obama’s new Sonoma County headquarters (conveniently located in Larkfield) and offered to volunteer. I put an Obama bumper sticker on my car, and Suzie put an Obama sign in our front window. I made a financial contribution to the Obama campaign. Not because I believe in all of his substantive policy positions; I don’t. But I do believe it is likely that a Democrat will be elected President this fall, and I cannot, will not, vote for Hillary Clinton. I’m wiling to roll the dice on the small possibility that we can have a President who Americans can respect and admire even if they disagree with his policies, that we can have a President whose primary goal is not simply to even the score with the right (or the left), but to try to work for the common good. Naive? Maybe. But pasting that bumper sticker on the car felt good. It felt like the right thing to do. I can only hope my fellow independent and Democratic Californians agree on February 5.
Categories: Politics